The local paper for Downtown
WEEK OF MAR.-APR. MARCH
RECONNECT WITH YOUR INNER ARTIST
26-01 262020
▲CITY ARTS, P.10
We’re seeing a big spike in anxiety and panic.” Daniel Cook, licensed mental health couselor and director of Embodied Mind NYC
COUNSELING THROUGH CORONA
STRESS
New York’s mental health professionals are on the front lines of coronavirus response BY JENNIFER DOHERTY
Each year, one in five New Yorkers experiences some form of mental illness, according to data from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. That number has skyrocketed this year as residents grapple with the sudden lifestyle changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a number of mental health professionals interviewed by Straus News. Their message: Help is available, even when social distancing means logging in from your own couch. “We’re seeing a big spike in anxiety and panic, both among those who might have a propensity towards more panic states, and those who haven’t experienced that,” said
OUR NEW REALITY PUBLIC HEALTH
New York is now the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., and life in our crowded metropolis is unlike anything we have ever known before
INSIDE LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHER “Amid all this upheaval, one thing remains unchanged: our total commitment to local news, our readers and the community,“ writes Jeanne Straus. p. 2
BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM
Not long ago, New York as it is now would have been unimaginable: Times Square without tourists. Empty streets and subway cars. Previously packed bars closed for happy hour. Millions of New Yorkers holed up in their apartments, waiting out a public health crisis that has shown no sign of letting up. New York City has quickly become the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, with one-third of the country’s confirmed cases. As of Tuesday morning, some 15,000 New Yorkers have tested positive for COVID-19. That number represents nearly 60 percent of the state’s cases, which totaled 25,665 on Tuesday, with 210 dead. In Manhattan, 2,646 cases have been confirmed. All of these numbers are expected to grow. “For a disease that most of us had never heard of a few months ago, that seemed to just have the smallest presence in our city just weeks ago, it now has become the dominant reality and we’re all trying to make sense of that together,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference Monday evening.
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Gov. Andrew Cuomo meets with military officials at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, where a temporary FEMA hospital is being set up. Photo: Don Pollard- Office of Gov. Anrew M. Cuomo via Flickr
Drastic Measures
crowded.” A particular focus will be the city’s parks where larger groups continued to get together over the weekend, much to the ire of Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Any groups will be broken up and asked to disperse. If the city finds that people can’t follow the rules, the mayor said stricter rules regarding parks and playground may need to be enforced. “It really is incumbent upon all New Yorkers, to do your damnedest to live by this new reality,” de Blasio said.
The dominant reality has forced the city and state into implementing measures that have turned the most densely populated city in the country into a place where public spaces are largely vacant. The mayor is even deploying the NYPD and other city agencies to ensure that’s the case. “We’re New Yorkers: We’re used to crowds, we’re used to being close together. Not anymore,” said de Blasio. “We’re not going to allow crowds to form. We’re not going to allow lines where people are tightly packed next to each other. We’re not gonna allow any indoor space to get overcrowded. We’re not gonna allow outdoor spaces to get over-
‘Defensive Shopping’ Trips to the grocery store have become an anxiety-inducing task in
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AMERICA’S GOVERNOR STEPS UP Since he has begun holding daily press conferences about the coronavirus pandemic, the 62-year-old governor of New York has vaulted to a status he has never enjoyed before. p. 5
PART OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD FABRIC At a time of crisis, praise for Mani Market on the Upper West Side. p. 5
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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 a lay point of view,” lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders separate a in and then, how he arrived his decision, detailing Visitors to the blog at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want unthey whether really 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 indiArbitration Man, 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 actions the owners, policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s quantitative give us the first with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step problem. the xing fi of deformality for To really make a difference, process is a mere complete their will have to to are the work course, the advocaterising rents, precinct, but chances-- thanks to a velopers looking 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 lives on who problem. Angelo, vexing most said Mildred construction permits gauge what Buildings one of the Ruppert 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 on the Over the past 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 Every New Yorker clang, tion Act tangible signs go as they please. work between early, and some come metal-on-metal can construction any small sound: the or on the weekend, have no respect.” the piercing of progress. For many can’t come p.m. and 7 a.m., the hollow boom, issuance of these business owners, that moving in reverse. as after-hours. The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you 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
Newscheck
for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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