Chinatown Searching for Answers on Park Row
By Josh Rogers
Mayor Mike Bloomberg wanted to have lunch in Chinatown last week, but unlike most people who work in the City Hall area and have a craving for scallops and onions (Bloomberg’s new favorite), the mayor can get through the Park Row barricades protecting police headquarters. Presumably, the trip was less than five minutes by car.
Two days later — on a lighter traffic day, Good Friday — a Downtown Express reporter drove from City Hall, around the barricades to the same restaurant, Sweet & Tart at 20 Mott St., and it took 24 minutes.
Police Blotter
News In Brief
Eckerd Drugs will move into a new 9,000 sq. ft. retail space in the 4 World Financial Center Courtyard, with an entrance on Vesey St., at the end of the summer, according to Brookfield Financial properties, owner of the building….The First Precinct Community Council will meet at 7 p.m. April 29 in the security office of the Alliance for Downtown New York, 120 Washington St. just north of Rector St….The facade of the embattled Greek revival building at 211 Pearl St. will be preserved, according to an agreement finalized last week among city and state officials and Rockrose Development Corp., said two of the parties involved….
Millennium money may be coming ‘very soon’
By Elizabeth O’Brien and Josh Rogers
With the clock ticking until the start of the new school year, Community Board 1 has been waiting for a response from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation on the board’s request for $5 million to help Millennium High School open Downtown in September.
New bill would limit vendors in Battery Park
By Elizabeth O’Brien
It may not be as sweeping as the city’s smoking ban, but Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s proposed legislation to regulate vending in city parks has some art sellers fuming over what they call a blatant disregard for their rights.
Ex-Little League coach charged with kidnapping
By Albert Amateau
Police last week arrested and charged Lawrence Omansky, 54, a lawyer and long-time Tribeca resident known as a devoted Downtown Little League dad, in connection with a bizarre kidnapping in which an estranged real estate partner said he was bound with duct tape and thrust into a crawl-space beneath the floor of Omansky’s apartment and trapped for 28 hours.
City looks to Rockaway and Brooklyn for Chinatown help
By Albert Amateau
The Department of Small Business Services has identified unused space in a Brooklyn and a Queens Empire Zone that could be transferred to Chinatown for a new empire zone to help a neighborhood economy hit hard by the World Trade Center attack.
Eva Capsouto, Tribeca restaurant’s matriarch, 83
Eva Capsouto, mother of the brothers who own Capsouto Frères in Tribeca and a beloved presence who greeted friends, neighbors and guests at the restaurant for more than 20 years, died Thurs. April 17 in NYU Downtown Hospital at the age of 83.
C.B. 2: More housing in Hudson Sq. south, not north
By Albert Amateau
Community Board 2 has voted to divide its recommendation on a proposal to allow residential development in the north and south ends of the Hudson Sq. manufacturing district.
Tribecan fights for law that could have saved her son
By Laura S. Greene
Their sons were lost off the shore of City Island, New York and even though one of the boys dialed 911 on his cell phone, their cries were not answered because the 911 operator was unable to locate them.
New AIDS czar faces tight budget
By DUNCAN OSBORNE
Speaking to thousands of AIDS advocates attending the Community Planning Leadership Summit on AIDS, Mayor Mike Bloomberg set two goals for his administration.
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ECONOMICS
City looks to Rockaway and Brooklyn for Chinatown help
By Albert Amateau
The Department of Small Business Services has identified unused space in a Brooklyn and a Queens Empire Zone that could be transferred to Chinatown for a new empire zone to help a neighborhood economy hit hard by the World Trade Center attack.
Department officials intend to meet this week with the administrators of the East Brooklyn Empire Zone in East New York and the Rockaway Empire Zone about the possible transfer, according to Rob Walsh, commissioner of Small Business Services.
After a mayoral news conference in Chinatown on Wed. April 16, Walsh said that the two empire zones have long had space to expand but have never used it. He said he was hopeful that there would not be too much resistance to the transfer.
Officials from both zones did not return calls for comment.
