Thomas Honan[1]

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Introduction

The Great GoogaMooga, advertised as “an amusement park of Food, Drink, & Music” was a music, artisan food, and drink festival in Prospect Park.[2] GoogaMooga lasted two days during the summer of 2012 and three days during the summer 2013,[3] and demonstrates the negative impact of private use on public space.[4] The Prospect Park Alliance, a non-profit organization founded to raise private funds to supplement the financing of Prospect Park,[5] and Superfly, a privately owned music festival company, organized GoogaMooga.[6] The festival was strategically placed in Nethermead Meadow, a lovely tree-lined meadow located in the center of the park.[7] Nethermead Meadow is traditionally used by the public for dog walking, tossing a football, and gathering with friends for a picnic, the leisure activities one would expect to take place in a park meadow. Over the three-day event, Nethermead Meadows played host to approximately 120,000 people, and accommodated approximately 75 restaurant stands, 65 drink stations, and two stages where 20 bands performed.[8] As one Prospect Park local aptly put it, “It’s like bringing a boombox into a library – it doesn’t belong there.”[9]

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Eugene Chen

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Introduction

From the 1950s through the 1960s, two thousand families with low incomes were displaced from their homes when the City of New York embarked on an urban renewal plan targeting the area east along Delancey Street at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge, otherwise known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA).[1] Forty-five years later, the “Seward Park Slum Clearance Project” left 165 million square feet of parking lot space, devoid of any signs of human occupation aside from the coming and going of vehicles. After a contentious community debate, the City Council passed a resolution (the “Resolution”) on October 11, 2012, for a mixed-use plan to develop SPURA.[2] Proposals were due to the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) on May 6, 2013, and on September 18, 2013, Mayor Bloomberg announced that Delancey Street Associates LLC, a joint venture composed of L+M Development Partners, BFC Partners, and Taconic Investment Partners, had been selected to develop the site.[3] The plan calls for 60/40 residential and commercial development, with 500 units of permanently affordable housing, out of the 1000 units of housing being built.[4] In all likelihood, the developer chosen to develop SPURA will apply for the 421-a tax exemption, an incentive intended to encourage the construction of market-rate and affordable housing in New York City (the “City”).

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CASE COMMENT: UNITED STATES V. ALVAREZ (2014)

Rajendra Persaud[1]

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Technological advances continue to confound already dense fourth amendment jurisprudence. As modern devices become more powerful, the information stored and accessed within raises new issues that did not exist only a few decades ago. As such, new technological devices have the potential to create cases of first impression upon the courts. Recently, in U.S. v. Alvarez, Judge McAvoy ruled warrantless searches of cell phones unconstitutional in the absence of exigent circumstances or a need to protect officer safety.[2] The opinion compared cell phones to modern computers[3] that house a wealth of private information within[4] (akin to personal residences[5]). Thus, the smart phones were granted protection similar to computer hard drives[6] and all information obtained from the seized phones was suppressed.[7]

The court declined to extend this reasoning to the seized GPS device, instead comparing it to a paper map[8] despite the latter’s primitive nature. The court distinguished the GPS device by reasoning that the device’s function was designed to guide a person on a trip, the information contained was easily available to the public, and the seizure was connected to the officer’s reasonable suspicion about the defendants’ presence in the area.[9] This comment addresses the oversight regarding the technological capability of the GPS device and considers implications in light of future litigation.

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