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WEAVING METAPHORS ◄ P.12
2017
Anti-Trump protesters wore eye-catching costumes in response to Trump’s visit to the Intrepid in May. Photo: Michael Garofalo
Joseph Reginella in Battery Park, next to his monument to the “the biggest land mammal tragedy in the nation.” Photo: Mihika Agarwal
A CIRCUS UNLIKE ANY OTHER PUBLIC ART History of fateful day in 1929 gets an alternative account BY MIHIKA AGARWAL
Not many recall that somber autumn morning, 88 years ago, when a trio of African elephants, bound for the circus, trampled tens of innocent pedestrians on the Brooklyn Bridge: The tragedy would be dwarfed by the Great Crash of October 29, 1929, which occurred the same day. The elephants, among them their star, Jumbo, were, on that doubly fateful day, being led across the bridge, a tradition inaugurated some 45 years before by P.T. Barnum as a way to demonstrate the span’s stur-
diness. But that morning, someone or something disquieted Jumbo, and the parade of pachyderms panicked. Some of the massacred were crushed under the elephants’ pillarlike limbs; others impaled by colossal tusks; and several done to death by jumping 300 feet into the depths of the East River. Ruffles the Clown, a popular circus figure, was among the casualties, as were several newspaper writers. The stampede, which would come to be known as “the biggest land mammal tragedy in the nation,” was recently commemorated by a 6-foottall monument that documents, unvarnished, that darkest of dark days on the bridge. Except that all of it — the account
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THE POLITICS OF HALLOWEEN HOLIDAYS Since Trump’s election, costumes have become both a form of provocation and protest. So how will dressing up play out on the one night when everyone is in disguise? BY ALIZAH SALARIO
Every year, a frightening character comes to the legendary Village Halloween Parade and chats up Jeanne Fleming, the parade’s artistic director. Fleming, who loves the creativity of Halloween but not the gore, long dreaded her annual exchange with the strange man in the graphic blood-andguts costume. Then she found out his identity: Calvin Trillin, the esteemed journalist and New Yorker contributor. “When you spend a few hours being something other than who you are, you learn something about yourself,”
says Fleming. “It enters into your consciousness, and you learn how people begin to treat you if you’re something different than who you are everyday.” A 37-year veteran of the parade, Fleming is familiar with how costumes — and what they reveal about a person — have a potent ability to both inspire and unsettle. Ongoing conversations about costumes and cultural appropriation make this exceedingly apparent; for instance, white people wearing sombreros and ponchos to “dress up” as Mexicans tap into fraught issues around identity, power, representation and belonging. But costumes can communicate more than cultural identity — and aren’t just for Halloween. Though protesters have long used props and worn costumes to amplify their message, contemporary demonstrators have taken the costume-as-commentary approach to a new level since Trump’s inauguration in January. In May, when Downtowner
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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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Trump made his first trip to New York after his inauguration for an event at the Intrepid, protesters dressing as the commander in chief, characters from “Star Wars,” and myriad other creative incarnations filled the streets. From women channeling the Statue of Liberty to call out President Trump’s immigration policies to protestors outside of Trump Tower wearing white hoods and carrying signs that read “Make America Hate Again,” costumes have repeatedly been employed as a form of resistance. It’s no surprise, then, that current costumes play off of political tensions. Party City, a supply and costume store, is shilling an “Adult Wall” costume, featuring bricks and the words “the wall” plastered on the front. The costume does not explicitly mention politics or the president, but on social media, users have denounced it
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