Patrick Wall

[Published in the New York Times]

On a rainy Wednesday in Brooklyn, one might have expected some enthusiasm for a new law that next year will allow livery cabs to be hailed on the street in northern Manhattan and the four other boroughs. Instead, some who work with livery cabs were skeptical about the effect the law might have, while those in the yellow cab business worried about its potential impact.

[Published in Crain's New York Business]

When the roar of 18,000 Brooklyn Nets fans rocks the Barclays Center to life this fall, some will hear it as the clearest announcement yet that Brooklyn has arrived.

As Borough President Marty Markowitz put it, the sparkling new arena near downtown Brooklyn “will host the kind of events you used to have to leave Brooklyn to enjoy.”

To proponents, the Nets’ arena at Atlantic Yards is the exclamation point of the Brooklyn Renaissance—a flourishing of creativity, construction and coolness over the last decade.

But critics note that Brooklyn’s economic gains have occurred predominantly in the northwest corner of the borough, where the Atlantic Yards development is situated. The neighborhoods in the central and eastern parts of the borough remain poor, and Brooklyn’s overall poverty and unemployment rates outstrip the citywide numbers.

Read the rest at Crain’s…

[Published in the New York Times]

Santa had a few minutes to kill before a holiday party the other evening, so he pulled up his sleeves and showed off some of his tattoos: a dragon, a sailboat and, inked across the nape of his neck, the phrase, “Meat Is Murder.”

The man in red, played by Justin Brannan, was sitting in the Brooklyn office of his boss, City Councilman Vincent J. Gentile, whose district includes Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights. Mr. Brannan, 33, is the councilman’s director of communications and legislative affairs.

He also happens to be a former Wall Street back-office worker and a founding member of two world-touring hardcore punk bands.

“We have legions of screaming fans in Croatia,” Mr. Brannan said recently. “Then I walk down Third Avenue, and no one knows who I am.”

Read the rest at the New York Times…

[Published in Crain's New York Business]

This fall, for the first time, the Food Bank For New York City blanketed subways with ads to attract new donors. In an attempt to illustrate the impact of even a small donation—while serving up a healthy dose of guilt—one ad points out that for the cost of a $5 latte, the Food Bank could fill 25 children’s lunch boxes.

The ad campaign is the outgrowth of a new reality at the Food Bank, which has long relied on government support to operate. Now, with government contributions on a downward spiral, the organization has had to flip its funding model to one that relies on private gifts to provide its largest slice of revenue.

“As we’ve seen that the government piece is at risk and declining, we’re working very hard to increase and build up relations with private donors,” said Alyssa Herman, vice president of fund development for the Food Bank.

In the fiscal year ended June 30, corporations, foundations and individuals gave the Food Bank nearly $15 million, while the government contributed $18 million. In the current year, however, the nonprofit expects to take in more than $17 million from private donors, versus $15.4 million from the government.

The Food Bank is not alone. Human services charities across the city are being forced to reinvent their fundraising strategies, demand more from their boards, and learn how to appeal to individual donors—who account for the vast majority of private giving—if they want to survive. The shift comes at a time when demand for services has reached an all-time high and many individual donors are finding that they have less to give.

Read the rest at CrainsNewYork.com…

[Published on the New York Times]

After a lengthy legal battle, the owners of three Upper West Side residential buildings have agreed to stop using their properties as low-cost hotels. The city hailed the deal as a victory for the community, but it has raised new concern among some residents about the buildings’ future.

The litigation, a zoning suit begun in 2007, long predates a state law passed last year making it illegal to rent out most residential rooms and apartments for less than 30 days. The settlement, reached last week between the city and the three buildings, on West 94th and West 95th Streets, effectively ensures that the owners comply with the new law and levies $600,000 in civil penalties against the owners. Each building has about 200 single-occupancy rooms, with shared amenities.

Read the rest at the New York Times…

[Published on the New York Times]

Black Friday may be a boon for retailers, but they aren’t the only ones who do a brisk business on that day. New York City’s traffic enforcement agents are notoriously busy on the day after Thanksgiving, when many car owners mistakenly assume that parking regulations, like alternate-side parking rules, are suspended.

Such was the case on Friday morning along a quiet stretch of 75th Street on the Upper West Side, where one hapless motorist after another discovered the dreaded orange envelopes on their windshields, clutched by folded wiper blades.

“I thought it was a holiday and it was suspended,” said Vicky Cardenas, a caterer from Queens. “That’s how they get us.”

She parked her red Mazda convertible at 9 a.m. Friday, then walked to work on Amsterdam Avenue. A few hours later, a traffic enforcement agent issued her a $65 ticket for failing to move her car during the neighborhood’s street cleaning hours, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. – a cursed hour-and-a-half for some residents, but a lucrative one for the city.

In the afternoon, Ms. Cardenas read her ticket and sighed. “All the money I made today,” she said, “there it goes.”

Read the rest of the story on the New York Times website…

[Published on the New York Times as part of its live coverage of the police clearing of Zuccotti Park, birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street Protests]

When the protesters were evicted from Zuccotti Park early Tuesday, the police distributed fliers saying that they would be able to reclaim their belongings “as of noon today, with proper identification.”

But after protesters sorting through the mountain of possessions piled in a Sanitation Department garage on West 57th Street in search of their stuff found some hypodermic needles, the authorities called a halt and summoned hazardous-materials workers in protective gear, a sanitation officer said.

Protesters who arrived at the garage around noon looking for their stuff were told to return Wednesday. They were not pleased.

Read the rest at the New York Times…

[Published on the New York Times]

In better times, Abel Cherubin maintained a staff of six at his tax preparation business in Brooklyn, drove a BMW and even purchased a plot of land in his native Haiti, where he planned to build a school.

But in recent years, as his client base shrank by more than half, Mr. Cherubin, 54, has been forced to lay off the last of his employees, walk rather than drive to work and halt the construction of his Haitian school. Last month, Mr. Cherubin narrowly avoided eviction. Now, he has six weeks to raise the remaining $5,000 he owes his landlord.

Immigrants like Mr. Cherubin represent about 69,000 of New York City’s 144,000 small business owners, according to a recent report by the Fiscal Policy Institute.

Though these foreign-born entrepreneurs fuel New York’s economy with jobs, tax revenue, and goods and services, they must tread through a thicket of obstacles, which have only been compounded during the economic downturn.

Nationwide, immigrants are more likely than their American counterparts to start businesses, according to a 2008 analysis by the federal Small Business Administration. Experts offer various reasons: a lack of job opportunities due to skill or language challenges, the influence of business-owning peers or even a risk-taking spirit.

“It takes a certain type of person to say, ‘I’m going to leave my homeland and seek out opportunities in another place,’” said Carl Hum, president and chief executive of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. “It’s that same DNA that leads a person to say, ‘I can’t find a job, so I’m going to create my own job.’”

Read the rest at the New York Times website…