The local paper for Downtown wn TUNING IN FOR THE HOLIDAYS < P. 12
WEEK OF DECEMBER
8-14 2016
THE 16 MOST DANGEROUS INTERSECTIONS IN MANHATTAN Vehicular accidents and close calls: life near the most perilous streets BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
On Monday morning, car horns blared as vehicles of all sizes vied for space at East 59th Street and Second Avenue, the second most dangerous intersection in the city. The Roosevelt Island Tramway ferried passengers over the heads of the many pedestrians on the ground, including Aaron Fisher, a street cleaner for the East Midtown Partnership. Fisher was not at all surprised to hear that the site topped the list of Manhattan’s most dangerous intersections and came in second in the city. “I see accidents all the time,” he said. According to data analyzed last spring by CUNY Baruch student Aleksey Bilogur, Manhattan contains 16 of the city’s 25 most dangerous intersections. With an average of 150 vehicular collisions per year, East 59th and Second Avenue comes in first in Manhattan, followed by 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue with 140, then the Bowery and Kenmare Street at 115. But Bilogur added that the safety of certain intersections can be difficult to measure. “Even in what one would term ‘unsafe’ intersections, the actual incident level of accidents is very low,” he said. “The problem that the [Department of Transportation] has been facing for much longer than this one administrative cycle is that you don’t really know how safe or unsafe an intersection is until you’ve seen years and years of data accumulate.” The data Bilogur used came from the city’s OpenData portal, which houses thousands of documents and files from all government agencies, but only goes as far back as 2012. A bundle of pedestrian and cyclist safety bills are making their way through the City Council right now to address some of the challenges pedestrians and cyclists face on city streets. One requests a Department of Transportation (DOT) study on using the Barnes Dance crossing method, where all traffic lights turn red at the same time and pedestrians can walk diagonally through the intersection. According to the DOT’s Manhattan action
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View the interactive map by reading this article online at otdowntown.com.
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Collisions Average Per Year
7
5
2
12 10
4
16 6
1 9 13
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8 3
1
2nd Ave. & E. 59th St. 1150
2
42nd St. & 8th Ave. 140
3
The Bowery & Kenmare St.
115
4
57th St. & 3rd Ave.
110
5
42nd St. & 9th Ave. 110
6
34th St. & 7th Ave.
110
Rob Stephenson, “Spring Street and Greene Street, SoHo, Manhattan,” 2016. Courtesy of the photographer/Museum of the City of New York.
A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH HEIGHT
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W. 40th St. & 11th Ave. 1100
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The Bowery & Houston St.
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2nd Ave. & E. 36th St. 1100
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W. 42nd St. & 7th Ave. 1100
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1st Ave. & E. 96th St. 1100
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3rd Ave. & E. 59th St. 95
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E. 34th St. & 2nd Ave. 90
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W. 42nd St. & 6th Ave. 90
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E. 125th St. & 2nd Ave. 90
Since the adoption of the city’s first zoning resolution in 100 years ago, the skyline has seen many grand buildings designed, proposed and, in some cases, built, with heights rising taller and taller. As of last fall, there were 22 “supertall” towers topping 984 feet in Manhattan, mostly concentrated in the midtown area. This Thursday, Dec. 8, the Museum of the City of New York will examine the subject as part of a lecture series that parallels its “Mastering the Metropolis: New York and Zoning, 1916-2016” exhibit.
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W. 34th St. & 8th Ave. 90
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Surveying the skyline: lecture series will address zoning in the city BY MADELEINE THOMPSON
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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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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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