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WEEK OF SEPTEMBER MORE THAN PRETTY ◄ P.12
20-26 2018
FUROR IN CHINATOWN OVER JAIL PLAN COMMUNITY Residents protest city proposal for new Manhattan jail to replace Rikers BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the Dominican Day Parade, Aug. 12. Photo via Gov. Cuomo’s flickr page
Cynthia Nixon on the campaign trail. Photo via Nixon’s Twitter feed
HOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD VOTED POLITICS A Straus News street-level analysis of the Democratic Primary for governor illustrates Manhattan’s fault lines BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Cynthia Nixon scored a landslide triumph over Andrew Cuomo — in the two square blocks bounded by First and Second Avenues and East 10th and East 12th Streets in the East Village. The insurgent racked up 184 votes to crush the incumbent governor, who managed only 86 votes, by a margin exceeding two-to-one in one of the city’s most liberal-left precincts. Nixon also walloped her rival on Carmine, Morton, Leroy, Cornelia and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village. She romped on a two-block strip along West 100th Street between Broadway and Riverside Drive
on the Upper West Side. And her micro-sweep encompassed several long blocks of West 21st and 22nd Street in Chelsea, as well as both sides of East 67th, 68th and 69th Streets between York and First Avenues on the Upper East Side. It wasn’t enough. Cuomo pulverized her. He won the statewide ballot by a 65.6 percent-to-34.4 percent margin. Even in Manhattan, where Nixon fared far better, she managed just 41.6 percent of the vote, while he snared 58.4 percent. But as a pioneer in an emerging sisterhood of political newcomers vying to unseat male incumbents, Nixon notched some impressive wins: She animated a liberal-left base, energized the electoral discourse and left a foundation for future progressive female challengers to build on in the hundreds of blocks and scores of Election Districts in which she did prevail.
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To see how your borough and district voted, go online for links from the New York City Board of Elections and Straus News Research at OTDowntown.com
City officials presenting plans for a new 1,510-bed detention center in Lower Manhattan were repeatedly interrupted with chants of “no jail!” from angry Chinatown residents at a contentious Sept. 12 meeting at P.S. 124 in Chinatown. The proposal to build a new jail facility at 80 Centre St. — a crucial piece in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to close the notoriously violent Rikers Island jail facilities within ten years — has prompted passionate opposition from many in the Chinatown community. The city’s plan would transform the corner of Centre and Worth Streets, currently the site of the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, which houses courtrooms and offices of the Manhattan District Attorney, City Clerk, Manhattan Marriage Bureau and other city agencies. The new jail would be one of four new borough-based jails to replace Rikers, with others located in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn. Proponents of the so-called community-based jails say that siting the facilities in each borough will lessen the isolation experienced by incarcerated individuals as they await trial and sentencing by allowing for easier contact with family members and other loved ones. The proposed site of the new jail at 80 Centre St. is adjacent to the New York County Criminal Court; early plans propose a pedestrian bridge across Hogan Street to connect the jail and the court. Many at the meetinng said they support the closure of Rikers and the idea of community jails, but oppose one being built in Chinatown. Much of the public criticism centered on the fact that there was little transparency or
Dozens of Chinatown residents turned out to a Sept. 12 meeting at P.S. 124 to voice their opposition to the city’s plan to build a 1,510-bed jail at 80 Centre Street. Photo: Michael Garofalo opportunity for public input on the new jail’s location before preliminary plans for the 80 Centre St. site were released in mid-August. “Closing Rikers is a laudable goal,” said Nicholas Stabile, who lives in a Park Row coop near the proposed jail site. “But the process employed by the Mayor’s Office to achieve this goal focuses on only half the equation — the people inside the jail. It ignores the other half of the equation — the people in the surrounding community.” Rather than consulting locals before releasing the plan, Stabile said, the administration “came in with a fully baked plan that burdens the community and provides almost no benefits.” 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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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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In comments at the beginning of the meeting, neither Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer nor local Council Member Margaret Chin took a position on the proposal. Brewer criticized the administration’s handling of the planning process thus far, particularly the decision to release preliminary plans in August, when most community boards do not hold meetings. “I may disagree with you on whether or not there should be a jail, but I will never disagree that there should be a community process that has lots of time in order to have your input,” she said.
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