The Wall Street Journal - 23.08.2019

A9A| Friday, August 23, 2019 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

The U.S. Tennis Association

has underreported revenue

from its Queens tennis center

and owes New York City hun-

dreds of thousands of dollars,

according to a new audit by

the city comptroller’s office.

The audit, released Thurs-

day, found that the organiza-

tion, which pays the city to

host the U.S. Open at Flushing

Meadows-Corona Park, didn’t

report at least $31 million in

gross revenue to the city be-

tween 2014 and 2017.

The tennis organization

pays a base rent of $400,000 a

year and 1% of its gross reve-

nue to the city’s Parks Depart-

ment as part of its 99-year

lease, signed in 1993, for the

National Tennis Center.

According to the audit, the

underreporting resulted in the

city being shortchanged by at

least $311,000.

“An organization as reve-

nue-rich as the USTA should

not be nickel-and-diming the

city,” said Comptroller Scott

Stringer. He recommended

that the city renegotiate the

USTA’s lease to ensure it gets

the best possible deal.

The USTA acknowledged it

underreported $14 million in

revenue, but disputed the re-

maining sum. The organization

said the discrepancy stems in

part from the comptroller’s

misinterpretation of the lease.

Last week, the USTA paid

the city more than $143,000 of

the money the comptroller

said it owes, according to the

city Parks Department.

A spokesman for the USTA

said the audit by the comp-

troller found only a small per-

centage of unreported funds

compared with the millions it

gives the city. He didn’t re-

spond to questions about the

audit’s findings that the USTA

had underreported revenue.

The U.S. Open—one of the

four Grand Slam tennis tour-

naments—raked in about $1.

billion in gross revenue be-

tween 2014 and 2017, Parks

Department officials said.

Meghan Lalor, a department

spokeswoman, said the U.S.

Open is one of the biggest

events in the city, and the

Parks Department continues to

have a strong relationship with

the National Tennis Center.

“The USTA National Tennis

Center is a huge boon for New

York City’s economy, generating

more than $750 million annually

in economic impact for the City,

and investing more than $1.

billion in capital investments to

expand and revitalize its facil-

ity,” she said in a statement.

In addition to the miscalcu-

lated revenue, the audit found

that the organization didn’t

report in-kind donations, in-

cluding marketing services or

beverages in exchange for

tickets to the event.

The USTA also didn’t report

more than $4 million in reve-

nue from sponsors, according

to the audit. The organization

disputed the findings, saying

that reporting wasn’t specified

in its lease with the city.

While the USTA’s water and

sewer charges were paid on time

and the group kept up its re-

quired insurance, it didn’t make

sure the event’s sponsors,

broadcasters and vendors main-

tained their required insurance,

according to the audit.

way, to ensure that we are de-

livering 5G as quickly as we

can, in a way that is safe and

equitable in nature,” he said.

Smart-city technology

brings new concerns, experts

say. With 5G, it will be possi-

ble to install a lot more sen-

sors in a given space to mea-

sure things such as air

pollution. Internet-connected

devices that collect data and

control the functioning of wa-

ter, power, and traffic systems

will become ubiquitous—and

even more exposed to hackers.

Speeds possible with 5G

would allow cybercriminals to

launch attacks through tablets

or mobile phones rather than

computers with a fast Wi-Fi

connection.

A sharp rise in the number

of devices connected to the in-

ternet, known as the Internet of

Things, also could enable hack-

ers to create botnets on a scale

beyond anything seen today

that could be used to take down

websites or municipal services.

Part of New York City’s

strategy to deal with the roll-

out of 5G includes releasing

detailed guidelines and proce-

dures for how internet-con-

nected devices should be man-

aged in urban environments.

New York City plans to publish

a strategy for this in 2020

that will outline best practices

for implementation and princi-

ples around security and data

protection, Mr. Farmer said.

Manufacturers and cities

have tended to rely on general

standards in the past, such as

those published by the Na-

tional Institute of Standards

and Technology, which is

working on specific guidelines

for Internet of Things devices.

Security experts worry that

hackers will harness the

power of 5G to increase the

frequency and sophistication

of cyberattacks.

