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OTDOWNTOWN.COM
THE BIKE KING OF MANHATTAN, < Q&A, P.14
WEEK OF APRIL
2-8 2015
OurTownDowntown @OTDowntown
FATAL ACCIDENT RENEWS HOSPITAL DEBATE Death of woman at former St. Vincent’s site again raises questions about the need for a trauma center
Howard Hughes Corp.’s Quiet Downtown Expansion
In Brief SELLING OFF THE GREENSPACE AT NYCHA
Howard Hughes has purchased buildings on this block
Air rights purchased on these blocks
BY ALAN KRAWITZ
The recent death of Trang-Thuy ‘Tina’ Nguyen, who was killed by a piece of flying construction debris near the intersection of W. 12th Street and Seventh Avenue, the former site of St. Vincent’s Hospital now being developed into luxury condos, has once again raised questions about the neighborhood’s need for a hospital with a level 1 trauma center. The soon-to-be-married Nguyen, 37, a real estate broker with Keller Williams, was killed around 6 p.m. on St. Patrick’s Day after she was struck by a section of plywood fencing from the Greenwich Lane project construction site as she walked. The fencing, blown loose by 40 mph winds, hit Nguyen with such force that it slammed her into a building across the street, where she reportedly hit her head against a Fire Department standpipe. Although the incident happened literally across Seventh Avenue from the barely year-old Lenox Hill HealthPlex, which has a free-standing emergency room, she was transported crosstown two miles through rush-hour traffic to Bellevue Hospital on First Avenue, where she was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. A Fire Department spokesman said responding EMTs determined at the scene that the nearby HealthPlex, which is not a Level 1 trauma center, was not sufficiently equipped to treat Nguyen’s injuries. “In general, patients are transported based on several factors including the patient’s condition, medical treatment needed and proximity to hospitals,” the spokesman, Frank Dwyer, said. “The nearest facility may not be the location a patient will be trans-
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Block believed to be site of possible new tower Site of proposed Howard Hughes tower (New Market Building)
Red line denotes Seaport Historic District
IS HOWARD HUGHES ABANDONING THEIR SEAPORT HIGH-RISE PLAN? Cautious optimism that developer will propose to move its luxury residential tower out of the historic district BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
The main community group opposed to the Howard Hughes Corp.’s redevelopment plans for the South Street Seaport Historic District revealed that the company has acquired several pieces of property adjacent to the district, which may
eventually be proposed as an alternative location for a 42-story residential tower the developer has been trying to build on the Seaport. Save Our Seaport, a community group that describes itself as defenders of the historic district, obtained a letter Howard Hughes sent to shareholders dated March 13. The letter disclosed the company’s acquisition of at least seven properties, including a parking lot, adjacent to the historic district. The acquisitions also include hundreds of thousands of
square feet in air rights and were all made in the last six months, according to SOS. David Sheldon, a spokesperson for Save Our Seaport, said the shareholder letter indicated that the acquisitions were part of the same assemblage, but did not say whether the site would be proposed as an alternative location for the tower. Although the company hasn’t formally announced its intentions,
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Yet another story emerged this week on a similar theme: How can a city this rich be this broke? Last week it was the crisis in our public libraries. This year, the New York City Housing Authority, which, it emerges, is $100 million in the red. By 2025, that budget gap could grow to $400 million, all while a quarter million people wait for affordable-housing space to open. So what can NYCHA do about any of this? One answer: sell off its green space to developers. According to a piece in The Daily News, the agency has quietly sold 54 plots of open space to developers since 2013 to build new affordable-housing units. More than 400,000 square feet of public land, now gone. Residents are, not surprisingly, tepid on the plan. Open space and parkland are scarce in the city, in general, and in NYCHA complexes, in particular. Parents wonder where their kids will be able to stretch their legs. “This is where the kids learned to ride their bikes,” one tenant leader told the News. “If you take that, where are they going to go?” The saddest part about all of this is that NYCHA may have few other options. Demand for affordable housing is only going up; recent counts put the NYC homeless population at the highest it’s been since World War II. And while new affordable housing units desperately need to be built, the existing stock is desperately in need of repair, with elevators, lights and stairwells chronically in disrepair. The safety of residents often is at risk as a result. So, in a city where the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment goes for more than $3,500, the very neediest among us are stuck with having to choose between a place to live and a patch of grass for the kids.