Results tagged “city”

Facing some 9,000 lawsuits from ground zero responders who say they became ill after working at the 9/11 site, the city wants a judge to toss 17 "baseless" suits. According to 1010WINS, city attorneys urged a judge to dismiss cases involving a firefighter who blames breathing problems on 9/11 dust despite being put on disability for the same ailments in 1999, and a Staten Island construction worker who blames 9/11 for a medical condition despite filing a malpractice suit linking some of the ailments to a gastrointestinal disease in the 1990s. Prosecutors—who insist the cases are valid—and city attorneys are expected to take several cases to court, and use those verdicts to determine settlements for the rest of the suits. more ›

After increasing the cost of pooper scooper fines from $100 to $250, city inspectors issued far fewer tickets to dog owners who didn't pick up after their pooches last year. The number of pooper scooper violations plummeted from 903 in the fiscal year of 2008 to just 580 in 2009—but experts say the decline in tickets has nothing to do with the higher cost of the violations. more ›

The city is backing out of plans to purchase the historic Wyckoff-Bennett House in Brooklyn even though the 18th-century Dutch farmhouse—located on East 22nd Street near Avenue P—is one of the few left standing and it's still inhabited. Homeowners Stuart and Annette Mont say they've gone through a decade of negotiations and preparations with the Parks Department, but now a new deal has been proposed that isn't to their liking. more ›

With the May 16 trial date approaching, lawyers for the city and attorneys for thousands of 9/11 responders who say they got sick or injured after working at Ground Zero are apparently hurrying to reach a settlement. Though attorneys from both sides declined to comment on negotiations, Judge Alvin Hellerstein told the Times that "[t]here have been intensive discussions going on looking to settlements of individual cases and globally of all cases...The parties have been working very hard...The settlement is complicated." more ›

The long-awaited plans to turn Governors Island into a public space and convert the piers beneath the promenade in Brooklyn Heights into Brooklyn Bridge Park have been set back by a lengthy squabble between the city and the state. Last spring, Mayor Bloomberg said he wanted full control of both projects, which are currently being jointly developed by the city and the state. He even offered $300 million in funding to get the projects, but thanks to "bureaucratic BS at its finest," the two sides have yet to reach a deal. more ›

Ushering in a more touchy-feely approach to juvenile delinquency, Mayor Bloomberg will make the city's Department of Juvenile Justice part of its child welfare agency. The announcement, which came in this afternoon's state of the city address, signals that the new administration intends to put fewer kids behind bars. more ›

Last year the state's budget crisis held Governors Island hostage, making it difficult for the island to plan events because the state didn't commit funding until the last minute. The island is controlled and financed jointly by the state and city, but last year Mayor Bloomberg made a move to cut the state out entirely, and also take over Brooklyn Bridge Park. In exchange, the city would end its partnership with the state in the long-delayed Javits Center expansion, and use that $300 million to fund the parks. The idea was not exactly embraced by Paterson, but apparently it's still got legs; the Villager reports that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is supportive. And The Governors Island Alliance, which manages the island, is also on board, though executive director Rob Pirani would also like as many details in writing as possible: "As much as I trust this mayor, he's not going to be mayor forever—at least I assume not." more ›

At least one part of the city's planned rehabilitation of Coney Island seems to pay homage to the amusement district's gritty history. Newly installed sections of the Coney Island Boardwalk are already starting to fall apart — less than a year after they were screwed down. "It's not even a year old, and we're right back to square one," Todd Dobrin, chairperson of Friends of the Boardwalk, told the Daily News. "Something is wrong, and we need to find it out now before we waste all our resources on something that needs to be done again." more ›

While AT&T; takes a lot of heat for their horrific service here in New York, Verizon gets criticized constantly for putting up the most loathed building in the city — which practically sucks the soul out of the skyline (we are looking at it right now). more ›

