http://youtu.be/xpOMlDVaXzc
Video of NYC cops clubbing Occupy Wall Street protesters at last night's march. Video has been deemed "inappropriate" by YouTube. Is it the video that's inappropriate--or the beating of citizens exercising their First Amendment rights?
Showing posts with label NYC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NYC. Show all posts
10.06.2011
11.27.2007
Happy Happy Holidays
Oh what the hell--Merry Christmas, and Happy Hannukah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Feliz Navidad-- did I leave anybody out?
Whatever these hectic holidays mean to you, to many if not most people they're about gift giving and being with the ones you love. Like the Biblical three wise men following a star and bearing gifts for a newborn baby boy, people will be on the move next month, traveling by boat, plane, car, bus, and Amtrak, bringing gifts to their favorite babies and big people. And what gift will you bring?
How about the gift of art? Go to the website of Juliana, NYC artist under "Grass Roots." http://julianamckeel.com/
When I met her in Union Square Park last year, she was sitting in a folding chair beside a table covered with paintings; one woman among many street artists showing their stuff in the park. The fairly large one closest to Juliana jumped out at me, its gorgeous swirls of pinks and violets so feminine and strong and brave. In retrospect, this painting would have been perfect for my granddaughter; a vivid, lively, evolving painting that she could grow with, but I-- long accustomed to being practical and thrifty--couldn't get my mind around the idea that a working stiff could buy art. Now it's too late, but it's not too late for YOU. Juliana was asking $75 for her painting that day in Union Square Park.
If you're in NYC, maybe you'll see her there some Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Or maybe you can get in touch through her website, which I hope is only down temporarily. (It's back)
The beautiful thing about buying art from a young, struggling--and very talented-- artist is this:
Not only do you give a gift to someone of your choosing; you also give a gift to the struggling artist. I'm not talking about money. I mean recognition, appreciation, and faith.
Whatever these hectic holidays mean to you, to many if not most people they're about gift giving and being with the ones you love. Like the Biblical three wise men following a star and bearing gifts for a newborn baby boy, people will be on the move next month, traveling by boat, plane, car, bus, and Amtrak, bringing gifts to their favorite babies and big people. And what gift will you bring?
How about the gift of art? Go to the website of Juliana, NYC artist under "Grass Roots." http://julianamckeel.com/
When I met her in Union Square Park last year, she was sitting in a folding chair beside a table covered with paintings; one woman among many street artists showing their stuff in the park. The fairly large one closest to Juliana jumped out at me, its gorgeous swirls of pinks and violets so feminine and strong and brave. In retrospect, this painting would have been perfect for my granddaughter; a vivid, lively, evolving painting that she could grow with, but I-- long accustomed to being practical and thrifty--couldn't get my mind around the idea that a working stiff could buy art. Now it's too late, but it's not too late for YOU. Juliana was asking $75 for her painting that day in Union Square Park.
If you're in NYC, maybe you'll see her there some Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Or maybe you can get in touch through her website, which I hope is only down temporarily. (It's back)
The beautiful thing about buying art from a young, struggling--and very talented-- artist is this:
Not only do you give a gift to someone of your choosing; you also give a gift to the struggling artist. I'm not talking about money. I mean recognition, appreciation, and faith.
11.06.2007
I Know What I Saw
It goes back to the question asked of then Florida Governor Lawton Chiles by a radio reporter. Twyla told me she'd asked the governor, "Why is there poverty?" He never answered her.
The reporter, who has since gone on to change her name to an African one, and additionally changed her career---which is the media's loss-- asked the million dollar question. There is only one answer to that question: there is poverty because there is immense wealth concentrated in the hands of relatively few. An extreme example is the diamond drenched wedding attire of Myanmar general Than Schwe's daughter, while the majority of the Burmese people can barely afford to buy food. Don't think for a New York minute I'm advocating a communist redistribution of wealth. I've heard too many horror stories from people who've fled those countries. A competitive economy is a good thing. It fosters innovation and improvement. Real competition, that is.
