Gotham Gazette

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Opinion

How STEM Education Will Unlock New York’s Sustainable Future


Hands-on learning (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Here in New York, with 520 miles of coastline in New York City alone, we understand the urgency to address climate change and the need to act now. Today, the question is how do we achieve a successful and just transition to a decarbonized world?

The transition to a green economy is underway all over the country through advancements and growth in renewable energy. But, maintaining these energy systems will require a highly trained and educated future workforce with the skills and knowledge necessary to sustain and innovate mass change at scale, in ways that facilitate equitable opportunity and environmental justice.

Focused investment in interdisciplinary STEM education that connects to students’ lived experiences is a winning strategy to ensure we’re preparing for the workforce needs of a sustainable future.

Early exposure to STEM subjects produces impressive outcomes. Studies have shown that students who receive a STEM education are more likely to pursue higher education and careers in STEM-related fields lead to higher earning potential and greater job stability. Further, research demonstrates the effectiveness of hands-on place- and project-based learning for increasing students’ positive attitudes, levels of engagement, and confidence.

When schools teach through a sustainability lens to inspire student-driven projects, young people develop a stronger sense of agency to connect the dots across the environmental, economic, and societal dimensions of our shared challenges, with their action serving as a balm for their anxieties about the future.

In New York, the offshore wind sector alone is expected to catalyze billions of dollars in investment and create thousands of jobs over the next decade. This presents a unique opportunity to create pathways for young New Yorkers to become the professionals who will build and upgrade offshore wind farms for generations to come.

This community-changing economic opportunity starts in the classroom. Increasing access to place-based STEM education for students is essential to creating a robust and inclusive workforce capable of meeting the demands of the expanding offshore wind sector and representative of the communities it serves.

And we know: CELF is a nonprofit organization that works with K-12 teachers and students to advance environmental literacy through professional development and experiential learning. Our programs focus on teaching students of all ages about sustainability, social responsibility, environmental stewardship, and civic engagement, introducing them to conservation concepts and systems thinking skills from an early age through engagement and action in their communities. We are teaching real-world environmental sustainability concepts that are not often found in traditional K-12 classrooms but are critical to confront climate change. 

Now we are ready to scale our approach to even more New York schools to equip students with the STEM skills and action competencies needed to build future careers in the green economy. That is why we have chosen to partner with Leading Light Wind – the only American-led offshore wind project in New York Bight, the offshore area.

Partnering with Leading Light Wind was an easy choice for us because of their commitment to educating and training the next generation of workers through partnerships with organizations such as the CUNY College of Staten Island, the CUNY Offshore Wind Advisory Network, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Gotham Whale, the Waterfront Alliance, the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and others. Our partnership with Leading Light Wind will enable us to provide even more resources and opportunities to students interested in pursuing careers in the offshore wind industry.

As we move towards a clean energy future, it is imperative that we invest in bold plans that advance clean energy and that train, educate, and empower American workers and the local communities needed to get us there.  

More cross-sector partnerships are critical to advance a holistic approach to combating climate change and building a clean energy future. From education to labor to environmental justice advocacy and more, we all must work together to increase equitable access to STEM education, provide training opportunities for students from all backgrounds, and support workforce development programs that will fuel a just energy transition.

Together, we can ensure that the region’s offshore wind sector is a catalyst for positive change, providing good jobs for workers and a brighter future for the region, and planet.

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Tara Stafford Ocansey is Executive Director of the Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation (CELF). On Twitter @TaraSOcansey & @CELFeducation.

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We Can Protect the Climate and Keep Energy Costs Down with NY HEAT


 

New York homes (photo: (Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor)


In March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that the planet will cross a critical threshold for global warming within the next decade if we don’t take immediate action to curb emissions and meet ambitious climate mandates laid out in New York’s climate law.

As expected, gas utilities are casting doubt on the affordability of these needed reductions. Let’s be clear — New Yorkers and their families should not shoulder the burden of our clean energy transition.

Affordability is a major concern but we don’t need to weaken our nation-leading climate law to save the planet and save New Yorkers money. As the name suggests, legislation I sponsor with Senator Liz Krueger, the New York Home Energy Affordable Transition (NY HEAT) Act would help keep costs down for New Yorkers while accelerating our energy transition away from polluting fossil fuels and addressing affordability, keeping us on track to meet the goals of our climate law.

