One Chase Manhattan Plaza. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Following downtown residents’ and the Community Board 1 (CB1) Urban Planning Committee’s demands for an explanation, three representatives of JP Morgan Chase met with the CB1 Quality of Life Committee yesterday evening to discuss the closure of One Chase Manhattan Plaza, home of the bank’s Financial District skyscraper and a privately owned major pedestrian thruway that has been fenced off since September.

Officially, the plaza was closed for a yet-to-be-seen construction project, but its timing prompted many citizens to suspect that the fencing was erected to ward off Occupy Wall Street protestors. Suspicion increased when various community remembers reported that they were explicitly told by the bank’s floor workers and security guards that the barrier was to prevent protests.

Committee member Ro Sheffe asked the representatives if any factors at all other than construction were behind the plaza’s closure. Chase’s Community Reinvestment Manager Karen McGuinness responded, “Absolutely not.”

The representatives explained that serious leaks in the plaza were identified that compromise the building’s infrastructure and safety. They said that the bank has spent recent months surveying the lot and using vector mapping to determine weak points. Results showed that the plaza’s membrane would be good for another 8-10 years, but multiple sections need repair, along with cleaning and resetting.

Asked how long repairs would take, one representative said about six months, weather permitting. Asked when repairs would begin, he responded, “soon — as soon as tomorrow, even,” but promised no specific date or deadline.

Asked if the plaza would reopen to the public after construction, another representative assured that it would. “We intend to operate the plaza as it has been traditionally operated,” he said.

After the representatives left the meeting, the Committee agreed to suspend a resolution to pressure the bank to reopen the plaza that the Urban Planning Committee had drafted when it met on July 5. For now, they decided, they would keep an eye on the plaza and wait to see if Chase follows through.

Many committee members remained skeptical about the bank’s story — a few had been told themselves by the bank’s staff that the fencing was in place to block protestors — but most were satisfied that the bank had made its intentions clear.

Sheffe, however, said that he was still unhappy. “I don’t want to argue with Chase because it’s their property,” he told New York Press. “But there’s a social imperative. [The plaza] is a valuable community resource. I want it open as soon as possible.”

1 Chase Plaza. Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons.

By Paul Bisceglio

The wire fence that blocks access to One Chase Manhattan Plaza has been a source of controversy since it was erected around the 60-floor Financial District skyscraper’s outdoor square last September for a yet-to-be-seen construction project. Now, the city’s newly formed Urban Planning Committee is adding its voice to demands that the bank reopen the plaza to the public.

The committee met for the first time last Thursday in the Community Board 1 (CB1) office on Chambers Street. Following a presentation by Michael Levine, CB1′s Director of Land Use and Planning, and his Pace University students on Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS), the committee addressed  the Chase plaza’s closure, which they considered a significant obstruction in the daily lives of the Financial Districts 28,000 residents.

“It’s a catastrophe,” said committee member Ro Sheffe, arguing that the plaza – “the major open space in the center of the financial district” – was essential for reducing pedestrian traffic in the area during what he called “the largest urban renewal project ever.”

Jeff Galloway, the committee’s chair, agreed. “It seems to be to be extraordinarily unneighborly,” he said.

The problem the committee faces is that One Chase Manhattan Plaza is not a Privately Owned Public Space – it’s just private. The building was constructed before POPS zoning laws were made in the 1970′s, so the bank has no legal obligation to keep the square open to the public.

The committee echoed general public speculation that the plaza’s alleged construction project is a guise to ward off Occupy Wall Street protestors. One man has even sued the New York Department of Buildings for refusing to disclose Chase’s construction plans, but One Chase Manhattan Plaza’s place on a Police Department list of  buildings potentially vulnerable to a terrorist attack has allowed the bank to guard the details of the project from public scrutiny for security reasons. Levine mentioned that the legality of the fencing could come into question if Chase were proven actually not to be engaging in construction.

The committee agreed that if no legal imperative exists to make Chase open the plaza, a social one still does. A preliminary vote unanimously passed a resolution to tell Chase that the plaza should be opened as quickly as possible, that security concerns should be accommodated in a way that has minimal impact on the public and that the bank should provide a timetable for the construction project’s completion.

Chase had not responded to the CB1 staff’s attempts to contact them about the fencing at the time of the meeting, but the bank has since agreed to send a a representative to the CB1 Quality of Life Committee meeting on Thursday, July 12 to discuss the issue. Chase has not responded to New York Press’s requests for details about the construction project.