I started writing this blog a little over a year ago. Its broad theme was poverty. If poverty was a river, its tributaries would be homelessness, low wage jobs, poor health and unaffordable/inadequate health care. The blog became a journey. I traveled and blogged about what I saw and people I met. I'm not a statistician. There are agencies that collect data and spit out numbers and pie charts. I was interested in the human faces of homelessness, so I focused on a couple of people, real people. I spent some nights in homeless shelters, and some days sitting on sidewalks and in parks, and riding subways. I lived in the cheapest possible accomodations I could find in New York City, a place where I was bitten by bed bugs, and shared bathrooms and showers with ten or more other women, a place where you have no kitchen, no refrigerator, and no microwave. Living this way in the capital of the world is a lot more common than you might think. When New Yorkers are burned out of their homes, and they lose everything, a room in the YMCA is often where the lucky ones wind up--for months, if not years.
There was a delay in the beginning of this journey. Overly long, it seemed to me at the time. In retrospect that delay may have been benevolently intended. Or maybe unintended. The questions-- posed at the beginning, and now answered at the end--I had to find my own answers to. Some people, maybe knowing the answers or sensing the outcome, tried to divert the journey. One was a mentor, I realize now. A mentor who didn't give me any fish but sorta taught me how to fish. By throwing me into the ocean with the right bait.
Write about us, said the women in the Manhattan homeless shelter. The world needs to know. After meeting these women, I knew I had to write about them. Read about them in Refugees of America, In the Chairs, Gimme Shelter, and Ladies and Gentlemen...
I laid this blog to rest in May, one year after its birth. I've made some improvements since then, but with the exception of a few things I get fired up about--most notably the incarceration of Aung San Suu Kyi by the criminals in control of her country--this blog was over in May '07. It was then I understood with no doubt whatsover that home is where you hang your heart. Home is not a geographic location, or even necessarily the place where you were born.
In the past year, I've hung up my coat in many places: in closets, lockers, on the backs of chairs, and on hooks screwed into the wall. A few times, I even slept in my coat. I went back to a city that was my home in the 1970's. It was where I lived, worked, gave birth to my son, and freed myself from a self destructive habit. In our last apartment, on 93rd Street and Second Avenue, we stepped through our front door every morning and passed a disheveled man sleeping on the stoop next door. It was the same man every day, sleeping off a drunk. It was remarkable and memorable because he was the only one. In a city bursting with heroin addicts and methadone clinics, drug dealers, and taverns, I saw very few people sleeping on the streets. I never heard about homeless shelters then. This was New York City in the late 1970's.
In 1979 my lease was up. The landlord sent over his new lease, raising the $170 rent on our studio apartment to more than $400. I had an opportunity to move upstate, when I still had family living there. With my child, we left NYC.
I came back throughout the 1980's to visit a good friend. Her rent, on East 116th Street was $425. She had one bedroom, in a 5th floor walk up. The bathtub in the kitchen with a hinged board covering it, doubled as a kitchen sink. The toilet was in a closet size room with a chain pull flusher. Heat was often nonexistent. It was better than her previous apartment, she said, where two dead bodies had been found in the building. Still, she wouldn't let her two children play outside, where drug dealers sold heroin and crack on the front stoop.
(A side thought: why are so many kids overweight? Maybe because they can't play outdoors as kids used to do.)
Each time I visited NYC through the eighties, I noticed more and more people at subway stations or around parks asking for change, a little help, apparently homeless. It was in the 1980's that I first saw the so-called "bag ladies;" women pushing their worldly goods around the city in shopping carts, or trudging through the streets of New York loaded down with plastic shopping bags. This did not exist on such a scale prior to the eighties. So what happened?
Rent happened. I considered moving back to New York in early 1981. I went down to the city, bought a newspaper, looked at the rents and took about two days to decide the bridge had collapsed, washed away in the current, and there was no way to go back. Conventional wisdom is that the homeless are homeless because they are: lazy, mentally ill, drug addicts, drunks. Let me explode a few myths.
Homelessness is not for the lazy. It take tremendous energy and resourcefulness to live as a homeless person. Try it sometime: dragging your essential belongings around all day, including important papers; keeping yourself--and your clothes--clean, avoiding robbery, avoiding arrest, charging your cell phone--if you have one, getting adequate sleep. Read "In the Chairs," August 2006.
