Yeah, but you couold tell it was the Slimes: they couldn't resist slipping the occasional,non-sequitur, irrelevant, snark...
"A flier for a local domestic violence shelter was taped to the cinder-block wall, one of its tabs ripped off."
...indicating what, exactly -- that the center was sloppy in its housekeeping?
NEVER trust the NYSlimes to do an unbiased piece. It'll never happen!
“...one of its tabs ripped off ...”
It probably had a fringe of tabs at the bottom with the phone number on each. You tear one off so you can take the number with you. It’s kind of old-fashioned now that people can take pictures of the poster with their cell phone and capture the phone number.