NYC NOW - November 25, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: November 25, 2024

New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal has introduced a bill to expand who can approve involuntary psychiatric commitments, following last week’s fatal stabbings in Manhattan. Meanwhile, New York City has added 500 new loading zones to ease congestion and reduce double parking. Plus, smaller buildings in New York City must now use trash bins under Mayor Eric Adams’ “trash revolution,” prompting concerns from some superintendents. WNYC’s Sean Carlson speaks with landlord John Tsevdos for his reaction. Finally, a new coffee table book from McNally Jackson Books celebrates Café Gitane and the transformation of ‘North of Little Italy,’ over the past 30 years

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Junae P.A. New York State Senator Brad Hoyleman Siegel is proposing legislation that would make it easier to hospitalize someone for psychiatric care against their will. The announcement comes after three New Yorkers were fatally stabbed last week, allegedly by a homeless man who had previously been hospitalized for psychiatric care. It also comes after Mayor Eric Adams pushes his own changes to the state's standard of involuntary commitment. The bill, known as the Help Act, would allow psychiatric nurse practitioners, psychologists, and social workers to assess whether

someone should be held, rather than only relying on psychiatrists. Hoilman-Siegel says the move would also help address staffing shortages. New York City's Department of Transportation says the city has created 500 more loading zones. The move aims to curb congestion, decrease double parking and help keep bike and bus lanes clear. The new loading zones are in areas identified by the public through the department's online portal. It was launched last year and allows residents to mark on a map where they notice problem spots. The new zones are marked with striped lines and signs that say no parking and loading zone.

New Yorkers can submit more suggested locations at the Department of Transportation's website. That's NYC-DOTProjects.info. Up next, New York City. Trash Revolution takes a messy turn with new bin rules for small buildings. How are landlords handling it? Find out after the break. But why see it? New York City is in the midst of a trash revolution, as Mayor Eric Adams is calling it.

Starting last April, trash bags are no longer allowed on sidewalks before 8 at night, pushed back from 4 p.m. And some supers are not too happy about it. In all actuality, our lives have been uprooted by this ordinance. We are missing out with family dinners. We have missing out with the events with our friends. They're kind of taking away our privacy also, because we have lives too. That was Dominic Romeo and Raul Rivera at a rally at City Hall a week ago.

Now we're entering the next phase of the trash revolution, containerization. Single family homes and buildings under nine units now have to use trash bins instead of piling their trash bags on the curb. And while the shift towards bins seems like the next reasonable step in the city's war on rats, it's also brought on new responsibilities for landlords of smaller buildings. My colleague Sean Carlson spoke with landlord John Savitos, who owns six buildings that are under nine units for his reaction. John, the city announced over the summer that smaller buildings like yours would have to put their trash in bins instead of on the street. Since then, can you tell us what you've done to prepare? Yes. It's a big,

headache. I support the all-out war on rats. I don't want rats. I don't want to get summonses for rat feces, but there's no living super. So I have to pay someone to go around to all my buildings, drive around, just to wheel these containers in five feet so that I'm in compliance. In my private house where I live, I've always been using garbage cans. When the sanitation comes and they pick up the garbage, it doesn't matter. I could go down in my bathrobe, wheel it back in and go back upstairs. I can't do that in properties that I don't live in or don't have a living super. But besides uprooting the logistical schedule of it, it's also uprooted my budget. To whatever cost I have, I incur when the leases are up, I'm going to have to factor it in.

There's no other way. It's a business. We're about a week away from the start of the mandate. How has it been going so far? Have you been running into any hiccups trying to comply with this? Yes. The other logistical problem is that, let's say the guy goes there the next day to wield the garbage cans back in. What if he or she goes there and they haven't been picked up yet? Now, do I tell them, okay, go back in an hour, go back in three hours? We don't know when sanitation picks them up. So they could be leaving their home, driving all around Brooklyn to wheel these garbage cans in. And then some of them were picked up, some of them aren't picked up.

