A Quinnipiac University poll finds most New Yorkers are opposed to Cordoba House.Â
Protests were inevitable, once plans for The Cordoba House Initiative were made public. The building of a mosque near the World Trade Center site was bound to cause public outcry and controversy.
That being said, who could have predicted that more than 73% of all Staten Islanders would be opposed?! Better yet, more than half of all New York voters polled in a recent Quinnipiac University poll were found to be opposed to the building of the Cordoba House in Lower Manhattan.
Plans for the Cordoba House Mosque
The Cordoba House Initiative includes plans to build a 13-floor Muslim institute which will include a mosque and community center only 600 feet from Ground Zero.
Politicians better listen up to these findings considering that the anniversary of September 11th will always precede Election Day. It would be smart to heed the concerns of over half of New York City voters.
Currently, the only thing standing in the way of the greenlight for the Cordoba house is passing approval from The Landmarks Preservation Commission who are scheduled to vote on the project later this month.
According to other information gleaned from this poll:
-55% of New Yorkers polled said “mainstream Islam” is a “peaceful religion” compared to 22% who found that Islamic beliefs “encourage violence against non-muslims.”
-73% of Staten Islanders polled opposed the building, versus 14% in support of the Mosque.
-46% of Manhattan voters were in support of the bulding, versus the 36% opposed.
-1,183 registered voters were polled between June 21 to June 28
-The margin of error is plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
How do you feel about the Cordoba House initiative?
Our neighborhood has just been served… with a side of swiss chard, organically pasteurized eggs with pies for dessert!
Battery Park City now has a Greenmarket to call its own.
After being Greenmarket connoisseurs without a country — Battery Park City’s Greenmarket is here to stay until November 24th.
Starting today and every Thursday from 8AM until 6PM, greenmarket vendors will be set up in the ring road right outside 225 Liberty Street at South End Avenue.
If this morning is any indication — a key piece of advice is to get to the stands before you head out to work. The fresh veggies, fruits and baked goods will certainly be snatched up by our business neighbors by lunchtime. Case in point: while perusing the stalls at 9:30am, some of the best looking produce had already been procured leaving many visibly empty spaces within the lush terrain of fresh produce. Also, while heading to the greenmarket — there were several people heading back to their apartments with bags of produce leaving in the opposite direction all before 9am.
We can’t blame them. The Greenmarket is very exciting for the southern portion of our neighborhood. Before today, the best excuse the South End part of the neighborhood had for fresh produce has been the fruit cart flanked at Albany Street and South End Avenue. The North End of the neighborhood has been blessed with easy access to the Tribeca Greenmarket as well as the Whole Foods. The location of Battery Park City’s greenmarket is smartly placed in the center of the neighborhood — easy enough for everyone to get to. Not to mention it’s also an excellent use of a ring road that seems hardly used post 9/11.
While speaking with the Greenmarket representatives, we asked if there was a possibility for the vendors to stay throughout the winter and brave blistery winds for fresh winter produce. They had informed us that as long as the Greenmarket is proven successful, an extension for the Greenmarket to stay year round is definitely a possibility. As far as the wind was concerned, the Greenmarket people claimed that this location is apparently not the windiest in the city. (Obviously the Greenmarket grasshopper has much to learn!)
The vendors who will be in our neighborhood every Thursday are:
Migliorelli Farm – Vegetables and fruit Meredith’s Bakery -Bread and baked goods Red Jacket Orchard – Fruit, juices and assorted bottled goods such as apple butter. Binder Farm – Plants and flowers MK Orchards – Orchids and hydrangeas Valley Shepherd – Sheep, cow and goat cheese, pasta, butter, yogurt and gelato Lavender by the Bay – Fresh lavender and assorted lavender products. Beth’s Family Farm – Jams and preserves NY Wine & Grape Association – NY state local wines Holten Farms – Vegetables, fruit, maple syrup, honey, eggs, baked goods, and meat including, beef, turkey, pork, chicken and lamb.
Yum! Welcome Greenmarket! May you help all of us eat healthier meals.
Check out some of the photos we took from our first visit to the Battery Park City Greenmarket!
One could easily agree that little has been seen from the LMDC– but might also argue that the dissolution of the organization might be a heavy handed option for a community still reeling from the after effects of 9/11 nearly a decade later. Although the LMDC will not be completely shut down, the Governor is proposing cutting the organization by 85% from 35 fulltime staffers to 5.
