Larger, Private Spot Is Found for TriBeCa Sukkah

The Great Sukkah Controversy in TriBeCa has been amicably settled in time for the Jewish holidays, with a new location found nearby for the sukkah and an offer by opponents of its placement in a park to cover the costs of staffing.

Chabad of TriBeCa had originally asked the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation if it could place a sukkah — a ritual hut used for the eight-day Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot that begins the evening of Oct. 12 — in Duane Park, a small triangular traffic-island of a park with a single walkway.

Several members of the TriBeCa committee of the local community board, Community Board 1, objected to the move, arguing that it was too small a park and that a sukkah might violate First Amendment strictures against the establishment of religion. The Friends of Duane Park, a group of local advocates, also opposed the sukkah, partly because they were planning a fund-raising tour of nearby lofts that required the park as a starting point.

The issue was scheduled to be voted on by the full membership of Community Board 1 on Tuesday night. But over the weekend and on Monday, the board’s chairwoman, Julie Menin, scoured the neighborhood and found a real estate company, B. Jaffe Real Estate, willing to offer an empty lot at 70 Warren Street near Church Street as the location for the sukkah. The lot is twice the size of Duane Park.

The owner agreed to remove cars and other materials stored on the lot, but insisted that Chabad have insurance, a place for bathrooms, weekend staffing and restrict visiting hours to 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Ms. Menin secured bathrooms nearby — at the Church Street School for Music and Art, where her children had been students. Karie Parker Davidson, head of Friends of Duane Park, said her organization would pay the $600 cost of staffing the lot for one weekend. Chabad had already planned to obtain insurance.

“This solution gets us out of the rubric of religious use in public parks by having it on private street,” said Ms. Menin, who originally indicated that she favored finding a way to accommodate the sukkah. “It was clear to me that some in the community were opposed to it because of the fact that Duane Park is an extremely small park and because Friends of Duane Park had an event to come and some were concerned about the religious use of a public park. But it was important for Chabad to celebrate the Jewish holiday.”

The head of the local Chabad, Rabbi Zalman Paris, who was surprised by the controversy since Chabad has put up sukkahs in other parks, appreciates the new offer.

“It felt like the whole TriBeCa is like a sukkah,” he said. “People coming together and finding solutions, lots of different people offering support.”

Although final details have yet to be worked out, the settlement means that Jews from the neighborhood will be able to visit the sukkah Oct. 12 through Oct. 19, eat inside and say a blessing while fulfilling the commandment to sit in a sukkah. The sukkah, a flimsy structure whose roof is made of branches or reeds, is meant to remind Jews of the temporary dwellings the ancient Israelites lived in as they fled Egypt for the Promised Land. Typically, Jews begin to put up sukkahs right after the close of Yom Kippur, though they usually do so on synagogue grounds or private balconies or in backyards.

Charles Karp, who manages several buildings in the area for Jaffe Real Estate, said he offered the lot because “I’m trying to be a good neighbor.”