By David Gibbons

That the financial crisis is over and our economy is in full recovery is old news—at least from the viewpoint of several high-profile real estate insiders, all experts on the downtown market.
“The word ‘recession’ is not even used in the last six to nine months,” said Andrew Barrocas, CEO of MNS, a real estate brokerage firm specializing in residential properties. “We’re far out of that.”

For the fourth quarter of 2012, the MNS report on new development sales showed solid overall gains on a quarterly and yearly basis. While the Upper West Side topped closings (65), two downtown neighborhoods, Battery Park City (48) and Chelsea (46), were strong contenders. All other areas south of 34th Street showed lively activity, with rents still high and sales prices exceeding pre-crisis levels.

“Downtown is mimicking the rest of the market,” said Lori Ordover, CEO/founder of the Ordover Group. “The big issue is a lack of inventory.”

According to The Corcoran Report, total available listings in Manhattan reached their lowest number in more than seven years during the past quarter.

Residential development stalled in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers (September, 2008); significant numbers of new properties are not expected to crop up for several years.

“It’s a very tight market,” said Gary Malin, president of Citi Habitats, a leader in NYC sales and rentals.

The crux of the matter is liquidity: Larger institutions, such as banks involved in real estate, have been slower to rebound and remain cautious about lending. The purse strings are still tight, both for developers seeking to obtain financing and potential buyers hoping to secure mortgages. The days of huge luxury condo towers selling out to eager buyers based on nothing more than a floor plan, a virtual tour and a dream are over. Nevertheless, the brokers are optimistic.

“The overall big picture for downtown Manhattan is very positive,” said Ariel Cohen, exclusive agent for 75 Wall Street, a 346-unit luxury condo high-rise on the market since 2009. Given his stake in the area, Cohen is understandably bullish.

“Lower Manhattan has been an ongoing, emerging category since 2004,” he said. “Chelsea and Tribeca have already emerged. Battery Park City is a very mature market. Now, in the Financial District, we are heavily emerging.”

“I live in Tribeca, and every day I get seven or eight postcards from brokers saying, ‘I could sell your apartment.’ I know that, but I don’t want to move,” Ordover said. “I love living downtown. I think it’s the most vibrant part of the city.”

Cohen said that sales at 75 Wall Street picked up “dramatically” in the second quarter of 2012; the building is now more than to 60 percent sold. At an average of $1,220 per square foot, its remaining units compare well: “A husband will call me and say, ‘My wife wants to live in Tribeca, but please tell me what you have in the Financial District.’” Even on the fringes of Tribeca, Cohen points out, prices are in the $2,000 range. Both Barrocas and Malin agree, comparing the Financial District favorably to Greenwich Village for value—and adding the Lower East Side.

Another strong indicator for downtown is its preponderance of first-time buyers and young families, many from other parts of Manhattan. Ordover marvels at the stroller gridlock on West Broadway and stiff competition for exercycles at her favorite spinning class. “They’re starting to call the Financial District the Diaper District,” Cohen joked. “Our buyers run a big gamut,” he said. “It’s not just your Wall Street-driven clientele.” Both note many positive signs for the community, including good new schools opening; Condé Nast’s impending move to the new World Trade Center tower; and plans for a downtown performing arts center.

For “affordable” new development downtown—i.e., in the range of $1,500 to $2,000 per square foot—Barrocas looks east from the Bowery to the river. “Obviously, the development process takes time,” he said. “Two, three, four years out, I can only predict numbers being stronger than they are today.” He noted the Seward Park Mixed-Use Development Project for nine city-owned lots along Delancey Street, approved last September, as a potential game-changer in the area.

The strike has come as a result of a stand-off between the city and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181. The union has alleged that the city’s plans for bidding on new contracts for over 1,000 bus routes could result in inexperienced drivers and pose a safety threat to schoolchildren.
Bloomberg has asserted that the union is demanding job protections that the city legally cannot guarantee, and has further made it known that the city’s exorbitant spending on bus contracts—$6,900 per student, or $1.1 billion a year—is unsustainable.

