The New York Institute of Technology will host a cyber security conference on Wednesday, Sept. 15, at NYIT Auditorium, 1900 Broadway. Dr. Eric Cole, author of Hackers Beware and Network Security Bible, will discuss future trends in network security, and security expert Bill Cheswick will talk about safe passwords.

“We have established this conference to collaboratively tackle the problem of cyber attacks,” said Nada Anid, dean of NYIT’s School of Engineering and Computing Sciences.

To attend the conference, fill out an online registration form at www.nyit.edu/cybersecurity or email events@nyit.edu.

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Listing corporations as a building’s owner is common among landlords. Often, a building’s owner is listed as an address with LLC tacked on. This poses a problem to tenants in multiple-dwelling buildings who may have a problem that needs to be addressed.

Now, Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, whose district covers parts of the South Bronx, East Harlem and the Upper West Side, recently authored a bill that requires corporate owners of residential buildings to provide names and addresses of its principle partners. The legislation, which passed unanimously in the Council, also bans the use of P.O. boxes or mail-handling facilities as mailing addresses.

In the Upper West Side part of Mark-Viverito’s district, the Department of Homeless Services wanted to open a shelter in a West 107th Street building last February. The city was unaware of the landlord’s identity. The building’s owner was G M Canmar Residence Corporation. But the West Side Spirit, Our Town’s sister publication, used Department of Finance records to identify the owner as Mark Hersh, a notorious landlord who intimidated his tenants into moving out of his buildings.

“Today, the New York City Council is sending a message that landlords should not be allowed to hide behind shell companies as tenants scramble to resolve housing issues,” Mark-Viverito said. “Thanks to this legislation, tenants will have access to the names and contact information of the principal partners of these corporate entities that are increasingly the owners of our city’s residential buildings.”

In Council testimony, the Rent Stabilization Association, a real estate industry group, opposed the legislation because the Housing Preservation and Development already requires that corporations file names and contact information of its principles.

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Parking is one of the classic problems of New York living. Countless minutes are spent circling around a neighborhood in an effort to find a free parking spot on the street.

On the Upper East Side, where good parking spots are a commodity, the Department of Transportation has been testing out a new pilot program called Park Smart, according to Streetsblog.org, a transportation news website.

Initiated this past June, the program is intended to free up parking spots by charging more money during peak parking times. The program is supposed to encourage drivers to park for only as long as they need and not feed the meter.

The pilot area spans five blocks of East 86th Street between Madison and First avenues, and Madison Avenue between East 79th and East 86th streets.

Between noon and 4 p.m., parking spots in front of Muni-Meters with the Park Smart logo will cost 75 cents for 12 minutes. To park in the morning—from 9 a.m. to noon—and in the evening—4 p.m. to 7 p.m.—drivers must pay 50 cents for 12 minutes. Other Upper East Side parking meters will remain $1.50 for an hour between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., according to the Department of Transportation.

Data from the pilot program and feedback will be collected in fall 2010.

This is the city’s third Park Smart pilot location. The parking program was instituted in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and Greenwich Village earlier in the year.

If you have used the new parking system, email editorial@manhattanmedia.com and tell us about it.

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At the end of last July, a chunk of the East River Esplanade, near East 72nd Street, caved in. There was, for a time, a gaping hole fenced off with metal barriers.

Michael Auerbach, an environmental advocate and East Side resident, said he was unsurprised when he saw the massive cave-in.

“In my head, I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s about right. I knew that would happen,’” said Auerbach, president of Upper Green Side.

The cave-in seemed unsurprising for Auerbach and others who regularly walk, ride a bike or run on the esplanade. In the East 70s, there are spots with raised and cracked asphalt. There are areas with holes in the ground that are fenced off. These metal gates make paths shared between bicyclists and pedestrians narrow.

“You have to watch where you’re walking,” said Jim, who was walking along the esplanade.

The repairs to the esplanade require more than just aesthetic maintenance. The underpinning beneath the esplanade is eroding.

Council Member Jessica Lappin said her office allocated $500,000 to the Parks Department for an engineering study.

