Police Department Sued Over Planned Downtown Command Center - The New York Sun

I work in public archaeology often in NYC, in the research and excavation of the City's cultural resources, often reviewed by the NYC Landmarks Commission, where buildings only as old as 40 years may be placed in the administrative purview of "landmarks" (I think Jimi Hendrix's "Electric Ladyland Studios" might qualify now, perhaps) and I am worried about this. Here's why: far below Manhattan, a water tunnel is coming to lower Manhattan and must come to the surface. There as far as I know only two places it can come up, two properties I am familiar with, having researched one to have been "condemned" for the "shaft" under the Mayor Dinkins admin., in the South Street Historic District, owned by the developer Milstein family, instrumental in Times Square redevelopment, the other, One Police Plaza. I heard at a city hearing on cable, the park, once to have been "Mother Cabrini Park" that the neighbors are upset it's used for police parking, a brick surfaced park unavailable to them, perhaps used on the premise the water shaft would come up there instead of in the Seaport, and the park never built. Well there you have it, the "water shaft" if it comes up at 1 Police Plaza might make this "Command Center" a "foot in the door" that might require expansion into the area with the selection of the "water shaft" construction at One Police Plaza. The other site has been a "bone of contention" with the local community for years and as far as I know, still being argued over. It was the site of the earliest development in New Amsterdam, and the beginning of the English influence in what became "New York" at the Isaac Allerton Warehouse. He a Puritan, who came over on the Mayflower, is buried in the cemetery next to Yale University that they maintained, moved from another cemetery in the path of "progress". Either site offers the easiest access to the water network, now stressed further by the rezoning of the upper floors of business skyscrapers to residential use, creating "elevator commuters" perhaps.

Submitted by George Myers, Aug 30, 2008 14:14 - Reader comments at The New York Sun