As of press time, neither side was willing to budge, and the thousands of children dependent on those yellow buses are finding their own way to school.

Play Ball?
The devastation of Hurricane Sandy is still actively present in Manhattan, especially in Battery Park City. With Little League season coming this April, the organization Downtown Little League is pushing for a particular repair: new turf ballfields in BPC.

According to DNAinfo, approximately 1,000 Lower Manhattan children have already registered for this upcoming Little League season despite the unusable condition of the fields. While Downtown Little League President Bill Martino has expressed his confidence in there being a full season this year, the required repairs have not yet been made.

Battery Park City Authority, the agency responsible for administering the necessary repairs, has officially issued requests for proposals to replace the destroyed turf. Even though the BPCA is taking all the necessary actions to get the ball rolling, they are not guaranteeing a successful completion by April 1.

This hasn’t satisfied Downtown Little League, and state Sen. Daniel Squadron and Speaker Sheldon Silver have both gotten involved to demand immediate action.

“With Little League season only a few months away, work has not begun to repair the Battery Park City ball fields,” Squadron said in a statement. “Let’s be clear: It is absolutely vital that the BPCA figures out how to get work started on the fields by the beginning of next month—period.”

The senator suggested employing a temporary option to make the fields available for players for this upcoming season and stressed that neighborhood families rely on the fields for their kids’ exercise and open space.

“Downtown Little League has already begun registering families for the 2013 season. It is simply not acceptable to tell the children of Battery Park City and Lower Manhattan that there will be no season this year,” Silver said in a letter to the BPCA.

The Downtown Little League Board of Directors issued a statement on its website that addresses the basic intention of all those involved.

“Our number one priority is the health and safety of our children and we are committed to providing them with a safe environment to play baseball and softball this spring.”

Walls Crumbling Down
A 194-year-old building on Canal Street has finally done what nearby residents and government agencies had feared and partially collapsed. According to DNAinfo, a wall within the building came apart last week, resulting in a metal roll-down gate falling to the sidewalk. It appears that no one was injured and, since this building has been vacant for years, that no one was inside.

New York City agencies have been informing Ponte Equities, the building’s landlord, that certain repairs had to be made to ensure the building’s stability. The Landmarks Preservation Commission decided that the building was in great danger of collapsing in 2010, and Ponte Equities promised to make repairs immediately. Department of Buildings records show that Ponte Equities had received building violations as recently as October of last year.

Compiled by Megan Bungeroth and Jessica Mastronardi

Parents in Lower Manhattan say that overcrowding at Battery Park City School (P.S. 276) is nearing a breaking point, and they have launched an online petition demanding that Mayor Bloomberg and the city’s Department of Education take decisive action and limit the number of incoming kindergarten classes for next year and beyond.

Started late last month, the petition has already garnered more than 600 signatures in the hopes that city officials will limit to three the number of incoming kindergarten classes at BPC and help preserve the school’s noted science, music, art and pre-K programs.

Parents and teachers at the school say that continued overcrowding will jeopardize specialized programs simply due to the fact that the classrooms may have to be used to accommodate increasing numbers of students at the school.

“Next year marks the first year we won’t have enough classrooms to maintain programs if we continue to admit kindergarten students beyond our capacity,” said Matt Schneider, a PTA co-president at BPC, via email.

“Our pre-K program could be eliminated entirely. Our science, art and music rooms could be converted to regular classrooms,” he added. “The quality of education for our kids diminishes.”

The three-year-old BPC School was designed to handle only three classes per grade, but Schneider said the school has been forced by the DOE to handle four classes in 2010 and five classes in both 2011 and 2012.

Posting comments to the school’s online petition, BPC parent Tracie Basch wrote: “Both my children attend this well-regarded school and love going to school. It would be a disservice to our children to alter our well respected science, art and music programs as well as discontinue our pre-K program.”

She added, “For our children to be able to compete in this new global economy, we need to find ways to improve our science and arts programs—not take away these specialized classrooms and revert to them being on a cart. That is not how you get children excited about learning.”