“It’s not just a cosmetic fix or a pothole that happened because it snowed over this winter,” Lappin said. “The reality is, the actual infrastructure under the esplanade is at risk.”

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The famed West Side market has jumped another hurdle in its move to East 86th Street, between Second and Third avenues. Fairway recently received extended loading zone hours from the Department of Transportation that will allow it to load and unload trucks between 5 a.m. and 10 p.m., seven days per week. The size of the loading zone is yet to be determined.

The decision is the latest in a culmination that will bring the grocery emporium, led by father-son duo Howie and Dan Glickberg, to East Side residents. Previously, questions had been raised about the size of the loading zone and about clutter in the sidewalk in front of the store.

Details are still being finalized on the size of the loading zone, but originally the DOT had allocated the market a loading zone of 100 feet. Fairway asked for another 50 feet, which would be shared with other Second Avenue businesses as well as ongoing Second Avenue Subway construction. At a June 2 meeting, Community Board 8 overwhelmingly voted to support Fairway in its solicitation for more loading space.

Residents who live near the proposed location of the store voiced a mix of opinions about the early-hour loading and unloading.

“We don’t have good food places around here,” said Beth Luttiger, who has lived on 86th Street for 30 years. “The possibility of noise early in the morning doesn’t bother me.”

Mark Robertson, who lives next door to the proposed location, was skeptical about the early morning unloading and said that he didn’t believe Fairway delivery trucks should be allowed to unload before 9 a.m.

“They shouldn’t be unloading that early in the morning,” he said. “This is a neighborhood and people are sleeping then.”

Another passerby said that New York City is full of noise and a little more wouldn’t change anything.

“I hear so much damn noise all day long, this is nothing,” she said.

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Sam Schwartz Engineering recently released a schedule for Second Avenue Subway construction slated to take place through September 21.

Crews will excavate and install sewer, electrical manhole and service boxes on the west side of the street between East 100th and East 97th streets.

Gas, water crossing and slurry lines will be installed between 97th and 96th streets.

Sidewalks will be backfilled and restored on the east side of 96th and 95th streets and sewer lines will be sealed and the street reopened to traffic on 95th Street, between First and Second avenues.

Workers will continue façade work and basement tie work between 95th and 94th streets. On the east side of the block, crews will install a tunnel dewatering system.

Between 94th and 92nd streets, crews will remove the excavated material created by the tunnel boring machine.

Tunnel boring will take place between 92nd and 91st streets.

A broken sewer main will be fixed and piping for ground freezing operations will be installed between 91st and 90th streets.

There will intermittent closures of 87th Street between Second and First avenues on the east side of the street. Workers will excavate and prepare for a gas main replacement. They will cut back the existing sidewalk on the north side of 87th Street as well as install a new sewer manhole and electric conduits.

On the east side between 84th and 82nd streets, crews will excavate and prepare for a new steel gas pipe. They will remove and replace the existing gas main as well as install drainage structures and restore the sidewalk in the work zone.

Further south, between 79th and 78th streets, workers will remove an abandoned Con Edison steam main.

Construction work on the Second Avenue Subway is scheduled to take place from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays. Con Ed, Empire City Subway and Verizon may be performing cable and gas line work outside regular construction hours. Residents can contact Claudia Wilson at 212-792-9716 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, or the Second Avenue Subway hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at 646-252-2670.

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Eliot Spitzer, before his stunning downfall as governor, was the white knight of Wall Street as attorney general. Before him, Robert Abrams put the attorney general office’s focus on consumer rights.

Each attorney general puts their stamp on an office that commands more than 650 lawyers. This September, five candidates are running for the state’s top law job, a position held by Andrew Cuomo, the front-runner to be the state’s next governor.

In interviews with Our Town, each candidate stated that they wanted the next attorney general to be the “People’s Lawyer” and they all want to clean up the ethical morass in Albany. But the candidates have very different visions for the office, strategies to fight corruption and backgrounds that demonstrate their ability to do the job.