And it's like I'm throwing darts. Now, you've talked about the financial burden of this, right? Both between like the cost of the bins and having to hire some of to wheel these things in and out. Can you talk more about that burden and like what that actually looks like in terms of how much the costs are and how much you might have to raise rents for your tenants? Yes. It's slightly over $1,000. It's like $1,050 to round it off.

You know, it adds up. You have to make money. Otherwise, what am I doing it for? You know, I'm not a nonprofit. it. What has your communication with the city looked like about all of this? Are they doing anything to smooth the transition? Not enough. I wouldn't say nothing, but I wouldn't say enough. There's a lot of little things. They're communicating, but it's not getting anywhere. It's like going home to your wife and having a conversation, but the outcome is the same at the end

as it was in the beginning. Nothing changed. And the other thing with the new laws, with the compost specifically, how do I enforce tenants? not throwing food scraps in the compost. Am I going to have to look through their personal compost bins and dig my hands through people's food? I mean, like, how do you do this? It's unreasonable to ask that. And then if we don't do it, you get a fine. You're talking about the curbside composting program that started last month.

That's where the city is actually requiring people to compost their food scraps. And in April, they're going to start finding landlords if they don't. So clearly all of this is an adjustment. I mean, you got a lot to contend with. and figure out in a short period of time. But talk about the rat problem. I mean, have you had rats in your buildings? And is there any part of you that looks forward to having cleaner streets outside the buildings or in your buildings?

To be fair, two of my properties, their sister properties are side by side. They've had rat problems. And like I said, I support the all-out war on rats. It has to be done with owner input, though. It seems like there's no input or they listen to us and they say, okay, and then nothing. changes. I mean, I do want to have a cleaner city. I don't want rats in my house, but there's recycling cans, there's garbage cans, some of them have to be chained up, then there's the composting. All these things are good things to do, but it's too much at once. That's landlord John Savito's,

in conversation with my colleague, Sean Carlson. For 30 years, Cafe Jatine has been a neighborhood staple in Nolita. That's short for North of Little Italy. Now, McNally Jackson, Jackson, books, its longtime neighbor, is publishing a new coffee table book that dives into the cafe's history and the story of the changing neighborhood. Here's WMYC's Ryan Kylap. Luke Levy went from Morocco to Paris as a teenager before moving to New York in his 20s, where he worked odd jobs in nightlife and hospitality. And then one day, I was dropping somebody off in the neighborhood, and from the corner of my eyes, I could see the four-rent sign. He rented the old shuttered bodega for 1,500 a month and opened up Cafe Jitán in 1994.

For months, hardly anyone came. Until an item in the New York Times style section highlighted the cafe as a place to relax and linger. And that was the beginning. It became a haven for young creatives drawn to cheap rent in what was then a quiet edge of Little Italy. Vincent Gallo and Moby and a pre-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio. The crowds haven't left Guitous.

since. I was too shy to go to Cafe Chatan. It just seemed like that was where all the really cool people went. I didn't go there for years. I was too nervous. Sarah McNally opened her bookstore, McNally Jackson, around the corner in 2004. When we moved out of the neighborhood last year, we moved to Soho and Luke's and Flowers. It was just the classiest person, kind of ambassador for Nolita. That's one reason McNally chose to publish the new book as a sort of oral history of Nolita. Luke Levy credits the location with his success, along with the vibe he's created and the people he's hired. In the early days, one of his regulars would drop his little girl off for the waitresses to babysit. My first memories here are like four or five, six years old, and I really feel like I grew up here in this cafe.

Isabel Brown is now 22, and she's the general manager. She also wrote the new book, compiling stories from dozens of interviews. Levy says it's weird. He should be proud to have kept a restaurant running for 30 years, but it didn't really hit him until he held the finished book in his hands. It's almost like your first album, you know, it's like, okay, it's here, it exists, and it's great. It's wonderful. Cafe Chitan 30 Years is out November 27th from McNally Jackson Editions. That's WMYC's Ryan Kaila.

Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Junae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.