Volume 1, No. 30  Feb. 21, 2014

IN THIS ISSUE

* Community Board 1 and pols uneasy about New York City DOT takeover of LMCCC functions
* Renowned florist Emily Thompson opens South Street Seaport shop
* Bits & Bytes: Condé Nast moving to 1 World Trade Center in November
* No weekend PATH train between World Trade Center and Exchange Place for one year
* Calendar

Masthead photo: Snow in Battery Park City's South Cove with Emily Thompson flowers.
Feb. 21, 2014 (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

"We're not taking over the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center," said Luis Sanchez, lower Manhattan borough commissioner for the New York City Department of Transportation. "We're inheriting it."

It was Feb. 20 and he was addressing Community Board 1's Quality of Life Committee, with LMCCC executive director, Joseph Simenic, sitting next to him. It looks as though the LMCCC will close and that Simenic will be out of a job by the end of this month, but that is not absolutely certain.

"We still have not heard from the City," said Community Board 1 chair Catherine McVay Hughes in an email. 
 
New York State Gov. George Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg established  LMCCC in 2004 to handle post-9/11 construction. Its charter was renewed in December 2010 for three years.
 
Though the construction work continues at a hot pace in lower Manhattan, the LMCCC's charter has not been renewed, despite the efforts of all of the lower Manhattan elected officials to save it.

"The elected officials met with the Director of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey on Christmas Eve to make sure that LMCCC was extended through the transition of the new mayor and agencies," said Hughes.  "None of the projects of the funding partners are yet completed from the World Trade Center to Route 9 to the Fulton Center or Whitehall Ferry. The in-kind contributions by the City is a top Community Board 1 expense budget request."

Amid this uncertainty, six elected officials wrote to Sanchez on Feb. 19. The letter was signed by Congressman Jerrold Nadler, New York State Senator Daniel Squadron, New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, New York Assemblymember Deborah Glick, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and City Councilmember Margaret Chin.

They said in the letter that they understood that the LMCCC would be phasing out and transferring its responsibilities to DOT's lower Manhattan office. They said that their preference would be to retain the LMCCC, but that should the transfer occur, they felt it important that the level of service delivered by the LMCCC be preserved.

We have "questions and concerns about the transfer and DOT's operational ability to respond to residents' complaints, perform project coordination and do community outreach," they said in the letter. They asked to meet with Sanchez and his staff before the transfer occurred.

At the Community Board 1 meeting, Sanchez tried to reassure the committee that his department would be fully able to handle the construction issues that LMCCC has fielded for the past 10 years.

"We are already doing the majority of the construction coordination in Lower Manhattan. We attend the LMCCC meetings. We help facilitate. There already is a partnership," he said.

Hughes wanted to know who residents could call if there were noise and other construction issues. "Who will be our direct contact?" she asked.

"I think it would be more efficient if you went through our website," Sanchez replied. (The URL is http://www.nyc.gov/dot)

Formerly, residents could call the LMCCC and get help with construction-related issues.

"We're here to make everyone's lives better," said Sanchez. "We're not perfect. Mistakes happen. We'll hear about them and we'll address them immediately."

With the discussion about to turn to problems associated with idling tour buses, Simenic got up to leave. The committee applauded him as he walked out.

142 Beekman St. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

Earlier this week, snow was falling outside of Emily Thompson's newly opened flower shop at the corner of Front and Beekman Streets in the South Street Seaport, a counterpoint to the beguiling array of intense colors within.

Thompson, who trained as a sculptor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and U.C.L.A., now sculpts with flowers that she combines with branches and objects such as bird and wasp nests, sinuous strings of dates, sea fans and other finds from the natural world.

She stumbled into the flower business around 14 years ago when she created the floral arrangements for her brother's wedding. Other requests for wedding decorations followed and soon she began to charge for them. "I found I had a strong idea of what things should look like from the beginning," she remarked. "I love working with foliage and branches. My love really is for the natural world in general."

Her artistry eventually led to commissions from the Museum of Modern Art, Lincoln Center, the Frick Collection and the White House, where she designed the annual holiday floral decorations.

"We do quite surprising installations," she said. "I think our work often falls into the art world, partly because that's where I came from." She mentions creating the floral decorations for a memorial to musician, artist and impresario Malcolm McLaren and for his Performa awards. But she and her staff of seven also make and sell small arrangements that could adorn a room or serve as a gift.

"We work with more fragile materials than standard florists," she said. "People are so familiar with deli flowers and flowers that are meant to last a week or more. They're often grown under horrible growing practices. They have no character. We try to choose materials that show the whole growing cycle. Hopefully, people will enjoy them as they fade and wilt and drop their petals. To me, that's a huge part of the romance of materials - loving them in different stages of their lives."

She likes to buy her flowers in New York's century-old flower district on 28th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues in Manhattan. "It's wonderful to be able to hold and smell and touch and see all the materials before you buy them," she said, "rather than having to do everything on some kind of abstract order list."

Thompson's arrangements can cost several hundred dollars but they start at under $30. "We work with expensive materials," she said, "but we want everyone to feel that there's something they can walk away with if they want to."

Thompson moved her business to the Seaport from DUMBO in Brooklyn. She says of her brick-walled space that "it's absolutely beautiful. We didn't find anything that came close in beauty and light and in the wonderful community here."

The shop is at 142 Beekman St. It is open Wednesdays to Saturdays, noon to 7 p.m. and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. and by appointment. The phone number is (212) 882-1384. For more information, click here.

An assortment of flowers with character. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

"Condé Nast W.T.C. move begins November," Capital, 2/18/14. "Condé Nast is beginning the rollout of its upcoming move to 1 World Trade Center, the soaring skyscraper where it has agreed to live for at least the next 25 years," Capital reports. The move of the media giant from its offices at 4 Times Square will begin in November. Capital speculates that the arrival of Condé Nast will have "a transformative potential for Lower Manhattan, which has slowly but steadily been rebuilding its economy since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Condé Nast's glamorous employees are expected to bring a new cachet to the area around the new World Trade Center, raising the bar for local food, retail and hospitality businesses." For the complete article, click here.

"NYSE trading down as space needs shrink," The Real Deal, 2/18/14. "The New York Stock Exchange is reducing its workforce in downtown Manhattan and with it, the amount of space it needs," says The Real Deal. "The exchange operates its trading floor at its iconic 11 Wall Street headquarters, and also leases the adjacent 27-story tower at 20 Broad Street. The lease for the latter property is set to expire in 2016. The owner of the exchange, IntercontinentalExchange Group, is considering moving some operations to its home base in Atlanta, according to Crain's." For the complete article, click here.

"Popular gym Trinity Box Club faces eviction ," New York Post, 2/19/14. "A Lower Manhattan boxing gym that draws a diverse crowd from Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony to Wall Street traders and even Manhattan DA Cy Vance's boxing club, is facing eviction by a scheming landlord, the club owner claims in a new lawsuit," reported by the New York Post. "Trinity Box Club owner Martin Snow, not one to go down without a fight, sued the owners of 110 Greenwich St. in Manhattan civil court on Tuesday. The Brooklyn-born Snow claims the landlord, Tom Jakobson of Jakobson Properties, fraudulently used a loophole in a lease agreement to boot the Golden Gloves finalist-turned-gym owner to the curb on Feb. 28." For the complete article, click here.

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Editor: Terese Loeb Kreuzer

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