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2016
SUPPORT GROWS FOR BATTERY PARK SHAKEUP
PEDRO CASTILLO IS INNOCENT Journalist’s new drama is based on real-life story of man wrongfully imprisoned for 18 years BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO
Pedro Castillo, a man wrongfully convicted of murder, has just lost his appeal while serving time in prison for the crime he didn’t commit. Pedro, the title character in Claude Solnik’s latest play, is based on the true story of Fernando Bermudez, who served 18 years in prison for a Greenwich Village killing he did not commit. Witnesses who had implicated him recanted and he was finally exonerated in 2009. “This story is just the next step in bringing to the consciousness this problem we have in the world,” Bermudez said. Now an accomplished public speaker who has lectured at colleges across the country and internationally, he will also lead a talk with the audience on opening night, Feb. 4 at the Theater for the New City. At the time of Bermudez’s arrest, Solnik was a reporter for The Villager newspaper, when he saw a flier taped to a telephone pole on 14th Street. The flier was part of a search effort for the actual killer, and included a phone number. Solnik ripped it down, went back to his office, and dialed. He reached Bermudez’s family, who told him that Bermudez, 22 at the time of his arrest, was innocent. Solnik reported on the case, and eventually became an advocate for Bermudez. “They very quickly convinced me that this guy had not done anything,” said Solnik, now a reporter for the Long Island Business News. “It didn’t take them very long, which is one of the scariest things about this.” “Pedro Castillo is Innocent” stems from the many conversations Ber-
Dissatisfaction among residents with Authority’s board prompts legislation BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
Calls for increased community representation on the Battery Park City Authority board have gained momentum amid growing discontent from residents with the authority’s decision-making and communications process. Assemblywoman Deborah Glick and State Senator Daniel Squadron have introduced legislation in their respective houses mandating that a majority of the authority’s sevenmember board be drawn from within the boundaries of Community Board 1 (recent news reports erroneously claimed the bill stipulates a majority of the board to be made up of Battery Park City residents). The timing for proponents of a board shakeup is ideal. The seven-member board currently has two vacancies and another board member’s term is expiring this month. Community Board 1 also passed a resolution at the end of January calling on the governor to appoint more BPC residents to the board. BPC residents and CB1 members who spoke to Our Town Downtown say the community has been at odds with the authority over a lack of transparency and consistent failure by the board to consult with residents on important decisions. The board, for instance, recently
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Fernando Bermudez, left, with reporter and playwright Claude Solnik.
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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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mudez had with Solnik while he was incarcerated, which they often had while sharing chicken wings. After his visits, Solnik would return to the prison parking lot and scribble down notes. Though some aspects of the play are fiction, what isn’t is the character’s innocence, and that his incarceration changed his life and the lives of his wife and their children. “It makes you assume the guy’s innocence,” Solnik said of the play. “You look at what it’s like for him, what it’s like for his family, how the family’s cheated. You look at the life in prison, you look at the lawyers. You see a little bit what the human side is, not just the information.” John Torres, who plays the fictional Pedro Castillo, hadn’t read or heard about the wrongful conviction, but related to the character. Like the character, Torres is Hispanic. As a father, he’s also faced parenting challenges, though never from prison. Scenes with Samantha Masone, who plays Pedro’s daughter, Kaela, explore those challenges when each visit is timed and the next is weeks away. “Those moments, it doesn’t feel like acting, I just feel like I want to cry,” Torres said. In the play, the family finds coping mechanisms to get through a situation that director Danielle C. N. Zappa said becomes their “new normal.” Pedro’s young daughter pretends he doesn’t exist. His wife imagines he’s at war. Pedro finds comfort in books, Zappa said. While in prison, Bermudez received associate’s degrees in business and behavioral science. He read classic literature and taught Latin American
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