In the seeming quiet of this year so far, plans have still been unfolding as a developer works with a complicit city agency to gain control over this valuable public space in the historic South Street Seaport area.
After years of city neglect, the New Market site was barricaded off from public view by the NYC Economic Development Corp. (NYC EDC) in May 2015 – perfect timing, some would say, for out-of-sight private development negotiations. And now the historic New Market Building is in the cross-hairs of a not so “public-private partnership” once again.
Whether the New Market Building will be treated in forthcoming plans as a disposable but necessary bargaining chip – linking and pitting one historic Seaport asset against another – remains to be seen.
Image: New Market Site-Air-Rights: from Howard Hughes Corp. presentation, May 2017, “HHC Transformation of the Seaport District Investor Day 2017.