Excuse me?

As many of you know, we are building a new convent. The location is Harlem at 150th and Convent Avenue. We broke ground in June and hope to move in by mid August this year. The weather has been a bit better so we actually have three of the floors poured... things are looking good.

Except that we got a $3500 fine. The city wrote a ticket because our construction company closed off the sidewalk. The company had permission from the DOT to do this, and erected a walkway with barriers outside. If you live in New York you know exactly what these look like. If you don't here's a picture.



So... get this: the fine says we closed the sidewalk and did NOT erect a walkway. And a photo similar to this one was attached to the paperwork to prove it.

Huh?

So the subcontractor went to court (the one who put up the wall around the sidewalk and erected the barriers for the walkway.) Result: The judge wouldn't take his not guilty plea, wouldn't even look at the photograph. No... they want the construction company to go back to court to enter the not guilty plea. That's two court dates to prove something any moron can see in the photograph, and apparently the person who wrote the ticket, took the picture.

What is it I'm missing? Well, here's another photo to show that some people can actually read the sign and use the walkway.
Is this where your NYC tax dollars are going?