By Josh Rogers
Volume 20 Issue 10 | July 20 – 26, 2007
Reporter’s notebook
L.M.D.C. welcomes Menin to the board before summer break
Julie Menin was appointed to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation board this week, two years after Community Board 1 first asked for her to be selected.
“I’m thrilled,” Menin, C.B. 1’s chairperson, said after her first meeting Wednesday. “Having a seat at the table is very important.”
She replaces Madelyn Wils, the former C.B. 1 chairperson who was appointed in 2001 by Gov. George Pataki on the recommendation of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Gov. Eliot Spitzer has left some Pataki appointees on the L.M.D.C. board but he moved to replace Wils after she took an economic development job under Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who appoints the other half of the development corporation’s members.
During his campaign, Spitzer attacked the L.M.D.C., which was set up to manage Lower Manhattan’s post-9/11 rebuilding efforts, but after taking office he decided to nix plans to close it up.
Spitzer, a Democrat, also named to the board his top anti-terrorism advisor, Michael Balboni, a Republican and former state senator from Long Island, replacing Jim Kallstrom, who advised Pataki on anti-terrorism. Two other close Pataki advisors, Kevin Rampe, former L.M.D.C. chairperson and president, and Robert Balachandran, former Hudson River Park Trust president, remain on the L.M.D.C. board.
Menin, who founded Wall Street Rising and served on the World Trade Center memorial jury, said she is going to use her new position to further her push for new art and culture locations at the W.T.C. site and elsewhere. She suggested vacant retail spaces, the former Fulton Fish Market, Pier A, and the Battery Maritime Building, where last week the city named developers to try and build a hotel, restaurants and a gourmet food market. Menin said the maritime building could also host arts festivals.
Ironically, Menin’s predecessor at C.B. 1, Wils, was removed from the community board in 2005 in part because of her seat on the L.M.D.C. board. Former Borough President C. Virginia Fields said Wils’ seats on the L.M.D.C., Hudson River Park Trust and the Downtown Alliance led to conflicting loyalties, whereas Wils and her supporters countered that she was named to these boards precisely to represent the community board position.
After Wils was removed from C.B. 1 in 2005, the board passed a resolution asking that Menin be named to the board, and passed a subsequent resolution after Spitzer announced that he wanted the agency to continue.
Menin did not say she would step down if she leaves the C.B. 1 leadership position, but she does think her L.M.D.C. slot should be reserved for Board 1. “I do think Community Board 1 should have representation and it should be a community board seat,” she said.
Menin said making the L.M.D.C.’s 8 a.m. meetings will not be a problem. “I’m up at 5:30 with my kids,” she said of her three preschoolers.
Community grants
The L.M.D.C. board is breaking for the summer but some members will be busy sifting through about 200 applications for $45 million worth of community enhancement grants.
Avi Schick, the corporation’s chairperson, said the panel reviewing the applications is meeting throughout the summer to prepare spending recommendations for the board at the next meeting, Sept. 17. The panel includes a mix of L.M.D.C. board members, government officials and people in the private sector. The applications were due last year, but they sat around untouched during the end of the Pataki administration and the beginning of the Spitzer administration.
Deutsche costs rise
The development corporation board approved another $4 million for the dismantling of the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St., bringing the estimated total cost to buy, clean and demolish the contaminated structure to $247 million. The new costs are to pay for added protections put in place after a large pipe fell off the building and went through the adjacent firehouse in May, injuring two firefighters slightly. A plywood protection has been built by contractors and there is now added scaffolding by the firehouse. Schick said it is important that New York’s Bravest are protected during the work, which is now proceeding well. Eleven stories have been removed from the 41-story building. JPMorgan Chase will begin building its headquarters at the site once the demolition is complete, which should be done by next year, according to the Port Authority. When the L.M.D.C. bought the building in 2004, the estimated cost for the entire project was $135 million. The insurers and contractors will be responsible for some of the cost overruns. After the meeting, Schick did not comment on how much money he hoped to recover since it is likely to be the subject of lawsuits. Survivors’ Stairway
After the meeting, Schick said the 175-ton Survivors’ Stairway still at the W.T.C. is “absolutely not” slowing down any of the construction work underway. He said he is talking with the Port Authority about where to move the steps, which some survivors ran down on Sept. 11, 2001. He did not know if a decision would have to be made in a matter of months, but the Port seems more certain the stairs need to be moved soon, if not now. In May, Port officials said it was near several different construction projects and it needed to be moved soon. At a July 9 Community Board 1 meeting, the Port’s Quentin Brathwaite initially said it was slowing down the work before he clarified by saying the L.M.D.C. has until September. With reporting by Skye H. McFarlane
