Mayor Mike Bloomberg, left, and City Comptroller Bill Thompson, the major parties\u2019 nominees to be mayor, sat down with Downtown Express and its sister Community Media L.L.C. papers last week for hour-long interviews.

gets tougher to get out of bed every morning.\u201d) until people urged him to change the law. He cited many indicators of an improved city, including lower crime, higher age expectancy and improved schools.

He said parents should not have a role in education issues like siting schools, a contention that was strongly criticized by Downtown parents. He also said one of the reasons he supports World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein is because \u201che has everybody by the proverbials.\u201d

Thompson said he would consult more with residents and small businesses. He plans to reopen a Chinatown street that was closed after 9/11 for security reasons. \u201cWe need to reopen Park Row,\u201d he said.

Ann Landers
types again,
p. 23

The area under the Brooklyn Bridge has been a popular skateboard park for decades, but its days are soon coming to an end, at least temporarily.

The city plans to use the internationally known Brooklyn Banks skate park as a staging area during the Brooklyn Bridge reconstruction, which is starting later this year and will last until 2014, said Ralph Musolino, a district manager for the city Parks Dept.

Musolino said the closure of the skate park was not certain, but Scott Gastel, spokesperson for the city Dept. of Transportation, later said the city would de\ufb01 nitely need the space. Gastel was not sure when the park would close.

The last time UnderCover got to sit in on an interview with Mayor Mike Bloomberg he went out of his way to praise renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, tell- ing us in 2005 that Calatrava\u2019s proposed Seaport condo-box tower was the only building that could tempt him to move Downtown.

But the bloom must have fallen off the rose in the interim, even though Bloomberg did get Calatrava to design at no charge an aerial gondola that was to go to Governors Island.

Last week, the mayor said the architect\u2019s work was \u201cinter- esting and nice,\u201d while saying the Calatrava World Trade center train station was overpriced.

\u201cThis\u2019ll send you off the deep end,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I actually was in favor of Segways, although my transportation com- missioner and police commissioner both just about threw me through the window. It\u2019s great technology, [and I \ufb01 gured] why not try it, but we\u2019re not going to have it.\u201d

Bloomberg mentioned the Segways when asked about pedicabs, another alternate mode of transportation that he defended.

\u201cI\u2019ve never been in a pedicab in my life, incidentally,\u201d Bloomberg said. \u201cMy girlfriend (Diana Taylor) has taken it occasionally. I\u2019m sure there are abuses, but, you know, it\u2019s an environmentally friendly way to see the city.\u201d

During an anecdote about Francis Lewis, a New York signer of the Declaration of Independence, Bloomberg revealed his reliance on technology: Bloomberg said he Googled Lewis\u2019 name, \u201cbut I have verbal Google because I can\u2019t spell,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d have trouble with Lewis, much less Francis.\u201d

Southbridge Towers resident Larry Vide tells us that a vandal broke into the new anti-privatization bulletin board last week and removed Vide\u2019s letter and all of the other material except for \u201ca graph that nobody could understand anyway.\u201d

ing its middle class housing program. As we reported last week, Cuomo has an informal gag order on the board of directors because they are technically the sponsors of the privatization application.

Vide said clearly a \u201cfanatic\u201d who wants to leave Mitchell-Lama is trying to silence Southbridge voices, but he acknowledged that neither side is clean on the zealot front. \u201cWe have fanatics on our side, but they\u2019re not vio- lent,\u201d Vide said.

He credited management -- which answers to the pro- privatization board elected by Southbridgers -- for \ufb01xing the lock at 100 Beekman St. quickly, but he\u2019s angered by the act.

The dark-suited men chasing down strangers near the World Trade Center site last week were not selling anything, though they were as persistent as salesmen. Carrying a ceremonial lulav (collection of plants) and etrog (similar to a lemon), the Lubavitcher Jews from Crown Heights hoped to convince secular Jews on Lower Manhattan\u2019s streets to stop for a moment and say a bless- ing in honor of the holiday of Sukkot.

