By Matt Chaban and Stephen Duffy 1/16 10:31am

Troubling Developments

7 Photos

3087568631_aa11d17eab_b

Bloomberg Has Fight On His Hands To Sell Three City Buildings

Outside a freezing cold Chambers Street municipal building Friday afternoon, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer stressed his commitment to block any sale by the Bloomberg administration of three Lower Manhattan buildings owned by the city.

The mayor made reference to the sale in his State of the City last week, involving 22 Reade Street, 49-51 Chambers Street and 346 Broadway, part of the effort to streamline government, in this case through the consolidation and co-location of government office. The borough president argues, however, that the buildings might be put to better use than being sold off for private development.

“By any measure this Lower Manhattan community is suffering from overcrowded classrooms, school shortages and a lack of affordable housing to meet the needs of its constituents,” said Mr. Stringer, who is expected to run for mayor. He seems to have found a special loophole because the city is selling the property through the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which the borough president argues offers him oversight of the sales.

“If you try to get rid of these buildings through the E.D.C. process,” Mr. Stringer continued, “you must go before the Borough Board and that’s where there will be a final say and that’s why I’m here today to let the Mayor and those at City Government know that we’re all going to have to work together on this.” Read More

By Stephen Duffy 11/30/11 6:13pm

Greensward

Open 'er up. (Spencer Tucker)

When Some Blacktop and Monkey Bars Will Do

One of the cornerstones of the Bloomberg administration’s PlaNYC 2030 was ensuring every New Yorker lived within 10 minutes of a park. That is tricky, real estate being the valuable commodity that it is, so building new parks is not always easy—we had to construct one on a derelict railway, for godsakes!

So the administration came up with the clever idea of opening up city schoolyards to the community after school. Today in Jackson Heights, Mayor Bloomberg and the Parks Department celebrated the 200th playground opening. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/29/11 11:00pm

Design Within Reach?

City Hall, under renovation. (Spencer Tucker)

Big Architecture: AIA New York Has Shaped the City, But Can it Reshape City Hall?

Last month, Mayor Bloomberg stood in a shiny white conference room inside Department of Buildings headquarters on lower Broadway, two blocks from City Hall. He was surrounded by some of his top deputies and a giant flatscreen monitor mounted on the wall. Welcome to the Hub, a new high-tech system that allows the city’s architects and engineers for the first time to interface with plan examiners at the 17 different departments with oversight of their projects simultaneously.

“We all heard horror stories about delays in the approval process that cost time and money,” Mayor Bloomberg told reporters.

Standing at the podium beside the buildings commissioner and landmarks chair, closer to the mayor than the reps for the Real Estate Board and developer the Related Companies, was a striking woman in a black tweed dress and gray cardigan.

Margaret O’Donoghue Castillo, along with her members at the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects, where she is currently serving as president, have told the city more of these horror stories than anyone else, and it was through their advocacy, their lobbying, that encouraged the mayor and the Department of Buildings to create the Hub. Read More

By Stephen Duffy 11/23/11 2:41pm

Planes Trains & Automobiles

All aboard - well almost...

Handicapped? Want a Taxi? City Says Try Walking

When NYC’s ‘Taxi of Tomorrow’ – a Nissan NV200 – was first unveiled to the public last month, one of the glaring omissions was the lack of wheelchair access. Not surprisingly this prompted several disability rights groups to bring a lawsuit against the city, stating that the design violated the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Slightly more surprising was the U.S. Attorneys office come out in supporting of them. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/15/11 11:11am

Occupy Wall Street

Zuccotti Park rangers. (Getty)

Brookfield: Thank You Mayor Bloomberg for Letting Us Clean Up Zuccotti Park

Brookfield Properties has just released a statement thanking the mayor and the city agencies that evicted the Occupy Wall Street protestors in the predawn hours this morning. It is not clear what exactly set this off, perhaps it was the injured paramedic the mayor has made reference to, but as he said it today’s press conference, “We have been in constant contact with Brookfield and yesterday they requested that the City assist it in enforcing the no sleeping and camping rules in the park.”

The feeling on both sides was that the situation had deteriorated to such a point that action was necessary. “In our view, these risks were unacceptable and it would have been irresponsible to not request that the City take action,” Brookfield said in its statement, which you can read in full below. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/15/11 10:11am

Occupy Wall Street

Protest art!

Why Do Vendors Get Tents in Parks and Not Occupy Wall Street?

Robert Lederman, a crusading artist and a bit of crank who was a frequent antagonist of Mayor Giuliani, thinks the Bloomberg administration is being two-faced in expelling the Occupy Wall Street protestors tents from Zuccotti Park. He points to tents set up for holiday markets as the unjust, commercial expropriation of public space.

The holiday vendors have permits, of course, and a portion of their proceeds goes to the parks they occupy, so there appears to be a public good here, whatever your opinion of overpriced tchokes. Mr. Lederman has his own agenda, as he has run afoul of the city for trying to sell art in parks without permits. Still, his thoughts, which he just emailed around, are intriguing in light of last night’s events. Read More

By Matt Chaban 11/15/11 7:08am

Occupy Wall Street

At least someone is smiling. (Getty_

Bloomberg: At Zuccotti Park 'Inaction Was Not an Option'

Many New Yorkers are waking up to a different city this morning, one that has, at least temporarily, been unoccupied. While many were sleeping, police massed at the edged of Zuccotti Park and began evicting the protesters encamped there. What was not immediately clear was why. Less than an hour ago, the Bloomberg administration released a statement finally beginning to answer that question.

The mayor said that protestors had become too much of a hazard to the community, to the first responders watching over them and to themselves. Brookfield requested the city take action, but they have been for some time.

Why November 15 was the day things had gone too far remains an open question. What is not is that this was Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s call, and while he continued to defend the protesters’ rights to assemble and speak out, he said he could no longer standby and allow the park to continue as an urban Woodstock. “Protestors have had two months to occupy the park with tents and sleeping bags,” he concluded. “Now they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments.”

His full statement after the jump. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/20/11 10:51am

on the waterfront

Keep 'em coming. (Getty)

Governor’s Island Gets Rained Out, So What’s on the Horizon?

Since it opened in 2006, around this time each year, a press release would shoot out from Governor’s Island, a torpedo blasting across the harbor, trumpeting the latest attendance numbers. The ice-cream-cone-shaped island, for most of its life an off-limits military compound, had reason to crow. It’s visitor’s numbers were soaring, putting to rest questions of its viability as a new public park—purchased for all of $1 from the U.S. government in 2005. From 26,000 visitors that first year, attendance jumped to 443,000 last year, 60 percent what it had been the year before.

This year, there has been no press release, no champagne. Read More