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< Q&A, P.21
2016
A BATTLE OVER HOMELESS CAMPS NEWS
THE YEAR DOWNTOWN FULLY CAME BACK
Three people sue over city efforts to get them off the streets
STORIES TO WATCH IN 2016
BY COLLEEN LONG AND WILLIAM MATHIS
As members of the city’s new homeless outreach team fanned out in a campaign to persuade people to leave the streets, three homeless New Yorkers filed paperwork to sue over an unrelated effort to remove them, saying police wrongly tossed identifying documents and family photos into a dump truck. Jesus Morales and two others say they were sleeping in an encampment outside a school in Manhattan at about 5 a.m. on Oct. 2 when police and a sanitation crew arrived, woke them, told them they had to move and tossed their stuff, including a birth certificate and Social Security cards. Some said they were kicked and shoved by the officers. “They grabbed my clothes and threw it all in the garbage truck,” Morales, 42, said in Spanish at a news conference, attended by about a dozen homeless New Yorkers, to announce notice of the claim. Morales said he’s been homeless nearly 16 years. “I can’t even afford a room,” he said. “We are many, and we don’t have money to live here.” The notice of claim, the first step in filing a lawsuit against the city, was prepared by the New York Civil Liberties Union after they obtained security footage of the night through a Freedom of Information Law request. Attorney Alexis Karteron said their
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Recovery in the financial district has been so complete that concerns are now shifting to what to do with all the people BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
In ticking off all of the improvements seen in the financial district this year, Jessica Lappin, president of the Alliance for Downtown New York, was confident that 2015 was a banner year for the neighborhood. Lappin said Lower Manhattan as a whole, since the attacks of 9/11, a recession in 2008 and the devastating Hurricane Sandy in 2012, has now fully recovered. “2015 was a big year for us,” she said, before highlighted the openings of the Fulton Street transit hub, Brookfield Place and Hudson Eats as three major new draws in the financial district. “The rejuvenation of lower Broadway, and generally speaking the barricades and walls starting to come down around the World Trade Center site, I think there were quite a few really big moments for us this year, and looking ahead, 2016 is going to be even better,” she said. Next year will see the opening of the mall at Westfield World Trade Center, Saks Fifth Avenue at Brookfield Place and the retail portion of the Fulton Center, she said. Other highlights to come in 2016 are restaurant openings by Tom Colicchio
and Keith McNally at The Beekman, and Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant at the Four Seasons downtown. “Those are three household names in terms of chefs,” said Lappin, who was a council member on the Upper East Side before taking over at the alliance. “Those will be big openings. In terms of places to go to eat and shop, there’s going to be some really great and exciting options that aren’t here today but will be here a year from now.” Lappin said the neighborhood’s recovery was due to the people who, instead of retreating out of fear after 9/11, decided to rebuild the financial district. “It says a lot about the people who work here and live here, and really it’s about the American spirit of people not only not giving up but dou-
bling down their effort to come back and to not be cowed, to push ahead,” she said. One of those people was Marco Pasanella, who in 2002 opened Pasanella and Son Vintners on South Street at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. “We’ve been down here for a bunch of changes,” said Pasanella, who has lived above the wine shop with his wife since 2003. “Of course there were bumps in the road - the recession, the [Fulton Fish Market] leaving, Hurricane Sandy, but now we’re back.” Pasanella, who lived in the Meatpacking District with his wife before moving to the Seaport, said he decided to open a small business in the
Our Take THE STATE OF THE CHAINS And finally, some good news on the development front to ease out 2015. The Center for An Urban Future, in its eighth annual ranking on chain stores in the city, reports that growth in national chains slowed considerably over last year -- and that growth in established neighborhoods like the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, and some parts of lower Manhaattan dropped sharply. For neighborhoods moaning the loss of mom and pop stores and restaurants -- and neighbors worried about the fraying fabric of where they live -- this is only good news. Maybe people’s buying habits are finally starting to come back to the little guys. A couple of caveats are in order: the report focuses on slowing growth of the chains -- not an overall decline in their number. According to the data, chain store locations in the city grew by 1 percent in 2015, to 7,550 stores. The previous year, the growth was 2.5 percent; this year’s rise is lower than all previous years except 2013. The other insight worth noting is that while chain store growth is slowing in gentrified neighborhoods in Manhattan, it’s surging elsewhere, particularly in the outer boroughs. But let’s not quibble. It’s been a rough year on the development front, with more megatowers going up, neighborhood institutions going down, affordable apartments making way for luxury. City officials seem unwilling, or unable, to take it on. We’ll take the chain-story survey as a good omen.
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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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