For decades, New Yorkers have been subsidizing the very infrastructure the gas industry’s profits rely on. The industry’s business models are premised on the perpetual taxpayer-subsidized expansion of gas infrastructure and services. Currently, due to the 100-foot rule mandate – which requires gas utilities to hook up all new customers to gas lines at no charge – ratepayers are footing the $200 million annual bill for this continued expansion of polluting gas infrastructure.

The NY HEAT Act (A4592/S2016) will relieve us of the hook-up cost, and stop the continued expansion of the gas system that is moving New York further away from the goals of the climate law. Thankfully, utilities like National Grid are already adapting and adjusting: as New York considers legislation like NY HEAT, the company is looking to sell parts of its pipeline network to meet future clean energy demand. Last year, it sold a majority share of its gas distribution business in the United Kingdom.

The savings don’t end there. For low- and middle-income families, NY HEAT would put a price cap on electricity bills, to limit paying no more than 6% of income to stay warm and cook dinner. 

NY HEAT clears a path for utilities to build renewable thermal energy networks instead of replacing and expanding the gas network. Doing so will create thousands of new clean, green energy jobs for union pipefitters and electrical workers for decades to come. It could also prevent the billions of dollars of spending on replacement pipes that gas utilities are planning by 2040 and gas customers would get stuck paying for in the decades to come.

New York’s electrical grid maintains a surplus of energy that will support new, all-electric construction. While gas furnaces on the market today require electricity to power their electronics and fans, there are new technologies that keep electric equipment like heat pumps running when the power goes out.

The gas industry wants to prevent alternative options for a reliable, affordable, and green transition. Unsurprisingly, they were a force behind the recent unsuccessful push to undermine New York’s climate law – which would have enabled the combustion of more gas, for longer.

Our climate plan was years in the making. It was created in consultation with multiple expert advisory panels, subject to public hearings, and incorporated tens of thousands of New Yorkers’ comments. New Yorkers know that we can get off gas and have affordable, reliable energy and a stable climate — but that will take ratepayer funds currently used for expanding fossil fuel infrastructure to be reallocated.

If we want to save New Yorkers money and lead on climate, we must stop asking New York families to foot the $200 million per year bill to continue constructing and maintaining fossil fuel infrastructure that will inevitably become obsolete. As the Legislature continues its post-budget session, we must pass NY HEAT to move towards our clean energy future.

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Assemblymember Patricia Fahy (D) represents the 109th District in the New York State Assembly, which includes the City of Albany, Town of New Scotland, and part of the Town of Guilderland. On Twitter @PatriciaFahy109.

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To Stop the Red Wave in Brooklyn, Democrats Must Invest in Young People


 

Brooklyn Young Democrats getting organized (photo: @BKYoungDems)


Last month, progressive and reform-minded Democrats celebrated two major wins in the Midwest. In Chicago, progressive Brandon Johnson beat several more conservative candidates in a hotly-contested mayoral election. In Wisconsin, Janet Protasiewicz beat out conservative Dan Kelly in a race for State Supreme Court, giving the court a liberal majority that could overturn the state's abortion ban and end the use of gerrymandered legislative maps.

In carving a path to victory, both Johnson and Protasiewicz relied on an often-overlooked but crucially important demographic: young people.

In Chicago’s mayoral runoff election, the Johnson campaign aggressively courted young voter organizations, and youth turnout in the mayoral runoff election jumped 32% from the initial vote in February. In Wisconsin, unprecedented turnout by college students helped push Protasiewicz to victory. This jump in youth voter participation and activism is part of a national trend: turnout among young voters for the 2022 midterm elections was the second-highest in 30 years.

As ostensibly-deep-blue Brooklyn still reels from a November red wave that flipped three Southern Brooklyn State Assembly seats to the GOP and led to the closest gubernatorial election in a generation, Democratic leaders could learn a thing or two from their counterparts in the Midwest and elsewhere.

One key lesson: to remain viable, the Brooklyn Democratic Party must invest in Gen-Z and Millennial voters and organizers.

