JANUARY 2002 & Earlier
  Residents Mount Last-Gasp Effort to Block Telecom ‘Hotel’
With groundbreaking expected as early as this month, residents have stepped up their campaign to stop a 240-foot-high telecommunications building that is set to rise on the southwest corner of Leonard Street and Broadway. The building, which needs no special city approvals, would house TyCom, a company that provides transatlantic fiber optic cable to telecommunications giants such as Sprint and AT&T... (Posted Jan 4)

Helping Washington Market Park
Washington Market Community Park needs your help. From the basketball court to the flower beds, the park suffered extensive—and expensive—damage in the wake of Sept. 11, while expected funding for the park’s renovation was frozen by the city... (Posted Jan 4)

PS 89 PTA Accepts Feb. 28 for Return to Warren St. Building
Following a ballot count on Jan. 29 of parents and teachers, the executive board of the P.S. 89 P.T.A. dropped its legal challenge to the Board of Education and accepted Feb. 28 as the date that the children will return to their school in Battery Park City. (Posted Jan 29)






IS 89 Celebrates Return to Battery Park City
I.S. 89 students returned to the building they fled four months ago, and were met with balloons, gifts, big smiles and hugs. (Posted Jan 19)

At Tribeca Tower, Tenants Press Health Concerns
More than three months after the terrorist attacks, fears of disaster-related health hazards in Tribeca’s tallest residential high-rise have sent some tenants packing and led others into a bitter dispute with Related, the building’s management. Tenants and the landlord find themselves arguing over arcane details of environmental tests and ventilation systems usually left to scientists and contractors... (Posted Jan 4)

Recommendations Issued for Rebuilding Lower Manhattan
New York New Visions, a coalition of 20 architecture, planning and design organizations that took shape within days of Sept. 11, issued recommendations for the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan, with the hope of influencing the big decisions that will be made in the coming months. (Posted Jan 15)

Local Swimmers Want BMCC Pool to Reopen
Frustrated Tribeca swimmers are lobbying Borough of Manhattan Community College to reopen its pool, which was drained soon after Sept. 11. But there seems to be little hope that the financially strapped school will open it any time soon. (Posted Jan 10)

Bringing Order to the Visiting Multitudes
A new advance ticket policy is clearing the sidewalks of thousands of visitors who come Downtown to view Ground Zero from a platform at Fulton Street and Broadway. (Posted Jan 11)

Tenant-Landlord Battles Downtown Are Heating Up
Disputes between tenants and landlords that have brewed since Sept. 11 escalated last month, as downtown residents on almost all sides of the Trade Center site pressed demands in the disaster's wake. By the end of December, at least 10 buildings near Ground Zero were on rent strike. (Posted Jan 4)

Hudson Market Workers Win $100,000 in Back Wages
Eight months after a noisy boycott temporarily shut down Hudson Market, one of Tribeca’s largest greengrocers, the store’s owner agreed to pay $100,000 in back wages to 17 of his workers because of his past failure to pay minimum and overtime wages... (Posted Jan 4)

Jan. 12: Free Downtown Tenant/Landlord Seminar
At a free seminar, tenants and landlords of buildings near Ground Zero can get answers to questions about their rights or obligations related to the disaster. (Posted Jan 9)

Downtown Museums Join for Jan. 10 Neighborhood Night Visitors to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City get free admission on the museum’s "neighborhood night," from 5-8 p.m on Thursday, Jan. 10. In addition, representatives of other downtown cultural institutions will be on hand with information about upcoming exhibitions and events, so visitors can get a one-stop overview of what’s on the cultural schedule. The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of American Financial History, the South Street Seaport Museum, NY Unearthed and Fraunces Tavern Museum are among those scheduled to participate. The Museum of Jewish Heritage is located on the waterfront at 18 First Place. For recorded museum information, call 509-6130. (Posted Jan 5)

P.S. 234 Parents Favor Delaying Return
At an emotional PS 234 P.T.A. meeting held Dec. 5, most parents said they and their children were not yet ready to return to the school’s building at the corner of Chambers and Greenwich streets, four blocks north of Ground Zero. The meeting was attended by over 300 parents, some teachers, and officials from the city’s Board of Education and Schools District 2. (Posted Jan 7)

Air Quality Demonstration
Parents and children from local schools plan to stage a "Rally for Safe Air" at the North East corner of City Hall Park (across from J&R Music World) on Tuesday, Dec. 18 at 5:30 p.m. Organized by an ad hoc committee of parents from Stuyvesant High School,. 234, PS 89, and PS 150, the rally is meant to draw attention to a list of "environmental needs" that the group says have been ignored by the mayor.

