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1-7 2015
Nicole Miller at her spring fashion show last month at Skylight Clarkson Square. Photo ©Patrick McMullan
STREET VENDOR CAP COULD BE LIFTED Some in the business community, citing regulatory burdens on brickand-mortar stores, urge caution BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
More street vendors could be doing business on city streets. City Council Speaker Melissa MarkViverito has signaled her office is looking into raising or eliminating altogether the street vendor permit cap, news that has delighted some in the vending community and given pause to some in the wider business community. The city currently issues 3,000 yearround food and truck cart permits and 1,000 summer permits, as well as 853 general merchandise permits. Advocates for eliminating the cap say there are many more vendors who want to work and are obliged to do so illegally, risking fines, or shell out thousands of dollars for a permit on the black market. But some officials within the city’s business community are wary of the proposal, citing a lack of details about the number of vendors that could be added. The New York City Business Improvement District Association, an umbrella group made up of 72 BIDs, has called for a comprehensive and research-based study, as well as input from the business community, before any change to the permit cap is made. The association would also like a guarantee of regulatory parity between brick-and-mortar businesses
THE ENDURING STYLE OF TASTE BY ANGELA BARBUTI
ART OF FOOD The co-host of the Art of Food on fashion, food and conservative Manhattan styles
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Nicole Miller started her career as an intern and opened her first store on Madison Avenue in 1986. The rest is New York City fashion history. The Tribeca resident’s interests extend well beyond fashion, and her passion for
DON’T MISS OUT! 27 Culinar y Titans
TUESDAY, OC TOBER 13 a t
A R T O F F O O D N Y.C O M
hosted by Chef Michael W hite & Designer Nicole Miller
What was it like when you opened your first store on Madison Avenue?
food has led her to co-host, with chef Michael White, Our Town’s Art of Food, happening at Sotheby’s on October 13. The event welcomes 25 Upper East Side chefs who will be preparing dishes inspired by art from one of Sotheby’s upcoming auctions.
Madison Avenue had a reputation for having very snooty stores, and it’s kind of comical because you would walk into another store and everybody would be aloof
and cold. And these stores would open up and close up and open up and close up. And there were so many times when half of Madison was empty, between the recession or being poorly run,
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Downtowner 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 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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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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