NEW YORK | Jail Tower (125 White St) | 295 FT | FLOORS

[NYguy]

I know people in New York will live anywhere, but I personally wouldn't want any part of this.


https://archpaper.com/2018/08/new-york-city-jail-tower/

Jail tower proposed by New York City officials





By JONATHAN HILBURG
August 6, 2018

As part of the plan to close Rikers Island by redistributing inmates to smaller jails across four of the five boroughs, the Daily News reports that city officials are looking to build a 40-story jail tower at 80 Centre Street in Lower Manhattan.

Perkins Eastman, along with 17 subcontractors, has been tapped to redesign the smaller community-oriented jails in each borough and orient the new developments toward a rehabilitative model. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office had released a list of preferred community-chosen locations in each borough back in February, but ran into opposition with their sites in the Bronx.

Now the plan for the Manhattan location appears to have changed as well, as the city is looking to top the nine-story 80 Centre Street with a jail tower that could contain affordable housing.

The initial location in Manhattan, an expansion of the Manhattan Detention Complex at 125 White Street, was deemed infeasible for the number of inmates that would need to be housed.

If the jail tower moves forward–80 Centre St. is one of two sites under consideration–the 700,000-square-foot Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building would be gutted and the preserved facade would serve as the tower’s base. The granite, art deco building is currently home to the marriage bureau, and was completed in 1930 and designed by William Haugaard; according to the city’s official building description, Haugaard kept the building squat to avoid casting shadows on the nearby courthouses and Foley Square.

The jail’s vertical shape would mean that men and women would need to be separated on different floors, as would the hospital area, outdoor space, recreation areas, and classrooms.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...802-story.html

The plan was unveiled by mayoral aides at a hush-hush meeting with community leaders Thursday.

The block-long building adjacent to Foley Square would be totally gutted, sources said. The historic nine-story art-deco structure would serve as a base for a much bigger building that could reach 40 stories, according to sources.

The Mayor’s office confirmed to The News that it’s serious about using the site.

“We are considering two potential options for a facility in Manhattan as part of our plan to close Rikers Island, and are engaging with the community to gather input,” said mayoral spokeswoman Natalie Grybauskas.

The new jail may also include affordable housing apartments, according to community leaders who were briefed on the proposal.

The 80 Centre St. building is a change-up from the city’s prior plan to expand its existing lower Manhattan jail, the Manhattan Detention Complex, also known as The Tombs.

But jail officials have now determined the complex on 125 White St. is too small.

Currently, 80 Centre St., named the Louis J. Lefkowitz Office Building after the former New York State Attorney General, holds offices for the Manhattan District Attorney and several other government agencies. It has 700,000 square feet of space.

City Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who represents the area, said she encouraged the city to set aside a portion of land for affordable housing when The Tombs were expanded in the 1980s. She’s pressing for the same this time.

“Today, we are presented with an opportunity to take the rest of that land back to create more affordable housing, cultural amenities and much needed parking for Chinatown,” Chin said in statement. “We must maximize this opportunity by ensuring that all voices are heard as part of this process.”

[NYguy]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...802-story.html

A rendering showing an ideal design of the proposed jail is pictured here. (Justice in Design)

[chris08876]

Even prison is becoming gentrified.

[Hudson11]

consider that this location would have great subway access and the views would normally demand millions. Especially if they go as tall as 40 stories. Just um... lock your door. (People really should do that anyway wherever they live)

[Zerton]

Source.

Chicago has one of these! See above. Designed by architect Harry Weiss.

Apparently some of the inmates would pay strippers to dance on that parking garage in the front.

For those interested: https://nypost.com/2017/06/09/neighb...-federal-jail/

[NYguy]

^ Fitting.


http://www.downtownexpress.com/2018/...centre-street/

Jailhouse rocks Downtown: Mayor floats controversial plan to build massive new jail on Centre Street





August 8, 2018
Posted by: Bill Egbert

Talk about a ball and chain!

Mayor de Blasio is considering a plan to convert the city’s Marriage Bureau in Lower Manhattan into a prison complex as part of his scheme to shutter the city’s main jail Riker’s Island.

