GIGI LI & B.P.C. For a moment when we saw Gigi Li, chairperson of Community Board 3, last week we were confused. Were we at the wrong meeting? No, we quickly recovered, we weren’t — it was indeed Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee meeting. It’s hard to imagine Li’s appearance was coincidental to her challenging Jenifer Rajkumar for Democratic district leader — Li is not as well known in B.P.C., which is a big part of Part C in the 65th Assembly District, where they are running. As UnderCover reported last month, Li’s residency outside of Part C will be a campaign issue.
Presumably she’ll be able to get more votes in the Lower East Side section of the part. (If district leaders commanded armies instead of rallying the political troops as volunteers, Part C would be hard to defend since the part itself is separated in….well yes parts.) Rajkumar, a Battery Parker, has handily won the position twice, beating out neighbors Linda Belfer and Robin Forst, who as vice president for external relations for the Battery Park City Authority was at the meeting. Forst was doing her part last week, introducing Li around. Committee chairperson Anthony Notaro was also friendly with Li during the meeting, which had no references to the campaign. Li came prepared, giving helpful information about helicopters — the amount of takeoffs and landings for tourists spins has been a persistent problem Downtown — and offering advice about street activity permits, an issue C.B. 3 has written guidelines for. How much this will help Li remains to be seen — it wasn’t a well-attended meeting — but we’ll see come September.
To expand or not is the question at a Tribeca plaza
Downtown Express photo by Tequila Minsky
Hipster’s Bowtie It was Tribeca’s annual Bastille Day celebration Tuesday, but don’t mistake that bowtie for being wrapped around a dapper Frenchman. Dapper? Definitely, but Frenchman, no. It belongs to none other than the always well-dressed Det. Rick Lee, a.k.a. “Hipster Cop,” the First Precinct’s community affairs officer, who got his moniker four years ago during Occupy Wall Street.
NADLER ON IRAN The initial reaction to the Iran nuclear agreement from our man in Washington, U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, is neutral. After the proposed agreement was announced Tuesday, he put out a statement saying he was studying the details, but he did not express the opposition or skepticism expressed by many Republicans and a few Democratic members of Congress. “I look forward to evaluating the agreement in comparison to the other available alternatives for preventing a nuclear Iran,” Nadler’s statement read in part. “This agreement has no influence on the other
serious issues that remain with the Iranian regime and its behavior.” He reiterated his support for Israel, which opposes the agreement, and for sanctions related to Iran’s support for terrorism This could be one of the few issues where the vote of Nadler and other Democratic House members may matter since in order to block the agreement, Congress will have to vote it down and then get a 2/3 majority to override a promised veto by President Obama. Nadler may have the largest Jewish constituency in the New York delegation, so he presumably could be a vote House Speaker John Boehner is hoping for.
BY DUSI CA SUE M ALESEVI C A request for a one-day event at Finn Square, the lush green triangle on W. Broadway between Leonard and Franklin Sts., brought up resentments over other plazas — proposed and actual — in Tribeca. Lynn Ellsworth, chairperson of Tribeca Trust, a preservation advocacy group, went before Community Board 1’s Tribeca Committee on Wed., July 8 to talk about the September event, which was also held last year, and to broach the larger subject of expanding public space in the neighborhood. Ellsworth said there are 5,600 elementary school kids in the neighborhood — not counting preschool age children. Finn Square, currently part of the Department of Transportation’s Greenstreets program, was a good place to start the discussion, said Ellsworth. But some of the committee had other things in mind due to the closing of W. Broadway between Franklin and Leonard Sts. for the event. “We really do not want that street closed permanently,” said Marc Ameruso, committee member. Finn Square is situated between W. Broadway and Varick. To its north are the Franklin St. subway station for the 1 train and a CitiBike station. Ameruso asked the D.O.T. representative, Shari Glickman, if Finn Square would become a permanent public plaza. Glickman, who is the project manager for the D.O.T.’s public space unit, said, “This is a first step to the goal which is [the Trust] applying to the Plaza Program
Downtown Express photo by Dusica Sue Malesevic
Finn Square at Franklin St. and W. Broadway could be expanded, but some neighbors are concerned about the traffic effects.
and potentially having a long-term temporary plaza.” Ameruso took issue with the word “temporary” and used Bogardus, the now permanent plaza on Hudson St. between Chambers and Reade Sts., as an example. “The history of temporary plazas with this community board and D.O.T. is not very good,” said Ameruso. “You guys swore [Bogardus] was going to be temporary, and of course we found out later that really wasn’t true.” To make Finn Square a plaza, several possibilities are being considered to make the space larger to accommodate chairs and tables around the garden. Closing W. Broadway for that block is one idea, but there also could be an extension of the
square to the north. Right now, there is a one-lane street between the two areas that connects Varick and W. Broadway. Alessandra Galletti, senior associate with the Project for Public Spaces, presented with the Trust at the meeting and said later in a phone interview, “We might not need to close anything.” She said Con Ed, which has a substation on Leonard St., needs access and is not in favor of closing that stretch of W. Broadway. Glickman said at the meeting that the plaza could be enlarged by a sidewalk extension or building out the triangle slightly. She stressed that a plaza would need community board support. “The idea is just to test this out with
the neighborhood, get a sense of what it would be like should D.O.T. and Tribeca Trust actually propose a plaza, which at that point would never go forward without community board approval,” she said. Committee member Bruce Ehrmann disagreed with the characterization that the community board has issues with Bogardus. C.B. 1 has passed resolutions in support of Bogardus, including two in favor of its design at its last October monthly meeting. While Ehrmann supported many plazas in the neighborhood, he said that in this case he would not be in favor of permanently closing off a street. He brought up another plaza, the Barnett Newman Triangle, at 6th Ave. in front of a controversial development at 100 Franklin St. The Board of Standard and Appeals approved a variance for DDG, the developer. Neighbors are opposed to the development and C.B. 1 passed a resolution against the B.S.A. granting the variance. He asked Ellsworth, “Why would you object to one well-funded plaza with a lane cut off and not to another?” Ellsworth cited the opposition to the development and said the Trust had contributed to a legal defense fund for the neighbors. To do a permanent plaza, she explained, $500,000 to $1,000,000 is needed for the “D.O.T. to look benevolently on your case.” “That’s a way a developer can more or less buy public space, get their way,” she said.
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Downtown Express photos by Tequila Minsky
Lower Manhattan hosted its first Independence Day parade in almost four decades last Friday, on the federal holiday. Organized by James Kaplan (2nd from right in right photo) the parade from the Seaport to Bowling Green was officially supposed to stay on the sidewalk, but police allowed the marchers onto the street. Gale Brewer, Manhattan’s borough president, (not shown) came down to wish the marchers well. DowntownExpress.com
July 16-July 29, 2015
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