The Brooklyn Democratic Party was largely absent during the competitive November elections, failing to provide support to vulnerable candidates despite the clear threat posed by Republicans. As early as 2020, our club, the Brooklyn Young Democrats, alongside Southern Brooklyn elected officials, had publicly and repeatedly warned that our party was losing ground in Southern Brooklyn. But despite the fact that we are the county party’s official youth arm, party leadership has spent the last three years not working with or investing in us but instead trying to de-charter and destroy us.

The Brooklyn Democratic Party’s failure to invest in young people extends beyond its lack of support for BYD. While our organization has mobilized to register youth and other voters in swing districts and to build up young political talent, there's no indication the Party has done the same, despite having substantially more funding.

That's a shame, because young people here are doing the work. During election season, BYD hit the streets, knocking on thousands of doors and making calls to voters. Just as in Wisconsin, young people in New York are leading the fight against workplace inequalities by unionizing Starbucks stores from deep blue Williamsburg to purple Bensonhurst. On the policy front, college students have led the charge for a New Deal for CUNY, and young housing activists recently protested the Rent Guidelines Board’s preliminary proposal to raise rents in the midst of a deep housing crisis.

The Brooklyn Democratic Party has been silent on these issues. That’s a sharp contrast from Chicago, where Johnson made education a galvanizing issue for young people by slamming his opponent Paul Vallas for Vallas’ role in privatizing Chicago schools, and where Johnson made strong commitments on the economic development and housing issues that drove young voters to the polls.

Young people represent an immense opportunity for Democrats: Millennial and Gen Z Americans will make up the majority of the electorate by 2028, and unlike past generations, we aren’t getting more conservative as we age. Youth voter turnout in New York has actually grown in recent years, but remains well behind two dozen other states, including those where Democrats made important inroads in 2022. To follow the lead of organizers in the Midwest and win legislative seats in Southern Brooklyn, our local Democratic party must empower the young people doing this work, not shut us down.

Across the country, Republicans' authoritarian tendencies pose an existential threat to democracy. We can fight back locally by making New York a beacon of democratic engagement and participation. As we prepare for competitive elections this year and next, the Brooklyn Democratic Party has two choices: embrace the energy of young Democrats and join us in that fight, or get left behind. 

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Hunter Rabinowitz is the President of the Brooklyn Young Democrats. Billy Richling is the club’s Communications Director. On Twitter @HuntRabinowitz, @billyrichling, & @BKYoungDems.

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Redefining Our Responsibility to Unhoused New Yorkers


Subway outreach (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


The recent death of Jordan Neely, an unhoused New Yorker living with mental illness, is a tragic reminder of the vulnerability of those living on the streets. It also raises critical questions for each of us to consider about our responsibility to our fellow New Yorkers. Homelessness is a policy failure, not a personal one. It's time we base our societal response around that fact.

For years, unhoused New Yorkers have been subject to stigmatization and criminalization by elected officials, the public, and the press. This portrayal of a marginalized community does not reflect reality. According to a study by the National Coalition for the Homeless, people living on the streets are much more likely to be victims of violent crime than they are to commit such crimes.

As advocates, there are concrete steps we can take to help.

First, it is time that we recognize people experiencing homelessness as a protected class and treat them as such. In New York State, there is pending legislation — The Homeless Protection Act (A2191,S6081) — which is being promoted by advocates with the lived experience of homelessness who want to be protected from acts of violence by those who hold malice against them and to end the stigma against people in their situation. Passing this law would mean an attack against a person experiencing homelessness motivated by bias could be treated as a hate crime.

Second, New York City government must provide adequate resources to social service providers that work with individuals in need.

As prices continue to rise, the Adams administration has chosen not to increase the funding it provides to a wide range of nonprofit organizations. Currently, the administration allocates $5.6 billion to support 4,600 human services contracts, which help people in various ways, including assistance for unhoused individuals. Unfortunately, instead of receiving additional financial resources to maintain their essential work in these challenging times, these nonprofits are being asked to cut their budgets, potentially making it more difficult for them to serve the communities that rely on their assistance effectively. 

Organizations that provide emergency shelters, safe havens, and homeless outreach are among those being told they must cut their budgets by 2.5%.

At the same time, Mayor Adams neglected to provide a cost-of-living adjustment in his Executive Budget for the dramatically underpaid workforce that serves the New Yorkers with the highest needs.

