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WEEK OF MARCH GOING ASTRAY WITH ANDRÉ ACIMAN ◄ P.21
1-7 2018
MTA TO PITCH BUS FIXES THIS SPRING TRANSPORTATION With city buses plagued by declining ridership, officials pledge solutions will be forthcoming BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Though delays in subway service have attracted the bulk of attention surrounding the current struggles of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, steep and steady declines in bus ridership in recent years, concentrated largely in Manhattan, offer a reminder that the New York’s transportations problems extend to street level. Average weekday ridership on New York City Transit buses dropped 5.6 percent from 2016 to 2017, according to preliminary MTA data released last week, marking the fifth consecutive year of declining ridership. Since 2012, average weekday NYCT bus ridership is down over 11 percent. MTA leaders plan to present detailed plans for enhancing bus service and reversing ridership trends this spring. Andy Byford, who took office as president of NYCT in January after previously heading Toronto’s public transportation system, has named improving bus service as one of his top priorities. “Performance is nowhere near good enough,” Byford said of the transit system as a whole at a meeting of the MTA board’s transit committee last week, adding that there are too many performance interruptions on the subway in particular. This spring, officials will release a bus strategy to mirror the subway action plan announced last summer by MTA Chairman Joe Lhota. Byford said that his team is planning to present a plan to the MTA board in April regarding implementation of improvements to local bus service. “That’s coming together, and that will be a compre-
A co-working space at The Artist Co-op on West 52nd Street. Photo: Rachel Berger
CO-WORKING GETS ARTSY WORKSPACES Nurturing the creative impulse at The Artist Co-op BY LEIDA SNOW
Ridership on NYCT buses is down over 11 percent since 2012, MTA data shows. Photo: Michael Garofalo hensive piece of work,” he said. Darryl Irick, president of MTA Bus and senior vice president of NYCT Buses, told MTA board members that the plan will take “bold and radical steps to really turn the bus system around.” “President Byford has challenged me and my team to take steps to improve the bus system and arrest the steady decline in ridership,” Irick said. “We accept that challenge and we envision
that challenge to be very bold, very aggressive, relying on many of the timehonored techniques that we’ve used in the past such as [Select Bus Service].” Though 2017 ridership data on a route-by-route basis is not yet available, ridership drops in past years have been most acute in Manhattan. Average weekday ridership on
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An unlikely newcomer to the explosion of co-working spaces caters specifically to the performing arts. The Artist Co-op (TAC) is a place where actors, writers, producers, directors, choreographers and dancers can come to sweat on their projects, hang out and network. A wide and welcoming entrance greets a visitor to the 2,000-squarefoot space in Hell’s Kitchen. There’s an undulating sofa and a huge table surrounded by chairs. Comfortable seats line the sides of the room, members balancing laptops on their knees. A young woman sits at a desk answering the phone and checking people in. You might expect a cacophony of chaos, but instead there’s an air of quiet concentration and professionalism. An A-frame highlights what’s on tap at TAC for that day — what’s Downtowner
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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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scheduled in the rehearsal rooms, at the conference table, or at a coworking happening. A member would check in, setup a work station, maybe write new pages for a project. Websites could be updated, scripts memorized. Meetings with collaborators might follow, or rehearsals in one of the other two rooms. There might be a play reading, done “cold,” by actors who receive their scripts just before performing. Author submissions are encouraged and readings are free and open to the public. Or there might be a panel taking on tough issues that affect theater and film professionals. For example, did you know that there’s an organization called Intimacy Directors International? One recent panelist noted that just as there’s a position with the title “fight director,” there’s also the relatively new post of “intimacy choreographer,” someone who ensures that scenes involving nudity or simulated sex are monitored, just as there is for those where violence is involved. Educating actors about their rights
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