MANHATTAN

POWER PROBLEM AROUND GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL

Heat and hot water were shut off for at least one building adjacent to Grand Central Terminal yesterday after Con Edison workers discovered a crumbling brick and concrete box entombing electrical cables eight stories below the station. The 10-foot long sarcophagus-like box had begun to crack, and workers feared concrete debris could burst an 18-inch wide steam pipe below it, risking a massive explosion.

The problem was discovered after the Grand Hyatt Hotel attached to Grand Central experienced several power failures. A spokesman for Metro North said the box is no longer in danger of falling on the steam pipe, and that an architect and engineer have been assigned to fix the box. The affected building, the Graybar Building, will be without heat and hot water for as long as two weeks, officials said.

– Special to the Sun

PARK ROW TO BE REOPENED TO LIMITED TRAFFIC

Mayor Bloomberg announced yesterday that on May 15, the city will reopen Park Row – a major thoroughfare linking Chinatown and the Financial District, from Chatham Square to City Hall Park – to limited traffic. The street, which runs past police headquarters and is considered a highly sensitive security area, has been closed since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Mr. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said changes in the global situation, and therefore the city’s security, have allowed them to consider reopening Park Row to foot traffic and buses, with an eye toward admitting all traffic at some point in the future. Park Row will be open and then monitored for a 90-day trial period, and then the city will decide whether to continue to allow access to the thoroughfare.

“We’re taking it a step at a time, and the reason to do it is to see how things flow and to reassess the world situation, and the local situation in the future,” Mr. Bloomberg said.

Residents and Chinatown businesses have long pushed for the reopening of Park Row – even taking the matter to court – saying the community has already suffered greatly from the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Mr. Bloomberg said the opening of the area will probably be enough to have the court case dismissed.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

CITYWIDE

COUNCIL BUDGET SENT TO MAYOR WITH TAX HIKE PROPOSAL

The City Council sent its budget plan to Mayor Bloomberg yesterday with a proposal to extend income taxes on individuals making over $500,000 and using that money to make class sizes smaller in city schools.

The proposal – part of the council’s larger budget package – was lauded by the teachers’ union, but it doesn’t seem likely to go very far because it would need backing from both the mayor and Governor Pataki. The president of the United Teachers’ Federation, Randi Weingarten, called it a “hallelujah proposal” and said she would bring it to her members at the union’s next executive board meeting on Monday night.

A spokesman for the mayor, Jordan Barowitz, said with Albany’s budget already passed that the speaker of the City Council, Gifford Miller, appeared to be “a little late to the dance.”

In addition to extending the personal income tax, a 4.45% surcharge that is set to expire in December, the council also proposed initiating taxes for 800 insurance companies in the city. Mr. Miller said taxing those businesses would allow the city to decrease taxes for other businesses. Fiscal conservatives had a different take, saying that taxing insurance companies would drive them out of the city.

The council’s budget also proposed a 5% across-the-board tax decrease and a tax credit for small business owners who are now taxed on twice on their income. It also calls for hiring 1,000 new police officers, providing tax credits to attract new industries such as biotechnology, and restoring all of the services that the mayor did not include in his preliminary budget.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

UFT RALLIES TO URGE BLOOMBERG, KLEIN TO NEGOTIATE NEW PACT

The United Federation of Teachers announced yesterday that it is launching a major offensive against the mayor and the schools chancellor, to convince the city to negotiate a new teachers contract.

The new campaign will begin today with three simultaneous rallies at Brooklyn. On Monday, a month-long subway advertising campaign will start. Throughout May, teachers will picket and rally. In June, the teachers will rally at Madison Square Garden and release a report card on Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein.

The union’s plan builds on the unrest already brewing among union members. In the last three weeks, there have been more than 800 protests at schools throughout the city.

“We know the reforms that work – qualified teachers in all classrooms, lower class size, making schools safe, and focusing like a laser beam on low-performing schools,” the union president, Randi Weingarten, said. “With rare exception, the administration has done the opposite.”

The new campaign comes as the teachers approach the two-year mark of working without a contract. Negotiations reached an impasse earlier this year. The city and the union are entering the fact-finding phase, and a non-binding recommendation by a state panel is expected this summer.

A mayoral spokesman, Jordan Barowitz, said, “We are always ready to negotiate. The UFT chose arbitration. We didn’t, and it’s negotiations that settle contracts with this mayor, not theatrics.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEN ISLAND

COUNCIL CALLS FOR FAIL-SAFE FERRY OPERATIONS The city council’s transportation committee urged the Department of Transportation yesterday to implement fail-safe means – such as the use of kill-switches on motors – to prevent a repeat of the 2003 Staten Island ferry crash that killed 11 people and injured 70.

The department’s commissioner, Iris Weinshall, testified at the oversight hearing that her department had already begun to implement changes in ferry operations recommended by the National Transportation Safety Board in March. Ms. Weinshall said the changes were the first time a municipal ferry operator had instituted standard procedures for every facet of operation.

The safety board concluded that the crash of the Andrew J. Barbieri on October 15, 2003, was caused both by the ferry’s captain – who lost consciousness in the wheelhouse – and a subsequent lack of safe operating procedures. The transportation committee chairman, John Liu, asked Ms. Weinshall to invest in global positioning system-based alarm systems and other “fail-safe” devices that will prevent deadly circumstances similar to the those that lead to the 2003 crash.

– Special to the Sun