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WEEK OF DECEMBER - JANUARY BLACK DESIGNERS GET THEIR DUE < P. 12
29-4 2017
139 Centre Street recently received backing from Community Board 1 for a historic landmark designation. Photo: Rui Miao
HISTORIC DOWNTOWN BUILDING’S FATE UP IN THE AIR Plans for the former Excelsior on Centre Street called for a 60-story tower, but some want affordable housing BY RUI MIAO
Two side-by-side buildings in Tribeca may be split by fate. A privately-owned 9-story building at 139 Centre Street, built by Schwartz and Gross in 1911, is a step closer to becoming a historic landmark following Community Board 1’s unanimous backing for the designation earlier this month. The future of the adjacent 137 Centre Street, also a 1911 Schwartz and Gross and originally known as the Excelsior Building, isn’t near that certain. After a failed attempt to encourage CB 1’s Landmark Committee to also re-evaluate that building, preservation groups, Tribeca Trust foremost among them, are concerned that the city-owned building is going to be sold and developed into a luxury condo that would shadow over the neighborhood. “This building is a historic asset, it anchors a key part of Tribeca east,” said
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The Hudson River as seen from the One World Observatory. State authorities want the federal Environmental Protection Agency to sample and test for toxins in the portion of the waterway that courses through the city. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
STATE, FEDS BICKER ABOUT HUDSON’S HEALTH 14 months after General Electric’s cleanup concluded, questions remain about toxins in the waterway BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
How healthy is the Hudson River? Just over a year after General Electric completed a mandated cleanup of a 40-mile stretch of the Upper Hudson River, state and federal officials are at odds about how much more test-
Agency says sampling data is sufficient. The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation last week said that data shows that PCBs unloaded hundreds of miles upstream at two GE plants had materialized in the Lower Hudson. In a strongly worded letter sent to the EPA’s regional administrator earlier this month, the DEC’s commissioner, Basil Seggos, said GE’s six-year remediation project was insufficient.
ing, if any, is needed to ensure the waterway is returning to health, decades after the company dumped more than 1 million pounds of toxins into the waterway. State authorities want federal administrators to expand an evaluation of the Hudson River, particularly into the portion of the waterway that courses through New York City. Ahead of a 5-year review of the river’s health due early in 2017, the federal Environmental Protection
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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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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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He called on the EPA to defer any conclusion that the cleanup is protective of human health and the environment. “Before a protectiveness determination can be achieved, EPA must require General Electric (GE) to conduct additional expedited investigations, sampling, and any necessary remedial work,” Seggos wrote to the administrator, Judith Enck. Seggos was especially critical
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