Thank you for sharing the rich backstory to this rather intriguing space — Bill VP on A labor of love, Tribeca style

Tribeca Citizen, has Warren Peace closed? I haven’t noticed it open recently despite the gorgeous weather. — Katie on New Kid on the Block: Warren Peace

Love this! — N and C on Where in Tribeca?

I love Ole & Steen. The breads are great, the cinnamon swirls are delicious and the sandwiches are good. I do share your pet peeve about paper coffee cups. As mostly an espresso drinker I find it ruins the experience drinking from a to go cup. — Cd on New Kid on the Block: Ole & Steen opens today

Staple Street Alley! — G & Co. on Where in Tribeca?

Some objections: - Is this cost-effective? (vs. cost of modernizing Rikers and renovating rather than demolishing the Chinatown jail) - environmental effects of the demolitions and construction - community disruptions of the demolition and construction - safety concerns - traffic and congestion concerns both during demo/construction, and once the neighborhood facility is operational - If the goal is a more "humane" system, what is the evidence that this will solve the problem? If there is an abusive and inhumane system, the move will simply relocate that system. - see, for example: "Spending $9 Billion on New Architecture Will Not Solve the Rikers Problem" https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/usd9-billion-for-new-jails-will-not-solve-the-rikers-problem.html - Not enough space. The new plan does not allow enough space even to house the existing number of inmates. What happens if we get officials who actually want to be tough on crime, and arrests increase as a result? Even with soft-on-crime officials, what happens when the next crime wave hits? So again, the point is that one can consistently believe in modernization and reform of the culture and facilities of the system, yet question and criticize whether this current plan is the way forward, or just a massive, time-consuming and expensive, shuffling of the board, with no real improvement in any desired outcome: more humane and safe system, reduction in crime and recidivism, increase in public safety, etc. Can those goals be achieved more effectively, less expensively, less disruptively, while addressing the concerns above (and any others I may have left out)? — Marcus on Demolition to start on White Street jails

According to another Century employee, the new reopening date is May 1st, which is one week away! 🙏 — David on Century 21 will reopen in April

Attacking people, in this aggressive manner, who care about their communities as "NIMBYs" is cheap points scoring. Nothing else. It's meaningless. Yes I read the Tribeca Citizen because I care about the community I live in. Yes I don't think knocking down an existing prison to build new buildings, that look remarkably similar to the ones being knocked down, is good use of tax payers money or good for the environment or good for healthy living or good for the prison service. Jamming prisonerss into inner city communities does not seem, to me, to make sense, either - never has. This does not make me a "NIMBY". There seems to be some lets shove it to the Tribeca citizens in these NIMBY notes. "They are a bunch of selfish "NIMBYs lets stick to them". Not true. Caring about where you live is not a bad thing. Taking a practical, common sense and non politically motivated view is not either. This development does not make sense to most people living here and to many who don't. Thank you TC for covering this. — Will on Demolition to start on White Street jails

The question is why they have to be demolished, instead of modernizing the interior facilities. — Marcus on Demolition to start on White Street jails

I am all for modernizing the facilities in both locations. I don't see the sense of closing Rikers and the massively expensive and disruptive demolition and construction in the neighborhoods. Surely there are more cost-effective and less disruptive solutions that achieve the same goal of clean, updated, modern facilities. The issue is this: Why not renovate and modernize Rikers instead? And for the existing Chinatown buildings, why not adaptively reuse and modernize interior, instead of complete demolition and rebuild? This is what Councilman Marte is pushing for. — Marcus on Demolition to start on White Street jails

The advocates argue yes. The city has not said why they have to be demolished. — Tribeca Citizen on Demolition to start on White Street jails

Was the Tombs and the other two historically worth saving? — John N. Vasilakos on Demolition to start on White Street jails

No one has a problem with the existing jail in Chinatown -- it's the 10-year construction project that they are opposed to. And I don't think there is anyone who thinks the reason Rikers is the way it is, and inmates are treated the way they are, stems from the layout of the floors. We are not the only borough based jail: a neighborhood in the South Bronx, which already has a floating prison and had to fight for years to get the city to relocate another one AND hosts just about every other municipal facility is also getting one. Jails are not great neighbors, no matter what you think of the people in them. That's why Rikers Island makes sense to me. — Tribeca Citizen on Demolition to start on White Street jails

