Read without ads and support Scribd by becoming a Scribd Premium Reader.
See Premium Plans
downtown
express
BY ALINE REYNOLDS
Affordable housing, health haz-
ards and the East River waterfront
were the topics du jour at a pub-
lic forum held last Wednesday by
the Lower Manhattan Development
Corporation. The event was initiated
to solicit feedback concerning the
allocation of $158 million in funds
available to various Lower Manhattan
groups.
Dozens of neighborhood organi-
zation leaders, elected officials and
youths showed up at the meeting, held
at 250 Broadway, to testify on what
they believed to be critical needs in the
community.
AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Several of the speakers represent-
ed Asian Americans for Equality, an
affordable housing and community ser-
vice organization that annually serves
more than 30,000 seniors and low-
income working families in Chinatown
and the Lower East Side.
Chinatown is the second densest
community citywide, according to
Christopher Kui, executive director of
A.A.F.E, prompting a critical need for
affordable housing.
“The lack of affordable housing
options, coupled with a growing popu-
lation in an extremely dense neighbor-
hood, has forced tenants to live in
overcrowded conditions where a single
unit can be shared with as many as four
households,” Kui said.
With previous support from the
L.M.D.C., A.A.F.E. was able to pre-
serve more than 100 units of low-
income housing for its constituents.
It hopes to receive an additional $50
million in L.M.D.C. grant money to
restore another 400 Lower Manhattan
units.
Predatory tactics of landlords, such
as intentional neglect, are “evolving
faster than housing advocates are able
Photo courtesy of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum
Greening Ground Zero
On Tuesday Joe Daniels, president of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and Chris Ward, president of the NY/NJ Port
Authority, joined Mayor Bloomberg as the 50th tree was planted at Ground Zero. “This is the 50th out of a little over
400 trees, but you get a sense of what the plaza is actually going to look like, how much space there is between
trees, what it’ll feel like to stand under them,” said Bloomberg.
BY ALINE REYNOLDS
A recent study has
revealed that thousands of
public school children in
New York City might be
susceptible to dangerous
chemicals. As many as 700
schools citywide could have
a perilously high level of
polychlorinated biphenyls,
toxins that could cause can-
cer and immune disorders
among teachers and youths,
according to various medi-
cal sources.
The toxins were often
used during the construction
and renovation of school
buildings between 1950 and
1978. Downtown schools
constructed during that time
frame include P.S. 2, P.S. 15,
P.S. 20, P.S. 34, P.S. 124,
P.S. 188, Murry Bergtraum
and the Manhattan Charter
School. In school buildings
constructed prior to 1978,
P.C.B.s were used in light
ballasts, ventilation systems
and caulking of school build-
ings built pre-1978. The
toxic compound is found in
transformers, cable insula-
tion and electrical equip-
ment. They were banned
from manufacturing use by
U.S. federal law in 1979.
Congressman
Jerrold
Nadler has formed a citywide
coalition of elected officials,
parents and other concerned
community members to
lobby for immediate action
by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and
the city’s Department of
Education.
“We simply cannot wait
Recent study fi nds
toxins in schools,
causes alarm
Downtown groups hoping for fi nancial
support turn to the L.M.D.C.
Continued on page 19
Continued on page 17
®
VOLUME 20, NUMBER 44
THE NEWSPAPER OF LOWER MANHATTAN
OCTOBER 27 - NOVEMBER 2, 2010
New event raises big bucks
The Taste of the Seaport last Sunday drew big
crowds and supported the Spruce Street School.
PAGE 7
BATTERY PARK CITY BEAT, P. 16
October 27 - November 2, 2010
2
downtown express
Presented by
Official Program of
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30
12-4 PMWINTER GARDEN
WWW.ARTSWORLDFINANCIALCENTER.COM
EXCLUSIVE HALLOWEEN SPECIALS AND SALES
from WORLD FINANCIAL CENTER SHOPS & RESTAURANTS!
C O S T U M E
PA R A D E S !
HUNGRY
MARCH BAND
COSTUME SWAP!
F
R
E
E
!
FREEBIKE VALET!
CREATE
YOUR OWN
ECO-FRIENDLY
SWEETS
&
TREATS!COSTUMES
BOWLING
for
GHOSTS!
