Category Archives: New York City

Fill Out Census Forms! Ancestry.com Needs You

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     Does no one care about the future? How will your descendants track you down if you are not enumerated in the 2020 census?
    To those who refuse to fill out their forms on-line, on paper, or on the phone, thus forcing a hapless census worker to come to your door where you drive them off, I say: Don’t you care about your family tree?
     Imagine the year 2120 and your great-grandchild, now a wizened elder, is searching census records for its ancestor (which by now is the preferred personal pronoun for people of all genders) who experienced the five year Covid-19 lockdown. It finds….a blank. That person was a zero. That is because people, apparently rich ones in particular, refused to participate.
    Yes, this year President Donald Trump has thrown as many obstacles as possible into this effort, legal and otherwise. He will end the count on September 30, a month earlier than in previous census years. Although there will be no citizenship question as he wished, he has managed to scare off many legal immigrants. Nonetheless, on the Upper East Side of New York, the rate is as low as 48 percent. Many of these residents fled the city, often to their second homes, but surely they have computers that would allow them to respond on line. What is wrong with these people? In Washington Heights, with a high Latinx population, the rate is 65 percent.
     In 2010, only 75 percent of U.S. households mailed in their census information.
This year 80 percent of households could take it online. The rest are contacted by mail or on the phone. Currently census workers are going to households that did not respond. So far only about 63 percent of U.S. households have completed their brief questionnaires although results determine how many representatives they send to Congress and whether their communities receive a proper share of $675 billion in federal aid from 132 government programs including Head Start, school lunch programs, and Pell Grants for college.
     New York is one of eight states on the brink of losing social services and at least one congressional seat because of population loss. Others include Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia. In addition, California and Minnesota are considered to be borderline cases. The census also impacts economic well-being because corporations use the data to make strategic business decisions, including hiring, based on census data.
    Whatever happens, in 2020 more than ever, we will have to live with the results that the census shirkers inflict on the rest of us. It is not looking good.
    What do you think? Please comment in the box below.
 

Doctors Muzzled – – And Not by N95 Masks

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A few days ago, in the midst of a lockdown because of the coronavirus Corvid-19 epidemic, a devastating tornado struck my hometown of Jonesboro, Arkansas. In part because everyone had been forced to stay home, no lives were lost although The Mall at Turtle Creek, the virtual town center if you don’t count Walmart’s, was pretty much flattened, cars were crumpled, and a passing freight train was turned into shards.

But there were two other reasons no lives were lost. First, residents took all the precautions they could because they believed the local news media, which warned in advance of the coming tornado. I was prepared hours before in the relative safety of locked-down Manhattan because a friend of mine posted photos on Facebook of her beautiful spring flowers because she realized they would drown in the coming rain.

Secondly, people knew what protections to take. Porsha McCoy and four others, for example, huddled together in a bathroom. “We just protected each other, we didn’t have anything to cover ourselves, but each other,” she said. “We could feel things, like we was going to get blown away. By the time we opened our eyes all we could see is the sky.”
Killer storms are as well accepted as summer heat in Jonesboro. In 1968, a tornado killed 34 people and injured 300. Five years later, in 1973, another one smashed through a commercial district, destroyed five schools, injured 200, and mercifully killed only five people. 

After the tornado hit March 28, my relatives in Little Rock texted a video of the twister swirling through Jonesboro’s outskirts and setting off a fiery blast. This burst sent me to the Internet where I found a Jonesboro story from days before that made me teary. A local commercial landlord, Clay Young, told his tenants not to pay their April rent so they could pay their employees instead. Surely there were other such kindnesses in the U.S. last month, although I haven’t read or heard of them in the news. The inspiring stories that have overshadowed everything else concern the valor of nurses and doctors risking their own lives to serve those racked with the contagion in our ill-equipped, poorly prepared hospitals.  


 That is what makes a report from Bloomberg news that hospitals are threatening and firing doctors and nurses who tell the press about their working conditions and the state of patient care during the coronavirus pandemic. Equally alarming is a revelation from ProPublica that many staffing companies are cutting the pay and other compensation of emergency room doctors and nurses, despite the relief these businesses will receive from last week’s $2 trillion stimulus package that includes deferring payroll taxes, suspending reimbursement cuts, and receiving advance Medicare payments.

How have our hospitals sunk so low when they are led by top administrators so capable that in the New York metropolitan region their annual salaries each top $1 million, based on a 2016 survey? When this pandemic ends, we have to face how careless our nation has become, which includes the cost-saving short-sightedness of the hospital industry. Without public pressure, there will not be the needed storm of reform. Devastation, as the people of Jonesboro know, always comes again.

Please leave your thoughts in the box below.

