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E C N A V CY E M A C E B N I A L L I V THE ill who w down? m i h e tak

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October 19, 2020

11 . 17 . 20 1:00PM-4:00PM

V I R T U A L

GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT C O N F E R E N C E The COVID-19 pandemic created a free for all for medical equipment across the city and the state.Gov. Cuomo worked with neighboring states to create a purchasing consortium while Mayor DeBlasio suspended laws relating to procurement to allow the city to quickly purchase what it needed.As things start to move through phases how does purchasing and procurement return to normal? The Government Procurement Conference will foster business partnerships between the city and state level government, prime contractors, and small, minority, service-disabled veteran-owned, and women-owned businesses.

FEATURED SPEAKERS

DAN SYMON Chief Procurement Officer, NYC Mayor’s Office of Contract Services

JAMES SANDERS JR. Senator, Chair, Task Force on MWBEs

RODNEYSE BICHOTTE Assemblymember, Chair, Oversight of MWBE Subcommittee

JONNEL DORIS Commissioner, NYC Small Business Services

SPONSORED BY

RSVP at CityAndStateNY.com/Events For more information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Lissa Blake at lblake@cityandstateny.com

October 19, 2020

City & State New York

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE DEAR CITY & STATE READERS, It is a truism in credible newsrooms that good journalists shouldn’t become the focal point of stories. Unfortunately, last week City & State was a trending topic on Twitter and Facebook, and for reasons that we are not proud of. In the past two months, City & State has made a number of inexcusable editorial errors (we sincerely apologize to anyone we may have offended) that have necessitated immediate change. Effective immediately, Jon Lentz, our editor-in-chief, is stepping down from that role and will exit the company on November 30. We will announce an interim replacement early next week.

Like many companies in America, particularly those in media, we at City & State have been doing a lot of soul-searching since the protests in late May in the aftermath of the horrific murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others. Even well-intentioned companies like City & State must do more to try to correct the systemic racism that exists in all areas of our society.

This summer, we embarked on a search for a new editor-in-chief to lead our newsroom. We made a vow to our editorial team that we would EDITOR’S NOTE: In last hire a person of color. Since then we have conducted more week’s issue, we published a than a dozen interviews with great journalists who know piece about former 40 Under 40 City & State honorees who city and state government well and could help mold our have subsequently “crashed, editorial team in this fast-changing environment. We have burned and flamed out.” In that piece, we referenced Brooklyn identified a few leading candidates and hope to have the Assembly Member Diana position filled by the end of the year.

Richardson and a personal family issue that happened We are asking our editorial team to expand their list of a few years ago. We have sources to ensure that it includes a wide range of voices decided to remove that story from our website. The incident and is as diverse as the city and state we cover. In addimentioned in that piece was tion, we have decided to create a board of advisors for our not related to her work as an elected leader and therefore growing array of Power Lists, again in an attempt to ensure should not have been included that a diverse group of voices has input as our editorial in her write-up. Unlike the other individuals who were listed, team assembles these important lists. she also remains in office. City We have also eliminated unpaid internships and institut& State apologizes to Assembly Member Richardson and ed a new paid internship program, in acknowledgement to our readers for this lapse in that unpaid internships act as barriers for students who judgment in our coverage. cannot afford to give up their time without compensation.

We have also started planning a special issue of our magazine to be published in November – in partnership with Elinor Tatum and her editorial team at The Amsterdam News – that will focus exclusively on profiling black women in government and politics around the State (h/t state Sen. Zellnor Myrie). Among other topics, we plan to interview a wide range of women and hear from them about the challenges and obstacles they have faced as they have risen in their respective roles. Attorney General Tish James has agreed to be our featured profile and we are excited to hear from her about what her journey has been like as she has risen to the top legal enforcement position in the entire state.

These are just the first steps in a broad reimagining of our newsroom. We are eager to hear your suggestions and feedback. Please send your ideas and comments to me at tallon@cityandstateny.com.

Thank you for being a loyal reader. We promise that we will work hard every day to earn your trust and respect as a leading platform in political coverage throughout New York state.

Sincerely,

TOM ALLON President & Publisher

STEVE FARBMAN CEO

CONTENTS BRIAN BENJAMIN … 6

The state senator launches his bid for comptroller

POLICE SURVEILLANCE … 8 How the NYPD is keeping digital tabs on New Yorkers

MANHATTAN DA RACE … 10 The crowded contest to replace Cy Vance SOHO … 16

The push to make the neighborhood more affordable

SUBWAY PERFORMERS … 22

Beloved musicians have been abandoned by the city

WINNERS & LOSERS … 30

Who was up and who was down last week

CityAndStateNY.com

October 19, 2020

“Hospitals were never overwhelmed.”

COVID-19 HOT SPOTS COOL DOWN

Several days after new restrictions were approved for the areas of Brooklyn and Queens experiencing spikes in coronavirus cases, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said the rate of new cases has begun leveling off. This also comes after a weekend of enforcement of those restrictions resulted in

more than $150,000 in fines being issued to noncompliant businesses, places of worship and individuals. The state shut down schools and nonessential businesses in the most restrictive areas to help curb the spike. At the same time, Gov. Andrew Cuomo pointed to a concerning upward trend statewide in the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations – that number is now the highest it’s been since

June and slowly getting closer to 1,000 people.

With that indicator in mind, Cuomo gave New York City and other local governments in hot spots an ultimatum: ramp up enforcement or lose funding. He did not offer specifics about how much money he had in mind but suggested it would be a significant sum. De Blasio brushed off the threat as “bluster,” saying he was committed to preventing a second

GUARDIAN ANGELS The traditionally fashion-focused Glamour magazine is highlighting women who helped battle COVID-19 at Queens’ Elmhurst Hospital, one of the city’s hardest-hit medical centers.

These four guardians of Elmhurst – a critical care nurse, a director in the pathology department, a housekeeper and the chief medical officer – all get their rightful cover treatment in the magazine’s Women of the Year issue.

– Gov. Andrew Cuomo, claiming that the state’s hospital system always had capacity during the height of the coronavirus crisis in a defense of his controversial nursing home policy, via the New York Post

“I thought about running for Brooklyn borough president. I thought about it long and hard and decided in this urgent moment there’s so much work to be done, right now, right here where I am.”

– New York City first lady Chirlane McCray, via NY1

wave of the coronavirus.

The pair also disagreed once again on the status of yeshivas, which were supposed to be closed in hot spot areas, that were being used as day care centers. While Cuomo said the city should be shutting them down, de Blasio said the actual written guidance on the matter was unclear and asked for clarity from the state outside of Cuomo’s spoken statements. In the meantime, the yeshiva day cares remain open.

HESHY TISCHLER ARRESTED

After several days of raucous - and at times violent - protests by Orthodox Jewish protesters in Borough Park, Brooklyn, over new coronavirusrelated restrictions, one of the instigators of the protests was arrested and charged with inciting a riot and unlawful imprisonment in relation to an assault on a journalist. Police arrested Harold “Heshy” Tischler – a local radio show host, City Council candidate and right-wing provocateur, photo top left – a day earlier than he originally planned.

Prior to his arrest, Tischler had announced that he would turn himself over to the police on Oct. 12, but officers instead detained him the prior evening, despite the apparent deal he claimed to have made.

At his arraignment, Tischler pleaded not guilty to both charges against him and was released, after which

RON ADAR/SHUTTERSTOCK; KEVIN P. COUGHLIN/OFFICE OF GOV. ANDREW CUOMO; SCREENGRAB/GLAMOUR; DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY OFFICE; LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

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October 19, 2020

he addressed his supporters, saying that they would continue their fight and “knock that Cuomo out.”

NYC MAYORAL HOPEFULS SQUARE OFF

Seven declared and undeclared Democratic candidates for New York City mayor participated in the first forum of the 2021 election season, with the primary to take place in June. The candidates took to the virtual stage for the forum hosted by the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, a citywide progressive LGBTQ political club. The participants were Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, below, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer,

THE

WEEK AHEAD

City & State New York

former de Blasio counsel Maya Wiley, former nonprofit CEO Dianne Morales, former Obama and Bloomberg aide Shaun Donovan, former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia and City Council Member Carlos Menchaca. All candidates agreed on some topics – they all tried to distance themselves from de Blasio and vowed that they would replace NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea. However, the forum also illustrated policy differences between the moderate and progressive Democrats in the race, particularly when it came to land use and details of police reform. Candidates, for example, were split on the scrapped deal to build an Amazon headquarters in Queens.

WEDNESDAY 10/21 City & State hosts a webinar imagining a post-COVID Manhattan starting at 5 p.m., featuring Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Rep. Adriano Espaillat and others.

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The census’ early end stokes fears The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 13 sided with the Trump administration and allowed the 2020 census to be ended early.

Advocates who pursued litigation to keep the census going through the end of October said that a shortened timeline would lead to a greater undercount of the population.

The ruling could open the door to the political manipulation of census data by the Trump administration – which would have dire implications for New York, since the state is already at risk of losing at least one congressional seat.

“President Trump now is going to be in office in December, whether or not he wins or loses the election,” Julie Menin, who has been leading New York City’s census initiatives, said on Oct. 14. “That means that he and his administration are basically in charge of the census data, they’re in charge of how those decisions are going to be utilized for congressional apportionment.”

During the early stages of the census count this year, many efforts to encourage participation were derailed by the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns. The U.S. Census Bureau created a new timeline that extended the count to the end of October in order to allow people extra time to respond. But by the end of July, the agency abruptly decided to end the count a month early.

WEDNESDAY 10/21 The state Senate is holding a 10 a.m. virtual hearing on the role of cultural organizations in the New York City economy and what COVID-19 means for them moving forward.

Trump administration officials argued that the shortened count was needed in order to meet a Dec. 31 legal deadline to deliver state population totals to the president for the purpose of allocating congressional seats. Democrats in the House of Representatives passed legislation that would extend the deadline by four months, but Senate Republicans haven’t acted on it.

Fears that the president may manipulate the data for his political advantage have abounded, particularly after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told NPR earlier this month that “the president has the ability to do all kinds of modifications to the material that we send in.” The rushed schedule also would likely mean an inaccurate count.

Assuming the U.S. Supreme Court sides with Trump or the case remains pending, Trump could also implement his plans to exclude undocumented immigrants for the purposes of congressional reapportionment. That would also lead to further inaccuracies. Because the census didn’t ask a citizenship question, the federal government would subtract the estimated population of undocumented immigrants. About 725,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally were estimated to live in the state in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center.

– Kay Dervishi

SATURDAY 10/24 The first day of early voting, when New Yorkers can cast a ballot in person for the general election. In New York City, polls are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and early voting lasts through Nov. 1.

INSIDE DOPE

Democrats are increasingly pushing voters to polling stations in order to lessen the volume of mail ballots that might take weeks to tally.

A HARLEMITE RUNS FOR COMPTROLLER 6

CityAndStateNY.com

October 19, 2020

State Sen. Brian Benjamin launches his bid for citywide office

By Jeff Coltin

ing City Council Member Brad Lander, Assembly Member David Weprin and state Sen. Kevin Parker. City & State talked to Benjamin after the event about divesting the city’s pension fund from what he considers immoral investments, his lack of campaign experience and why he’s part of Kamala Harris’ #KHive.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

It’s good to see you here in historic SoHa. (laughs) You know I led the effort to kill that name (that real estate developers tried to use to rebrand South Harlem).

You’re running for comptroller. You’ve been a supporter of divestment as a strategy, pushing the state pension fund to divest its small holdings in private prisons and trying to ban all state chartered banks from financing private prisons.

New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer has supported divestment, but it has been a slow process. Would you divest the city pension fund from any other type of holdings?

What I want to do is a full review of everything. I need to speak with the different pensions boards. It’s not a sole trustee where I can just decide. I have

to work with them.

They don’t like when they’re not consulted as part of a conversation. (They) have the concern of our retirees first and foremost. The right approach is to say, look, we want to be investing in companies that share our values. And for those who don’t, it’s not just divest: There is shareholder activism where you can sit down and talk with the leaders of these companies and say, for example, “We see you have a policy and a procedure where you’re evicting people in order to generate returns. That does not correspond with our values.

