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CRAINS 20160201-NEWS--0001-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 1/29/2016 7:30 PM Page 1 CRAINS Hospitals’ $2.5 billion bailout P. 5 | Duell family sells to Gary Barnett P. 7 | New Yorkers get their guns P. 14 ® FEBRUARY 1-7,2016 | PRICE $3.00 NEW YORK BUSINESS FLIPPED OUT The most lucrative property resales of the past year and why the easy money might be over PAGE 12 VOL. XXXII, NO. 5 WWW.CRAINSNEWYORK.COM 05 5 NEWSPAPER 71486 01068 0 20160201-NEWS--0002-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 1/29/2016 7:30 PM Page 1 FEBRUARYCRAINS 1-7, 2016 FROM THE NEWSROOM | JEREMY SMERD Access denied IN THIS ISSUE 3 AGENDA I THOUGHT I HAD difficulty getting around during the recent 4 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT blizzard until I saw an abandoned wheelchair on the 5 HEALTH CARE sidewalk near my home in Brooklyn. I could only imagine 6 ASKED & ANSWERED the poor soul who decided it was more hindrance than help. Junior’s expands 7 REAL ESTATE its cheesecake The subways were still closed, not that they would 8 SPOTLIGHT empire have made life any easier; the nearest stations are not 9 VIEWPOINTS among the 88 accessible ones in the system. Sasha Blair-Goldensohn, a wheelchair user since a 10 THE LIST falling Central Park tree branch severed his spine in 2009, returned to the city on Amtrak They call it progress, FEATURES a day after the snow settled. But he got stuck inside Penn but it’s leaving 12 COVER STORY Station in part because the only working elevator on the “ 14 SMALL BUSINESS Broadway line took him to a train that wasn’t running. wheelchair users 20 GOTHAM GIGS It was a familiar scenario. A Crain’s analysis of by the curb 21 SNAPS Metropolitan Transportation Authority data found that MTA elevators are out of service for an average of 2.5 days a month. 22 FOR THE RECORD “There’s no outcry when the elevators go out,” Blair-Goldensohn noted, 23 PHOTO FINISH “because nobody expects them to be working.” Elevators stop running without notice, leaving wheelchair users dependent on Good Samaritans to carry them. Blair-Goldensohn’s experience is hardly what the authors of the Americans With Disabilities Act had in mind when they required governments to provide equal access to public transportation. The vagaries of the subways are why so many wheelchair users depend on Access-A-Ride vans, but at great cost. The MTA spends about $600 million a year, and Medicaid an additional $200 million, to transport disabled New P. 6 BAM’s Katy Clark Yorkers when a cab ride would be so much cheaper. That’s why advocates were so pleased in 2014 when the Taxi and Limousine Commission implemented a 30- CORRECTION cent surcharge to pay for half the cab fleet to be outfitted with wheelchair lifts. Mets’ radio broadcaster HOWIE ROSE’s signature call after a New York win is “Put it in the books!” His last name was mis- But the program may be destined to fail. I got a look at the shortcomings of the stated in the Jan. 25 column, “With record employment, let’s wheelchair lifts when accessibility consultant Mark Longo showed up outside our call it the Bloomberg-de Blasio boom.” newsroom last week. The Nissan NV200, the city’s official taxi, is so small that its $15,000 lift can’t even accommodate electric wheelchairs. And only one other passenger can fit in the car when the lift is in use. That means Longo’s fiancée, who has used a wheelchair for 22 years, can’t ride in a taxi with both of her daughters. “In that vehicle, wheelchairs are so much of an afterthought,” Longo said. Uber may be a bigger problem for advocates. While users can order a wheelchair ON THE COVER: One Madison taxi through Uber’s app, the company is not required to make its fleet accessible, PHOTO: BUCK ENNIS even as it replaces cabs. “They call it progress,” said United Spinal Association CRAIN’S COMPOSITE: President James Weisman. “But it’s leaving wheelchair users by the curb.” WALLY KONEFAL DIGITAL DISPATCHES CONFERENCE CALLOUT MARCH 11 Go to CrainsNewYork.com READ: CRAIN’S BUSINESS City Councilman David BREAKFAST FORUM Greenfield, defying convention, says making parking free on > Carl Heastie will be the first Black Friday, the busiest shop- Assembly speaker featured at a ping day of the year, would Crain’s event—in the middle of encourage more shopping. the state’s budget season, no Traffic experts say the change less. He will deliver remarks and would create chaos. field journalists’ questions on the ■ top issues facing New York. Health employers want Gov. Andrew Cuomo to pick up the NEW YORK ATHLETIC CLUB tab if the statewide minimum hourly wage is raised to $15. The salary 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. increase would cost hospitals, nursing [email protected] homes and home care providers $2.9 billion annually once fully implemented Vol. XXXII, No. 5, February 1, 2016—Crain’s New York Business (ISSN 8756-789X) is published weekly, except for double in 2021, the Healthcare Association of issues the weeks of June 27, July 11, July 25, Aug. 8, Aug. 22 and Dec. 19, by Crain Communications Inc., 685 Third Ave., New York State estimated. New York, NY 10017. