Seen & Heard: Dangerous Intersection in Northwest Tribeca

••• Good news for Tent & Trails and Dr. Lewis Gross: The sidewalk shed at 19 Park Place appears to finally be coming down.

••• The construction at 440 Washington has made the intersection of Washington and Desbrosses even more dangerous—no matter where you’re crossing, you’re stuck in the middle of the street. I’ll say it again: How can the Department of Transportation, the Department of Buildings, Community Board 1, and our nominal city councilperson Margaret Chin allow 456 Greenwich to take over the sidewalk for a year for no good reason?

••• From Global Goods Partners: “Join us in celebrating female empowerment at Canal Street Market with other RAD women-led vendors for a 3-day Women’s Equality Day Bazaar. 20% of proceeds from the bazaar will fund education scholarships for Guatemalan girls.” It’s today through Saturday.

••• That’s the Sphere sculpture, waiting to be unveiled at Liberty Park. Presumably the Port Authority is waiting for politicians to become available.

••• Turning around, I was struck by how pretty the green part of the 9/11 Memorial is, and how unfortunate that all that space is essentially wasted; the design forces people away from the green—which the surrounding office park could really use—and toward the giant drains.

••• A late-but-lovely addition to the eclipse photos, from Jane: “These photos show the partially eclipsed sun shining through the leaves on a tree so it’s like hundreds of pinhole images projected on the ground; they are also inverted like a pinhole camera where the light beam hits the side of the aperture and inverts the projected shadow. In other words, this is the first half of the eclipse; the second half of the eclipse cast shadows with the light filtered through on the opposite side as below.”

 

15 Comments

  1. Glad you pointed out the 440 Washington / 456 Greenwich intersection madness. There’s also no stop sign on Desbrosses, so cars come through the blind intersection without slowing down.

    On another note, watch the Washington / Vestry intersection. Cars pull off the W S Hwy and don’t even slow down for the stop sign there. Cars also roll up Washington street without stopping. Near misses every single day.

    The only reason somebody hasn’t gotten run over in NW Tribeca is that its fairly lightly trafficked by pedestrians. Accident waiting to happen.

    • The Washington and Desbrosses intersection is incredibly dangerous – completely blind at times

      • Someone actually did get hit by a car on vestry between Greenwich and Hudson last week. The car was reversing so as not to hit the Hudson street traffic (and back all the way down vestry onto greenwich to avoid it which cars do all the time) and ran over a woman (it seems she broke her arm). There’s zero enforcement of anything on Vestry.

  2. Thank you for pointing out the incredibly dangerous intersection on Desbrosses. It is a tragedy just waiting to happen and totally unconscionable that our city agencies and “representatives” allow this precarious situation to persist. The only possible explanations could be sheer laziness and incompetence or corruption. All we can seemingly do is keep leaving messages at 311, evidently to no avail.

  3. That intersection is incredibly dangerous. I live in the area and it’s really upsetting. I actually do know someone who was hit by a car crossing the street there (the car was moving slow thank goodness, so no damage on either end). Something has got to change!

    Has any one has any luck with 311 or any other outlets?

  4. Maybe we should do an online petition to Chin, CB1, etc? Or a plan for all of us to call within a short period of time, which is, of course, the more effective response.

  5. Erik – I have made a complaint about this matter on the Councilmember’s website recently.

    Have you ever formally asked the Councilmember’s press liaison for a response about this issue? Would you consider it?

    Thank you.

    “For all media inquiries, please contact Marian Guerra at mguerra@council.nyc.gov or 212-788-7259″

    • I haven’t forgiven Chin’s organization for refusing to address my issue with amplified sound on Broadway, so no, I’d prefer not to contact them. But I hereby deputize anyone who would like to reach out to Guerra as a TC representative.

      • “Nominal” is polite. Councilwoman Chin is useless. She’s on the Council’s Transportation Committee, but probably has no idea, after a year, about that intersection. Anything about quality of life issues with her – I tried in FiDi with her office for years to address noise and traffic, as did many neighbors – is a non-starter. Maybe a different story if you make a campaign contribution.

  6. All of the intersections on washington between Hubert and Canal are sketchy. Especially between 4 and 7 pm M-F. Stop signs are optional for most drivers, everyone is trying to beat the next person into the line for the tunnel. I have talked to the traffic “police” guys that stand at the intersections of Canal/West Side Hwy and Hudson/Canal. They have all told me they are not allowed to write tickets. I have seen them watch cars drive around the temp barricade onto sidewalk at Wash/Watts and not do anything.

    • Traffic enforcement agents are not allowed to write tickets for moving violations; only actual police officers are. The state legally reclassified blocking the intersection as a standing violation in order to allow them to write drivers up for that.

  7. I have made an online complaint to the DOT. Maybe if they are flooded with them, they will actually take a look.

    http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/contact/contact-form.shtml?routing=lm

  8. thanks to all our neighbors for caring. i , too, had filed a complaint via 311. maybe if enough of us complain, the city will take some action.–nowww– while i’m at it, has anyone else complained about the condition of (cobbled/hobbled) Greenwich St between Canal and Beach.?

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