"George T. Moon was here a hundred years ago." - Artist Naima Rauam, explaining how she chose the names of the fishmongers that appear in the paintings of the Fulton Fish Market, which she is now creating on the exterior of a building on Schermerhorn Row in the South Street Seaport.

"Downtown asking rents drop sharply," The Real Deal, 6/2/14. "Despite large leasing deals such as Time Inc. relocating to Lower Manhattan last month, the average asking rent in all three Manhattan markets ticked down in May, the first time that has happened in at least a year," says The Real Deal. "Some leasing executives took the decline in stride, explaining that it was the result of expensive space being taken off the market. But others saw it as part of a broader trend underscoring a relative weakening of the landlord's position in the Manhattan leasing game.
In the market's most high-profile price cut, the Durst Organization and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey cut the asking rent for large tenants eyeing mid-tower space in One World Trade Center by about 10 percent to $69 per foot. The 3.1 million-square-foot skyscraper is just 55 percent leased." For the complete article, click here.

"Zuccotti presses for 3 WTC development," New York Post, 6/1/14. "Brookfield Office Properties co-chairman John Zuccotti wants to see 3 World Trade Center built soon, even though it would create more competition for his own Brookfield Place complex," says the New York Post.
Zuccotti believes that having 3 WTC built "takes a major step forward to generate the critical mass of street level retail and streetscape to continue to make the [whole] project successful," according to the Post. More than 1 million square feet of space remain available at Zuccotti's own development, Brookfield Place, despite a recent giant lease-signing with Time Inc. For the complete article, click here.

"At Pier 17, piles of rubble and plans for the future," Capital, 5/30/14. Much of the old mall

Pier 17 being demolished. (Photo: Terese Loeb Kreuzer)

on Pier 17 "has been reduced to a pile of rubble," says Capital. "A boat ride around the pier on Thursday afternoon revealed that a demolition crew has taken down some three quarters of the old mall and is just a few weeks away from a more momentous feat: Disassembling the entire pier. What will follow that four-month process is a brand new platform and a glassy mall-park hybrid that will become the crowning achievement of Howard Hughes Corp.'s redevelopment of the South Street Seaport, said Adam Meister, the vice president of development for the company. The new building should be complete in 2016, he said." For the complete article, click here.

"Visitors Fault Sept. 11 Museum's Portrayal of Islam," New York Times, 6/1/14. "After the vivid audio recordings, diagrams and personal artifacts that take visitors minute by minute through the Sept. 11 attacks, and before the images of recovery workers combing through rubble, a small section of the National September 11 Memorial Museum is devoted to explaining Al Qaeda and terrorism," says The New York Times. "A seven-minute video installation narrates a summarized history of Al Qaeda, opposite a series of brief explanatory panels about the group's ideology and its attacks. On a recent weekday, some visitors stopped to watch the film in its entirety, but others only paused briefly. Some read the text panels, one of which explains that Al Qaeda represents a tiny fraction of the world's Muslims; many people did not. In April, the video, 'The Rise of Al Qaeda,' became the center of a controversy over how the museum should talk about Islam in reference to the attacks. An interfaith group of New York clergy members argued the film failed to sufficiently differentiate between terrorism and Islam, and asked for changes. Now that the public has access to the museum, some visitors say they agree." For the complete article, click here.