The local paper for Downtown wn THE POWER OF PRINT AT THE MET
WEEK OF FEBRUARY
18-24
CITYARTS, P.12 >
2016
NEW FOCUS ON CRANE SAFETY
Our Take THE MET’S BANNER YEAR
NEWS Fewer than a dozen inspectors citywide BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
City officials vowed to take a closer look at the safety of New York’s construction boom in the aftermath of the Feb. 5 crane collapse that killed Upper West Sider David Wichs in Tribeca. The collapse, which reportedly occurred when the crane was being secured due to high winds, also caused several injuries and damaged about six cars. Wichs, 38, was killed when the 565-foot tall crane collapsed onto Worth Street. Wichs, a computer trader, was walking to his job on Broadway from the Chambers Street subway station. He lived in a brownstone with his wife on the Upper West Side. In a eulogy reported in The New York Times, Wichs’ widow, Rebecca Guttman, 34, spoke of their “storybook” romance. “When I met David, I felt something I had never felt before, despite many years of dating,” she said. “I had an instant connection with and attraction to him. We had the easiest connection. When I was with David, I felt like the most secure person in the world.” Upper West Side Councilmember Helen Rosenthal expressed her condolences shortly after the tragedy occurred, and vowed to work towards increased safety measures at construction sites to protect pedestrians. “I want to extend my condolences to David’s friends, family, and congregation during this difficult time,” said Rosenthal. “As the investigation unfolds, I am committed to honoring David’s death by making construction sites more safe for passersby, particu-
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The store my daughter used to go in almost every day. It’s the kind of place that makes a neighborhood rich.
WHERE YOU CAN LIVE ABOVE A STORE STREET LEVEL The wonderful neighborhood villages that we live in. Will they stay wonderful? BY BILL GUNLOCKE
Here’s how much I like to walk by storefronts. If I see up ahead of me that the block on my side of the street is a hospital or a big housing project or a big post office or a school, I’ll cross to the other side
of the street to have shop windows alongside me. Even if I go blocks without really looking in one of them, I like the variety and the small size of the stores with stuff in the windows, off my shoulder, out the corner of my eye, as I walk along. Main Street in my small rural hometown in western New York was a block long. I liked being on it more than I liked being at home. I’d get depressed in my grade school years when 5:00 came and I had to turn the corner by the Bryant House, a long-ago hotel, then mostly a tavern,
There’s no small bookstore in my neighborhood. And as of a month or two ago, five small shops have closed, all in a row, right across the street from my building” and head the two or three blocks to my house. “I regret profoundly that I was not an American and not born in Greenwich Village.” John Lennon said. Who wouldn’t want to have grown up there? The scale of things is wonderful. When my now-Brooklyn
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In this political climate, it’s easy to moan about the coarsening of our common culture. So let’s take a moment to consider the recent attendance news out of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New numbers crunched by the museum show that the Met had an extraordinary year in 2015, cementing its role as the top tourist destination in the city. Three exhibitions last year -China: Through the Looking Glass, The Roof Garden Commission: Pierre Huyghe, and Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends — generated an estimated $946 million in spending in New York, according to the museum’s visitor survey. That is the highest number ever reported by the museum -- and worth celebrating at a time when so much else of what we see has taken on the feel of a reality TV show. What it shows, in our view, is that enduring quality, curated by experts and presented with intelligence, can still win out. Some other numbers: During the 2015 fiscal year, the museum welcomed a record 6.3 million visitors, 26% of them from NYC, and 74% from outside the five boroughs. This year, for the first time, the economic impact study included a separate section for New York City residents who visit the met, asking about the importance of different factors in their decision to live in the city. Sixty-seven percent indicated that cultural attractions are important in their decision to live in New York City. All worth remembering, especially now. So turn off the TV, close out of Twitter, and head over to Fifth Avenue. Six million people can’t be wrong.
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
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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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