Rudin thankful for Battery Park Tunnel flooding

William Rudin and MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota
William Rudin and MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota

William Rudin, one of the city’s largest landlords, is reportedly thankful that the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel flooded during Hurricane Sandy.

MTA Chairman Joseph Lhota said that Rudin, who owns five large office buildings in Lower Manhattan  — including One Battery Park Plaza and One Whitehall Street — thanked him “for allowing the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel to be used as a drain ditch,” Capital New York reported.

“I wasn’t particular pleased with the comment,” Lhota told Capital New York.

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The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel took one of the biggest hits during Hurricane Sandy, which sent 90 million gallons of water into the tube. It took the MTA, with the help of the National Unwatering Team, two weeks to pump out and restore the tunnel after the hurricane.

The MTA has begun to weigh different ideas for protecting the tunnel from future storms. But doing so just might generate problems for other parts of the city.

“The fact of the matter is, if I plug it up, we plug it up, the MTA plugs it up — if God forbid this happens again, the surge is the same or even higher, the water will go elsewhere,” Lhota said. [Capital New York] —Hayley Kaplan