••• “A City Council-approved rezoning in the financial district to create more retail and improve public plazas along Water Street could be upended by federal flood regulations being applied to more areas of the city since Superstorm Sandy. […] At issue is a city law requiring retail stores to be built with mostly glass fronts. But along Water Street, which lies entirely in a flood zone, the space must also be able to withstand floods as high as 12 feet. And officials are unsure how that can be done. During the rezoning’s public-approval process, the planning department said property owners would be able to fortify the facade of a store with metal shields that could be attached to the building at the first sign of a flood, potentially between columns or at other anchor points, and removed once a storm passes. However, the planning department has since altered its language on its website to suggest those gates might not pass muster with the feds.” Above: 200 Water, where Rockrose is already working on the conversion. —Crain’s UPDATE 10/4: A reader points out that the proposed infill at 200 Water’s arcade is permitted by City Planning Authorization. (200 Water  along with 75 Water were removed from the Certification requirement.)

••• “Beginning in September, [Barcelona] city officials started creating a system of so-called superblocks across the city that will severely limit vehicles as a way to reduce traffic and air pollution, use public space more efficiently and essentially make neighborhoods more pleasant. […] WXY, an architecture firm in Lower Manhattan that redesigned the streets around Astor Place, offered an example of how New York might adopt the Barcelona ‘superblock.’ This area would affect roughly 30 square blocks in the financial district.” I shudder to think how this would affect the traffic on the streets adjacent to this zone. Why not instead focus on adding tolls on the East River bridges and reopening Park Row? Also, who’s going to maintain these traffic-reduced streets? The Department of Transportation has done a swell job with the raggedy pedestrian plaza it created outside Gotan. P.S. WXY is based on Centre and Grand—nowhere near its proposed superblock zone. —New York Times

••• “A 59-year-old man fatally jumped from a luxury high-rise in Battery Park City on Sunday.” It was Tribeca Pointe at 41 River Terrace. —New York Post

••• How the statue of Horace Greeley came to be in City Hall Park. —Broadsheet

••• Ground Central Coffee Co. on Coenties Slip is among the New York City cafés taking part in a “Gilmore Girls” promotion. —Eater