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WEEK OF NOVEMBER CONTEMPLATING THE DIVINE ◄P.12
23-29 2017
OUTREACH CAMPAIGN SEEKS 9/11 VICTIMS HEALTH Officials push to identify people who were at or near ground zero and might be eligible for assistance BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
A weekend street scene outside the Westside Market on Broadway just south of 77th Street, which has been its home since 1979. The supermarket’s lease with the parent company of the Hotel Belleclaire, its landlord, expires on November 30. Photo: Douglas Feiden
FOUR OPENINGS AND A FUNERAL SHOPPING The 38-year-old Westside Market is leaving its cozy if cramped space on Broadway and 77th Street, but the grocer plans to open four new Manhattan stores BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
The Westside Market on Broadway off West 77th Street has offered up its roasted turkey dinner with gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and holiday pie on every Thanksgiving since it first set up shop in 1979. That tradition ends this year. Upper West Siders will have until 10 p.m. on Thursday, November 23 to pick up the repast — and not a min-
ute more. That sentence is sure to horrify the culinary cognoscenti because for 38 years, the family-owned supermarket maintained 24-7 hours. But now, it is selling off stock, slowly emptying shelves, curtailing hours and winding down operations. A proud fixture on the ground floor of the Hotel Belleclaire since Ed Koch’s first term as mayor, the grocer will close its doors for good on November 30. That’s the day its lease expires. And since it couldn’t come to terms on a lease-renewal deal with its landlord, Triumph Hotels, which owns the Belleclaire and six other Manhattan hotel properties, the market will be vacating the premises, said Ian Joskowitz, its chief operating officer.
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Alexandra Jorge was on her way to class at Pace University on the 7 train when the first plane hit the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001. As the day’s events unfolded, Jorge, then a senior studying applied psychology, took shelter on campus with other students before making her way back to Queens via the 59th Street Bridge hours after the towers fell. When classes at Pace resumed in the weeks following the attack, things had hardly returned to normalcy. “The scene was horrific,” Jorge said. “As soon as you came out of the subway station you’d see the dust and debris and what was left of the charred buildings.” Even inside school buildings, she said, “it smelled like jet fuel.” Jorge recalls students petitioning the dean at Pace to replace air filters on campus. “The air quality was just horrible after 9/11,” she said. A few years later, Jorge, then living in California and pursuing a graduate degree, visited the doctor for a routine checkup, which revealed a tumor on her lymph nodes. At 28 years old, she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. “I was pretty much devastated,” she said. Surgeries and other treatment controlled the cancer, but Jorge will have to take medication for the rest of her life. Several years after her diagnosis, Jorge received an email from a Pace alumni group detailing health ben-
efits and compensation available to people who lived, worked, volunteered or went to school near the World Trade Center in the months following the attack and later developed illnesses linked to toxins released at the site. Thyroid cancer was on the list of covered conditions. “That’s when it dawned on me,” she said. “It was like, ‘Oh my god. This is why I got sick.’” Jorge is one of roughly 80,000 enrollees in the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides health screenings and treatment to first responders and others who were at ground zero on September 11, 2001 or during the weeks and months that followed. The program, established by Congressional legislation known as the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, provides assistance to those with conditions linked to exposure to asbestos, benzene, chromium, lead and other carcinogens released into the air after the towers collapsed. Attorney Michael Barasch represented James Zadroga, the NYPD detective who worked at the site and later died of pulmonary fibrosis and for whom the federal legislation was named, as well as over 10,000 others affected by the attacks. “Most people think that the Zadroga Act is exclusively for first responders,” Barasch said, noting that though the majority of enrollees are emergency responders and cleanup workers, the program is also open to others. Along with local elected officials, union representatives and community leaders, Barasch is now participating in a new outreach push to identify students, teachers and others who lived or worked in Lower Manhattan who may qualify for federal assistance. Barasch said that over 400,000 peoDowntowner
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WEEK OF APRIL
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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 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 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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Alexandra Jorge, who was an undergraduate at Pace University on 9/11, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at the age of 28. Photo: Alexandra Jorge ple in total were exposed, and urged anyone who was near ground zero to register for the health program. “You have nothing to lose,” he said. “You get free annual medical monitoring.” Word-of-mouth and social media are the most effective means for contacting eligible survivors, Barasch said, particularly to inform retired teachers and students who have left the city. “It’s a national tragedy,” he said. “It’s affected people who now live all over the country.” Jorge, now 37 and living in Los Angeles, is a cancer researcher at UCLA, studying how breast cancer patients adjust to their diagnosis and cope with depression. The World Trade Center Health Program covers the copayment for her thyroid medication. “I’m glad to share my story to raise awareness for others who have gotten sick and should be receiving some sort of treatment or assistance or be getting surveillance for symptoms,” she said.
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