New York, New York - A consortium of conservancy clubs and wealthy individuals has been quietly buying up parcels of land and buildings in the heart of Manhattan, with the aim of returning the island to the condition it was in when Henry Hudson first landed there in September,1609.
Already, construction crews are busy demolishing buildings and ripping up roads. Washington Street between Vesey Street and Barclay Street,Church Street between Cortlandt Street and Vesey Street,and Avenue D from East 12th Street to East 13th Street are among the roadways which have been successfully acquired and which are in the process of being systematically deconstructed.
All across the island, major building demolition projects are underway on property already owned by the secretive nature consortium.
One such project consisted of "the complete remove of asbestos containing materials, demolition of three (3) multi-story buildings (one 5-story 100,000 sf building and two 1-story 20,000 sf buildings), removal of all piping, conduit and other related services from underground utility tunnels, demolition of all concrete slabs and foundations, removal of one underground storage tank and one above ground storage tank and backfilling of the area."
Restoration of a creek which ran through the site is almost complete and trees will be planted there soon. The consortium is also queitly lobbying congress and the State of New York to use stimulus money and Super Fund Toxic Waste Cleanup money to aid it's efforts.
The project, which began in 1998, gained momentum after the tragic events of 9/11/2001, and has reached a point where the group now owns nearly 20.6 percent of lower Manhattan's
real estate.
"All those vacant buildings you see in Manhattan? Those are all ours!", boasted Earnest T. Bass, the consortium's current CEO and the man responsible for the consortium's explosive growth. "By leveraging our buying power during a downturn in the economy, we are now able to acquire buildings outright and are no longer obliged to keep our motives a secret for fear that prices will rise when it becomes clear that we are the ones doing the buying."
Mr.Bass went on to say:"It's no longer a question of whether we could do it, or would do it, but rather when Manhattan Island National Park will become a reality. That reality is closer than you think.".
