On W. 14th St., greenery to replace grittiness
A design rendering showing new tree planters slated for W. 14th St.
under a plan supported by the Meatpacking Business Improvement
District.
Board 4 member, but recused himself
from votes at C.B. 4 on the issue.
Pending fi nal approval by Boards 2
COURTESY KEN SMITH WORKSHOP
and 4, the BID will move forward on
obtaining city approvals. The community
boards’ Parks committees signaled
BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT
BY SYDNEY PEREIRA
Along a stretch of 14th St. between
Ninth and Tenth Aves.,
the Meatpacking Business Improvement
District plans to add greenery
planters and about a dozen trees to the
wide, often empty streets on that portion
of the border between the West Village
and Chelsea.
“We wanted to enliven the streetscape,”
said Jeffrey LeFrancois, the BID’s operations
and community affairs director.
The idea, according to the Meatpacking
BID, is to visually connect the “Chelsea
Triangle” and Gansevoort Square to
the High Line with trees and planters.
“Oftentimes, people are walking down
14th St., they get to Ninth Ave., and they
see this big wide street with not a lot of
life, not a lot of things going on,” Amy
Tse, the BID’s neighborhood engagement
director, told C.B. 2. “They do not continue
walking down that street.”
The crosstown thoroughfare is slated
for extensive changes this season and
into next year amid the L train shutdown
beginning next April 27, but LeFrancois
said the BID will fi nish the work ahead
of the subway’s shutdown.
“We’re timing it with our goal of having
this done by the time the L train shuts
down — so that way, the neighborhood is
in the best possible condition it can be,”
he said. LeFrancois is also a Community
support last week. However, one C.B.
2 member, Susanna Aaron, the C.B. 2
Parks and Waterfront Committee cochairperson,
questioned the entire basis
of the designs.
“That part of the street is devastated,
and partly because there’s no real destinations,”
Aaron said. Plus, she added, the
street’s historical character is industrial
— not garden-like.
“To me, I feel like it brings a very corporate
tinge to everything,” she objected.
“It doesn’t seem to have any of the real,
gritty texture.”
Ken Smith’s design fi rm is working
with the BID on the greening project.
“We’ve tried to keep it very simple and
very straightforward,” he told C.B. 2,
“and we’ve tried to make it have as much
grit and not be fancy to the degree that
we can do that.”
One apparently gritty aspect of the
design includes Cor-Ten steel planters,
a metal that makes the planters appear
rusty, Smith said.
“We think it fi ts with the Meatpacking
District,” Smith said. “It will link it to
the High Line and fi t the character of the
neighborhood.”
More than Just another App on Your Phone:
How Choices in Banking Can Help Your Community
There are currently
about 5,500 commercial
banks and savings institutions
in the U.S., down
from roughly 8,300 a decade
ago. Over this same
period, the banking industry
has evolved significantly
due to technological
innovation. Today, we are
able to easily pay our bills,
send money to friends and
family, apply for a loan,
or even open a checking
account. This can all be
done from a smart phone,
24 hours a day, 7 days a
week. While these conveniences
are great, we
shouldn’t lose sight of
the fact that banking is
about more than simply
serving individual money
management needs. At its
core, banking, especially
community banking, is
about lending and helping
to build new economic opportunities
within communities.
As the President and
CEO of Carver Federal
Savings Bank – the largest
Black-managed and
publicly traded Minority
Depository Institution in
the U.S. – I have seen firsthand
how the power of
mobile and online banking
has helped to reduce
costs and increase access
for both individual and
small business customers
in New York City. These
technological advances
have helped many lowerincome
families achieve
greater financial independence,
ending their reliance
on more expensive
check cashing services
and payday lenders. By establishing
a relationship
with a traditional bank,
even if the relationship is
primarily driven through
online transactions, these
individuals are becoming
smarter with their money,
building a credit history,
and are better positioned
to pass economic security
and wealth to the next
generation.
This is particularly
true in minority and new
immigrant communities
here in New York City,
where many individuals
historically have had
limited to no experience
with a traditional bank.
In many instances people
in our community simply
followed in the footsteps
of their parents or
grandparents who were
low- to moderate-income
people and rarely or never
opened a bank account.
This is why financial
inclusion and financial
education are vitally important
to economic empowerment,
and why our
industry is continuing to
work toward expanding
banking access for working
class people, including
Minority and Women
Business Entrepreneurs
(“MWBEs”). By providing
much-needed loan capital
to MWBEs, community
banks are making neighborhoods
in New York
City economically stronger.
Carver Federal Savings
Bank has been serving
our local communities
since 1948, when we
first opened our doors in
Harlem. We recently celebrated
the grand re-opening
of our newly renovated
Crown Heights branch in
Brooklyn. Our branches
provide a critical financial
resource to our communities.
We do far more
than just serve the individuals
who walk through
our doors. Carver reinvests
83 cents of each deposit
dollar back into our
neighborhoods through
competitively priced individual
and small business
loans. And in addition to
our lending programs, we
have provided financial
education to more than
15,000 people and access
to more than $23 million
in capital to MWBEs.
8 November 15 - November 28, 2018 DEX Schneps Community News Group