The Broadsheet - Lower Manhattan’s Local Newspaper

The iconic “Fearless Girl” statue—artist Kristen Visbal’s bronze likeness of a young female striking a jaunty, audacious pose—can remain at its current location, near the intersection of Broad and Wall Streets, for 11 months, the City’s Public Design Commission ruled on Monday.

“Fearless Girl” was unveiled in Lower Manhattan in March 2017 as a form of corporate virtue signaling, by State Street Global Advisors, a Boston-based asset-management firm that is the world’s third largest, which wanted to make a statement for International Women’s Day. (The firm was resolved to raise awareness about the relative dearth of female leadership at large corporations, especially as measured in board seats.) The statue quickly went viral, attracting worldwide attention and drawing thousands of tourists to what had originally been intended as its temporary home at the foot of Broadway—in front of “Charging Bull,” the famous Arturo Di Modica sculpture that has been snarling and pawing the ground just north of Bowling Green since 1989. 

But keeping “Fearless Girl” became a cause célèbre, and elected officials quickly moved to triple the statue’s one-week residency, and then extend it by months, eventually keeping it in place for almost two years. In December 2018 the piece was moved to its current home, near Broad and Wall Streets, where it stares defiantly at the New York Stock Exchange.

During the years since its unveiling, “Fearless Girl” has stirred controversy between State Street and Ms. Visbal (who are disputing rights to it), and fallen into a jurisdictional chasm between various City agencies—among them, the Department of Transportation (which oversees temporary art installations on City streets), the Landmarks Preservation Commission (which administers protected historic districts, such as the one surrounding Broad and Wall Streets), and the Public Design Commission (which approves permanent works of art proposed on City-owned property).

At Monday’s hearing, the Public Design Commission issued an 11-month extension for the sculpture’s permit to remain at its current site, saying the agency would use the first six months of that interval to devise a method that will allow the City to take legal ownership of the piece, with the consent of Ms. Visbal and State Street. The remaining five months were set aside for implementing whatever strategy the Commission formulates.

Todd Fine, president of the local preservation organization, Washington Street Advocacy Group, said at a rally afterwards, “the good news is that the artist and company were on the same page about wanting ‘Fearless Girl’ to stay.”

Ms. Visbal, who attended the Monday event via a Zoom link, was asked whether a young girl who is considering a career in the arts should be encouraged or put off by the legal wrangling surrounding the statue, replied, “you should never make art because you want to make money. You have to be passionate about it, and it has to come from her heart. But I have gone through hell, and I would advise a young woman who want to devote her life to art that it is important to be careful about agreements and contracts.”

She added that, “I am beyond grateful to New York City and the Public Design Commission for hearing my concerns. I pledge to work with the City to identify a fair and reasonable solution in the coming six months.”

Vittoria Fariello, an elected Democratic Party District Leader representing Lower Manhattan (and a candidate for the New York State Senate), said, “today’s decision creates a lot of pressure to come to an agreement. Otherwise, the City will have to decide whether to remove ‘Fearless Girl,’ which nobody wants. We all want the statue to stay here.”

Monday marked the start of what is planned to be a daily vigil and protest at the site of the Manhattan Detention Complex, where the City plans to demolish an existing jail and replace it with the world’s tallest penal institution. The rally was sparked by the City’s announcement that it planned to install construction fencing around the site (centered on White Street, between Baxter and Centre Streets), in a sign that the start of demolition was imminent. More than 150 protestors gathered before 7:00 am, planning to block access to the site, and thus prevent the start of work.

To the editor,

May I add my voice to the others as reported on Monday? Please leave W. Thames alone. And definitely have a meeting that is open to those who live here before an RFP goes out and with the designer who eventually gets the assignment. I agree that we need to know how resiliency might affect these streets before proposals are made—or is that known already? 

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To the editor,

Great coverage! Thanks for keeping the pressure and story of no new jails alive. 

At the March 7 meeting of the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1), the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) announced that it is taking preliminary steps to move ahead with a controversial plan to reconfigure South End Avenue and West Thames Street. This project envisions safety improvements that narrow both South End Avenue and West Thames Street, widen nearby sidewalks, and relocate several bus stops.

On April 8, 1730, the seventh day of that year’s Passover, the fledgling Jewish community of New York City consecrated the Mill Street Synagogue, located on what is now South William Street. They called their new temple “Shearith Israel,” which translates literally as, “remnant of Israel.” It was the first Jewish house of worship in North America.

