BY JULIE SHAPIRO.
The demolition of Fiterman Hall will likelybegin later this month,finally removing what resi-dents call a “tombstone” justnorth of the World TradeCenter site.By the end of October,the 15-story Fiterman Hall,a Borough of ManhattanCommunity College class-room building damagedheavily on 9/11 and shroud-ed in black netting for years,will be entirely gone, theproject’s consultant saidthis week. B.M.C.C. and thecommunity have been eager-ly awaiting the demolitionfor nearly eight years.“It’s a wonderful thing tosee our hopes and dreamscoming true,” said BarryRosen, B.M.C.C. spokesper-son. The overcrowded col-lege desperately needs theclassroom space the rebuiltFiterman Hall will providewhen it opens in 2012.“It’s great to see it comedown, but more importantlyit’ll be great to see it go up,”Rosen said.Community Board 1’s W.T.C. RedevelopmentCommittee was also happyto hear of the impendingdemolition at a meetingMonday night.“Getting it done is veryimportant to us,” said TomGoodkind, a member of thecommittee.Fiterman Hall has facedseveral obstacles, includ-ing a painstaking asbestosabatement that is nearlycomplete and battles overinsurance and finances, thelast of which was resolvedlast fall when AssemblySpeaker Sheldon Silver per-suaded the mayor to put
BY JULIE SHAPIRO
Bar owners in denselypacked neighborhoods facefewer obstacles to gettinga liquor license under arecent court ruling, andLower Manhattan resi-dents and leaders are wor-ried.“It’s a disaster,” saidKaren Stamm, a Tribecaresident and lawyer. “If it’snot corrected, everybody’sgoing to be swamped withlicenses.”The little-known courtruling from last Novemberchanges the way the StateLiquor Authority canenforce the 500-foot rule,which limits the numberof liquor licenses within aseveral-block area. Underthe rule, someone whowants to serve liquor with-in 500 feet of three ormore other establishmentsthat serve liquor must holda hearing and show thatthe new venue will be in
Fiterman downin ’09 — could it be?Liquor ruling is one too many, critics warn
Downtown Express photo by Elisabeth Robert
River dance
Costumed performers blanketed the Tribeca section of Hudson River Park Saturday afternoon for the Dance of theRiver Grasses, above, as part of Earth Celebrations’ HudsonRiver Pageant.The five-hour pageant started at the Manhattan YouthDowntown Community Center and paraded through thepark up to Gansevoort St. with 15-foot puppets of riverspecies, stopping along the way for performance art pieces,a live fish release and a river cleansing ceremony. FeliciaYoung, founder of Earth Celebrations, launched the lavishpageant to restore the Hudson River and draw attention toclimate change, particularly during the 400-year anniversaryof Henry Hudson’s discovery of the river.Dozens of local organizations volunteered and helpedfund the event, and hundreds turned out to sing, danceand plant oysters. The festivities culminated in a flotilla of decorated rowboats and kayaks doing a dance in the Hudsonchoreographed to a river chant.
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VOLUME 22, NUMBER 1 THE NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN
MAY 15 - 21, 2009
Downtown Express photo by Elisabeth Robert
City finds bus lot
PAGE 6
Ethan Coen’s new plays, p. 23
May 15 - 21, 2009
2
downtown express
T
HE
D
AILY
M
EAL
Tracey Stewart
, wife to one of Tribeca’s most famous,
JonStewart
, has just set up a children-friendly restaurant in the old Wetlands Preserve club space at 161 Hudson St. Moomah, fullof games and puzzles, also picks up the old Tribeca club’s envi-ronmental theme with plenty of pictures and info about animals.The Stewarts don’t appear to be going after the nabe’s glitterati —most of the dishes are under $10. Glad to see no $25 children’ssushi menus — it would have crushed us if we’d have had totrash one of our heroes and say, “say it ain’t so, Jon.”
R
OYAL
PONY
Prince Harry
will be popping over the pond and then NewYork Harbor to play in a polo match on Governors Island’sopening day,
Leslie Koch
, president of the Governors IslandPreservation and Education Corp., told UnderCover last week.GIPEC had already announced the May 31 polo match but hadnot disclosed the royal guest. Too bad it will be before
TomFox
’s beach bar and grill opens on the island. He no doubtwould have offered the mate a pint. The Times’ City Roomreports the prince will be all over Downtown, also stopping off at the World Trade Center and the British Memorial Garden.
