The local paper for Downtown wn A 9/11 OPERA < P.13
WEEK OF APRIL-MAY
28-4 2016
VENDOR REGULATIONS CONFOUND, FRUSTRATE SoHo residents, food cart operators seek clarity on law, enforcement BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
Shamim Ahmad’s halal cart at the corner of Houston Street and Broadway. Photo: Madeleine Thompson
Shamim Ahmad has been operating a halal cart at the corner of Houston Street and Broadway in SoHo for five years, and has been ticketed by police and health officials as many as several times a week.
and flashing lights that accompany street vendors. Several such locals attended a meeting of the First Precinct’s Community Council on March 31 to discuss and complain about the vendors’ presence. “They’re proliferating,” one person said, requesting that there be more diligent monitor-
Nearly all of those citations were eventually dismissed — he says he has only ever paid one $50 fine. The real loss is the day’s wages he must forfeit by having to go to the courthouse. “I get a lot of tickets for nothing,” he said. But at the other end of the spectrum are residents and community members who are bothered by the noise, smells
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CITY CORRUPTION PROBES MULTIPLYING NEWS U.S. attorney investigating police and the mayor BY JAKE PEARSON AND TOM HAYS
After a successful attack on corruption in New York’s state government, the hardcharging federal prosecutor in Manhattan appears to have set his sights on New York City. Over the past few weeks, a series of loosely related public corruption investigations coordinated by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara have spilled into public view, with targets including high-ranking New York Police Department officials, the union representing city jail guards, and the po-
litical fundraising activities of several people with ties to New York City’s mayor. Already an embarrassment to the nation’s largest police department, it remains unclear whether the widening probes could do damage to City Hall. So far, nine police officials, including four deputy chiefs, have been transferred or stripped of their guns and badges as internal affairs detectives and FBI agents examine whether officers accepted gifts and trips from businessmen in exchange for police escorts, special parking privileges and other favors. And in recent weeks, the evolving probe has turned to campaign financing practices that have long been scruti-
nized by good government groups. An animal welfare group that has been lobbying Mayor Bill de Blasio to ban carriage horses from city streets confirmed Friday that it had received a subpoena from federal prosecutors seeking documents related to its fundraising efforts for a nonprofit group created to advance the mayor’s policy agenda. Other subpoenas have sought records related to hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations solicited by the mayor’s campaign that were rerouted to upstate Democrats running for the state Senate, The New York Times
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U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara Downtowner
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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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Our Take THE MAYOR, MONEY, AND ALBANY And here we thought Albany was just being ornery. A leaked report about apparent campaign-finance violations by people surrounding Mayor Bill de Blasio sheds new light on the running cat fight between the mayor and state legislators, particularly Republicans in the state senate. Until now, we’ve been inclined to believe the storyline out of City Hall, which is that partisan opposition to our progressive mayor, together with the usual Albany stonewalling of anything that’s good for New York City, explain de Blasio’s inability to win support for his agenda. But if the State Board of Elections report can be believed, de Blasio has been the architect of his own undoing in Albany. The details are complicated -- and kudos to The Times and the Daily News for ferreting them out -- but the allegation is that de Blasio’s team channeled money illegally through party committees to help Democrats running for the state senate. When those candidates lost anyway, the Republican incumbents not surprisingly, have made it their business to make de Blasio’s life miserable. The mayor and his people have tried to wave away the whole thing. But our sense is that this isn’t going anywhere. The mayor, who hasn’t exactly seemed enamored by the details of local government, will now be spending more and more of his time dealing with the issue, meaning less time on what we elected him to do. It’s hard at moments like this not to miss Michael Bloomberg, who had his faults but also had the money to keep himself out of trouble. Stay tuned.
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