The local paper for Downtown wn
WEEK OF DECEMBER SUBWAY BOMBER INSPIRED BY ISIS ◄ P.7
14-20 2017
CITY TO EXAMINE RIKERS REPLACEMENT OPTIONS JUSTICE Closing the facility will require the renovation of existing jails as well as the development of new sites
City Council Member Dan Garodnick at the September 2016 ribbon-cutting for the new Trygve Lie Plaza on First Avenue at 41st Street. Photo: Daniel Avila / NYC Department of Parks
BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
As part of efforts to close jail facilities at Rikers Island, the notoriously violent city lockup on the East River, officials will soon start to identify potential sites for new jails as well as evaluate existing jails for possible renovation. “While ‘close Rikers’ has become a convenient moniker, it masks the seismic system change that must happen in order to achieve that one goal,” Elizabeth Glazer, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, said last week in testimony before the City Council. Key to closing Rikers, she said, is the continued reduction of the city’s jail population. The current average Rikers population of just over 9,000 individuals per day is less than half what it was during the peak years of the early 1990s, and city officials hope to reduce the number of detainees another 25 percent within the next five years. “As the size of the jail population falls to 7,000, jail will increasingly be reserved only for individuals charged with serious crimes or who are a high risk of flight,” Glazer said. The drop in the jail population is attributable to overall reductions in crime and felony arrests, supplemented by changes in the criminal
CONTINUED ON PAGE 13
WHAT NEXT FOR GARODNICK? POLITICS In an exit interview, the outgoing East Side Council member reflects on three terms in office, ponders a political future, recounts his accomplishments — and heads for the TV and the kitchen BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
The Manhattan Detention Complex, known informally as “The Tombs,” will be evaluated for possible renovation as part of the city’s efforts to close the jail facilities on Rikers Island. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
After 12 consequential years in the City Council in which he steered to passage more than 60 pieces of legislation, Dan Garodnick is ready for a small, short break: He’s going to finally take the time to watch “The Wire.” And that’s not all. The 45-year-old Democrat, who is leaving office on December 31st because of term limits, will be trading in politicking and governing for a new regimen – groDowntowner
OurTownDowntown
O OTDOWNTOWN.COM @OTDowntown
Crime Watch Voices NYC Now City Arts
3 8 10 12
Restaurant Ratings Business Real Estate 15 Minutes
14 16 17 21
WEEK OF APRIL
SPRING ARTS PREVIEW < CITYARTS, P.12
FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
9-16
MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20
2015
In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS
The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam. Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services. Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done. Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman and number will tally the type small business of complaints by taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She Over the past on the is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks. President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act go as they please. work between some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come and sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” p.m. and 7 a.m., can’t come of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits
SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS
A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311
n OurTownDowntow
COM
Newscheck Crime Watch Voices
for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
2 City Arts 3 Top 5 8 Real Estate 10 15 Minutes
12 13 14 18
CONTINUED ON PAGE
25
cery shopping, cleaning, jogging and cooking for his family. “I make a mean spaghetti and meatballs. Also sausages, fried chicken and chili. Nothing particularly healthy,” he says. “I feel like this is my moment.” Don’t expect it to last. Garodnick is on a very short list of the political players most likely to mount a credible run for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s job in 2021 when the incumbent must depart City Hall and the race is wide open. In fact, four years out, he’s already sitting on an enviable campaign treasury with $1.1 million in the bank, including $353,000 he amassed for the 2017 election cycle, when he wasn’t even running for office, filings with the city’s Campaign Finance Board show.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 18
We deliver! Get Our Town Downtowner sent directly to your mailbox for $49 per year. Go to OTDowntown.com or call 212-868-0190