The local paper for Downtown wn EDUCATION GUIDE 2018
WEEK OF JANUARY
P.13
11-17 2018
NEW SECURITY MEASURES IN WAKE OF VEHICLE ATTACKS SAFETY 1,500 additional bollards will be installed as part of $50 million project BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Nearly eight months after a driver steered his car onto a crowded Seventh Avenue sidewalk and accelerated toward Times Square, killing one person and injuring 22 others, Mayor Bill de Blasio returned to the site of the crime to announce a safety initiative intended to prevent similar vehicle attacks in the future.
The May 2017 incident ended when the car driven by Richard Rojas, an intoxicated Bronx man, came to a stop in Times Square after striking a metal bollard at West 45th Street. The bollard, one of the dozens of small metal stanchions rising from the streets and sidewalks around Times Square, brought the car to an abrupt halt, likely preventing further injuries — but only after the vehicle had traveled three blocks on the sidewalk at high speed, striking and dragging bystanders along the way. The city will install 1,500 additional bollards in Times Square and other high-profile locations as part of a new $50 million project to bolster security
in public spaces. “These bollards will make sure that the vehicles can never come into the places where pedestrians are,” de Blasio said at the Jan. 2 press conference announcing the plan. The May incident in Times Square was one of two deadly vehicle attacks in Manhattan in 2017. On Oct. 31, a man driving a rented truck steered off the West Side Highway near Houston Street and entered a protected bike lane running along the Hudson River waterfront. The driver, identified by police as Sayfullo Saipov, drove southbound on the bike path for nearly a mile, deliberately targeting
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Additional metal bollards will be installed in Times Square and other high-profile Manhattan locations as a protective measure against vehicle attacks. Photo: Ed Reed/ Mayoral Photography Office.
RESIDENTS OPPOSE PLAN FOR WATERFRONT BRIDGE COMMUNITY Entrance to proposed esplanade access span would sit in Sutton Place Park South BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
A map showing the proposed esplanade access bridge at East 54th Street, which would occupy a portion of Sutton Place Park South and is opposed by some neighbors. Image: NYC EDC
A plan for a new pedestrian bridge at 54th Street connecting Sutton Place Park South to a new section of the East Midtown Waterfront Esplanade has been met with opposition from
some neighbors, who say the bridge spanning the FDR Drive would disrupt the nature of the park, a small strip of green space adjacent to the FDR drive between 53rd and 54th Streets. Plans call for the ramp to the pedestrian bridge to sit in what is now the northern portion of the park, close to its entrance near Sutton Place and East 54th Street. Several local groups, including Sutton Area Community, the Sutton Place Parks Conservancy, the Turtle Bay Association and the boards of neighboring residential Downtowner
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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
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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
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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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buildings, have expressed concerns about the proposed bridge, which some neighbors say would take up much of the existing park, eliminate benches and walking space, and block the views of residents of the lower floors of surrounding buildings. The bridge is one piece of a $100 million city initiative to build eight new blocks of waterfront pathway raised on pilings over the East River from 53rd to 61st Streets. This planned eight-block stretch of the East River
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