Jamie Torres-Springer Appointed New Commissioner of Design and Construction

Torres-Springer, the former First Deputy Commissioner of the department, will be succeeding Senior Advisor for Recovery and outgoing Commissioner Lorraine Grillo. On March 23, 2021, Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Jamie Torres-Springer as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Design and Construction. Torres-Springer will be succeeding Lorraine Grillo. Former Commissioner Grillo left the position earlier in March to serve as the City’s Senior Advisor for Recovery.


Bronx Affordable Housing Development Enters Final Phase

The new affordable housing development will house 261 low-income and formerly homeless  families. On March 19, 2021, Mayor de Blasio and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development announced the groundbreaking of a new affordable housing building in the West Farms section of the Bronx. The building, named Compass Six, is located at 1923 West Farms Road. Compass Six is part of the Compass Resident Development, which will consist of eight buildings and be one … <Read More>


New York Law School Hosts Open Community Meeting on the Future of Tribeca Following the Pandemic

Panel welcomed small business owners, residents, and other interested parties for a discussion regarding Tribeca and the neighborhood’s ongoing economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.  On March 4th, New York Law School’s Dean Anthony Crowell published an open letter in the Tribeca Citizen that discussed the economic impact of the pandemic on the Tribeca community and NYLS’s commitment to helping the neighborhood navigate its recovery following Covid-19. Dean Crowell wrote:


Landmarks Holds Public Hearings for Holyrood Church, Educational Building

Support for landmarking included a push for further preservation of the area south of Union Square. On March 23, 2021, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held public hearings on two proposed landmarks located in Manhattan. The Holyrood Episcopal Church-Iglesia Santa Cruz at 715 West 179th Street in Washington Heights and the Educational Building at 70 Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village were two landmarks originally calendared as part of the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s new Equity Framework. The <Read More>


The Brooklyn-Queens Expressway: Time is Running Out

One year ago, in January 2020, the Expert Panel assigned by Mayor Bill de Blasio to study the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway issued its Final Report. Mayor de Blasio in 2019 appointed the seventeen-person Expert Panel* of which I was a member, following the angry rejection of New York City DOT’s plan for reconstructing the section of the BQE adjacent to Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo and Downtown Brooklyn. City DOT presented its plan publicly September 2019. The … <Read More>