Memorial tattoos UnderCover owes a debt this week to Crain’s, which just released this year’s 40 Under 40 list of the city’s rising stars. Were it not for the brief profiles Crain’s wrote on each of the honorees, we would never have known that National September 11 Memorial & Museum C.E.O. Joe Daniels has two tattoos.
But the Crain’s piece left out some very important information — where are the tattoos and what do they depict?
Daniels, 37, told UnderCover he has three stars tattooed on his chest to represent his three children, and on his right shoulder he has a design based on a Buddha footprint repetition that he found in an Allen Ginsberg book. Certainly nothing to be ashamed of.
“I’m excited,” Daniels said of being named one of the 40 Under 40. “It’s a nice group to be part of…and it certainly made my parents proud.”
Another familiar Downtown face on the list was Erin Roeder, 29, who is developing Hudson Square for Trinity Real Estate. Also on the list was Serge Demerjian, 39, the development manager with Silverstein Properties who is responsible for coordinating the three towers Silverstein hopes to build at the World Trade Center site.
Digs at Quinn
The political journalists who staged the annual Inner Circle roast last weekend poked fun at plenty of local and national politicians, but we took particular notice of the digs at Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is up for election this year. During one skit, the journalists joked that the one big thing Quinn had succeeded in getting for her district was a garbage station, referring to the Gansevoort recycling and waste transfer station Quinn supported and her constituents reviled.
The journalists also joked about Quinn’s loyalty to Mayor Mike Bloomberg in helping him ram term limits through the Council. In one sketch, a journalist acting as a coat checker reached into the pocket of a coat purportedly belonging to Bloomberg. She pulled out a Raggedy Ann doll and exclaimed, “It’s Christine Quinn!”
Freedom talk
The New York media was in an uproar last week when the Port Authority confirmed what many Downtown had already noticed: The Port was phasing out the name “Freedom Tower” in favor of the more marketable “One World Trade Center.” Unsurprisingly, the objectors to the name change included George Pataki, the man responsible for coining “Freedom Tower.”
But people who live Downtown don’t seem to mind. Andy Jurinko, who lives across from the site, noticed the nomenclature change at a Community Board 1 meeting last fall and personally thanked the Port for ditching the politically charged “Freedom” name.
“When’s the last time you ordered a cheeseburger with ‘freedom fries’?” Jurinko said this week. “It’s a knee-jerk, overly political name. It’s politicians trying to prove one is more patriotic than the next…. It wasn’t a military fort; it was commercial building. It happened to be destroyed, but that doesn’t make it the Alamo.”
Correction
Sean Sweeney, president of the Downtown Independent Democrats says UnderCover was wrong last week when we called him a supporter of Pete Gleason, one of many people who are challenging Alan Gerson for his Council seat. Sweeney insists he hasn’t made up his mind yet — but perhaps the reason we’re confused is that we saw him passing out Gleason fliers a few months ago at the end of a C.B. 2 meeting. [For more club fighting, see p. 8.]
