Gold - and Silver

$820M for downtown; will Shelly OK stadium?

BY DAVE SALTONSTALL
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF

Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki unveiled a plan yesterday to spend $820 million on fixing up lower Manhattan - money aimed at parks, streets, housing, the World Trade Center memorial and, yes, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Coming just days before Silver must cast a potentially deciding vote on the proposed West Side stadium, the move struck many as a carrot aimed at winning Silver's backing for that project.

But both Bloomberg and Pataki denied any link between the new goodies and Silver's stadium vote.

"Not at all," said Gov. Pataki when asked if the spending was a lure to hook Silver, a Democrat whose downtown district will absorb every penny of the $820 million.

The money includes $300 million for the World Trade memorial, $220 million for waterfront parks, $20 million for a new kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school on Beekman St., $32 million to unsnarl Chinatown traffic and $90 million for cultural and community enhancements to be named later.

The enticements seemed to do little yesterday to sway Silver, who has shown no desire to support the proposed Jets and Olympics stadium at the state's Public Authorities Control Board, which has the final say on the project.

Silver didn't even attend yesterday's announcement at the Golden Unicorn restaurant in Chinatown, where his name was mentioned only once during a 30-minute presentation by city and state leaders.

Instead, Silver stayed in Albany, where he told reporters that the offerings bore little resemblance to the list of tax incentives he outlined last week as a way to draw commercial tenants back to Ground Zero. "It had nothing to do with what I was asking for," Silver said.

The $820 million represents the last chunk of federal money awarded after 9/11 to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., a city-state agency charged with dispensing some $2.7 billion in grants.

By law, the money must be spent in terror-scarred lower Manhattan. And LMDC officials began developing their spending plan years ago - well before Silver's role on the stadium came into focus.

But the timing - just days after Silver outlined his vision for lower Manhattan and just days before next week's expected Public Authorities Control Board meeting - raised more than a few eyebrows.

"It's hard to believe there is no linkage," said Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf. "What is believable is that George Pataki's legacy is on the line, and Bloomberg needed to get this job done."

Aides to the mayor said later they are still reviewing Silver's call for tax incentives to businesses that relocate downtown. They stopped well short of making any predictions on whether Silver can be persuaded to back the stadium.

"I don't know if today's announcement will make a difference or not," said Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff. "[But] we need to have . . . an agreement to go forward or not."

That's some goodie bag

Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki outlined $820 million in new spending in lower Manhattan yesterday. Projects include:

• $300 million for the World Trade Center memorial

• $15 million to rebuild Fitterman Hall, a partially destroyed college building overlooking Ground Zero

• $50 million to create 200 new units of affordable housing and preserve 3,000 more

• $220 million to fix up waterfront parks along the Hudson and East rivers.

• $20 million for parks and playgrounds in Chinatown, Tribeca and lower East Side

• $20 million for new K-8 school on Beekman St.

• $9 million to improve area transit, including possible ferry service to northern suburbs

• $90 million for downtown cultural institutions and "community enhancements" to be named later

• $15 million to improve streetscapes and security around the New York Stock Exchange

• $32 million to improve traffic and sanitation services in Chinatown

• $40 million to upgrade Fulton and Greenwich Sts.