The local paper for Downtown THE STRENGTH AND WISDOM OF WOMEN ◄CITY ARTS, P.12
WEEK OF MARCH
12-18 12-18 2020
INSIDE
‘FIRST’ LADIES OF MANHATTAN HISTORY
ALL ABOUT THE KETO DIET
In honor of Women’s History Month, Straus News salutes women whose paths to posterity passed through city neighborhoods. First two profiles in a series
Research shows that how fast you walk is linked to well-being. p.2
BY JENNIFER DOHERTY
Emma Stebbins: Creator of Central Park's "Angel" “She's my favorite angel,” the character Prior tells the audience in the final scene of Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.” “I like them best when they're statuary … They are made of the heaviest things on earth, stone and iron, they weigh tons but they're winged, they are engines and instruments of flight.” The statue the character so admires is “Angel of the Waters,” the centerpiece of the Bethesda Fountta a at Central Park’s Bethesda tain T Terrace. The 8-foot-tall bronze spirit overlooking the lake was sculpted by Emma Stebbins, the first woman artist to receive a commission from the city of N York. New The irony of rendering an angel’s ethereal beauty in heavy metal that Kushner highlighted on stage was just one of the contradictions Stebbins was tasked with reconciling as she created the piece. For starters, there was Central Park arch chitect Calvert Vaux’s gran-
CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 C “Angel of the Waters,“ Bethesda Fountain. Photo courtesy of Central Park Conservancy
Mayor Bill de Blasio demonstrates an “elbow shake” and hands out fliers regarding COVID-19 preparedness in Union Square on Monday, March 9, 2020. Photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
LIFE DURING CORONAVIRUS TIME PUBLIC HEALTH
School closings, sanitizer shortages, empty shelves, Wall Street shocks and an everlonger list of cases BY EMILY HIGGINBOTHAM
In the narrow aisles of Joseph’s Pharmacy on the Upper West Side, customers scoured the shelves for anything they
could find to kill the coronavirus. “Disinfectant wipes?” one woman asked an employee. “We’re out,” the cashier said. Another woman asked where she could find the hand sanitizer. The worker grabbed a bottle for her from behind the counter, where they were keeping their limited supply. “Can I have two?” the customer asked. “Only one per customer,” he
responded. “One is for me, and one is for her,” she said, pointing to her companion. The worker wagged his finger and smiled at her. “I don’t think so,” he said. Yet another customer, Naomi Nomikos, had walked into the pharmacy undeterred by the anxiety around her. She had read in the New York Times
CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
THE REDEMPTION OF DAVE ROSENSTEIN From heroin addiction to a life of helping others. p. 9
TROUBLE FOR THE TOY INDUSTRY Coronavirus threatens to delay seasonal product launches. p. 16
NOT ONE OF THE BOYS A new memoir conjures up the bad old days "In the Land of Men." p. 8
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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 a lay point of view,” lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders separate a in and then, how he arrived his decision, detailing Visitors to the blog at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want unthey whether really 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 indiArbitration Man, 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 actions the owners, policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s quantitative give us the first with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step problem. the xing fi of deformality for To really make a difference, process is a mere complete their will have to to are the work course, the advocaterising rents, precinct, but chances-- thanks to a velopers looking 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 lives on who problem. Angelo, vexing most said Mildred construction permits gauge what Buildings one of the Ruppert 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 on the Over the past 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 Every New Yorker clang, tion Act tangible signs go as they please. work between early, and some come metal-on-metal can construction any small sound: the or on the weekend, have no respect.” the piercing of progress. For many can’t come p.m. and 7 a.m., the hollow boom, issuance of these business owners, that moving in reverse. as after-hours. The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you 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
Newscheck
for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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