Two Places in Tribeca: Before and After

You can see the photos on your phone, but it might be more fun visually on your browser.  Scroll down to see them. Meanwhile, here are some Tribeca Trust updates:

• If you just want to sign the petition, click here.

• To donate or become a friend, click here.

• To become a member of the sponsoring committee for our fall fundraiser, send our committee chair a note at marci.brenholz@gmail.com

• Giglio’s on Warren is out of business. I spoke to a waiter last week, who told me that someone bought the building and wants to make it taller and get rid of them. So out they went.  He’d worked there forever.

• The City is still pushing its Big Real Estate-sponsored upzoning idea. For our alternative proposals, click here; for the detailed objections of a wide variety of civic organizations (53 and counting), click here. The short of it is this: there’s no reason to change all zoning citywide in terms of height, nor is there a need to get rid of “contextual zoning” to build senior citizen homes. The senior thing is a classic red herring, designed to appeal to your liberal sympathies, split the opposition and sidetrack the discussion while Big  Real Estate slips through terrible changes that only benefit them…

• We are headed to our electeds soon with your petition, your comments, and our consultant’s studies on Tribeca that you all have paid for.  Stay tuned next week for more. We’ll publish your comments next week, and tell you what you can do to try and turn the Mayor around on this and the zoning issue.

• And coming soon to our website and newsletters:  more videos, including one with Jeanine, the waitress at Kitchenette who lost her job to rent increases.

Now on to the photos.

This is 170 Duane in 2015 and the 1970s.

The 1970’s photo was kindly lent by the great Tribeca photographer, Allan Tannenbaum, whose website is here.

The sad thing about the changes to this building is that they were permitted by Landmarks, as reported by neighbors.  What was Landmarks thinking?  Wait, I know, “the context is a tyranny” –  as one of the Commissioners piped up during a hearing last year.

Here we have a view of the SE corner of Reade and Church (old photo thanks to NYPL).

No comment here on what happened to the skyline since the older photo, except to say that at least a good stretch of Tribeca has been saved.  Thank you Hal Bromm and Carole de Saram!   And May a Cold Wind Blow and the Road Rise in Front of You, REBNY, for messing with what was a great thing.