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December 2, 2014- By Steven E. Greer
The Poulakakos team was supposed to give an update tonight at the CB1 meeting about their plans to hire Downtown Alliance to staff their visitor center. Recall, BP.TV previously reported that Poulakakos wanted to use the millions in New York Park grants money to install a few iPads and call that a “visitor center” (read below).
Well, Poulakakos was a no-show, leaving only a junior employee from Downtown Alliance to speak. She gave an update, and none of the lunkheads on the CB1 bothered to ask her whether the contract was finalized for them to run the visitor center.
BP.TV asked the Downtown Alliance lady, and she explained that the contract is still not finalized. She did not know why.
Recall, BP.TV initiated a state investigation into the perverted “iPad visitor center”.
In addition to the paperwork and legal issues delaying the visitor center, the Poulakakos team has refused to spend their own money to build the site. The portion of pier-A designated for the visitor center sits unfinished.
Update November 3, 2014- By Steven E. Greer
The controversial Visitor center” that has been downsized and downside so many times that it had last been shown on drawings to be nothing but a wall of historical maritime photos got even worse. Peter Poulakakos presented before CB1 tonight and dropped this rotten egg onto the CB1: the “Visitor center” will now be a coffee shop that has three “iPad kiosks” managed by The Downtown Alliance to supposedly help tourists with information.
That’s right. You read that correctly. Because the Poulakakos team did not want to use their own money to build anything, they instead installed coffee shop that will be very similar to their chain of Financier coffee shops, and squeezed in some iPads. One could argue that each iPad cost the taxpayer $1.333 Million.
Update August 15- The floor plans of the visitor are now available. It is nothing but a wall of pictures, as we predicted June 3rd before the SLA. The “Information Center” is all there is, folks. The “Gallery” is just a fancy term for a hallway.
Now that it is known that even the interior of Pier A was funded by you, via the BPCA checkbook, the real cost of this visitor center is much greater than $3.2 million.
June 5, 2014- By Steven E. Greer
Prior to the BPCA assuming control of Pier A, the New York State Parks department gave a $3.2 Million grant to the NYCEDC to build a “Visitor Center” at Pier A. The city wound up squandering those funds. An agreement was then made, that if the BPCA would build the visitor center instead, then the city would not have to repay the $3.2 Million. What was actually constructed was a mini-museum, consisting of an information desk and historical pictures on the wall.
At the June 3rd SLA meeting to discuss the Pier-A liquor license, the issues of misappropriation of state funds was discusses.
The Poulakakos team explains to the judge why they deserve to be open until 4:00 AM
Poulakakos team justifies Pier-A beer garden as “Tribute to German immigrants”