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WEEK OF OCTOBER EYEWITNESS IN PUERTO RICO ◄ P.2
12-18 2017
Christopher Marte, the runner-up in the Democratic primary for Council District 1, announced his intention to run against incumbent Council Member Margaret Chin in the general election on the Independence Party line at an October 5 rally outside City Hall. Photo: Michael Garofalo
The Whitney Museum and Gansevoort Peninsula, the proposed site of the sculpture, as seen from the south. Photo: Michael Garofalo
WHITNEY PITCHES GANSEVOORT PENINSULA INSTALLATION MUSEUMS Proposed sculpture evokes waterfront’s past BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
The area now known as Gansevoort Peninsula, a strip of land that juts into the Hudson River near 13th Street, has been a location of significance on the Manhattan waterfront for about as long as humans have inhabited the island. Lenape settled the area and harvested oysters and lobsters from the estuary’s rich waters. Later, Fort Gansevoort was built at the site to defend the Hudson during the War of 1812. Bustling piers serviced the produce markets and meatpacking plants lin-
ing the neighborhood’s Belgian block streets during the commercial booms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but by the 1970s post-industrial decay had taken hold. Artists in search of cheap studio space moved into the neighborhood, and the piers, then largely abandoned, emerged as gathering places for the local gay community. The Meatpacking District as it is today, with its droves of tourists flocking to trendy boutiques and hotels, anchored by the High Line and the new home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, was scarcely imaginable. The waterfront’s bygone days are invoked in the conceptual and literal framework of “Day’s End,” a major public artwork by the artist David
Hammons that the Whitney hopes to build on the banks of the Hudson. Hammons’ proposed sculpture, formally unveiled October 4, is an ethereal representation of the past that Adam Weinberg, the museum’s director, described as “a kind of ghost monument.” Plans for “Day’s End,” a spare steel structure that would stand mostly over the water on the southern side of the Gansevoort Peninsula, opposite the museum, were presented to the public for the first time at a meeting of Community Board 2’s Park and Waterfront Committee hosted by the museum.
CHIN TO FACE MARTE AGAIN IN NOVEMBER POLITICS Primary challenger Marte gets a second chance against incumbent council member due to “a total fluke” BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Christopher Marte fell agonizingly short in his insurgent campaign to unseat incumbent City Council Member Margaret Chin in last month’s Democratic primary for the District 1 council seat. Election night results were close enough to necessitate the counting of absentee and affidavit ballots; the final vote count, tallied by
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hand one week after Primary Day, ended with Chin in the lead by 222 votes — a margin of less than two percentage points. Marte’s surprisingly competitive campaign appeared to have reached its end with his failure to secure the Democratic nomination, but due to a chance outcome in a third-party primary, Marte’s bid will now continue into November. “We did fall 200 votes short, but we were given a miracle of an opportunity,” Marte said at an October 5 press conference outside City Hall announcing his intention to forge ahead in the general election on the Independence Party line —
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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 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 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.” can’t come p.m. and 7 a.m., 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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