Richard Brodsky

Richard Brodsky is a member of the State Assembly, representing parts of Westchester County. But his prominence in the chamber—and his argument for being the next attorney general—comes more from investigation than legislation.

He was at the helm of two powerful committees: Oversight, Analysis and Investigation, and most recently Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions.

Where Albany reform, in this race, means pushing independent redistricting of legislative seats, public financing of campaigns and strong ethics laws, Brodsky believes “Albany’s governing institutions” need attention.

“I come to that as [the] only successful reformer up there,” he said.

Brodsky led the reform of authorities—public bodies created by the state to handle public projects. These authorities build dormitories and schools, provide transportation or produce power. But Brodsky called them “Soviet-style bureaucracies” that make up New York’s shadow government.

“I did it,” he said of his reform measures, “and I did it when people said I couldn’t.”

Brodsky fought the proposed Jets Stadium on the West Side, tussled with Yankees-owner George Steinbrenner over the new publicly-subsidized stadium, and sued when Indian Point, a nuclear power plant in upstate New York, got an exemption from fire safety standards.

But there is a political element to the attorney general’s office that Brodsky believes will bring reform to Albany.

“On the budget, on gridlock, on campaign finance, on reapportionment, you’ve got to have someone with political skills to change Albany.”

Sean Coffey

Sean Coffey, a former assistant U.S. Attorney and lead lawyer on the WorldCom class-action suit, wants to use the attorney general’s office as a bully pulpit to enact reform in a Legislature loath to do so.

With Cuomo making ethics the centerpiece of his gubernatorial campaign, Coffey believes that the attorney general can be “noisy” and the governor’s “wingman.”

“I can pick up the slack,” Coffey said.

When Coffey is not crusading against Albany, he is hammering Wall Street. He boasts of getting burned investors more than $6 billion from WorldCom, a telephone company.

An oft-repeated line on the campaign trail is that he doesn’t have to beat up on Wall Street to prove he can. As attorney general, Coffey’s goal for the financial industry is keeping it “honest” by focusing on audit firms, credit rating agencies—the “gatekeepers,” he says.

“You need somebody who understands this stuff,” Coffey said.

He believes his opponents’ political ambitions could influence temperament. While a joke in political circles dictates that “AG” stands for “Aspiring Governor,” Coffey says he doesn’t want that position. As a former federal prosecutor and litigator, there should be a nonpartisan agenda for the office, he said.

“I know a good case from a bad case,” Coffey said.

Eric Dinallo

But where Coffey was fighting Wall Street from his law office, Eric Dinallo was an assistant attorney general under Spitzer.

He is credited with resurrecting the Martin Act, which allowed the attorney general to investigate financial fraud and made the New York State Attorney General’s office nationally known.

Dinallo wants to use the prominence of the office to deal with problems in everyday New Yorkers’ lives.

“I want to take it and worry less about the markets, which I clearly have comfort and a history of success in,” Dinallo said, “but worry more about consumer financial products: the fees people pay in their everyday lives. The checks they write at the kitchen table every month.”

Another kitchen-table topic that Dinallo wants to combat is public corruption in Albany. Dinallo criticizes his opponents for saying they would try to compel the State Legislature in to giving the attorney general more power to investigate public corruption—a tall order in Albany. Dinallo believes he can tackle public corruption using existing law, similar to the way he rediscovered the Martin Act, which was signed into law in 1921.

“I see big, big opportunities through creative, aggressive use of the law in public integrity,” Dinallo said.

Kathleen Rice

Kathleen Rice, the district attorney for Long Island’s Nassau County, has made ethics in Albany the centerpiece of her campaign as well. She says that reform must be brought to the capital before New York can recover economically.

“Confidence in state government is at an all-time low,” she said. “When you have a situation like that, it’s very difficult to have this kind of recovery you need in the state.”

Rice points to how she changed the district attorney’s office after she was elected in 2005. She changed the plea policy on drunk driving and helped write tougher DWI laws.

“I attacked the epidemic of drunk driving in a way no one ever has before,” Rice said. “I know how to address an issue that, for one reason or another, people have failed to address.”