Emissaries from City Hall unveiled the plan to retrofit 80 Centre St. into a jail before a hodgepodge group of civic gurus — including reps from community boards 1 and 3, and the Chinatown Partnership — at a meeting on Aug. 2.

The plan is still in its early stages, but could see the building rise up to 40 stories, and could even include some affordable housing units in addition to the jail facility.

Before moving forward, however, the proposal would have to undergo an extensive public review process ending in a vote by the City Council, where local legislators can be expected to follow the lead of Councilwoman Margaret Chin, whose district includes 80 Centre St, according to Community Board 1 Chairman Anthony Notaro.

“She’ll be a major stakeholder,” said Notaro, who was present at the Aug. 2 meeting.

Local community leaders hope to use the city’s need for Chin’s endorsement as leverage to force City Hall to sweeten the pot with potential amenities, such as community centers and additional transit infrastructure to help alleviate the project’s infrastructure burden on the area, according to Notaro.

[chris08876]

Better IMO to have it in a tower than use valuable land. Rickers Island is bound to close, and the whole island can be turned into a nice community. Lots of space to build, in a city where land is precious.

I don't think anybody has anything to worry about. Last thing criminals want to do is hang out near a jail. Once they get out, they aren't going to people watch anywhere near this place.

[JSsocal]

^Eh- - disregarding any valuable discussion about the quality of life for inmates and accessibility for family members, the island is further away from anything then you think. It's connected by just one long bridge to Astoria/steinway, and directly under the path of landing planes at Laguardia. I think this is island just isn't workable for serious residential. Single family suburban homes.. maybe.

Ideally for me, I think some kind of green energy generating facility/ large nature park on this island would be ideal. Would make a great stop on the ferry- akin to governors island

[chris08876]

DeBlasio would use that to meet his affordable housing quote. A park would be nice, but I could see a park mixed in with housing, but with housing being a majority of it. Would be autocentric in nature given the location, but it would be able to support a lot of units if developed properly.

[10023]

If they are re-housing inmates in 4 of 5 boroughs, why is Manhattan not the one they’re skipping? There’s lots of room in Staten Island!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 10023

If they are re-housing inmates in 4 of 5 boroughs, why is Manhattan not the one they’re skipping? There’s lots of room in Staten Island!

Probably because they want a consolidated, central location for employees and visitors, and close to courts (this would be very close to all Manhattan and Brooklyn courts). Jails, unlike prisons, make most sense in centralized areas.

[NYguy]

https://nypost.com/2018/08/15/de-bla...-stories-high/

De Blasio’s proposed Manhattan jail could include shops





By Rich Calder, Ruth Weissmann and Ruth Brown
August 15, 2018

It’s jail — but with retail!

The city on Wednesday announced plans to build four new lockups so it can close Rikers Island — and is trying to sell neighbors on the idea by adding perks like stores, parking lots, community facilities and even affordable housing.

“Modern facilities would replace the outdated jails of today. These new facilities would be integrated into the look and feel of the neighborhood,” reads a newly released brochure on the plan.
“Their interiors would be built with state-of-the-art design for a more humane, safer environment that promotes better mental health and medical services. Their exteriors would include retail and other amenities to serve the neighborhood.”

Under the proposal, a nine-story government building at 80 Centre St. in lower Manhattan — where the city relocated its Marriage Bureau less than a decade ago — will be gutted and replaced with a new detention center that could soar as high as 40 stories. The facility would include a ground-floor shopping strip and as-yet-unspecified community space, with renderings released by the city suggesting an upscale Asian restaurant could grace the lower level of the clink.

De Blasio had been considering using the nearby Manhattan Detention Complex — better known as The Tombs — but that will instead be given back to the community in the form of senior housing, affordable housing or a community center, officials said.

[JSsocal]

From purely an aesthetic viewpoint a new 40 story nearly windowless husk looming over foley square and its grand courthouses doesn't sound appealing.

[NYguy]

^ No it doesn't. But we'll see how they try to polish this plan to make it more apealing.