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to: Crain’s New York Business, Circulation Department, 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI 48207-2912. LISTEN to a podcast on our stories For subscriber service: Call (877) 824-9379. Fax (313) 446-6777. $3.00 a copy, $99.95 one year, $179.95 two years.(GST about real estate flips and the fate of No. 13676-0444-RT) struggling hospitals in Brooklyn and AP IMAGES, BUCK ENNIS ©Entire contents copyright 2016 by Crain Communications Inc. All rights reserved. Queens. Music by Tigue. CrainsNewYork.com/podcast 2 | CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS | FEBRUARY 1, 2016 20160201-NEWS--0003-NAT-CCI-CN_-- 1/29/2016 7:19 PM Page 1 AGENDAWHAT’S NEW FEBRUARY 1, 2016 Our response to the lobbying rule: One absurd policy deserves another obbyists are the folks paid by interest groups to persuade diem to supplement our government to do their bidding. They got the moniker salaries. We’ll get five- long ago by hanging out in the lobbies of government figure bonuses, too, for buildings waiting for officials to happen by so they could chairing any committees Lbend their ear on a client’s behalf. Lobbying is far more sophisticat- we create, whether or not ed now, so public disclosure of lobbyists’ identities, clients, fees they pass any bills or even and basic information about their interactions with government meet, for that matter. We’ll is required. have guaranteed pensions That makes sense: If a lawmaker advances a bill at the behest of a (even if we are convicted of lobbyist who used to be his chief of staff and has donated money to felonies), slush funds and his campaign, voters should know, so they can judge for themselves no-show jobs at law firms. whether the legislator is serving the public’s interest or his own. Taxpayer-funded staffs will But last week, the state’s ethics agency expanded the definition do any work we don’t feel of lobbying by equating newspaper editorial boards with elected like doing. Drivers will officials. By a 10-3 vote, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics chauffeur us around. Big newspapers will have state helicopters and deemed attempts to sway opinion writers subject to the same dis- planes at their disposal, too. closure requirements as traditional lobbying. Discussion between Taking a cue from politicians who draw districts and pass laws to private parties, it ruled, is every- protect their seats, we’ll craft rules to body’s business. If journalists are the legal equivalent preclude new publications from com- It is, of course, absurd—and of state legislators, we should have peting with us. The state will pay our likely unconstitutional—to treat their power and privileges, too printing and mailing costs, just as it editorial boards like lawmakers, does for legislators. Our marketers will and to make public who talks to us even use DMV records to wish New and about what. Yorkers happy birthday on their special day, as some lawmakers do. But if journalists are the legal equivalent of state legislators, we’d (The ethics agency allows all of this.) also like to have their privileges. Best of all, instead of just opining about laws, we hitherto humble From now on, we’ll work only six months a year and no more scribes will actually pass them. than four days a week—or less if we want to. For each day we’re at And, of course, our names shall be preceded by “The Honorable.” work, even if our sessions last just a few minutes, we’ll collect a per This is going to be great. – THE EDITORS FINE PRINT Women in New York state who worked full-time earned a median salary of $808 a week in 2014. That’s 84.6% of the $955 median weekly earnings of their male counterparts, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week. Hawaii had the highest female-to-male earnings ratio among the states, 92.8%; Wyoming had the lowest at 67.7%. BY GERALD SCHIFMAN STATS 25 WORDS OR LESS SICK DAY CHIPOTLE will close all its Number of E. coli cases North American attributed to Chipotle’s NYC AND THE CITY You can’t cover the locations “ locations Feb.