The local paper for the Upper East Side
WEEK OF FEBRUARY OLD MASTERS IN A NEW LIGHT ◄ P.12
14-20 2019
Inside
DÉJÀ VU ON THE WEST SIDE POLITICS
REQUIEM FOR A PET STORE
Gale Brewer was first elected to the City Council in 2001 and moved up to borough president 12 years later. As the term limits clock ticks, friends and supporters say, she is now contemplating a reprise.
Petland Discounts to shutter its shops by April
BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
It is extraordinarily rare for an elected official serving in an executive capacity to trade down to a legislative branch and seek a position with fewer constituents, lower pay and lesser influence. But Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer has never been your typical politician. Ever since she was reelected to a second term by a lopsided 83 percent margin in 2017, the question of her political future has emerged as one of the hottest guessing games in town. Now, the answer is starting to come into focus: Brewer has been eyeing a possible return in 2021 to the City Council seat on the Upper West Side where she served from 2002 through 2013, according to at least seven people in her political orbit. No final decision has been made, and no announcement is anticipated anytime soon, for a general election race that is still two years and nine months away, say friends, supporters, district leaders, political consultants and officers of Democratic political clubhouses. Term limits, which Brewer has long opposed, is the catalyst. It will force her out of office on Dec. 31, 2021, when she completes the second of her two consecutive four-year terms as borough president.
IS IT REALLY ‘NERVOUS STOMACH?’ Intestinal health and your quality of life Mayor Bill de Blasio (center) and NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill (left) announced the NYPD would add 35 new investigators to its Special Victims Division at a Feb. 5 briefing on crime statistics in Brooklyn. Photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
NYPD TO BOLSTER SEX CRIMES UNIT LAW ENFORCEMENT
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As reported rapes increase, the department to add investigators in Special Victims Division BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
The New York City Police Department will increase staffing in its unit tasked with handling sex crimes amid a citywide trend of rising reports of rape. The department will add 35 investigators to the Special Victims Division, police officials announced at a Feb. 5 press briefing. The NYPD came
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under fire last year after a report by the city’s Department of Investigation cited “chronic understaffing and inexperience” within the SVD, which “jeopardized prosecutions, re-traumatized victims, and negatively impacted the reporting of sex crimes.” The NYPD recorded 150 rapes in January of this year, a 27 percent increase over the 118 reported over the same period last year. Three of those rapes were reported in the Upper East Side’s 19th Precinct, which recorded zero in January of last year. January’s totals represent the continuation of a spike in reported rapes that began in 2018, when police recorded 1,794 rapes citywide, as com-
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pared with 1,449 the previous year. Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill have said that the increased totals are not due to an increase in the actual number of rapes taking place; rather, they believe rapes have long been underreported to police and that survivors have felt more comfortable coming forward in recent years, in part due to increased public awareness and the #MeToo movement. “This is tragically what was happening for a long time but not being reported,” de Blasio said in January. “It’s finally being reported.”
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BLOOD, SNAKES AND SQUARE KNOTS Recalling Boy Scout camp in the 1960s
Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday, February 15 – 5:13 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastrside.com.
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