More to come following the mayor’s press conference…
UPDATE 12:45 P.M. For more details about the mayor’s new Community Parks Initiative, click here. A few points that caught our eye:
“More than 70 new seasonal recreational programming and maintenance staff will activate and improve parks in all Community Parks Initiative communities.”
“NYC Parks will rebuild 35 community parks. Each of these capital – or major physical improvement – projects will be
developed with community input on the design principles and program. With your help, we will re-create the following community parks.”
“Parks will carry out many smaller-scale park improvement projects that can be completed on a faster schedule and bring immediate results to communities. Targeted improvement projects will happen throughout the Community Park Initiative zones, which are the areas that are shaded in gray on the map.”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg came to the Lower East Side this morning to announce that the Seward Park project, delayed for four decades, was finally a “done deal.”
Standing in an abandoned building of the Essex Street Market with some of the city’s biggest developers, community partners and neighborhood activists, he called Essex Crossing (the official name of the project) a “wonderful thing” that will bring “the new housing, jobs and open space Lower East Siders want and need and deserve.”
Word got out yesterday that the residential, commercial and community-oriented complex would be built by L+M Development Partners, BFC Partners, and Taconic Investment Partners. They’re paying the city $180 million for the site and investing a total of $1.1 billion to build the new community at the base of the Williamsburg Bridge over the next decade. Groundbreaking is expected in the spring of 2015; the first buildings are projected to open in the summer of 2018. The architectura
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Here’s a followup to a story we reported over the summer: the sorry state of the new benches on the Pike/Allen Street pedestrian mall. State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver had sent a letter to the Parks Department, urging the replacement of the wooden slats in the benches, which had either been “broken or removed.” The other night, during a community board meeting, Parks Department staff members said they’re working on repairing the benches.
Here’s what an agency spokesperson told us yesterday about the situation. Apparently there was a problem with the “treatment process” used on the wood slats. The contractors responsible for the job have agreed to fix the benches without passing on any additional costs to the city. The replacement slats will be made from wood supplied by a different vendor. “Once they are approved for exceeding the strength requirements,” the spokesperson said, the new slats will be manufactured and installed during the winter.
Knickerbocker Village residents held a rally on Cherry Street yesterday.
Here’s the latest on the situation at Knickerbocker Village, the 1590-unit apartment complex on Monroe Street that remains mostly without power and heat this morning. Yesterday, exasperated residents gathered on the basketball courts across from the historic affordable housing buildings to begin laying the groundwork for a potential rent strike and/or class action lawsuit (more on that in a moment).
Building management reported last night that two generators are in the process of being connected to Knickerbocker Village’s “internal grid,” a slow process which is being conducted with “safety (being) the primary concern.” A third generator is expected to be delivered today. According to management, power was restored to around 250 apartments last night. The plan was to light “quadrants” of the buildings in phases.