This lack of financial support directly impacts the quality and effectiveness of services for people experiencing homelessness. With an already stretched-thin workforce, the absence of a cost-of-living adjustment exacerbates the homelessness crisis by reducing the capacity of service providers to address the needs of unhoused individuals.

This is the wrong time to cut costs and perpetuate underfunding for critical services; our neighbors and communities deserve better. 

In memory of Mr. Neely and in solidarity with all unhoused New Yorkers, we must take decisive action to transform the way we address homelessness.

We must disrupt the culture that poses unhoused people as a threat. Passing the Homeless Protection Act is an essential step toward recognizing the dignity and rights of unhoused individuals.

We must urge the reversal of the detrimental budget cuts that will decimate vital services and outreach programs for those in need. A fully funded social safety net is crucial in building an inclusive, compassionate city we can all be proud of.

Let's call upon our leaders to stand up for change: create a culture of compassion, advocate for the Homeless Protection Act, and demand necessary funding.

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Frederick Shack, LMSW, is CEO of Urban Pathways. On Twitter @UrbanPathwaysNY.

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The Housing Policies State Leaders Need to Focus on Accomplishing Now that the Budget is Passed


Housing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


New York State’s drawn-out budget process is finally done, but the largest issue in the minds of New Yorkers, housing, was virtually untouched. 

Thousands of New Yorkers are struggling to find housing options they can afford, millions of square feet of commercial space sits empty, and more than 77,000 people live in New York City shelters, including more than 25,000 children. Fortunately, there are proposals that have received widespread support among the Legislature and other stakeholders when it comes to housing. They involve tools to support the conversion of empty offices to housing — including new affordable units in Manhattan.

State lawmakers have a moral imperative to support these measures before they wrap up this session — even if it means their summer vacation starts a little late. If they wait until next year to find solutions, the City will have to dig itself out of a far deeper economic challenge.

We are a third of the way through the decade and New York City is already well behind the lackluster housing production of the preceding two decades. That’s why we can no longer afford to let a select few Manhattan members of the Legislature from affluent areas use “progressivism” as a Trojan Horse to slip poison pills into housing policies — as we saw them attempt during the budget process. 

Real champions of hardworking New Yorkers would be committed to constructive solutions to get housing built. They would work like hell to provide relief for the full half of New York City households who cannot afford to live here anymore, according to a recent study by the Fund for the City of New York and United Way of New York City. You would think they would look at the fact that at least 30% of those people’s incomes go to rent and feel compelled to get to “yes” on lifting the floor-to-area ratio (FAR) cap or expanding office-to-residential conversions. But instead, a select few have fear-mongered and blocked any prospect or opportunity for Black, Latino, and Asian people to move into their neighborhoods. 

We have to be better and dream bigger. The warped view of perfect policies from those who have challenged these reforms has stopped the rest of us from getting anything done. The decadelong effort to keep the FAR cap in place has led to a mere 45,968 new units across Manhattan from 2010 to 2019, according to the Furman Center. That’s 10,000 fewer units created on the island than in the preceding decade – one in which two major crises temporarily slowed production. Such a downturn in production is a major reason why the average monthly rent in the borough has ballooned to $4,000. 

Housing production in the 2020s has become even more anemic. Last year saw a mere 626 new projects filed with the Department of Buildings, according to data tracked by the Real Estate Board of New York. The 22 buildings that sought foundation plan approval last December represented a 90% drop from the same time a year earlier, signaling a lack of pro-housing policies has real implications.

It’s incorrect to say we’re barreling toward a crisis when we’re already in one, particularly when you consider the simultaneous explosion of commercial vacancies. Just recently, both the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times pointed to a potential economic strain worse than any we’ve seen before. 

Let’s be clear: many Class A office buildings are still attractive. It’s why you still saw big commercial projects carry on through the pandemic. But Class B and C commercial space is underperforming overall, driving the historically high 16% commercial vacancy rate in Manhattan. There are serious implications the longer this goes on as real estate taxes account for the bulk of New York City’s revenue. Fewer tax dollars from empty properties means less money for the City in the years ahead, which translates to less money for schools, sanitation, mass transit, and other services New Yorkers depend on. 

Lifting the FAR cap and expanding conversions, with an incentive to create affordable housing, are popular policies that Albany leaders can get done this year. No, they alone will not create the 800,000 units Governor Hochul has pledged to create to meet demand and allow growth. It would be a fool’s errand to hold out for a single, magic policy to deliver. What these measures can do, however, is create as many as 50,000 new housing units where they’re most needed – namely Manhattan. 