As attorney general, Rice wants to facilitate whistleblowers coming forward by increasing protections.

“Through that, you can get the reform, from an administrative standpoint certainly, of certain agencies if there are practices there that don’t lend themselves to good government,” Rice said. “I believe it’s setting the tone that the public trust something to be held sacrosanct.”

Eric Schneiderman

Eric Schneiderman, a state senator from the Upper West Side, is also focusing on restoring public trust. He points to his legislative achievements in correcting some of the bad business practices in the state. He sponsored a law that prevents insurance providers from canceling an entire class of coverage to avoid paying for expensive medical treatment. He also headed the panel to oust a sitting senator for assaulting his girlfriend—the first time since 1920.

A problem in Albany, he said, is that most of the unethical behavior is legal.

“I’m more interested in making cases against individuals as a part of an effort to achieve structural reforms, change the laws and change people’s attitudes,” Schneiderman said.

As attorney general, Schneiderman proposes to create a working group to examine New York’s securities laws. In government, he wants public integrity officers in each regional office of the attorney general.

“Folks who want to report local corruption can have a place to go other than the local prosecutor who probably has relationships with people you’re trying to report,” Schneiderman said.

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By Reid Spagna

Born in Pittsburgh, Peter Ackerman received a Bachelor’s degree in English from Yale and attended The American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco to study acting. Among other works he is the co-author of Ice Age and Ice Age 3.

The writer met his wife when she starred in his play, Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight. The couple settled down on West End Avenue and has two sons.

Most recently, he is the author of The Lonely Phone Booth, his newly released children’s book.

Peter Ackerman

The story portrays one of four remaining phone booths in Manhattan, located on the northwest corner of West End Avenue and 100th Street. An analog victim in a digital world, the booth loses its grasp on the neighborhood as “shiny silver objects” capture the ears of passing pedestrians.

Currently working on an animated feature for Universal Pictures, Ackerman recently took time to discuss The Lonely Phone Booth, his writing career and the changing culture of New York City.

Our Town: Why did you choose the 100th Street phone booth to be the subject of your book?

Peter Ackerman: The story came about a couple of years ago when my younger son was three. We were walking by the booth, and he said, “Why is that phone in a box?” I realized that he had no idea; it seemed very funny to me.

What implicit messages did you aim to express with The Lonely Phone Booth?

Everything has value. Even though things are changing, it doesn’t mean that something we used to use is valueless. The phone booth is a metaphor for a human being. An older person can’t do everything that he or she used to do, but it doesn’t mean that they are valueless.

What is your most memorable phone booth experience?

In college, my girlfriend spent the semester in France. I would go to a particular phone booth and she would call me collect and I’d accept the charges. We got away with this a few times, but one time, the operator broke in and said, “I know what you’re doing!” I was very panicked, and hung up the phone. It was a very dramatic moment.

What is the cultural significance of old phone booths?

There is a neighborhood feel to it. I’ve seen people in phone booths laughing, crying and yelling. You don’t exactly hear what they are saying, as they are enclosed in the booth, but in a weird way, you imagine all sorts of things about them.

You co-wrote Ice Age and Ice Age 3. How do you find a balance between entertaining children and adults, in both your book and the Ice Age films?

If you know that kids and adults are going to see something, you need to have themes that are simple and clear. I tend to write about things that are interesting to me, but I don’t try to talk down to kids.

Do your sons have any input in your children’s works?

When the book was still in gallery form, I read the book to my son’s class at P.S. 87 and made some changes to it based on certain words they couldn’t understand and the jokes that they thought were and weren’t funny.

What has writing The Lonely Phone Booth taught you? Does it make you notice new things about the city?

I feel alert to everything that is around me in the neighborhood. The truth is, I must have passed that phone booth a billion times with my kids, and I hadn’t thought about it. Then my son noticed how unusual it was, so I take more notice of things, great and small.

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A 42-year-old man from the Hudson region reported his 2007 Toyota Camry stolen. He told police the car was legally parked on Third Avenue and East 77th Street while he visited a friend that lived nearby.

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