Therefore, we are telling you that if you don’t stop these practices, then we are going to

JEFF COLTIN

T

HE OFFICIAL LAUNCH of state Sen. Brian Benjamin’s campaign for New York City Comptroller was just as much about Harlem as it was about Benjamin. The 43-year-old was born in the neighborhood at Harlem Hospital, to a mother who immigrated to New York from Guyana. He was raised in Starrett City in Brooklyn and in Queens Village, but after graduating from Harvard Business School, he moved to Harlem and worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and as an executive for a local housing developer and management company. He got deeper into local politics, chairing Community Board 10, and he was elected to the state Senate in 2017, where he now chairs the Committee on Revenue and Budget.

At his campaign announcement at Frederick Douglass Circle in Harlem on Oct. 15, some of the neighborhood’s power players endorsed Benjamin’s bid to be the city’s second Black Comptroller, after Bill Thompson, including Manhattan Democratic County Leader Keith Wright, state Sen. Robert Jackson, Assembly Members Al Taylor and Inez Dickens, Council Member Diana Ayala, and Hazel Dukes, the president of the NAACP’s New York conference.

But comptroller is a citywide position, and Benjamin, who often stays out of the spotlight, is going to try to win over 2021 Democratic primary voters in all five boroughs while competing against opponents includ-

October 19, 2020

start the conversation around divestment.”

I used to do private wealth management on Wall Street.

I was with Morgan Stanley.

Whenever you enter in or out of a company, it’s very cumbersome!

You could exit in a way that’s financially harmful to the retirees. Nobody wants to do that.

Stringer was criticized in the press recently for losing money on private equity real estate investments. Would you keep those investments, or others like it, to keep a diverse portfolio, or divest, because housing advocates say those investors often have aggressive eviction practices?

The first order of business is looking at the portfolios.

Because remember – every dollar that the city of New York has to put in to prop up the pension fund is another dollar that can’t go towards education, that can’t go towards housing, that can’t go towards social services. There’s a 7% return that is expected from a $200 billion-plus pension fund in order to protect the city’s budget. And we’ve got to do better than that because we need to rely less on the city. 15% of the city’s budget right now is going towards helping to prop up the pension fund. In a time of crisis! (ed: It’s closer to 11%.)

The comptroller has multiple things to juggle. My view is let’s put everything on the table, let’s look at everything, let’s substantiate claims, let’s have conversations, let’s have a process for companies that are doing things that we have issues with. Let’s have a group that looks at all those kinds of companies, let’s then go through a process with the pension boards. And if a pension board says, “We’re not in love with this… It’s too important to our retirees to divest from this,” maybe we don’t further invest in the future. I think that’s the right way to deal with these issues and not to be sensational. Let’s be realistic.

You were still consulting for housing developer Genesis Companies while in office a

City & State New York

few years back – No, I was not. I’m glad you brought that up. I was not. There was an accusation that I was, but when I decided to start running for state Senate, I pulled back to part time (at Genesis), and then when I was elected, I stopped (working there) entirely. There is no overlap with Brian Benjamin, senator and Brian Benjamin receiving compensation.

Not even unpaid consulting?

Oh, you’re right. We decided, “Why don’t I sit on the board?”

Not get paid, but let me sit on the board and be an adviser. My partner from business school founded the company. I just was very involved in the company’s growth and helping to make sure the money got secured to really take it off.

So there were people who

protect everyone. And that’s why we passed rent reform last year.

I was one of the leaders in that conversation. I carried one of the bills! It’s not like everyone in real estate’s a monolith.

As a senator, you proposed a state tax credit for any New Yorker who was paying more than 30% of their income in rent. Would you keep pushing on that, and could it be done at the city level if Albany won’t?

The problem now is who’s going to pay for it? If it’s President Biden, that’s one conversation. If it’s a re-Trump operation, that’s a whole other thing. It’s very expensive. There are those who believe in order to really do it, we have to get federal support for it. It’s enormously expensive.

But it’s more about the value of

It’s not just divest: There is shareholder activism where you can sit down and talk with the leaders of these companies and say ... ‘If you don’t stop these practices, then we are going to start the conversation around divestment.’ said, “No, we get you’re not getting paid, but we don’t like the way that looks.” I said “Fine,” and I stepped off the board.

You’re a former real estate developer, and you’re getting a lot of money from donors who work in real estate. Do you think the city needs to intervene in some way to help the real estate industry that’s been struggling?

It depends on where you talk about that. The small businesses, the small homeowners, the folks who make the city work, we should, without question, be thinking about how we can assist those people. I don’t believe in this us versus them: 30% of the city’s budget comes from property taxes. We can’t just act like, “Screw that whole sector.” We have to make sure the whole sector has rules that

the whole thing. I believe no one should be paying more than 30% of their income for rent. Period.

Everyone agrees with that. So let’s figure out a system that gets that done. That’s what I would like to do. I strongly believe the issue is to provide money to those who are struggling, not to destroy the entire system.

Do you have a team behind you that’s run citywide before, or run a competitive race before?

Yeah, so Parkside Group is our strategist. I have Michelle Gilliam as my campaign manager, who was deputy national campaign director for Elizabeth Warren, political director at (the Transport Workers Union), ran a number of races on behalf of TWU. So I’ve got a quality team.

And we’re going to have the money we need to win.

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You introduced a bill in 2017 that would direct the city to close Rikers Island in three years, rather than the planned 10-year timeline.

Do you still think Rikers can be closed sooner, and if so, how?

I think it’s harder now with the crisis. The issue is capital – how are you going to pay for the new jails? I believe in the system that they set up. I believe that they should have moved faster. I’ve always been a strong believer in, “Let’s reduce the population.”

And not just reduce the population in theory.

There are people who are incarcerated who are there because we continuously criticize addiction, right? We can’t say “Oh, it’s OK to be addicted to (an) opioid, you need services and help, but you’re addicted to crack, you’re addicted to heroin, you get jail.”

That, to me, is a racist structure that needs to be unwound.

Now, those who are dealers and pushers, those are the people we should be dealing with. When you really only have incarcerated the people who are real threats to public safety – you’ve got to define that – then you have a much smaller population.

You were an early endorser of Kamala Harris for president.

What did you see in her?

Oh my god, yes I was. I saw someone who I thought could win. The fact that she was a Black woman was a part of my consideration, but it was not the only consideration. I thought she had the best chance of beating Donald Trump. I thought that she represented someone who was smart, someone with great experience. Someone who, as a senator, had one of the most progessive records of any senator in the U.S. Senate. Some of her prosecutorial things, I think she should have done a better job explaining, but I think, all in all, she represented the best candidate. There are so many women like her who helped start my career and get me to the place where I’m at. It was appropriate when I found a Black woman who was qualified and talented and needed support that I step up and help her. And now, she’s going to be vice president!

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CityAndStateNY.com

October 12, 2020

THE NYPD’S SURVEILLANCE PROBLEM

The department is facing multiple lawsuits over its digital practices – and how it keeps tabs on New Yorkers of color.

By Annie McDonough

T

HE NEW YORK CITY Police Department has eyes everywhere. Before the passage of the Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act by the New York City Council in June, the public had few ways to learn how the NYPD was using surveillance technologies like facial recognition, running checks against controversial databases or even tracking public opinion about the department itself.

While the passage of the POST Act will require the NYPD to disclose more information to the City Council about how it uses some of these technologies, the first report from the NYPD isn’t due until early next year. But Council Member Vanessa Gibson, who sponsored the law, said on-time reporting compliance was often a problem for city agencies, and she thought the report could be delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But with the public still largely in the dark about how police use digital surveillance or technologies like facial recognition, some individuals and civil liberties advocacy groups have filed lawsuits to obtain that information in court. In the past two weeks, two such suits have been in the news, including one dealing with the department’s alleged practice of stopping mostly Black and Latino New Yorkers without cause and searching their identities in law enforcement databases, and another over its use of an electronic survey to measure public sentiment on the NYPD. The NYPD declined

to comment for this story.

Here are a few of the recent lawsuits over the NYPD’s various efforts at keeping digital tabs on New Yorkers.

A lawsuit says cops have been stopping people of color and running their IDs without cause.

“Digital stop and frisk” Last week, The Intercept reported on a federal class-action lawsuit filed last year that alleged the NYPD stopped and searched mostly Black and Latino people, and even after finding nothing illegal on them, demanded their IDs and ran them against databases to cross-check for arrest warrants or other information like alleged gang affiliation. The lawsuit claimed that these checks were unconstitutional because they were done with no reasonable suspicion – hence the “digital stop-and-frisk” moniker. “The NYPD’s own data confirms that the vast majority of people who they stop each year are Black and Latinx. So, when they run warrant checks and record searches on the majority of people who they stop, it is a continuation of their racist stop-and-frisk practices, but with an invasive digital component,” said Molly Griffard, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Cop Accountability Project, who represents plaintiffs in the case. “They’re not just looking into people’s pockets for drugs and guns, they are going on a fishing expedition into the NYPD’s massive and ever-growing database to see what they can find.”

That the alleged “digital stop-and-frisk”

practice was documented mostly in poor neighborhoods, involving mostly Black and Latino people, hit one of the central issues with law enforcement’s use of surveillance technologies. Studies of some of the technologies themselves, such as facial recognition, have been shown to be ineffective at identifying Black faces, for example. But there’s also the question of how tools are deployed. “There’s a potential use of surveillance, where it might be posed as a neutral alternative to biased police practices, but ultimately, if they’re being deployed in the same neighborhoods to achieve the same effect, things won’t necessarily change,” said Ángel Díaz, counsel in the Liberty & National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Gibson said that while she respected the desire of the NYPD to protect officers engaged in undercover work – an argument often leveled by the NYPD against disclosing the tools it can deploy – there had to be a balance. “It’s about not imposing on people’s civil rights, it’s not coming into communities of color just because there’s an assumption that all crimes happen in communities of color,” she said. “I guess the big

October 12, 2020

City & State New York

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data was collected, how the data was then acted upon,” said Albert Fox Cahn, the project’s executive director. “But we also want to understand why the NYPD engaged in this multiyear, multimillion-dollar project to begin with, and then why they systematically withheld it from the public.”

Cell phone searches Another lawsuit filed by the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project late last year attempted to procure information on how the NYPD has used mobile device forensic tools – technology that can unlock and download all the information on a cellphone. In this case, the group filed the suit alongside Upturn, a technology nonprofit that has been assembling information on the use of this kind of technology across the country. While other localities complied with requests for that information, Cahn said, the NYPD did not comply with a Freedom of Information Law request for details on what technology it has and how it is used.

Facial recognition

fundamental question we should ask (is) are we safer with police surveillance technology in communities of color?”

Sentiment data tracking The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a privacy-focused nonprofit, filed a lawsuit recently that aimed to reveal information about how the NYPD collected and used polling data regarding how New Yorkers felt about the department. This data came from a multiyear contract with the private polling firm Elucd, which de-

veloped this “sentiment meter” with the NYPD and asked people through online surveys whether they felt safe and trusted the police.

The lawsuit alleged that the NYPD refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Law request that sought all information related to the “sentiment meter” by replying that the request was unduly burdensome.

While the NYPD has released some results of the polling, they haven’t released information at the neighborhood or precinct level, or shed light on how the results have changed policing practices. “We want to understand the specifics of how this tool works, what

IVAN CHOLAKOV/SHUTTERSTOCK

“THEY’RE NOT JUST LOOKING INTO PEOPLE’S POCKETS FOR DRUGS AND GUNS, THEY ARE GOING ON A FISHING EXPEDITION INTO THE NYPD’S MASSIVE AND EVER-GROWING DATABASE TO SEE WHAT THEY CAN FIND.”

– Molly Griffard, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Cop Accountability Project

Law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology has been one of the most high-profile sources of criticism when it comes to digital surveillance. Other states and cities banned the technology outright.

But in New York, civil liberties groups are still working to figure out how that tech is being used. A lawsuit filed by the Georgetown University Law School’s Center on Privacy and Technology in 2017 sought information related to the department’s use of a facial recognition database. That lawsuit produced documents last year that revealed the NYPD had loaded mugshots of minors into that database, even though there was evidence that the technology didn’t work as well on children as on adults.

That work continues today, and a third lawsuit from the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project was filed in July for information on the department’s use of other types of facial recognition technology, after the group received a tip that biometric surveillance systems were being used in and around Times Square.

While those who pushed for the passage of the POST Act, including Gibson, Cahn and Díaz, said the legislation will create more transparency about the NYPD’s use of systems like facial recognition as well as tools like drones and license plate readers – hopefully preventing the need for lawsuits seeking that information – they agreed that more work lies ahead in figuring out how the NYPD should or shouldn’t be using these technologies.

