By Jere Hester
“South Ferry Project Scrapped”
Downtown Express
January 9, 1991
“When the clock struck midnight New Year’s Eve, William Zeckendorf’s ambitious South Ferry Plaza project officially succumbed to Father Time — and to the realities of a poor economy,” Downtown Express reported 19 years ago.
After missing its year-end financial deadline, the city pulled the plug on the project developed by Zeckendorf and his partners. The $400 million plan called for a 60-story office tower to be built on top of the Staten Island ferry terminal, but fell through when a major tenant Zeckendorf was counting on to sign a lease failed to do so. Under the original agreement with the city, the developer would have renovated the Battery Maritime Building located north of the terminal and converted it into low-rent space for Chelsea’s Dance Theatre Workshop and an experimental Tribeca arts group Creative Time.
“There was a mutual realization between the developer and the city that the market is just not there to support the project,” said Lee Silberstein, a spokesperson for the Public Development Corporation, which negotiated the deal with Zeckendorf.
Plans for the 900-foot lighthouse-shaped building over the ferry terminal would have included a grassy park in front of the terminal spanning two acres, a chunk of waterfront esplanade, and a public-access pier behind the building.
The failed project cost the city $20 million in real estate taxes and a year’s rent, as well as the hundreds of jobs that would have been provided during the four-year construction period. Silberstein said that the city had no definite plans to rebuild the ferry terminal or restore the Battery Maritime Building.
Nine months after the article appeared, on Sept. 7, 1991, a fire started by smoking materials closed the ferry terminal for eight days.
Last year, the South Ferry subway station was rebuilt, and while some of the plaza was renovated with the station, the full plaza will not be finished until later this year.
Current plans for the Battery Maritime Building are for a hotel and restaurant space, but the financing has not yet been secured.
“Fire Cuts Burn Downtown”
Downtown Express
January 9, 1991
After 129 years in operation, the city closed down Engine Company 17 on Delancey and Pitt Sts. and eliminated Marine Company 2, a Greenwich Village-based fireboat company, both on Jan. 3rd, 1991.
Last minute protests and attempts at injunction failed to save the engine company that responded to 2,400 calls for help in the previous year.
“I’m firmly convinced this is going to mean the difference between life and death in many cases,” said Mike Carter, Manhattan representative for the Uniformed Firefighters Association.
The unit covered Downtown east of Broadway from 14th St. to the Manhattan Bridge, and served as a backup unit for other areas of Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan.
The city said that the cut would only add half a minute to response time, but residents felt that the loss would leave the neighborhood significantly more vulnerable to fires.
“It’s going to be an enormous impact,” said Martha Danziger, district manager of Community Board 3. “You can only hope to God that there won’t be a disaster.”
The elimination of Marine Company 2, docked on the Hudson Rover at West 12th St., decreased the city’s fireboat count to three units. The company had responded to 300 calls in the previous year.
Firefighters said that the loss of the fireboat would hamper their ability to combat oil tanker blazes and protect waterfront attractions like the Intrepid Museum and Circle Line piers.
Two other companies, 1 and 6, were scheduled to move out of Manhattan and into other boroughs later in the year.
“You’re going to see fire deaths climb like homicides,” said Carter. “The city always takes the short-sighted view. Ultimately people are going to bail out and leave New York.”
— Prepared by
Helaina N. Hovitz