As the largest U.S. city by

population, New York has a lot

at stake during the 5G switch-

over. The city has a number of

smart-city programs in place,

including air-quality sensors

and garbage cans that act as

public Wi-Fi hot spots. Mil-

lions of devices connect to the

city’s public networks daily.

Research firm Statista Inc.

estimates that more than 38

billion internet-connected de-

vices will be in operation

world-wide by 2020, up from

about 22 billion in 2018.

The opportunities offered

by the technology in terms of

social inclusion also are too

great to ignore, said Mr.

Farmer, but even these have to

be handled delicately.

“We want to make sure that

we are ensuring that we use

connectivity, including 5G, to

address the digital divide and

close it—not to actually add a

new digital divide that hasn’t

existed before,” he said.

About 29% of households in

New York City are without

broadband internet access, ac-

cording to a report released by

City Comptroller Scott Stringer

in July. The figure largely cor-

relates with socioeconomic

factors such as poverty.

Lower-income people are

among the most vulnerable to

cyberattack, owing to low lev-

els of digital literacy, Ahmad

Sultan, a researcher at the

Center for Long-Term Cyber-

security, said in testimony be-

fore Congress in June.

City officials are in a tough

spot when it comes to 5G.

While the wireless technology

is expected to transform how

communities interact with city

services, experts warn it also

could bring more cyberattacks.

The fifth generation of cel-

lular networking, 5G is de-

signed to replace 4G, also

known as LTE. The 5G rollout

has begun: Carriers have test

networks in place in major cit-

ies, including New York. Na-

tionwide rollouts are expected

later this year and in 2020.

Introducing such technol-

ogy, which offers peak down-

load speeds about 100 times

as fast as 4G, involves a care-

ful approach, said John Paul

Farmer, New York City’s chief

technology officer.

“We want to make sure

we’re doing this in a really de-

liberate way, a conscientious

BYJAMESRUNDLE

As It Gears Up for 5G, NYC Focuses on Security

Experts worry that

hackers will harness

thepowerof5Gto

boost cyberattacks.

chief with the Fire Department

of New York. Seven others on

the elevator were rescued

from the basement, he said.

A city Department of Build-

ings spokesman said agency

inspectors were investigating.

The building, known as the

Manhattan Promenade, has 183

apartment units, city records

show. The management com-

pany, ATA Enterprises, didn’t re-

spond to requests for comment.

Mr. Waisbren’s father,

Charles Waisbren, of Milwau-

kee, said in an interview

Thursday that he visited his

son many times and that the

building had longstanding

problems with the elevators.

“The elevators were in dis-

repair every time we went

there,” Dr. Waisbren said.

He said his son worked as

an account executive at CB In-

sights, a Manhattan-based

data firm. Representatives for

CB Insights didn’t respond to

requests for comment.

Buildings department re-

cords show the 22-story luxury

high-rise, which has two eleva-

tors, had an open violation for

failing to maintain one of the

elevators. The violation, issued

on May 29, was for the eleva-

tor that wasn’t involved in the

fatal accident, the buildings

department spokesman said.

The violation said that the

door-zone restrictor on the el-

evator had been tampered

with and rendered inoperative.

The device ensures the safety

of elevator passengers, the vi-

olation says. That elevator was

ordered shut but has since

been reinspected and returned

to use, the buildings depart-

ment spokesman said.

—Ben Chapman

contributed to this article.

A man stepping off an ele-

vator in a Manhattan residen-

tial high-rise was killed when

it suddenly dropped, pinning

him between the lobby and the

basement, officials said.

Sam Waisbren, 30 years old,

was exiting from the elevator

car at 344 Third Ave. in Kips

Bay shortly before 8:30 a.m.

on Thursday when it moved,

New York City fire department

and police officials said.

Mr. Waisbren, an account

executive who lived in the

building, was crushed between

the elevator car and the shaft

wall and declared dead at the

scene, officials said.

One person got off the ele-

vator into the lobby before the

elevator plummeted, according

to Anthony Arpaia, a deputy

BYKATIEHONAN

ANDTYLERBLINT-WELSH

Man Killed When High-Rise Elevator Suddenly Falls

The fatal accident occurred in a luxury building in Manhattan.