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CityAndStateNY.com

October 19, 2020

Progressive DA candidates are competing to be the leftest of them all. And in Manhattan, the strategy might work.

By Jeff Coltin

Y

OU COULD BE forgiven for missing this news amid the unyielding cascade of political developments, but hours after President Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, Tahanie Aboushi received her biggest endorsement thus far in the race for Manhattan district attorney: actress and former gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon.

Standing outside the New York State Supreme Court Building in Lower Manhattan, Nixon highlighted Aboushi’s personal story as a civil rights attorney and daughter of Palestinian immigrants. “There is no better way to turn the page on (Manhattan District Attorney) Cy Vance than electing Tahanie Aboushi to replace him,” Nixon said on Oct. 2. “To fill his role with a woman, and a Muslim woman at that,

would be a complete game-changer. When we elect Tahanie, we are sending a message that it is time for a complete change.”

Nixon has a growing reputation for backing progressive candidates early. She doesn’t get it right every time – she supported former City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, who ended up finishing sixth, in the Democratic primary to fill Rep. José Serrano’s seat – but she could bring the unknown first-time candidate greater attention from media, donors and liberal activists. Aboushi is one of several candidates who are running to the left, emphasizing equity in the criminal justice system rather than law and order.

Eight months before the June 2020 Democratic primary, Aboushi and her opponents aren’t just competing for votes in Manhattan, but for the national money and grass-

JEFF COLTIN; LUCY LANG; CRISTINA GONZALEZ; JUAN PATINO PHOTOGRAPHY

RACE TO BE MANHATTAN’S CABÁN

October 19, 2020

City & State New York

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N From left, Tahanie Aboushi, Lucy Lang, Janos Marton, and Eliza Orlins are all in the crowded field of challengers looking to be the next Manhattan DA.

roots mobilization that have helped sweep a burgeoning class of progressive prosecutors into office. Manhattan could be home to the next Chesa Boudin, district attorney in San Francisco, or the next Larry Krasner, district attorney in Philadelphia – but it isn’t clear yet just who, if anyone, will play that role.

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HERE ARE NINE CANDIDATES currently running in the Democratic primary: Aboushi, a civil rights attorney; Alvin Bragg, former state chief deputy attorney general; Liz Crotty, a defense attorney; Tali Farhadian Weinstein, former general counsel to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez; Diana Florence, a former assistant district attorney in Manhattan; Lucy Lang, a former executive director of the Institute for Innovation

in Prosecution at John Jay; Janos Marton, a civil rights attorney; Eliza Orlins, a public defender; and Assembly Member Dan Quart, who is also a civil litigator.

Almost every one of the candidates would represent historic change for what may be the country’s most powerful local prosecutor’s office, which has only ever been led by white men. Quart is the only white man in the race, while Bragg is Black, Aboushi is Palestinian-American, Marton is Indian-American and the others are white women.

All of them, to varying degrees, say they’ll run a more progressive office than Vance, who has been relentlessly criticized for what some see as an inequitable approach to justice. Eight of the candidates – all except Crotty – signed on to an open letter calling

on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to grant mass clemencies to prisoners aged 50 and older because of the health risks posed by the coronavirus.

Vance did not join. Five of the candidates cosigned a letter criticizing Vance’s push to jail the looters who burglarized stores during the days of protest after George Floyd was killed by police in Minnesota.

Of course, Vance is an easy punching bag for these candidates. He apparently let President Donald Trump’s children off the hook in a fraud investigation after meeting with their lawyer, a generous donor to Vance’s campaign, while sending more than his fair share of defendants – mostly low-income young men of color – to Rikers Island. Women’s rights activists have launched a campaign to review the work of his office’s sex crimes unit for failing to

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Tali Farhadian Weinstein, left, is a former federal prosecutor; and Alvin Bragg, right, is a former state chief deputy attorney general, and was the first to announce.

Harvey Weinstein and the Trump administration for its census citizenship question, and where he led its unit that investigated police-involved killings, gives him solid bona fides when making his appeal to voters. He raised more than $353,000 in the first six months of 2020 and had nearly $600,000 on hand as of his latest financial disclosure in July, making him the most prolific fundraiser in the current field.

JANOS MARTON HOME BASE: Hell’s Kitchen AGE: 38 MONEY ON HAND AS OF JULY 2020: $54,647

aggressively pursue wealthy and well-connected alleged sex criminals such as Jeffrey Epstein, Dr. Robert Hadden and Harvey Weinstein.

Calls for Vance’s resignation have plagued him for the past three years, and now he’s not expected to run for reelection. While Vance hasn’t officially announced a decision either way, he’s not doing the kind of things candidates do, like appearing at candidate forums and raising money. He has a paltry $5,419 left in his campaign account.

Instead of Vance, for inspiration, many of the candidates look to the stars of the “progressive prosecutor” movement around the country, like Wesley Bell in St. Louis, Rachael Rollins in Boston and Tiffany Cabán, who narrowly lost a 2019 primary in Queens. These candidates, along with Boudin, Krasner, Kim Foxx in Chicago and others, have earned national attention for their promise to revolutionize the prosecutorial role, in part by seeking fewer and shorter prison sentences.

Criminal justice stakeholders can and will debate the efficacy of these reformers’ policies, but the political benefits of aligning with the progressive movement are clear. There’s a whole network of donors and organizations around the country who are committed to helping elect radical prosecutors preaching radical reform, including familiar names: George Soros and his Justice & Public Safety PAC, musician John Legend, and the Real Justice PAC, co-founded by activist and writer Shaun King. Other big players have lower profiles, like Patty Quillin, wife of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, or Open Philanthropy, which is funded by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. And there’s a deep pool of small-dollar donors around the country who are eager to follow those big money play-

THE CHALLENGERS ALL EYES MAY eventually be focused on the 2021 New York City mayoral race, but the Manhattan district attorney race has already attracted a crowded field a full year before the Democratic primary. Here’s a rundown of the nine candidates who are actively campaigning for Cyrus Vance Jr.’s office.

ALVIN BRAGG HOME BASE: Harlem AGE: 46 MONEY ON HAND AS OF JULY 2020: $593,687 This former state chief deputy attorney general was the first person to announce his candidacy in June 2019.

He’s running as a progressive reformer and has pledged not to accept any money from corporations, lobbyists or attorneys who have business with the district attorney’s office. Bragg, who also served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, has long been an outspoken critic of Vance. He has pledged not to prosecute any low-level offenses where there is no public safety consideration and would create an independent unit dedicated solely to investigating police misconduct. Bragg’s time in the state attorney general’s office, where he oversaw lawsuits against

A civil rights attorney and decarceration activist, Janos Marton announced his intention to run for Manhattan district attorney in July 2019, making him the second contender. Key components of his campaign include pledging to reduce the number of Manhattan inmates at city jails by 80% by the end of his first term, implementing restorative justice practices and approaching drug policy enforcement from a public health lens. He aims to be a progressive prosecutor in the mold of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and took inspiration from Tiffany Cabán’s 2019 Queens district attorney race. Marton said his activism experience, notably his role in the campaign to close Rikers Island, sets him apart from other candidates. He also said he would reject contributions from “special interests.” Marton raised over $56,000 in the first six months of 2020 and had nearly $55,000 on hand as of July.

DAN QUART HOME BASE: Upper East Side AGE: 48 MONEY ON HAND AS OF JULY 2020: $903,030 Despite his intention to run for Manhattan district attorney, Dan Quart recently fended off a primary challenge for his Assembly seat. He was criticized for running two campaigns because he would have to give up his Assembly seat in the middle of his term if he won the district attorney race in 2021.

Quart announced his candidacy in September 2019, though he has reportedly eyed the seat for years.

Like Bragg, he has styled himself as a reformer who would continue the work he did in the Assembly. Quart, pointing to his support of Cabán in the 2019 Queens district attorney race, said he would abolish cash bail

October 19, 2020

and decline to prosecute sex workers. Quart said he won’t accept large donations from criminal defense attorneys, but is otherwise not limiting his contribution pool, meaning he will accept real estate money, which is increasingly seen as a toxic source of campaign cash by the progressive left. Quart raised about $90,000 in the first half of this year and had just over $900,000 on hand as of July, making him the candidate with the most cash.

City & State New York

platform. She has criticized Vance for his actions as district attorney and for failing to implement true reforms. Orlins has a small claim to fame as well, having competed on the reality TV shows “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race,” which has helped her build a sizable presence on social media.

Orlins touts her experience as a public defender. Among her campaign pledges are the decriminalization of sex work and declining to prosecute low-level crimes, including diverting those charged with low-level drug possession to treatment programs.

Orlins has raised nearly $332,000 since announcing in March and had just shy of $269,000 on hand as of July.

TAHANIE ABOUSHI HOME BASE: Harlem AGE: 35 MONEY ON HAND AS OF JULY 2020: $368,704

TALI FARHADIAN WEINSTEIN FOR MANHATTAN DA; ALVIN BRAGG FOR DA

ELIZA ORLINS HOME BASE: Chelsea AGE: 37 MONEY ON HAND AS OF JULY 2020: $268,905 Eliza Orlins is a staff attorney with The Legal Aid Society, making her the only public defender in the race so far. She said she has represented more than 3,000 people over the course of her career. Like many of the other candidates, Orlins is running on a progressive

Tahanie Aboushi, a civil rights attorney, is also running a progressive campaign. She comes into the race having personal experience with the New York City’s criminal justice system – her parents, Palestinian immigrants, were arrested on charges related to untaxed cigarettes when she was 13, and her father was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Earlier this year, she joined protesters outside Vance’s office to demand that he resign. Like many in the race, Aboushi wants to decrease the number of people in city jails and and would support the decriminalization of “crimes of poverty, mental illness, sex work and substance use disorder.” She would also establish a police accountability unit and create a council to determine alternatives to prosecution. Aboushi has raised

about $330,000 in the first half of 2020 and had $369,000 on hand at the end of July.

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HOME BASE: Midtown

who have worked for Vance, Diana Florence enters the race with some baggage. She led his Construction Fraud Task Force, but left in January after being accused of withholding damaging evidence about a witness. Florence has said that the Manhattan district attorney’s office has “lost its way” under Vance, but has largely seemed to avoid directly criticizing her old boss, in contrast with many of her opponents. In a statement to City & State, though, she attacked Vance by name.

“It’s clear that he missed critical opportunities that I would’ve gone after to hold corrupt actors accountable, from Donald Trump to Harvey Weinstein,” Florence said.

“When pressed he acts, but justice should not require broad public outrage.” Thanks to her efforts combating construction fraud, she entered the race with support from labor leaders and unions in the sector she used to oversee. Florence has vowed to take on real estate and construction corruption as district attorney, a shift from the criminal justice reform focus of many of her opponents.

AGE: 49

LUCY LANG

MONEY ON HAND: Hadn’t filed as of July 2020

HOME BASE: Harlem

TALI FARHADIAN WEINSTEIN HOME BASE: Upper East Side AGE: 45 MONEY ON HAND: Hadn’t filed as of July 2020 Tali Farhadian Weinstein has experience as a former federal prosecutor under then-U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who narrated her campaign announcement video, and as counsel to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. She represents a more moderate option in the crowded race, supporting ending cash bail but allowing judges to use dangerousness to determine whether to detain someone before trial, a stance opposed by many criminal justice advocates.

She is also not as staunchly opposed to Vance as many of her opponents, telling Politico New York that she agreed with some of what he has done.

LIZ CROTTY

Liz Crotty is a former prosecutor, but under longtime Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, not Vance. She was the second woman to announce her candidacy in the race. Crotty is running on a moderate criminal justice reform platform, with her campaign website not appearing to go as far as others in the race in terms of commitments to restorative justice and stating that she would approach low-level offenses “fairly and appropriately” rather than pledging not to prosecute them at all, like many of her opponents.

DIANA FLORENCE HOME BASE: Kips Bay AGE: 50 MONEY ON HAND: Hadn’t filed as of July 2020 One of two former prosecutors

AGE: 39 MONEY ON HAND: Hadn’t filed as of July 2020 The other former Vance prosecutor, Lucy Lang, used to try homicide and domestic violence cases in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. She now styles herself as a reformer, not unlike many others in the race. She supports increasing restorative justice practices as an alternative to incarceration. However, Lang still believes that her history as a prosecutor, taking on issues like gun violence and domestic violence, makes her wellsuited to take over from her former boss. However Lang, a longtime Vance ally, has not spoken directly about him. Her entrance into the race has led to speculation that Vance in fact will not seek reelection after remaining mum on the issue for so long.

