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History of Tribeca Buildings
In the News: Teenager Fell to Her Death from Fire Escape
••• Just horrible: “A teenager fell to her death from a Tribeca fire escape during a house party on Sunday night, sources said. The 15-year-old girl was at a building on Reade Street near West Broadway attending a party, according to law enforcement sources.” —New York Post UPDATE: She “went out onto the fire escape during a Tribeca house party to try to retrieve her cell phone from a locked room.” —New York Daily News UPDATE: The Daily News identified the girl as Imogen Roche. “The aspiring actor and dancer appeared in short films posted online by Manhattan Youth, an after-school program run by her father, Theseus Roche.” UPDATE: “She didn’t fall off a fire escape in the front of the building,” says a source. “She fell out a back window into an air shaft. The stain on the sidewalk is completely unrelated trash, not blood.”
••• The New York Times has a long-ish article on that big oyster found at Pier 40. Meanwhile, the paper has yet to mention the city’s plan to build a 40-story jail tower on Worth Street.
••• “How Burak Cakmak, Dean of Fashion at Parsons, Spends His Sundays: The Turkish-born school administrator starts his day off with espresso-induced exercise, followed by a ritual feast and a visit to a museum.” He lives in FiDi. —New York Times
••• “The rear wall of 83-85 Worth Street may not be much to look at. But then again, the old facade has looked pretty much like that for nearly 160 years. The rows of small, iron-framed windows recall a distant past […]. Calling the weathered wall worthy of saving, the Landmarks Preservation Commission recently rejected a developer’s proposal, part of a condominium conversion plan, to transform this largely intact remnant of Tribeca’s industrial history into a rear facade of big, airy picture windows, with French doors and balconies. Though hidden from public view—the LPC normally considers alterations visible from the street—this wall got special protection.” —Tribeca Trib
••• A New York Times “special report”—more of a photo essay, and not online—looks at the vacant stretches of retail around the city, which is nice. But Canal and Mercer is not Chinatown! And neither is Church Street Surplus! (The latter is featured in a caption to a photo of Lafayette above Canal.)
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NY Times isn’t the paper it used to be. Now just lives on its name alone. The reporting is not even reporting anymore. Sad to call it my hometown newspaper.
Condolences to the neighbors at Manhattan Youth who just lost one of their own. Rest in peace.
Someone should start a campaign to name the new jail after deBlasio and Margaret Chin.
Regarding the jail, it looks like we’ve been here before, in 1982:
A plan to build a jail “on a site bounded by Centre, Baxter, Walker and White Streets”.
When I searched the Times for news about the jail plan, I found this old article. The encouraging news it that massive protests did work to prevent this misguided project. Will we all be able to rally enough to prevent construction of the current equally problematic proposed jail?
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/19/business/action-on-chinatown-jail-put-off-after-protest.html
This is something I find terribly frustrating about the railing against this planned facility. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I was here in 1982. The facility on the block bordered by Centre, Baxter, Walker and White WAS ultimately built. It is the Manhattan Detention Center (formerly called the Bernard Kerik Detention Center). It is an active and safe facility that has never been an imposition on the community to the best of my knowledge. That stretch of real estate is ALL detention facilities. Though I can’t comment on the details of this particular construction plan, with which I’m not familiar, it does not strike me as a completely outrageous or untoward proposal to expand and improve the existing building use scheme of that locale.
There are many reasons against the jail project. The neighborhood has already absorbed enough of this “responsibility”, and does not want more.
– insanely expensive ($19 billion estimate, which will surely be far more)
– no evidence it will solve the problems of Rikers, including the violence; the violence will just be moved right inside the city
– Assessment required: is this a safety risk?
– moving Rikers’ “culture of violence” into the neighborhoods
– vandalizing an existing building with a high-rise monstrosity
– congestion/traffic
– various arguments here and elsewhere:
https://www.boweryboogie.com/2018/08/why-the-chinatown-jail-proposal-is-a-terrible-idea-op-ed/
http://thechiefleader.com/news/news_of_the_week/doi-to-council-closing-rikers-won-t-fix-systemic-woes/article_727b3764-3368-11e8-9009-f7091176de26.html
https://nypost.com/2018/03/26/investigation-chief-moving-rikers-inmates-wont-stop-jail-violence/
etc.
I appreciate your posting this and will read the arguments. I have to admit that I start out skeptical. Will it increase traffic? The area is already filled with courts and municipal offices, so I don’t really see traffic patterns changing (it’s not like they’re putting in a sports stadium). Discussions about defiling “sacred” antique architecture that was never good architecture to begin with tend to get me into trouble, so I won’t comment on the “vandalizing” of an “existing building”. And as far as risk goes, does anyone really predict an Attica-type situation? Prison breaks are exceedingly rare, and it’s not like there are going to be psychopaths roaming the streets instead of occupying very secure cells.
But I’m just voicing my uncertainty about the objections, I’m not trying to be contrary, and will keep my mind open to the arguments.
Incidentally, I’ve begun skimming those links and the arguments presented are mostly tendentious, in my opinion. Also, they are sprinkled with gestures that betray a political alignment that I can’t support. When one writer hashtags the word “FullLibtard” I close the door on anything else they have to say.
Again, I’ll keep my mind open, but not to BS.
Rest in peace
So tragic. So heartbreaking. So young. Prayers of strength to the father and mother.