At a recent Community Board 1 meeting, BPC’s Principal Terri Ruyter said that for the coming school year there may not be enough classrooms for students in pre-K through 8th grade. She also said that the time is at hand to develop both short and long-term solutions to the school’s dire overcrowding problem.

Solutions suggested by Schneider and the school’s overcrowding committee include, in addition to limiting classes and class sizes, find and lease more interim classroom space to address shortages now, and build more schools in Lower Manhattan as a long-term solution.

“I think the persistent school overcrowding in Lower Manhattan points to inadequate planning or worse, a lack of planning post 9/11,” said Shino Tanikawa, president of Community Education Council 2.

“We need population projections at the neighborhood level, which neither the DOE nor the School Construction Authority currently undertakes. And, we need better methodology for projecting school-age populations, as has been advocated by Dr. Eric Greenleaf for the past several years,” Tanikawa said.

Greenleaf is an NYU professor, a downtown parent and a member of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s school overcrowding task force.

As of press time, the DOE did not return calls seeking comment on overcrowding at BPC.
However, most recently the DOE has said it is “on track” to meet growing demand for school seats in Lower Manhattan, and will make 700 seats available with the addition of the Peck Slip School opening in 2015.

In the meantime, the overcrowding at BPC seems to be taking a toll on students and performance. A DOE progress report for 2011-2012 gave the school an overall grade of C. The progress reports measure a variety of factors including student’s performance on standardized tests from year to year.

One parent at the school, who requested their name be withheld, said, “What I would love to read is how this beautiful state-of-the-art school based in upscale Battery Park has so very quickly become an uninspired disappointment.”

Asked about the school’s less-than-stellar DOE progress report, Schneider did not fully concur with the report’s findings. “There are a host of problems related to the way schools are measured by the progress report, and I don’t believe that report accurately reflects teaching and learning in our school,” Schneider said.

“That said,” he added, “it’s hard to argue that large class sizes don’t negatively affect learning for some students.”

Moreover, Schneider said that teachers at BPC work hard to overcome large class sizes, but time is limited, and teachers can only find one-on-one time with a certain number of students. “That,” he said, “has to have an impact.”

It was a scary Sunday for Battery Park City.

Around 5 p.m. this past weekend, 24-year-0ld Antoine Odom stole a car from a nearby rental lot and sped away, eventually crashing his car into the Irish Hunger Memorial and confusing the entire neighborhood. Odom apparently flew around the neighborhood, passing cars at high speeds, and almost hit a teenager who incurred a minor injury while avoiding the car, the Tribeca Trib said.

According to the Trib, Odom walked out of the stolen Chevrolet unscathed after what seemed like a fatal crash and was soon detained by police. Odom is charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment,  grand larceny, criminal possession of a controlled substance, operating a motor vehicle while impaired and leaving the scene of an accident, the NYPD told DNAinfo.

The crash resulted in substantial damage to the memorial’s outerwall, which remained open on Monday.

Damage costs are being calculated, and repairs should begin shortly.

Squadron Opens Mobile District Offices
When covering a district that includes two boroughs, it can be helpful to load up the staff, hop in a bus (we’re imagining) and meet with constituents. Instead of the bus route, State Sen. Daniel Squadron will open four mobile district offices this month in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn in an attempt to get closer to residents and speak directly with community members. The offices will be located around the 25th District, which he serves. Locations will be located in Tribeca, at Brooklyn Borough Hall, the Lower East Side and Chinatown. For more info on these mobile locations, visit the senator’s website at www.nysenate.gov/senator/daniel-l-squadron.

Federal Government Makes a Return to World Trade Center
The U.S. General Services Agency (GSA) signed a lease last week to rent space in One World Trade Center, the soon-to-be-tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

The administration will occupy about 270,000 square feet of space on six floors starting in 2015; with the signing of this agreement, more than 55 percent of the building has been leased.

“This reaffirms the federal government’s commitment to the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site and to this project that demonstrates the undaunted resilience of the American people,” said GSA Acting Administrator Dan Tangherlini. “There will once again be a federal presence in the World Trade Center, as there was from its beginning. We worked closely with the Port Authority and the Durst Organization to negotiate a lease that will result in the best value for taxpayers, the federal government and the City of New York.”

