The local paper for Downtown wn ADDITIONS AT THE MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
WEEK OF SEPTEMBER
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8-14 2016
DOWNTOWN’S RENAISSANCE BY BETH J. HARPAZ
Fifteen years after the Sept. 11 attacks, Lower Manhattan has been reborn. The revitalization of the city’s downtown, powered by $30 billion in government and private investment, includes not just the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site, but also two new malls filled with upscale retailers, thousands of new hotel rooms and dozens of eateries ranging from a new Eataly to a French food hall, Le District. The statistics alone are stunning. There are 29 hotels in the neighborhood, compared to six before 9/11.
More than 60,000 people live downtown, nearly triple the number in 2000. And last year, the area hosted a record 14 million visitors, according to the Alliance for Downtown New York. And while there’s plenty to do downtown for free, including seeing the 9/11 memorial park, visitors have also shown a willingness to pay relatively steep prices for certain attractions. The 9/11 museum, which charges $24, has drawn 6.67 million visitors since its May 2014 opening. The observatory atop One World Trade Center, which charges $34, has drawn 3 million people in the 15 months since it opened. In comparison, the Statue of Liberty gets about 4 million visitors a year.
“I don’t think anyone would have expected that we would have rebounded so robustly, so quickly,” said Jessica Lappin, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York. “There’s the physical transformation at the site itself, but there’s also the neighborhood. There’s an energy here. People could have given up after 9/11 and nobody would have blamed them. Instead there has been a tenacity, a dedication that is inspiring.” The Alliance for Downtown New York was founded before 9/11, in 1995, when the “neighborhood was on its heels,” Lappin recalled. “The vacancy
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Photo: Eden, Janine and Jim, via flickr
CITY CONSIDERS CHANGING WASTE HAULING PROCESS Report suggests zoned approach to garbage collection at businesses would have several benefits
BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
Conclusions from a review of commercial waste collection in the city has some business owners concerned about potential impacts, particularly cost. The study’s main conclusion is that a system of waste collection zones would be a more efficient method than the current open-market private carting system, which can bring dozens of different haulers to a neighborhood. Though residential, governmental and institutional garbage is collected by the city’s Department of Sanitation, commercial businesses must hire private carters to do away with theirs. Business owners have the choice of 90 licensed companies to do so and, because it is an open market, they can
Private waste haulers would have to participate in and then win a bidding process to provide services under a plan being considered by city officials. Photo: Richard Khavkine
switch companies for a better deal at any time. According to the study, a zoned approach to garbage collection would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and traffic by cutting back on the number of trucks rolling through neighborhoods. In effect, there can be as many garbage trucks collecting from any one block as there are businesses there. “Supporters of the open market system argue that competition drives down prices and offers increased customer choice,” the study reports. “However, opponents argue that this system results in unnecessary truck trips, with multiple carters at times serving the same block at the same time, in addition to other negative externalities.” According to the press release accompanying the report, the Department of Sanitation and the BIC, which is charged with regulating and licensing the private carting industry, will work with businesses, the carting inDowntowner
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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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ASSEMBLY PRIMARY TUESDAY New York City voters go to the polls Tuesday and downtown Democrats have a State Assembly primary to decide. Incumbent Democratic Assembly Member Deborah Glick faces a challenge from Jim Fouratt. PAGE 5
dustry and environmental advocates for the next two years to develop “an implementation plan for commercial waste reform.” Though there are almost 100 carting companies, the industry is dominated by five of them. Those five companies serve 46 percent of the city’s 108,000 businesses and collect 55 percent of the revenue, according to the report. In the zoned system, the city would be divided up into 20 geographical areas and one company — or possibly a few — would be chosen, via a bidding process, to collect all of that neighborhood’s business waste.
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