The Battery Park City Authority has to sink an extra $116,000 into the new ice rink coming to the ballfields this winter, but the authority is not backing off the proj- ect.\u201cWe believe that even at a cost of $116,000, it\u2019s

still a worthwhile thing to do,\u201d said Jim Cavanaugh, president of the B.P.C.A. Cavanaugh pointed out that the 17,000-square-foot B.P.C. rink will be the only one in Lower Manhattan, since the rink at the Seaport last year isn\u2019t coming back.

The reason for the price increase is that the authority will not be able to rout electricity to the rink in time for its December opening, so they will have to use a genera- tor instead, like the rink in Bryant Park. In future years, once the electric lines are in place, the authority expects to break even or make a small profit on the rink.

Seaport Report. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Transit Sam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Mixed Use. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

EDITORIAL PAGES. . . . . . . . . . . .18-20 YOUTH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 ARTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22-26

The upcoming week\u2019s schedule of Community Board 1 committee meetings is below. Unless other- wise noted, all committee meetings are held at the board of\ufb01ce, located at 49-51 Chambers St., room 709 at 6 p.m.

88 Fulton Street
(Corner of 33 Gold St.)
New York, NY 10038
212.587.8930
212.587.8935

An UnderCover item in the Oct. 9-15 Downtown Express incorrectly stated that the new Battery Park City library will be the \ufb01rst environmentally sustain- able branch in the New York Public Library system. In fact, the Bronx Library Center, completed in 2006, was awarded a Silver LEED rating for environmental sustainability. The B.P.C. branch will achieve a higher rating of Gold LEED, the \ufb01 rst in the system to win that designation, the N.Y.P.L. said.

An Upper East Side fitness nonprofit was designated this week as the operator of the new Battery Park City community center.

Asphalt Green, which offers some free and reduced-cost programs for children and seniors, plans to open a 50,000-square- foot B.P.C. center in 2011. Downtown Express was the first to report last April that the Battery Park City Authority was leaning toward Asphalt Green to run the center, but the authority board just gave its approval this week. The final contract should be signed soon.

\u201cThis is the most exciting opportu- nity we\u2019ve had,\u201d said Andrew Nussbaum, chairperson of Asphalt Green\u2019s board, before the authority\u2019s vote Tuesday morn- ing. He said the negotiation had been long and complicated, and he emphasized that Asphalt Green would work with the authority and the community to get through \u201cfuture bumps in the road.\u201d

The community center will go in the base of the residential towers Milstein Properties is building adjacent to the B.P.C. ballfields. Milstein is building the core and shell of the center for about $26 million, and the authority is fitting out the space for about $29 million.

The authority and a committee of local residents picked Asphalt Green over the YMCA, which also submitted a proposal but withdrew it earlier this year.

Jim Cavanaugh, president of the authority, criticized the YMCA\u2019s proposal as too cookie-cutter.

\u201cWhat the community wanted was something that was more tailored to this community,\u201d Cavanaugh said. \u201cAsphalt Green was more willing to go that road.\u201d

The authority also questioned the YMCA\u2019s financial projections, saying they were too pessimistic at the outset and too optimistic several years in. The YMCA projected turning a profit faster than Asphalt Green, and the YMCA also said it would not need subsidies from the authority, while Asphalt Green will need hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Kevin Shermach, spokesperson for the YMCA, said in an e-mail, \u201cWe wish Asphalt Green the best of luck in its work to meet the needs of the Battery Park City community.\u201d

The community center will include two pools, a gym and a theater. Asphalt Green will run the athletics programs \u2014 including a free learn-to-swim program for public school students, camps, senior activities and indoor soccer, basketball and gymnastics classes \u2014 and will work with other community groups to provide cultural programming.

