Tom is a writer and editor with a love of movies, books and all things Battery Park. He's also an avid runner with a soft spot for sunset runs on the Esplanade and sunset beers, well, pretty much anywhere.
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The Hudson, an eco-friendly prefabricated home developed by Country Living Magazine in conjunction with design-building company New World Home, will be on display at the World Financial Center (quite appropriately, on the banks of the Hudson River) from June 4 through June 17… before moving on to its permanent address in Vernon, New Jersey.
Constructed in a factory in just 100 days, the two-bedroom, 1,600-square-foot country cottage boasts fireplaces, gargantuan windows, a 1,100-square-foot wraparound porch, and a stylish and “green” interior decoration courtesy of New York designer Katie Ridder. Comprised of six modular pieces, it’s also super easy to put together — assuming you own a 100-ton crane.
The Battery Park City Authority board is getting some fresh blood. Gov. David Paterson has appointed community leader Anthony Notaro to the seven-member board that manages BPC’s 92 acres and its $29 million annual budget.
Because Notaro is a longtime resident with deep ties to Battery Park City — he helped found the Certified Emergency Response Team, is president of the First Precinct Community Council AND is a Community Board 1 member — his presence on the board will give BPC residents a stronger say in decisions that affect their neighborhood.
In a statement to the press, State Sen. Daniel Squadron, who championed Notaro for the role, said: “The Battery Park City community has advocated for years to add more residents to the BPCA board. Anthony will bring an important perspective to help the board better understand the particular needs and concerns of Battery Park City residents.”
Now let’s just hope Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t dissolve the Authority altogether, and everything will be just peachy.
Whew! You do not want to go in there! (photo courtesy of hudsoncity.net)
To our knowledge, the PATH trains at World Trade Center are not capable of flatulence. But that certainly didn’t stop the station from reeking of gas this morning.
Four worker had to be treated for minor injuries when smoke from the welding they were doing triggered an automatic fire extinguisher in the station’s signal room, releasing halon gas into the station. The Fire Department of New York, which was on the scene to investigate, told The New York Times that none of the injuries were serious and may have occurred in the workers’ scramble to flee the scene.
BNY Mellon wants to say bye-bye to Wall St. (photo courtesy of Associated Press)
Anyone in the market for a giant office building with the prestigious address of 1 Wall Street? If so, you may be in luck.
The Bank of New York Mellon is looking to sell its headquarters, a 52-story limestone edifice on the corner of Broadway and Wall Street, and head for greener pastures. Bank spokesman Jeep Bryant tells Bloomberg Businessweek that BNY Mellon sent a request to New York landlords for about 450,000 square feet of space, and is seeking an office that is more in line with the corporation’s needs. “We are looking for improved client meeting space and something that can accommodate state-of-the-art technology,” he says.
With the uncertainty of last year’s credit concerns in the rear-view, BNY Mellon joins fellow banks Morgan Stanley and UBS AG in the hunt for office-space upgrades. And it seems banks are not alone in their optimism that the economy is turning around. According to broker CB Richard Ellis Group Inc., tenants had signed leases for 6.75 million square feet of office space through the first four months of this year… almost double the amount for the same period in 2009. In addition, commercial property sales are picking up, having tripled in the first quarter alone.
So, yeah, BNY Mellon’s decision to move on from 1 Wall Street sounds like a solid one… and (hopefully) an omen that the economy is moving on as well.
Kids are hungry for knowledge about hunger epidemics.
In the battle against global hunger, it never hurts to have some young blood on your side… and the Action Center to End World Hunger, the educational and global engagement arm of Mercy Corps, is well aware of this fact.
Downtown Express reports that since opening offices in Lower Manhattan in 2008, the Center has forged strong partnerships with P.S. 89, the Little Red School House and Elisabeth Erwin High School, and Stuyvesant High School, holding educational workshops for the students and encouraging them to take a more active role in the ongoing quest to end crippling food shortages.
Riverhouse tenants want a double serving of green.
Condo owners in Battery Park City’s high-end Riverhouse building have filed a lawsuit seeking a whole lot of green — $1.5 million worth, to be exact — because they contend their supposedly eco-friendly building isn’t environmentally friendly enough.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Steven Gidumal and Allison Keeley — who paid $4.2 million for their three-bedroom, three-bath condo in 2008 –Â filed a complaint with the New York Supreme Court in May, claiming that the building was “marketed as being on the cutting edge of ‘green’ technology” but failed to deliver an acceptably eco-friendly air filtration system and heating unit.
The Sheldrake Organization, which oversaw development of the building until it was ousted in a power struggle in January, and Centurion Real Estate Partners, which currently controls Riverhouse, are named as defendants in the suit. However, Michael Abreu, a Sheldrake executive vice president, claims the suit is groundless. The “complaint about the lack of heat has no bearing on the green and sustainable features of the building,” he says.
Despite the lawsuit, Riverhouse is still seeking to obtain LEED gold certification, the second highest of four levels of eco-friendliness, from the U.S. Green Building Council. Winning such a stamp of approval requires meeting an array of environmental standards, including energy efficiency and air quality, and would certainly make the building more attractive to buyers. Not that it needs much help in that department: Leonard DiCaprio and Tyra Banks are already tenants.
Meet the James Webb Telescope, the successor to Hubble (photo courtesy of NASA).