There are mentally ill people among the homeless, but with affordable rent, and community based clinics, the mentally ill wouldn't have to be living on the streets. Poor drug addicts live on the streets. Rich drug addicts live in their own homes. Some people become drug addicts after they become homeless. And "drunks:" I'll never forget the young people living on the streets of Gainesville, Florida who said they drank rum to keep warm at night. Which came first: sleeping outdoors or drinking?
If you are interested in the stories of people who are invisible to the celebrity obsessed mainstream media (msm) but are literally right in your face, and under your nose, scroll back. Read Dawn. Addicts, alcoholics, and sick people have always lived in New York City and in every other city and town in America. The difference is that in the 70's a low wage worker, a retiree or a disabled worker, and that includes veterans--did they not work for all of us?--all could afford a home even if only in a rooming house. Now, even middle class workers like cops, firefighters and teachers have to live in outer boroughs or in New Jersey because only celebrities and millionaires can afford Manhattan rent. Like post-Katrina New Orleans, Manhattan is closed to us commoners. Our tourism dollars are still welcome, however.
Corporate America is not going to raise the pay of American workers to keep pace with skyrocketing rents and mortgages. Does our government have the will to create more subsidized housing --maybe built by unemployed workers who could learn construction trade skills at the same time--so that America's lowest paid workers, disabled workers, homeless vets, and low income retirees can have homes?
Stay tuned.
The reporter, who has since gone on to change her name to an African one, and additionally changed her career---which is the media's loss-- asked the million dollar question. There is only one answer to that question: there is poverty because there is immense wealth concentrated in the hands of relatively few. An extreme example is the diamond drenched wedding attire of Myanmar general Than Schwe's daughter, while the majority of the Burmese people can barely afford to buy food. Don't think for a New York minute I'm advocating a communist redistribution of wealth. I've heard too many horror stories from people who've fled those countries. A competitive economy is a good thing. It fosters innovation and improvement. Real competition, that is.
I started writing this blog a little over a year ago. Its broad theme was poverty. If poverty was a river, its tributaries would be homelessness, low wage jobs, poor health and unaffordable/inadequate health care. The blog became a journey. I traveled and blogged about what I saw and people I met. I'm not a statistician. There are agencies that collect data and spit out numbers and pie charts. I was interested in the human faces of homelessness, so I focused on a couple of people, real people. I spent some nights in homeless shelters, and some days sitting on sidewalks and in parks, and riding subways. I lived in the cheapest possible accomodations I could find in New York City, a place where I was bitten by bed bugs, and shared bathrooms and showers with ten or more other women, a place where you have no kitchen, no refrigerator, and no microwave. Living this way in the capital of the world is a lot more common than you might think. When New Yorkers are burned out of their homes, and they lose everything, a room in the YMCA is often where the lucky ones wind up--for months, if not years.
There was a delay in the beginning of this journey. Overly long, it seemed to me at the time. In retrospect that delay may have been benevolently intended. Or maybe unintended. The questions-- posed at the beginning, and now answered at the end--I had to find my own answers to. Some people, maybe knowing the answers or sensing the outcome, tried to divert the journey. One was a mentor, I realize now. A mentor who didn't give me any fish but sorta taught me how to fish. By throwing me into the ocean with the right bait.
Write about us, said the women in the Manhattan homeless shelter. The world needs to know. After meeting these women, I knew I had to write about them. Read about them in Refugees of America, In the Chairs, Gimme Shelter, and Ladies and Gentlemen...
I laid this blog to rest in May, one year after its birth. I've made some improvements since then, but with the exception of a few things I get fired up about--most notably the incarceration of Aung San Suu Kyi by the criminals in control of her country--this blog was over in May '07. It was then I understood with no doubt whatsover that home is where you hang your heart. Home is not a geographic location, or even necessarily the place where you were born.
In the past year, I've hung up my coat in many places: in closets, lockers, on the backs of chairs, and on hooks screwed into the wall. A few times, I even slept in my coat. I went back to a city that was my home in the 1970's. It was where I lived, worked, gave birth to my son, and freed myself from a self destructive habit. In our last apartment, on 93rd Street and Second Avenue, we stepped through our front door every morning and passed a disheveled man sleeping on the stoop next door. It was the same man every day, sleeping off a drunk. It was remarkable and memorable because he was the only one. In a city bursting with heroin addicts and methadone clinics, drug dealers, and taverns, I saw very few people sleeping on the streets. I never heard about homeless shelters then. This was New York City in the late 1970's.