Just last week we were patting the city on the back for cleaning up the "Bronx Swamp" — but now we've encountered a huge buzzkill. The LTV Squad reports live from the scene and says, "what we found was that the city has done the minimal amount of work and has left the tunnel under St. Mary’s park completely fetid and flooded to boot. This tunnel was once dry enough to serve as a safe haven to migratory cave dwelling birds. Today though it’s the same old health hazard that the city promised it would eliminate." They make the assumption that the city only cleaned the parts visible to the public, leaving "a toxic soup directly under a park where children play." Yikes. more ›

It's like Brooklyn Bridge Park all over again. The plan to build a waterfront park in Long Island City funded by the construction of new housing has neighbors and open space activists up in arms, according to the Post. The city will use the revenue from 5,000 planned apartments in the Hunters Point South development to pay for an 11-acre public esplanade — sparking fears that the parkland will feel private and that the city will begin relying on housing to pay for future park projects. more ›

Not so surprising: The Post reports that the attrition rate for city employees for the 3rd quarter of this year "dropped to 7 percent. That compares to 8.7 percent for the same period last year, and 10.4 percent during that period in 2007 and 2006." Annual attrition is at a low of 5.1%, vs. 6.5% in 2008 and 6.7% in 2007. Mayor Bloomberg said it can cause problems, "When an agency has projected to meet their reduction goals and say, 'Well, we'll downsize by attrition.' What do you do if people don't retire? And that's exactly what has happened... You know, city employment is great for a lot of people. They like working here." more ›

Kerry Sullivan, a longtime Staten Island gadfly who's awaiting a liver transplant, claims that police arrested him outside his home in August as retaliation for his outspoken criticism of Borough President James P. Molinaro. Yesterday the NYCLU filed a federal lawsuit on Sullivan's behalf, naming the City of New York and the two police officers who arrested Sullivan as defendants, and claiming they violated Sullivan’s rights under the First, Fourth and Fourteenth amendments; the New York State Constitution; and New York common law. Those are a lot of violations! But what's really outrageous is what the cops allegedly told Sullivan during the arrest. more ›

Want to avoid costly fines from the city for renting out illegally subdivided apartments? It's easy — just don't open the door. In the aftermath of a fatal fire that killed three Bangladeshi immigrants in an illegal basement apartment without sufficient exits, the Daily News pulls up some damning figures on the city's inability to crack down on these surprisingly ubiquitous deathtraps. more ›

Just before 10 a.m. a report came over the newswire saying a female in a wheelchair was pinned under a truck. Shortly after a reader sent in these photos from the accident, which occurred on Bleecker and 8th Avenue, showing the truck was a City Parks vehicle. The vicitim was unconscious and transported to St. Vincent's Hospital, and there has been no additional word on her condition. more ›

A Manhattan teenager with no criminal record is suing the city for $1 million because cops arrested and taunted him as "Plaxico Burress" after he got shot in a robbery. Christian Dudley doesn't even own a gun, but that didn't matter to the officers who collared him after the Harlem mugging earlier this year. He was arrested in a Washington Heights hospital where he was waiting to get the bullet removed from the back of his knee—instead of surgery, he got dragged to the precinct on a charge of criminal possession of a weapon. And that's where the fun really started. more ›

While the NY Times' story on a Harlem charter school's kindergarten visit to the Queens County Farm Museum might just seem like a human interest story, there's actually a serious reason behind it: The state's English and math tests seem biased towards kids with knowledge of farms. There are "several questions each year about livestock, crops and the other staples of the rural experience that some educators say flummox city children, whose knowledge of nature might begin and end at Central Park. On the state English test this year, for instance, third graders were asked questions relating to chickens and eggs. In math, they had to count sheep and horses." Oh no!!! more ›

Perhaps using his Talking Heads song "Cities" as inspiration, David Byrne penned a piece for the Wall Street Journal about his ideal metropolis. Byrne lives in New York, of course, but also travels more frequently than most of us, so he's got a lot of crazy European ideas! As for his hometown, however, he says the locals wouldn't be the ideal folk to populate his city; "New Yorkers are viewed as being tough as nails, no-nonsense but with hearts of gold—or maybe just gold-plated. This might not be the sensibility I would choose if I had a choice." Don't take it personally, because he still says our nightlife is probably the best, and maybe even our security! "For example in parts of New York's West Village, as author Jane Jacobs pointed out, the streets are rarely abandoned and there are almost always some locals hanging out, so everyone sees a little bit of what's going on. The community has eyes and ears, and everyone behaves accordingly. In my perfect city I'd feel that sense of neighborliness—that people weren't in my business, but that I would be a familiar sight, as they would be to me." What else are we good for, New York? more ›