This is cause for some concern for residents of Lower Manhattan but especially Battery Park City being that the LMDC is the owner and responsible agent for the dismantling of the former Deutsche Bank building, a behemoth skeleton of a visual reminder of how much work is left.
From its inception in 2001 from government and by then Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the intent of the LMDC was to “work closely with the private sector to determine a proper market-driven response to the economic and infrastructure needs of Lower Manhattan, as well as with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to identify the appropriate redevelopment of the World Trade Center site.”
According to the LMDC’s website, some of its core responsibilities include city operations, communications, community relations, construction mitigation, environmental compliance, fraud prevention, small business development and marketing. Dissolution of the LMDC could affect our community in the following ways:
1. Safety and infrastructural hazards
As if it’s not dangerous or confusing enough to cross the West Side Highway to reach the subway, how will a 5-person team be optimized to make sure that our safety is maintained during the construction at Ground Zero? The implementation of crossing guards in our area, although fiscally insufficient, was still a step in the right direction. With all the confusing bridge detours being built and constantly changed — who will notify us of these changes? High winds during the winter also pose a serious safety risk during construction, if the falling glass panes from Goldman Sachs’ construction site can be used as an example.
2. Dismantling of the Deutsche Bank Building
The history of the former Deutsche Bank building post 9/11 has been riddled with corruption and safety concerns. From the issues surrounding the decontamination of the building to the safety of the workers dismantling the building, who will be accountable if something goes wrong? According to the LMDC, concerned residents can call a hotline to report incidents at the site as to avoid what happened on August 18, 2007 when a fire spread through the site killing 2 firefighters.
3. Environmental Compliance
The progress reports that are issued by the LMDC are important for our community as the demolition affects the health of the air we breathe during its decontamination. Although most of us probably haven’t even seen one of these reports — it’s important that they be maintained in order for us to be aware of the hazards that might exist during the demolition.
4. Small Business Development
The lack of business real estate means the lack of foot traffic of businessmen and women, which translates into the decimation of small businesses in our area. As we roll into our 9th year of waiting for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site — who will help the small businesses that residents rely on in this underserved area? Although disbursements of small business grants have been slow from the LMDC — there is still almost $800 Million dollars of yet to be disbursed funds. These funds were meant for the development of Lower Manhattan distributed through the LMDC. When the governor dissolves the LMDC, what will happen to that funding?
These are four compelling reasons as to reconsider dissolving the LMDC. If the organization needs less ineptitude and better people to run it — why restructure and re-organize the LMDC instead? There must be a better option for the betterment of a still embattled Lower Manhattan.
Do we need more tour bus congestion in Battery Park City? (Courtesy: quiteallright.blogspot.com)
Think the traffic in Lower Manhattan sucks now? Well, chances are it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
When the 9/11 Memorial & Musem opens at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2011, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the attacks, even more tourist-filled buses than usual will be descending upon our beloved Battery Park City. We say “even more” because a recent survey shows that Lower Manhattan already gets about 80 tour buses daily, and that does not count the bevy of MTA buses running their daily routes.
The 9/11 Memorial is expected to attract 2 million additional tourists per year, and as many as 7 million in its first year. And guess what? The camera-toting, finger-pointing masses are going to need a way to get down to Ground Zero. Translation: Prepare for the tour bus invasion.
But wait, you say, plans for this memorial have been in the works since 2002, so the Port Authority must have devised some kind of plan for dealing with the increased traffic from tour buses. Actually, they haven’t — at least, not yet.
According to AM New York, Community Board 1 official Michael Levine told the city council on Monday that, “It’s a major concern for us that we have not seen a plan for the buses.” He continued: “We have too many tour buses out there. We are concerned about the health, safety and security issues.”
While a Port Authority spokesman claims that the agency is working to formulate “an appropriate plan to accommodate tour buses,” he declined to say when that plan would be released.
Meanwhile, Battery Park City residents appear to be split on the issue. Some believe that BPC and the Ground Zero area are already too crowded and that the influx of more tourists will be a burden to the families currently living in the area. But others, business owners mostly, are salivating at the prospect of these bonus consumers.
Either way, one thing is certain: Beginning next year, you’re going to want to be extra careful to look for buses when crossing the BPC streets.
Accused Russian Spy Anna Chapman (Credit: Facebook)
Sitting amongst the rest of the patrons at the Tribeca Barnes and Noble, Anna Chapman would type away at her laptop just like many others in the cafe area. Except that Anna Chapman was not just like any one of us — she was a Russian spy. According to newly released reports on the arrest of 11 Russian operatives today, it was at our local Barnes and Noble in which Anna had sent messages back to her Russian spy handlers.
