The local paper for the Upper er East Side WHAT'S SELLING IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD?
WEEK OF SEPTEMBER
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10-16 2015
POLICE INVESTIGATING COP IMPERSONATIONS
A proposal to install bus shelters on Fifth Avenue along Central Park, such as this one on West End Avenue, has garnered praise and criticism. Photo: Richard Khavkine
Persons allegedly posing as city officers questioned tenants in their 93rd Street apartments about their residency status BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS
Police on the Upper West Side have opened an investigation into reports that individuals posing as city police officers fraudulently gained access to a building on West 93rd Street and questioned two of the tenants there about their residency status. The incident occurred on Aug. 20. According to the building manager, Porfirio Gonzalez, three men entered 50 West 93rd St. and bypassed the front desk by flashing badges and telling the doorman they were from the NYPD. “I don’t know what they came to us for,” Gonzalez said. He said two detectives from the 24th Precinct came to look at surveillance footage. “[The detectives] took some pictures of the three guys that were here, but they didn’t recognize them,” said Gonzalez, who noted the unknown men were in the building for less than 20 minutes. “They’re not from the precinct.” “They were asking the tenants how long they lived there and who lived with them,” he added. Both tenants are rent stabilized, Gonzalez said. The entire building, according to staff, is also rent stabilized. Gonzalez said the police took possession of the surveillance tapes for their investigation. A police source familiar with the incident said officials from the 24th Precinct met with building residents and staff on Aug. 25 and that an investiga-
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A PLACE TO SIT ON FIFTH AVENUE NEWS A proposal for bus shelters along the thoroughfare gets an airing BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
Beauty and expediency are skirmishing along Fifth Avenue. The tussle got a public airing during a Community Board 8 committee hearing last week, following an Upper East Side resident’s suggestion that bus shelters be installed on Fifth Avenue along Central Park. Betty Cooper Wallerstein, who takes daily bus trips, said Fifth Avenue is among very few major city thoroughfares without the signature rectangular glass and steel shells. She said the shelters are a necessity, particularly since so many bus lines travel along the thoroughfare.
At present, people who travel the avenue by bus have no choice but to stand beside the road to ensure their buses stop to pick them up, she said. And on rainy or snowy days, doing so can be unpleasant at best, particularly for those going home following their workdays at any number of Upper East Side businesses and institutions. “You can wait a very long time” for buses, said Wallerstein, a former CB8 board member. “There are priorities and I think it’s very important to have the amenities.” Wallerstein’s suggestion drew opposition, some of it pronounced, from members of the Carnegie Hill Neighbors associaton, who said that the avenue’s charm would be compromised by placement of shelters onto the cobblestone sidewalks. Lo van der Valk said that although he was “sympathetic” to Waller-
stein’s suggestion, it merited careful study, not least since Fifth Avenue is inundated with bus traffic. “We have to weigh the other aspects of an initiative like this,” he said. “One of the aspects is that Central Park is a jewel and so is Fifth Avenue and what we’ve noticed is that bus shelters often carry with them a lot of lighting and advertising and that’s going to detract from our iconic Fifth Avenue.” David Stoll was more forthright, calling Wallerstein’s proposal “an awful idea.” “Aesthetics matter,” he said, calling the park side of Fifth Avenue “special.” “To clutter it with plastic and metal would be a real shame. We have enough ugliness in the city, we don’t need more,” he said.
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Our Take THE POPE’S NEW YORK MOMENT Never have the man, the message, and the moment been better aligned than in this month’s visit to New York by Pope Francis. At a time when New Yorkers, like many other Americans, are wrestling with homelessness, immigration and income inequality, along comes Francis, with pitch-perfect timing, to take them all on. The pope, who not only has never been to the Big Apple but whose aides have admitted he hasn’t had much interest, is determined not to waste the moment: his itinerary pretty much bypasses the Manhattan types who tend to swoon at big celebrity, and focuses instead on New Yorkers who have found themselves on the losing end of the city’s astonishing economic transformation. Among them: migrants from Central America and elsewhere, many of whom work in the shadows of the city for fear of deportation. Francis will give a blessing to a group of them on Sept. 25, at a Catholic school in East Harlem. You don’t have to be Catholic to be astonished, and moved, by Pope Francis. The power and timing of his message could not be more welcome, in this city, at this moment in history.
Jewish women and girls light up the world by lighting the Shabbat candles every Friday evening 18 minutes before sunset. Friday September 11 - 6:54 pm. For more information visit www.chabaduppereastside.com.
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