The local paper for Downtown ntown BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
◄ CITY ARTS, P.12
AFTER THE SLAUGHTER
WEEK OF OCTOBER
10-16 2019 INSIDE
CRIME
A decade of massive public policy failures came to light in the wake of the bloodbath on the Bowery. Now, City Hall is under fire for the signs it missed amid barbed questions about the steps it should take next. Mayor Bill de Blasio with NYC Census Director Julie Menin on September 25, 2019. Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.
‘WE’RE GOING TO GET COUNTED’ GOVERNMENT NYC officials launch outreach initiatives to counter public anxiety over the census BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM
Although the Supreme Court blocked the Trump administration in June from adding a question asking the citizenship status of every person living in each household of the United States, New York City officials fear that the question has already had its intended effect: to intimidate immigrants so that they do not
fill out the census. “We still have to undue the damage that the Trump administration wrought by the mere specter of trying to unlawfully add a citizenship question,” said Julie Menin, the director in charge of the city’s census. “The problem is that while we won this case in the Supreme Court and it was a resounding legal victory the president continued to sow fear and disinformation as they always do around so many different issues.” Much of the public is not aware that the question has
CONTINUED ON PAGE 9
NEW WAYS OF PAINTING AND SEEING
BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
An exhibit of Amy Sherald’s portraits offers history changing art. p. 13
Manhattanites don’t shock easily. They’re well aware that big-city life is often punctuated with trauma and peril and pain. But few horrors lingering in the collective consciousness can compare to the events this weekend on a Chinatown sidewalk. As they slept on makeshift cardboard bedding, four homeless men, one aged 83, were bludgeoned to death and a fifth was critically injured. The 24-year-old killer, also homeless, had bashed in their skulls with a rusty, 15-pound, three-foot-long metal bar, police said. When he was nabbed a few blocks away, the murder weapon, caked in fresh blood, covered with human hair, was still slung over his shoulder. Randy Rodriguez Santos – habitué of shelters, abandoned buildings and jail cells, drug addict feared by his own mother, mentally unhinged
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
TURNING DOWN THE HEAT OF INFLAMMATION
How diet can help control the damage to joints, hearts and lungs. p. 5
UWS SHELTER BATTLE ESCALATES Elected officials join angry residents to protest a decision by the Department of Human Services. p. 7
DEALING WITH DAMAGED DELIVERIES It’s great when that thing you really want is brought right to your door. Unless, of course, it’s broken. p. 16
Photo: David Noonan Downtowner
OurTownDowntown
O OTDOWNTOWN.COM @OTDowntown
Crime Watch Voices NYC Now City Arts
3 8 10 12
Restaurant Ratings 14 Business 16 Real Estate 17 15 Minutes 21
SPRING ARTS PREVIEW
WEEK OF APRIL
< 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 a lay point of view,” lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders separate a in and then, how he arrived his decision, detailing Visitors to the blog at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want unthey whether really 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 indiArbitration Man, suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
9-16
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 actions the owners, policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s quantitative give us the first with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step problem. the xing fi of deformality for To really make a difference, process is a mere complete their will have to to are the work course, the advocaterising rents, precinct, but chances-- thanks to a velopers looking 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 lives on who problem. Angelo, vexing most said Mildred construction permits gauge what Buildings one of the Ruppert 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 on the Over the past 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 Every New Yorker clang, tion Act tangible signs go as they please. work between early, and some come metal-on-metal can construction any small sound: the or on the weekend, have no respect.” the piercing of progress. For many can’t come p.m. and 7 a.m., the hollow boom, issuance of these business owners, that moving in reverse. as after-hours. The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you 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
Newscheck
for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
2
City Arts
12 13
CONTINUED ON PAGE
25
We deliver! Get Our Town Downtowner sent directly to your mailbox for $49 per year. Go to OTDowntown.com or call 212-868-0190