According to the federal documents, Anna Chapman had been tailed and conducting spy communication at the book store:
“On March 17, 2010, law-enforcement agents, acting pursuant to judicial orders, performed video surveillance on a book store located in the vicinity of Greenwich and Warren Streets in Manhattan (the “Book Store”). CHAPMAN was inside the Book Store. At the same time, Russian Government Official #1 was across the street from the Book Store, carrying a briefcase. I observed CHAPMAN pull a laptop out of the Tote Bag. CHAPMAN stayed in the Book Store for approximately thirty minutes; Russian Government Official #1 was in the vicinity of the Book Store (but outside) for approximately twenty of those thirty minutes. As part of the surveillance operation, law-enforcement agents utilized a commercially available tool that can detect the presence of wireless networks. Law-enforcement agents were able to detect a particular MAC address – MAC ADDRESS A – at the time that CHAPMAN was observed powering on her laptop computer; law-enforcement agents were also able to determine that the electronic device associated with MAC ADDRESS A created the AD HOC NETWORK. Approximately three minutes after the creation of the AD HOC NETWORK, another electronic device with MAC ADDRESS B was detected joining the AD HOC NETWORK. ”
Now granted, the “Book Store” in question has not been identified as the “Tribeca Barnes and Noble,” but considering that there aren’t many other book stores on that corner — unless you want to count the cookbook section of the Whole Foods a book store, we are pretty confident it happened in our neighborhood. So while you’re cruising on Facebook in the Barnes and Noble cafe, Anna Chapman was conducting espionage communication. Pretty cool in my spy novel book.
The page could not have been written better except if Ms. Anna Chapman didn’t conduct her spy work at the Mysterious Bookshop on Chambers Street.
Although being fingered as a Russian Spy might be seen as a lesser character trait — Ms. Chapman is being portrayed in media as the “bombshell” or “sexy” spy with the fantastic Financial District apartment. If anything, we owe Ms. Chapman for lending our neighborhood with a little bit of that mysterious sexy cache. It will be interesting to see what other details of her spy work happened in and around our neighborhood.
To have another astounding glimpse at Anna Chapman not focused on in the news, check out her Linked In profile page.
If any of your friends ever have any kind of credentials that resemble hers — you should think twice about whether or not you know your said friend. 😉
Bus and Subway changes are in effect for Battery Park City
Your commute to and from work has forever changed today. After months of forewarning, the transit changes for buses and subways in our area have been solidified.
Here’s what the changes mean for us in the neighborhood
Trains by Station:
1/9 – The 1 line will continue to have interrupted service on the weekends to accommodate the construction of the South Ferry/Fulton Street transit hubs.
W- Completely eliminated.
R-Â The R will replace the stops serviced by the defunct W line.
4/5/6- Unaffected. Service as usual to Fulton St., Wall St., Whitehall and Bowling Green stops.
A/C/E-Â The A/E will continue to have interrupted service on Sundays to accommodate the construction of the South Ferry/Fulton Street transit hubs.
J/M/Z- Reduced train frequencies on the weekends to accommodate the construction of the South Ferry/Fulton Street transit hubs. Bus Routes:
The bus changes will affect our area greatly as stipulated below:
Manhattan Bus Route Changes
: M1, M6, M8, M10, M11, M16, M18, M20, M21, M22, M27, M30, M42, M50, M66, M98, M100, M104, M116, B39, B51
•   M18, M27, M30, B39 and B51: all service will be discontinued.
•   M8, M21 and M50: weekend service will be discontinued.
•   M1, M8, M16, M22, M50 and M66: overnight service will be discontinued.
•   M11, M20, M21, M22, M98, M100 and M116: late night service will end earlier and/or early morning service will begin later.
•   M6 service will be discontinued with alternate service provided partially by the rerouted M5.
•   M10 service south of Columbus Circle will be discontinued.
•   M42 service will no longer operate to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
•   M98 service south of 65 St will be discontinued; service will no longer stop inside the George Washington Bridge bus station.
•   M104 service on 42 St will be discontinued.
Manhattan Bus Route Restructuring
: M1 M3 M5 M6
•   M5 service will be extended south to South Ferry via 5 Av/Broadway southbound and Church St/6 Av northbound to replace
discontinued M6 and M1 service south of 8 St.
