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••• From a Tribeca Trib article on the mayor’s plan to build a 40-story jail tower at 80 Centre: “Patrick Gallahue, a spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, told the Trib in a statement that meetings had been held with ‘community groups and local elected officials, and conducted focus groups with facility staff, service providers, defenders, educators, formally detained people and families of justice-involved people, among others.’ Gallahue did not specify what community groups or elected officials the city had consulted, but added, ‘Engagement with the community will accelerate and build in the weeks and months ahead and there will be myriad opportunities for neighborhood leaders and residents to provide feedback on design, program, neighborhood integration as well as a range of quality of life concerns within the neighborhoods where these sites will be located.’ Additional meetings, he said, will be held on ‘measures to integrate and invest in the adjacent neighborhood.’ The city’s first public meeting on the plan is scheduled for Sept. 27, at 6 p.m., at the Manhattan Borough President’s office, 1 Centre St., 19th floor.” Also of note in the article: City councilmember Margaret Chin appears not to oppose the plan, and is only trying to get concessions along the lines of community space, such as senior housing; also, the Trib’s map shows how the tower is adjacent to three parks, which will undoubtedly suffer from the proximity.
••• More on the Chapman family’s Greenwich Street beehive. —New York Post
••• “Public Comment Period Extended for Resiliency Barrier Proposals.” —Broadsheet
••• VBar in the Seaport is now Taco Playa. —FiDi Fan Page
••• “Meryl Streep has listed her stunning Tribeca penthouse in the River Lofts condominium for $24.6 million [….] Streep, along with husband Donald Gummer, closed on the four-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom penthouse for $10.13 million in 2006, per public records.'” —Curbed
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“formally detained people”
Perhaps the Trib meant prisoners held by correction officers garbed in tuxedos?
Hopefully this spokesman actually said “formerly detained people.”
Apparently not. It’s in the Mayor’s written press release.
“To date, the City has held meetings with community groups and local elected officials and conducted focus groups with correctional officers, service providers, defenders, educators, formally detained people and families of justice-involved people, among others.”
https://www1.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/413-18/de-blasio-administration-plans-borough-based-jails-replace-facilities-rikers
Please sign and forward along this petition against the jail.
https://www.change.org/p/mayor-bill-de-blasio-manhattan-detention-center-mdc
Time to write Councilmember Chin and start strongly voicing our views on this.
What community input was really taken, and actually considered?
The “hearing” sounds like a joke, because it sounds like the decision was covertly made already.
Esteemed Councilperson Chin assumes this is a done deal, like most development projects in the deBlasio era (see One Manhattan Square in Two Bridges), so she prefers to “extort”–by pretending to threaten the project–as much in concessions as she can that will earn political points for herself. The value those concessions bring to some of her constituents is peanuts compared to the value that opposing this scheme would bring to all of her constituents IMO.
“… there will be myriad opportunities for neighborhood leaders and residents to provide feedback on design, program, neighborhood integration as well as a range of quality of life concerns within the neighborhoods.”
Rather misses the point, as it assumes this is a fait accompli.
Instead:
Where and how do we provide feedback to reject the entire plan?
Good luck. The Mayor is now committed and he will stick with it to save face.
To change government decisions, it helps to do it before anybody knows they are being made.
Remember that the closure itself will happen most likely long after this mayor is long gone….
What’s the timetable for the proposed Chinatown branch?
If that’s also going into the next mayor’s term, there may be a chance of a change of plan at that point.
As for now, how much pull do community associations have in possibly rejection of the plan?
Marcus, if you really want to know who has the pull:
“Every City Council member whose district includes one of the proposed jails has come out in support of the plan so far. This includes Diana Ayala, Margaret Chin, Stephen Levin and Karen Koslowitz, who were all quoted in a Wednesday press release stating their support. This may be pivotal, since local City Council members have significant sway over local land use decisions.”
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/policy/criminal-justice/new-york-city-replace-rikers-new-jails.html
Well perhaps it’s not too late to reverse that “support” by Councilmember Chin, if enough of us voice our dissatisfaction to her office directly.
Close Rikers! We all need to take our share of the burden, just like we all need to have the trash we generate disposed of in our neighborhood and not where “those other people live”.
Can you refute the notion that a disproportionately low percentage (by population) of Riker’s Island “detainees” live in or are arrested in the area of the proposed jail “neighborhood?” If not, your trash analogy is a fallacy.
you know that is not the issue. The argument is the same though – not in my backyard. It will hurt property values, there will be congestion, where will the children play? All the environmental and progressive causes get pulled out for self serving reasons. Rikers is old, inaccessible to families and lawyers who need to visit. The Tombs is two locks away, why not a jail too.
Isn’t the convenience of detainees, their families, and their attorneys–especially in an era of cheap video conferencing–also either their “self serving reason” or a “progressive cause”?
The alternative is not where “those other people live”; it’s where no people live. That’s the point of an isolated location like Rikers. It’s an island. Instead we should put it a dense neighborhood, next to a city park where children play?
Rikers escape shows why city shouldn’t close the jail
https://nypost.com/2017/07/27/rikers-escape-shows-why-city-shouldnt-close-the-jail/
Remember the vitriol and rage when the planned
Department of Sanitation structures were announced
on West and Spring? What a wonderful and
good looking addition they make to our neighborhood. And we gave the South Bronx a break.
Formally detained people clean, scrub and maintain
our river parks and streets all day and into the night.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/06/nyregion/alternatives-to-jail-can-be-hard-labor-or-stroll-in-the-park.html