M
ENIN
GOES
VIRAL
Julie Menin
, Community Board 1’s chairperson andonetime City Council hopeful, is leaving politics behind topursue broadcast journalism — at least for now.Menin recently launched a cable interview show called“Give and Take” that focuses on women’s issues. The show airsin five-minute segments on NBC’s New York Nonstop channeland on JulieMenin.com. Recent guests include
Diana Taylor
,former New York State banking superintendent and longtimecompanion of Mayor
Mike Bloomberg
; “Saturday Night Live”producer
Marci Klein
; and public advocate
Betsy Gotbaum
.Broadcast is a new field for Menin, who until recentlywas focused on politics. Once a prime contender for CityCouncilmember
Alan Gerson
’s First District seat in 2009,Menin decided not to run last fall when Bloomberg pushedthrough a term limits extension that gave many politicians,including Bloomberg and Gerson, a chance for another term.“I have no intention to run for political office at this pointin my life at all,” Menin told UnderCover this week. “This isreally what I want to do,” she said of her new TV show. “I’mreally enjoying it.”The interview show, which is taped, has flexible hours soMenin can balance it with her family, she said.“For women with young children, politics is not the mosthospitable [career],” Menin said.Menin hopes women’s work-life balance will be one of thesocial issues she can take on through her show. She’s alreadyraised the question in an interview with Taylor. The mayor’sgirlfriend said she always planned to get married and havechildren, but she put her career first and it never happened.Menin sent out a wave of e-mails about her show over thepast week and said her Web site has attracted 170,000 hitsin the past four days.
S
KYLER
ON
THE
ATTACK
We’re getting used to the mayor’s periodic calls to closethe Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a federally fundedstate-city agency, but Deputy Mayor
Ed Skyler
stepped upthe rhetoric this week.“The L.M.D.C. should no longer exist,” Skyler said during apress conference Monday related to the deadly 2007 fire at theL.M.D.C.-owned Deutsche Bank building. “There’s no reasonfor it to exist, whether legally, practically, it is [an] obstacle todevelopment in Lower Manhattan, not a catalyzing effect, andthe sooner it dissolves, the better…. We continue to urge ourpartners in Albany to put the L.M.D.C. out of its misery.”Later, Julie Menin, Community Board 1 chairperson anda member of the L.M.D.C.’s board, said she agreed withSkyler that the L.M.D.C.’s bureaucracy can cause problems,but she said the agency has also done a lot of good. Dozensof important projects Downtown have received hundreds of millions of dollars from the L.M.D.C, Menin said.
Mike Murphy
, spokesperson for the L.M.D.C., also listedthe agency’s accomplishments, including parks, playgroundsand affordable housing.Skyler and the mayor’s press office did not elaborate onthe comments.
G
ARBAGE
MOVEMENT
Add a few more Oscars to the Emmys and Grammysfighting the Hudson Square garbage garage tower. We’retold
Meryl Streep
has joined other award-winning celebs —
Jennifer Connelly, James Gandolfini, Lou Reed
and
MichaelStipe
— in their fight with the city.“This celebrity thing is really exploding,” said
PhilMouquinho
, one of the opponents. “Meryl Streep hit theroof — she didn’t even know about this.”Gandolfini, Mouquinho and
Richard Barrett
met Tuesdaywith Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler’s chief of staff,
Caswell Holloway
,Sanitation Commissioner
John Doherty, Dan Klein
, Sanitation’sreal estate director, and
A.J. Pietrantone
, director of Friends of Hudson River Park, which has an agreement to move the gar-bage trucks in question off the Ganesvoort Peninsula.Mouquinho said for the first time in years, he felt the citywas finally considering alternatives. After Tuesday’s meet-ing at City Hall, everyone was smiling and in good spirits,Mouquinho said, except Klein, who looked “depressed.”
R
EADY
N
EW
Y
ORKER
The city’s Office of Emergency Management is giving awayone “go bag” a month to people who ace a short quiz on emer-gency preparedness at nyc.gov/oem. The Ready New Yorkerof the Month will get a backpack filled with basic supplies(and will also be featured on the O.E.M.’s Web site).The five-question multiple-choice quiz isn’t exactlydesigned to be difficult, with questions like, “Every house-hold member should assemble an emergency a) work belt,b) movie collection, or c) go bag.”No need for a lifeline on that one.
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.com
NEWS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1-15, 18-19 Transit Sam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 Seaport Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
EDITORIAL PAGES
. . . . . . . . . . 16-17
YOUTH
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20-21
ARTS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
22-26 Listings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25-26
CLASSIFIEDS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26-27
C.B. 1
M
EETINGS
The upcoming week’s schedule of Community Board1 committee meetings is below. Unless otherwise noted,all committee meetings are held at the board office,located at 49-51 Chambers St., room 709 at 6 p.m.
ON MON., MAY 18:
The Waterfront Committee willmeet.
ON TUES., MAY 19:
The Youth and EducationCommittee will meet.
ON THURS., MAY 21:
The Quality of Life Committeewill meet, and the Landmarks Committee will meet at 6p.m. at 49-51 Chambers St., room 501.