Must-reading on NYC’s subways…

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Kudos to the N.Y. Times for its investigation into how the city’s subway system became the dangerous disaster it is today. With so many examples to choose from, the reporters omitted my favorite horrific Metropolitan Transit Authority blunder – the $530 million “renovation” of the South Ferry station that opened in 2009 and was knocked out of service  by Hurricane Sandy three years later as a storm surge poured through its entrances and crippled the entire system. It turns out that those who designed and approved the upgrade early in the 21st century forgot that the South Ferry station was next to New York Harbor. The MTA team neglected to engineer safeguards against rising sea levels and inevitable storm surges.

Not to worry about missing that one — read about how Governor Andrew Cuomo forced the MTA to used $5 million of its budget to prop up three upstate state-run ski resorts that were adversely impacted by a warm winter.

Readers can pick their own favorite blunders from the newspaper’s fine reporting here.

Please comment in the box below.

 

Williamsburg Tickets Cyclists!

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More cyclists than commercial truck drivers in North Brooklyn are receiving tickets, according to NYPD data. As Gwynn Hogan reports in DNA Info,  between January and the end of September, cyclists in Williamsburg were ticketed 1,160 times for violations like running red lights and riding the wrong way on a one-way street. This is compared to 463 tickets written to commercial trucks for violations like texting while driving or not wearing seatbelt. I think we are supposed to be appalled that law enforcement is harder on cyclists than commercial truck drivers, but I am glad that bikes are getting some attention. If cyclists want to break laws with impunity, they should pedal over to Manhattan. It seems to me that their luck is better there.

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The Cycling Wheels of Justice

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Three years ago, on September 21, 2014 Jill Tarlov died of injuries she sustained when Jason W. Marshall cycled into her in Central Park on West Drive and 63rd Street. Since unlike most cyclists who hit pedestrians, he remained at the scene, we know Marshall’s name and that on the Strava website for athletes he had frequently boasted of breaking speed limits.

A police spokeswoman says that charges were never filed in the case. I must accept that means that Marshall acted in a totally lawful manner. Nonetheless, as a New Yorker who has been hit by one bike rider and grazed by a few others, I was dumbstruck when I read that an irresponsible cyclist in England who killed a mother of two has been sentenced to eighteen months in jail.  When has that ever happened here?

At the time, it seemed that the Tarlov tragedy would finally highlight the issue of pedestrian safety in a city where daily cycling grew 350 % between 1990 and 2015, before Citi Bike began a major expansion.

The public discussion never happened, although average New Yorkers grumble about it all the time. What do you think? Please click the reply box below.

Library Rose Room Reopens to All!

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Given that the third floor of The Stephen A. Schwartzman Building on Fifth Avenue, formerly known as the main branch of The New York Public Library, is now as densely packed with visitors as Times Square or the #6 subway line, I think it is time that the NYPL board and administrators, who encourage this crowding, hire a grad student to dress up as a topless Jane Austen. She could pass her drawstring bag around for funds. Maybe they could add a Bob Dylan. Literature has super heroes too.
Even if the likes of students, scholars, researchers and writers are no longer enough to justify fund-raising among the 1 percent, the larger issue is that yet another bastion of excellence is destroying itself. Let’s all go visit a fire station to make those cost-effective too. Currently, the only people allowed to enjoy these publicly-owned properties are those who need to be there. Let people in so they can slide down the poles!
Of course the magnificent Fifth Avenue library building should be appreciated by as many as possible, but the hordes now overwhelming the guards and librarians need to be actively policed. This month’s NYPL press release says of the Rose Reading Room: “The entire Room is designated for research and quiet study and there is a small viewing area where visitors can admire and take non-flash photography of the room and ceiling.” That is not the situation unfolding. (text continues below the photos)

NYPL patrons as zoo animals

If you can’t get to the zoo, photograph in the Rose Room

Scholars use the Rose Room

Patrons fill the North Rose Reading Room awaiting close-ups to be taken by visitors coming in from the rain

Visiting teens like to stand on this balustrade.

Liability issues ahead, NYPL!

So, here are some suggestions on how to re-civilize the former main branch of The New York Public Library:

  1. Inform all library guards about the rules of behavior for those wandering and photographing the reading and research rooms and its true patrons. Have them enforce the rules, which they are trying to do now with only moderate success.
  2. Designate guards to take the place of those going on their well-deserved breaks since rubberneckers swarm in taking photos and dragging children unless a guard is standing in the door of the north reading room (which is nearly identical to the south room and is supposedly off-limits to those not using NYPL materials).
  3. Ban strollers and children under the age of 12 from both reading rooms or, better, yet from the entire third floor.
  4. Rope off more lane lines so those attempting to request books can get through the clot of rubberneckers standing in doorways.

