The local paper for Downtown wn AN ADULT’S JOURNEY BACK INTO CHILDREN’S BOOKS
WEEK OF SEPTEMBER
< P. 6
7-13 2017
UWS CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES’ ROUNDTABLE
Small businesses
borhood to encourage landlords to rent to small businesses at a much quicker rate. I’ve proposed the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, which is a proposal to help small businesses negotiate a fair renewal of their lease. They’re most vulnerable at the lease renewal part. [...] Thirdly, cut the red tape for businesses so that they don’t have an inspection or license of application due every day that distracts them from actually doing the work they need.” Rosenthal: “[W]e started our small business clinics to connect these retail owners with lawyers and with loans. I submitted legislation to eliminate the commercial rent tax for nearly 300 businesses on the Upper West Side. [...] The Small Business Jobs Survival Act was introduced 20 years ago by [former council member and Manhattan Borough President] Ruth Messinger. Its time has passed. Even [Manhattan Borough President] Gale Brewer has said it’s not feasible. That’s why I’m researching legislation to put a vacancy tax on empty storefronts.” Goodman: “My recommendation is called the Legacy Stores Act, [...] which is a plan to provide the difference between what the renewal rate of the lease is and the amount of rent that the store owner had been paying with tax credits.” Drusin: “To propose credits or offsets or grants, I would oppose. Because when you’re interfering with the market — and the most extreme example is commercial rent control — you always have unanticipated consequences that
Wymore: “I’ve proposed a fine for long-term vacancies in our neigh-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 15
ELECTIONS Rosenthal and challengers lay out visions for District 6 BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Incumbent City Council Member Helen Rosenthal and the five challengers running against her to represent the Upper West Side in the city council met last week for a roundtable forum hosted by the West Side Spirit. Rosenthal, who is nearing the end of her first term in office, will face fellow Democrats Cary Goodman and Mel Wymore in the Sept. 12 primary election. The primary winner will face Republican Hyman Drusin and independent candidates David Owens and Bill Raudenbush in the Nov. 7 general election. All six candidates met at the West Side Spirit’s offices on Sept. 1 for a discussion on some of the most pressing issues facing Council District 6, from affordable housing to bike lanes, along with a bit of fun (a sampling of candidates’ threeword descriptions of themselves: Rosenthal — Creative, smart, fighter; Drusin — Jewish, intellectual, introvert; Goodman — Save our park). The Spirit’s editorial team moderated the forum, which was streamed live on Facebook. Video of the full conversation can be viewed on the West Side Spirit’s Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/WestSideSpirit/). Below is a compilation of highlights from the discussion, organized by topic:
John Steuart Curry’s 1928 oil on canvas, “Baptism in Kansas.” Photo: Adel Gorgy
A COLLECTIVE PORTRAIT MUSEUMS The Whitney’s “Where We Are” offers a panorama of a changing and changed nation and its people BY MARY GREGORY
In 1939, W.H. Auden, the Englishborn American author, composed a poem. Its title, “September 1, 1939,” commemorates the day that Germany invaded Poland, initiating World War II. Auden wrote about sitting in a bar — a dive, in his words — on East 52nd Street as he ruminated poetically on history, society, individuality, love, anger, despair, responsibility, affirmation and hope. In 2017, for his first installation drawn exclusively from
the holdings of the Whitney’s collection of American art, curator and director of the collection, David Breslin (along with Jennie Goldstein and Margaret Kross) has taken that poem as a lens through which to look at art and artists and how they see certain issues. By doing so, he’s created a deep, layered, moving portrait of not just America’s art, but its heart. Focusing on works made between 1900 and 1960, the exhibition fills the entire seventh floor with works that highlight both the museum’s extraordinary collection and a nation filled with passionate individualism and an experience that encompasses both commonality and diversity. Each of five sections is formed around an idea expressed in Auden’s poem. They include “No One Exists Alone,” a look at Downtowner
OurTownDowntown
O OTDOWNTOWN.COM @OTDowntown
Crime Watch Voices NYC Now City Arts
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
9-16
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 on the Over the past 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.” can’t come p.m. and 7 a.m., 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
COM
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
CONTINUED ON PAGE
25
love, friendship, family and shared responsibility; “The Furniture of Home,” which explores where we dwell and the objects that make up our everyday lives; “The Strength of Collective Man,” a visual recording of American society’s struggles and triumphs; “In a Euphoric Dream,” in which George Washington’s description of the nation as a “great experiment” yields surprising outcomes; and, finally, “Of Eros and Dust,” which looks at the spiritual foundations of several movements and works. Through photographs and prints, paintings and sculptures, in realism and abstraction, we find reflections of history and life, evolution and strife, and, if we look carefully, ourselves.
CONTINUED ON PAGE 12
We deliver! Get Our Town Downtowner sent directly to your mailbox for $49 per year. Go to OTDowntown.com or call 212-868-0190