FDNY

GREATER NEW YORK

53.2% passing this year. Older

students, however, had bigger

gains in math.

Caveats are necessary.

Many educators call stan-

dardized tests a blunt instru-

ment for measuring skills, and

one year doesn’t signify a

trend.

The year these children

started pre-K marked the first

expansion of one of Mayor Bill

de Blasio’s signature pro-

grams. In the first fall of his

tenure, 53,000 children headed

to free pre-K, up from 20,

the previous year.

About 28,000 third-graders,

or 43% of third-grade test-tak-

ers, went to the city’s public

pre-K program, according to

officials from the New York

City Department of Education.

Children who went to public

pre-K outperformed others by

2.8 percentage points in Eng-

lish and by 1.1 percentage

points in math, they said.

Among third-graders, black

children showed the biggest

one-year gains in reading,

with 42.9% proficient this

spring, up about 4 percentage

points from the year before.

“We are beginning to see

promising signs’’ of prekinder-

garten’s impact, said city

schools Chancellor Richard

Carranza.

Providing pre-K to about

70,000 city children in the last

school year cost $855 million

in state and city funds, educa-

tion officials said.

State Education Commis-

sioner MaryEllen Elia called

pre-K “a very effective strategy

to support students who can

get that early intervention if

they need it,” and noted its

statewide expansion.

Reading proficiency re-

mained roughly flat in most

grades in New York City. Over-

all, 47.4% of city students in

grades three through eight

passed, up less than 1 percent-

age point from last year.

Kim Sweet, executive direc-

tor of Advocates for Children

of New York, which seeks to

protect the rights of at-risk

students, lamented enormous

disparities for children with

disabilities: Roughly 16% of

them passed in English.

“Teaching all children how to

read is the most fundamental re-

sponsibility of schools,” she said.

“Now is the time for the city to

double down on its efforts to

improve literacy instruction.”

In math, city students saw

45.6% passing, nearly 3 per-

centage points higher than

last year, for grades three

through eight combined.

The outgoing commissioner,

Ms. Elia, said this year’s tests

were comparable to last

year’s. It is hard to discern

long-term trends because the

tests changed several times

since 2012. They will change

again in 2021 to reflect new

academic standards being

phased in.

Other tests have shown few

strides. The National Assess-

ment for Educational Progress,

for example, found that average

reading scores for fourth-grad-

ers in New York City and state-

wide barely budged from 2007

to 2017, and slipped in math.

Statewide, 45.4% of students

passed in English-language

arts, about the same as last

year, and 46.7% passed in math,

up about 2 percentage points.

Achievement gaps remain

stark. Statewide, about 35% of

black students and 36% of His-

panic students passed in Eng-

lish, compared with 51% of

white students and 67% of

Asian students.

Charter schools continue to

outperform regular public

schools, though charters vary in

quality. In New York City char-

ters, 57% of students passed in

English, and 63% in math.

The share of students boy-

cotting tests statewide slipped

slightly, to 16%. Most test re-

fusers were in wealthy and

moderate-income suburbs.

—Melanie Grayce West

contributed to this article.

New York City third-graders

fared a bit better on state

reading tests this spring than

last, possibly a hint of early

education’s benefits in literacy

for the first group of children

in the city’s expansion of free,

full-day prekindergarten.

State data released Thurs-

day showed 53.3% of third-

graders were proficient in

English-language arts tests, up

from 50.6% the year before.

Their results were up 1 per-

centage point in math, with

BYLESLIEBRODY

Third-Grade Reading Test Scores Are Up

Expanded full-day free

prekindergarten might

have contributed to

the improvement

Passing (Overhead) With Flying Colors

BIRDS-EYE VIEW: The Red Arrows, the British Royal Air Force aerobatic team, were joined by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds in an aerial parade Thursdayover the Hudson

River. The Red Arrows came to town to perform at the New York International Air Show, which will be held this weekend at Stewart International Airport inOrange County.

ASHLEY KEATES/ROYAL AIR FORCE/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

BYKATIEHONAN

Tennis

Group

Owes City

Back Taxes

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