Community Board 1 (CB1) is reiterating its opposition to a plan that will allow a real estate developer to privatize more than 4,000 square feet of public space, in exchange for a promise to enliven an adjacent plaza. At issue are the arcades—columned porticos that adorn the ground-floor facade of 200 Water Street—which the building owner hopes to enclose, thus creating additional retail space, which can be monetized. The same owner plans to create three new market-rate rental apartments at the second floor level, and to use several hundred square feet of outdoor space on the plaza in front of 200 Water Street, for a cafe.

The Downtown Alliance, as part of its broader effort to help Lower Manhattan’s business community recover from the COVID-19 crisis, has launched Get Social, a free program teaches local firms how best to use social media to bolster their bottom line. The Alliance will pair ten businesses with social media consultants, each of whom has demonstrated skills and strategic insight on building an audience across a variety of platforms. The program also provides each participating business with a $1,500 grant to spend on advertising and content creation.

Lower Manhattan residents could soon have a new option for accessing LaGuardia Airport, if planners at the Port Authority approve an option to launch ferry service between the Wall Street pier and the aerodrome in northern Queens.

The Port Authority has been compelled to take a fresh look at ways to access LaGuardia after Governor Kathy Hochul killed plans formulated by her predecessor, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, to build a new AirTrain. That proposal would have connected the airport to both the Long Island Rail Road and the subway’s 7 train—in both cases by moving passengers eastward for those transfers, when the vast majority of users would likely be headed to destinations west of the LaGuardia (such as Manhattan). This scheme was slated to cost several billion dollars.

Live Remote Meeting – https://live.mcb1.nyc

Live Remote Meeting - https://live.mcb1.nyc

1) 90 West Street, application for the replacement of 5 railings on the 4th floor with fiberglass posts - Resolution

2) Recommendation on new LPC Commissioners - Resolution

53A Chambers Street Dance performance $15-$20

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. Free.

In a sharp reversal of previous trends, four Lower Manhattan neighborhoods are ranking among the top five anywhere in the City for rates of infection with the new BA.2 subvariant of the Omicron mutation of COVID-19.

To place a listing, contact [email protected]

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.

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.

1111 – Henry V is crowned Holy Roman Emperor.

1742 – George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah makes its world-premiere in Dublin, Ireland.

1777 – In the Revolutionary War, American forces are ambushed and defeated in the Battle of Bound Brook, New Jersey.

1861 – In the Civil War, Fort Sumter surrenders to Confederate forces.

1870 – The New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded.

1919 – Eugene V. Debs is imprisoned at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, for speaking out against the draft during World War I.

1943 – In World War II, the discovery of mass graves of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced. The Soviet Union denies responsibility.

1953 – CIA director Allen Dulles launches the agency's illegal mind-control program Project MKUltra, which used unsuspecting U.S. and Canadian citizens as test subjects. The program was halted in 1973 and all MKUltra files were ordered destroyed. Investigating journalists relied on the testimony of participants and on a small number of documents that survived. Four years later, some 20,000 MKUltra documents were discovered mistakenly stored in a financial records building and were made public during the Senate Hearings of 1977.

1970 – An oxygen tank aboard Apollo 13 explodes while en route to the moon. The crew aborts the lunar landing, circles the moon and comes safely back to Earth.

1976 – The United States Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson's 233rd birthday as part of the United States Bicentennial celebration.

2017 – President Donald Trump orders the 21,000 lb Massive Ordnance Air Blast (Mother Of All Bombs, or MOAB) dropped on Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, to kill ISIL militants. It is the first time the MOAB is used in combat.

1519 – Catherine de' Medici, Italian-French wife of Henry II of France (d. 1589)

1570 – Guy Fawkes, English soldier, planned the Gunpowder Plot (d. 1606)

1743 – Thomas Jefferson, American lawyer and politician, 3rd President of the United States (d. 1826)

1852 – Frank Winfield Woolworth, American businessman, founded the F. W. Woolworth Company (d. 1919)

1902 – Philippe de Rothschild, French Grand Prix driver, playwright, and producer (d. 1988)

1906 – Samuel Beckett, Irish novelist, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1989)

1931 – Dan Gurney, American race car driver and engineer (d. 2018).

1946 – Al Green, Grammy award-winning singer.

548 – Lэ Nam Đế, Vietnamese emperor (b. 503)

1592 – Bartolomeo Ammannati, Italian architect and sculptor (b. 1511)

1605 – Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia (b. 1551)

1917 – Diamond Jim Brady, businessman (b. 1856)

1993 – Wallace Stegner, author (b. 1909)

2009 – Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, baseball player (b. 1954)