(I submitted this to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on April 2, 2021 to oppose [more] oversized empty supertalls in Lower Manhattan proposed over the South Street Seaport)
Thank you for this opportunity to express myself on this proposal. I am a native New Yorker, devoted to the brick, mortar and sunshine of my beloved hometown. The beauty and legacy of our tangible, living history deserves protection and preservation: these extraordinary, rare structures and streets cannot speak for themselves, so I speak to you for their consideration.
I wonder how on earth in New York City that we have gotten to this point where we are literally contemplating having a mediocre real estate company like Howard Hughes Corp manage the most old and historic area of our city, the South Street Seaport, as well as the museum meant to commemorate its legacy.
Are we, as a city, that desperate and foolish that we might throw away our historic past, along with the responsibility of a future to perpetuate it, for the worst sort of developer dollars? And can we even trust HHC, which has a long reputation of dishonesty and false promises? Their track record of commitment to their projects leaves much to be desired.
Ultimately, too, I am disappointed by the New York City Economic Development Corporation's poor handling of the Seaport Museum. The NYCEDC is essentially Mayor Bill de Blasio's real estate lobbying arm and has no business managing our city's culture, let alone its history. The NYCEDC needs to be removed from all initiatives involving the Seaport; it does not have the Museum's or the neighborhood's best interests at heart.
This city has recently been inundated by voices like Open New York, who represent developer interests and purposefully attempt to overwhelm community engagement meetings. I applaud the LPC for recognizing ONY's limited and overly obvious contributions by not allowing the same names and players to overtake LPC Zoom meetings with their repetitive false propaganda.
To properly save the Seaport area, we have a lot of work ahead of us as a community and city. The most difficult, complicated and time-consuming path is the best one for us to take: the path that does not involve the lazy choice of a slumlord developer quickly giving us money so we can feel better in the moment. And we do have to consider disparate issues and aspects, from sunlight and human scale to the history of racial injustice and lack of affordability and access to all New Yorkers. There has to be balance but there also has to be priority and physical history needs a special consideration. As the Old Penn Station taught this city, once something's gone, it's gone. We do not want to repeat that again with the South Street Seaport.
Big real estate developers have already created horrible mistakes all over Lower Manhattan, like the glaring cheese grateresque One Manhattan Square which sits, empty, at the base of the Manhattan Bridge. It's so empty that the owners engage ABC's Bachelor and his friends to promote it. If these skyscrapers are empty, maybe we need to address that first before building even more structures which will likely end up vacant. Our new empty high rises are threatening our older, well-used, sundrenched living history: we need to flip that priority.
I appreciate your time and attention and I implore you to do the right thing for this city, for its future and for the many people in that future who are relying on all of us now to preserve NYC's precious and beautiful history. It is our duty, responsibility and privilege.
