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BIKE LANE PLAN SPURS OPPOSITION SoHo residents, including some cycling advocates, say DOT proposal could compromise safety BY ALAN KRAWITZ
WEEK OF APRIL
16-22
AT THE FIRST PRECINCT, COMMANDING A MISSION Capt. Mark Iocco comes to a downtown precinct with low crime rates; that’s the hard part.
A proposal for a Spring Street bike lane has met with opposition from some downtown residents, including local cycling advocates who worry about bicyclists’ safety. In a presentation to Community Board 2’s Transportation Committee earlier this month, representatives from the city’s Department of Transportation discussed a plan for a Spring Street bicycle lane that would extend from Washington Street on the far west side to the Bowery and would provide an eastbound cycling connection through SoHo. The committee was unanimously supportive of the proposal and Sean Sweeney, a CB2 member and director of the SoHo Alliance, said it was “very likely” the full board would follow the committee’s recommendations and approve the plan in a vote later this month. At least some residents, however, are skeptical of the DOT plan, with several citing safety concerns for cyclists as well as for pedestrians. “The dissenters cited all the logical reasons why a bike lane on Spring Street is stupid to consider at this time; too much construction for one, no ticketing for bike offenders on sidewalks, the entitlement factor, a billion tourists, etc.,” Darlene Lutz, a SoHo resident who attended the presentation, said in an email to the SoHo Alliance. Sweeney said he received about a dozen emails from SoHo Alliance members, all in opposition.
The newly installed commanding officer of the First Precinct, Capt. Mark Iocco, followed in his father’s footsteps when he became a cop. An Italian immigrant, Iocco’s father first struggled to find work, but labored his way into the New York Police Department. “For some reason they wouldn’t let him be a bus driver,” Iocco said recently. “So he became a cop instead.” The younger Iocco started his career in the NYPD almost 19 years ago, earning steady and quick promotions. His second day as sergeant at the Midtown North Precinct was September 11, 2001. He was rushing down the West Side Highway when the second tower was hit, and he stood on the corner of Fulton Street and Broadway when the south tower fell. He spoke modestly about the time he spent downtown that year, only describing his work by saying, “I was lucky.” Before succeeding Capt. Brendan Timoney at the First, Iocco was promoted to executive officer at the Midtown North Precinct, and although he has never officially been assigned to downtown Manhattan, much his career has been spent in there. In addition to his time working downtown after 9/11, Iocco was also assigned to patrol the Occupy
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BY MARY NEWMAN
2015
In Brief THE SAD END OF THE COOPER STOCK CASE So now we know: the penalty for killing a 9-year-old boy holding his father’s hand on the streets of Manhattan is ... a traffic ticket. This week’s criminal-court decision in the case of Cooper Stock, who was struck by a taxi on the Upper West Side last year, is but the latest in a string of injustices when it comes to traffic deaths in the city. Time and again, drivers who are clearly at fault are let off with little or no penalty, even when their actions result in the death of someone else. In Stock’s case, the boy and his father were crossing West End Avenue, with the light, when a taxi made a speeding left turn, hitting them in the crosswalk. Though the court determined that the pedestrians clearly had the right of way, the judge, Erika Edwards, determined it was “not a crime.” “It goes without saying that what happened here today does not even begin to bring justice in the death of my son, Cooper Stock,” Dr. Richard Stock and his wife, Dana Lerner, said in a joint statement read at the hearing. “Is a life worth nothing more than a traffic ticket?” Lerner, in an amazing show of courage, has spent the year since her son’s death campaigning for a change in the law, and for a shift in how prosecutors handle such cases. She also has pressed for better oversight of taxi drivers, who are given little training before getting behind the wheel. And the taxi driver who killed her son? He, for the moment, is suspended and has to pay a $500 fine. And, he now, after all of this, has been ordered to complete a driver safety course.
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MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20
2015
In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS
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 because it about “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 and then, in a separatehow 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 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 indiArbitration Man, suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
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 number and type the will tally business of complaints by small 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 in businesses small towards important first step fixing the problem. of formality for deTo 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 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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