  5. Increase your toilet paper budget and improve plumbing because the bathrooms are overwhelmed, as are cleaning people.

  6. Increase your liability insurance because someone is going to get hurt. Before the Rose Room closed, I panicked when I saw a teenager standing on the balustrade on the third floor north side stairwell to impress his terrified buddy. Had the daredevil fallen three stories down to the hard marble floor his grieving parents would have had quite a payday. The building might have had to be sold and turned into condos to pay the legal judgement. Could that be idea? That Wells Fargo guy could buy an apartment in the Rose Room. Please comment in the reply box below.

Airing Facts about AIRBNB

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If the legal owner/occupant of a residence is in residence when he/she rents out their home, I have no objection. However, if they are not present, if they permit friends, family and strangers to occupy their property, it is their neighbors (as I have learned) who will bear the brunt of visitors’ carelessness, cluelessness and just plain not knowing that every time they drop their combat boots on the bare floor, the person living downstairs will suffer. Here’s a wonderful explanation about the dangers and dishonestly of AirBNB — and why it must be closely regulated — from http://www.gothamgazette.com and the hotel industry.

Please comment below.

Bill Cunningham: Nobleman of Style

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Bill Cunningham, the street photographer, cyclist, one-time milliner and incomparable New Yorker died this week at 87 and none will ever take his place. He had such a reverence for life and so keen a sense of the sacred that he was able to discern that even fashion has a soul. His best comment ever on his N.Y. Times blog went something like this: “People say that New York isn’t what it used to be. Are they crazy? (his voice rising) Have they seen the wisteria?”

Here is a selection of his many blogs, a link to the wonderful documentary about him, and photos that I had the gall to snap when I found him at work on his beloved 57th Street:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let There be Light Rail

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Proposed Connector Route

Courtesy of Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector via New York Daily News.

Kudos to Mayor Bill de Blasio for proposing the Brooklyn Queens Connector, a light rail that will improve transportation along 16 miles of the East River waterfront. It’s a New York City-only undertaking (without the complications of state, federal or Metropolitan Transportation Authority involvement). Tax revenues from increased property values are expected to cover its $2.5 billion cost. Contrast that with the $4.5 billion, two-mile Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway, which will go from 96th Street to 63rd Street and Lexington Avenue. This required boring through rock, mining out tunnels and designing and building station stations with elevators and escalators. Brooklyn Queens Connector rails will be embedded in existing streets. Groundbreaking is tentatively scheduled for 2019-2020. If the Second Avenue Subway (a plan conceived in the 1920s) is extended north and south, one hopes future phases will be light rail and not the costly, wasteful, destructive construction that we have seen on the East Side for years. When the Second Avenue subway opens in December, 2016 (if it does) the public will see how little it gets for its money – two rails, not four as in the Lexington Avenue line, and new stops only at 96th, 86th and 72nd Streets – none in the 14 blocks between 86th and 72nd Streets. Certainly, there are concerns about de Blasio’s proposal and hopefully the review process will improve it further. The light rail was plan is based on a report commissioned by a group called Friends of the Brooklyn Queens Connector, who can serve as a model for what non-profits could achieve.

Does NYC Support Democracy?

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Manhattanites who vote are still scratching their heads over this last ridiculous “election” in which six Democrats ran unopposed for six judicial positions. As a poll worker, from 6 a.m. to 9:42 p.m. on Nov. 3 I wallowed in the spectacle of seeing voters come to terms with the fact that they were participating in a sham. They had no say in whether or not nominees would take office. In effect, in full view, the fix was in. This raises the oft-asked question of whether or not we should “elect” judges. Of course we seldom know anything about them in the first place, but pity the citizen who tries to learn about a potential judge. Most did not feel the need to submit their bios to a voter guide.

Do you see a choice?

Where’s the Choice?

Tuesday, when distressed citizens asked me if they had any choice at all, I pointed out their options: 1) Vote as directed. 2. Write in their own candidates. 3. Scan the ballot without marking it.

Three of some 100 voters in my district told me to void their ballots because they saw no point to any of it. There were other reactions to the situation as well. Two sets of parents audibly exhaled and proceeded to “privacy booths” to mark their ballots with their kids. (One is led to wonder about the value of secret ballots when the only choice a voter has is whether or not to participate.) Several who identified themselves as Republicans studied the sample ballot taped to the wall, mumbled about Donald Trump, and stole out into the night. I rejoice that New Yorkers generally support the principles of the Democratic party, but I am concerned that extremists and Know Nothings are hounding moderates from the  party of Eisenhower. Couldn’t Manhattan Republicans manage to nominate even one judge?

In some parts of the city, notably Republican Staten Island where a Democrat became District Attorney, real elections did take place. Thus some of the estimated $13 million dollars the Board of Elections pays citywide to hold an election was well-spent. As for myself,  I am left with pressing questions. Why did I not think to write in Joseph F. Crater and William M. Tweed? Who are the fools – the ones who turn out to cast a ballot or the ones who stay home? Finally, what can we do now that a great big democracy serves so few? Please comment in the box below.