The local paper for Downtown wn
Summer Guide 2019
WEEK OF MAY
23-29 2019
INSIDE
‘POISON PARKING LOT’ PROTEST
DAFFODILS AND ALLERGIES
John Lindsay, the only other sitting mayor to have left City Hall for the presidential campaign trail, wasn’t gone for long.
The buds may be in full bloom, but your nose shouldn’t be, P. 2
VITAL SIGNS This his year, he Whitney the iennial takes Biennial he temperature the off a country in urmoil. P. 10 turmoil.
ENVIRONMENT A company’s plans to develop a contaminated site near two schools and the South Street Seaport meet fierce resistance at rally BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM
A coalition of parents, activists and residents rallied together Thursday at the South Street Seaport to protest Howard Hughes Corp. over its plans to break ground on the site of a former thermometer factory, running the risk of exposing the community and school children to mercury. The site, a parking lot, takes up an entire city block on Water Street and sits at the doorsteps of both Peck Slip School and the private Blue School. The protestors, galvanized by local mothers of Children’s First NYC, fear that disturbing the area will unleash toxins into the air.
Health Threat for Students “The mother lode of mercury is in here,” said Elaine Kennedy, director of the board of nearby South Bridge Towers and a chair of Seaport Planning and Preservation, at the rally. “Once we open this site up, we expose this entire community.” At the demonstration, which took place outside the Howard Hughes Corp. building at the Seaport, children held up signs stating, “Mercury poisons kids,” “Leave the lot alone,”
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Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks at a May 13 event in Trump Tower in Manhattan, days before he announced his presidential campaign. Photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography
RUNNING FROM NEW YORK POLITICS Mayor Bill de Blasio joins the tradition of NYC politicians who have tested presidential waters BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
With his announcement last week that he would seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, Mayor Bill de Blasio followed in the footsteps of a long line of fellow New York politicos who have had designs on occupying the Oval Office over the last half century — without much suc-
cess to speak of. In seeking to translate political victories in the nation’s biggest city to triumph in the Electoral College, de Blasio hopes to buck both history — no former New York City mayor has won any federal office, much less the presidency, in over 150 years, and no mayor of any city has ever ascended directly from City Hall to the White House — and the current prevailing sentiment in his hometown, where one recent poll showed he has the approval of just 42 percent of city residents. Mayor de Blasio will find little reason to be encouraged by the ex-
amples set by his forebears. John Lindsay, the only other sitting mayor to have left City Hall for the presidential campaign trail, wasn’t gone for long — he withdrew from the 1972 primary race after failing to earn more than seven percent of the vote in any of the first four contests. De Blasio, whose intermittent feuding with Gov. Andrew Cuomo has parallels to Lindsay’s rivalry with his Albany counterpart Nelson Rockefeller (who himself
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CB8 MEMBER CLASHES WITH DEVELOPER A CEO insisted he wasn’t lying when he said there were no plans for two UES sites. P. 22
SLEEPOVER AT THE SUPREME COURT Camping out before oral arguments in the Census citizenship question case. P. 6
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WEEK OF APRIL
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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 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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