VOLUME 30, NUMBER 07
APRIL 06 – APRIL 19, 2017
DOT=NOT Going to bat City passes buck on school traffic safety
BY COLIN MIXSON City bureaucrats with the Department of Transportation are telling locals that the safety of schoolkids on the streets around the upcoming Trinity Place School isn’t their problem, and any traffic studies or changes with have to funded by the developer. Parents and school advocates are flabbergasted that the city would suddenly shift the responsibility to a private company that now has little incentive to make changes — which they see as a short-cited recipe for tragedy. “[The developer] can just build it the way it is, and then kids will get hit by cars, and then the city will fund the change — except it will cost more money at that point, and someone will already have gotten hurt,” said Eric Greenleaf, a member of the Lower Manhattan School Overcrowding Task Force. The city has purchased property within the residential development helmed by Trinity Place Holdings at 77 Greenwich Street as a site for a 476seat elementary school, which is expected to open sometime in 2022. But the narrow sidewalks surrounding the future school — and the site’s location adjacent to the bustling exit of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel — has led community members and local lawmakers to request a number of traffic changes in the area to reduce risks to students. These include closing a west-bound lane on Edgar Street between Greenwich Street and Trinity Place to accommodate a sidewalk extension that would provide plaza where students and faculty can congregate without the this of getting hit by a speeding bus, according to Community Board 1’s youth committee co-chair and member of the overcrowding task force. “All they have is this roughly 650-square feet courtyard — that’s tiny and it’s not adequate for drop off and pickup for the school,” said Tricia Joyce, a member of Community Board 1 and advocate of creating the so-called Edgar Street Pedestrian Plaza. “A plan has to be in place by the time this opens.” But bureaucrats at the city’s transit agency
Howard Hughes Corp. steps up to the plate for local Little Leaguers, replacing damaged gear BY COLIN MIXSON The Downtown Little League’s new season was saved in the bottom of the ninth when a local developer volunteered to help replace the league baseball’s gear that was discovered ruined by improper winter storage just weeks before opening day. The little league, which pro-
vides competitive outdoor baseball and softball fun for about 1,500 Downtown boys and girls, typically relies on players’ moms and dads in the off season to store the hundreds of bats, gloves, pads, and other equipment essential to the Great American Pastime. This year was no different, except that the parents who stored
Photo by Tony Falcone
Ma t z apalooz a! Bright-eyed Battery Park 3-year-old Zoe Fisher enjoyed the arts and crafts activities at “Matzapalooza!” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage on April 2, presented by the Workmen’s Circle and the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. The event included a scavenger hunt, costumes and a photo booth, klezmer music and dancing.
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all the league’s baseball paraphernalia didn’t anticipate construction work that left the equipment encrusted in caustic dust and mold, according to Community Board 1 Vice Chairman Paul Hovitz. “One of the parents volunteered to store the equipment in their building, and apparently there was construction going on, because the equipment got covered in soot and mold — and even after an extensive cleaning a lot of it was unusable,” Hovitz said. Making matters worse, the mistake was only discovered a few weeks before the league’s April 22nd opening day, Hovitz said, leaving organizers to scramble to find a well-endowed emergency sponsor who could help replace $30,000 worth of gear — and fast. “They were in trouble and they were really nervous about how to raise this kind of money,” Hovitz said. Enter Saul Scherl, executive vice president for the tri-state area at Howard Hughes Corporation, the developer transforming the oncedeclining historic South Street Seaport District into shopping and dining destination. He stressed the importance of preserving traditional pastimes and old-fashioned sportsmanship “When something like this happens, it’s important for us to help the kids,” said Scherl, “In this day and age, when we’re tied to phones and other modern-day tech, little league is so important. It’s nice that the kids get out on the field and LITTLE LEAGUE Continued on page 14