The Broadsheet - Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

Community leaders and education advocates are fuming over an about-face by the City’s Department of Education (DOE), which has backed away from a 2016 promise about the design of the new public elementary school on Trinity Place, in the Financial District (slated to open this September).

As Tricia Joyce, chair of the Youth and Education Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1) explained at the Board’s February 22 meeting, “they have backpedaled on the gym for the new school, which is no longer regulation-size, after they told us in September 2016 that it would be.”

Ms. Joyce recalled a recent meeting with officials from the School Construction Authority (SCA), “where they gave us the news that they couldn't build it, and their comment was the floor plates in new buildings make it impossible to build full-sized gyms. So the SCA plans to ‘innovate’ by doing yoga spaces and dance spaces and alternative spaces for exercise, and they say it’s going to be amazing.”

“I asked what this would do to sports programming, like volleyball and basketball, along with intramural and competitive sports,” Ms. Joyce recounted. “And they said that’s just the reality of building in New York. I challenged this, and they told me, ‘if you don't like it, then you can have nothing.’ I found this to be extremely concerning coming from one of our City agencies.”

Ms. Joyce explained that this frustrating exchange was the inspiration for a new proposal from CB1: a plan to creating gymnasia in nearby structures outside of schools (whether commercial or residential buildings), but close enough to offer access throughout the school day.

She noted, “we have this opportunity at Five World Trade Center,” where a planned residential tower is slated to include an undefined community space that is many tens of thousands of square feet. “We also have 18 percent vacancy rates in local commercial space right now,” she added. 

The resolution enacted at the February 22 meeting calls for, “more public/private partnerships between the City and developers.” The measure also demands that SCA planners, “re-envision the creation of full-sized regulation gyms, one immediately in CB1, and across New York City community districts going forward, sited independently and funded by the City, serving all of our New York City schools.”

Lower Manhattan public schools rank among the highest in the five boroughs by the percentage of students who have been vaccinated against COVID-19, according to new data released by the City’s Department of Education.

Among local secondary schools, the leader is Stuyvesant High School, where 94.4 percent of students have had at least one dose of a vaccine, and 92.5 percent are fully vaccinated. At Millennium High School, the corresponding tallies are 91.3 percent and 89.8 percent.

100-year-old South African Holocaust survivor Ella Blumenthal is a force to be reckoned with. Meet Blumenthal in I Am Here (2021, 73 minutes, English with subtitles available), an award-winning new documentary from director Jordy Sank. I Am Here tells Blumenthal’s remarkable story, starting with her youth in Poland where she witnessed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and was imprisoned in the Majdanek, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. Filmed as Blumenthal celebrated her 98th birthday with family and friends in South Africa, I Am Here showcases Blumenthal’s magnetic personality and uses hand-drawn animations to illustrate stories from her life. This exclusive program will feature a live discussion with Blumenthal and Sank. Attendees will also receive a private link to view the film, which will be available for streaming now through Friday, March 4.  Free; suggested $10 donation.

Today: Iron Buddha. Reservations are released at 10AM every Monday the week before class. Free.

Online film streaming. In celebration of Women’s History Month, we present An Unmarried Woman (1978, Paul Mazursky). A wealthy woman from Manhattan’s Upper East Side begins to reevaluate her life and explore her newfound freedom after her 16-year marriage comes to a painful end. Registration required. Free.

In these two newly published plays, Andy Bragen examines the intimacies and shadows that exist between parent and child. The evening will include readings of excerpts from both plays, followed by a Q&A with Andy and Playco’s Founding Producer Kate Loewald, and a book signing with Andy. The excerpts will feature performers from the original casts, including Caroline Lagerfelt, who starred in Notes on My Mother’s Decline.

Gibney, 53A Chambers Street

Dance performance. $15-$20.

How do you get around your neighborhood? Young learners will be introduced to the many different modes of transportation available in large cities today, including trains, buses, ferries, and bikes. Through a read-aloud of Christopher Niemann's picture book Subway, kids will learn about one special form of New York City transit, the subway! Afterwards, we will talk about our favorite way to get around the city and make drawings of subway art. All ages. RSVP required. This indoor program meets at the Skyscraper Museum, 39 Battery Place. Masks are required. For those who prefer the online option for this in-person program, email [email protected] for the Zoom link. Free.

Today: HIIT the Deck.

Reservations are released at 10AM every Monday the week before class. Free.

On Saturdays and Sundays, visit the exhibitions and the ships of the South Street Seaport Museum for free. At 12 Fulton Street, see “South Street and the Rise of New York" and “Millions: Migrants and Millionaires aboard the Great Liners, 1900-1914," and at Pier 16, explore the tall ship Wavertree and lightship Ambrose.

Christopher Marte, the new City Council member representing Lower Manhattan, was ceremonially inaugurated on Sunday afternoon, in a festive celebration held at the Museum at Eldridge Street, on the Lower East Side.

“The only way to start and win a campaign,” Mr. Marte noted, “is doors—so many doors: knocking on doors, people opening doors, people slamming their doors in your face, literally and metaphorically. Sneaking past doors so you can knock on other doors. Any waking minute you can’t spend knocking on doors, you spend thinking about doors: What doors, how many doors, where are the doors, who is behind that door?” To read more...

The Downtown Alliance is raffling off a couple’s getaway in Lower Manhattan, which includes a two-night stay at the Beekman Hotel, dinner for two at the Michelin-starred Crown Shy restaurant, tickets to the One World Trade Center observation deck, and a $500 voucher for qualifying travel-related expenses.

To be entered in the contest automatically, download and use the Alliance’s new augmented reality Instagram filter (while tagging @downtownnyc), which allows users to superimpose three-dimensional renderings of the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, Fearless Girl, the Oculus and One World Trade Center on any landscape they choose. For more information, please browse: downtownny.com

Starting Monday, March 14, Trinity Church’s Youth Afterschool program will offer everything from basketball and mindfulness to test prep and use of a teaching kitchen.

