The local paper for Downtown wn BEHIND THE SURFACE: WARHOL AT THE WHITNEY
WEEK OF DECEMBER
◄ P. 12
13-19 2018
TRIBECA’S P.S. 150 DODGES EVICTION SCHOOLS School to remain in Independence Plaza until 2022 BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
P.S. 150 students and parents held a rally Nov. 13 to plea for their school to remain in its current home at Independence Plaza. Photo: Michael Garofalo
P.S. 150 will still be moving, but not quite as soon as expected. City official have reached a deal with P.S. 150’s landlord to extend the Tribeca elementary school’s expiring lease, keeping the school in its longtime home at Tribeca’s Independence Plaza apartment until 2022. The news comes just weeks after
This is a big win for these kids and parents.” Statement from Mayor Bill de Blasio
P.S. 150 students, parents and staff received notification that the school would be relocated after the current school year due to the city’s inability to reach a new lease agreement with Independence Plaza owners Stellar
Management and Vornado Realty Trust. Stellar and Vornado plan to eventually use the space now occupied by the school for new apartments and amenities for residents. The deal will allow P.S. 150’s roughly 180 students to remain in place until 2022, when they will move to a new school to be housed in a luxury condominium tower now under construction at 28-42 Trinity Place. Plans previously called for P.S. 150 to be temporarily relocated to the Peck Slip School next year, then moved again to the Trinity Place school in 2022.
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TERRITORIAL DISPUTE OVER CLEANUP PROGRAM STREETS Doe Fund protests UES sidewalkcleaning funds allocated to another reentry nonprofit BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
By their very nature, press conferences regarding City Council expense funding allocations are generally rather staid affairs. But a Dec. 5 announcement on public funding to tidy Upper East Side sidewalks turned into a raucous standoff between the cleanup crews of two nonprofits that each help formerly homeless and incarcerated individuals reenter the workforce through street cleaning jobs. Next to a litter-strewn tree bed on the East 86th Street sidewalk, the workers of Wildcat Service Corporation — clad in neon green vests, pushing wheeled garbage cans and bearing implements of trash collection — had gathered to celebrate $85,000
We can’t give money to someone who doesn’t apply for it.” Council Member Ben Kallos in funding allocated to the organization by local Council Member Ben Kallos to clean a number of “problem areas” in the neighborhood. Then, loudly approaching from the direction of Third Avenue, came the men of the Doe Fund’s street cleanup program in their signature blue uniforms, chanting, “Ready, Willing, Able — Doe Fund for life!” The advancing Doe Fund lines were met with a retaliatory chorus as two sides met near the entrance to Shake Shack: “We are the Wildcats, the mighty, mighty Wildcats.” “Doe Fund for life!” Several minutes of back-and-forth
shouting later, the planned press conference ensued. Kallos explained that as part of a pilot program, Wildcat would deploy a four-person cleanup crew to the Upper East Side four days each week to empty trash cans, clean tree pits and gutters, and sweep sidewalks and bike islands. The Wildcat crew will focus on major cross streets, Kallos said, including 57th, 72nd, 79th, 86th and 96th Streets, and will also experiment with servicing certain sections of First, Second, Third and Lexington Avenues. “Business owners and residential buildings are responsible for cleaning in front of their buildings,” Kallos said. “That being said, as New Yorkers, we all walk past that piece of litter that we see day in and day out, and we wonder why no one is doing anything about it. I’m hoping that by bringing in Wildcat we’ll actually get to it.” Wildcat, formed in New York City in 1972, provides cleanup services in 25
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The “Men in Blue” of the Doe Fund’s Ready Willing & Able transitional work program protested the announcement of funding awarded to another nonprofit, Wildcat Service Corporation, to provide street cleaning services on the Upper East Side. Photo: Michael Garofalo Downtowner
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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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