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ers’ lead. This network provided some of Cabán’s biggest funders, and some of the same donors are now lining up behind George Gascón, who is trying to replace Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey.

Law enforcement unions haven’t gotten involved in the Manhattan race yet, and even if they wanted to, they might not find a candidate who wants their support. All of the candidates except Crotty have proactively sworn off donations from police unions as a rejection of the groups’ conservative values and opposition to increased transparency and accountability for law enforcement. Other, more liberal unions, including the Building Trades Council and the Teamsters, have already endorsed Diana Florence, thanks to her record prosecuting fraud in the construction industry, and have the potential to pour money into the race.

Manhattan’s criminal justice reform activists – the types who supported Cabán in 2019 – are favoring other candidates. There’s general agreement that Marton, Aboushi and Orlins are running on the most progressive platforms in the race. Quart, the Assembly member and Bragg, the former deputy AG, are also well regarded, despite their establishment ties, thanks to Quart’s pushing criminal justice reform legislation in Albany and Bragg’s record speaking out on police violence.

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HOSE FIVE CANDIDATES’ policies and language, heard at forums and read on Twitter, often sound the same.

“Several years into the progressive prosecutor movement, people are pretty good at learning the buzzwords and catchphrases,” Marton told City & State. A leftist platform alone often isn’t enough to attract donors, so the candidates each have their own personal spin. Marton is the plans candidate, eager to dive into details, and often recalls that he was harassed by the NYPD as a young man of Indian descent growing up in Rudy Giuliani’s New York. Aboushi’s father was imprisoned during her childhood in Brooklyn, and she talks about feeling the far-reaching impacts of incarceration. Orlins is the only public defender in the race, just like her old colleague – but unlike Cabán, she has a built-in fan base from her time on the TV show “Survivor.” Lucy Lang may have done the best job so far directly aligning herself with other cities’ progressive prosecutors, releasing a letter co-signed by Boudin, Foxx and others pledging not to prosecute abortion cases, even if the protections of Roe v. Wade are reversed by a more conservative Supreme Court. (Since Roe v. Wade has been codified into state law in New York, it is more of a branding exercise than a meaningful policy stance.) Bragg, the only Black candidate in the race, and Quart, the only one who has

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Diana Florence used to work for Cy Vance, and has largely avoided criticizing her old boss, though she said the office “lost its way” under the current DA.

won office before, have already been running for the seat for more than a year, longer than any of their opponents. The primary has been a race to the left from the start. Since then, the field has only gotten more crowded.

“There’s not really a clear Tiffany Cabán yet,” said Jared Trujillo, president of the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys and a Manhattan resident. Split endorsements so far already have made that clear. Nixon and Zephyr Teachout, a law professor who ran for attorney general in 2018 on a pseudo ticket with Nixon, both backed Cabán in Queens. But in this race, Nixon has endorsed Aboushi, and Teachout is supporting Marton. Days after Nixon’s backing, Real Justice PAC endorsed Aboushi as well.

Other candidates have already attracted big money from reform-minded donors too. Bragg got $25,000 from Frank Baker, a private equity executive who sits on the board of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation. Bragg has also been endorsed by Arena, a Silicon Valley-funded progressive organization.

The race could change dramatically after the November election, when Democrats who have been focused on defeating Trump start picking candidates in the 2021 New York City races. The Working Families Party, a major force behind Cabán’s campaign, will likely back one of the candidates then. The Democratic Socialists of America’s New York City chapter is expected to stay out of the race in order to focus on electing socialists to the City Council. But these local progressive organizations are still surveying the field.

Brandon Holmes, co-founder of the criminal justice reform group Freedom Agenda,

said he has been coordinating with a coalition of like-minded groups including Legal Aid, New York Communities for Change and VOCAL-NY that intend to vet the candidates and set priorities for the race.

Holmes has been watching the candidates closely, and has donated $28 to Marton’s campaign, but he’s not ready to throw his support behind anybody yet. “I’m not really sold on any of these candidates,” he said.

Of course, the left may have to coalesce around one candidate in order to win. Unlike the city races that will be on the ballot in the 2021 primary, the district attorney is technically a state office, so the new ranked-choice voting provision won’t apply.

That means vote-splitting is a real fear, and some progressives like Trujillo are already hoping that weaker candidates will drop out if a favorite emerges. “I hope the actual progressive candidates will recognize that Manhattan is more important than their ego and would drop out,” he said.

Running to the left and trying to attract national progressive money is just one path to winning office, but it’s a promising one in the high-profile and left-leaning jurisdiction of Manhattan. If Queens had Manhattan’s electorate, Cabán might have won – and candidates like Eliza Orlins are banking on that. “I remember sitting next to (Cabán) in court one day and she was like ‘Eliza, I think I’m going to run for Queens DA.’ And I was like, ‘Tiff, I think I’m going to run for Manhattan DA.’ And we both were like, ‘Fuck yeah, let’s fucking do this!’” Orlins told City & State. “Getting public defenders into prosecutor’s offices, we both recognized that was how you really bring the change necessary.”

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CHLOE CHIK; LEV RADIN/SHUTTERSTOCK

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CY VANCE’S RECORD The Manhattan DA’s highest highs and lowest lows

SERVING AS TOP prosecutor in a borough home to many of the world’s wealthiest is bound to lead to landmark cases and major controversies.

In the past 10 years he’s been in office, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has accrued plenty. While he’s seen success in bringing forward cases of national importance, critics have also been quick to point out his spotty record prosecuting sex crimes against influential men. Here are the highs and lows of his tenure:

DOMINIQUE STRAUSS-KHAN Former International Monetary Fund Director Dominique Strauss-Khan faced accusations that he sexually assaulted a hotel maid in Manhattan in 2011, a potential crime under Vance’s purview. After spearheading a high-profile case against Strauss-Khan, Vance dropped the charges when prosecutors said they found credibility issues with the accuser’s testimony. The case brought on criticism that the district attorney had acted prematurely and may have been too focused on picking cases that would generate publicity.

JEFFREY EPSTEIN Vance’s office has been accused of mishandling its treatment of the infamous billionaire and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Although Epstein had already been convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in Florida, the Manhattan district attorney’s office argued in a 2011 hearing that he should be classified as a level-one sex offender, the least serious classification. The judge overseeing the hearing denied the request and expressed confusion that a prosecutor’s office would argue for a more lenient position on his behalf. Vance called the request a mistake that was made without his knowledge.

IVANKA TRUMP AND DONALD TRUMP JR. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office spent two years building up a criminal case against the eldest Trump children, who were suspected of misleading potential buyers of condos in the Trump SoHo. Despite the incriminating evidence prosecutors were amassing – including emails from the Trumps admitting to falsifying figures – Vance ended up overruling his team’s work and dropped the case in 2012. What made the decision particularly egregious was that he did so after Marc Kasowitz,

Donald Trump’s attorney, paid Vance a visit. And soon after the case was dropped, Kasowitz donated more than $50,000 to his campaign.

HARVEY WEINSTEIN Vance initially declined to pursue charges against movie producer Harvey Weinstein, who faced accusations of groping in 2015 that Vance declined to prosecute. Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, an Italian model, accused Weinstein of groping her in 2015 and, through an NYPD sting operation, managed to catch the media mogul on tape apologizing for groping her the day before. Even so, Vance didn’t take the case further. In the months after the district attorney declined to bring forward charges, Weinstein’s lawyer donated $10,000 to Vance’s campaign. But the district attorney did save face by pursuing a major case against him that landed Weinstein in prison for rape and sexual abuse.

ROBERT HADDEN Robert Hadden, a former Columbia University gynecologist

Vance initially avoided prosecuting Harvey Weinstein.

accused of sexually abusing his patients, faced no time in prison in a 2016 deal with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, in which he admitted to two instances of abuse, gave up his license and registered as a sex offender. Two of Hadden’s former patients who said he assaulted them, and several New York City Council members called on Vance to resign over his handling of the case.

The district attorney’s office opened up a new investigation in February over more recent accusations against Hadden that have come to light.

DONALD TRUMP While the case is developing, Vance has made strides in his efforts to obtain President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

His ongoing battle led to a major U.S. Supreme Court case which found that a sitting president could still be subject to criminal prosecution. A federal appeals panel ruled that Vance can enforce a subpoena for the president’s tax records in early October, but Trump is now asking the Supreme Court to intervene in the case again.

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CityAndStateNY.com

UPZONING October 19, 2020

Will Manhattan’s next borough president actually push to make one of the city’s glitziest neighborhoods more affordable?

By Rebecca C. Lewis

W

HEN IT COMES TO controversial issues politicians are looking to avoid, upzonings are high on the list. One needs to look no further than the proposed neighborhood rezonings in Inwood, Bushwick and Southern Boulevard in the Bronx during New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure – and the intense backlash they elicited.

But recently, mayoral contenders including New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams have come out in favor of changing the zoning in SoHo to allow more housing development. White, wealthy neighborhoods should help address the city’s shortage of affordable housing, they say. Some progressive tenants groups are getting behind the push as well, and de Blasio himself, after initial reticence, announced his intention to propose a rezoning that his administration said could create 800 units of affordable housing.

This puts Manhattan borough president candidates in the hot seat as they vie to replace Gale Brewer, the term-limited incumbent. All candidates expressed at least theoretical support for an upzoning, something of a break with the past when backing increased density was often toxic to a campaign. But with few details from the mayor, several expressed skepticism that the de Blasio administration would present a proposal they would support. Pushback has already emerged from influential community groups, and a rezoning of SoHo and NoHo, the architecturally similar sliver of Greenwich Village just north of Houston Street between Lafayette Street and Sixth Avenue, faces a rocky path forward. Despite the apparent openness to a residential upzoning, the power of those who shout “not in my backyard” may not yet have dissipated.

While the borough president has only an advisory role in land use decisions, they can still wield tremendous power in shap-

ing projects. Brewer notably helped get the Midtown East commercial rezoning approved in 2017 after initial community pushback, which created and modernized office space, adding more density and building height but also improving local subway stations and public spaces.

Brewer, 69, is a liberal from the Upper West Side. While she supported the Midtown East upzoning to much acclaim, she has typically kept with the politics of Manhattan liberals of her generation opposed to projects that would add much taller buildings in residential neighborhoods. She sued the city in 2018 in an attempt to scrap three 70- to 100-foot tall buildings approved to be built on the Lower East Side after an

outcry from members of the community.

That approach hasn’t totally fallen out of fashion. There are five declared borough president candidates: City Council Member Mark Levine from Morningside Heights, Elizabeth Caputo, the former chair of Community Board 7 on the Upper West Side, private exercise trainer and Community Education Council District 3 President Kimberly Watkins, City Council Member Ben Kallos from the Upper East Side and state Sen. Brad Hoylman, who represents Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Midtown. None had a bad word to say about Brewer during a recent candidate forum or when contacted by City & State, and each said they aim to continue and

COMES TO

SOHO

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SoHo’s outdated zoning dates back to its mid20th century status as a manufacturing hub.

NICK STARICHENKO/SHUTTERSTOCK

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October 19, 2020

build on her legacy on land use, which they said was community driven and grassroots.

All five candidates agree that the city must have more affordable housing, the main driver behind the push to rezone SoHo. The neighborhood is one of the richest in New York City and has seen no new affordable housing under de Blasio. The area’s complicated, outdated zoning regarding building uses date back to its mid-20th century status as a manufacturing hub.

Levine said upzoning SoHo could make sense, giving perhaps the clearest support of any candidate for a potential upzoning.

He said the city could add density around the edges of the neighborhood that are not part of the protected historic district and

replace parking lots and abandoned buildings. This echoes a proposal made last year by the prodevelopment group Open New York. “We have to break with our yearslong practice of upzoning almost entirely in low-income neighborhoods,” Levine told City & State. Traditionally, wealthy neighborhoods have avoided land use decisions that would bring changes that some fear could damage quality of life, from upzoning to homeless shelters, by using political power to pressure city government.

Levine’s thoughts about spreading the burdens of rezonings away from just low-income neighborhoods is shared by some progressives, like Aaron Carr, founder of the tenants’ watchdog group Housing Rights Ini-

tiative, who say it would enhance economic integration and opportunity for low-income New Yorkers. And it’s one shared by fellow candidates Caputo and Watkins. “Every neighborhood needs to do its part, and I believe in that when it comes to the rezoning issue,” Caputo told City & State.

