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Are Streetfairs Unfair To Financial District
The smells of tacos, kebabs and gyros mingled in the air with the pulsing beats of reggae and salsa music. Booths lining both sides of the street sold shawls, earrings, t-shirts and baked goods. Tourists and residents alike ambled down the crowded street, while traffic police rerouted cars and trucks around the closed blocks. Vendors pay hundreds of dollars each for a berth at the fair, the revenue split between the fair organizer, Mardi Gras Productions, and sponsoring organizations, which range from political groups and charities to city agencies. Such events can raise thousands of dollars for a sponsoring organization, according to Joe Giovanni of Mardi Gras. But for some on Community Board 1, street fairs in the Financial District have outlived their welcome. Joel Kopel, a member of the board’s Financial District Committee who lives in the neighborhood and manages William Barthman Jewelers on lower Broadway, said the events are noisy, disruptive, and poorly coordinated. “They play loud music that disturbs residents. They make it hard to walk down the street. And they make it nearly impossible to drive anywhere,” said Kopel. The Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, charged with coordinating local construction and street closures to ensure smooth traffic flow, has not lived up to its responsibilities, he added. “I think the community board needs to take charge of this and say enough is enough.” Kopel raised his objections last month before CB1’s Financial District Committee, where the Downtown Independent Democrats and Downtown Visiting Neighbors were applying for street activity permits for street fairs on Murray Street between Broadway and Church next spring and autumn. Both applicants have held street fairs at the same location in previous years, with CB1’s consent. But CB1 member Catherine McVay Hughes, who lives on lower Broadway, said that while the Financial District may have been able to accommodate street fairs in the past, the current construction boom makes them less feasible. In addition, she said, the Financial District is carrying more than its fair share. She urged the applicants to consider moving their street fairs farther north, out of the Financial District and into Tribeca. “Why not do it on Warren Street, from Broadway all the way over to the river?” she asked. “It’s just as good as Murray Street, but it’s won’t disrupt the traffic as much.” Though Warren Street is just a block farther north, Hughes was, in effect, dispatching the applicants out of her committee and into the Tribeca Committee. Fearing they could get bounced around from one committee to another, the groups did not like that idea. “I just don’t want to go to the Tribeca Committee and have them tell us that they don’t want us either,” said Cynthia Maurer of the Downtown Visiting Neighbors. “We understand the concerns, but the fact is, our organization does good, important work in this community, and this is a big part of how we fund it. We want our fair to be somewhere where we can make some money.” Community Board 1 intends to undertake a systematic review of street fair policy. But their deliberations may be complicated by the fact that much of its own funding is raised by six street fairs sponsored by the Board itself. With city government’s recent threats to cut municipal funding for community boards so deeply that CB1 may need to contemplate staff layoffs, the prospect of scaling back the board’s street fair activity will be daunting.
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