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WEEK OF JULY-AUGUST • 2018 SPECIAL REPORT • SEE PAGE 11 •
26-1 2018
A CLOTHIER’S QUIXOTIC QUEST POLITICS How an East Side retailer and political upstart (with two names) is braving long odds in a bid to oust a congressional fixture BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
asleep. But a comforter would take up more than half the space. When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement orders a person deported, they or their loved ones are allowed to pack one suitcase. It and its contents cannot exceed 25 pounds. Space is limited; possibilities are limitless. On deportation day, an officer will forage through what you packed, reduce your love one’s efforts to a compendium of clothing, medications, and those photographs or letters. The memories, though, are yours to keep. Still, you think of all the other things you could have fit.
As he will be the very first to tell you, the 76-year-old former U.S. Army captain and owner for four decades of tony clothing stores across the Upper East Side is a most unconventional and unlikely political hopeful. “I am not a normal candidate,” said Eliot Rabin in a candid two-hour interview as he sat under racks of boy’s jackets in the crowded stock room of Peter Elliot Blue, his shop on Lexington Avenue and 72nd Street. Right on cue, he tossed off a trademark politically incorrect bon mot to describe the inventory of his shops. “Ain’t nothing made in China,” he said. After a short pause for effect, “My merchandise is finah.” Rabin is mounting a Republican challenge, steeply uphill, to longtime Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney in the 12th Congressional District. “I’m old,” he said matter-offactly. “But I’m fresh.” The South Carolina native may be a political neophyte. He has scant campaign funds. Modest name recognition. He only joined the GOP a few months ago. He’s vying to represent an area where 70,000 Republicans are out-registered and outvoted by 288,000 Democrats. But he’s developed a possible campaign slogan: “Maloney is baloney.” And he plans to deploy “my verbiage, my energy and my personality” to topple the North Carolina-born rival four years his junior.
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Sara Gozalo, supervising co-coordinator for the city-based New Sanctuary Coalition, decorating the suitcase that she is going to carry to a July 26 march in support of immigrants and would-be deportees. “We have friends who have told us, ‘when you are in detention and you get a letter, that’s like a treasure,’” she said. Photo courtesy of Sara Gozalo
PACKING CLOTHES, AND DEFERRED DREAMS ACTIVISM Deportees and their families face tough choices for a return trek many had hoped they would not undertake BY SUSHMITA ROY
You can fit a Bible or an extra pair of jeans. You might have to choose between photographs and letters. And do you take the sturdy boots or the formal black shoes? You think of him stranded on a desert trail, in the scorching heat. But there’s no room for a hat. Or maybe he will be shivering, unable to fall
Eliot Rabin, a former U.S. Army captain, current clothier and Republican, is challenging longtime Democratic incumbent U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney for the 12th Congressional District seat. Photo: Douglas Feiden 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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