I agree with Ben & Crawdad. The hysterical comments on here are straight out of fantasy land. It's becoming clearer by the day that NIMBYs are one of the most destructive forces in our current politics. We need to continue maintaining & evolving our infrastructure across the board to create a better future for ourselves & the next generations, yet NIMBYs oppose the necessary progress every step of the way. Not only do we badly need to provide actually humane living conditions for inmates (new construction will be huge step there), the whole point is to have the jail near the courthouses for maximum efficiency. They should be happy it's on the site of an EXISTING JAIL, my god! Where else do they propose building this instead? Or do they oppose closing Riker's at all? Or they'd rather send it to far-flung, disadvantaged neighborhoods instead? Just unbelievable. It's the same deal with the predictably absurd uproar over Gov. Hochul's totally reasonable (and overdue) housing plan, which is sorely needed to fix the country's extreme housing crisis (caused by NIMBYs). Same for offshore wind turbines, solar farms, transmission lines, I mean the list goes on. NIMBYs do not live in reality and they are endangering us all. This should keep moving full steam ahead. — TH on Demolition to start on White Street jails

This is insane NIMBYism. Only in NYC would people oppose Rikers Island closing, and replacing rundown, hellish jails with modern facilities. NYC really needs to reduce the power of the Community Boards and local "community" organizations to slow down and increase costs with every single freaking project. Can someone please give one reasonable objection to this project? It was cut in half (for no reason) apparently because NIMBYs complained it was too tall for Lower Manhattan (global home of the skyscraper). The building will be surrounded by much taller towers. Then other NIMBYs complain that Lower Manhattan is "inappropriate" for a jail. There has only been a jail on this general site for over two centuries. Yet other NIMBYs complain it's inappropriate for Chinatown, even though jail uses predate Chinatown by more than a century. Now some NIMBYs appear to be concerned about costs, even though Rikers costs far more to operate, and NIMBYs have delayed and exploded costs on the project, with endless lawsuits and protests. — Crawdad on Demolition to start on White Street jails

Construct / miles of a subway or rail line House / homeless Treat / addicts and mentally ill Pay / transit employees Maintain / miles of roads and highways Educate / kids performing at grade level Inspect / structurally unsound parking garages The state budget and new taxes are being debated right now. These Mad Libs make it obvious that NYS and NYC do not have a revenue problem constraining service delivery. We're not getting value for our money. — Thomas Hagen on Crowd Sourcing: New York City Budget Mad Libs!

According to one store employee, they will reopen in May, which is just around the corner! — David on Century 21 will reopen in April

I'm not sure I quite understand the objections. They're basically rebuilding an existing jail just to house more inmates, to facilitate closing Rikers, which strikes me as a noble goal. Is the objection that you think there shouldn't be a jail at all? Why have these objections arisen only now instead of some time in the last 100 years? Is the objection that you dislike the concept of more inmates? Is it the cost? Then why would you be ok with expenditures on Rikers? — Ben on Demolition to start on White Street jails

New York City spends more than any other big city in the country to eat far fewer slices of pizza — Sal from Sal's Pizzeria on Crowd Sourcing: New York City Budget Mad Libs!

It is not being built on Rikers because the ultimate plan is to build luxury waterfront housing on Rikers, connected by a ferry system to Manhattan. Then once they build the jail in Chinatown and folks have died from pollutants or moved because of the noise and the 100s of construction trucks trucking contaminants throughout Tribeca, soho, Chinatown, Little Italy to the tunnel and bridges, developers will sweep in and buy the property to develop. Adams stood in Chinatown and said no jail, while campaigning. No Adams! Remember! — Mad on Demolition to start on White Street jails

I'm with you on this, and agree 100%. Insane plan. This city is headed in the wrong direction: down. I hope we soon acquire leadership with common sense, or I'll want to move as well. — Marcus on Demolition to start on White Street jails

An absolute disgrace. Such an misguided, wasteful, plan, with no plus sides at all. "The DOC projects the jail population will soon eclipse 7,000 people, and it has to fall below 3300 to close Rikers." ...and that population would be much higher still if the laws were actually enforced. — Marcus on Demolition to start on White Street jails

This building was first issued a C of O (#10528) as a garage in January 1926. — James on One dead, four injured in collapse of Ann Street parking garage

Q: "why are we not building a new jail on Rikers?" A1: hard to build a new runway for LaGuardia Airport on Riker's without the prisoners escaping. A2: hard to build luxury waterfront housing on Riker's with all the NIMBY objections by the current occupants. — James on Demolition to start on White Street jails

This could be a fun Madlib! "New York City spends more than any other big city in the country to [VERB fill in the blank] far fewer [NOUN fill in the blank]. — James on Demolition to start on White Street jails