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WEEK OF SEPTEMBER
21-27 2017
DILLER’S DREAM ISLAND DIES PARKS Pier 55, conceptualized six years ago, was beset by lawsuits, escalating costs BY MIHIKA AGARWAL
Six years ago, billionaire Barry Diller and with his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, set out to rejuvenate derelict Pier 54, aspiring to replace it with a 2.4-acre undulating cultural island rechristened Pier 55. Supported by 550 concrete pylons in the Hudson River, the futuristic waterfront enclave was intended for offshore at the level of West 13th Street and would be linked to the mainland by two pedestrian bridges. Construction was to have begun last year. But beset by a string of lawsuits over the project’s environmental impact and other claims, Diller last week announced it was “no longer viable to proceed.” Pier 55, Diller wrote in a conclusive email to backers, was sunk by “multiple stallings in our build process, esca-
lating costs and delays, and media attacks that colored this project in a controversial light from which it will be difficult to recover.” What had started as a $35 million idea had burgeoned into a $250 million enterprise intended to include a series of winding pathways and viewing platforms peppered between pockets of trees, and performance venues for arts and culture shows. But since soon after its conception, Pier 55 has been subject to a saga of lawsuits initiated by The City Club of New York and co-plaintiffs Tom Fox and Rob Buchanan. Last month, a federal judge cited serious deficiencies in a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and in effect rescinded the permit. In his email, Diller said a settlement of the lawsuits was being pursued until very recently. But, he added, “I couldn’t in good faith agree to a settement agreement as I felt we had done nothing wrong and that to give victory to these people was in itself wrong.”
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The Second Avenue Subway Transit Garden, a traditional north-south protected bike lane on the Upper East Side. The city’s Department of Transportation is now developing a series of proposals for crosstown bike routes that it says will be unveiled “in the near future.” Photo: NYC Department of Transportation
THE BIG BIKE-LANE BOOM SAFETY Spurred by several recent tragedies and demands from advocates and elected officials, City Hall may expand bicycle infrastructure to include more east-west streets, not just north-south avenues BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
The recent growth of the on-street bicycle network in Manhattan has been nothing short of explosive. Now,
a series of catastrophic accidents that has claimed the lives of three cyclists over the past three months has galvanized support for an even more dramatic expansion. At least 37.5 miles of bike lanes were added to the island’s signature street grid from 2014 through 2016, city Department of Transportation data shows. That’s up a sharp 77 percent from the 21.1 bike-lane miles introduced in the three-year period between 2009 and 2011. The best-known and most heavily trafficked bikeways have taken root on the left-hand sides of principal northDowntowner
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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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south avenues, like uptown-facing First and downtown-facing Second Avenues on the East Side, and uptown Eighth and downtown Columbus Avenues on the West Side. But the potential new expansion — which is being developed by DOT and has been pushed by community boards, transit advocates and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and other elected officials — would transform the arterial infrastructure in a perpendicular direction.
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