Livable Streets Foe Unmasked as Mini-Madoff

By Ben Fried
Mar 27, 2009

Earlier this week Suffolk County prosecutors charged Donald MacPherson, proprietor of a Manhattan S&M dungeon, with orchestrating a $50 million mortgage fraud out in Southampton. If, like me, you have only a fleeting familiarity with the subterranean torture fetish community, you’re probably wondering, "Who is Don MacPherson?"

Well, in addition to running the aforementioned shell game and bondage business, he pens a blog called Soho Politics, where he’s been known to rail against car-free streets, bike lanes, and other measures to make the public right-of-way more pleasant for pedestrians, cyclists, and bus riders. Followers of the downtown community board scene knew MacPherson as an ally of the Soho Alliance’s Sean Sweeney on CB 2, from which the alleged scammer recently resigned. Now the world knows him as the whips-n-chains guy who made a fraudulent fortune off the real estate bubble.

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Amy Cohen has begun her hunger strike for safety in Albany. Photo: Families for Safe Streets

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By Julianne Cuba | Jun 6, 2023

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Families for Safe Streets members Amy Cohen and Fabiola Mendieta-Cuapio will start a hunger strike today.

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By Streetsblog Editorial Board | Jun 6, 2023

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The intersection where Dolma Naadhum, 7, (inset) was killed by a driver on Feb. 17. File image

CB1 Members Demand Universal Daylighting After Drivers Kill Two Kids

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Fabiola Mendieta-Cuapio protested in front of Carl Heastie's office. (The Speaker was not there, but he is in the inset.) Photo: Gersh Kuntzman

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By Gersh Kuntzman | Jun 5, 2023

Members of Families for Safe Streets rallied on Monday outside of Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie's office to demand he pass a bill that would allow New York City to set its own speed limits, and expressed confusion as to why the speaker had reportedly stalled the widely supported legislation.