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Seen & Heard: Progress at Bogardus Plaza
PROGRESS AT BOGARDUS PLAZA
It’s actually looking more and more like a plaza! More updates coming next week.
WELCOME AROMAS ON N. MOORE
Yves planted herbs instead of the usual blooms in its flower boxes, adding basil, cilantro, lavender, rosemary and others to the streetscape. Thanks to V. for the snap.
SCULPTURE MEETS FLORAL DESIGN
Floral designer and Tribecan Mel Furukawa, who had his eponymous store on Duane in years past, has been crafting original planters for succulents during the quarantine, and they are quite striking. They are made from pumice stone and are for sale by emailing melfurukawa@gmail.com.
HIGHCOURT COMING INTO FOCUS
Highcourt, the leisure club that has taken over the striking Grosvenor building on Broadway and White, has released a couple of renderings as it starts to accept members. (They also have a new website that describes some of the amenities.) The company will donate $100 from each initiation fee collected before August 15, up to $100,000, to organizations dedicated to racial equality and social justice for the Black community.
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This plaza will really make that part of Tribeca nice. I am sure everyone can’t wait till its done.
As long as it’s not a haven for homeless. Or a gathering spot for “protests” or worse, an occupied encampment
It feels like that plaza is taking forever to finish. It has been years! They must be almost done. How long does a small plaza like that take?!
To take your question literally, it takes more than 2.5 years. Construction started in November of 2017.
I’ve said this before, but it puts this plaza in perspective… they built the Empire State Building in 13 months.
Terrible project. Losing the turn onto Hudson has cars driving more to navigate, and, generating that much more exhaust fumes, to add a, minimally use-able, plaza, with a few tables and chairs. Costing a fortune and taking forever in the true spirit of urban bureaucracy.
I got an estimate for a bluestone patio at my house in the tony Hamptons and the self-described honest contractor quoted me an inflated price and said it would take 2.5+ years. Seems reasonable. So no need for CB1 or any other elected official/body to question it or make changes. No need at all. My contractors start next week. So exciting! #USA
Insert eye-roll
The link in the piece about Mel Furukawa’s beautiful vases and floral design doesn’t work.
Sorry, that was supposed to link to Mel’s email: melfurukawa@gmail.com. I updated the site.
This project should be the target of protests by those fighting for social justice. A group of entitled all-white stay at home moms takes over a public street and makes it theirs. At the cost of $3 million! Why aren’t those dollars being spent on something in a neighborhood that needs a park or in our schools or in our hospitals? Because the ladies who “summer” elsewhere that run the organization Victoria Weil, Anne Patterson and Jean Raguzzi thought it would be a fun project. Created under the Bloomberg administration and executed without the oversight of CB 1 and against the explicit desires of the neighborhood, this project will go down as a monument to arrogance, greed and white privilege.
Actually the only reason this project was approved by DOT is because when they surveyed the area, 78 percent of people were NOT from Tribeca.
Where did you find this fact? If DOT surveyed people in and around the plaza and they were not from Tribeca, then could they represent the large number of students who commute through there? or the workers who pass through?
And what is the evidence that CB1 had no oversight? Wasn’t the project was presented to the community board’s committees and approved by CB1? Wasn’t there a traffic study that showed the dangerous nature of that corner to from Chambers onto Hudson?
I thought I understood how this project came about but maybe not.
Yes, that was my point. That the plaza is meant to serve the many people who work and go to school in the neighborhood, not just residents, and that fact is in the plus column. Also, this in my opinion was making lemonade out of lemons; DOT intended to close that section of Hudson and the plaza makes it into a neighborhood resource rather than just a closed street. And it also makes much better use of the original Bogardus Triangle, which did not provide any shared open space.
This project was the subject of significant debate at the CB1 sub committee which took an even vote in favor vs opposed. The Chair of the committee was absent at that meeting. However when the full CB1 met in a public forum the Chair gave a strong support for the proposal, ignoring all the discussion. This simply misrepresented the support of the CB subcommittee.
The project has shown disrespect for the community it purports to serve. Victoria Weil has lied to the community board and to the media about the project. We are now more than 4 years into this project. There is still no answer for who will maintain the plaza, how will homelessness be managed, what about the rats, the litter, the overflowing garbage cans? None of this was fully considered. It is the pet project of ladies who lunch. They should be forced to account for themselves before the neighborhood, not hide in their summerhouses.