Who Should Consider Semaglutide Therapy in Battery Park, NY?

Photo by Dean Moses

Battery Park has become a battleground, according to those who operate ferry tours there, with licensed and unlicensed vendors competing for business, looking to tap into a lucrative market.

The mayor’s office reports that Statue City Cruises and NY Water Taxi are the only licensed vendors permitted to sell boat ride tickets in Battery Park. However, that hasn’t stopped other hawkers from popping up at the Manhattan greenspace in an effort to make a profit.

Mike Burke, COO of Statue City Cruises, told amNewYork Metro that illicit sellers are flogging tickets to cruises at exuberant prices and are misleading customers as to what rides they are paying for.

According to Burke, these vendors not only overcharge tourists, but they also lie about where exactly they are being taken, telling consumers, for instance, the boats will take them to Ellis Island when in fact they do not disembark on the iconic island.

“They interrupt visitors that would have been going to Statue Cruises looking to buy a ticket by essentially, let’s just call it lying, misrepresenting what their harbor tour is. They made it sound like they are going to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, which they can’t do,” Burke charged.

Burke levied accusations that these other vendors not only sell their own boat rides, but he also says he has received complaints from customers that the sellers market fake or previously used tickets from Statue Cruises under the guise that they are affiliated with his company. He likewise reports that the vendors often attempt to intimidate his staff and even tourists, occasionally erupting into violence.

“There are about 30 to 40 [vendors] all along Battery Park and State Street and you will see a number of uniforms, colors, outfits, and they are pretending to be what we are,” Burke said. “But there is virtually no NYPD enforcement.”

While Burke went as far as to call the vendors “thugs” and “ex-felons,” those on the other side say things are not so black and white.

Brock Brock, the president of Big City Tourism — one of the vendors in the area — pushed back against the scamming charges, stating that he operates a Black-owned business who hires formerly incarcerated and at-risk individuals who are simply attempting to offer cruises to customers. Brock believes Statue City Cruises are only making these accusations since his company is becoming a large competitor and taking business from Burke.

“It’s a lie. I think that’s coming from bigger companies that actually look at us as competition, a David and Goliath type story,” Brock told amNewYork Metro. “It’s very frustrating. It’s nothing I am not used to. I have been doing this my whole life, fighting and struggling.”

Brock combated claims that he misrepresents his cruises by showing a receipt that read, “We do not disembark on Liberty Island or Ellis Island. This is a cruise only.” He also claimed that the mayor’s office is aware and supports his business. City Hall did not respond for comment on the matter.

“As sad as it is to say, about a good 40% of [employees] are ex-felons and they will not be able to get a good paying job no matter where they go,” Brock said. “We help them with financial literacy, we help them with their credit. We help them form businesses. Most of the guys now do have LLC and smaller businesses and smaller tourism companies and through that they’re able to hire other friends and family members to sell their product.”

Burke rebuked these claims, stating he is not angry over a loss of income and instead frustrated that the city won’t enforce the regulations.

“If people have a legitimate business, and they’re operating with the rules and regulations, that’s called competition and that’s fine. We have no beef with that,” Burke said. “There is no vending within that park. Not on the sidewalk, not in the park under the trees, not near Castle Clinton, which is a federal park within the city park. So, it’s more than disingenuous for them to tell you that we’re just angry that we’re losing business.”

The NYPD and New York City Parks Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Battery Park City is one of Manhattan’s newest neighborhoods. Construction began in the late 1970s. The planned community at the southwest tip of Manhattan took its name from the Battery, a public park to the south which faces New York Harbor. With a third of the neighborhood occupied by parkland, it is seen by many as a quiet escape from the fast-paced stress of the Financial District. Many of the neighborhood’s buildings are just a decade or two old, especially those rebuilt following 9/11. Here are the top 12 secrets of Battery Park City!

1. Battery Park City Was Once a Wheat Field

Next: #2 An Anti-Nuclear Rally Took Place Atop the Battery Park City Landfill

View all on one page

Before Battery Park City housed the tall, modern buildings it does today, much of the land was temporarily a wheat field as part of an art installation. In 1982, artist Agnes Denes planted two acres of wheat on the newly formed land as part of a piece called Wheatfield — A Confrontation. The installation, which was sponsored by the Public Art Fund, brought attention to the abandoned and empty locations along the city’s waterfront. Around 285 furrows were dug by hand, each of which took over two hours. It took months to install a proper irrigation system and clear out rocks.

