Volume 78 / Number 9 - July 30 - August 5, 2008
West and East Village, Chelsea, Soho, Noho, Little Italy, Chinatown and Lower East Side, Since 1933

Board backs Hudson Sq. BID

The proposed Hudson Square Business Improvement District cleared the first hurdle in the approval process last Thursday when Community Board 2 voted unanimously to give the BID the go-ahead.

According to members of its steering committee, the BID will focus on addressing the problem of Holland Tunnel traffic backup and on marketing the neighborhood, which businesses feel lacks a clear identity.

Phil Mouquinho, a former C.B. 2 member, testified in favor of the BID.

“If this BID was mainly about security and sanitation, I wouldn’t be onboard,” he said. “It’s a different kind of BID — that is traffic mitigation and streetscape improvement.”

The motion to create a Hudson Square BID failed once in the past, but its unanimous approval at C.B. 2 created optimism that this time around, it would succeed.

“They’ve done all of the hard work now,” said Jo Hamilton, first vice chairperson of C.B. 2. “Once it gets to this point and there isn’t too much opposition — which there doesn’t seem to be any — it should be pretty easy.”


Gabriel Zucker and Lincoln Anderson