Empire zones, established in 1986 and administered by the state, provide significant tax breaks and low-cost loans to qualified businesses that expand their work forces and investments within a zone. The city’s 10 existing zones have boosted neighborhood economies, especially in East Harlem, the South Bronx and in Red Hook, Walsh said.
Chinatown business and civic leaders and elected officials were disappointed at the end of last year when the state did not create a Chinatown/Lower East Side Empire Zone proposed by the city. But in March, Charles Gargano, head of the Empires State Development Corp, pointed out that the city could create a Chinatown Empire Zone on its own without recourse to the state process.
“The easiest way would have been to have it funded in the first round,” said Walsh.
Empire zone legislation allows a municipality to transfer zone space anywhere within its borders.
Walsh said last week that a Chinatown Empire Zone created with space transferred from other zones could be equal in size to the zone that was proposed at the end of last year.
Under the current proposal, the new Chinatown Empire Zone technically would be administered as a sub zone of the zones that donate excess space, but Walsh is looking for a technical change that would allow for the zone to be administered in Chinatown.
Albert@DowntownExpress.com
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Letter from the Editor
Opening dialogues and streets in Chinatown
When the U.S. military has taken over Iraqi towns over the last few weeks, typically, military commanders have made it a point to meet with local religious and community leaders. They have done this despite well-founded fears that some of the locals may have suicide bombs strapped to their stomachs. One wonders what Police Commissioner Ray Kelly might say to these officers if he tried to explain why he has so far chosen not to meet with the locals who live in Chinatown and near City Hall to explain the closure of Park Row, a main artery connecting the two neighborhood.
Letters to the editor
Downtown Notebook
Motherhood/Multi-task either way it’s not easy
By Wickham Boyle
What used to be called motherhood is now termed multitasking in a trend that has the world gone business school jargon crazy.
This morning, my husband’s birthday, I got up, made coffee, got the kids off to school and contemplated my day for a good two minutes before I came up with an insane mother plan, oh sorry multi-tasking method, for tackling my very disorderly, ooops again, diversely-challenged day.
The Penney Post
The flavor of banned books
By Andrei Codrescu
The year 2003 will be remembered for many things in New Orleans, but the most interesting so far is the city ban on selling books on the street. You can legally buy razor blades, beads, temporary tattoos, and Lucky Dogs (frankfurters)…
Downtown’s the scene for hip hop fashion
By Wickham Boyle
Hoping down the bunny trail has taken on a whole new meaning Downtown, cause there was a hip hop, very hopening fashion show staged at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center this past Saturday.
Radio Station 105.1 produced this event featuring the top fashion innovators in the hip hop world but there was a twist on this show, it was for as the folks in charge, say "Fashion for shorties." That’s kids to us.
Easter in Tribeca
Downtown Express photos by Elisabeth Robert
My son sees me as a movie star
By Jane Flanagan
Back when I was pushing my then 11/2 year-old son Rusty around town, women of a certain age would stop me on the street, peer into his stroller and ogle. "Enjoy this time," they’d said. "It goes too fast."
Children's Activities
There was no shortage of belles of the ball recently at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center for a ballet performance of "Cinderella." The Borough of Manhattan Community College theater hosted the event. Elizabeth Parkinson, a dancer with Twyla Tharp, the Joffrey
and Feld Ballet, and star of "Movin’ Out" on Broadway, was going to present an award for best costume, but liked all of the costumes and gave awards to everyone. Full listing here…
Koch On Film
Hizzoner review Cet Amour-la and XXYY.
Arts
Financier
By Ellison Walcott
One thing is for sure: painter Kimberly Dawn knows how to vogue. She stared into the Downtown Express photographer’s camera lens as if posing for a Calvin Klein ad. Her porcelain white Persian cat Princess Isabella, a.k.a. P dog, sat in the corner of her studio beaming with pride, as if she was the one who taught Dawn the sultry poses.
On The Town
Cabarets, Restaurants, Clubs
Exhibitions
Dance
Comedy
Concerts
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