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October 5, 2013- By Steven E. Greer
Illegally parked tour buses is a major concern for Battery Park City residents. The Community Board and local Park Enforcement Patrol (PEP) have been willing to assist in eradicating the buses.
Suddenly, for unknown reasons, the PEP Captain Ed Falcon and the BPCA have decided that the PEP will no longer respond to complaints and instruct the tour buses to leave. At the October meeting of the BPC subcommittee of the CB1, board member Anthony Notaro seemed to have been informed of the change, and was instructing audience members, misleadingly and incorrectly, that the PEP are not allowed to remove buses because they are more than one block away from a park.
We called Captain Falcon to investigate ( see video).
The onslaught of traffic-clogging, smoke-spewing tour buses in Battery Park City is another thing that lowers the quality of life in this neighborhood. When will our elected officials put the need of residents above those of tourists?
It’s all about the money eh? A Canadian bus driver with La Quebecoise, when asked why he was parking and idling illegally on North End Avenue, said: “We bring in money for you”. Safety, pollution and parking rules are of no concern to our friends north of the border. Fleur de Lys, we park for free, illegally. PEP and NYPD should remove buses that idle within a network of parks including the memorial filled with pedestrians, Teardrop Park, Rockefeller Park, the Murray Street Island, and ball fields. This is yet another glaring example of pollution and danger from transportation vehicles – buses, Port Authority ferries, black cars, helicopters – in Battery Park City.
I raised hell tonight. Saw 3 buses idling in front at 1030pm and told them all to beat it and stop polluting my neighborhood. One driver said he was “waiting for people in that big building” and pointed to the hotel. Then I went to the lobby and complained to the doorman. The same one who once told me he did not work at the hotel when I complained about that stretch limo and his buddy the driver who he chats with in the street. The doorman (tall, black with glasses) then got really pissy and called his manager to complain that I was harassing HIM and he would sue me. He then said the buses were not there for the hotel but they were there for the MEMORIAL! He also asked why he always gets asked about this and why I don’t go to his manager.
Then about 5 nobodies came down to talk to me and I said I’m sick of them ignoring parking rules and polluting the neighborhood. He told his staff I have been “bothering me for a month about this”. (I talked to him once prior over the summer, must have struck a nerve). They acted like they cared blah blah and I left!
Conrad knows we aren’t fucking around. A guy named Rutger was the “manager” – a complete wimp. It was a sad display by the Conrad. The doorman said “there’s a Memorial over there” to explain buses at 1030pm