Push to Put Affordable Housing, Not a Jail Tower, on Two Acres in Chinatown

Site of the recently demolished two buildings of the Manhattan Detention Complex at 124-125 White St. Work is expected to begin soon on what will be one of the tallest jails in the world. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

For years they fought a losing battle [1] against the towering jail planned for Chinatown. Now, with the 2-acre site at 124-125 White St. leveled and weeks to go before construction begins, the opponents are back with an 11th-hour alternative. It is a plan, they say, that meets the demands for a city-mandated borough-based jail [2] in Manhattan while also creating hundreds of units of affordable housing.

Neighbors United Below Canal [3] (NUBC), joined by Welcome to Chinatown [4], a group that supports local businesses, proposes to relocate the Manhattan borough-based jail from Chinatown to the nearby Federal Metropolitan Correction Center (MCC) at Park Row near Foley Square, closed since 2021. Under their plan, supported by Community Board 1, housing would be built on what now is the city-owned jail site. They say the MCC could be gutted and rebuilt to the city’s current requirements for a more humane facility—one that would be completed faster and at less cost than the jail tower now envisioned.

(The housing and treatment of detainees with mental illness in an underutilized hospital on Randall’s Island, an idea floated [5] by Borough President Mark Levine, could be part of that plan, they say.)

Supporters announced their proposal at a press event earlier this month, near the now-vacant site of the two recently demolished Manhattan Detention Complex buildings.

“Right now we’re just following the law and the law says that Rikers [Island] has to close by 2027,” said Jan Lee, a founder of NUBC, the group that led the jail’s opposition. “So what we’re doing as a community is providing an alternative that’s much, much cheaper, that can be done much quicker and that the community will fully support.”

He added, “We have a very short period of time and that’s why we have to act quickly. That’s why we need the cooperation of the federal government, the city government and the state government all to push in the same direction.”

But city officials appear committed to moving forward with the current plan after supporters of the alternate proposal tried but failed last month to persuade city Comptroller Brad Lander to delay signing off on the construction contracts. (Lee insists that the city can legally cancel the contracts.) 

A spokeswoman for Mayor Adams declined to comment on the proposal, instead saying in a statement that the decision to put the jail in Chinatown was made before the mayor was in office “and the City Council must first decide to move the jail.”

“The Notice to Proceed for the Manhattan facility was issued on 5/15, meaning we can start the engagement process to start designing” a spokeswoman for City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said in an email, also declining to address the proposal itself.

(In a statement to NUBC, Borough President Levine said there are “undoubtedly serious hurdles in front of this proposal [but] I am open to any idea, particularly one that includes housing, that speeds this process up while ensuring that local stakeholders and communities have meaningful opportunities to provide input in the future of their neighborhoods.”)

According to a rendering of the lower floors of the more than 300-foot-high new jail, the building would come with no uncovered outdoor space. The alternative plan could provide 25,000 square feet of uncovered public space, its supporters say, and the housing would supply as many bedrooms as beds in the new jail. Construction, they also note, would have less impact on the surrounding area. 

“So we’re not here just to protest,” Lee said, “we’re here to offer an alternative, a vision that puts housing first on that spot, a vision that supports a livable Chinatown, a vision that recognizes the need for court-adjacent detention, but not at the cost of destroying a neighborhood to get there.”

In 2019 the city passed a law [6] requiring the closure of Rikers Island in 2027 with the inmate population dispersed among the four new borough jails, which excluded Staten Island. That completion date is now pushed to 2032 and the budget for the Manhattan jail already has ballooned from $2.7 billion to nearly $3.8 billion, with the capacity of the four new jails now about half of what would be needed to house the number of today’s detainees.

“It is absolutely appalling,” said State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, speaking at the press event, “that the world’s tallest jail, the Empire State Building of jails, would go right here in Chinatown, when we need affordable housing,”