However, every candidate had caveats about the fact that details of the mayor’s rezoning proposal have not emerged.

They included how much affordable housing it would actually create, who it would be affordable for, the kinds of community benefits it would include, the windfalls for developers and the impact on the neighborhood’s character. Caputo, for example, wanted to ensure that transportation and

CityAndStateNY.com

TRADITIONALLY, WEALTHY NEIGHBORHOODS HAVE AVOIDED LAND USE DECISIONS THAT WOULD BRING CHANGES BY USING POLITICAL POWER TO PRESSURE CITY GOVERNMENT.

October 19, 2020

mobility options are improved with a rezoning as a community benefit.

All said they don’t want to see new, supertall “luxury” towers and apartments being built. Several praised a report released last year meant to help inform the creation of a neighborhood plan that came about after a six-month public engagement process, sponsored by Brewer, Council Member Margaret Chin, who represents the area up for rezoning, and the New York City Department of City Planning. Kallos said it included some good ideas about rezoning SoHo including protections for existing buildings and housing for artists, but was concerned that the city’s plan would be too generous to developers. “The argument of we just need to build, build, build? We cannot build our way out of the affordable housing crisis,” Kallos said, referring to the market-rate, often luxury, units developers generally seek to create. Chin, who could block the rezoning thanks to the Council’s tradition of deferring to the member from the affected area, has tweeted that she is “excited to work with residents, stakeholders, and the Administration to take our dialogue on the future of SoHo and NoHo to the next level.”

Kallos is also a supporter of capping building heights and has backed a 210foot limit for as-of-right development in high-density areas of Manhattan and the city more broadly, which translates to roughly 25 stories, using additional height

as incentive for including affordable housing. Tall new buildings are often a source of opposition to rezonings from neighbors who fear loss of light and views.

Levine suggested that SoHo and other city neighborhoods could increase density without constructing new buildings wildly out of context with those around them.

What exactly the height limit would be for different candidates remains to be seen.

State Sen. Brad Hoylman expressed his concerns the most explicitly. “Relying on trickle-down housing policy is not going to solve our problems, and I’m afraid that is what the de Blasio administration is again proposing for SoHo,” Hoylman said, referring to the fact that affordable apartments generally are created under de Blasio’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing program when a private developer builds them in exchange for the ability to develop more market-rate units. Hoylman said he wants to see 100% affordable buildings if an upzoning happens, saying that the current program, which requires smaller percentages of new units to be affordable, does not go far enough to address the city’s housing crisis. Hoylman did not have an answer for how he would get private developers to build 100% affordable buildings, aside from simply requiring it in order to qualify for certain tax incentives, if it isn’t profitable. He said the city should be building more developments like Mitchell-Lama projects, which subsidize rentals and co-ops for middle-income families

RYAN DEBERARDINIS/SHUTTERSTOCK

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October 19, 2020

through tax abatements, and said the city should also utilize the 420-c tax exemption for nonprofit developers to build low-income housing. Watkins also agreed that the current requirements for affordable housing in new developments are insufficient despite being “very much in favor” of the idea of rezoning SoHo. But neither the city nor the state currently has extra money to subsidize affordable housing. Moving ahead with current zoning rules and requirements would allow for more low-income housing without adding to the costs of a financially strapped city.

All candidates said any rezoning must have involvement with members of the community, calling for more on-the-ground outreach and local input. Hoylman proposed what he called the “Manhattan Marshall Plan” to create a boroughwide plan for land use based on community proposals.

Levine said he would seek to create a similar comprehensive plan for all of Manhattan based on neighborhood input. Kallos said that he would put in the work to help draft the land use applications while working with community members.

The proposal to bring more affordable housing to SoHo was met with incredulity at a community board meeting last year. Some speakers expressed fear that residents would be displaced and the character of the neighborhood would disappear. Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, has al-

City & State New York

ready expressed staunch opposition to an upzoning. Kallos cited a conversation he had with Berman when expressing his doubts about a potential upzoning.

Berman told City & State that current zoning already permits buildings that he considers out of character for the neighborhood. He said SoHo’s current industrial zoning and density, established in the 1970s to protect artists living in their loft workspaces while preserving manufacturing, is working fine and does not need updating.

Berman argued that the city could be creating more low-income units by requiring affordable housing for all buildings converted to housing. But whether Mandatory Inclusionary Housing kicks in for conversions depends very much on the specifics of an individual project and is complicated, especially in SoHo. Berman added that the city should implement a new program that would require all new developments to come with affordable housing. “The city could do this in a way that would be completely nondisruptive to the neighborhood, keep new development in character, or at least no more out-of-character than the existing rules allow for,” Berman said.

Berman did not say how much affordable housing this could create, but he said that building new high-rise luxury apartments in order to get some affordable housing is a nonstarter.

Moses Gates, vice president for housing

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and neighborhood planning at the Regional Plan Association, which supports a SoHo rezoning, said SoHo is a prime example of a neighborhood that would benefit from new zoning. Gates said that the current complicated zoning established decades ago makes it difficult to get more retail and housing and has led to a hodgepodge of individual land use applications. He also said that new construction is the best and easiest route for more affordable housing. “If there are other ideas for providing truly affordable housing that are feasible, I think those should be added to the conversation,” Gates said. “I don’t think those should replace the upzoning conversation.”

Gates feels confident that city officials, like the potential borough president, will ultimately work towards a successful rezoning.

He said that discussions about how best to go about it are welcome as part of a process that has been gaining support. “I think everybody realizes that the conversation has to happen,” Gates said.

Another housing policy expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive political nature of the issue, was far more skeptical about how much support a SoHo rezoning will actually get from the borough president candidates once the process gets underway.

“Negotiating around the terms of a neighborhood rezoning or a specific development is a way to signal support for housing in theory without backing a particular proposal,” the expert said. “That can get awkward, because advocating for low-income renters is politically helpful, but so is opposing new construction.”

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“WE HAVE TO BREAK WITH OUR YEARSLONG PRACTICE OF UPZONING ALMOST ENTIRELY IN LOW-INCOME NEIGHBORHOODS.”

– City Council Member Mark Levine

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September 14, 2020

WOMEN ON THE FRONT LINES Strengthening female roles in business starts with solving the child care crisis.

“NO ONE CAN DOUBT the fact or dispute the fact that women really were on the front lines of battling this pandemic,” said Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul during an event on Oct. 7, hosted by Berkeley College in partnership with City & State. “When we had no idea how bad this pandemic would get, they were the ones who suited up and went into battle.”

As the keynote speaker of the event, which focused on the future of women in entrepreneurship and business across New York, Hochul understood that to strengthen women’s roles in business and entrepreneurship in the future, the impacts felt by women in the workforce now as a result of the pandemic need to be addressed. And Hochul said that the No. 1 challenge facing women in the workforce today is access to affordable child care, especially during the pandemic.

“The shoulders of women have always been heavy with respect to child care. Right now it is crushing. There’s no other way to describe it,” Hochul said. With schools closing across the state between March and June, the delayed reopening of schools in the fall, and now the reclosing of some schools

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in New York City, parents, and especially mothers, are having to spend more time caring for their children. For many low-income mothers, the inability to send their children to school has had devastating consequences, including loss of income.

Across New York state, women make up roughly two-thirds of minimum wage workers and 77% of health care workers.

These minimum wage workers are often grocery store workers, pharmacy employees, and restaurant workers – those who kept the city running when everything else was shut down, said Hochul in her opening remarks. And more often than not, those women were women of color, a factor that didn’t go unacknowledged in the event’s first panel discussion, which was titled “Change Leaders: A Conversation on Social Activism – Then and NOW.” “We absolutely know from the data and research, we measure the levels of self-sufficiency in the city regularly, that women and women of color have the highest rates of income inadequacy in the

city of New York,” said Sheena Wright, the president and CEO of United Way of New York City. According to Wright and the data collected by United Way of New York City, 83% of Latina mothers and 74% of Black mothers live below the level of self-sufficiency in New York City.

To help mitigate the challenges faced by working mothers across the state, Hochul said that she has focused on investing state and federal money in child care programs, but that the aid provided to New York state from the Federal CARES Act is quickly running out. “The federal government has got to step up with a stimulus plan right now. We cannot lose another day,” Hochul said.

But New York’s child care issue is twopronged, and the lack of affordability isn’t the only problem afflicting working women across the state.

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By Madeline Lyskawa

September 14, 2020

“The first issues that we dove into, going back nearly 100 years, were child care issues and the experiences of child care organizations in Black and brown communities not receiving key funding.

Still today that holds true,” said Jennifer Jones Austin, who heads the nonprofit FPWA. More recently, her organization led a campaign to secure child care salary parity for nonprofit organizations, a goal achieved last year. What prompted the campaign was the recognition that nonprofit workers providing child care and universal pre-K services in New York City, most of whom are women of color, were being paid significantly less than Department of Education teachers providing the same services. Austin said this discrepancy in pay often ranged between $20,000 and $50,000.

City & State New York

This problem, however, isn’t unique to child care services, and instead characterizes the nonprofit sector as a whole, which constitutes the third-largest job sector in New York City. Several years ago while working with the Fiscal Policy Institute, Austin said that FPWA noticed that women were being paid significantly less than their male colleagues, and often were not even making livable wages. Although many of these women were college educated, having achieved a bachelor’s or master’s degree, Austin said that 40% of women in nonprofits were being paid less than $12 an hour, and 25% were paid less than $9 an hour.

“These women were providing critical services to people in need and were eligible for the very same benefits because of their lack of income,” said Austin. Upon learning this, FPWA led a campaign to

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achieve a livable wage and create a minimum wage floor for nonprofit workers.

Solving issues related to child care and faced by working women in New York in the future requires the continued advocacy of organizations like FPWA, United Way of New York City and NOW New York, another organization that was represented on the panel, in addition to increased federal and state funding. But with female unemployment reaching 16.2% in April, a figure that was nearly 3 points higher than male unemployment, during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in New York, another fear expressed by Hochul and the other panelists at the beginning of the event was that women and mothers who have been laid off or were forced to quit their jobs as a result of the pandemic will not return in the same capacity as before.

■

WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS Can subway performers survive the pandemic?

By Pooja Shah

I

T’S 6 PM ON Friday evening. The clock reads 13 more minutes until the downtown F train arrives. Exhausted commuters crowd around a violinist who melodiously plays Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” A round of applause followed by tips tossed into her overflowing violin case. Suddenly, the wait

doesn’t seem as tedious.

Any regular subway rider in New York City knows the feeling. Besides connecting commuters, the subway is a stage to showcase the talent and diversity of New York’s musicians, artists, singers, dancers and other performers. Where else in the world is it possible to see famed Natalia “Saw Lady” Paruz play angelic melodies on a carpenter’s saw, a mariachi band performing Mexican music or a group of hip-hop dancers breaking it down to Michael Jackson’s classics?

But over the last six months, since the coronavirus pandemic caused subway ridership to plummet, subway performers – a signature sound of the city – have been inaudible. Many New Yorkers have abandoned their daily commutes to work from home. Others are currently jobless and have no need for the subway. For performers, also known as buskers, low ridership – coupled with limitations on where and when they can perform – translates to loss of tips and unemployment.

City & State New York

The MTA’s MUNY program offered a set location and time block in which to perform in the subway. That program has been suspended during the pandemic.

in accordance with state guidance on entertainment. While New Yorkers miss their daily free concerts, performers whose “offices” are among the subway platforms are desperate to find replacement locations.

With the temporary pause of MUNY, participants of the program, as well as other freelance performers, must now compete to find a location if they choose to perform. Although a permit is not technically required to perform on the platforms, the first-come first-serve allocation doesn’t provide the consistency and security that the MTA’s program usually offers.

There are other impediments to subway performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many musicians are reluc-

23

nificantly greater if tourism was not halted.

Left without a big part of his income since COVID-19 hit, Kharlamov faced dwindling savings and proceeded to collect unemployment and minimize unnecessary expenses to stay afloat.

For Dominican-American singer Marley, busking was her primary source of income, raking in nearly $200 an hour on a good day. In 2017, when she first started busking, she quit her job as a hostess and was motivated to earn money through performing cover songs and the original music she created. Her hustle gained her exposure and even landed her an audition on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.”

