The local paper for Downtown wn HONORING WOMEN’S HISTORY < P. 12
WEEK OF MARCH
23-29 2017
Breslin at the 2008 Brooklyn Book Festival. Photo: David Shankbone, via Wikimedia Commons
JIMMY BRESLIN’S SACRED AND PROFANE JOURNEY MEDIA Remembering the celebrated columnist, who died at 88 on the Upper West Side, light years away from his early days in Queens BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Murder in Manhattan, no matter how varied the circumstances, is invariably horrific, and it is hard to imagine the reporter, however street-toughened, who can’t recall the first he or she ever covered.
I was a young police reporter at The New York Post in the mid-1970s when the old police teletype started clattering. Out came what was then called a “slip,” a paperpunched message bearing bare-bones facts of a homicide, and off I raced to a Morningside Avenue crime scene. A detective looked at me with pity: “He was already here.” Who, I wanted to know. “Breslin,” he said. How was this possible? The slip had only moved 20 minutes ago. Maybe someone called him, the detective suggested.
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Mayor Bill de Blasio with Council Member Corey Johnson at town hall in Chelsea on March 15. Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photo Office
HOMELESSNESS, PRESERVATION DOMINATE MAYORAL TOWN HALL COMMUNITY Residents ask de Blasio and Corey Johnson about local issues — and plenty of Trumprelated questions BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
These days, Mayor Bill de Blasio no longer shoulders concerns that only apply within
ness from this community, employment for this community, and minority and womenowned businesses,” said Miguel Acevedo, president of the Fulton Houses Tenants Association, who was the first to address the mayor. “Can you please help me in making sure that does get implemented?” De Blasio assured Acevedo that he was pushing the private sector to “commit more resources”
the borders of New York City. The mayor has been outspoken since President Donald Trump’s inauguration against the travel ban, increasing deportations and protecting women’s health. But on Wednesday, at a town hall on West 17th Street, the issues residents raised with the mayor and their Council member Corey Johnson stayed mostly local. “One of the things that’s [missing from] Hudson Yards is busi-
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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
n OurTownDowntow
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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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to small businesses and to minority and women-owned businesses (M/WBEs). Gregg Bishop, commissioner of the Department of Small Business Services, then took over to tout the department’s efforts to get private companies to hire smaller companies certified by the agency and to get people jobs at its Workforce1 career centers.
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