NEWS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1-9, 12-19, 27
EDITORIAL PAGES..........10-11
YOUTH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19-20
ARTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21-25
CLASSIFIEDS....................26
C.B. 1
MEETINGS
The upcoming week’s schedule of Community
Board 1 committee meetings is below. Unless other-
wise noted, all committee meetings are held at the
board office, located at 49-51 Chambers St., room
709 at 6 p.m.
ON WED., OCT. 27: C.B. 1’s Street Fair task force
will meet.
ON THURS., OCT. 28: the 1st Precinct Community
Council will convene at 6:30 p.m. at its headquarters
at 16 Ericsson Place.
ON MON., NOV. 1: C.B. 1’s Arts and Entertainment
task force will meet.
ON TUES., NOV. 2: C.B. 1 offices are closed.
Harvest School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. More than 70 contemporary and Haitian artists donated works to the auc-
tion, which was held last Wednesday at the Manhattan Youth Downtown Community Center.
“These funds will go a long way in rebuilding my sister’s school, which is a refuge for its neighborhood and edu-
cates over 250 children in desperate need,” said Jacqueline Fils-Aime, the Tribeca-based sister of the director of
the Children’s Harvest School.
Art auction raises over $25,000 for Haiti relief
D
downtown express
October 27 - November 2, 2010
3
Assembly committee puts
N.Y.C.H.A. on hot seat
The State Assembly Housing Committee
organized a public hearing on Tuesday,
where they interrogated New York City
Housing Authority officials concerning
questionable repair policies.
Members said they have received numer-
ous complaints from tenants about untend-
ed leaks, mold outbreaks and cracks in their
ceilings. Michael Kelly, general manager for
N.Y.C.H.A., said the Centralized Calling
Center, created in 2005, allows the author-
ity to systematically track and follow up on
repair requests.
But tenants often have to wait for months
until their walls or appliances are fixed.
“Does that mean that I have to wait for
an appointment, if water is leaking in my
apartment or my toilet is overflowing?” said
Assemblyman Vito Lopez of Brooklyn, who
led the discussion.
“Our goal is to respond to an emergency
within 24 hours,” Kelly replied.
Urgent requests, he added, must be
deemed life threatening, such as gas leaks
or floods. According to Kelly, N.Y.C.H.A.
sends a handyman to abate the emergency,
after which tenants must schedule a follow-
up appointment with a specialized trade
worker. If they don’t call back, their work
order is cancelled.
“Nobody more than N.Y.C.H.A. would
like to solve these maintenance repair
issues,” said Gloria Finkelman, the author-
ity’s deputy general manager for operations.
“But our maintenance worker may or may
not be able to fix that leak.”
Several tenants citywide who came to
testify shared first-hand accounts of poor
living conditions, including ones from
Smith Houses and Lillian Wald Houses,
both in the Lower East Side.
Nearly 35 percent of Smith Houses resi-
dents recently gave N.Y.C.H.A. an “F” for
timeliness on repairs.
Miscommunications are exacerbating
the repair problems, according to tenants
and elected officials.
“So many residents come to me with ter-
rible repair problems – leaks, floods, holes –
and have no way to address their problems
because of their language barrier,” said
Smith Houses resident Chun Yin Chu, a
member of the tenant association.
Lillian Wald resident Shirley Burnett
can’t sleep in her own bedroom because
broken windows let in rainwater. The mois-
ture, she said, makes it difficult to breathe
and has caused black mold to form on the
walls.
“I used to wake up coughing all the
time,” said Burnett. “The fact that these
problems are affecting our health is unac-
ceptable.”
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver didn’t
attend the hearing, but did release a state-
ment.
“Residents of public housing are suf-
fering through unacceptable delays in get-
ting maintenance problems fixed in their
apartments. The New York City Housing
Authority must streamline and improve its
process for filing work orders and making
repairs so that tenants are not left with
half-fixed plumbing or holes in their walls
for months on end,” stated Silver.
Silver, who supported a federal law
passed last year that will direct millions of
federal dollars to public housing, promised
to “continue to work with tenants to address
these problems.”
