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BUILDING
WEEK OF NOVEMBER
AWARDS
2015
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SALUTING OUR BUILDING WORKERS
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THE HOLDOUTS OF CHELSEA NEWS A handful of old-school industrial businesses have survived in the neighborhood, despite gentrification BY MADISON COLLINS
In a neighborhood that has been completely transformed by gentrification, they are The Holdouts of Chelsea. Places like Kamco Supply, which sits under the High Line on W. 21st Street and 10th Avenue and sells drywall and ceiling tile across the street from the American flagship of Bisazza, an Italian luxury home furnishings company. Or the Manhattan Car Wash, three blocks up on 10th AVe. and W. 24th Street, with its bright neon pink sign, and yellow and white lettering declaring “OPEN 24 HRS.” The car wash shrinks in comparison to The Getty condo building that sits adjacent -floors of glass high above the roof of the car wash. Then there’s Prince Lumber, an old-school lumber yard, which may have the swankiest spot of all -- sandwiched on 15th Street and Ninth Avenue between the Apple Store on one side and the upscale Chelsea Market on the other. Google’s New York headquarters sits across the street. “What happened to Chelsea, has already happened,” shrugs Prince’s Neil Eisenstat, who has watched the neighborhood flat-line, then soar, around him. In recent years, the gentrification has hit warp speed, with the popularity of the High Line and the addition of the new Whitney Museum a few blocks south. Yet work at Prince continues as if oblivious, a buzz of forklifts and construction trucks.
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FINDING THE ENERGY TO DANCE FOURTH OF SIX PARTS BY HEATHER CLAYTON COLANGELO EXCEEDING EXPECTATIONS DIRECTED BY DORIAN BLOCK
Jacquie Murdock, 84, has been dancing her entire life. It’s just past 11 a.m. on a Thursday, which means that Jacquie is in a small room on the second floor of the Beatrice Lewis Senior Center in Harlem beginning warm-up exercises with her class. Jacquie works out twice a week with the Jazzy Randolph Dancers, a senior dance troupe composed of professional and amateur dancers in their 60s, 70s and 80s. Men and women in leg warmers, leotards, baggy Tshirts and dance shoes move their bodies in rhythm to the Indian music playing on a CD player and stare in concentration at the instructor who demonstrates from the front of the room. “Demi. Straight up. Demi. Straight up. Two. Straight up. Three. Straight up,” calls out the instructor. Jacquie’s legs rise and fall just a hair behind the instructor’s words. The intense concentration is evident in her face. “Point, close. Point, close. Plie.” says the instructor. Jacquie stands in the back of the room, clothed in a pink “I Love New York” T-shirt, cream colored sweatpants, and a pink and white Nikki Minaj trucker hat which she picked up at Kmart.
GRAYING NEW YORK A series looking at growing older in the city She is grateful to have a free class to practice in, but the room is a challenge. Jacquie lost most of her sight 15 years ago from glaucoma and cataracts and is legally blind. She can sometimes see out of her right eye, depending on lighting conditions. Today is a lost cause. The bright sun streams through the windows that make up an entire wall, blinding her with an intense glare. Two other walls are filled with mirrors. They are helpful for checking one’s dance form, but horrible for Jacquie’s sight. She is accosted by light or the reflection of light from multiple angles. “I can’t see with the sun. The glare from the sun is just impossible,” Jacquie says. She’s frustrated but is adapting. She has positioned herself in the back of the room so that she can follow the form of a dancer
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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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