The local paper for Downtown wn IMMERSED IN ART AND IDEAS ◄ P.12
WEEK OF JULY
4-11 2019
SUBWAYS: AN UNDERGROUND UPDATE GOVERNMENT We love it, we hate it, we can’t live without it. Here’s the latest about the system we all depend on BY STUART MARQUES
It’s raining hard and you race down the slippery sidewalk and into the subway — only to find it’s pouring down there, too, through cracks and gaping holes in the ceiling. It’s the dog days of summer and you head into the subway in search of an airconditioned car. Just your
Photo: Steven Strasser
luck, the temperature on the crowded platform is 100 degrees, and the AC isn’t working in the car you squeeze into.
You’re in a subway and the train is hurtling through a tunnel. It suddenly comes to a stop — often due to signal problems or congestion —
it’s much more complicated to fix an old system than to build a new one.” Here’s a quick look at some of the issues that affect riders most: CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION: There’s no denying the need to upgrade tracks, signals, cars and crumbling stations. In the two years since Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a subway emergency, the MTA has gone into hurry-up mode to carry out its current $33 billion capital construction plan, about $15 billion which goes to the subways.
and you’re trapped for 10 or 15 minutes, which seems like an hour. Such is the state of our 115-year-old subway system, riddled with outdated equipment and notoriously underfunded, at least partly due to political gamesmanship. “Two years ago, the subway system was in crisis,” said Danny Pearlstein, a spokesman for Riders Alliance, a transit advocacy group that helped push for a congestion pricing plan that could generate up to $2 billion a year to help fix the subways. “It’s slowly getting better. Unfortunately,
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Decision to replace Elizabeth Street Garden with affordable housing draws mixed response BY JADEN SATENSTEIN
Affordable housing activists celebrated a victory last week after City Council members voted unanimously, with one abstention, to green light the Haven Green project, a development of low-income, LGBTQ friendly senior housing in Little Italy.
“We’re very encouraged by the Council’s unanimous support of the project,” said Karen Haycox, CEO of Habitat for Humanity New York City, which has partnered with RiseBoro Community Partnership and Pennrose to develop the project. “It’s been a long and collaborative process to get us here.” The project features 123 units for extremely-low to low-income seniors, including 37 units dedicated to formerly homeless seniors. The building will also include retail stores and Habitat for Humanity offices on the
street level. Haycox stated that cash earned from retail rents will be used to subsidize the housing in the building and maintain affordability for residents. In addition, plans call for 8,000 square feet of open space, accessible to the public. “I’m very happy that decision was made, having lived here awhile and knowing just the level of need for housing and affordable housing, and neighbors we’ve lost because of the lack of it, and because of a lot of folks moving into the neighborhood,” said Kath-
NYC PRIDE MARCHES ON The 2019 Pride March drew more marchers and spectators than ever before, P. 9
BOOK CULTURE ON THE BRINK The end looms for the popular bookstores, P. 16
MUST-SEE TV FROM THE TIMES The Weekly is a great new show about the craft of journalism, P. 8
COUNCIL VOTE SPLITS NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT
INSIDE
The Elizabeth Street Garden is filled with sculptures. Photo: Jaden Satenstein
leen Webster, a Little Italy resident and president of the Sara D. Roosevelt Park Coalition.
A Little Piece of Sanctuary However, not everyone in the community views
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GHOST STORY BRINGS GRAND CENTRAL TO LIFE Lisa Grunwald discusses the role of New York City, history and the supernatural in her new novel, P. 21
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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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