Wind farming
in the Atlantic
The C.B. 1 Waterfront Committee voted
that Trans Elect, Inc. forge ahead with plans to
build wind farms in the Atlantic.
Their resolution states, “Trans Elect Inc.’s
project to build wind farms off the east coast
has received positive attention, and it has
been estimated that the wind farms could
produce power equal to that of five nuclear
power plants without the problems of nucle-
ar waste and potential dangers.”
The Department of Energy predicts that
electricity demand will increase by 28 percent
by the year 2035. The renewable energy source
is especially pertinent because current energy
consumption principally relies on nonrenew-
able fossil fuels, including foreign oil.
Five community members and one public
member were in favor of the resolution, and
two community members abstained.
“I don’t feel comfortable supporting this
– it’s a little judgmental,” said committee
member Joseph Lerner. “To me, it’s a little
strong, because we haven’t had a full discus-
sion of the impact.”
Member Joel Kopel asked for scientific
evidence before voting on the resolution.
Bloomberg vows to restore
two-term mayoral limits
Michael Bloomberg, in his third term as
New York City’s mayor, announced this week
that he supports a two-term limit, which left
many people scratching their heads.
“I’m voting to restore it,” the billionaire
mayor told the Associated Press and other
news outlets on Monday.
City voters will weigh in on the issue once
more on November 2.
The mayor managed to convince the
City Council to extend mayoral term limits
because of the dire circumstances of the
economic downturn. He was re-elected in
2009, though many resented his move to
change city law.
38 Peck Slip, bet. Front and South St


Find us on
&
Voted by A.M. New York and Time Out NY
"Best Groom Spa & Indie Pet Shop in NY"
Join us for THE SALTY PAW’S
3rd annual HOWL-O-WEEN PAWTY
October 31st from 5-7pm.
Tricks and treats for all and prizes
for best costumes.
Drop by for a
complimentary
treat!
BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER
Two permanent exhibits of great splendor
are opening this month in two Manhattan
museums, and though at first they seem dis-
similar, there is much that connects them.
The National Museum of the American
Indian at One Bowling Green unveiled
“Infinity of Nations” on October 23 — a
permanent installation of 700 objects from
the George Gustav Heye Center’s collection
of roughly 825,000 objects. The exhibit
includes Native American art work, cloth-
ing, ceremonial objects, utensils and more
from North, Central and South America,
much of it amassed by Heye (1874-1957)
between 1897 and his death.
The other exhibit is at the Morgan
Library and Museum, fi nancier J.P. Morgan’s
“uptown” office at 36th Street and Madison
Avenue. Pierpont Morgan, who was born
into a wealthy family in 1837, was the
quintessential capitalist of his time, grow-
ing ever richer as he shrewdly bankrolled
American railroads and industries. When he
wasn’t busy on Wall Street, Morgan turned
his attention to collecting art. In 1902, he
commissioned the firm of McKim, Mead
and White to build a marble villa to house
his large and growing holdings of books,
manuscripts, paintings, sculpture, and his-
torical and decorative objects of all kinds.
On October 30, the oldest rooms of this
villa — Morgan’s library, his offi ce, the offi ce
of his librarian Belle da Costa Greene and
the imposing entrance hall — will reopen to
the public after a $4.5 million restoration. It
marks the first major interior refurbishment
since the villa was finished in 1906.
At the time that Morgan and Heye assem-
bled their collections, first-rate art and arti-
facts were abundant and both men had an
abundance of money. The 16th amendment
to the U.S. Constitution wasn’t passed until
1913 — the year of Pierpont Morgan’s death
— making the income tax a permanent part
of the national tax system. When Morgan
died, he was worth $100 million, causing
John D. Rockefeller, who was a billionaire
(in 1913 dollars), to scoff of Morgan, “He
wasn’t even a rich man!” Both men however,
were rich enough.
Heye was born and raised in Murray Hill,
three blocks from Morgan’s home and his
subsequent library and office and came from
Standard Oil money. His friends to whom he
turned when he decided to open a museum
to house his mammoth Native American col-
lection had made fortunes in copper, rubber
Two museums debut two
new permanent exhibits
Continued on page 14
OW NTOW N
DIGEST
Search
Search History:
Searching...
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
  • p.
    • Notes
    Load more