Lower Manhattan M9 Bus Changes Route for the Better
Transportation headaches for those living in Battery Park City might soon be soothed as the MTA is set to restore M9 bus service in January 2013. A large section of this particular bus route was forgone two years ago in order to close a gap of nearly $900 million in the MTA’s budget, to the dismay of residents.

Once the full route is reinstated, it will include stops in the East Village, the Lower East Side, Chinatown and City Hall, saving residents from wasting time taking multiple buses. The route will also extend northward, providing stops at Bellevue Hospital Center and the NYU Medical Center.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver applauded the news last Tuesday, saying the restored service will help rebuild the Lower Manhattan community.

“I recently approached MTA Chair Joseph Lhota to discuss the importance of restoring this service for the residents, workers and visitors to Battery Park City,” said Silver. “Enhancing important transportation links for residents, workers and students as well as visitors to my Lower Manhattan community is critical as we continue to grow and renew our neighborhoods.”

Senator Squadron Welcomes New Beer Production Tax Credit
It’s good news for breweries. Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently signed legislation to reinstate a beer production tax credit. New York breweries that produce less than 60 million gallons of beer will utilize the tax credit of 14 cents per gallon of beer sold in the state and 12 more cents per gallon of beer sold in the city for the first 200,000 barrels of beer.

This came after State Sens. Squadron and Lee Zeldin, U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and Assemblyman Joe Lentol met with local brewers to announce a bipartisan plan to reinstate the credit and protect New York’s small brewers.

Such brewers include the local Brooklyn Brewery, which is in Squadron’s district, Kelso in Clinton Hill and about 90 others in parts of Long Island and New York.

“From the good jobs they create to the great beer they produce, New York’s brewers are key to New York’s economy,” said Squadron in a statement. “By reinstating the beer production credit, we’re serving New York’s brewers, consumers and economy alike, allowing our small businesses to keep growing while keeping their brews affordable,” he said.

Courtesy of Summer In The Square.

Attack of the Bubbles at Union Square
Kids and parents alike were bubbling over The Gazillion Bubble Show at Union Square last week. The performance, which has been popular at New World Stages since 2007, was part of the Union Square Partnership’s 2012 Summer in the Square series that holds events every Thursday from morning to evening. Bubbles of all shapes and sizes floated through the air at the bubble-making demonstration and performance, all to the delight of the young children in attendance.

Photo Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

by Adel Manoukian

It’s long-awaited good news for Brooklynites and Manhattan residents. State Senator Daniel Squadron announced today that the MTA has made many service expansions and restorations in the two boroughs.

The MTA will create a brand new Brooklyn Tech Triangle bus route which the senator and stakeholders will lead the effort for. Other changes include a new bus route beginning in mid-2013 along the Williamsburg waterfront, which will be designed in consultation with stakeholders.

The Senator and the community have been advocating new routes since some services were cut in 2010 to close a gap in the MTA’s budget.

Now restorations include the B39 bus service over the Williamsburg Bridge to and from Manhattan. The M9 bus will add service to Battery Park City and will add more stops in between. The B57 bus has extended its services into Red Hook. The G train will permanently add five more stops after its last Church Avenue station. Some buses are also getting weekend service. These include the B24, B69, and M21.

“New Yorkers depend on the access bus and subway service provides every day of the week,” said Senator Squadron in a statement. “These restorations and new routes will connect more neighborhoods for more New Yorkers more often. From Williamsburg to Red Hook and from the Lower East Side to Battery Park City, we’ve been pushing with the community for these restorations because they are, simply, essential.”

The senator isn’t giving up his pushing just yet. He continues to advocate for M8 weekend service, a restoration of B51 service and more service from the Brooklyn waterfront’s Columbia Street into Park Slope and beyond to replace the B71.

