The Portland Streetcar, a downtown mass transit system scheduled to open this summer, will have a stop in front of the building.
Mr. Estrada's successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, speaking at a downtown Mass attended by several thousand people, praised the young Filipinos who made up a vast majority of the demonstrators and brought about the resurgence of the "people power" that had forced the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos from office in 1986.
On a more massive scale, one can have a similar experience driving over the Brooklyn Bridge at night on the way home from the Brooklyn Academy of Music with the lights of downtown massed against the dark sky and reflected in the river.
Given the obvious need to curtail carbon dioxide emissions, enlightened companies should set an example by locating in downtown areas, where mass transit is ready and waiting.
Every morning, journalists take their spots on the hillside, police officers line up at the mouth of a road leading from the shanties to the glass towers downtown and protesters mass in the streets, screaming slogans, lighting fires and burning pictures of the president.
The clashes downtown erupted when masses of Mr. Morsi's supporters marched across a Nile bridge to try to enter Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and the main spot for aggrieved Egyptians ever since.
One voice I missed Tuesday was that of a former Nassau County executive, Thomas Suozzi, now a lawyer in private practice, and an early and brilliant booster for building higher-density downtown centers near mass-transit lines to create the jobs and tax base to help support the rest of traditional suburbia.
They wrote for the Midtown newspapers and magazines and, as a labor of love, for the reigning downtown journal, The Masses, at 91 Greenwich Avenue, Max Eastman's monthly that drew on the Village esprit of feminism, socialism and realism -- all mixed with a strong dose of irreverence.
We didn't join the masses downtown, preferring instead to share this moment with friends.
Mr. Bates said his city was in the midst of a "renaissance" but still needed more people living downtown to create the critical mass required to attract retail and cultural amenities and others.
Downtown has benefited from Mass MOCA's presence, too.
