The local paper for Downtown wn
FALL 2017
WEEK OF AUGUST
EDUCATION P.11
24-30 2017
LEAD IN WATER WAS COMMON IN CITY SCHOOLS INFRASTRUCTURE Department of Education says remediation of outlets was immediate BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
The Rev. Monsignor Donald Sakano, next to the statue of St. Rocco, at The Basilica of Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral for the Blessings of the Dogs. Photo: Estelle Pyper
BLESSING OF THE DOGS FETCHING A church on Mott Street marks the Feast of St. Rocco with its first celebration of the love of animals BY ESTELLE PYPER
Penelope, a hefty pit bull-terrier mix, sauntered through the gates of The Basilica of Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral on Mott Street last Wednesday evening with her owner in tow. Little did she know, she would exit those gates a blessed dog. August 16th marked the Feast of St. Rocco — the littleknown Catholic patron saint of dogs. The story goes that Rocco (who also represents knee problems and other diseases) was heavily involved in tending to those who had the plague. So much so that he acquired the plague himself. He retreated into the forest where he found a spring to drink from, but had no food. But it was a dog that brought him bread and licked his wounds until they healed. Thus Rocco is an emblem of the bond between humans and dogs, solidifying their place as “man’s best friend.”
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Department of Education testing showed that drinking water in a number of downtown schools, including the Leadership and Public Service High School and Greenwich Village Elementary School, contained lead at concentrations greater than state-mandated action levels for the toxic metal during the last school year. The New York City DOE completed lead testing on drinking and cooking water outlets in every public school in the city during the 2016-2017 school year. Results showed that 83 percent of school buildings had at least one water sample with lead levels above the action level of 15 parts per billion. Elevated lead levels were found in roughly 8 percent of all samples. After testing, the DOE sent letters notifying parents and staff of their individual school’s results. Results for each building were made available on schools’ individual websites, but a single, comprehensive database of results for each outlet tested in every school was not made available by the DOE until
recently, following a freedom of information law request filed by Straus News. The DOE’s remediation protocol calls for outlets with elevated lead results to be immediately removed from service and replaced. Outlets are not returned to service until follow-up testing shows that lead levels are below the 15 ppb action level. “Many of the elevated water samples came from fixtures that are not typically used for drinking, including bathrooms, slop sinks, and laboratories,” read one DOE letter to parents and staff. Faucet-level test results, however, show that elevated samples were found in drinking fountains at many schools. Thirteen drinking fountains had elevated results, including three with concentrations above 200 ppb, at the Broadway Educational Campus, a school complex in the Financial District that houses the Urban Assembly School of Business for Young Women, the Richard R. Green High School of Teaching, and Lower Manhattan Community Middle School. More than a third of all samples had elevated lead levels at the Leadership and Public Service High School in the Financial District, including a hallway drinking fountain with results of 278 ppb.
DOE test results showed thirteen drinking fountains with elevated lead levels in the Broadway Educational Campus, which houses three public schools in the Financial District’s Standard Oil Building. Photo: Gryffindor, via Wikimedia Commons
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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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