In the News: Seeking landmark status for two local gems

SEEKING LANDMARK STATUS FOR TWO CLASSICS
The Trib covered a CB1 meeting noting that the board has asked the Landmarks Preservation Commission to consider landmark status for the terracotta Post Office building at Canal and Church and the Rawitser Building at 285 West Broadway, on the corner of Canal, that once had Canal Street Oysters. “Both buildings lie just outside the Tribeca North Historic District and, with the potential loosening of zoning regulations, are ‘open to major modifications or worse, demolition…,’ CB1 said in its resolution. These recommendations follow the board’s support for a request for evaluation of 60 Wall Street and its atrium for landmark status.”

LOVING ONE WHITE’S HOME-GROWN MICROGREENS
The New Yorker loves the microgreens at One White Street, and also notes that the tasting menu is just on one floor: “The chef’s plans have evolved in response to the community’s obvious preference for a neighborhood hangout. Now only the second floor is reserved for the tasting menu, with the third and ground floors, along with extensive outdoor seating, offering a more casual, but commensurately vibrant, à-la-carte menu.”

TICKETING TAYLOR SWIFT
The Post took the time to look up the Sanitation summonses for Taylor Swift’s houses on Franklin Street, and discovered 32 tickets for a dirty sidewalk accumulated in the past five years. I think that is about the same as our building has gotten for everything from leaves (!) from the street trees to a single coffee cup. From The Post: “Between January 2018 and January 2023, Sanitation inspectors dinged Swift, 33, for failing to clean the area in front of her building, having a dirty sidewalk, and improperly disposing of garbage…including piles of newspapers, bottles and cardboard; napkins and wrappers; and ‘scattered ashtray contents’ and a cigarette carton, according to the summonses.”

CRACKING DOWN ON CANNABIS
Crains’ has a story on the state’s efforts to crack down on illegal cannabis stores, largely so the legal ones can be successful. The chair of the New York Cannabis Control Board said “the agency would work with state tax agents, local police and consumer-protection officials to rein in the estimated 1,500 unlicensed retailers around the city that sell pre-rolled joints, edibles and other forms of marijuana. Authorities are also investigating landlords who rent them space…In the last two years, unlicensed cannabis shops have spread across the city like a weed because profits, after rent and other expenses, range from $1,000 to $15,000 a day, according to Paula Collins, a Manhattan attorney who specializes in the business of cannabis.”

 

 

11 Comments

  1. These “crackdowns” are a joke. If there were any will to enforce the law, these places would be shut down in an instant.

  2. My building on Murray Street has also received summonses from DOS. It is terribly unfair that building owners have to pay for the jerks who leave their lunches and drinks behind, who drop wrappers blithely as they walk past your building, whose dogs shiite all around your stoop. I imagine T.S. has more than her share of folks doing just that outside her building.

    • We’ve gotten the tickets/fines also, quite frequently, even though our super cleans the sidewalk at least once per day. He can’t monitor it 24 hours/day. We’ve gotten tickets/fines even just for one small piece of paper that was out in the street, not even on the sidewalk. Apparently we are responsible not just for keeping the sidewalk clean, but for keeping the street clean, every second of the day as well.

      Meanwhile, I have NEVER seen anyone get fined for littering in all my years in NYC. Yes, people leave all sorts of gifts for us daily on our sidewalk, doorstep, window ledges, etc.: bottles, cans, coffee cups, cigarettes, food (recent additions include pizza crusts and banana peels). And, of course, lots of pee.

  3. The problem is that our State enacted no enforceable laws as part of its legalization. These raids have been done by the Sheriff, part of Dept of Finance ostensibly looking for untaxed cigarettes. Blame the knuckleheads in Albany who wanted tax revenue and social justice, and paid lip service to public order.

  4. Still waiting to receive notice of when one came visit the CB1 to complain. I don’t want to show up and be told wrong platform or wrong day ma’am
    I’m telling you if this is handled now it’s going to get out of hand. Church between reade and chambers have now become a hangout. Once they pulled out the milk crates as benches and all they do is smoke weed while their friend come around. Just wait and see once the shoot outs starts.

  5. Speaking of crack downs, the counterfeit bazaar on Broadway/Canal is growing every minute. It’s a daily reminder what kind of city government we have.

    • It’s a disgrace. The sidewalks have become impassable. Congested around the subway entrances/exits. It’s spread down Canal Street all the way past the post office. One day, I saw police giving a ticket to some of the sellers, but otherwise chatting in a friendly way with them and apparently joking around. Some of the sellers temporarily half-covered their wares with a blanket, others didn’t even bother doing that. None of them left. As soon as the police left, blankets were removed, and “business” just carried on.

      I asked the police afterwards what can be done, and they just said all they can do is write a “summons”. How does this make any sense? Are our laws just a joke?

      I also blame the buyers, who perpetuate this “business”, and support organized crime through their purchases.

      • I totally agree about unprecedented indifference of law enforcement to Canal street market and the mess it leaves behind every night. I always wander if it is possible for neighbours to organise and deal with it as a group? Or do people are getting just used to it and treating it as new normal.

        As far as landlords being responsible for cleaning up the street I think it is the only reasonable solution- also, I think people are more keen to dispose of their thrash at the spot where bunch of things are already piled up. If the building has spotless sidewalk by-passers are unlikely to litter there…. And what about those overflowing trash cans? Can’t city take care at least of them?

        I am not well versed in city politics but why don’t we see this type of mess uptown? What is different there?

  6. Recently, on a Saturday morning (about 7:00 a.m.) I was walking on Fulton Street going to the Seaport and from Broadway until Water Street, there was garbage all over the streets, not to mention the homeless sleeping on the streets. After a business is closed for the night they have no control over what people do. Same thing with residential buildings. Nobody can control what happens after the people maintaining the buildings go home.

    • Sara,
      Yes truly unbelievable to see the trash left on Fulton and throughout FiDi.

      Folks – of all income levels – routinely leaving trash everywhere on the sidewalk, proactively tossing bottles in the tree areas in front of Key Food, etc.

      A resort for rats

  7. What can individuals do to promote the landmarking of the Post Office at Church and Canal and the building at 285 West Broadway?

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