In 1979 my lease was up. The landlord sent over his new lease, raising the $170 rent on our studio apartment to more than $400. I had an opportunity to move upstate, when I still had family living there. With my child, we left NYC.
I came back throughout the 1980's to visit a good friend. Her rent, on East 116th Street was $425. She had one bedroom, in a 5th floor walk up. The bathtub in the kitchen with a hinged board covering it, doubled as a kitchen sink. The toilet was in a closet size room with a chain pull flusher. Heat was often nonexistent. It was better than her previous apartment, she said, where two dead bodies had been found in the building. Still, she wouldn't let her two children play outside, where drug dealers sold heroin and crack on the front stoop.
(A side thought: why are so many kids overweight? Maybe because they can't play outdoors as kids used to do.)
Each time I visited NYC through the eighties, I noticed more and more people at subway stations or around parks asking for change, a little help, apparently homeless. It was in the 1980's that I first saw the so-called "bag ladies;" women pushing their worldly goods around the city in shopping carts, or trudging through the streets of New York loaded down with plastic shopping bags. This did not exist on such a scale prior to the eighties. So what happened?
Rent happened. I considered moving back to New York in early 1981. I went down to the city, bought a newspaper, looked at the rents and took about two days to decide the bridge had collapsed, washed away in the current, and there was no way to go back. Conventional wisdom is that the homeless are homeless because they are: lazy, mentally ill, drug addicts, drunks. Let me explode a few myths.
Homelessness is not for the lazy. It take tremendous energy and resourcefulness to live as a homeless person. Try it sometime: dragging your essential belongings around all day, including important papers; keeping yourself--and your clothes--clean, avoiding robbery, avoiding arrest, charging your cell phone--if you have one, getting adequate sleep. Read "In the Chairs," August 2006.
There are mentally ill people among the homeless, but with affordable rent, and community based clinics, the mentally ill wouldn't have to be living on the streets. Poor drug addicts live on the streets. Rich drug addicts live in their own homes. Some people become drug addicts after they become homeless. And "drunks:" I'll never forget the young people living on the streets of Gainesville, Florida who said they drank rum to keep warm at night. Which came first: sleeping outdoors or drinking?
If you are interested in the stories of people who are invisible to the celebrity obsessed mainstream media (msm) but are literally right in your face, and under your nose, scroll back. Read Dawn. Addicts, alcoholics, and sick people have always lived in New York City and in every other city and town in America. The difference is that in the 70's a low wage worker, a retiree or a disabled worker, and that includes veterans--did they not work for all of us?--all could afford a home even if only in a rooming house. Now, even middle class workers like cops, firefighters and teachers have to live in outer boroughs or in New Jersey because only celebrities and millionaires can afford Manhattan rent. Like post-Katrina New Orleans, Manhattan is closed to us commoners. Our tourism dollars are still welcome, however.
Corporate America is not going to raise the pay of American workers to keep pace with skyrocketing rents and mortgages. Does our government have the will to create more subsidized housing --maybe built by unemployed workers who could learn construction trade skills at the same time--so that America's lowest paid workers, disabled workers, homeless vets, and low income retirees can have homes?
Stay tuned.
1.26.2007
Rooftops of Brooklyn
It's fun to stay at the YMCA. Except last night.
Last night, a record cold one here in the Big Frozen Apple, the lights went out in Brooklyn--some of the lights, anyway. Some rooms on the third and fourth floors of the Greenpoint YMCA suddenly went dark around eight pm. Because of this the third and fourth floor bathrooms were closed and locked and everyone had to use the bathrooms located on the second floor. The YMCA has shared bathrooms, located on each floor. And in fact, according a recent internet article, this trend is spreading to other hotels in the NYC area. Booking a room at the Y includes full use of the gym and swimming pool.
It's a no frills establishment--cheaper by far than the Plaza, or the Waldorf, or even the Ramada Inn, but still not cheap for a working stiff if you factor in the cost of eating out. A handful of the residents are "permanent"--if such a thing exists in rental housing: some are people on disability who can't afford to live elsewhere. At least two current residents had been forced out of their apartments when their buildings burned down, and the Red Cross and the city put them up here in the Y.