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downtown express
May 15 - 21, 2009
3
Fiterman demo expected to be done in October
more money in the $325 million project. Once the buildingis down, workers will reinforce the foundation and the new14-story building, designed by Pei Cobb Freed, will beginto rise.“We expect to just roll right into it,” said RichardDalessio, project manager with the State DormitoryAuthority. He predicted no more than a month-long gapbetween the demolition and new construction.The rebuilt Fiterman Hall will have classroom, officeand lounge space for the college, along with a public cafeand two galleries on the ground floor.Fiterman Hall’s schedule puts the project ahead of theother “tombstone” abutting the W.T.C. site, the formerDeutsche Bank building. After many delays and a fatalfire in 2007, work is moving forward at the 26-storyDeutsche Bank building as well, but demolition therewill not begin until the middle of July and the buildingwon’t be down until the middle of January, under themost recent schedule.Preliminary demolition work at Fiterman Hall couldbegin as early as the end of next week, when the project’senvironmental consultant expects to get approval and per-mits from government regulators. The consultant, BennLewis, vice president of Airtek Environmental Corp., saidTishman/LiRo would manage the deconstruction.But before that work can begin, workers have tofinish the thorough cleaning of the building to remove9/11 contaminants. Workers have gutted all 15 floorsand meticulously removed even specks of dirt and dust.The only areas that still have to be cleaned are on thebasement and first floor and none comprise more than acouple hundred square feet, Lewis said.Once the building is decontaminated, workers willremove equipment and scaffolding, and then they willprepare for demolition by bracing the building andreplacing glass windows with boards.The workers will also use a crane, stationed onGreenwich St., to remove heavy equipment like eleva-tor motors and to load Bobcats into the building, Lewissaid. The crane will be in place for three to four days,he said.During demolition, workers will have to contend withone more potential source of contamination: asbestos onthe spandrel beams, which are sandwiched in the facade. Workers cannot access the beams now but will stop toabate them on each floor after removing the brick exte-rior, Lewis said. On each floor, they will cycle throughdemolition, abatement and then demolition.“Repeat that 15 times and you’ve got a hole in theground,” Lewis said.During Monday night’s presentation, Lewis preempt-ed questions about safety by answering them in advance.The building has two standpipes, which carry water toupper floors during a fire, and workers will cut and capthe standpipes as each floor is demolished and retestthem every time, Lewis said.Also, workers will use an interior shaft to dispose of steeland concrete during the demolition, rather than an exteriorchute, he said.
Julie@DowntownExpress.com
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Downtown Express photo by Vadim Shepel
Damaged Fiterman Hall with the 7 World Trade Center plaza in the foreground. The collapse of the original 7W.T.C. on Sept. 11, 2001, badly damaged the college building.The new Fiterman is supposed to open in 2012.
BY JULIE SHAPIRO
The City Council introduced 12 billsMonday to make construction sites saferbased on lessons learned after the fatal 2007Deutsche Bank fire.“It’s our hope that the measures…will pre-vent other accidents like the one that happenedat Deutsche Bank from ever happening again,”Council Speaker Christine Quinn said as sheannounced the legislative package, which isco-sponsored by 11 councilmembers includingAlan Gerson in Lower Manhattan.The lessons from the August 2007 blazethat killed two firefighters are many, becausethe mistakes were many as well. In an indict-ment of three construction supervisors anda contractor late last year, District AttorneyRobert Morgenthau said the failures of thegovernment agencies who were supposed tooversee the building had all contributed tothe death of the two firefighters, who weretrapped inside and ran out of air.Morgenthau did not indict the city or anygovernment officials, but the city acknowl-edged wrongdoing and is doing its own inves-tigation. It should have a report before the endof May, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppettasaid Monday.One of the things that made the contami-nated former Deutsche Bank building so dan-gerous at the time of the fire was that workerswere cleaning and demolishing the building atthe same time. The asbestos abatement workincluded flammable materials and mazelikeinterior partitions that prevented firefightersfrom getting out of the building.The new legislation would prohibit simul-taneous decontamination and demolitionwork without the approval of several cityagencies. Asked Monday why the city doesn’t just ban the simultaneous work outright,Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler said that for large,spread-out buildings like the original YankeeStadium, the two separate jobs could hap-pen at once if there was a sufficient bufferbetween them.Another problem leading up to theDeutsche Bank fire was the lack of communi-cation between the Fire Dept., Buildings Dept.and Dept. of Environmental Protection. Thenew legislation requires information sharingamong city agencies, particularly about viola-tions and inspections.The legislation also focuses on stand-pipes, used to transport water through high-rise buildings, because the absence of aworking standpipe in the Deutsche Bankbuilding at the time of the fire contributed tothe deaths. Now, standpipes would have tohave pressurized alarms to detect breachesand be tested frequently, particularly asbuildings are demolished.The new bills are part of a package of 33reforms Skyler recommended last summer.City agencies have already implementedthose that did not require legislation, likeexterior cutoff switches for negative airpressure machines. Many of the reformswere first implemented at the Deutsche Bankbuilding, including the cutoff switch andstandpipe testing.Joseph Graffagnino Sr., whose son waskilled in the fire, said Monday that the leg-islation is a good step, but he is concernedabout a lingering loophole that allows state,federal and international buildings to beexempt from city codes. Skyler said he is inthe process of negotiating a memorandum of understanding with the federal governmentto bring some of those buildings under thecity’s jurisdiction.“If our first responders have to go intothose buildings to save lives, to save proper-ty,” Skyler said, “then those buildings shouldbe up to the same codes as every other build-ing in New York City.”
Julie@DowntownExpress.com
Council introduces safety bills to prevent Deutsche-type problems
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May 15, 2009 Downtown Express
Downtown Express is the weekly newspaper serving Lower Manhattan.
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