Good morning. It’s Friday. Today we’ll find out why some business owners say that a law passed 17 years ago — and set to take effect this July 1 — should be revised. We’ll also get details on the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report on the deadly runway collision at LaGuardia Airport last month.
Roll-down gates, which wall off storefronts after closing time the way a theater curtain walls off the stage between acts, have long been fixtures of the urban streetscape in New York — unsightly to some, irresistible to others who have spray paint and artistic flair and see them as canvases. When the City Council took up a bill to ban them, the vote was unanimous. That was in 2009. The measure set a deadline far in the future — this July 1, 69 days from now. Now, as the deadline approaches, there is resistance. At least one City Council member is drafting a measure that would require only new installations to meet the standard set by the 2009 law. It said that gates could no longer be solid steel curtains. People had to be able to see through them from the street. “It’s been 17 years,” said Randolph Peers, the president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. “In some cases, businesses forgot about the law. In other cases, even with new installations, nobody was advising businesses that they needed to be in compliance.” He estimated that only 10 percent to 15 percent of businesses in Brooklyn met the requirements. An issue that disappeared from the conversationCouncilwoman Althea Stevens, a Bronx Democrat who said she was working on a bill to revise the rules on gates, said the issue had faded from public consciousness in the years since her predecessors passed the bill. “Literally, I didn’t know about it until I started talking to businesses in my district,” she said. Many business owners first heard about the deadline in late January, when the Department of Buildings issued a leaflet with a photograph of a solid-panel gate that would not be acceptable after July 1. Next to it was a gate with what are known as fenestrated slats, or openings in the slats that roll down. “Essentially it’s about the level of visibility,” said Jessica Walker, the president and chief executive of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. “Law enforcement wants to have a better view into the stores” if an alarm triggered by a break-in goes off. “We understand that and agree with that objective. It’s about the timing, what it would mean for small businesses to comply by July.” The law set fines that start at $250, and Isidro Medina, the president and executive director of the Washington Heights Business Improvement District, estimated that new gates could cost as much as $7,000, depending on width. He said that he had canvassed the 250 businesses in his jurisdiction and found roughly 100 that were not in compliance. The cost of installing new gates “would have a huge impact” on store owners, he said, “and that’s not taking into account summonses.” The Department of Buildings said it had held several outreach events and had worked with the city’s Department of Small Business Services to spread the word. But a spokesman for the Buildings Department noted that the agency did not have the authority to delay the deadline or change the law. Still, the agency plans to enforce it only in response to 311 complaints. A building inspector sent to an address about an elevator or a sidewalk shed after July 1 will not check on whether the building has an old-style gate, the spokesman, Andrew Rudansky, said. For now, people like Frank Caputo are perplexed. He is the owner of Caputo’s Fine Foods, a gastronome’s wonderland in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn. In the 53 years since his parents opened Caputo’s, it has had two gates, both solid curtains of metal. In 2009, when the City Council passed the law that will soon take effect, Caputo predicted that by now, he would have replaced his then-two-year-old gate. He also said that he liked the long lead time that was built into the law. He would have been upset if he had been forced to get a new gate in six months, he said then. He still has the same gate. “I’m going to call my gate guy, see if he knows anything” about the July 1 deadline, he said on Thursday. “If I have to do it, I have to do it.” WEATHER Look for morning clouds to give way to sunshine and a high near 65. Tonight’s low will be 48 with a slight chance of showers after 2 a.m. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until May 14 (Solemnity of the Ascension). QUOTE OF THE DAY “We love the cherry trees.” — Karen Jennemann, a volunteer “petal protector” who patrols the promenades on Roosevelt Island, warning visitors not to pluck the blossoms or climb the trees. The latest Metro news
We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Safety board says communications failures figured in the LaGuardia runway crash
Some early answers to questions about the runway collision between an Air Canada passenger jet and a fire truck at LaGuardia Airport last month emerged from a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board. The report pointed to a series of communications issues, citing the decision not to install transponders in emergency response vehicles at LaGuardia, including the fire truck. Without the transponders, investigators wrote in the report, the “system could not uniquely identify each of the seven responding vehicles” dispatched to check on a United Airlines jet that had aborted a takeoff after the crew smelled a foul odor. One of the seven vehicles was the fire truck that the Air Canada jet hit. The report suggested that transponders could have triggered an automatic warning system to alert a controller to the imminent collision. The two Air Canada pilots were killed, and the collision sent 39 passengers and the two firefighters in the truck to the hospital. The Federal Aviation Administration recommended last year that airports outfit their emergency vehicles with such technology to avoid close calls. On Thursday, before the report was released, Kathryn Garcia, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told reporters that the agency would wait to see the report before making any changes. The Port Authority operates the three major airports in the New York area, including LaGuardia. The report said that those in the fire truck, the lead vehicle in a convoy heading to the grounded United Airlines plane, failed to understand that instructions to “stop, stop, stop” were meant for them. METROPOLITAN DIARY Turtle Pond
Dear Diary: Every spring, I go to Turtle Pond in Central Park hoping to see a white egret. The first time I saw one there, it was gliding along the shallows beneath fresh green leaves. I asked a woman taking pictures what kind of bird it was, and she told me about egrets. In the colder months, they fly south, maybe all the way to the tropics. Then one morning in May, one will pop up at Turtle Pond, sometimes hiding in the brush, sometimes standing on one leg among the ducks. Once, after watching an egret through a long stretch of stillness, I saw it strike and come up with a fish. Another time, I saw one standing in the water, still and watchful, and then lifting off and flying just above the water near to where I stood. For a second, I wondered if the egret knew it was me. I can’t tell if it’s the same one returning in the spring, but I hope so. — Julie Zhu Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Tell us your New York story here and read more Metropolitan Diary here.
Glad we could get together here. See you Monday. — J.B. Tara Terranova and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. |
