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WEEK OF AUGUST
11-17 2016
A SIT-IN AT CITY HALL PARK NEWS Black Lives Matter stages Occupystyle protest BY ASIA HORNE
The Black Lives Matter Movement has made its presence felt in City Hall park. Since August 1, hundreds of supporters have banded together to be part of what is being called the “Millions March at Abolition Square.” The protest, reminiscent of the Oc-
cupy Wall Street movement nearby, has called for an end to the so-called “broken windows” style of policing by the NYPD; reparations for victims of police crimes; and the re-investment of much of the NYPD’s $5.5 billion annual budget into communities of color in New York. The movement was invigorated on its first day by the announcement by NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton that he planned to step down. Though Bratton said his decision had nothing to do with the protests, the fact that his resignation was a central plank of the City Hall sit-in prompted
cheers in the crowd. “The idea of the movement is to build a society without police and without belief in caging people up in institutions such as prison,” said Vienna Rye, one of the organizers of the protests. “We are bred in a society with cages to trap people, but that’s not the way that people should be living.” Rye has camped out at City Hall park for one week and said that on average at least two dozen people camp out a night. She called the movement peaceful, but said she feared of violence if police become aggressive with the protestors.
ON THE ROAD WITH A GLOBETROTTER BY DAVID WILLIAMS
A former teacher for children with learning disabilities, Sue Korn is a longtime New Yorker. As former chair of the alumni association of Cornell, she remains active in its activities. Always on the move, she has been on the board of the Central Synagogue where she has chaired a number of committees. Her work with the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) is legendary. And ongoing. Mileage covered: .54 miles Sunny, 81 degrees It was ever thus: when meeting someone in Manhattan for the first time, the conversation starter is, often enough, real estate. And so it is as I meet Sue Korn at her carriage house on a sunny morning, ZIP code 10128, environs Lennox Hill. Before we set out on her rounds, a tuto-
Sue Korn, left, with Dannielle Bluysen, owner of Dannielle B. Photo: David Williams
Photo by Asia Horne
rial on its history is called for. “My husband wanted a carriage house because it would be large enough for his office on the ground floor,” she tells me. “The most important thing was it had to be a block from the subway. It couldn’t have any steps because he was an orthopedist. So the day this came on the market he put in his offer and we had never been inside. When we got inside we discovered that the plumbing was wooden. Downstairs still had stalls for the horses.” So, over there are the gears that were used to haul up the hay. And back there, that was the hayloft. The Korns live across the street from a classic UES white-brick mega-building, Imperial House. Sue is nursing a banged-up knee (long story: sailing on the Sound, too swift a tack and to protect her granddaughter ...) “Because of my knee, when we can’t do this building anymore we’re moving across the street and my daughter and son-in-law and my grandchildren are moving in here. We feel like we’re caretakers of the building and we want to keep it in the family.” The house’s docent continues, “This Downtowner
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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
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building was owned by the Diamond family who lived next door. They bought the entire block and wanted to knock it down and put up a high-rise here. The neighborhood went into absolute craziness and they brought in the Landmark Commission and they made the entire block landmarked. The day we put in our bid for this house ... every house on the block went up for sale.” We turn our conversation to the Laugh for Life benefit Sue created for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. I’d attended several over the years, including the most recent one in February. As is so often the case with a nonprofit, this cause was a personal one. “(When) my sister Carol (Goldschien) was diagnosed, it was devastating because it was a disease we’d never heard of. Actually my husband diagnosed it. She’d been in a bike accident and he looked at her X-rays and sent her immediately to an oncologist. We didn’t know how serious it was in the beginning.” The foundation, about as gold stan-
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