Airbnb gives it up: The online “home-sharing” company Airbnb has agreed to comply with a May 14 subpoena from state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — ending, for now, a legal battle that had recently gained steam when the A.G. was forced to reissue his subpoena after it was initially blocked due to a technicality. Schneiderman’s office has long investigated Airbnb to find whether its New York City users are violating a 2010 state law — sometimes referred to as the “illegal hotel law” — that bans rentals of residential apartments if they last less than 30 days, and if the owner or leaseholder is not also present. The announcement that Airbnb will comply with the subpoena — which seeks information about the Web site’s users — came in a May 21 joint statement by reps of the A.G.’s Office and Airbnb. Airbnb will first provide the A.G. with an anonymized list of New York City Web site users (redacting personal information, such as names and phone numbers). From that list, the A.G. will then notify Airbnb which users are “subjects of an investigation or potential [legal] enforcement action,” forcing Airbnb quickly to hand over personal information about those specific users. “Airbnb and the Office of the Attorney General have worked tirelessly over the past six months to come to an agreement that appropriately balances Attorney General Schneiderman’s commitment to protecting New York’s residents and tourists from illegal hotels with Airbnb’s concerns about the privacy of thousands of other hosts,” said the joint statement. “The arrangement…with the Office of the Attorney General subpoena strikes this balance.”
Local motion: New sculptures with moving parts in Hudson River Park near Charles St. are catching parkgoers’ eyes. More information about the public artworks isn’t available yet, we’re told, because the creators plan to hold their own event about them. But the pieces — two mobiles that shift gently in the wind and a large ball with electrically powered mirrors inside — were attracting cameras last Sunday when we passed by. Irina, from Ukraine, was snapping shots of one. Asked about her country, she just said, “It’s war.” Some guys in a band were grooving on another sculpture, videoing its hypnotic metal movements. “This will be good for some ‘B’ roll,” one of them said.
Park board move:Speaking of the park, Governor Andrew Cuomo has chosen someone to replace Paul Ullman on the 12-member Hudson River Park Trust’s board of directors. We don’t have a lot of information about the new appointee. At Tuesday’s Trust board meeting, we thought we heard Madelyn Wils, the Trust’s president, say the new member was “Tony Pegues” (pronounced “peg-ess”). There’s an Michael Anthony Pegues who is a prominent Downtown artist, but we’re not sure if that’s him and we couldn’t get more information before deadline. He wasn’t at Tuesday’s Trust board meeting due to a cold, Wils said. As for Ullman, while on the Trust board, the Village resident was an advocate for local families and searched diligently for alternative, viable, low-impact commercial uses to help keep Pier 40 afloat. He took the news all in stride. It was former Governor Eliot Spitzer who first appointed him, and Cuomo, as is his right, apparently just decided to go with someone else. “I served at the pleasure of the governor and, I think, served two plus terms,” Ullman said. “I was honored to serve and it was a fascinating and rewarding assignment.” He said he doesn’t know anything about Pegues. Diana Taylor, the Trust’s chairperson, praised Ullman for his good work and said they plan to throw him a nice farewell party. The board passed a unanimous resolution of appreciation for his work.
Big Doris on the mend: As we reported last week, Doris Diether, 85, the zoning maven of Community Board 2, recently fell on her bum in Washington Square Park while walking backwards and manipulating “Little Doris,” the marionette that Ricky Syers made of her. Diether subsequently was taken to Beth Israel Hospital for aches and pains and possibly some “micro-fractures,” she told us. C.B. 2 District Manager Bob Gormley, who visited Diether at the hospital Sunday, tells us she was recently transferred down to the VillageCare facility on W. Houston St. “Yes, it’s related to her fall in the park,” Gormley said. “The pain and discomfort has not gone away and it is making it difficult for her to walk.” Hey, maybe Syers can bring Little Doris by to cheer her up! Umm, on second thought…maybe not. Feel better soon, Doris! By the way, we heard last week that a photo a European woman took of Little Doris feeding a squirrel in the park was “trending” hugely on Reddit. “Oh, that’s nice!” Diether told us.
Miracle on MacDougal St.: It looks like the insane eyesore of a building at 43 MacDougal St., at King St., will finally get fixed up. The 1846 Greek-Revival rowhouse has sat deteriorating for decades due to some, shall we say, quirky landlords. However, now news comes from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation that hope is in sight. “A new owner has begun restorative work on the building, including stabilizing the brick walls,” a G.V.S.H.P. e-blast said, reporting the good news. But there could also be cause for concern. “The new owner has also filed an application to raise the building height and/or construct a rooftop addition, which will require a public hearing at the community board and the Landmarks Preservation Commission to determine its visibility and appropriateness,” the release added. “G.V.S.H.P. has not seen plans for this application, so we cannot offer our opinion yet, though we have heard it may be as little as 2 feet high.”
