CITI CUTTING JOBS AT HEADQUARTERS
Crain’s reports that Citigroup will cut 265 jobs from its Greenwich Street headquarters by May 10, part of a global layoff of 1000, according to filings known as Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications, or WARNs. That’s 2 percent of the 12,468 (!) people who work in 388 Greenwich.
WATERFRONT AT THE BATTERY CLOSED OFF
The Broadsheet reports that the newly opened waterfront at The Battery is now closed off by the federal National Park Service for security screening for ferries to Ellis and Liberty Islands. From The Broadsheet: “At the March 16 meeting of the Environmental Protection Committee of Community Board 1, chair Tammy Meltzer compared a rendering of what the rebuilt Battery promenade was expected to look like, with recent photos of new, tall fencing that blocks public access to the waterfront. ‘This is nowhere near what the public was promised,’ she said.”
INSIDE THE LIVELY-REYNOLDS HOME
People magazine assembled a bunch of IG posts that gives you a look into the home of Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively at the celebrity dorm, 443 Greenwich. The couple has four children — daughters James, Inez and Betty and son Olin.
STARTUP STARTED HERE
The Journal has a feature on the teenagers behind Aaru, which, they story said, “is attracting brands including McDonald’s and EY by betting AI bots can predict human behavior better than humans can.” Their profile shot was taken on a fire escape on Harrison, so when I get past the paywall, I’ll see what I can learn about those crazy kids!
The ferry situation at the Battery has always been sort of infuriating. It’s not so much the flow of people, which is part of living in New York, but the security and fencing, which took up a lot of waterfront even before this rebuild, not to mention having to hear the robotic announcements coming from the ferries ad nauseam.
I’m hoping it’s better once more of the waterfront rebuild is complete, but I’m by nature pessimistic when it comes to security theater downtown. What are the ownership/lease situations with The View restaurant, or Pier A, to move security there and out of tents? Just idle speculation on my part.
And I guess this is neither here nor there re: Citi, but it still bugs me that when they renovated and moved into the HQ, they only replaced the façade on the lower part of the building, matching the height of the annex. The upper part looks so tired and the building is incoherent. BofA isn’t even headquartered here and they built a proper purpose-built building, not to mention what Chase was planning, and what we all knew Amex would end up doing.