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WEEK OF JANUARY-FEBRUARY
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2016
back from FDR Drive by 16 to 17 feet and raise it one foot out of the flood plain, as well as reduce the height of the building from four stories to three. The refurbished building would sit atop newly restored pier pilings and contain a food market overseen by chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. The proposal also calls for the demolition of the Head House and Link Building, two dilapidated structures adjacent to the Tin Building in front of Pier 17. The joint Landmarks and South Street Seaport/Civic Center committees passed a resolution in support of the proposal, but requested of Howard Hughes a master plan for redevelopment at the Seaport as a whole, which would include the company’s
MOVING FORWARD ON THE TIN BUILDING, DESPITE CONCERNS NEWS Transparency concerns linger over Howard Hughes’ redevelopment plans for the Seaport BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
The newly restored Tin Building, as envisioned in Howard Hughes Jan. 19 presentation to Community Board 1.
Recently announced plans by the Howard Hughes Corporation for the Tin Building at the South Street Seaport received preliminary approval from community-
board officials, but members expressed concerns that the developer’s vision for the Seaport is being released piecemeal instead of in one comprehensive proposal. Howard Hughes met with CB1’s joint Landmarks and South Street Seaport/Civic Center on Jan. 19 to unveil plans for the Tin Building, a four-story landmarked structure at the Seaport. According to the presentation, Howard Hughes is proposing to move the Tin Building
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THE SALT SHED’S SPOTLIGHT MOMENT NEWS Sanitation Dept. building, praised for its architecture, is pressed into service during the storm BY DEEPTI HAJELA
The building looks like a modern art painting come to life, all angles and edges, with concrete walls that can look bluish or grayish or whitish, or some combination of the three. It would be an unusual structure in any setting, but none more than the fairly prosaic function it was created for --- storing thousands of pounds of the rock salt that the city’s Department of Sanitation uses to deal with snowy streets.
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ART
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Downtowner 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
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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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Our Take HAPPY LITTLE SNOWFLAKES Remember Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first winter in his new job? What a difference a couple of years makes. Hit with a snowstorm shortly after taking office in 2014, the new mayor fumbled in a way that would come to define the first half of his term. Potholes went unfilled. Official warnings on the storm’s severity were muddled. Residents in neighborhoods that didn’t vote for de Blasio complained that their streets weren’t being plowed -- a suspicion that was later proven out by sanitation-truck GPS data. This time around, an entirely new de Blasio seemed to be in charge. Before the storm, he was forceful, but not panicked. Instead of jumping the gun and closing subways or schools, he waited for the storm to develop, then acted decisively. We even detected a sense of humor in it all. We don’t want to give him more credit than is due, but there was something about this storm that seemed to bring out the best of New Yorkers. On Sunday, the city felt like an alpine village. Cross-country skiers plied the parks, people in snow boots and parkas ordered hot chololates, kids came home with sunburned faces after a day of sleddding. There were pockets of discontent. Queens residents felt that the plow trucks bypassed them, and elected officials there said the schools should have stayed closed for another day. But overall, considering we had just endured the second-biggest snowstorm in our history, it was a lovely little chapter for the mayor and his subjects.
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