New York's Bravest--New York City firefighters---visited the premises twice last night, and found a problem with some electrical wiring. Con Edison had to be called in to fix it. Flashlights were provided to any one who requested one. The next morning, I received a requested wake up knock by a Y staffer, since my alarm clock had been knocked out of service.
After a rough night, residents and guests awoke to a chilly hotel with no hot water. Because of this, Y management told everyone they would attempt to relocate us to another Y. I rushed to do my laundry at the laundry mat in the next block, because I didn't want to pack a bunch of dirty clothes in my suitcase. Especially since I've been plagued with some kind of itchy bumps since I moved into this room and I don't know the source or how it's spread. A friendly Rite Aid pharmacist suggested I try Benadryl cream but added it would not be effective if the bumps were caused by insects. I only know I can't afford to go to a doctor for a non-emergency and I want this to go away.
Before noon the heat, hot water and lights were fully restored. (If only all NYC landlords could be this prompt with repairs.)
After relating my concerns to the Y staff about the itchy bumps, my room was changed, and housekeeping was dispatched to inspect the mattress. The next morning, I'm happy to report, the itching is gone.
In a building this old and distinguished, power outages happen. It happened in a designated historic apartment house I lived in in Florida, and more than once. Long time Y residents told me this is the first time anything like this has happened. So I guess it's still fun to stay at the Y---but I want an apartment-- I need an apartment so I can do my own cooking again. Restaurant food is good sometimes, but it gets pricey.
From my new room, if I look straight ahead and down I can see a brick wall and a rooftop. If I raise my gaze just slightly, I can look out over the rooftop of the next building and see the Brooklyn skyline. I see smoke billowing from an industrial smokestack, I see a restored brownstone with bay windows a couple blocks away, and the light from a television or computer screen flickering inside the corner apartment. I can see trees and sky. I can see possibilities.
Last night, a record cold one here in the Big Frozen Apple, the lights went out in Brooklyn--some of the lights, anyway. Some rooms on the third and fourth floors of the Greenpoint YMCA suddenly went dark around eight pm. Because of this the third and fourth floor bathrooms were closed and locked and everyone had to use the bathrooms located on the second floor. The YMCA has shared bathrooms, located on each floor. And in fact, according a recent internet article, this trend is spreading to other hotels in the NYC area. Booking a room at the Y includes full use of the gym and swimming pool.
It's a no frills establishment--cheaper by far than the Plaza, or the Waldorf, or even the Ramada Inn, but still not cheap for a working stiff if you factor in the cost of eating out. A handful of the residents are "permanent"--if such a thing exists in rental housing: some are people on disability who can't afford to live elsewhere. At least two current residents had been forced out of their apartments when their buildings burned down, and the Red Cross and the city put them up here in the Y.
New York's Bravest--New York City firefighters---visited the premises twice last night, and found a problem with some electrical wiring. Con Edison had to be called in to fix it. Flashlights were provided to any one who requested one. The next morning, I received a requested wake up knock by a Y staffer, since my alarm clock had been knocked out of service.
After a rough night, residents and guests awoke to a chilly hotel with no hot water. Because of this, Y management told everyone they would attempt to relocate us to another Y. I rushed to do my laundry at the laundry mat in the next block, because I didn't want to pack a bunch of dirty clothes in my suitcase. Especially since I've been plagued with some kind of itchy bumps since I moved into this room and I don't know the source or how it's spread. A friendly Rite Aid pharmacist suggested I try Benadryl cream but added it would not be effective if the bumps were caused by insects. I only know I can't afford to go to a doctor for a non-emergency and I want this to go away.
Before noon the heat, hot water and lights were fully restored. (If only all NYC landlords could be this prompt with repairs.)
After relating my concerns to the Y staff about the itchy bumps, my room was changed, and housekeeping was dispatched to inspect the mattress. The next morning, I'm happy to report, the itching is gone.
In a building this old and distinguished, power outages happen. It happened in a designated historic apartment house I lived in in Florida, and more than once. Long time Y residents told me this is the first time anything like this has happened. So I guess it's still fun to stay at the Y---but I want an apartment-- I need an apartment so I can do my own cooking again. Restaurant food is good sometimes, but it gets pricey.
