New designs revealed for Essex Crossing phase one
The Lo-Down has renderings and info about the first buildings that will go up as part of the massive Essex Crossing development. Old buildings should start coming down this spring, and shovels may hit dirt this summer, but don’t expect this all to be over for another ten years.
Meanwhile, Curbed reveals that plans for underground parking have been scrapped by the DOT, citing concerns that adding a significant number of cars to the neighborhood would exacerbate a traffic problem already caused by the Delancey Street/Williamsburg Bridge thoroughfare.
Here are the first four building designs:
Site 2 is the big one, on the southeast corner of Essex & Delancey. This is where the 14-screen movie theater will go, as well as the updated Essex Market. The tower will be 24 stories with close to 200 apartments.
Site 1 will take up the parking lot between Essex and Ludlow on Broome Street. An annex of Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum will face Essex Street, with other commercial spaces facing Ludlow and Broome. The 14-story tower will have 55 condos.
Site 5 is the one part of the project that touches Grand Street on the block between Clinton and Suffolk. A large supermarket is planned for the Grand Street commercial space (this is right across the street from Seward’s Fine Fare), a public park sits along Broome Street, and the 15-story tower will contain 211 apartments.
Site 6 sits east of Clinton Street between Broome and Delancey. The 14-story tower contains 100 apartments for low-income seniors. Grand Street Settlement is expected to run programs for seniors, and a health care clinic may take up residence on the first and second floors.
Petition: support pedestrian safety on Cherry Street
Michael Marino of Friends of Corlears Hook Park has posted a petition in support of a resolution to have the Department of Transportation look for ways to increase the safety of pedestrians crossing Cherry Street to use Corlears Hook or East River Parks.
Crossing Cherry Street is problematic for several reasons: there’s no stop sign for cars turning from the FDR Drive access road and there is very little visibility around the corner and around cars that are parked in no-parking spaces. A stop sign, a crosswalk, a speed hump, parking enforcement — any one of these could make a huge difference.
Please add your name to the petition.
The resolution has been approved by the CB3 traffic committee, and will be voted on by the full board on January 29. The resolution does not specify any one remedy, but asks the DOT to investigate the area and take appropriate action. Your voice will go a long way to move this issue forward.
Meet Your Neighbors Thursday at 7 p.m. in building 1
The House Committee does a lovely job with these occasional socials to mingle with your neighbors and share some edibles (kosher and non-kosher).
Join your neighbors in the lobby of building 1 (453-455-457 FDR Drive) at 7:00 pm Thursday.
This is a good, informal time to check in with members of the house committee and board of directors to find out what their priorities are for 2015. (Or just to kvetch about the weather and the Knicks.)
NYC Parks accepting comments on Jackson Playground through Wednesday
Last week’s community meeting on the Jackson Playground redesign was just the first step in the process to renovate that park with funds from the Community Parks Initiative.
If you were not able to make the meeting but would still like to offer your comments, you may do so online through Wednesday, January 14.
Next steps: NYC Parks will develop a plan and schematic that will be shared at a CB3 meeting this spring; later in the spring will be another meeting about how community members might collaborate to program events and activities at the park.
Thanks to Michael Marino of Friends of Corlears Hook Park for keeping us abreast of these developments.
Bad timing, quick fix: early morning boiler room shutdown
At 5:45 this morning, management sent out the following email:
Please be advised that the Boiler Room is having and electrical problem with the boilers. The crews are in and working on this problem.
We apologize for this inconvenience.
Less than an hour later, this update:
We have repaired the electrical problem in the Boiler Room and the steam and hot water is starting to flow everybody should have heat and hot water by 8:30.
Again we apologize for this inconvenience.
And then another update at 8:15:
As said in my prior email everything has been completed and we are pushing the steam slowly so we do not overload the system. We will then be pushing out the hot water. By 11:00 we will be in full operation with the steam and hot water.
Again we apologize for this inconvenience.
Have a Good Day
(Are you on the coop email list? If not, you can sign up here.)
Afternoon update: here’s the full narrative of heroics from Gary Altman:
Community input sought for Jackson Playground redesign, January 7 at 6:00 p.m.
The Henry M. Jackson Playground sits just barely outside our coop’s boundary, across Jackson Street from Fine Fare and behind the old public school-turned-upscale condos (someday) on Madison Street.
There’s a wide-open space for basketball, a great urban mural, handball, and other playground equipment — all of which, apparently, due for an upgrade as part of the Community Parks initiative recently announced by the de Blasio administration.
The NYC Parks Department is looking for community input to help redesign and renovate the playground and facilities; an open meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 7 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Manny Cantor Center, 197 East Broadway, 6th floor.
Treecycle your xmas tree at Corlears Hook through January 11
Bring your xmas tree to the comfort station inside Corlears Hook Park and the NYC Parks Department will take care of carting it away and mulching it for wood chips to be used in parks and gardens around the city.
Big U public hearing on January 15
Our relationship to the East River was changed forever when Sandy hit in 2012. In response, an ambitious project called the Big U has been proposed to protect lower Manhattan from another storm surge.
The first phase of the storm barrier, from 23rd Street to Montgomery along the east side, was promised $335 million in federal funds this summer.
A public hearing on this plan is taking place on January 15 at 7:00 p.m. at the Manny Cantor Center, 197 East Broadway, 6th floor.
This project is likely to completely reshape the land between the FDR Drive and the River and directly affect East River cooperators.
Safety improvements for Cherry Street on CB3 agenda January 8
Thanks to cooperator Michael Marino and the new Friends of Corlears Hook Park, the Transportation & Safety Committee of Community Board 3 will be discussing the dangerous pedestrian crossing at Cherry Street and the FDR access road on January 8 at 6:30 pm. The meeting will be held at 273 Bowery, the University Settlement at Houston Street Settlement.
The corner right now has no stop sign or crosswalk, meaning cars and buses quickly turn without slowing down. Compounding the safety hazard is that, though parking is prohibited on the east side of the FDR access road, members of NYPD and FDNY often park their personal cars there while on duty. M14A double-length buses have little room to make this turn, and pedestrians have little visibility for what’s coming.
A second possible crossing would be in the middle of Cherry Street, where the entrance to Corlears Hook Park is.
Safely crossing Cherry Street is important not just for access to Corlears Hook Park, but also for people taking the pedestrian bridge over the FDR Drive to get to all the facilities along the East River. Since this is literally our back yard, it would be helpful for cooperators to appear at the meeting to help convince CB3 of the importance of improving this intersection.