All activities, which are free and open to students in grades six through 12, will be hosted in the teens-only space on the fifth floor of Trinity Commons (the new community building behind Trinity Church), located at 76 Trinity Place.

Trinity Youth strives to practice “radical welcome” by including not only parishioners and students from Trinity’s school partnerships, but youth from across New York City, and the inclusion all people regardless of background, beliefs, or experience. (Proof of vaccination against COVID-19 is required.) For more information, or to enroll, please browse: trinitywallstreet.org/youth

A February 6 meeting of the Battery Park City Neighborhood Association (BPCNA) included a sobering analysis of the financial outlook for people who own homes in the community, as well as for those who rent.

The presentation was led by Pamit Surana, one of the leaders of the 501(c)(3) association, which formed last summer (under the social media banner of #PauseTheSaws) after successfully protesting to block a plan by then-Governor Andrew Cuomo to locate a monument to Essential Workers in Rockefeller Park.

While the saga of Rosa Parks and the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott has become a canonical American parable, New York played out its own version of the same drama, more than a century earlier. In July, 1854, Lower Manhattan resident Elizabeth Jennings Graham was on her way to church, and boarded a horse-drawn street car at Chatham and Pearl Streets.

Planet Venus, an orb of white fire gleaming in darkness, rises above the southeastern horizon in early dawn. Venus is the third brightest object in Earth’s sky, next to the Sun and moon. Similar in size to Earth and our closest planetary neighbor, its brilliance is not to be attributed to its proximity. As described by scientists at EarthSky.org, “Venus is bright … because it’s blanketed by highly reflective clouds. The clouds in the atmosphere of Venus contain droplets of sulfuric acid, as well as acidic crystals suspended in a mixture of gases. Light bounces easily off the smooth surfaces of these spheres and crystals. Sunlight bouncing from these clouds is a big part of the reason that Venus is so bright.”

To place a listing, contact [email protected]

Seaport Kids will partner with Private Picassos to present Pipe Cleaner Craft for kids of all ages on Wednesday, March 9, from 4:00 to 5:00 pm at the Corner (25 Fulton Street).

Professional arts instructors will guide children in the use of wood blocks, colorful wire, pipe cleaners, beads and foam stickers to create their own free-standing sculptures. Admission is free. For more information, please browse: theseaport.nyc/events/

A leading housing advocacy organization has completed an exhaustive look at threats to affordability in every community in the five boroughs, and has found that Lower Manhattan ranks among the ten most at-risk neighborhoods by one key metric, while also placing in the 20 most-endangered by another.

Greenwich Street & Chambers Street

Food Scrap Collection: Saturdays, 8am-1pm

Open Saturdays and Wednesdays year round

Green Greenmarket at Bowling Green

Broadway & Whitehall St

Market Hours: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Compost Program: 8 a.m. - 11 a.m.

The Bowling Green Greenmarket brings fresh offerings from local farms to Lower Manhattan's historic Bowling Green plaza. Twice a week year-round stop by to load up on the season's freshest fruit, crisp vegetables, beautiful plants, and freshly baked loaves of bread, quiches, and pot pies.

Oculus Plaza, Fulton St and Church St

212-349-1380 [email protected]

Fulton Street cobblestones between South and Front Sts. across from McNally Jackson Bookstore.

Locally grown produce from Rogowski Farm, Breezy Hill Orchard, and other farmers and small-batch specialty food products, sold directly by their producers. Producers vary from week to week.

1498 – Vasco da Gama's fleet visits the Island of Mozambique.

1561 – Mendoza, Argentina is founded by Spanish conquistador Pedro del Castillo.

1657 – Great Fire of Meireki: A fire in Edo (now Tokyo), Japan, caused more than 100,000 deaths; it lasted three days

1791 – Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris.

1855 – Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.

1859 – The two-day Great Slave Auction, the largest such auction in United States history, begins.

1877 – U.S. presidential election, 1876: Just two days before inauguration, the U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876.

1882 – Queen Victoria narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Roderick McLean in Windsor.

1903 – In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.

1933 – The film King Kong opens at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

1946 – Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.

1949 – Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.

1962 – Wilt Chamberlain sets the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.

1972 – The Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.

1983 – Compact discs and players are released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.

1998 – Data sent from the Galileo spacecraft indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.

2017 – The elements Moscovium, Tennessine, and Oganesson were officially added to the periodic table at a conference in Moscow, Russia

1453 – Johannes Engel, German doctor, astronomer and astrologer (d. 1512)

1769 – DeWitt Clinton, American lawyer and politician, 6th Governor of New York (d. 1828)

1793 – Sam Houston, American soldier and politician, first president of the Republic of Texas (d. 1863)

1900 – Kurt Weill, German-American pianist and composer (d. 1950)

1904 – Dr. Seuss, American children's book writer, poet, and illustrator (d. 1991)

1917 – Desi Arnaz, Cuban-American actor, singer, and producer (d. 1986)

1921 – Ernst Haas, Austrian-American photographer and journalist (d. 1986)

1931 – Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian lawyer and politician, President of the Soviet Union, Nobel Prize laureate

1931 – Tom Wolfe, American journalist and author (d. 2018)

1942 – Lou Reed, singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor (d. 2013)

1953 – Russ Feingold, American lawyer and politician

1729 – Francesco Bianchini, Italian astronomer and philosopher (b. 1662)

1835 – Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1768)

1930 – D. H. Lawrence, English novelist, poet, playwright, and critic (b. 1885)

1939 – Howard Carter, English archaeologist and historian (b. 1874)