Even if you weren’t one of those kids who grew up with a passion for assembling models, chances are you’ll appreciate the 80-foot-long, 40-foot-tall, 40-foot-wide, 12,000-pound model of the James Webb Telescope, on display in Battery Park now through June 6 as part of the World Science Festival.
According to FOX News, contractor Northrop Grumman designed the model, which is roughly the size of a tennis court and represents a full-scale rendering of the functional telescope/satellite that will be launched into space in 2014. To give you a sense of just how big this thing is, it took two trucks to ship the parts to New York and a team of 12 workers four days to assemble. So it requires just a bit more work than your average model-in-a-box.
One World Trade Center is in the works (photo courtesy of Gothamist).
Things are heating up in the bid to buy into the as-yet-unfinished One World Trade Center, aka Freedom Tower, a 1,776-foot tower (by the way, didn’t something important in our nation’s history happen in 1776?) that will add 2.6 million square feet of office space to Ground Zero. When the current builder, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, opened up a bidding competition in January, six of the United States’ biggest developers threw their hats in the ring. But according to The Wall Street Journal, the recent dropout of Boston Properties Inc. means that only two finalists remain.
On one side of this epic face-off is the family-run Durst Organization, which has specialized in Midtown apartment and office buildings for the better part of a century and most recently completed the Bank of America Tower in Bryant Park. On the other side is Related Cos., a gargantuan international developer responsible for building such mammoth edifices as Columbus Circle’s Time Warner Center.
Lady Liberty and Castle Clinton dominate national-monument rankings.
Reason No. 2,912 that Battery Park City rules: Turns out the two most popular national monuments in the entire United States are right in BPC’s backyard.
According to data collected by the National Park Service and revealed by the Chicago Tribune, Castle Clinton and the Statue of Liberty were the most popular national-monument destinations in 2009 — yes, even beating out that ridiculously gargantuan ball of twine in Cawker City, Kansas, which, upon further research (and a quick check of our common sense), isn’t a national monument after all.
When the original Iron Man blasted its way into theaters two years ago, the film — like its armored antihero — was most definitely flying below the radar. Robert Downey Jr. was not yet the roguishly charming, bankable leading man that he is today; Iron Man wasn’t exactly a superhero with a gargantuan built-in fan base like, say, Superman or Batman; and, speaking of Batman, there was that other comic-book movie, The Dark Knight, also opening in summer 2008… and the anticipation for that may have overshadowed Iron Man just a wee bit. So imagine the near universal delight of moviegoers when Downey’s bravura turn as hard-living-smartass-weapons-manufacturer-turned-not-so-secret-superhero Tony Stark helped Iron Man explode expectations, catapulting the comeback kid (well, comeback adult) back onto the A list in a big way and setting up soaring expectations for a sequel.
A couple years and one hell of a stacked cast later, that sequel has arrived, steeped in such ridiculous buzz it might seem destined to crash and burn. Well, exhale deeply and smile — because Iron Man 2 is pretty darned good. Sure, the two-hours-plus running time could have been trimmed down and the various intertwining plots wouldn’t have suffered from some tightening, but all the goods that made the original such a hoot are still there. Badass action: check. RDJ (that’s what we call Robert Downey Jr., because we’re pals) at the top of his one-liner-spewing game: check. Palpable sexual tension between Downey’s Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts: definitely check.
When part two of the saga begins, Tony Stark is reveling in his newfound national-hero status. He’s basically achieved world peace and, unlike pretty much every other superhero that’s ever graced a movie screen, he’s not opposed to being worshiped for it. He’s a less altruistic Superman, he’s what Batman would be if Bruce Wayne dressed up in costume, got hammered and entertained party guests by blowing stuff up with his neat-o weapons (oh yes, that happens in this movie). Stark is happy to yell from the mountaintop — or to a Senate hearing committee chaired by Gary Shandling — that “I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one.” And that’s what makes this superhero character so intriguing: He doesn’t want an alter ego; he wants credit for his good deeds.
The witty script, from Tropic Thunder scribe Justin Theroux, highlights Stark’s lovable narcissism, giving Downey plenty of great moments for grandstanding (emphasis on the grand), at the same time that it depicts his more vulnerable side. You see, this time around Stark has three foes: Cackling Russian baddie Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who’s got a vendetta with the Stark family, a brain as sharp as Tony’s and a weird fondness for cockatoos; rival weapons developer Justin Hammer (a comically snide Sam Rockwell); and, perhaps most lethally, toxic side effects from the very heart that’s keeping him alive.
The plot goes something like this: Vanko wants to kill Stark, so he builds his own suit in the hopes of whiplashing Tony into oblivion. Meanwhile, the U.S. government wants the Iron Man technology for itself, so it hires Hammer to work on a prototype. Vanko, in need of better resources to execute plan Obliterate Tony Stark, joins forces with Hammer, who’s the kind of guy who wipes his butt with Benjamins, eats elegant meals in airplane hangars, and wants to build a whole fleet of iron men to fight in the U.S. armed services. At the same time, Tony is living like a man with a death wish and trying to find a cure for the deadly side effects of being Iron Man. Oh, and Samuel L. Jackson still wants Tony to join the covert S.H.I.E.L.D. force, and Tony’s got a new assistant in the shapely form of Scarlett Johansson, who — surprise, surprise — is a skintight-leather-wearing undercover agent named Black Widow.
If that sounds convoluted, that’s because, well, it kind of is. But it won’t take away from your enjoyment one iota. If you liked the first one, you’ll be Stark raving mad for the second.
