‘Many vulnerable individuals experiencing homelessness or in need of other services are shuttled into the criminal justice system in a cruel and costly revolving door, often leaving them rightfully distrustful of social services providers.’
Both conservative law-and-order and liberal-minded urban planning leave poor communities of color in the crosshairs. Public spaces, a theoretically shared space, become battlefields.
The controversy involving a pioneering pedestrian plaza in a neighborhood famously transformed by quality-of-life policing is a clash between two dominant ideas in modern New York: One, that sanitized spaces represent the public square. The other, that policing can eradicate all annoyances.
Walter Greene worked for a living. Then the work disappeared. Now, like thousands of other low-income New Yorkers, he navigates homeless shelter rules and the welfare bureaucracy.
Opponents of a planned East 91st Street waste transfer station say the city should reconsider alternatives. But advocates from other neighborhoods believe the site is right for establishing a fairer sanitation system.
The city’s commissioner of small business services says New York’s efforts to bolster Business Improvement Districts will help to preserve the mom-and-pop character of neighborhood retail.
What does it mean to be “Brooklyn”—and how has that changed as the borough went from not to hot? Chapter one of “Brooklyn: The Borough Behind The Brand” visits a local icon to find some answers.
Gridlock Sam outlines his transit dreams for New York’s future: the return of streetcars, more bus rapid transit and even a pedestrian bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn.
Police think Billy Murphy died in an accident. But if the homeless man’s friends are right in suspecting foul play, it’d be one of an increasing number of attacks on the homeless nationwide.
Times Square. In its colorful and danger-filled heyday of the 1970s and ’80s, porn shops, drug pushers, prostitutes and pistol-toting stickup men were the price of admission. But the venue has been a tourist-friendly commercial strip for some 15 years. In early April, for few minutes, that changed.On Easter night, a series of brawls and violent confrontations broke out in Times Square and nearby Herald Square among roaming bands of youths, reportedly resulting in the shooting of three women and one man, whose ages ranged from 18 to 21. A 20-year-old Bronx man was arrested in two of the shootings.
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