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WEEK OF OCTOBER A TALL TALE’S TENTACLES < P. 14
6-12 2016
In Brief
POLS: LIMIT TOUR BUSES
CRIME CONTINUES TO FALL CITYWIDE September had 12.1 percent fewer reported crime than a year ago, making the month the safest September in the Police Department’s CompStat era, according to a release from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office. Overall, crime citywide has continued to decrease this year, with 3 percent fewer index crimes reported compared to this time last year, the release said. There have so far been 97 fewer shootings and 10 fewer murders this year than through September last year. The Transit Bureau and the Housing Bureau also reported fewer crimes this September compared to last year’s. “After the safest summer in decades, New York City remains the safest big city in America. While other cities across the nation fight rising violent crime rates, longterm crime trends in our city continue to fall,” de Blasio said. CompStat, for computer statistics, began in 1994, is a broad organizational tool that tracks crime data sets to, among other things, manage the deployment of officers.
Chin, Brewer take aim with legislation BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
In Lower Manhattan, where the population has doubled in the last decade and where several new tourist attractions have recently been built, residents are concerned about the side effects of extra attention. Especially when it comes to tour buses. The number of such buses with active licenses has tripled since 2003, according to Council Member Margaret Chin, who represents District 1. Chin and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer introduced legislation to the City Council last week that proposes to limit the number of buses in the area. “Oftentimes you see these double-decker buses that are empty on the bottom, and on the top they’re not full either,” Chin said. In testimony given on behalf of the De-
A tour bus winds its way through the Financial District. Photo: Prayitno, via Flickr partment of Consumer Affairs (DCA) at the bill’s introduction last week, Assistant Commissioner for Legislative Affairs Margaret Cooley said eight bus lines with 237 buses currently operate in Lower Manhattan. While the more than 50 million tourists who visit each year do contribute around $40 billion to the economy, they also
contribute to polluted air and congested streets. As the oldest neighborhood in the city, Lower Manhattan is not laid out on the same structured grid that governs the rest of it and thus feels more strongly the
CITY: PROGRAMS REDUCING NUMBER OF HOMELESS Increases in rental assistance and legal services, as well as reductions in evictions helped keep down the number of homeless people in shelters, the de Blasio administration said. The number of people in shelters is about 60,000, where about 67,000 would have been expected without the programs and other measures, a release from the administration said. Homelessness has become a persistent problem in the city, growing about 115 percent since the mid-1990s, the mayor’s office said. A shelter census at that time put the number of homeless at just under 24,000. A similar count in 2002 put the number at about 31,000. A spurt in the number of homeless happened in 2011, when a rental assistance program was discontinued, according to the release. Homeless people increased by more than 5,000 each year after that, growing from 37,572 to 54,835 in 2014. “We said five months ago when we announced the results of the 90-day review of homeless services that it would take time to reverse 20 years of policies and that the number of people in shelter might continue to grow. Our current programs have substantially slowed the rate of growth in homelessness,” the commissioner of the Department of Social Services, Steven Banks, said.
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AUTONOMOUS: SELFDRIVING CARS ON THE WAY The vehicles, expected everywhere within a generation, will require infrastructure modifications, new regulations BY MICAH DANNEY
Self-driving vehicles will roam New York City’s streets within a few decades, marking the beginning of a sea change that will require major modifications to the city’s infrastructure, according to transportation experts who addressed a forum on the topic earlier this week. The technology has advanced rapidly
A self-driving Audi A7 on display outside the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building earlier this week attracted passers-by, who gazed at the tangle of electrical wires in its trunk. Photo: Micah Danney
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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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