The local paper for Downtown wn REPORTING FROM VIETNAM, IN FICTION < Q&A, P.21
WEEK OF JUNE
18-24 2015
A DANGEROUS TRAFFIC PATTERN NEWS Pedestrian safety laws named after children are high profile, but frequently low-impact BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
It has become a ritual in New York City when a child is killed or injured in a horrific traffic tragedy: The city and the family unite in grief. Neighbors and community groups express their
Elle Vandenberghe with her mother, Heather
Local carpet maker helps Nepalese rebuild following destructive earthquakes BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO
Joseph Carini was hiking in the Himalayas when the earth started moving. “I didn’t know what was happening, and then rocks came down the mountain and big clouds of dust came up,” he said. The New York native and luxury carpet maker was on one of his regular trips to Nepal, where his Tribeca-based company, Carini Lang, manufactures handwoven carpets, when a massive earthquake rocked the country on April 25. While some of his manufacturing facilities sustained minor damage, Carini’s business was lucky. But many
of the Nepali people he employs lost homes, and lost family. Just days before the earthquake, Carini visited a remote farmhouse where a group of women weave traditional carpets. Carini provides the women with materials and instruction from a master weaver, and buys their finished products. When he returned to their facility after the earthquake, he found their workshop destroyed, along with their homes. Like others in the area, they were living under clear plastic tents, and monsoon season, which lasts from June through September, was threatening. Carini launched a GoFundMe campaign to finance the construction of a new studio space and temporary home for the
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weavers, which will protect them through the rainy months. Once the wet weather subsides, Carini hopes to finance a more permanent, and stable, home for them built from local materials, such as bamboo and clay. He is also developing a nonprofit relief fund to finance long-term projects in Nepal. Carini was hiking at about 12,000 feet when the earthquake hit. With no planes flying out of a small airport nearby following the devastation, he and some fellow travelers rented a small bus to take them down the mountain’s rugged roads and back to Kathmandu. “These are roads you could make action movies on,” he said of the narrow, bumpy trail which took the bus 12 hours to traverse. “It was more scary than the earthquake.” Another day later, Carini ar-
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Photo Credit: Gilles Aliard
FEELING THE EARTH MOVE
outrage. Legislators introduce a law intended to make sure nothing like it ever happens again. And all too often, nothing more ever happens. “There is a precedent in this city for laws named after children that get dropped, basically,” said Dana Lerner, whose 9-year-old son, Cooper, was killed on the Upper West Side last January. ”None of these laws has ever
A weaver whose workshop and home was lost in the earthquake. Photo: Joseph Carini.
Our Take OUR WEEK IN ALBANY One of the joys of living in New York City is our ability to keep our distance from Albany. But this week, the dysfunction, the scandal, the ineptitude of our state’s capital hit home, in the failure of legislators to pass a new rent control law. The existing rent law, which helps 2 million people in the city stay in their reasonably priced homes, expired this week, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo was unable to get his rag-tag crew of lawmakers in line. The failure in Albany gave Mayor Bill de Blasio a rare chance to revel in the turmoil in the governor’s office, continuing the petty playground rivalry between our two top elected leaders. “This is really Albany at its worst,” de Blasio told radio station WCBS 880. That is saying something. The capital, and its leader, have found themselves torn between two powerful forces in the rent debate: the real estate lobby, on the one hand, and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, on the other. The usual instinct to cave to the former is being blocked by fear of the latter. The result is a legislature in deepfreeze. Affected are not just the rent laws, but the minimum wage and city control of schools, as well. de Blasio, who likes to remind us that he knows a thing or two about national politics, compared the dysfunction in Albany to the logjam in Washington, D.C., where partisan bickering have made it all but impossible to get anything done. At least we have an election next year to shake things up in D.C. In New York, both in the state house and at City Hall, we’re stuck with what we’ve got.
Downtowner 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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