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Hunger 'Field Station' Picked For BPC Building The international relief organization Mercy Corps has been chosen to open a World Hunger Education Center at the base of a new luxury condominium building in the north end of Battery Park City. The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) awarded the agency a grant of $1.25 million, plus a renewable 30-year lease at a total rent of $10. The 4,200-square-foot storefront space is expected to open in the spring of 2008. The center will focus on educating visitors about the work of relief organizations, as well as informing individuals about what they can do to help, said Michael Cooper, director of program partnerships at Mercy Corps, who is overseeing development of the center. “Our focus is really on action,” Cooper said, adding that the center will use interactive exhibits “to get people actively engaged in the effort to eradicate world hunger and eradicate poverty.” Last summer the BPCA requested proposals from nonprofit organizations involved in alleviating poverty. Mercy Corps, which is based in Portland, Ore., and operates in more than 40 countries including Afghanistan and Sudan, saw a chance to raise its profile in New York. “It’s rare you see a government or quasi-governmental agency stepping up to say, ‘We care about world hunger,’ and putting some resources into it,” Cooper said. The BPCA saw the center as a fitting companion to the nearby Irish Hunger Memorial. In addition to getting a history lesson about the famine in Ireland, visitors can learn about the ongoing problem of hunger throughout the world, said James Cavanaugh, president of the BPCA. “These two institutions very much complement each other,” he said. The building, which is currently under construction on a lot known as Site 16/17, bordered by Murray Street, Vesey Street and North End Avenue, will be a 31-story tower with 264 units. It will also house the first Battery Park City branch of the New York Public Library and a new home for Poet’s House, a poetry archive that presents readings and exhibits. The Mercy Corps center is being designed by ESI Design, headed by Edwin Schlossberg, which also designed the Sept. 11 exhibits at St. Paul’s Church. The over-arching concept, Cooper said, will be to reflect a relief-agency field station. The organization is launching a campaign to raise $10 million, half for capital costs and half for operating expenses. The 27-year-old relief agency had an operating budget of over $180 million last year. It was chosen because it is well-respected and financially stable, said Cavanaugh. The hunger center will likely draw on the crowds of tourists expected to visit the World Trade Center memorial. That was not a factor in Mercy Corps’ decision to move to Battery Park City, Cooper said, but the organization has observed a theme developing Downtown with such institutions as the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Ellis Island, the Irish Hunger memorial and the World Trade Center memorial. “When we look at all the cultural institutions in Lower Manhattan, there is some sort of story that’s emerging about human hope and suffering and resilience,” Cooper said. As to the placement of a world hunger center in a building full of multimillion dollar apartments adjacent to the World Financial Center, Cooper said: “Certainly many of the places we work in look different than this. But whether we’re in Zimbabwe or Sri Lanka or Battery Park City, we know there are people who care about these issues.”
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