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of work to do,\u201d said Anthony Notaro, chairperson of Community Board 1\u2019s taskforce on the center. Notaro expects the taskforce to meet next month to begin advising Asphalt Green on their cultural and com- munity programs.

cerns is that Asphalt Green not replicate the many programs the neighborhood already has, including those at Manhattan Youth\u2019s Downtown Community Center and the low-cost youth sports leagues on the ballfields next to the center. Asphalt Green will not control programming on the ballfields.

Tom Merrill, president of Downtown Little League, said he was initially con- cerned about Asphalt Green displacing existing leagues, but after meeting with Asphalt Green executives, \u201cIt has the potential to be a very good thing,\u201d he said.

The new center will have indoor bat- ting cages Merrill hopes the Little League will be able to use, and Asphalt Green may field a more competitive travel baseball team that would supplement Downtown\u2019s offerings.

Merrill added that not every family will be able to afford the annual member- ship of $1,200 to $2,400, and he hopes Asphalt Green will offer scholarships.

An Asphalt Green spokesperson declined to comment on that question or any other, since the contract with the authority has not been signed. Christopher Dobens, the spokesperson, issued a state- ment on the authority\u2019s affirmative vote, saying \u201cWe at Asphalt Green are delight- ed by this news, look forward to continu- ing the contract negotiations, and hope to finalize them soon.\u201d

The authority\u2019s vote Tuesday was not unanimous \u2014 Charles Urstadt, vice chair- person, objected to the high cost of build- ing the center (about $1,000 per square foot) and wanted to see a breakdown of how much of the money was going to the fitness portion and how much was going to community programs.

\u201cI have very deep reservations about the economics of this thing,\u201d Urstadt said. \u201cWe need a true financial analysis.\u201d

Carol Tweedy, Asphalt Green\u2019s execu- tive director, said the fitness and com- munity components were intertwined and could not be separated.

Cavanaugh said the authority was not looking to profit from the community center, which was a gift to the neighbor- hood.

\u201cCommunity centers don\u2019t make money, and we\u2019re not trying to pretend that they do,\u201d Cavanaugh said. The authority will approve the center\u2019s annual budget.

Alexandra Altman, executive vice pres- ident for the authority, added that it was necessary to build the center in order to get the community\u2019s support to build the Milstein towers on what used to be ball- field space.

Now that the authority is receiving ground lease payments from Milstein, \u201cWe come out significantly ahead,\u201d Altman said.

Still, the authority will have to spend much more money on the project under Asphalt Green than it would have under the YMCA, assuming the YMCA\u2019s num- bers were accurate. While the YMCA did not ask for any financial assistance from the authority and simply proposed split- ting its profits 50-50, Asphalt Green will receive hundreds of thousands of dollars of assistance.

Before the center opens, the authority will pay Asphalt Green $300,000 to cover startup costs. Once the center is open, Asphalt Green will receive $80,000 a year to manage the center, plus payments of $288,600, $213,000 and $162,400 for

Asphalt Green initially proposed giving the authority 40 percent of its profits, but under the deal struck with the authority, Asphalt Green will give up 60 percent of its profits for the first three years it turns a profit, and then will split the profits 50-50 after that.

Asphalt Green expects to first turn a profit of a little less than $170,000 in its fourth year. By the fifth year, Asphalt Green expects to make just over $580,000, and that year the authority would finally receive more money back from Asphalt Green than the authority was paying them. In contrast, the YMCA had predicted a net income of over $2 million in its fifth year.

Once Asphalt Green moves into Battery Park City, the center will offer programs in other parts of Lower Manhattan as well, including in local public schools. Asphalt Green already started that effort this fall by facilitating recess at P.S. 276, which just opened with kindergarten classes in Tweed Courthouse. Rather than the usual chaos of recess, which leaves some children running wild and others sitting alone, the Asphalt Green workers provide team-building activities that can be done in a small space.

Liz Berger, president of the Downtown Alliance and a former representative of Asphalt Green, said she looked forward to the opening of their new center. With Downtown\u2019s population growing rapidly, she sees plenty of needs for Asphalt Green to fill.