Now, she is seeking consistent weekly gigs and private events at restaurants or public spaces where she can perform her

“I ONCE CONNECTED WITH A SICK GIRL, DIAGNOSED WITH LEUKEMIA, VISITING FROM TEXAS. ANOTHER TIME, A HOMELESS MAN CAME UP TO ME AND POURED HIS ENTIRE CUP OF CHANGE INTO MY GUITAR CASE. THESE EXPERIENCES SET THE TONE FOR THE SPIRIT OF NEW YORK CITY.”

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– singer-songwriter Natalie Gelman

Pre-pandemic, many buskers enjoyed the stability of having a set location and time block in which to perform. Since 1985, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Music Under New York program has provided participants permits to book prime locations in stations and transit hubs. Over the last 35 years, more than 350 soloists and groups have been part of its roster.

However, like other performance venues around New York City, the Music Under New York program is currently postponed

tant to travel from their homes to utilize the subway right now for fear of contracting the virus. Others are afraid of the currently increased crime rate in the subway. Some find performing while wearing a mask for extended periods of time difficult, due to the poor air quality within the subway.

In light of these changes, buskers who relied on the subways not only because of their passion for their craft, but also for income, are struggling.

Before the pandemic, Russian-born performer Danila Kharlamov sold discounted tickets at Broadway Pass, a ticket company. After losing that job due to theater shutdowns, the so-called “Ring Jedi” transformed his craft of creating hypnotizing illusions with rings into a profession on the subway. “I would perform for more than 500 people a day in five hours,” he said. “I prefer being in train cars that are only half full, so that more people are able to see the tricks I can do with my 8-rings.”

His live subway car tricks currently yield him about $100 a day when he performs on the subway, and only $30-$40 a day if he performs in public parks. Kharlamov told City & State that these tips would be sig-

original music to supplement her part-time manual labor job.

It’s not only money that performers have lost. West Village singer-songwriter Natalie Gelman misses the bond she shared with her audience. “There are so many people who take the subway who wouldn’t normally have the time or resources to go see a concert,” said Gelman. “I take pride in bringing music to people and kids that is outside their normal experiences.”

For Gelman, music is a unifying cross-cultural experience. “I have performed for tourists from all over the world,” Gelman said. “I once connected with a sick girl, diagnosed with leukemia, visiting from Texas. Another time, a homeless man came up to me at the end of my shift and poured his entire cup of change into my guitar case.

These experiences set the tone for the spirit of New York City.”

MTA Arts & Design Director Sandra Bloodworth told City & State, “the Music Under New York program – live performances to experience as you travel the MTA system – is the essence of New York.

We look forward to the day when it is safe to resume so New Yorkers can once again be treated to the talented performers who

24 CityAndStateNY.com

October 19, 2020

A number of programs exist to help struggling performers, but many buskers either don’t know about them, or don’t know that they qualify.

bring joy to our day when least expected.”

Buskers now need to resort to other options to promote their talents and make money. Some have migrated above ground and online to continue performing in venues such as parks and wineries, or on live streaming platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Twitch. Other buskers turn to services like Venmo and PayPal for donations, especially musicians who face an added difficulty of being unable to sell their tracks in a world where Spotify and YouTube has made CD sales obsolete.

There are currently a limited number of organizations that provide funding for musicians, artists and performers that are applicable to buskers if they meet the application criteria.

Max’s Kansas City Project, established in the memory of famed patron of the arts Mickey Ruskin, has been in existence for the past 19 years and has been offering one-time grants of $500-$1,000 to assist self-employed artists in New York state alleviate temporary financial setbacks. Max’s Kansas City Project has received more funding that will allow them to accept a second round of applications and offer additional grants to those who meet the comprehen-

Project Founder Yvonne SewallRuskin said she has seen the highest number of applications this year, though virtually none from buskers. Financial assistance is offered to individuals in every art form, as long as they can show that they make a substantial part of their income in the arts.

So buskers need to be made aware of these programs, and they need policies and fundraising to continue to support them once these one time financial grants and donations run out.

Rafael Espinal, executive director of the Freelancers’ Union, a nonprofit and political organization that offers grants and services including health, liability and disability insurance to independent workers, said that forming a collective organization that lobbies for their interests could help buskers. “The Freelancers’ Union represents and advocates for all independent workers that include performers, artists, or people in media,” Espinal told City & State. “Regardless of the industry, buskers are a population of folks we work to support.

However, there is not anyone out there organizing them. There is an opportunity and need for subway buskers to think about how

WITH THE TEMPORARY PAUSE OF MUNY, PERFORMERS MUST NOW COMPETE TO FIND A LOCATION IF THEY CHOOSE TO PERFORM. sive application requirements.

Similarly, the Artist Relief Fund (an emergency initiative consisting of a number of national arts grantmakers), is offering $5,000 grants to practicing artists residing and working in any of the 50 U.S. states or surrounding territories for the past two years that are 18 or older and can demonstrate financial need due to the pandemic. A number of disciplines are eligible for this grant, including musicians, dancers, and performers. To meet increasing need, the Artist Relief Fund has nearly doubled its initial $10 million initiative and will continue grantmaking through December 2020.

Although these finite economic lifelines are available to buskers, many do not apply, due to lack of awareness that they even exist or confusion on whether they fit the application criteria. Max’s Kansas City

to create a collective voice and advocate for themselves.”

Such an organization’s programming could involve volunteer-type efforts to create new safe spaces for performers before subway ridership returns, or utilize crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe to collect and distribute donations for performers.

Additionally, buskers say they need policies to protect permitless subway buskers from being ejected or ticketed by law enforcement who are unaware of subway performance rules.

But for now, the familiar aural landscape of New York City is incomplete without the diverse talents of musicians and subway performers.

■

Pooja Shah is a freelance writer and lawyer living in New York City.

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legalnotices@cityandstateny.com Notice of Qualification of OMI 28 LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 08/20/20.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 04/03/20.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: Patrick Cooke, 578 Broadway, Flr. 07, NY, NY 10012. Address to be maintained in DE: Corporation Service Company, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, 401 Federal St. - Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities Notice of Formation of 1046 FLETCHER FARM ROAD LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/17/20. Office location: Franklin SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 325 Columbia Turnpike, Ste 301 Florham Park, New Jersey, 07932. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of ANDIE TRUCKING LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/17/19.Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 82 St Edwards Lane, Staten Island, New York, 10309.

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Datapex LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 9/10/20. Office: Kings County. Juan Ramirez designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 382 Lefferts Ave 4F Brooklyn, NY 11225.

Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM NOTICE OF FORMATION of Full Moon and Company NYC, LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 8/27/2020.

Location: Kings. SSNY designated as agent for service of process on LLC. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to: Full Moon and Company NYC LLC, 450 Van Buren St Apt 2, Brooklyn, NY, 11221. Purpose: Any lawful purpose NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION of Marble Hall GP, LLC, Application of Authority Filed with Secy.

Of State of NY (SSNY) on 8/19/20. Off. Loc.: Westchester County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: c/o LIHC Investment Group, One Portland Square, Suite 6A, Portland, ME 04101. Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of BEASER CONSULTING LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/3/20.Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 12 Maiden Lane Suite 1a, Staten Island, New York, 10307. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Form. of F 5 PROPERTIES LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/8/20. Office location: Rensselaer SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 7314 Oak Hill Circle, Rensselaer, New York, 12144.

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Notice of Formation of 242 86TH STREET, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 08/26/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 242 86th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11228.

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Notice of Formation of The Diversity Benchmark, LLC filed with SSNY on August 28, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 322 West 52nd Street # 1855, New York, New York 10101 - 1855. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of JBMG HOME SOLUTIONS LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/04/20. Office location: Niagara SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 7285 Balla Drive, North Tonawanda, New York, 14120 . Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 2173-65 LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/03/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 1991 Stillwell Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, 11223. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of M3 Candy LLC filed with SSNY on September 2, 2020. Office located in Richmond County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: United Agents Service LLC, 7014 13th Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11228. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of PLATINUM SOUTHAMPTON LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/22/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 122072543, regd. agent upon whom and at which process may be served. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of BAY RIDGE ONE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/21/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 416 Bay Ridge Ave, Brooklyn, New York, 11220. Any lawful purpose.

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Notice of Formation of R, Z & D LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 08/31/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 608 East 39th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11203. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of SOZAI BROOKLYN LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/4/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 360 Furman Street Apt. 908, Brooklyn, New York, 11201. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of THE BUSHWICK BLOCK, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 8/27/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 218 Randolph St. 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, New York, 11237. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of EXECUTIVE SANITIZING SOLUTIONS LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 08/13/20.Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 24 Sweetgum Ave, Staten Island, New York, 10314.

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Notice of Formation of Essentially Pristine, LLC filed with SSNY on August 14 , 200. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 214 Hillside PL #1R, Eastchester, NY 10709 . Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Joanne Spataro, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/22/20. Office location: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to LLC’s registered agent: United States Corporation Agents, Inc., 7014 13th Ave., Ste. 202, Brooklyn, NY 11228. Purpose: any lawful purpose.

EEI GLOBAL LLC, Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 09/03/2020.

Office loc: NY County.

SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: David Munits, 1181 Broadway Floor 6, NY, NY 10001. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.

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Slaybeautee, LLC. Art. of Org. filed with the SSNY on July 7, 2020.

Office: Richmond County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, 23 Ibsen Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10312. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

NOTICE OF QUALIFICATION of AB Somers & Associates, LLC (LLC).

Application for Authority filed with NY Secretary of State (SSNY) on 09/02/2020. LLC formed in DE on 03/10/2017. Office location: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to: 1214 Fifth Avenue, 44A, New York, NY 10029. DE office: United States Corporation Agents, Inc., 300 Delaware Avenue, Suite 210-A, Wilmington, DE 19801. Cert. of Formation is filed with the Secretary of State, State of Delaware, 401 Federal St, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

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Notice of Formation of Blau Partners LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 06/18/2020. Location: New York. SSNY designated as agent for service of process on LLC. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to Blau Partners LLC, 1 West End Avenue Apt 21G, 10023 NY , Purpose: any lawful activity.

Notice of Qual. of STATEN ISLAND SYNDICATE LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 09/08/20.

Office location: Richmond. LLC formed in DE on 09/02/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400, Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901. Any lawful purpose.

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Notice of Application for Authority of Foreign Limited Liability Company (“FLLC”).

Name: NYC PowerGen Holdings LLC. Application for Authority filed with the Secretary of State of New York (“SSNY”) on July 1, 2020. Jurisdiction of organization is the State of Delaware. Date of organization is December 30, 2015. Office location of the FLLC in this state: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of FLLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to Dr. Donald Bronn, 322 West 57th St., #46U, NY, NY 10019.

The office required to be maintained in the FLLC’s jurisdiction of formation or its principal office is Business Filings Incorporated, 108 West 13th St., Wilmington, DE 19801. The authorized officer in the FLLC’s jurisdiction of formation where a copy of its articles of organization is filed is Secretary of the State of Delaware, 401 Federal Street, Suite 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of SOUL FAMILY, LLC filed with SSNY on January 23, 2019. Office: Kings County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 980 Putnam Avenue, #4A, Brooklyn, NY 11221.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of 17 Communications, LLC filed with SSNY on January 1, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 65 Ocean Avenue, 1F, Brooklyn, NY 11225. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

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Notice of Formation of ANNA KLINGER LCSW PLLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/3/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of PLLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 107 Bond Stree Ste 2l, Brooklyn, New York, 11217. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of RAISAT ISHAYAT LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/15/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 555 Euclid Ave., Brooklyn, New York, 11208. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of JSB FILMS LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/16/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 921 Washington Avenue, Apt. 4m, Brooklyn, New York, 11225. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of STATION SIDE PROPERTY LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 08/17/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 7012 15th Avenue, 1st Floor, Brooklyn, New York, 11228. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of LAKESIDE HK ADVISORS LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/15/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 9 East 38th Street 6th Fl. New York, New York, 10016. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Form. of M & S COIN, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 8/10/20. Office location: Saratoga SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 608 Grooms Roadq, Clifton Park, New York, 12065. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of NYCHA PACT MEMBER LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 8/26/20.

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Notice of Formation of R, D, D, & Z LLC. Arts.

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As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 372 East 32nd Street, Apt 1, Brooklyn, New York, 11226. Any lawful purpose..

