The local paper for Downtown wn WHAT TO DO ON HALLOWEEN
WEEK OF OCTOBER-NOVEMBER
29-4
< TOP 5, P.13
2015
THE CITY’S SECRET BUDGETING WEAPON
Our Take THE PRICE OF GROWING OLDER
NEWS In Chelsea, the participatory budgeting process has been boosted by teens BY RUI MIAO
Participatory budgeting, in which neighbors vote how to spend $1 million in discretionary money in each council district, has so far been a relatively low-profile grassroots effort in most parts of the city. But in Chelsea, the process has been given an unexpected boost – from teenagers. “We want the youth to be involved,” said Gonzalo Casals, vice president of programs and community engagement at Friends of the High Line, the group that raises nearly all of the elevated park’s operating budget. Last year, at the start of participatory budgeting, the organization convinced the city council to lower the minimum participating age from 16 to 14. It then sent members from its teen program to get trained and get involved in last year’s participatory budgeting. The kids reached out to fellow teenagers, informed them of the project, and gathered them into a “youth assembly”--to brainstorm decisions on how to spend a million-dollar public fund in the neighborhood. “It was amazing just to see how teens are highly engaged to get a say in our future,” said 19-year-old Will Natal, a member of the Teen Arts Council
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A RUNNING TALLY OF DAILY LIFE GRAYING NEW YORK A series looking at growing older in the city
THIRD OF SIX PARTS BY HEATHER CLAYTON COLANGELO EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS DIRECTED BY DORIAN BLOCK
It is a typical morning for Jacquie Murdock. She stands in her tiny Greenwich Village bathroom, bent over the mirror, rimming her eyes with the gray eyeliner she bought at the local drugstore. The smell of coffee wafts from the coffee maker. “I wouldn’t go out without eye make up,” she says. A born and bred Manhattanite, Jacquie has survived 84 years in
New York City—arguably the most expensive city in the nation—as a dancer, by being smart and resourceful. Eyes complete, Jacquie picks up her curling iron and twirls the hot wand around small sections of her shoulder length mane. “I dye my own hair. Revlon black dye.” She used to get it dyed at her salon but decided to cut the expense. She keeps her strands soft and silky with her secret weapon—two buck, drugstore staple Dax.
Fact Number One: New York, like the rest of the country, is getting older. Demographers say that of the 8 million people who live in the city, more than 1 million are over the age of 60. Over the next two decades, that number will rise by 50 percent. Fact Number Two: New York is getting much pricier. Housing prices in the city have never been more expensive, and the number of new affordable units being built isn’t nearly enough to house the number of people who need them. The clash of those two facts is creating a crisis for seniors in our city. For decades, New York was seen as a great place to grow older: public transit was good, free cultural events abounded, people lived close enough together to keep an eye on their neighbors. While all of those things are still basically true, the soaring costs of living here, juxtaposed against the fixed income that most seniors must live on, is souring the city for its fastest-growing group of residents. Our “Graying New York” series, published in cooperating with the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, has sought to put a face on the issues that senior New Yorkers deal with everyday. Their stories have inspired us. Now, it’s your turn to weigh in. Join us on Nov. 23 for a public forum on how to create a more livable community for all of us. The Town Hall, which we’re holding in cooperation with AARP, is from 2-4 p.m. and is free to everyone, and we hope you’ll come. RSVP at rsvp@strausnews.com
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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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Newscheck Crime Watch Voices
for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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