Studies

In addition to the Innovative design studies conducted for the World Trade Center site, an integral part of LMDC's efforts to revitalize Lower Manhattan are a series of studies that will identify short-term and long-term solutions to the challenges facing Lower Manhattan's neighborhoods in the wake of September 11, 2001. The studies in progress are described below:

Housing Study: This study will focus on the area immediately south of the World Trade Center site. Identification of key sites for new housing, either through conversion of obsolete office space or through construction of new units, will serve to enhance the residential population of Lower Manhattan. An increased residential population will help to build a strong basis for the development of a vibrant new mixed-use neighborhood that will complement and benefit from the development at the World Trade Center site.

Chinatown Transportation and Traffic Improvements Study: Since September 11, road closures throughout Chinatown have severed crucial links to the Financial District and other areas south of the Brooklyn Bridge. Additionally, outmoded infrastructure, congestion, and other transportation and traffic-related problems have converged to inhibit Chinatown's economic and social activity. Developing solutions to these and related problems will help encourage stronger commercial and social activity between Chinatown and other areas of Lower Manhattan.

Fulton Corridor Retail and Arts / Entertainment District: Directly east of the World Trade Center site, the Fulton Street Corridor could become a premier retail, arts and entertainment thoroughfare for Lower Manhattan. Even before September 11, 2001, Fulton Street functioned as a traffic artery and souvenir spot for tourists shuffling between the World Trade Center and the South Street Seaport, and as a place where local office workers could obtain discounted merchandise during work breaks and lunch hours. Moreover, a dense network of subway lines (A, C, E, J, M, Z, 2, 3, 4, 5) situated beneath Fulton Street makes this corridor an unofficial transit hub for Lower Manhattan.

However, Fulton Street lies mostly empty during evenings and weekends, once tourists retreat to hotels, and office workers leave for home and for places offering a greater variety of nighttime entertainment and leisure options.

Nevertheless, a growing number of residential conversions and new construction projects have begun to change the character of the Fulton Corridor. Currently, more than 5,600 units of housing sustain a small, but promising residential base within the Fulton Corridor. Development of an effective urban design strategy could affect a series of major improvements for the Fulton Corridor.

These improvements could include: increasing the number of housing units; diversifying retail, arts and entertainment activity; creating new usable open spaces; and generating round-the-clock street life. LMDC revitalization efforts will combine with proposed MTA efforts to transform an outmoded and overloaded Fulton subway network into a state-of-the art transit hub and major point of arrival for Lower Manhattan. Above all, a revitalized Fulton Corridor could transform Fulton Street into a river-to-river east-west thoroughfare, linking the new World Trade Center and Hudson riverfront with areas east of Broadway all the way to the South Street Seaport area, and the East River.