There’s no other policy that’s united five borough presidents, nine community boards, dozens of advocacy groups, 32BJ SEIU, and elected officials at all levels of government. This is a proposal that’s united the Governor, the Mayor, and the City Council Speaker, as well as Council Members from across the political spectrum. When something looks this good, we shouldn’t let it slip by. 

Our elected officials must stop using fear tactics to block good legislation and punt this into the next session. You can tell someone “Wait till next year” when their favorite team loses. But it’s cold comfort to someone about to lose their home or someone desperately looking for their first.

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John Sanchez is executive director of the 5 Borough Housing Movement and a former Bronx community district manager. On Twitter @NYJohnSanchez.

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Now's the Time to Boost Social-Emotional Learning, Not Undercut It


Students (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


It is budget season in New York City, a time when we all try to calculate the relative value of the things that are important to us. At a time when young people are struggling to cast off the psychic weight of the pandemic and great social unease, it is common to hear talk of the value of mental health, particularly for adolescents.

If that talk is sincere (and as the Head of School at Children’s Aid College Prep Charter School in the Bronx, I hope it is), then I would expect the relative value of social-emotional learning (SEL) and a reliable, easy-to-use assessment tool to be high. I would expect our city and schools to want to continue making an investment that has paid dividends in better behavior, stronger mental health, and more citizenship. I would be shocked if a city that says it values the social, emotional, and mental health of its young people lets the use of a valuable tool slip away.

Yet that could happen. The city recently told school superintendents in a letter that they could lose access to an important SEL tool on June 29, a year earlier than expected. This would interrupt the city's delivery of SEL to students who need it now more than ever, and would also deprive parents of information about their children's social and emotional wellbeing.

This tool is the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment, but everyone refers to it as the DESSA. It is a rating scale that teachers use to assess students’ SEL-related strengths, such as how well a child works in groups, how often a student offers to help someone, how well a student gets things done on time, and how persistent a child is. Educators more recently have come to understand and accept that we all learn through our feelings and that young people especially are most successful in learning environments that elicit strong, positive feelings. 

The DESSA takes minutes for a teacher to complete, but gives the teacher and the school valuable guidance on how well children are using and developing SEL skills and allows schools to make adjustments or spot issues.

It is no secret that young people now are facing plenty of issues not of their own making, yet city kids historically have scored well on the DESSA. My feeling is that to live in this city, all of us – children included – must have a baseline competence in social-emotional skills. It has helped that organizations like Children’s Aid and the Urban Assembly (which organizes support based on the DESSA throughout New York City Public Schools) have made plain the value of SEL and how to measure it.

In this time of anxiety and sparse mental health services, one particular value of the DESSA is to help schools discern the difference between a young person with a mental health problem and one who is enduring the stress of living during challenging times. These things are not the same.

One trend we’ve seen with the help of the DESSA, for example, is that older young people are challenged to maintain optimistic thinking and goal-directed behavior. Right now it can be hard for them to see a clear future when they’ve witnessed or experienced three years of uncertainty, loss, and socio-political turmoil. Understandably, this can create feelings of loss or pessimism, but it’s not a mental illness. Arguably, it’s a rational reaction to the times.

While the DESSA is not perfect (no assessment tool is), it does give educators the language and the ability to see the difference between pessimism and clinical depression. And the DESSA gives teachers a map on how to use SEL instruction to address the social and emotional skills that children as well as adults need to thrive.

We have all collectively lived through a traumatic experience. The way to heal trauma is through positive experiences and connections with others. The use of SEL in school puts a premium on that, and it recognizes that emotionally competent children are better academic performers.

We all want children to learn well. We want them to behave well. And of course we want them to manage themselves well and relate well to others. Let’s not stop investing in a tool that helps make all of that happen.

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Drema Brown is Head of School at Children’s Aid College Prep Charter School in the Bronx, the educational home of 600 K-8 students. She has been a leader in city schools for 20 years.

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What New York City and State Should Be Doing About the BQE


The BQE (photo: NYC Department of Transportation)


The key question about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) right now isn’t two versus three lanes for the Brooklyn Heights cantilever. It is whether New York City should proceed with its piecemeal Brooklyn Heights project prior to development of a wider corridor plan.

