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BIG CHALLENGES FOR NEW POLICE BOSS tion on their underlying message: “Safest Big City in America.’’ Appointed last Monday to be the city’s next police commissioner, Shea will soon have the ultimate responsibility for keeping it that way. But serious challenges abound for the soon-to-be leader of the nation’s largest police department. Shea, who succeeds James O’Neill on Dec. 1, will
LAW ENFORCEMENT J.K. Rowling, Maurice Sendak and many other authors have visited Books of Wonder over the years. Photo: Jason Cohen
BOOKS OF WONDER PLAGUED BY DEBT SHOPS Legendary Chelsea bookstore launched a fundraising campaign to help pay for its move to a new location BY JASON COHEN
A fixture in Chelsea for nearly four decades, Books of Wonder is buried in debt and plans to relocate when its 15year lease at 18 West 18th Street runs out at the end of the year. To help finance a move to a new location, owner Peter Glassman launched a GoFundMe effort last month. “I think it’s important that
Dermot Shea will face criminal justice reforms and the planned closing of Rikers BY MICHAEL R. SISAK, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Each month, Dermot Shea sits with other top New York City police officials and the mayor to brief reporters on the latest crime statistics. In
The deck is stacked against him.” Joseph Giacalone, a former NYPD sergeant who now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
front of them, often, is a big, blue sign featuring a varia-
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New York City have a children’s bookstore,” Glassman said. “It would be a crime not to have one.” Glassman had been planning to move when his current lease expires and found a new spot in the Flatiron district, near Eataly and the Rizzoli Bookstore. But to renovate and move will require an investment of $250,000 to $350,000. (He also operates a store on the Upper West Side, at 217 West 84th St., which opened in 2017.) Many might wonder why a store that has been so successful would need to find a
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WEEK OF NOVEMBER
14-20 2019 INSIDE
HONORING BUILDING SERVICE WORKER AWARD WINNERS Friends, family members, employers and local officials turned out in support. p. 9
ROBBIE ROBERTSON HAS HIS SAY
A new documentary about The Band tells the story of the legendary group from the perspective of its songwriter and lead guitarist. p. 13
THE FLOOR IS OPEN
It’s standing room only for slams at the Nuyorican Poets Café. p. 18
THE MUSUEM OF LOST MUSEUMS
Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing that Dermot Shea (right) will be next Commissioner of the New York Police Department, at City Hall on November 4, 2019. Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
Touring a cultural Bizarro World where the words of the MTA graphic designers are written on the subway walls. p. 6
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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
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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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