PHOTO BY BOB KRASNER
Villa
Squa ua u re re,, Ch Chin in inatow ow own n an a d d S
Tic and Tac are still tumbling and tummling (as in, doing shtick) in Washington
Square, but they let this acrobat, who they call “Michael Jordan,” do the big jump
over the tourists for the finale. Their drummer keeps the beat in the background.
C.B. 2 focuses on fi lling
in the empty storefronts
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The Paper of Record for Greenwich Village, East Village, Lower East Side,
Soho, Union Square, Chinatown and Noho, Since 1933
August 2, 2018 • $1.00
Volume 88 • Number 30
BY GABE HERMAN
Community Board 2 has
formed a new committee
specifi cally to
grapple with a shocking new
reality impacting the Village /
Lower West Side district: the
blight of empty storefronts.
The initiative was the idea
of Terri Cude, the board’s
chairperson.
At the inaugural meeting
of the C.B. 2 Economic and
Business Development Committee,
on Thurs., July 26, at
the Little Red School House,
representatives of local business
improvement districts,
or BIDs, outlined the retail
health of the geographic areas
they cover and discussed,
with community board members
and locals, the problems
and potential solutions to retail
struggles.
As vacancy rates were discussed,
BID representatives
stressed that each area has its
own challenges and unique
retail features. The Soho
Whoa! Johnson calls
for ‘cap’ on hail apps
like Uber and a study
BY SYDNEY PEREIRA
The City Council plans to
crack down on the forhire
vehicle industry,
targeting app-based companies
such as Uber and Lyft.
The Council is expected to
vote on a package of bills next
week — with Speaker Corey
Johnson’s backing — that
would halt the granting of new
for-hire vehicle licenses for one
year while the Taxi and Limousine
one
Limudies
y,re
Commission studies
the impacts of the industry, for
which licenses have more
than tripled since 2011.
“This is the plan that
we came up with and in
UBER continued on p. 22
Silver gets 7 years
in slammer, but it’s
likely he will appeal
BY MARY REINHOLZ
About an hour before the
second sentencing of
former state Assembly
Speaker Sheldon Silver, a slew
of press people packed the jury
box in Room 443 of the U.S.
District Courthouse at 40 Foley
Square, preparing for a whitecollar
crime story to unfold.
Paparazzi with cameras waited
outside for a glimpse of the
ailing 74-year-old defendant, a
Democrat and son of Russian
immigrants who has lived his
whole life on the Lower East
Side.
He showed up around 1:15
p.m. on an overcast Friday af-
STORES continued on p. 23
M.T.A. holds hearing on L plan’s impacts...........p. 2
nfold. SIL
SILVER continued on p. 4
Back Fence’s Scinto, 88...........p. 6 Filming the Tompkins Sq. Park riot of ’88..........p. 9
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