The local paper for Downtown wn
WEEK OF NOVEMBER
15-21
TINTORETTO IN FOCUS ◄ P.12
2018
GOOGLE TO EXPAND WEST SIDE DOMAIN BUSINESS
GOOGLE’S GROWING MANHATTAN FOOTPRINT
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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ILLUSTRATION: CHRISTINA SCOTTI
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Street at the intersection of Fifth and Broadway. I had been in that building countless times, even in the corner offices known as “point” offices. Those coveted spaces look directly uptown, right up Fifth Avenue at the Empire State Building some ten blocks away. The Flatiron was completed in 1902, and at the time was the tallest building in New York. One can only imagine the view from the “point” offices some thirty
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The traffic was lighter than I expected as I headed west on Southern State Parkway towards Queens and Brooklyn. Continuing west through Sunnyside and Long Island City, I drove up and onto the 59th Street bridge. Off the bridge and into Manhattan, I headed downtown on Second Avenue. Right on 29th Street and then left on Fifth Avenue, and there she was ... the Flatiron Building looking right at me from its perch on 23rd
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BY HARMON RANGELL
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111 Eighth Ave. Google began leasing offices in 2006, then purchased the building for $1.8 billion in 2010 Chelsea Market After leasing space at the building for over 10 years, Google bought it for $2.4 billion in March 2018 85 Tenth Ave. Google has been a tenant since 2014 Pier 57 Google will be an anchor tenant at the redeveloped pier, which is expected to open in late 2019 St. John’s Terminal Google will reportedly expand to the development, which is projected to be completed in 2022
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What a place [the Chelsea Hotel] was. Artists, writers, musicians. Arthur Miller lived there. “Look Homeward Angel,” “Naked Lunch,” “2001: A Space Odyssey” ... those and so many more great works were penned within its walls.
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A longtime shop owner returns to walk around the illustrious neighborhood where he once worked
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CHELSEA THEN AND NOW
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years later when the Empire State was being built, rising floor by floor to its eventual 102-story height. Continuing, I turned west on 21st Street and then another right on Eighth Avenue. Miraculously, I found a metered parking spot just above 23rd. But the meter gave me only an hour to walk around the neighborhood that had been a second home to me for 34 years.
Last March, after news broke that Google had acquired the Chelsea Market building — a $2.4 billion addition to the tech giant’s massive tract of office space stretching from Eighth Avenue to the Hudson River between 15th and 16th Streets — these pages reported on the “Googlification of Chelsea.” Now, less than eight months later, it appears that Manhattan’s Googlification won’t be limited to a single neighborhood. According to multiple reports, the company plans to again expand its already sizeable West Side footprint — this time along the Hudson River at Houston Street. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Google plans to lease or buy 1.3 million square feet of office space in the redeveloped St. John’s Terminal building. The former rail depot, a massive three-story structure stretching several blocks along West Street, is being overhauled and expanded into a 12-story commercial development by Oxford Properties Group.
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BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
Harmon Rangell walking out of his former shop in Chelsea in the 1960s. The reflection in the window is of the facade of St. Vincent de Paul church directly across the street. Photo courtesy of Harmon Rangell
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Tech company will reportedly move into St. John’s Terminal upon completion of redevelopment project
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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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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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