•   M3 service will be rerouted from 9 St and University Place to 4 Av between 9 St and 14 St.
•   M1 service will be rerouted on weekdays to follow the M2 in both directions north of 8 St (5th/Madison/Park Avs)
•   M1 service will be discontinued on weekends south of 106 St.
M9 M15 M20 M21
•   M9 service will be rerouted from Avenue B to Avenue C to replace M21 and will terminate at the VA Hospital at East 23 St (Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town).
•   M9 service will be discontinued along Water St and in Battery Park City and will be extended along Park Row to City Hall replacing the M15.
•   M15 service to City Hall via Park Row will be discontinued replaced by the M9.
•   M21 service will be discontinued north of Houston St (along Avenue C) and extended along Houston St and the FDR Drive to Grand St (M21 service will not run on the weekends).
•   M20 service will be extended to South Ferry replacing a portion of the M9.
MTA Maps for bus changes in Lower Manhattan (Courtesy MTA)
Street spaces are coming! Street spaces are coming! (Flickr/nyctaxiphoto)
Fed up with the serious lack of parking spaces anywhere below Canal Street? Pretty soon you might — just might — have a reason to dance a jig and thank your lucky stars. The Department of Transportation (DOT) is looking to change street parking regulations in Lower Manhattan, beginning with Tribeca.
At a recent meeting of Tribeca’s Community Board 1, DOT spokeswoman Suchi Sanagavarapu announced the plans, admitting that the regulations governing street parking in Tribeca were devised when the area was an industrial and commercial hub… and do not reflect the neighborhood’s current residential state.
“Our regulations have definitely not kept up, and we’ve been hearing about it from the community for years now,†Sanagavarapu confessed. “There seems to be a mismatch in terms of what the current land uses are versus what the current parking regulations are.”
Andaz offers a farm-fresh new take on hotel amenities.
It used to be that a complimentary continental breakfast was the pinnacle of a hotel’s amenities. But in a time when 42-inch HD flat-panel TVs, iPod docks and free wireless Internet are considered the norm, hotels can be hard-pressed to impress.
Not so with the Andaz Wall Street Hotel, which (as its names suggests) is located on Wall Street and (as its name does not suggest) will be knocking the socks off its guests (as well as anyone else who wants to come) with a farmers market to be held on its premises every Saturday from July 10 through Nov. 20.
David Paterson doesn’t like ineptitude. In fact, he abhors it so much that he’s going to go ahead and gut the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. (LMDC) this summer.
According to the New York Post, Gov. Paterson will slash the 35-person staff — which reaps a combined annual salary of around $3 million — down to a crew of just five. The reason for this drastic measure: The LMDC hasn’t doled out $540 million of the $3 billion in federal funds it was created to dispense, and it has yet to carry out one of its primary duties, the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank building.
The LMDC’s critics, which not so shockingly include one of its own board members, say the corporation has devolved into a money-sucking bureaucracy with only one goal in mind: to justify its own preservation.
Gov. Paterson hopes that this slash-and-burn will jolt the corporation into action, compelling those still left standing after the shakeup to put the remaining Congress-allocated cash to good use in the rejuvenation of Lower Manhattan. This includes paying off cost overruns of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, funding a planned performing-arts center, and giving money to non-profit groups and small businesses.
In fact, the LMDC still has $4 million in its coffers that is supposed to be dispensed in $25,000 increments as grants to local small businesses. And, according to a recent Community Board 1 survey, a whopping 66 percent of local small business owners didn’t even know they were eligible for these grants.
Sounds like the LMDC still has a whole lot of work to do — and pretty soon it’ll have 30 fewer people to do it.
C'mon, how can anyone resist an invitation that looks like this?
If you’re cruising down the East River at sunset on a luxury yacht while sipping a cocktail, you must be some sort of celebrity or rich investment banker, right? Not necessarily. In fact, you could just be a really great person with a soft spot for homeless animals.
On Tuesday, June 22, Friends of Animal Rescue (FOAR) is hosting a charity sunset cruise from 7-10 PM aboard the beautiful 145-ft. luxury Atlantis yacht. The cruise boards at the Water Club (East River at 30th Street) and offers attendees, cocktails, a buffet dinner, a silent auction, breathtaking views… and peace of mind in knowing that their good time benefits a good cause: pets in need of a little shelter and a lot of love. And it’s all for the bargain price of $100 per ticket (in advance; tickets on the boat are $120) — not a bad deal considering how much peace of mind goes for on the black market these days.
