The local paper for the Upper er East Side TEEN IN A FUN HOUSE < 15 MINUTES, P.21
WEEK OF JUNE
11-17 2015
THE FLAWS IN COOPER’S LAW
WHY THE FRICK FOLDED
INVESTIGATION
NEWS ANALYSIS
Only two people have had their licenses suspended since a high-profile law aimed at slowing pedestrian-traffic deaths went into effect
The museum’s expansion was thwarted by an opposition that it underestimated BY GABRIELLE ALFIERO
BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
Most of Cooper Stock’s friends were able to hold it together during a street renaming ceremony last week at 97th Street and West End Avenue, where the nine-yearold was killed by a reckless cab driver last January. Jacob Hume, age 10, wasn’t one of them. “Cooper was the kind of person who made you feel good about yourself,” said Hume, a classmate of Cooper’s at the Calhoun School. “It’s devastating. I miss Cooper every day of my life.” As Hume spoke, Cooper’s mother, Dana Lerner, break down, choking back sobs. The two embraced after Hume finished, and cried softly together. “I love what you guys said, it meant so much,” said Lerner, as she hugged the rest of his class, now in fourth grade. Last week, students at the Calhoun School marched from their building on 81st Street up to Cooper Stock Way to remember their classmate and draw attention to the issue of pedestrian safety. Cooper and his father, Richard Stock, were struck
Dana Lerner embraces Jonathan Hume, who along with his twin brother Jacob, eulogized their former classmate Cooper Stock at a recent street renaming ceremony. Photo by Daniel Fitzsimmons. by cabbie Koffi Komlani as they crossed 97th Street with the green light. After Cooper’s death, Komlani was charged with a traffic violation and issued a $500 fine by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance’s office. In the months following the tragedy, Lerner devoted herself to advocating for pedestrian safety and railing against reckless driving. Her
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efforts led to the passage of Cooper’s Law, which revokes a cab or livery driver’s license if they are found guilty of committing a traffic violation resulting in the death or critical injury of another person. Under the law, if a driver licensed by the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission is issued a violation or summons for an accident where someone is killed or critically
injured, their TLC license is immediately suspended pending an investigation. If, during the investigation, the driver is found guilty of the violation or summons, their TLC license is permanently revoked. The bill was signed into law last June and was part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s slate of pedestrian-friendly Vision Zero laws, which included
lowering the citywide speed limit to 25 m.p.h and other measures. But despite the attention that the issue has received, and the high profile of Cooper’s death, the impact of the law named after him has been disappointing: According to the TLC, in the almost nine months since the
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Just months after the Frick Collection announced a renovation and expansion, a grassroots effort to block the project quickly began to take shape. The opposition, which began with a small group of local residents, ballooned to a grassroots and online force, collecting thousands of signatures and winning the support of preservation groups and even wellknown artists. Yet despite the clear threat developing, Frick officials stayed stoic, confident that the proposal would clear the necessary hurdles and receive approval from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. That early confidence now seems like a miscalculation. On June 4, a year after the Frick first announced its plan, the museum’s board of trustees elected to change course and revisit the expansion in a way that won’t eliminate a tiny garden on E. 70th Street that had become a flashpoint for the opposition. Museum director Ian Wardropper, who had argued that the expansion was critical to the Frick’s growth, is now having to reassess how the Frick will
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