The local paper for Downtown wn BEYOND MUSEUM MILE < P. 12
WEEK OF JANUARY
12-18 2017
MAPPING HISTORY IN GREENWICH VILLAGE A new project pinpoints key sites in the LGBTQ, women’s and civil rights movements BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
LGBT History
Social Justice and Political Activism
Women's History
African-American History
Hispanic History
Little Africa
What do the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, Café Society and 18 West 10th Street have in common? These sites are all significant to civil rights and social justice movements that have taken place in Greenwich Village. They are some of the nearly 100 important places listed on a new map created by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) to raise awareness of key moments in history relating to LGBTQ, women’s and
14th Street, near Union Square. Residents fear that the L train closure project could innundate neighborhoods along the street. Photo: Violette79, via flickr
A ‘PARKING LOT’ OVER THE L TRAIN? Residents near 14th Street worry that the subway closure will add to street congestion BY RUI MIAO
Commuters are not the only people anxious about the L train closure scheduled to begin in January 2018. Downtown residents, especially those who live near 14th Street, worry about how congested their neighborhoods may become. “I’m very concerned that 14th Street will be a permanent parking lot during the 18 months,” said Luc Nadal, who has lived on the street for 10 years, “unless we take really strong measures to tackle the problem.” Nadal is among dozens of neighbors who showed up at a Manhattan Community Board 2 Traffic & Transportation Committee meeting on Jan. 5 to voice their concerns over the impact that the train closure will have on the area. In July 2016, the MTA officially announced the 18-month shutdown of the L train, due to a needed reconstruction of the Canarsie Tunnel flooded by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Thousands of
Being conscious of what’s going on in the country and the world around us right now, we just thought it was especially important to document and celebrate these accomplishments, these people, these institutions”
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Andrew Berman, president of the GVSHP
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minority rights. The inspiration for the map came out of the current political climate. “Being conscious of what’s going on in the country and the world around us right now, we just thought it was especially important to document and celebrate these accomplishments, these people, these institutions,” said Andrew Berman, president of the GVSHP. “I think that you never appreciate something so much as when you know it’s under threat and that it’s in danger of being lost.”
One key site on the map is 18 West 10th Street, home to writer and immigrant rights activist Emma Lazarus during the mid1800s. Her best known poem is the sonnet that graces the monument of another famous New York City woman: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
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To see the full interactive map, read the article online at: otdowntown.com
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
Hosts Margaret & Geoffrey Zakarian
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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Barely five blocks from Lazarus’s former home is the original location of the Oscar Wilde Bookshop. According to a New York Times article from 2009, it was believed to be the oldest LGBTQ bookstore in the country until it closed in March of that year. “In 1967 Craig Rodwell started this landmark store that not only sold Gay and Lesbian literature but also became a meeting place for the LGBT community,” Kim Brinster, the store’s
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