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WEEK OF JUNE SEEING GREEN < P.16
22-28 2017
On the subway, June 2017. Photo: Andy Atzert, via flickr
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND SUBWAY WOES As the MTA misery index reaches new highs, anguished straphangers take to Twitter — but #Don’tWorrySupervisionIsAware. A day in the life of subway tweets. BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
It reads like the descent into the nine circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno. Actually, it may be more harrowing. It’s a day in the life of the New York City subway told in narrative form. There are hundreds of co-authors. They chronicle the subterranean torments they endure. And their work is as searing and visceral as any Florentine poet’s epic of sinful and wicked ways. The medium? Twitter, of course. The handle? @NYCTSubway. The date? June 15, one day after Mayor
Bill de Blasio left his SUV cocoon and ventured into the subway system for the first time in two months. The methodology? Simple: We read roughly 375 tweets covering the 24-hour period. Half were posted by anguished straphangers, half by unruffled MTA staffers who gamely minimized the horrors, offering rote reassurances that “supervision” had been notified. “The downtown 6/uptown BDFM elevator 329 at Broadway/Lafayette has a puddle of urine inside,” wrote @OneHotProcessor, whose real name is Sara Tabor, sled hockey player and novice ukuleleist. The boilerplate response from @ NYCTSubway: “Thanks for bringing this to our attention, supervision has been made aware.” Five miles away, @CiaranGBoyle – “husband, father, American” – was encountering a grotesquerie of his own, tweeting, “Can someone pow-
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Council Members Dan Garodnick and Vanessa Gibson (center) speak at a March press conference announcing legislation that would require increased police transparency. Photo: Michael Garofalo
POLICE PUSH BACK ON SURVEILLANCE OVERSIGHT BILL LAW ENFORCEMENT NYPD counterterror head calls oversight proposal “roadmap to terrorists” BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
A city council bill that would subject the New York City Police Department to increased public disclosure requirements regarding its use of surveillance technologies drew intense criticism last week from top NYPD officials, who claimed that the legislation would endanger officers and
members of the public. The Public Oversight of Surveillance Technology Act, introduced by Council Members Dan Garodnick and Vanessa Gibson in March, would require comprehensive public reporting of the police department’s surveillance capabilities, including disclosure of specific technologies used by police and internal policies regarding their use. Supporters say the bill will help citizens better understand the NYPD’s use of surveillance tools and allow for a more robust and informed public debate about the privacy and safety concerns they present. But at a contentious June 14 hearing at City Hall, John Downtowner
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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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Miller, the NYPD’s top counterterrorism official, said the legislation “would create an effective blueprint for those seeking to do harm.” In the years after the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD adopted a number of controversial surveillance tactics that later came to light through press reports and legal cases brought by civil liberties groups. In February 2016, the NYPD confirmed, in response to a Freedom of Information Law request, that it uses cell site simulators, also known as Stingrays, which allow po-
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