By Nick Brown
NEW YORK, Nov 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in
lower Manhattan, which sits in a historic former U.S. custom
house, will be closed indefinitely in the wake of flooding and
electrical outages from Hurricane Sandy, the court said on
Monday.
Much of downtown Manhattan has returned to a semblance of
normalcy after flooding and power failures following the storm,
but there is no timetable for re-opening the bankruptcy court,
said Stephanie Cirkovich, a public information officer for
Manhattan's federal court system.
The courthouse basement flooded last week, according to a
facilities update on the website of the U.S. General Services
Administration, which owns the building. It also said there was
no heat, phone or Internet connectivity in the building.
Water and sewage had been fully drained from the building as
of mid-afternoon on Monday, Cirkovich said.
The bankruptcy court at One Bowling Green is housed in the
Alexander Hamilton Custom House, an ornate Beaux-Arts-style
building designed by architect Cass Gilbert at the beginning of
the 1900s. As a custom house, it was the revenue collection
point for the lower Manhattan port. The building stood vacant
for much of the 1970s before undergoing major renovations. The
bankruptcy court moved into the structure in 1987.
The National Museum of the American Indian, which shares the
building with the bankruptcy court, had power on Monday, but no
steam, heat, or telephone service, museum spokeswoman Eileen
Maxwell said.
By court order, judges are allowed to move hearings to the
White Plains and Poughkeepsie branches of the bankruptcy court
while the Manhattan courthouse is down. Parties that cannot get
to those locations can participate in hearings by telephone.
Some bankruptcy hearings were postponed. Others were being
moved to federal district court in Manhattan, which re-opened on
Monday, Cirkovich said.
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