From my new room, if I look straight ahead and down I can see a brick wall and a rooftop. If I raise my gaze just slightly, I can look out over the rooftop of the next building and see the Brooklyn skyline. I see smoke billowing from an industrial smokestack, I see a restored brownstone with bay windows a couple blocks away, and the light from a television or computer screen flickering inside the corner apartment. I can see trees and sky. I can see possibilities.
12.07.2006
The Union Square Button Guy
This is going to be a short one; life is so hectic these days. Learning my way around NYC all over again, and covering a lot more miles in a day --without a car---than I used to in medium sized Tampa.
A couple of posts back, I commented that political buttons were no longer interesting to me, after looking at a few on a vendor cart at the entrance to Strawberry Fields. Well, today I'm eating my words for lunch...
A quiet, smallish man on the outer edge of Union Square Park (which is what I call it, but is probably the wrong name) was selling all kinds of buttons on his table last weekend. I bought four: one with John Lennon's image reads "Give Peace a Chance;" another that reads "Support Organic Farmers;" a couple more for family members: one of Rosie the Riveter with the words, "Si Se Puede," and "Books Not Bombs," and another one for my granddaughter that says "Peace Through Music." At eighteen months, she already has a decent sized book collection, although right now her real love is music. She loves to listen to Beatles' CDs, and she'll dance to almost any song playing on radio, TV or one of her toys.
Anyway the point is, this guy who is from the Phillippines, had an amazing assortment of buttons, big and small, political ( I especially liked the one that says: "Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick") and the not so political, and some cool t-shirts too. And some Tibetan prayer beads that I wanted to ask him more about, but I forgot, and so I caught up with him again the following Sunday.
The t-shirts sold by the button guy and a number of other vendors around the park's perimeter are Native American made, of heavy duty cotton, and come in a rainbow of colors, including hot pink tie dye. There's a print of an old photograph circa 1800-?, of four Native Americans on the front, with the caption: "Homeland Security Fighting Terrorism Since 1492." The website for the t-shirt designers is www.westwindworld.com. T-shirt sales benefit native peoples directly.
I 'll look for the button guy again on Sundays, since he said he's "always" out there. There are lots of vendors in and around the park, and so many talented artists. Something was special about the button guy, though. His placidness while I-- and others-- rummaged through his buttons reminded me of a couple of Buddhist monks I ran into at an airport once.
If this is considered a plug, well that's OK.
A couple of posts back, I commented that political buttons were no longer interesting to me, after looking at a few on a vendor cart at the entrance to Strawberry Fields. Well, today I'm eating my words for lunch...
A quiet, smallish man on the outer edge of Union Square Park (which is what I call it, but is probably the wrong name) was selling all kinds of buttons on his table last weekend. I bought four: one with John Lennon's image reads "Give Peace a Chance;" another that reads "Support Organic Farmers;" a couple more for family members: one of Rosie the Riveter with the words, "Si Se Puede," and "Books Not Bombs," and another one for my granddaughter that says "Peace Through Music." At eighteen months, she already has a decent sized book collection, although right now her real love is music. She loves to listen to Beatles' CDs, and she'll dance to almost any song playing on radio, TV or one of her toys.
Anyway the point is, this guy who is from the Phillippines, had an amazing assortment of buttons, big and small, political ( I especially liked the one that says: "Republican Health Plan: Don't Get Sick") and the not so political, and some cool t-shirts too. And some Tibetan prayer beads that I wanted to ask him more about, but I forgot, and so I caught up with him again the following Sunday.
The t-shirts sold by the button guy and a number of other vendors around the park's perimeter are Native American made, of heavy duty cotton, and come in a rainbow of colors, including hot pink tie dye. There's a print of an old photograph circa 1800-?, of four Native Americans on the front, with the caption: "Homeland Security Fighting Terrorism Since 1492." The website for the t-shirt designers is www.westwindworld.com. T-shirt sales benefit native peoples directly.
I 'll look for the button guy again on Sundays, since he said he's "always" out there. There are lots of vendors in and around the park, and so many talented artists. Something was special about the button guy, though. His placidness while I-- and others-- rummaged through his buttons reminded me of a couple of Buddhist monks I ran into at an airport once.
If this is considered a plug, well that's OK.
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