For most, the Staten Island Ferry is part of the daily commute (for those who live on the borough) or a much-needed respite from a busy Manhattan-based vacation (for the visitor). Now, the Staten Island Ferry’s terminal is also the site of a much-praised outdoor farmer’s market. The Staten Island Ferry Whitehall Terminal Greenmarket in Lower Manhattan, open Tuesday through Friday, 8 a.m.-7 p.m., offers a bevy of farm-made goods, from Wilklow Orchards’ ciders and pies to Remsburger Maple Farm’s maple syrup and honey.
“This isn’t one of our busiest markets, but it’s good enough for us to keep coming back,” said Mike Hyler, a 29-year-old worker for Wilklow Orchards. “There is a really good mix of tourists throughout the day and mainly commuters in the evening.”
We spent a recent afternoon sussing out the Greenmarket crowd.

“I absolutely love this market. I stop here a lot as I go to my ferry because the apples are delicious, so fresh, and it is just in the perfect location. Nobody should miss it.” Denise Martin-Cook, 58, health account representative, New York.

“I get my apple cider here two times a week. I love this place. The cider is really good. It’s healthy and convenient—I never have to go out of my way for a good jug of this stuff.” Ken Lawrence, 43, banker, New York.

“I was just about to take advantage of the free ferry and I saw this random market set up. I’m hoping it gets Americans to eat healthier. It looks nice.” Mary Webbs, 53, housewife, Sydney, Australia.

“I’m here on vacation—I was about to take the ferry, and then I recognized this farmer’s market right away. They have loads of them back in Australia set up on the side of roads. I mean it pretty much looks the same, but ours are much bigger. This location looks good because tourists stop here all the time, and most of them know of these kinds of markets from where ever they’re from. Also, who wouldn’t want to eat fresh fruit on a boat?” Dean Nadzielski, 24, Advertising, Australia.

“Now that I’m doing martial arts, I’m toughening up,” 16-year-old Rachel Filsoof joked.

The actress, singer, dancer and Professional Children’s School junior has been training in mixed martial arts for the past three months for a film. The yet-to-be-titled picture will be released in theaters in 2013, and Filsoof has a lead role. “I play a girl manufactured by the government to kill a bunch of bad dudes,” she explains.

This marks Filsoof’s first foray into the action genre, where she will play a character very unlike her young, shy self. Filsoof admits to being teased and found it difficult to confront her tormentors when she was younger.

Although she now lives in Battery Park City, she moved here only three years ago from Atlanta with her family. In Georgia, her fellow students were venomous when it came to her budding career: “Kids were not nice to me. I would miss school for auditions and rehearsals without being penalized, and they resented that. I also dressed in my own style, like wearing pink furry boots, and they would pick on me for looking different. It was rough. Now I go to school where everyone is like me. It’s awesome. I’ve made so many friends.”

At the age of 9, Filsoof began performing in local theater productions, including Annie, and modeling in advertisements for companies like Macy’s, Escada and Home Depot. The smooth beginning of her career reads like the type of fairy-tale story many young girls secretly dream of: Filsoof was discovered by a scout from Elite Modeling agency while walking her dog. Modeling opportunities led to acting gigs and Filsoof soon found herself traveling during summer breaks to New York and Los Angeles to perform on stage and in television roles.

Eventually, she had booked enough jobs to warrant a permanent move to New York City with her parents in tow. Her father, who works in real estate, still makes regular trips to their old stomping grounds.

“Everyone just left for me and my career. My parents had to completely sacrifice their lives for me. I really appreciate it,” Filsoof said.

Tess, Filsoof’s mom, added, “We didn’t want to prevent her from reaching her potential as a performing artist since it is what she loves and she is so focused, disciplined and determined to make it in the business.”

Over the past few years, Filsoof has toured with productions of High School Musical 1 and 2, starred in the Lifetime movie Flying By, with Billy Rae Cyrus and Heather Locklear, and landed a part in the ABC Family film Mean Girls 2.

Filsoof is also simultaneously embarking on a singing career, and recently signed with a record label as part of a new girl group. She will be featured with her vocal coach, Trapper Felides, on a reality show debuting on the Oxygen network in February called The Next Big Thing.

