By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
TRIBECA — No one in TriBeCa is happy about the massive Hudson Street water main project, but one group of residents is particularly upset.
The denizens of Hudson Street between Franklin and N. Moore streets are crying foul over a staging plan that calls for construction activity on their block for the entire five-and-a-half year project. No other block in TriBeCa will be affected for more than three years.
"No one block should be burdened for the entire duration of the project," said Everett Ware, who lives on the block. "You have to spread the pain."
Ware and other residents are trying to convince the city to move a large construction storage and preparation zone off their block and onto a nearby street, possibly N. Moore Street between Hudson and Varick streets.
Ware made his case at a Community Board 1 meeting Wednesday night, which officials with the city Department of Design and Construction attended. The officials said they were amenable to moving the storage area if it’s what the community wants.
No decision will be made until the residents of N. Moore Street have been notified and have a chance to respond to the proposal, likely at a CB1 meeting in January.
Ware and his neighbors insisted Wednesday night that their argument arose from fairness, not NIMBY-ism.
For the first three-year phase of the water main project, which started in late summer, half of Ware’s block will be fenced off to taper the traffic down to two lanes as it approaches the construction to the north. The contractor is also using the space to store materials and cut pipes, a noisy operation that starts as early as 7 a.m.
While the taper zone must remain in place, the residents are asking that the material storage and preparatory work be moved elsewhere.
Their argument hinges on the fact that their block will also be affected during the second, two-and-a-half-year, phase of the project. During that phase, the block will be torn up to replace the water main and connect it to the new Third Water Tunnel, a decades-long mega-project that is nearing completion.
All the other blocks affected by the project are slated to have construction for either the first phase or the second phase, but not both.
The block of N. Moore between Hudson and Varick, on the other hand, is not slated for any construction at all.
"It’s more equitable," said Raphael Carty, a Hudson Street resident, of moving the storage area.
If the N. Moore proposal falls through, another possibility is to use Ericsson Place, in front of the 1st Precinct stationhouse, for the 15-by-100-foot staging area.
The idea is attractive because the block is less populated than N. Moore Street, but the NYPD would have to give up their row of parking on the block, and city officials said the precinct was unlikely to agree to that.
A 1st Precinct spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