Just when you thought developer Bruce Ratner was about to turn the corner in the P.R. war over his proposed $800 million arena for the Nets in Brooklyn, along comes the city’s Independent Budget Office with a big bucket of ice water. A new analysis concludes that "over a 30-year period, the arena would cost the city nearly $40 million more in spending under current budget plans than it will generate in tax revenues (present value, 2009 dollars)." It also estimates that "for the developer, Forest City Ratner Companies, the mix of special government benefits result in total savings of $726 million." more ›

A man who was wrongly jailed on Rikers Island for 17 months has accepted a $145,000 settlement with the city because a detective misidentified his fingerprints. Dwight Gomas was residing in Atlanta in 2004 when he was suddenly arrested by U.S. marshals for an armed robbery at a Howard Beach jewelry store. Detective Eileen Barrett had matched a partial finger print from the crime scene to Gomas, whose prints were on file after his only prior arrest as an adult: driving with a suspended license in Brooklyn. Gomas maintained his innocence before a grand jury, but was indicted and couldn't make bail. Languishing on Rikers, his Legal Aid lawyer urged him to accept a plea offer of five years in prison, but he refused. Luckily, veteran detective Daniel Perruzzaa finally conducted a routine review of the fingerprints. He tells the Daily News, "When I looked at it, I said, 'You know what? This is a screwup; this is not his fingerprints." Oopsy! Gomas was released after 523 days in jail, but by then his girlfriend and their child moved in with another man. On the plus side, he pulled in $145K in less than two years on Rikers, so we're sure there's no hard feelings. more ›

The Post says that "two distressed luxury condo buildings -- one in Harlem and another in Downtown Brooklyn -- are in talks with the city to unload their unsold units at fire-sale prices as affordable housing." Hey, if luxury condos can become homeless shelters, why not? While it's unclear which condos are being eyed, apparently the city is negotiating with the banks that foreclosed on the properties. And the city's housing commissioner Rafael Cesetro said the condo developers/banks "would have to take significant losses"—a $500,000 condo could be purchased by the city for $300,000 (plus the developer/bank would get a $50,000 subsidy). Cesetro added that developers were only thinking about the bubble, "Some of the sales assumptions seemed like a stretch in any kind of market. In Downtown Brooklyn, and not on the water, they had buildings underwritten to sell for $800 to $900 a square foot." Will more luxury condos be turned over to the city? more ›

Last year the Bloomberg administration made a big deal about reducing the number of parking placards issued to city employees, slashing them by over 25,000. At the time, the cutback on permits, which allow cops, civil servants, and other lucky bureaucrats to park almost anywhere, was heralded by Paul Steely White of Transportation Alternatives as “a good first step. But the final analysis will be weeks and months from now, when we see how actively these plaques are enforced." more ›

Alright Gowanus Canal, where were we? The NY Times reports on the latest developments surrounding the clean-up debate, which is split between those who want it to be labeled a Superfund site and those who are afraid of that label's stigma (real estate developers). City officials are sided with the latter group, and have proposed an alternative cleanup plan that would be overseen by the EPA, would take less time, and wouldn't have such a scary word attached to it. more ›

.The Coney Island Cyclone may be getting some competition. The NY Post reports that city officials want a new roller coaster added to the destination spot. That would be just one of many new amusements if a city-appointed panel gets their wish list. "The panel said 12 acres along the fabled boardwalk is sufficient space to build 30 new major amusements, including a roller coaster with a drop tower, water rides, a House of Horror, other thrill rides, and rides suitable for kids." And, uh oh, the panel also said that the city shouldn't get stuck on preserving artifacts from the historic Coney, but rather come up with ways to entice visitors. Still, might be better than leaving much of the area vacant as Thor Equities Joe Sitt and the city have their little turf war. more ›