Notice of Formation of SUNRISE SD PARTNERS II LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/08/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 2036 East 27th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11229. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of TD 168 LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/8/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 1668 Bay Ridge Ave, Brooklyn, New York, 11204.

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Notice of Formation of 100 UNION AVE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/9/20.Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 450 Albourne Avenue, Staten Island, New York, 10309. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 149 12TH STREET LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/20/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 149 12th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11215. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 2277 VICTORY BLVD LLC. Arts. Of Org. f i l e d with SSNY on 9/9/20. Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

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Notice of Formation of ALPHA PLACE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/24/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 469 63 Street Fl1, Brooklyn, New York, 11220. Any lawful purpose.

D’OX AIR THEORY, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 08/31/20.

Office: New York County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to the LLC, ATTN: Joel S. Charleston, Esq., 11 Pearl Street, Valley Stream, NY 11581. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Winsmith Tax LLC filed with SSNY on June 29, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 425 W 23rd St. Apt. 8A New York, NY 10011. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of GPG4, LLC. Arts .Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/15/20.Office location:Erie SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.SSNY mail process to 30 Brawnview, Orchard Park, NY 14127.

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Notice of Qualification of GAH Corp LLC, fictitious name: Golden Age Hospitality LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 08/27/20.

Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 08/10/20.

SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 304 East 65th St., NY, NY 10065. Address to be maintained in DE: 838 Walker Rd., Ste 21-2, Dover, DE 19904.

Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of GAH Management LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 08/27/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 08/10/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 304 East 65th St., NY, NY 10065. Address to be maintained in DE: 838 Walker Rd., Ste 21-2, Dover, DE 19904. Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

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Notice of Formation of OR 257 FLATBUSH, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/04/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 485 Lexington Avenue, New York, New York, 10017. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Ume Blossom, LLC filed with SSNY on July 30, 2020. Office: Bronx County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 278 Bedford Park Blvd, 3C, Bronx, NY 10458. Purpose: any lawful act or activity

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Notice of Qualification of NAKASH HOLDING LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/24/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/10/03. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Corporation Service Co. (CSC), 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. DE addr. of LLC: c/o CSC, 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of DE, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of CHUN AND HONG LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/16/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 7005 18th Ave, Brooklyn, New York, 11204. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Form. of CONSIDER THIS FURNITURE, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/17/20. Office location: Schnectady SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 63 FRANKLIN STREET, SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK, 12866. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of DELSEA DRIVE SQFT, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/15/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 506 5th Ave, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, New York, 11209. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of EDID TRUCKING AND INSTALLATION LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/9/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 2162 Strauss Street Suite 2r, Brooklyn, New York, 11212. Any lawful purpose.

PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

October 19, 2020

Notice of Formation of Jess & Rose, LLC filed with SSNY on June 26, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 20 Confucius Plaza Apt 25B NY, NY 10002. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Form. of FREEDOM POINT VENTURES L.L.C.. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/16/20. Office location:Essex. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 78 Holmes Rd, Newburgh, New York, 12550. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Form. of SEQUENCE VENTURES LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 08/19/20.

Office location: New York. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 90 State Street, Ste 700 Office 40, Albany, New York,, 12207. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qualification of J&J ENTERPRISES LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 08/24/20.

Office location: Otsego County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 08/25/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to c/o Lemery Greisler LLC, 60 Railroad Place, Suite 502, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. DE addr. of LLC: c/o United Corporate Services, Inc., 874 Walker Road, Suite C, Dover, DE 19904. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, Div. of Corps., P.O. Box 898, Dover, DE 19903.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of 185 VAN SICLEN AVE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/18/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 509 Liberty Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, 11207. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 509 LIBERTY AVENUE REALTY GROUP LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/18/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 509 Liberty Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, 11207. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of FRVRHM LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 09/01/20.

Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 08/10/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 1925 Century Park East Ste 400, Los Angeles, California, 90027. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

ASSUMED NAME Notice is hereby given that an order enters by the Supreme Court Westchester county on the days of June 2020 ,Grants me the right to assume the name of Joshua Navarro Juarez the city and state of my present address are croton on Hudson New York the month and year of my birth are January 2019.

The place of my birth is village of sleepy hollow New York my present name is adrien Carlos Juarez Manjarrez Notice of Formation of Ace Premier, LLC filed with SSNY on September 8, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 450 Lexington Avenue #2695 New York, NY 10163. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qual. of REALTECH TITLE, LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 09/25/20. Office location:Ulster. LLC formed in DE on 10/24/19. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400 Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of 88 9TH ST BROOKLYN LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 09/23/20. Office location: Kings. LLC formed in DE on 05/21/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400 Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Form. of OUR CREEK SIDE LODGE LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/11/20.

Office location: OTSEGO SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 1534 County Rd 14, Mt Vision, New York, 13810.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 175 CONSELYEA LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/22/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 247 SEELY STREET, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, 11218.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 1869 VICTORY REAL ESTATE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/22/20. Office location: Richmond SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 28 Lundi Ct. Staten Island, New York, 10314. Any lawful purpose.

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6 Archer Lane LLC, Art. of Org. filed with SSNY 9-9-20. Office Location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of the LLC for service of process.

SSNY shall mail a copy of any process to c/o Dentons US LLP, 1221 6th Ave., NY, NY 10020, Attn: Benjamin Friedman, Esq. Purpose: Any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of ACRE Advisors, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/17/20. Office location: NY County. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 09/11/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 401 W. 14th St., 4th Fl., NY, NY 10014. Address to be maintained in DE: The Corporation Trust Company, Corporation Trust Center, 1209 Orange St., Wilmington, DE 19801.

Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, Division of Corporations, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: any lawful activities.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of formation of Young Urban Moms Media LLC, a domestic LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on September 14, 2020 filed with N.Y.S. Office location: Richmond County. SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 323 Getz Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10312. Purpose: Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of The Hive Mind LLC filed with SSNY on June 21, 2018. Office: Westchester County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 66 Main Street, Apt 1021, Yonkers, NY 10701. Purpose: any lawful act or activity

Notice of Formation of VV GLOBAL PARTNERS, LLC filed with SSNY on July 17, 2020.

Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 38 E 81st St. #4A, New York, NY 10028. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Aeon Global Asset Management, LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 7/7/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to Corporate Services Co, 80 State St, Albany, NY 12207. Principle business address: 144 E. 44th Str, Gound Fl,NY, NY 10017. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of formation of limited liability company (LLC). Name: EVIDENCE OF THINGS LLC. Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 7/6/2020. NY office location: Kings County. SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served. The post office address to which the SSNY shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her is Danielle Connelly, 175 Putnam Ave. Apt. 1 Brooklyn, NY, 11216. Purpose/character of LLC: Any Lawful Purpose.

Pyron LLC filed Arts. of Org. with the Sect’y of State of NY (SSNY) on 8/11/2020. Office: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be served and shall mail process to: c/o The LLC, 225 Bennett Ave, #6J, NY, NY 10040. Purpose: any lawful act.

Sisko Law PLLC. Filed with SSNY on 9/25/20.

Office: Kings County.

SSNY designated as agent for process & shall mail copy to: 350 7th St, Apt A3, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Purpose: any lawful.

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NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1329177 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 3621 REVIEW AVE LONG ISLAND CITY, NY 11101.

QUEENS COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. GEENA’S CUCINA LLC. NOTICE OF FORMATION, Direct Approach LLC. Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of New York (SSNY) on 10/06/2020.

Office location: Bronx County.SSNY designated for service of process.

SSNY shall mail copies of any process served against the LLC to c/o: Oscar Montalvo, 2410 Barker Avenue, Apt. 9J, Bronx, NY, 10467. Purpose: any lawful purpose or activity.

Notice of Formation of HC HOLDCO I LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/30/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Timothy P. Terry, 667 Madison Ave., 24th Fl., NY, NY 10065.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of Envirogy LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. Of State of NY (SSNY) on 9/18/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of the process against LLC to Jaros Baum & Bolles, 80 Pine Street, 12th Fl, New York, NY 10005. Purpose: any lawful act.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

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CityAndStateNY.com / PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1330459 FOR LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL LIQUOR, WINE, & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 25803 HILLSIDE AVE FLORAL PARK, NY 11004.

QUEENS COUNTY, FOR ON PREMISE CONSUMPTION. SAISH FOOD LLC. Notice of Formation of Envirogy LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy. Of State of NY (SSNY) on 9/18/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of the process against LLC to Jaros Baum & Bolles, 80 Pine Street, 12th Fl, New York, NY 10005. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of Deco Tot, LLC filed with SSNY on February 12, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 2585 Broadway, Box 107, New York, NY, 10025.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1331550, FOR WINE & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL WINE & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 142 SULLIVAN ST NEW YORK, NY 10012. NEW YORK COUNTY, FOR ON-PREMISE CONSUMPTION. TXOKOA LLC. Notice of Formation of HC HOLDCO II LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/30/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Timothy P. Terry, 667 Madison Ave., 24th Fl., NY, NY 10065.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

INSIDE MASSAGE THERAPY PLLC, a Prof. LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with the SSNY on 09/21/2020. Office loc: NY County. SSNY has been designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: The LLC, 200 East End Avenue #1B, NY, NY 10128. Purpose: To Practice The Profession Of Massage Therapy.

Notice of Formation of Extended Brick Properties, LLC filed with SSNY on October 7, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 203 Hart street, Brooklyn, NY 11206. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qualification of J Neidich Holdings, LLC. Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/28/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 09/24/20. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to: 121 West 10th St., NY, NY 10011. Address to be maintained in DE: 838 Walker Rd., Ste 21-2, Dover, DE 19904. Arts of Org. filed with the Secy. of State, 401 Federal St., Ste. 4, Dover, DE 19901.

Purpose: any lawful activities.

Notice of Qualification of RESONANCE STORES LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/17/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 09/03/20. Princ. office of LLC: Pier 59, Chelsea Piers, NY, NY 10011. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to c/o Resonance Companies, Inc. at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808. Cert. of Form. filed with Secy. of State of the State of DE, Div. of Corps., PO Box 898, Dover, DE 19903.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of PARK PLACE SENIOR HOUSING, L.P. Cert. of LP filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/17/20. Office location: NY County. Princ. office of LP: 60 Columbus Circle, 19th Fl., NY, NY 10023. Latest date on which the LP may dissolve is 12/31/2119. SSNY designated as agent of LP upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543. Name and addr. of each general partner are available from SSNY. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Formation of EDID TRUCKING AND INSTALLATION LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/9/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 2162 Strauss Street Suite 2r, Brooklyn, New York, 11212. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 49 BOGART STREET LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 1/27/1999 .Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 2182 Nostrand Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, 11210. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of 688 6TH AVE LLC. Arts.

Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/21/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 128 44th Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11232. Any lawful purpose Notice of Formation of ARTIVORE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 07/20/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 2373 BROADWAY APT. 635, NEW YORK, NEW YORK, 10024. Any lawful purpose.

October 19, 2020

Notice of Formation of EDID TRUCKING AND INSTALLATION LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/9/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 2162 Strauss Street Suite 2r, Brooklyn, New York, 11212. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of EMES EQUITIES LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 06/16/17. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 14921 Hook Creek Blvd LLC 944 44th St Brooklyn, New York, 11219. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of BRIDGEHALL GROUP VENTURES 1 LLC Arts.

Of Org. filed with SSNY on 08/24/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 1274 49th Street, Suite 476 Brooklyn, New York, 11219. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Essential Cleaning By Kristin LLC. Arts .Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/2/20.Office location:Orange SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.SSNY mail process to 114 Barr Lane, Monroe, New York, 10950. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of THE TEST BREWERY LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/24/20.

Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 62 N 7th St., 1l, Brooklyn, New York, 11249. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of WAXING & WANING CANDLE CO., LLC filed with SSNY on July 16, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 82 Irving Place, 1B, NY, NY 10003. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of DAOTONG LLC. Arts.

Of Org. filed with SSNY on 12/11/18.Office location: Kings SSNY desg.

As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 201 46TH STREET, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, 11220. Any lawful purpose

Notice of Formation of TOP-YARD LLC.Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/15/20.Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 626 1st Avenue ,Apt W20, New York, NY 10016.Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of DURSO PROPERTIES IV, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 8/3/20.Office location: Dutchess SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 445 Rt 304, Bardonia, New York, 10954.

Any lawful purpose.

Notice of formation of CK SUNNYSIDE LLC. Arts of Org filed with Secy of State of NY (SSNY) on 9/18/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent upon whom process may be served and shall mail copy of process against LLC to: 39 Division St., NY, NY 10002. Purpose: any lawful act.