[NYguy]

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/n...817-story.html

The looming reality of closing Rikers


By ALYSSA KATZ
AUG 20, 2018

Maybe the reality of the hulking jails Mayor de Blasio just proposed for four city neighborhoods hasn’t quite registered yet, so take a moment to let it all soak in:

Following (more or less) the prescription of a task force led by the formidable former New York Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, he’s committed to close all the jails on wretched Rikers Island by 2027, reduce the jail population in the meantime and begin to confine inmates — detainees awaiting trial, parole violators and those serving short sentences — in borough facilities.

The new plans on the boards show it also soars with massive towers to be crammed into the city grid, two of them in downtowns already aggrieved at intensive development and gridlocked traffic, and one in an area clawing its way out of a crime siege.

Solving for the very real problem of Rikers Island’s savage remoteness, the new plan creates a politically potent problem of urban density and all of the complications and costs that come with it, in order to house up to 1,510 men and women at each of the borough locations along with unbreakable security, LEED green-building standards and all the support facilities incarceration demands, from food service to laundry to medical wards.

Those problems are not unfixable. The developers of glassy towers for billionaires and their lessers do it all the time. Bulky buildings are part of the weave of a growing, dynamic city.

But the start of the planning process demanded cannily by City Council Speaker Corey Johnson to corral de Blasio into producing buildable plans forces vivid reality into view: The incarceration of a relative handful of people would require the most massive public-works construction project this city has seen in years, looming monuments putting on display the very imprisonment the close-Rikers movement recoils from.

The tower in downtown Brooklyn is sketched to rise as much as 430 feet tall, the equivalent of a 33-story high rise — a near match for the MetroTech court building where many defendants will face trial. By comparison, the old House of Detention that would be demolished rises half as high.

Manhattan’s, at the foot of Foley Square and looming over heavily used Columbus Park, would jut above the federal courthouse at 500 Pearl. The Bronx tower would match the high-rises of Co-op City, and include courtrooms for arraignments because it’s two miles away from the borough’s Criminal Court.

[NYguy]

As with anything else, the NIMBYs are out to stop the proposal...


https://www.change.org/p/mayor-bill-...Proper%3EExact

We the undersigned oppose the building of a new MDC correctional center jail complex at 80 Centre st as part of the overall plan to close Rikers island.

Our neighborhood roads are congested enough with traffic negotiating routes between the Manhattan & Brooklyn bridges and the Holland & Brooklyn Battery tunnels. In addition, this project would undoubtedly exacerbate air, noise & environmental issues we already endure. Residents of Chinatown, Tribeca, Little Italy, Soho, BPC, FiDi & The LES should not be made to suffer more.

We support the call for real prison reform but feel a jail in residential areas is not the best way to approach it.

Please hear our concern and rethink the options.

https://www.boweryboogie.com/2018/08...le-idea-op-ed/

Why the Chinatown Jail Proposal is a Terrible Idea [OP-ED]

August 22nd, 2018

I knew we were screwed when my inquires regarding the proposed expansion of the Manhattan Detention Center (MDC) at 125 White Street announced by Mayor de Blasio went unanswered. It got me thinking. Was it really necessary to close Rikers Island when by the Mayor’s own plan and estimate would reduce the current population from roughly 8,300 to the goal of 5,000 in 10 years? Since the Riker’s Island Prison Complex was built to hold 15,000 prisoners, is there still an overcrowding problem? The call to close Rikers stems from violent attacks against corrections officers and among inmates themselves. Weren’t these problems caused by the current administration’s own “hands off” policies?

The mayor has provided many reasons to justify the need to close Rikers; chief among them being the cost of transport and timely need to produce inmates to court in Manhattan for proceedings, and the need to house them closer. But, aren’t the current resources of the Department of Corrections being misused? The MDC at 125 White was built to house 800+ inmates. As it stands, most inmates have already been convicted and sentenced to terms of 1 year or under mainly for non-violent crimes (e.g. Steve Croman). Wouldn’t updating an older, underpopulated building or developing a new facility on Rikers make more sense and free up bed space for those with pending cases at the MDC?

I have lived in close proximity to the Manhattan criminal courts for decades, and not once witnessed a mass daily transfer of prisoners into or out of the Tombs. On average, there are usually 8-10 buses daily holding 15-20 inmates each.