Last week, the Downtown Alliance launched its fourth annual Holiday Shopping campaign. Alongside print and outdoor advertising, direct mailings and promotions, the Alliance has released the 2012 Lower Manhattan Shopping & Dining Guide, designed to showcase the district’s 1,300 options for purchasing holiday gifts or gathering with family and friends for an amazing meal. Download or pre-order a free copy of the guide at www.downtownny.com/holiday or download the Downtown Alliance’s mobile app on iTunes.

The Alliance is also spreading holiday cheer by decorating the streets of Lower Manhattan with 167 shooting stars and 41 star clusters. This marks the 16th year the Alliance has put up holiday fixtures, which are custom-designed for the nonprofit Business Improvement District. The decorative lights will stay up through January.

“The Downtown Alliance is proud to add a bit more sparkle to the holiday season for our 309,000 workers, 56,000 residents and 9 million annual visitors,” said Elizabeth H. Berger, president of the Downtown Alliance.

Downtown Connection, the Alliance’s free bus service that makes 37 stops and connects the South Street Seaport to Battery Park City, welcomed a new fleet of state-of-the-art buses. While the older models could accommodate up to 19 passengers, the newer editions have room for up to 25 people. The bus runs seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and boasts 900,000 rides per year.

Photo caption: Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) Commissioner Jonathan Mintz, J & R Chief Executive Officer Rachelle Friedman and Alliance for Downtown New York President Elizabeth H. Berger kickoff the Downtown Alliance’s Holiday Shopping Campaign. (Photo courtesy of the Downtown Alliance)

Tribeca
FILM FEST WELCOMES NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

The Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) announced this week that Frederic Boyer, who recently ran the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, has been named the artistic director of TFF.

Boyer, 52, has served as artistic director and head of programming for the Directors’ Fortnight since 2009. From 2004 to 2008, he was the head of Cannes’ Film Selection Committee. He is the artistic director of the Les Arcs European Film Festival at the Les Arcs ski resort in the Alps. Before joining the Directors’ Fortnight, he created and managed Videosphere, a renowned video store in Paris with a library of some 60,000 titles, including a wide range of arthouse films.

“The Tribeca Film Festival has always been a platform for a wide spectrum of filmmaking, and Frederic shares our passion and curiosity for film and storytelling,” said Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal. “We know he will make our festival team even stronger and enhance the Tribeca experience as we enter our second decade.”

“I could not be more honored and excited to begin this new chapter at Tribeca. This Festival has matured and developed so impressively from its origins, but there are many more frontiers to explore while keeping the core focus on discovering new voices in filmmaking,” Boyer added.

Other changes to the TFF executive structure include the promotion of Genna Terranova, former senior programmer, to director of programming.

The 11th annual TFF will be held April 18-29 in New York City in 2012.

Battery Park City
ASPHALT GREEN’S NEW WEBSITE

Asphalt Green, a not-for-profit health and fitness center, recently launched its new website, www.asphaltgreenbpc.org, to provide details on their new Battery Park City facility that will open in February. The Asphalt Green Battery Park City location will include two pools, a gymnasium, state-of-the-art exercise equipment, a culinary center, a performing arts space, and six multi-use studios and classrooms. Babysitting services will be available for members.

Programs for children will include training in swimming, soccer, basketball, baseball/softball, volleyball, martial arts, culinary and cultural arts programs and a summer camp. Adult programs will include sports leagues and specialized training for marathons and triathlons, as well as a wide variety of exercise classes including yoga, Pilates, Zumba, cardio kickboxing, spinning, swimming and water exercises and extensive culinary and cultural arts programs.

Asphalt Green Battery Park City will be located at 212 North End Ave., between Murray and Warren streets. A temporary membership office has been opened across the street, at 211 North End Ave. Membership information is available on the website and by calling (212) 298-2980.

Correction

Issue of Nov. 24, 2011
In the article, “A Citywide Guide to Eating Out on Thanksgiving” it was incorrectly stated that Griffou chef Mark Strausman was the former executive chef at Fred’s at Barney. Strausman is still the executive chef at Fred’s, in addition to his role as executive chef for Griffou.