Here is welcome news. This Fall CityLaw Breakfasts will return to in-person breakfasts at the Events Center at New York Law School. Covid-19 compelled the Law School to go remote and the CityLaw Breakfasts followed into cyberspace. The Law School has in the interim rebuilt the sound and video systems in the large and comfortable Events Center on the second floor of the Law School. We will be back with in-person breakfasts this Fall.
Commentary
Commentary: Annette Gordon-Reed: On Juneteenth
Annette Gordon-Reed, our friend and colleague for 17 years at New York Law School, has just published On Juneteenth (Liveright 2021), a personal and readable story of her growing up in Texas in the 1970’s. Gordon-Reed grew up in Conroe, Texas where her family regularly celebrated Juneteenth. Gordon-Reed was the first Black child to integrate a White elementary school in her city. Through her personal story Gordon-Reed annotates and re-calibrates the conventional story of slavery … <Read More>
Commentary: Remote Hearings are Over – What Happens Now?
On June 23, 2021 Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that the state’s COVID-19 emergency orders, which are set to expire today will not be renewed. One of the provisions within the emergency order adjusted the requirements of the Open Meetings Law to allow public hearings to be held remotely via telephone or video conference or other similar service. As of Friday, June 25th, the Open Meetings Law will again require all meetings to be held in-person.
Commentary: City Club of New York Opposes LPC Approval of New South Street Seaport Tower
On Tuesday, May 4, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) approved by a 6-2 vote an application for a new residential tower at 250 Water Street in the South Street Seaport Historic District. This was the third time the Howard Hughes Corporation had presented the project, and this time, after the architects at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill made a few tweaks to the design, the LPC determined that the building was appropriate.
COMMENTARY: The BQE’s Cantilevered Bridge Demands Urgent Action
On June 1, 1988, while I was commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation the underside of the elevated FDR Drive fell to the roadway below and killed a Brooklyn dentist who was driving into Manhattan to pick up his wife. The next day on Friday, June 2, 1989, the New York Times reported his death:
COMMENTARY: Learning from Bryant Park, a book by Andrew Manshel
A new book recalls the glory of Bryant Park before the Covid-19 shutdown: the movable chairs, the green grass, magazine racks and ping pong tables, shady paths and, most of all, the large numbers of people enjoying Bryant Park.