Chinatown community leaders are pressing Mayor Zohran Mamdani to rethink plans for a high-rise jail in the crowded Lower Manhattan neighborhood, warning that the project could destabilize the ground and put nearby buildings at risk.
The proposed 16-story borough-based jail, often dubbed a local “jailscraper,” is a key piece of the city’s $16 billion effort to close the Rikers Island jail complex and replace it with four detention facilities located closer to courthouses. City officials have said the overhaul could be finished by 2032.
“The jail site sits on the soft, waterlogged ground of the old Collect Pond,” 18 neighborhood leaders wrote in an Aug. 21 letter to the mayor, Deputy Mayor Julia Kerson, “Close Rikers” czar Dana Kaplan and City Council Speaker Julie Menin.
The letter warned that the construction would require an unusually deep dig at the site, extending far below the water table. “The city’s report warns that pumping out that water during construction can cause the surrounding ground to sink, and once it sinks, it does not come back,” the leaders wrote.
Plans to demolish the Manhattan Detention Complex at 124–125 White St. and replace it with the towering new jail have drawn intense opposition from Chinatown residents, small businesses and local community groups.
The push to shut down Rikers Island and move detainees into new borough-based jails began nearly a decade ago under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, then advanced slowly during the administration of ex-Mayor Eric Adams. The decision now falls to Mamdani.
In their letter, Chinatown leaders also noted that many older buildings near the proposed jail site sit on wooden foundations installed more than a century ago. Those supports, they said, remain stable only because they have stayed submerged in groundwater.
If construction exposes that buried wood to air, deterioration could speed up significantly, the leaders argued, pointing to an op-ed analysis by architect William Bialosky.
“The buildings in the danger zone are our homes, our small businesses, the historic buildings along Baxter Street, and Chung Pak senior housing, where some of our most vulnerable neighbors live,” the Chinatown reps said.
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But city officials last month said they are taking all necessary precautions for “building safely below the [water] table.”
A July 20 report addressing the issue was released by the city Department of Design and Construction, the city’s major contractor Tutor Perini and the Corrections Department, among others.
The report states that a continuous underground retaining wall formed by overlapping concrete piles will provide adequate excavation support, limit ground movement and help control groundwater during deep digging.
The construction officials acknowledged that managing groundwater is critical to maintaining stability and “protecting surrounding structures.”
But the pile walls minimize ground movement and help protect buildings adjacent to the jail site, as well as utilities and public infrastructure, the builders said.
“Only water within the excavation area is managed, minimizing impacts to the surrounding groundwater level,” the report said.
“By containing groundwater and excavation effects within the site, the sealed-wall method reduces risks to surrounding properties and infrastructure.”
The Gateway Tunnel Project and other sites using such Secant piles include 100 11th Ave. in Chelsea in Manhattan, the Hudson Square Project, or Project Galaxy, for the Walt Disney Company in Manhattan, and 120 Fifth Ave. in Brooklyn.
Throughout the ongoing demolition and dismantlement phase at the Chinatown site, residents have reported persistent dust emissions, uncovered and idling trucks and ongoing noise disruptions.
The Chinatown Environmental Health Working Group reports higher particulate matter pollution levels near the construction zone.
Signatories of the letter to the mayor include: Vic Lee, CEO and co-founder of Welcome to Chinatown Inc.; Vic Lee, CEO & co-founder Welcome to Chinatown Inc.; Jan Lee, co-founder of Neighbors United Below Canal; Thomas Yu, executive director of Asian Americans for Equality, and Wayne Ho, president and CEO of the Chinese-American Planning Council, Inc.
