The local paper for Downtown
2019
BUILD ING SERVICE WORKER
AWAR DS
BSW AWARDS 2019 ◄ P.11
KALLOS OUTLINES HIS BP PLATFORM POLITICS
WEEK OF NOVEMBER
7-13 2019
INSIDE
SAAR’S MYSTICAL MOMENTS AT MOMA Spotlight on a groundbreaking African American artist. p. 39
As he enters race, UES council member discusses plans Brian Bannon, the Merryl and James Tisch Director of the NYPL. Photo: Jonathan Blanc / NYPL
NOT YOUR GRANDFATHER’S LIBRARIAN COMMUNITY The new director of the New York Public Library is focused on education and innovation - and visiting all the branches BY LEIDA SNOW
Man in a hurry: Brian Bannon has only been on the job for a few weeks, but the new director of the New
York Public Library (NYPL) has already been to more than half of the Library’s 88 branches. Bannon had a long relationship with New York as visitor; now, as he settles in as a resident, he said his first priority “is to visit all of the Library’s branches” in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island. “The best way to learn a city is through its
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BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM
Upper East Side Council Member Ben Kallos officially kicked off his campaign last week to become the next borough president of Manhattan, running on a platform of anticorruption and community empowerment. “We have a proven model of success. When the community is supported by their local Council member and borough president, we have been able to accomplish things people thought was impossible,” Kallos, 38, said in an interview with Our Town. The Democrat is the first person to officially announce their candidacy in the race to succeed term-limited BP Gale Brewer. Councilman Mark Levine (D-Morning Side Heights-Hamilton Heights) and Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-WF/Manhattan) have been noted as potential candidates.
JOINT PAIN AND WINTER DON’T MIX
Advice about rheumatoid arthritis. p. 2
Council Member Ben Kallos. Photo courtesy of NYC Council photographer William Alatriste
Kallos said he wants to continue the work he started on the Council, which he notes has included adding a thousand pre-kindergarten seats to his district, securing $200 million for parks and cleaning up the streets of the Upper East Side by adding green trashcans on every corner. He also pointed to his record on cleaning up the political system. When he first ran in 2013, Kallos rejected dona-
tions from real estate companies and corporations, saying he hoped it would push other members to do the same. Since then, he helped pass legislation to ban outside income for members. Kallos believes his stances on anti-corruption and community empowerment go hand-in-hand. “I’ve always felt like gov-
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NIX ON PAYING FOR PARKING PERMITS
Shouting and debate at CB7 forum. p. 10
$70 MILLION FOR ANIMAL MEDICAL CENTER “Gift of Love" expansion project. p. 43
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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 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
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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 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
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