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WEEK OF SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER
27-3
CURBING GRIDLOCK ◄ P.8
2018
THE BOSS IN THE MIRROR WORKFORCE After hitting the mid-century mark, legions of East Siders, West Siders, downtowners, Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen residents are mustering the courage, and cash, to go into business for themselves BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
Sarah Carroll (right), pictured here at the unveiling of a new marker in the DUMBO Historic District in Brooklyn, is Mayor Bill de Blasio’s pick to lead the Landmarks Preservation Commission. Carroll has served on the LPC staff for over two decades. Photo: NYC LPC, via Flickr
PRESERVATIONIST TAPPED AS NEW LANDMARKS CHAIR NEIGHBORHOODS Sarah Carroll, career LPC staffer, is mayor’s choice to lead agency BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
In a move that has soothed the concerns of some activists concerned with the direction of the city’s historic preservation efforts, Mayor Bill de Blasio has tapped the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s top staffer to serve as the agency’s next chair. Sarah Carroll, who has served as the LPC’s executive director for the last four years, is the administration’s nominee to lead the 11-member commission. If approved by the City Council, Carroll would succeed Meenakshi Srinivasan, who resigned earlier this year
amid a controversy over a set of proposed changes to agency rules that critics claimed would weaken public input in the landmarks process. The mayor’s nomination of Carroll — a career LPC staffer and preservationist — has quelled anxieties long held by some preservation advocates who felt the commission had been too permissive in allowing demolitions, alterations and new construction in historic districts under Srinivasan’s leadership. Carroll described herself as “a preservationist by training, profession and temperament” in Council testimony, explaining that she hopes to work to make the agency more open and transparent and expand community outreach as chair. “I believe my unique blend of expertise,
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The Upper West Side boasts more entrepreneurs among the over-50 set than any other neighborhood in the city — and the Upper East Side is a close second, a new research report found. But when it comes to becoming one’s own boss at the age of 60 and up, the UES takes the lead — and the UWS trails ever so slightly, according to data from the Center for an Urban Future. The boomer generation is reinventing the workplace. The phenomenon is called “encore entrepreneurship.” And its growth, from the Battery to central Harlem has been turbo-charged, the think tank determined. In the past decade, the ranks of selfemployed Manhattan residents 50 and over soared 19 percent, to 72,996 from 61,159, researchers found, while those aged 60-plus shot up 32 percent, to 41,190 from 31,152. Bottom line: Nearly one out of every three borough residents north of five decades, or 30.3 percent, is now working for themselves, and the selfemployment rate downtown stands at 40 percent, the data shows. Fueling the surge in business activity among 50-, 60- and 70-somethings is the graying of the city’s population — the 50-plus census has leaped over 10 percent since 2010 — along with ever-increasing lifespans and the accompanying need for older New York-
“Willing and ready learners”: social media event at the Senior Planet Exploration Center in Chelsea. Photo: Ashad Hajela
Ask most New Yorkers to picture an entrepreneur, and they imagine a 20- or 30-something in jeans and sneakers. But the face of entrepreneurship across New York City is changing.” Center for an Urban Future report ers to develop new income streams. Other factors include the lingering fallout from the layoffs of the Great Recession, the tough odds seniors face in the job market, persistent age discrimination in the workplace, the rise of the gig economy, the fall of both start-up costs and barriers to entry Downtowner
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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
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due to advances in technology — and even the relative ease of setting up limited liability companies. “Folks in their 50s and 60s who’ve spent 30-plus years in larger companies are now leveraging their professional experience in the workforce,” said Eli Dvorkin, managing editor of the research institute. “They’ve got a lot to offer. And they’re trying to go it alone.” Many first-time business builders reinvent themselves as independent consultants or freelancers, deploying the intimate knowledge of their industries they developed as employees to provide similar services to customers, he said. But others venture into largely unchartered waters, Dvorkin said. Like the ex-corporate lawyer who created an LLC for a nutritional dog-treat ven-
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