If Mayor Adams and the city’s Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) have their way, downtown Brooklyn and adjacent areas will be forever stuck with a moderately updated version of the BQE as we know it. And their plan comes with an absurd, blighting set of elevated highway ramps NYC DOT has proposed building in DUMBO to make driving through Brooklyn’s densest district even easier than it is today.

The city’s rush to rebuild the cantilever is bizarre and unnecessary when there is strong public and elected appetite for re-thinking urban highways generally, and the BQE in particular. It should be suspended while city and state leaders sort out a framework for taking a longer, harder, and more fundamental look at the BQE and the future of transportation in Brooklyn and Queens.  

I was frequently at odds with transportation decision-making during the de Blasio administration, but our past mayor was right when it came to the triple cantilever. Late in his term he called for shoring up the cantilever structures and reducing the rate of deterioration with traffic and weight restrictions, all in order to create breathing room to create a strong, future-oriented plan: “We’re now talking about having the time to do the really big, creative stuff”, he said.

Today the challenge is finding a way to get to the big, creative stuff while preventing Mayor Adams from unalterably locking us in to a transportation infrastructure that promotes urban car use. 

Rhetoric about the BQE this winter and spring began building in this direction. Elected leaders across the borough demanded that the city’s limited project be transformed into a city-state plan encompassing the entire length of the BQE. But now that demand needs to be sharpened. 

Just “getting the state involved” won’t get us what we need. The state Department of Transportation (NYS DOT) is little better equipped to undertake a thoughtful and creative BQE plan than the Adams Administration. Consider NYS DOT’s track record with highway removal. After decades of pressure from local groups and elected officials, in late last decade NYS DOT changed the little-used Sheridan Expressway from an interstate-style highway to a boulevard. But while pedestrians can now cross the roadway at three signalized intersections, the Sheridan right of way remains a 9- to 11-lane scar across the Bronx cityscape and retains suburban-style ramp connections to both the Bruckner and Cross-Bronx Expressways, all in a corridor with negligible traffic levels. Nothing creative and nothing that could be labeled urban design was applied at all to the Sheridan rebuild. The city played no role at all, even though it has ways to involve itself in state road projects within the five boroughs. 

Getting past the state and city agencies committed to keeping cars happy requires a new institution capable of weighing the problems, data, and potential of rethinking the BQE with ideas and applications more beneficial and appropriate than an interstate highway. This has in fact been a key recommendation in thoughtful looks at BQE issues over the past five years, but recently it has been buried under Mayor Adams’ charge at the triple cantilever and in fevered rhetoric about the legacy of Robert Moses.

The Arup/City Council study explicitly called for creation of “a new I-278 corridor governing body,” while the de Blasio expert panel and Regional Plan Association both urged a federal/state/city/stakeholder working group. It’s also the intent behind Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon’s bill to create a BQE public authority. 

All that may sound process-y, but we do in fact need to establish one conversation and one decision-making body capable of sorting out everything from today’s tunneling technology and the impact of congestion pricing to an analytic framework for assessing future travel demand broadly and without bias. We sorely lack that today. 

Successful highway transformation projects around the world have all framed key goals outside the realms of counting cars and trucks. Tear-down of the Cheonggyecheon Highway was framed as restoration of the cultural and natural heritage of downtown Seoul. Lane reduction on the Peripherique is being cast as an air quality project and opportunity to dramatically expand green space in the outer Paris region. Let’s learn from these and similar efforts, and engage their expertise. 

New York has done this successfully before. We have Hudson River Park and a pedestrian-permeable West Street today instead of a superhighway thanks to a multi-disciplinary task force established by Mayor Koch and Governor Mario Cuomo, and decisively including representatives of Borough President David Dinkins. We need something similar for the BQE, encompassing not only transportation agencies, but also city planners, urban design experts, elected officials, and civic stakeholders.

One of their charges should be to examine other cases of urban highway transformations, and they should be empowered to engage consultants with experience in modeling and estimating not just traffic growth, which is all American DOTs seem able to imagine, but how demand in the BQE travel market could be accommodated or managed differently, with better outcomes for the city and its neighborhoods. For example, perhaps the anticipated Interborough Express doesn’t need to sit at the back of a very long MTA project queue, but could instead be folded into a Brooklyn-Queens corridor program, and built with highway funds as a way to ease demand for BQE car trips. 