We must also consider environmental impact, health, noise and quality-of-life concerns with a project of this scale. Columbus Park, located just across the street, is fully utilized all day, every day, by seniors and the nearby Transfiguration schools for lunch recess. Despite this, and the mounting community backlash from Chinatown residents, Councilwoman Chin remains firmly behind the mayor’s proposal to build this “jail of the future” at 80 Centre, defending her position by citing community benefits. I have not seen any realistic benefits proposed. I am reticent to bank on any deal proposed by this administration. Just look at de Blasio’s backtracking on the affordable housing deal signed and sealed for a NYCHA development (originally for 100% now 25%).

I am all for prison reform, but real prison reform. Simply moving inmates into a new facility in a different neighborhood will not address violence among detainees nor attacks on personnel without significant changes to current policy.

[NYguy]

http://www.downtownexpress.com/2018/...ouse-backlash/

Prison riot: City agrees to hold town hall in wake of jailhouse backlash





September 6, 2018
BY SYDNEY PEREIRA

In the face of a torrent of criticism after the surprise announcement of the proposed location for the new Manhattan jail last month, the city has agreed to hold a town hall Downtown next week to address complaints about the lack of community input.

Downtowners were blindsided by the city’s Aug. 15 announcement that it plans to convert the city’s Marriage Bureau at 80 Centre St. into a new jail as a part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to close Riker’s Island, and community anger exploded at an emergency meeting convened by Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou called that same day in Chinatown, where local leaders blasted the city for leading the public out of the loop.

“There was no public hearing for Chinatown to respond or discuss on this very important issue that will directly impact our community,” said Eric Ng, the president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association.

“This process is completely unfair, non-transparent, and insulting to our community,” said Raymond Tseng, president of the Hoy Sun Association.

Niou said she still supports closing the long-troubled offshore jail, but the lack of transparency in locating new facilities “enraged” her.

“I’m not breaking away from the fact that we need to close Riker’s Island,” she told this paper. But she added: “Our community has not had a voice wherever in this process.”

The assemblywoman also complained of what seemed like a bait-and-switch with the location of the new Manhattan jail, which the city had long suggested would be an expansion of the existing Manhattan Detention Complex — aka, “The Tombs” — at 125 White St.

“They named one site for a whole year, and then ten days before the draft scoping is done, they tell us that it’s a whole different site,” she said. “That’s insane. When were we supposed to have any input?”

Councilwoman Margaret Chin was also quick to slam the complete lack of transparency in the city’s siting process, and pushed for the town hall that will be held Sept. 12.

“It’s crucial that the administration participate in a robust community engagement process, which must begin with full transparency about the proposal to move the Manhattan Detention Center from its current location to 80 Center St.,” Chin said in a statement. “I believe this administration must seize this opportunity to provide clarity, address concerns, and engage residents, business owners, and community leaders in a productive dialogue,” she said.

The Sept. 12 town hall meeting, which is co-sponsored by Chin and Borough President Gale Brewer, will be at PS 124, 40 Division St., in Chinatown, and will include representatives from City Hall.

But community boards 1 and 3 aren’t waiting until next week. The two panels are holding a joint meeting on Sept. 6, where members will grill reps from the mayor’s Office on the jail proposal.

This is all before the previously schedules public scoping meeting set for Sept. 27, which is required as part of the lengthy Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) for projects of this scale.

De Blasio’s plan to close Rikers and replace it with local jails in all boroughs but Staten Island is part of a larger strategy to reduce the city’s jail population to 5,000 by 2027. This year, the jail population is around 8,200 — the lowest in three decades, and 13 percent less than last year.

[Zerton]

I'm kind of uninformed about this, but why does Riker's "have to close"? What's wrong with the location as it is? If there are issues there, why not overhaul the facilities?

[NYguy]

Originally Posted by Zerton

I'm kind of uninformed about this, but why does Riker's "have to close"? What's wrong with the location as it is? If there are issues there, why not overhaul the facilities?

Too many issues to go into the thread here.

[Zerton]

Ha, I'll google.