The Lo-Down has a reminder regarding Tuesday’s important meeting about the redevelopment of the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area in the Lower East Side. The swaths of property, near Delancey and Grand Streets, have long been eyed by the city as a site for major new development, and have also caused much anxiety about the future of the Essex Street Market. Tomorrow’s public hearing will present opportunities for public comment on the project as it begins the environmental review process. The meeting starts at 3:30 p.m. at 184 Eldridge Street. There is an evening session, as well.

Suzanne Rozdeba Preservationists have rallied around the Essex Street Market, which may be forced to move because of the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area development project.

While a battle between preservationists and the developer of 35 Cooper Square is still brewing, residents on the Lower East Side are raising their voices about the possible uprooting of another historic location, the 70-year-old Essex Street Market.

“If that market had disappeared, and I had just sat back in my apartment, I don’t think I could live with myself,” said Cynthia Lamb, a Lower East Side resident who is circulating a petition to keep the market, home to more than 20 businesses, from being relocated as part of the contentious Seward Park Urban Renewal Area project. The site is home to five parcels of land that have sat empty as a development debate has steeped for over 40 years. John Shapiro, the city’s planning consultant, has suggested a “superior location” elsewhere on the Seward Park site for the market.
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