Notice of Formation of PRIMERCUBEUSA, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 10/5/20.

Office location: Sullivan.

SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 506 Yankee Lake Rd. Wurtsboro, New York, 12790. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Temur Hamilton LLC filed with SSNY on July 27, 2020. Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 19 E 71st Street, 3C, New York, NY 10021.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qual. of HAUS LENDING LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 09/22/20.

Office location: New York.

LLC formed in DE on 09/18/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 99 Washington Avenue Ste 805a, Albany, New York, 12210. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of HENRY THAYER COMPANY LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/15/20. Office location: NY County.

Princ. office of LLC: 10 Hudson Yards, NY, NY 10001. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207-2543.

Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Form. of CLIENTPAY, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/11/20. Office location: New York. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 1979 Marcus Avenue, Suite 210e, Lake Success, New York, 11042. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of CREEKSIDE 55, LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/21/20.Office location:New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 900 3rd Avenue, Floor 13, New York, New York, 10022.Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Qual. of ABREMAR MANAGEMENT COMPANY LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 07/22/20.

Office location: Montgomery.

LLC formed in DE on 06/26/19. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 8750 Nw 36th St Suite 425, Doral, Florida, 33178. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

PUBLIC and LEGAL NOTICES / CityAndStateNY.com

October 19, 2020

Notice of Formation of GLENNJEFFREY QOF LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 6/22/20.

Office location: New York SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 1185 Park Ave., 12d New York, NY, 10128.Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of LAURO CABRERA CONSTRUCTION LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/30/20. Office location: Putnam SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 10 AVON ROAD, LAKE PEEKSKILL, NEW YORK, 10537. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of LSR PROPERTY HOLDINGS LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with SSNY on 1/27/16.Office location: Cayuga SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to 6 Hummingbird Way Port Byron, NY, 13140. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of PRECIOUS LITTLE HANDS CHILDCARE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 7/2/20.

Office location: Orange SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 21 Petersen Ct., Middletown, NY, 10941. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of TAYLOR TIMBER CO II, LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 09/25/20.

Office location: Oneida SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY mail process to 6455 Stokes-Westernville Rd., Lee Center, New York, 13363. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Sisko Law PLLC filed with SSNY on 9/25/20.

Office: Kings County.

SSNY designated as agent for process & shall mail copy to: 350 7th St, Apt A3, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Purpose: practice of law.

Notice of Formation of PEGASO NY REAL ESTATE PROPERTY, LLC Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/24/20. Office location: NY County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to Corporation Service Co., 80 State St., Albany, NY 12207, regd. agent upon whom and at which process may be served. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice of Qualification of PARK WEST ASSET MANAGEMENT LLC Appl. for Auth. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 09/28/20. Office location: NY County.

LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 01/21/05. Princ. office of LLC: 900 Larkspur Landing Circle, Ste. 165, Larkspur, CA 94939. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC at the princ. office of the LLC. DE addr. of LLC: c/o Corporation Service Co., 251 Little Falls Dr., Wilmington, DE 19808.

Cert. of Form. filed with DE Secy. of State, John G. Townsend Bldg., 401 Federal St., Ste. #4, Dover, DE 19901. Purpose: Any lawful activity.

Notice is hereby given that a license, number “Pending “ for beer, cider, and wine, has been applied for by the undersigned*to sell Beer Cider, and Wine, at retail in a restaurant , under the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law, at the location of: 3217-19 Quentin Road, Brooklyn, Marine-Park, Kings county for On Premises Consumption.

MARK LOVY for ALLISONS DAUGHTERS RESTAURANT dba ISABELLA Notice of Formation of 2246 LEE LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 9/30/20. Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 2246 86TH Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11214. Any lawful purpose.

Notice of Formation of Aker Management, LLC filed with SSNY on September 29th, 2020.

Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 354 East 91st Street, Suite 1802 New York NY 10128. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Muna Creative Collective, LLC filed with SSNY on September, 28 2020.

Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 1240 Lexington Ave apt 51, NY NY 10028. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Redmond & Finn, LLC filed with SSNY on September 2, 2020. Office: Kings County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 33 Cambridge Place, Brooklyn, NY 11238. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Qual. of CORCORAN BK LLC. Auth. filed with SSNY on 10/7/20. Office location: Kings. LLC formed in DE on 9/25/20. SSNY desg. as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY mail process to: 600 Mamaroneck Avenue #400., Harrison, New York, 10528. Arts. of Org. filed with DE SOS. Townsend Bldg. Dover, DE 19901.

Any lawful purpose.

PUBLIC NOTICE AT&T proposes to modify an existing facility (new tip heights 86.8’) on the building at 1062 St Johns Place, Brooklyn, NY (20201821). Interested parties may contact Scott Horn (856-8091202) (1012 Industrial Dr., West Berlin, NJ 08091) with comments regarding potential effects on historic properties.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

Notice of Formation of DLawson and Company LLC filed with SSNY on October 8, 2020.

Office: Bronx County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 150 East 151st Street, Apt # 2L, Bronx, NY 10451.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT A LICENSE, SERIAL # 1331801, FOR WINE & BEER HAS BEEN APPLIED FOR BY THE UNDERSIGNED TO SELL WINE & BEER AT RETAIL UNDER THE ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE CONTROL LAW AT 525 NOSTRAND AVE BROOKLYN, NY 11216.

KINGS COUNTY, FOR ON-PREMISE CONSUMPTION.

NOTICE OF FORMATION OF Peppercat Provisions LLC. Articles of Organization filed with the Secretary of State of NY (SSNY) on 08/12/2020. Office location: NEW YORK County.

SSNY is designated as agent upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to: 570 W 204 St, Unit 2E, New York, NY 10034.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

WELLNESS TEA THERAPY LLC

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Notice of Formation of BUILD A DOOR LLC. Arts. Of Org. filed with SSNY on 08/31/20.Office location: Kings SSNY desg. As agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served SSNY mail process to 829 Willoughby Ave Apt 4f, Brooklyn, New York, 11206. Any lawful purpose.

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Notice of Formation of Gustave Piche, LLC filed with SSNY on August 3, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 115 E 9th St. New York, NY 10003. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

Notice of Formation of Wynn Smiley, LLC filed with SSNY on August 6, 2020. Office: NY County.

SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 67 W 73rd St Apt 3A, New York, NY 10023.

Purpose: any lawful act or activity Notice of Formation of Elle Jones Casting Company, LLC filed with SSNY on August 3, 2020.

Office: NY County. SSNY designated agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served.

SSNY shall mail copy of process to LLC: 27 W 60th St #20503, New York, NY 10023. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.

LEGALNOTICES@ CITYANDSTATENY.COM

30 CityAndStateNY.com

October 19, 2020

CITY & STATE NEW YORK MANAGEMENT & PUBLISHING CEO Steve Farbman, President & Publisher Tom Allon tallon@cityandstateny.com, Comptroller David Pirozzi, Business & Operations Manager Patrea Patterson, Administrative Assistant Lauren Mauro

Who was up and who was down last week

CREATIVE Art Director Andrew Horton, Senior Graphic Designer Alex Law, Graphic Designer Aaron Aniton

LOSERS

DIGITAL Project Manager Michael Filippi, Digital Content Manager Amanda Luz Henning Santiago, Digital Marketing Strategist Caitlin Dorman, Web/Email Strategist Isabel Beebe

JULIE MENIN It seemed that Julie Menin and New York City’s network of census partners had until the end of the month to get New Yorkers counted. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could end the census earlier.

Outreach efforts that were expected to go on for another two weeks were crammed into just two days, and it could mean New York loses billions in federal dollars.

THE BEST OF THE REST

THE REST OF THE WORST

FREDERICK K. BREWINGTON

MARK GRISANTI

If civil rights lawyer Frederick K. Brewington had a nickel for every time he’s won a lawsuit to help integrate a Long Island town board, he would have two nickels. That’s not a lot, but it’s impressive that he’s done it twice.

RODNEY PEPE-SOUVENIR

It’s not an easy time to become a New York City Board of Elections commissioner, but it wasn’t easy for this Brooklyn lawyer to get this job either, after City Council Member Antonio Reynoso slowed down the nomination in order to fully vet her. But now she can be a new voice on a board in need of change.

The judge was caught on tape drunkenly arguing with police outside his Buffalo home. Next time he appears on screen, he ought to don a robe so he looks more Judge Judy than the always shirtless Randy from “Trailer Park Boys.”

HESHY TISCHLER

The organizer behind the violent protests against the state’s COVID-19 safety guidelines was arrested. But just days after being released, Tischler moved full steam ahead, posting a video of another protest on Twitter.

WINNERS & LOSERS is published every Friday morning in City & State’s First Read email.

Sign up for the email, cast your vote and see who won at cityandstateny.com.

ADVERTISING Vice President of Advertising Jim Katocin jkatocin@ cityandstateny.com, Account/Business Development Executive Scott Augustine saugustine@cityandstateny.com, Vice President, Advertising and Client Relations Danielle Koza dkoza@cityandstateny.com, Sales Associate Cydney McQuillan-Grace cydney@cityandstateny.com, Legal Advertising Executive Shakirah Gittens legalnotices@ cityandstateny.com, Sales Assistant Zimam Alemenew EVENTS events@cityandstateny.com Sales Director Lissa Blake, Events Manager Alexis Arsenault, Event Coordinator Amanda Cortez

Vol. 9 Issue 40 October 19, 2020

CY VANCE BECAMELLAIN THE VI who will down? take him

CIT YANDSTATENY.COM

@CIT YANDSTATENY

October 19, 2020

Cover art Arlen Schumer

CITY & STATE NEW YORK (ISSN 2474-4107) is published weekly, 48 times a year except for the four weeks containing New Year’s Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving and Christmas by City & State NY, LLC, 61 Broadway, Suite 1315, New York, NY 10006-2763. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and at additional mailing offices.

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PUBLIC DOMAIN; RON ADAR/SHUTTERSTOCK

MOTHER CABRINI Statues of Christopher Columbus may be rapidly falling out of favor, but another Italian Catholic with a less bloody history is on the rise: Francesca Xavier Cabrini. Following a disagreement between New York City and state about whether the patron saint of immigrants would be included in a city project to erect more monuments of female leaders, Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled a statue of her in Manhattan last week.

OUR PICK

OUR PICK

WINNERS

If the polls are to be trusted, Joe Biden is well on his way to a landslide victory. As for President Donald Trump, hey, at least he had four wild years in the White House – and maybe he’ll surprise everyone once again! Anyway, as you read Winners & Losers, remember to cherish what you’ve got – because the good times only last so long.

EDITORIAL editor@cityandstateny.com Senior Editor Ben Adler badler@cityandstateny.com, Managing Editor Ryan Somers, Special Projects Editor Alice Popovici, Deputy Editor Eric Holmberg, Senior Reporter Jeff Coltin jcoltin@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Zach Williams zwilliams@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Rebecca C. Lewis rlewis@cityandstateny. com, Tech & Policy Reporter Annie McDonough amcdonough@cityandstateny.com, Staff Reporter Kay Dervishi, Copy Editor Holly Pretsky

An advocacy campaign including City & State First Read provides a targeted way to reach decision makers in New York government and politics.

Campaigns Include:

ADVOCACY MESSAGING OPEN-HOUSE PROMOTIONS NEW HIRE ANNOUNCEMENTS Contact us at advertising@cityandstateny.com for advertising and sponsorship opportunities.

VIRTUAL

TRANSPORTATION IN SUMMIT DECEMBER 8, 2020 | 1:00PM-4:00PM Up until COVID-19 hit, New York residents relied on its public transportation systems and roads to get everywhere. The world has changed, and this event will discuss how transportation will rebuild and reshape the city and state. It will bring together experts across sectors to assess the current state of New York’s transportation systems, break down recent legislative actions, and look towards the future of all things coming and going in New York.

FEATURED SPEAKERS

RICK COTTON Executive Director, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

PHILLIP ENG President, MTA Long Island Railroad

CATHERINE RINALDI President, MTA MetroNorth Railroad

ERIC BEATON Deputy Commissioner for Transportation Planning and Management, NYC Dept. of Transportation

KEITH TODD KERMAN Deputy Commissioner, NYC Dept. of Citywide Administrative Services

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

RSVP at CityAndStateNY.com/Events For more information on programming and sponsorship opportunities, please contact Lissa Blake at lblake@cityandstateny.com