Ultimately, in August of that year, Denes harvested over 1,000 pounds of golden wheat as a commentary on the ecological crisis. Denes at the time described the piece as a “symbol, a universal concept. It represents food, energy, commerce, world trade, and economics. It refers to mismanagement and world hunger. It is an intrusion into the Citadel, a confrontation of High Civilization. Then again, it is also Shangri-La, a small paradise, one’s childhood, a hot summer afternoon in the country, peace. Forgotten values, simple pleasures.” Despite the success of the project, Denes remained in relative obscurity. Her work appeared in NYC again when her piece “The Living Pyramid,” a grassy ziggurat, appeared in 2015 at Socrates Sculpture Park.

New York state’s Battery Park City Authority is advancing plans for one of several key resilience projects aimed at protecting lower Manhattan against flooding associated with anticipated sea level rise.

The authority recently awarded a contract for the progressive design-build North/West Battery Park City Resilience Project to a joint venture of Turner Construction Co. and E.E. Cruz & Co. Inc. with Arcadis, Bjarke Ingels Group, Scape Landscape Architecture and WSP. Construction is expected to start next year, the authority says.

The project covers an area along the Hudson River waterfront between the northwest end of Battery Park and a high point on Greenwich Street in Tribeca. Design is still underway, but preliminary plans call for about 8,000 linear ft of flood and seepage barriers, plus interior drainage improvements to protect a 92-acre area, the contractors said in a statement.

The North/West Battery Park City Resiliency Project would synergize with others around Lower Manhattan. Drawing courtesy of BPCA

The authority says deployable floodgates are a likely barrier solution for the project. Most of the Battery Park City shoreline is at the furthest point allowed for the federal navigation channel in the Hudson River, so any construction into the river would be far more complex and costly, officials say.

Officials say they cannot yet share an expected cost for the project with design still underway.

Sea level rise presents “a serious threat” to the area, says Peter Glus, North American growth director at Arcadis and the firm's lead design engineer on the project. During Hurricane Sandy in 2012, many parts of the Lower West Side were impacted by storm surge.

But the Battery Park City esplanade is also a busy area for commuters, tourists and residents who use its waterfront parks. Glus says the team holds weekly meetings with residents to get their feedback on design options. The goal is to make a project that provides benefits during storms and during other times, amplifying the area’s current uses and preserving its design aesthetic, he says.

“There’s been a robust engagement because the authority’s residents are very much cognizant that this project is going to be built on a renowned and trendsetting waterfront area,” Glus says. “The Battery Park City Authority’s property really established what coastal urban life could be like. And right now what we’re trying to do is evolve that concept so that it’s coastal-resilient urban life.”

The project area is located between two other authority-managed resilience projects. Site preparation work for the South Battery Park City Resiliency Project started late last year, with contractors E.W. Howell and a joint venture of Posillico Inc. and Bove Industries selected. A third contractor has not yet been named, an agency spokesperson says. The project, expected to cost at least $221 million, was designed by AECOM. At the northern end of Battery Park City, contractor Speciality Construction Services completed the $7-million BCP Ball Fields and Community Center Resilience Project in 2021.

The three BPCA projects are part of the city’s Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency Project that circles the southern end of Manhattan and continues north along the East Side, with projects protecting the Financial District and Seaport, Two Bridges neighborhood and north to East 25th St.

Manhattan’s density creates unique engineering challenges for flood protection efforts, Glus says. While the various projects have different owner-agencies, they collaborate through the mayor’s office on issues such as performance criteria and collaboration.

Taken together, the projects are “unprecedented,” adds Glus, who also is project director of the Eastside Coastal Resiliency Project.

The wave of rental-to-co-op conversions that began in the 1980s crested long ago, and the preeminence of co-ops has been overshadowed by the recent surge of condominium development. Co-op conversions today are about as common as a harmonious session by the U.S. House of Representatives.

But the 24-story Tribeca Green tower, built as a luxury rental building in Battery Park City in the early 21st century, is now bucking that trend, Curbed reports. With the Related Companies, the original developer, serving as sponsor and working in collaboration with the original architect, Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the property is being renovated and converted into a housing cooperative — of the decidedly upscale variety.

Related is converting the tower's 273 rental units into co-ops as they roll over. A lavishly renovated two-bedroom co-op runs around $1.5 million, while three-bedrooms start over $3 million — a good value for downtown, according to brokers. (Sales prices in Battery Park City tend to be a little lower than surrounding areas because the buildings are on land leases, which means higher monthly carrying costs that tamp down sales prices.) Though $1.5 million may not strike many as affordable, buying anything in Manhattan these days takes considerable means.

“Anyone in the Manhattan sales market is a luxury buyer,” Compass’ Leonard Steinberg says.

When Tribeca Green opened in 2005, it was part of a new crop of rental towers on the northern edge of Battery Park. It was upscale but not opulent, with a gym, a 24-hour concierge, stainless steel appliances, and rents that started at $2,495 a month — high but not insane. The building suited the neighborhood — a place popular with young families and yuppies that was still considered a bargain compared to other parts of Manhattan.

