The local paper for Downtown wn WEEK OF JULY
AUTHOR DRAWS WS INSPIRATION ON FROM OM NEIGHBORS ORS
10
Q&A, P. 17
2014
OTDOWNTOWN.COM
OurTownDowntown @OTDowntown
AN ALTERNATIVE TO ALTERNATE SIDE
In Brief ARTS FUNDING FOR CITY SCHOOLS
NEWS The City Council is proposing changes to alternate side parking rules that could alleviate some of the waiting-around time for car owners
FOR DOG OWNERS, AN URBAN FEAR RETURNS
BY MARY KEKATOS
WEST VILLAGE Rows of cars double-parked, filled with agitated drivers watching the seconds tick by, is a frustratingly familiar sight in the West Village. “People sit and wait in their cars. When they see the cleaning truck they move and come back. Either they’re retired or they have no jobs,” said Patricia Goncalves, who works at the Sweet Corner Bakery on Hudson Street and sees the whole process in action every week. “It’s such a waste of time.” It’s the bane of many a New Yorker’s existence: moving their cars for a 90-minute period while street sweepers come by to clean-up the litter. Often a row of cars can be seen doubleparked on the street as drivers idly and impatiently wait for the hour and a half to end – lest they be issued a $45 ticket. Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D10th), however, is sponsoring a bill that will relax alternate side parking rules. This planned legislation would allow cars to return to parking spaces once the street sweepers have come through, helping cut down the wait time significantly. For many drivers, this is an ideal situation. “Every time the [street sweepers] pass, I say to myself, ‘Just let me park so I can leave’,” said Yonah Zerykier. “[The bill] sounds awesome and would help save so much time.” “Parking in the city is either impossible to find or extremely expensive,” added Keila Torres. “Relaxing the rules would help breed a less stressful environment.” While the bill has more than its fair share of advocates, 39 co-sponsors on the City Council alone, not everybody supports it. Although Mayor de Blasio CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
NEWS Some dog owners are on high alert against potential pet snatchers in their neighborhoods BY MEGAN BUNGEROTH
Resident Peter Falk was walking Moey, a fluffy, friendly mixed breed of poodle, Bichon Frise and shih tzu, around 6 p.m. on June 25. He tied him to a fence briefly and went to chat with construction workers across the street. Minutes later, Moey was gone. His leash had been looped around the pole; there was no way he could have run off on his own, and the Falks say he never tried to bolt from them. Their young son Ethan, and the whole family, is devastated. “I never thought anything like this would happen,” Peter’s wife Yelena said. “Even the officers from the 6th precinct said that it does not happen in the Village.” The “it” Yelena refers to is a spec-
ter that many dog owners in the city fear – pet kidnapping. While it’s almost impossible to tell if dog thefts are on the rise or decline – the NYPD does not specifically track reports of stolen pets – many owners say they are always vigilant, readily sharing horror stories from friendsof-friends who have had the worst befall their pooches. “I’ve lived here over 30 years; I’ve never tied my dog up to go in anywhere,” said Kevin Svetlich, who was walking his dog Elle near the Chelsea Waterside dog run last week. He said that while he hasn’t felt a direct threat, he knows not to leave Elle unattended even for the all-too-common quick run into a coffee shop. He has a friend who once caught a person walking away with his pet greyhound after tying the dog outside a convenience store in the Financial District for less than five minutes. “You can’t trust anyone,” Svetlich said. Seventeen-year-old Elle, a Tibetan terrier who is blind and deaf but still walking on her own, curi-
ous enough to stick out her nose to friendly strangers, might not seem like a dog-napper’s prime target. But people steal dogs for a range of reasons, including to sell them to shady research facilities, flip them to unsuspecting buyers on Craigslist hoping for a discount off pet-store prices, or even to extort the owners in true kidnapping ransom fashion. Sometimes, as in the Falks’ case, predators target those with missing animals, even if they aren’t the ones who stole them in the first place. After papering her neighborhood – and much of Manhattan, including Times Square, Port Authority, Penn Station and the East Village – with flyers pleading for information leading to Moey’s return, she knew that the promise of a reward might draw some false calls and scams. Still, when she got a call last week from a man claiming to have Moey and demanding cash, she willingly sent the man money, even knowing it probably was a ploy. “They said
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Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Scott M. Stringer and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña detailed last week how the city will spend $23 million in additional arts funding for New York City schools. The city will hire 120 new arts teachers at middle and high schools that are underserved, improve arts facilities across the city, and foster exciting partnerships with some of the city’s cultural institutions. “We want every child to feel the spark that comes from learning something they are passionate about. And so often, it’s taking up an instrument, honing an artistic craft, or performing for the first time that helps a young person come into their own for the first time,” said Mayor de Blasio.
PROTESTERS AWARDED $185K OVER 2004 RNC ARRESTS Four people arrested at an anti-war march during the 2004 Republican National Convention have been awarded $185,000 in the first trial stemming from lawsuits over protest arrests surrounding the GOP gathering. Coming about six months after the city reached an $18 million settlement with about 1,800 other RNC protesters, the federal jury verdict caps a lingering chapter in the legal saga that followed the arrests, nearly all of which ended with cases dismissed or defendants acquitted. Jurors awarded the plaintiffs $40,000 each in compensatory damages for being wrongfully arrested, more than what individual protesters got in the settlement, which included about $7 million in attorneys’ fees. The jury also awarded a total of $25,000 in punitive damages against police Deputy Chief Thomas Monahan, who led the response to the march.