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15-21 2015
DO YOU DELIVER (CORRECTLY)?
NAVIGATING A ONCE-FAMILIAR CITY FIRST OF SIX PARTS STORY AND PHOTOS BY HEATHER CLAYTON COLANGELO/DIRECTED BY DORIAN BLOCK
Questions, and some answers, on commercial delivery rules in New York City
Jacquie Murdock has been looking forward to this day for months. Tonight is the annual benefit concert for the National Jazz Museum in Harlem. Jacquie works with the education department and feels close to the museum’s mission, as a jazz aficionado and lifelong dancer who grew up in Harlem and once danced in the Apollo Theater during its heyday. Jacquie managed to get an invitation to the VIP pre-concert reception and is excited to hear jazz singer Dianne Reeves and saxophonist Joe Lovano (both Grammy-Award winners) perform. But today, the morning of the concert, Jacquie wakes up in her Greenwich Village apartment with intense anxiety. She is feeling vulnerable and uneasy. “I have good days and bad days and today is a bad day.” She has been under much stress recently. For the past 40 years, Jacquie has lived in NYU subsidized housing (a benefit from her past NYU career). For the past five years, she has lived packed in a one-room studio apartment in NYU’s Washington Square Village complex with her daughter and granddaughter. Her lease is almost up and her rent will
BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
In what perhaps is an indication of the need for more information on the rules for delivering food via a bicycle in the city, a Department of Transportation-sponsored event last week on the particulars was packed with business owners and delivery bicyclists. Here are the facts according to the department: Business owners who employ commercial bicyclists must equip cyclists with a bell, white headlight and red taillight, reflectors for the bicycle’s wheels, and a 3 x 5-inch sign with the business’ name and unique three-digit bicycle ID number, printed in at least one-inch high lettering. The sign must be affixed to the rear or both sides of the bicycle. Businesses must also maintain an up-to-date roster of commercial bicyclists they employ with the name, address and, if applicable, date of discharge from employment of each cyclist, as well as their three digit ID number. Lastly, businesses must maintain confirmation of each cyclist’s completed review of a DOT commercial bike safety course. Commercial bicyclists must obey all traffic laws, including yielding to pedestrians, staying off the sidewalk and riding in the right direction. Commercial cyclists must also not wear more than one earphone while riding, and are required to wear a reflective vest with the business’ ID card and bicycle number. Cyclists must also wear a helmet
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GRAYING NEW YORK A series looking at growing older in the city be increasing to $1,300 a month. She is not sure how she will be able to afford the increase, the third in five years. She’s also unhappy about changes that are happening to her complex. The halfcentury-old Sasaki Garden, an oasis of trees, flowers and benches situated between two of the buildings that comprise Washington Square Village, is slated to be demolished in line with NYU’s expansion plan. A building will be erected in its place. Jacquie has spent hours in the garden listening to songbirds and finding refuge from the dense cityscape. NYU has also scheduled contractors to come in to replace windows in the building to make them stronger. Jacquie suspects it’s so they don’t break with the future construction. “It’s so heartbreaking,” she says. The state of her eyesight is also causing her stress. Jacquie is legally blind and
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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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