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March 13 - March 26, 2014
transit sam Thurs., March 13 – Wed., March 19 ALTERNATE SIDE PARKING RULES IN EFFECT ALL WEEK Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Midtown will be hardest hit by the 253rd annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade on Fifth Ave. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday but Lower Manhattan will feel the domino effect. The limits of the parade are 42nd St. to 79th St. Consequently drivers will be avoiding the Queens-Midtown and Lincoln tunnels and heading Downtown to the Williamsburg, Manhattan, and Brooklyn bridges, and the Holland Tunnel. Late-night homecoming won’t be easy for Lower Manhattanites on Thursday. In the Lincoln Tunnel, the New York-bound south tube will close 11 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday, sending inbound traffic south to the Holland Tunnel. Meanwhile, one inbound lane of the Holland Tunnel will close during the same period.
Over on the East River, all Manhattanbound lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge will close 11 p.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday. It might be tough for straphangers to get home too: No service at the following Sixth Ave. stations 10 p.m. Thursday to 5 a.m. Friday: 14th St., 23rd St., 34th St.-Herald Sq, 42nd St.-Bryant Park, 47th-50th Sts., and 57th St. southbound D trains run via the C line between 59th St. and W. 4th St., then via the F track to and from 2nd Ave. Northbound D trains run between Stillwell Ave. and W. 4th St. F trains run via the E between W. 4th St. and Roosevelt Ave. Q service is extended to 21st St.-Queensbridge via the F after 57th St.-7 Av. B and M service ends early. The New York City Half Marathon will close several streets in and to Lower Manhattan 5 a.m. to noon Sunday: the southbound West Side Highway between 44th St. and the Battery Park Underpass, the Battery Park Underpass between the West Side Highway and the South Street exit of the F.D.R., South St. between Old Slip and Maiden Lane, Maiden Lane
between South and Water Sts., Water St. between Maiden Lane and Wall St. and between Wall and Whitehall Sts., State St. between Whitehall and Pearl Sts., Front St. between Maiden Lane and Old Slip, Wall St. between Water and South Sts., Gouverneur Lane between Water and South Sts., Hanover Square between Water and Stone Sts., Stone St. between Hanover Square and Coenties Alley, Coenties Alley between Stone and Water Sts., Pearl St. between Coenties Alley and Hanover Square, and Broad St. between Water and South Sts. This means that the southbound F.D.R will see lots of extra traffic, and it’ll be tough for Battery Park City residents to get their cars east of West St. Rector St. will close between West and Washington Sts. 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday this weekend. Washington St. will close between Albany and Rector Sts. during the same period. Leonard St. is closed between Hudson and Varick Sts. through late March.
From the mailbag: Dear Transit Sam, There is an error on the summons I received today for “Disobey Stop Sign.” There is an incorrect letter in my license plate number indicated as the “PLATE #” on the summons. Do I have recourse (dismissal or reduction in fine amount) in this matter? Rosario, New York Dear Rosario, Not much recourse. If it were a parking ticket, yes. The parking ticket is the city’s case against you. With a moving violation it is the testifying police officer who makes the case. An error in the plate letters won’t weigh very much against a cop’s testimony you ran a stop sign. By the way, the N.Y.P.D. will be writing more of these and I fully support this effort, so be forewarned. Transit Sam
C.B. 3 delays vote on landmarking of old dispensary B Y L E SL E Y S U S S M A N The fate of a historic dispensary located at 75 Essex St. remains uncertain as Community Board 3 decided to postpone a vote last month on whether to support its landmark designation. The former Good Samaritan/ Eastern District Dispensary was constructed in 1890 with charitable donations and operated for 60 years with city funding. C.B. 3’s full board voted overwhelmingly for the delay at its Feb. 25 meeting despite an earlier vote by C.B. 3’s Landmark’s Subcommittee and the board’s Executive Committee in favor of such a designation. Board members wanted to give the building owner, Shalom Eisner, more time to present his case against landmark status. The free-standing, four-story brick building was designed by noted architects Rose & Stone in the Italianate style and is the only structure of its kind in the area. The dispensary, which closed in the 1950s, served as a free and low-cost walk-in community healthcare facility for the impoverished immigrant community of the Lower East Side. The mostly vacant building is located adjacent to the proposed Essex Crossing development, a mixed-used project set to break ground this year on a former Seward Park Urban Renewal Area site. The building now houses a sports retail store owned by Eisner on the ground floor. The property has been on and off the market in recent years, and is reportedly now on sale for $21 million. At the C.B. 3 full-board meeting, attended by about 100 local residents, Eisner told the board that he and his family have devot-
Downtown Express photo by Lincoln Anderson
Now home to a sports retail business, 75 Essex St. was for 60 years a low-cost healthcare facility serving the Lower East Side.
ed years to the building’s upkeep and that a landmark designation for the historic structure would make him lose up to 60 percent
of the building’s value because it would place development restrictions on any new buyer. “It was a very bad neighborhood in 1985
when my brother and I bought the building,” he said. “I was almost going to leave. Finally, things changed for the better, although my business is still zero. The only way my property is valuable is by not landmarking it. If it is landmarked, this is not fair to me and my family for all the work I’ve done there over the years.” Speaking in support of Eisner was Jan Sasson, a local businessman, who concurred that landmarking it would sharply decrease the building’s value. “Sure, it would be good for the community,” he added, “but it will put a hole in the life of his family and that’s not fair to him. While the whole area is being redeveloped, he will be left out in the cold. I think there’s a middle ground we can reach here somehow.” Speaking in support for landmark designation were members of Friends of the Lower East Side, a preservation group that, last January, asked the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission to protect 75 Essex St. The preservation group is concerned that the building could be damaged from construction work on the Essex Street Crossing project and would be “vulnerable to inappropriate alterations or demolition” by whoever purchases the structure. They noted that the building is a prime candidate for conversion to a luxury hotel, an upscale condo or any number of uses. Joyce Mendelsohn, author of “The Lower East Side Remembered and Revisited” and a member of the preservation group, said it was essential that the building be protected. Continued on page 9