The local paper for Downtown wn BATTLING FOR THE SOUL OF SAKS <P.16
WEEK OF AUGUST
10-16 2017
Number of deaths
1400
19.9
20.0
1200 1000
13.6
800
11.6
10.9
15.0
11.7
9.4
600
10.0
8.2
400 5.0 200
541
630
788
730
800
937
1374
0
0 2010
2011
2012
2013
Number of deaths On one of City Hall Park’s tables, a few men take in a game of chess. Photo: Oscar Kim Bauman
THE SCENE AT CITY HALL PARK OBSERVED An eclectic assortment of performers, pedestrians and passers-by outside the center of local government BY OSCAR KIM BAUMAN
City Hall in Lower Manhattan is the seat of New York City’s government, and the actions that take place inside its historic walls can have consequences that impact every New Yorker. Although City Hall itself is off limits to the general pub-
lic, the area around it proves to be equally fascinating. As you step off the 4 train and ascend to the sidewalk, you find yourself immediately greeted by an enraptured crowd of tourists watching a group of street performers. Around the corner, you can find shade and a modicum of peace and quiet next to the Tweed Courthouse, named, of course, for the infamous William “Boss” Tweed, who ran city politics from Tammany Hall in the mid-1800s. On the steps, and everywhere
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Crime Watch Voices NYC Now City Arts
2014
2015
2016
Age-adjusted rate per 100,000
*Data for 2015 and 2016 are provisional and are subject to change.
Graphic: Caitlin Ryther
Sources: NYC Office of the Chief Medical Examiner and NYC DOHMH Bureau of Vital Statistics, 2010-2016
COMBATING NEW YORK’S OPIOID CRISIS PUBLIC HEALTH City hopes data-driven approach will reduce overdose deaths BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
There were 1,374 drug overdose deaths in New York City last year, over 80 percent of which involved an opioid. And NYPD officials said during City Council testimony earlier this year that preliminary data for the first quarter of 2017 showed opioid-related deaths outpacing last year’s recordhigh rate.
Fatalities stemming from the use of heroin, fentanyl and prescription pain medications have skyrocketed in recent years, a trend that has proven stubbornly persistent. Since 2010, the city has seen a 143 percent increase in the rate of overdose deaths. In Manhattan, 244 residents died of overdoses in 2016, up 50 percent over the previous year — the largest increase of any borough. “It started with the over-prescription of opioid pills,” said Chauncey Parker, executive assistant district attorney for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. “That then expanded Downtowner
OurTownDowntown
Age-adjusted rate per 100,000
Unintentional overdose deaths, New York City, 2000-2016
3 8 10 12
Restaurant Ratings Business Real Estate 15 Minutes
14 16 17 21
WEEK OF APRIL
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
n OurTownDowntow
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Newscheck Crime Watch Voices
for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
2 City Arts 3 Top 5 8 Real Estate 10 15 Minutes
12 13 14 18
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into a heroin market where dealers started to provide high purity heroin cheaper than pills so that people addicted to opiates switched over to heroin and the user base expanded. The latest trend is that they’re cutting it with fentanyl.” Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine, is chief among the drivers of the spike in overdose deaths in the last two years, experts say. Fentanyl is significantly more potent than heroin and
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