One Police Plaza (1PP) is the headquarters of the New York City Police Department (NYPD). One Police Plaza is located on Park Row in downtown Manhattan near City Hall and the Brooklyn Bridge. Its block borders Park Row, Pearl Street, and Police Plaza. The Headquarters for the New York City Police Department was previously located at 240 Centre Street approximately one mile North of One Police Plaza.
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Description
Like the Boston City Hall, One Police Plaza is rectangular in plan and is an inverted pyramid in elevation. It is a 13-level, horizontally-oriented brutalist building designed by Gruzen and Partners in 1973. A 22,000 square foot expansion project is slated to be complete by 2011.
Located on the eighth floor of One Police Plaza is the Real Time Crime Center, an anti-crime computer network which is essentially a large search engine and data warehouse operated by detectives to assist officers in the field with their investigations.
The Major Case Squad and the Technical Assistance Response Unit are also located at One Police Plaza.
Criticism
Park Row, historically a four-lane artery linking the financial district to Chinatown, has been closed[1] to civilian traffic since 2001; the NYPD asserts that its necessary to protect its headquarters from a truck bomb attack. Chinatown residents are increasingly frustrated at the disruption caused by the closure of the vital thoroughfare, especially nearby residents. People who live nearby argue that the police department has placed a choke hold on an entire neighborhood and that if One Police Plaza is such an obvious terrorist target, perhaps it should be moved from a residential area.[2] Members of the Civic Center Residents Coalition have been fighting the security perimeter around the building for years.
Paul J. Browne, the NYPDs chief spokesman, said police headquarters will not be moving despite the numerous complaints from residents. He said the department had tried to alleviate the impact of the security measures by stopping officers from parking in nearby public spaces and reopening a stairway that skirts the headquarters south side and leads down to street level near the Brooklyn Bridge. The department also plans to redesign its guard booths and security barriers to make them more attractive, and is involved in efforts to convert two lanes of Park Row into a pedestrian green-way. “The Police Department has worked hard to be responsive to the community while maintaining the requisite level of security for this sensitive location,” he said.[1]
Expansion of One Police Plaza
A 22,000 square foot expansion of One Police Plaza is slated for completion in 2011. A city official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the department already has an emergency command center in One Police Plaza. It is a central conference room and has a group of desks where everyone gathers during an emergency to coordinate their response. The renovation of 109 Park Row would move those operations out of One Police Plaza's main building, giving police officers more space, the official said. The project will not add any new floors to the building or any new employees to police headquarters, so the building’s impact will be minimal. The renovated building will have new computers and equipment.[3]
Protesting the expansion
New York 1 reports Lower Manhattan residents are up in arms over plans to build a state-of-the-art addition to NYPD headquarters. It stated that angry residents held a rally on August 27, 2008 near One Police Plaza to protest the addition of the planned 22,000 square foot command bunker at the site. Tenants of three neighboring co-ops filed a lawsuit last week to force the NYPD to undergo environmental and land use reviews.[4]
Other
One Police Plaza was also a made for TV movie which aired in 1986.
Inside One Police Plaza, a room on the second floor affectionately called "The Shack" serves as the police bureau office for local press outlets. Its tenants include the Associated Press, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Times, Newsday, Staten Island Advance, El Diario La Prensa, NY1 News, and 1010 WINS. Its police counterpart is on the 13th floor, the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Public Information (DCPI).
See also
- Civic Center, Manhattan - the NYC neighborhood that 1PP is in.
- Parker Center - LAPD HQ
- Plop art - a pejorative slang term for public art (usually large, abstract, modernist or contemporary sculpture) made for government or corporate plazas, spaces in front of office buildings, skyscraper atriums, parks, and other public venues. The term connotes that the work is unattractive or inappropriate to its surroundings - that is, it has been thoughtlessly "plopped" where it lies.
References
- ^ a b http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/24/nyregion/24police.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion
- ^ http://gothamist.com/2007/09/24/park_row_paraly.php
- ^ Protesting expansion of One Police Plaza
- ^ http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/85418/lower-manhattan-residents-to-rally-against-nypd/Default.aspx Lower Manhattan Residents Rally Against NYPD
External links
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