Nearly 20 years later, no one looking for an apartment downtown is impressed by a gym or stainless steel appliances. Both the luxury market and downtown Manhattan have moved into a far more rarefied realm. The average sales price in Battery Park City is $1.5 million and likely to climb. In nearby Tribeca the average is $3.5 million, and in Hudson Square, to the north, it’s $1.9 million.

Accordingly, the amenity spaces at Tribeca Green are doubling in size and opulence. Now there are co-working spaces overlooking Teardrop Park , a maker space, a teen lounge inspired by the Shah of Iran’s nightclub, a billiards room, a cocktail lounge, a private dining room, a screening room, extensive terraces, including one on the rooftop, and a revamped children’s play space.

"Even the children," Curbed concludes, "seem to expect more now."

"Reba Miller, an associate broker at Compass, puts it another way: “I’ve never seen so many young people with the amount of money buyers have these days. And they only want brand new.”

New research published this month says the city is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimeters a year. While the process is slow, investigators say parts of the city will eventually be underwater

AP

If rising oceans aren’t worry enough, add this to the risks New York City faces: The metropolis is slowly sinking under the weight of its skyscrapers, homes, asphalt and humanity itself. New research estimates the city’s landmass is sinking at an average rate of 1 to 2 millimeters per year, something referred to as “subsidence.”

That natural process happens everywhere as ground is compressed, but the study published this month in the journal Earth’s Future sought to estimate how the massive weight of the city itself is hurrying things along.

More than 1 million buildings are spread across the city’s five boroughs. The research team calculated that all those structures add up to about 1.7 trillion tons (1.5 trillion metric tons) of concrete, metal and glass — about the mass of 4,700 Empire State buildings — pressing down on the Earth.

The rate of compression varies throughout the city. Midtown Manhattan’s skyscrapers are largely built on rock, which compresses very little, while some parts of Brooklyn, Queens and downtown Manhattan are on looser soil and sinking faster, the study revealed.

While the process is slow, lead researcher Tom Parsons of the U.S. Geological Survey said parts of the city will eventually be underwater. “It’s inevitable. The ground is going down, and the water’s coming up. At some point, those two levels will meet,” said Parsons, whose job is to forecast hazardous events from earthquakes and tsunamis to incremental shifts of the ground below us.

But no need to invest in life preservers just yet, Parsons assured.

The study merely notes buildings themselves are contributing, albeit incrementally, to the shifting landscape, he said. Parsons and his team of researchers reached their conclusions using satellite imaging, data modeling and a lot of mathematical assumptions.

It will take hundreds of years — precisely when is unclear — before New York becomes America’s version of Venice, which is famously sinking into the Adriatic Sea.

But parts of the city are more at risk.

“There’s a lot of weight there, a lot of people there,” Parsons said, referring specifically to Manhattan. “The average elevation in the southern part of the island is only 1 or 2 meters (3.2 or 6.5 feet) above sea level — it is very close to the waterline, and so it is a deep concern.”

Because the ocean is rising at a similar rate as the land is sinking, the Earth’s changing climate could accelerate the timeline for parts of the city to disappear underwater.

“It doesn’t mean that we should stop building buildings. It doesn’t mean that the buildings are themselves the sole cause of this. There are a lot of factors,” Parsons said. “The purpose was to point this out in advance before it becomes a bigger problem.”

Already, New York City is at risk of flooding because of massive storms that can cause the ocean to swell inland or inundate neighborhoods with torrential rain.

The resulting flooding could have destructive and deadly consequences, as demonstrated by Superstorm Sandy a decade ago and the still-potent remnants of Hurricane Ida two years ago.

“From a scientific perspective, this is an important study,” said Andrew Kruczkiewicz, a senior researcher at Columbia University’s Climate School, who was not involved in the research.

Its findings could help inform policymakers as they draft ongoing plans to combat, or at least forestall, the rising tides.

“We can’t sit around and wait for a critical threshold of sea level rise to occur,” he said, “because waiting could mean we would be missing out on taking anticipatory action and preparedness measures.”

New Yorkers such as Tracy Miles can be incredulous at first.

“I think it’s a made-up story,” Miles said. He thought again while looking at sailboats bobbing in the water edging downtown Manhattan. “We do have an excessive amount of skyscrapers, apartment buildings, corporate offices and retail spaces.”

New York City isn’t the only place sinking. San Francisco also is putting considerable pressure on the ground and the region’s active earthquake faults. In Indonesia, the government is preparing for a possible retreat from Jakarta, which is sinking into the Java Sea, for a new capital being constructed on the higher ground of an entirely different island.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition