Local Law 97 promises to reduce carbon emissions and create a more energy efficient city. But environmentalists warn that the current rules create a loophole for landlords, especially those that own office properties, to simply buy their way out of complying.
In April 2015, Diana Florence was a longtime prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office thinking about retirement. But a phone call—about the death of an immigrant laborer at a building site—changed her plans. And it went on to upend how New York State addresses construction fatalities.
Across the country, cities are transforming asphalt schoolyards into spongy, shady community centers. The new playground at PS 184M Shuang Wen School in Manhattan’s Chinatown, for example, has a porous turf field that can capture an estimated 1.3 million gallons of stormwater runoff.
Organic waste collection has become a growing priority as the city seeks to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills, though its composting efforts have been rolled out in fits and starts over the last decade.
The site has capacity for 1,000 people, but has seen relatively few visitors while continuing to encounter intense criticism from immigrants rights advocates and members of the City Council. Residents will be moved to a Manhattan hotel next week.
Length of stay at the cavernous barracks on Randall’s Island will depend on the availability of other housing options, and the efforts of New York City officials who have pledged to streamline exits from the emergency shelter facility.
The owners of three buildings in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens are accused in the suit of falsely registering initial rents with the state Division of Homes and Community Renewal (HCR) in order to charge tenants more money than legally permitted at renewal or on new leases.
The choice of Randall’s Island for the asylum-seeker tents recalls the historic role of the island—along with adjoining Wards Island—as a drop-off point for New York City’s most marginalized groups.
New York City is opening its latest checkpoint for recently arrived immigrants, this time converting a hotel near Madison Square Garden into an intake and assessment center with rooms for nearly 300 families and single adults, City Limits has learned.
Riis residents who have spoken with City Limits since the Sept. 2 incident, in which they were incorrectly told their taps may be contaminated, have described spending hundreds of dollars on prepared food and using food stamps to purchase packaged water. Several said they visited their doctors to undergo blood testing, while parents said they have continued to use bottled water to bathe their babies and young children.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
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