At the top of the list is a demand for putting the disaster site cleanup under a single agency that is responsive to the community. Community leaders and elected officials complain that the mayor's Office of Emergency Management ignores the concerns of residents and workers who are close to Ground Zero. The group is also calling for the movement of the site, north of Stuyvesant High School, where debris is being trucked and transferred to barges. (Posted Jan 10)

Memorial is Moved
The photographs, medals, badges, flowers, tributes and memorabilia honoring the New York City Police Department, Fire Department, Port Authority and other uniformed officers who fell in the line of duty on Sept. 11 have been moved from the police memorial reflecting pool near Monsignor Kowsky Plaza to a nearby temporary tent facing North Cove.

According to the Battery Park City Authority, the change was necessary in order to drain and turn off the police memorial water supply for the winter. (Posted Jan 10)

Agreement Reached on BPC Bridge
Just one week after assailing Battery Park City Authority officials and their traffic consultant, Sam Schwartz, over a plan for a temporary pedestrian bridge across West Street, Battery Park City residents applauded when those same officials unveiled a revised bridge plan at a Dec. 12 Community Board 1 meeting. (Posted Dec 13)

Free Art Lifts Downtown Spirits
More than 4,000 watercolors were handed to commuters, firefighters, cops, and other Downtowners recently, in an creative effort to lift their spirits. An amateur artist from Clemson, S.C., created the 9-by-12 inch paintings—one for every innocent person once believed to have been killed in the terrorist attacks—and sent them to New York as tokens of support to counter, in some small way, the effects of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks... (Posted Jan 4)

Community Center Opens With Weekend Teen Program
It was the first night of a weekend program for middle schoolers at Tribeca’s new community center, at 55 Warren Street, and 15 teenagers sat around a long table looking slightly cowed. Bob Townley, who has dreamed of such a center for years, was laying down the rules, and the group didn’t look happy to hear them. But halfway through the night, the kids were already giving the center high marks... (Posted Jan 4)

IN BRIEF (Posted Jan 4)
Seminar on Returning to the Schools...
Calling Tribeca Artists...
Groups Publish 9/11 Resource Guides...
Weekly Slide Shows Return...
Murray Street Library Branch Reopens...
De Niro Plans Tribeca Film Festival in Spring...
Photo Competition...

New Program Offers Grants to Businesses
On Nov. 5 New York State announced a new $20 million program that will provide grants of up to $10,000 to small- and medium-sized retail businesses affected by the September 11 terrorist attacks. Retail businesses below Houston Street with fewer than 500 employees are eligible for assistance from the World Trade Center Retail Recovery Grant Program, which will be administered by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). Owners of small businesses have repeatedly said that they need grants, rather than loans, to recover from the impact of the trade center disaster.

To facilitate the grant application process, the ESDC is also managing a new walk-in assistance center at 199 Church Street, between Duane and Thomas streets, which is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday. Applications can also be obtained by calling 800-ILOVENY or going to a new website, www.nylovessmallbiz.com, which offers information on, and links to, various small business programs and services. The ESDC says it intends to approve and disburse grants within ten days of receiving completed applications. (Posted Nov 16)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SCHOOLS
Stuyvesant Parents Confront Lingering Environmental Issues
Parents at Lower Manhattan’s displaced elementary and middle schools, now grappling with the question of when to return children to their school buildings, are closely watching Stuyvesant High School, where parents have continued to worry about the air quality since the school reopened in early October.

On Tuesday, Nov. 13, some 200 Stuyvesant parents listened to a panel of environmental experts try to address those lingering concerns. Bonnie Bellow, a spokeswoman for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and scientists from Mount Sinai and NYU reiterated that air quality data collected so far do not indicate serious long-term health risks for most children or adults downtown. But the scientists said that children with asthma or other existing respiratory problems might worsen their conditions and that some children who are particularly sensitive to particles in the air may suffer throat irritation or other symptoms.

The scientists supported parents’ call for more effective air filtration in the school and more extensive studies of the health effects of breathing downtown air. David Newman, a member of the PA’s environmental committee, and Marilena Christodoulou, the PA president, criticized the Board of Education for not fulfilling promises to install better air filtration and some parents in the audience said they were worried about their children’s health. “We call into question any unequivocal assurances about the safety of our children,” Newman said. But deputy schools chancellor David Klasfeld said that “from day one, the Board has tried to do everything it can to make the building safe” and that the Board continues to closely monitor the air quality inside and outside Stuyvesant. (Posted Nov 14)

P.S./I.S. 89 Returned to Board of Ed
New York City’s Office of Emergency Management returned P.S./I.S. 89’s Battery Park City building to the Board of Education on Monday, Nov. 5, paving the way for the eventual return of students and school staff. For nearly seven weeks, the school building was used by government agencies as a disaster management center and staging ground for rescue and cleanup crews. A Board spokesman said it will take about two weeks to clean the building, and then it will be up to the schools’ parents and principals to decide when to return. Many parents at displaced downtown schools say they are hesitant to bring children back while fires continue to burn at the disaster site. (Posted Nov 9)