An undercover cop who falsely identified an innocent cab driver as an ecstasy dealer has cost taxpayers $1.5 million. Yesterday lawyers for the city agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by 34-year-old hack Jesus Diaz Delossantos, who was arrested and jailed for 9 months in 2002 on charges of selling 100 Ecstasy tablets to an undercover police officer. According to Newsday, Delossantos' lawyer proved the officer wasn't even working the day he claimed Delossantos sold him 100 ecstasy tablets, and that Delossantos did not even fit the description of the man who sold the drugs. His lawyer tells the Daily News, "These cops were bad guys. They were untruthful." Crazy, right? Delossantos, who is originally from the Dominican Republic, says, "This is the end of a very ugly part of my life." more ›

City and State were at odds last night at a public forum held in Carroll Gardens regarding the cleanup of the Gowanus Canal. It's being reported that the Bloomberg Administration is "opposing a proposal by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to add Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal to the agency’s list of Superfund sites, arguing that the designation could jeopardize planned development for the area and the city’s own cleanup efforts." Daniel Walsh, director of the Mayor's Office of Environmental Remediation, noted that "Of the 1,500 federal Superfund sites to date, no river cleanup has been successfully completed." Because the Superfund solution would require finding responsible parties for past contamination, the city fears that the effort would take up to 20 years, "putting at risk more than $400 million of private investment already committed to the area for housing and other development," as well as the city's own cleanup efforts. The E.P.A. officials will make a final decision following a 60-day public comment scheduled to end June 6th. more ›

With the old Yankee Stadium looking very desolate (no more grass!), the Bronx Bombers are getting ready to sell off the legendary ball field's items, now that they have struck a deal with the city. See, the city owns the old Yankees Stadium and the team needed permission to sell off things like urinals, seats, foul poles, etc. The NY Times reports that while the deal is still being completed, the city is supposedly guaranteed at least $10 million, plus "the city will receive 5 percent of net sales over $16 million; 10 percent of sales over $17 million; 20 percent over $18.5 million; 24 percent over $19.5 million and half of everything over $29 million." Keep in mind, the city has given the Yankees hundreds of million in subsidies to build the new House That Jeter Built. more ›

A spokesperson for Governor Paterson's office confirmed that talks were ongoing but stressed that no resolution had been reached. Governors Island has become an increasingly popular weekend recreation destination since it was opened to the public in 2003. It's run jointly by the city and state, but Paterson's budget does not include any money for the park this year, and yesterday the Governors Island board of directors imposed an austerity budget of $11.8 million, down from $18.8 million, while acknowledging that the remaining $550,000 in its operating budget will be exhausted by the end of the month. more ›

Coming soon to Times Square and Herald Square: Vehicle-free Broadway! Starting on Memorial Day, two stretches of Broadway, from 42nd to 47th streets and from 32nd to 35th streets, will transformed into pedestrian plazas in an experiment that will last through the end of the year and may become permanent, the Post reports. Mayor Bloomberg is expected to announce the plan today, and promise that the change will actually improve the overall traffic flow, because Broadway disrupts traffic where it intersects with other streets. As part of the changes, Seventh Avenue will be widened from three to four lanes at 45th Street. more ›

The Times has 1,391 words on the state of the Coney Island "redevelopment" process, but the diagnosis can basically be boiled down to just one: stasis. There's not much new here for those who've been following along with the various competing proposals for the amusement district and surrounding neighborhood, but the article is a pretty disheartening portrait of urban planning gone nowhere. Joe Sitt, the developer who has bought up most of the land and essentially evicted Astroland, isn't negotiating with the city anymore; their talks broke down around Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, nothing's being done besides a long-overdue repair of the Boardwalk, and fears are mounting that, given the economy, none of these grand plans will come to fruition, leaving local businesses in dire limbo. Charles Denson, executive director of the Coney Island History Project, tells the Times, "We might be looking at vacant lots for a long time to come. Everybody’s broke. These massive plans, these visions, don’t usually work. But I hope for the best." more ›