Tribeca residents balk at criminal court relocation

From left: 346 Broadway and 40 Worth Street
From left: 346 Broadway and 40 Worth Street

City plans to relocate the Summons Arraignment Part of the New York State Unified Court System from the Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan to a site about two blocks away have Tribeca residents in an uproar.

The court at 346 Broadway, which deals with summons for low-level offenses and sees roughly 600 people daily, is eyeing a spot at 40 Worth Street.

“This is the plan…there is no other location being considered,” Pauline Yu, a spokeswoman from the Mayor’s Office, told a packed Community Board 1 Tribeca committee Wednesday evening. The city, she told the crowd, is still not sure when the court will make the final move.

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Those drawn before the court have the option of either paying or challenging their summonses, and operations would run from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily, Yu said in the community board meeting.

But residents are concerned about queues lining the street, as currently happens at the court’s 346 Broadway location, despite plans for the new spot to include a larger waiting area that can accommodate up to 250 people.

“Just because it’s low-level, a lot of these people coming to this court are unsavory types…and are engaged in other types of criminal activity,” CB1 member Allan Tannenbaum, part of the group that voted to oppose the move, told DNAinfo. [DNAinfo]Julie Strickland