Once they’ve read this, I certainly don’t expect Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul to decide they agree and begin to act. Perhaps one way to elevate the issue and provoke action is for engaged elected officials to assemble their own expert group to further develop the framework for a corridor-wide approach, directly challenging the city’s piecemeal effort. Such an undertaking needs to be clear that Mayor Adams’ drive to impose a “solution” for the Brooklyn Heights cantilever will almost certainly foreclose other options and predispose any look at the corridor toward the status quo.

Unfortunately, piecemeal is how New York does most things. Public interest in the BQE is a chance to change that for transportation in the city’s most populous borough and beyond, if we seize the opportunity. 

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Jon Orcutt is a transportation policy consultant, long-time transportation reform advocate, and was NYC DOT Policy Director from 2007 to 2014. On Twitter @jonorcutt.

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Mayor Adams: Uphold the Working People's Agenda and Invest in Job Training as a Public Safety Solution


Mayor Adams speaks at a "hiring hall" (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


Mayor Adams’ 2023 State of the City address had a theme. He called it the Working People’s Agenda. Adams asserted that job development, especially for the Black community, would be a top priority. 

At Exodus Transitional Community, we’ve been putting the mayor’s agenda themes to work for years. Exodus is a preventative, reentry, and advocacy organization led and staffed by formerly incarcerated New Yorkers. We provide workforce development offerings, specifically job readiness programming and placement services. Our Employment Specialists support people in maintaining employment as well as in advancing their careers.

In 2022, we served over 900 justice-impacted people with career readiness services, placing 450 people in employment positions. As a result, families are now supported because their loved ones were able to secure jobs and become responsible tax-paying citizens. The payoff for the wider community in New York City also includes greater public safety.

In addition to providing direct services, Exodus advocates for a society in which all can achieve social, economic, and spiritual well-being. We co-chair the Employment and Entrepreneurial Subcommittee on the Commission for Community Investment and the Closure of Rikers Island. We have worked alongside activists for years in the fight to close the Rikers Island jail complex

The Commission has called for significant investments in employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for formerly and currently incarcerated New Yorkers. We know that ensuring people have stable housing and employment are the two greatest factors in reducing recidivism.

Roughly 95% of the people who are detained or incarcerated will be released back to our communities. To ensure community safety, we must invest in people and communities – job training and placement opportunities are key. What we see daily in our programs is backed up by extensive research that shows increased income and decreased unemployment have direct effects on reducing crime.

Unfortunately New York City has been behind many other large cities in bouncing back from the high rates of job loss and unemployment caused by covid. This calls for targeted action and scaling up the programs that work.

Our Employment Services Program is filled with inspiring success stories of people returning from incarceration. Vernon, for example, was unemployed with no marketable skills. By chance, he met the Office Manager at Exodus near his neighborhood park where they discussed potential employment opportunities. Vernon became involved with Exodus, attending and completing Walking through the Wilderness, our job readiness program. His job search reached a breakthrough with a national, full-service security firm based in New York, where he works as a licensed security guard and is regarded as a highly motivated individual. Vernon personifies what works.

Vanessa’s story is another example of Exodus’ workforce development program in action. She came to Exodus striving to work in the healthcare field. However, she struggled during interviews in communicating that she had the transferable skills needed to be an ideal job candidate. Our Employment Specialists stepped in and coached Vanessa through extensive mock interviewing sessions. Vanessa’s breakthrough came when she was hired as an Office Administrator in a medical facility. Her resilience has become an inspiration to others.

Vanessa, Vernon, and the many other people Exodus serves have at least one thing in common: a burning desire to put their talents and abilities to work and provide for themselves and their families.

You need good jobs and pathways to get those jobs,” Mayor Adams said — and we agree. The work Exodus and the Commission for Community Investment and the Closure of Rikers Island do is aligned with these goals, and it also serves another valuable function — investing in the lives of our most vulnerable New Yorkers. We don’t need a ‘Plan B’ for closing Rikers, we just need Mayor Adams’ budget priorities to line up with his professed intentions. Then we will see a reduction in incarceration alongside a more robust workforce.

Unfortunately, the Commission’s recommendations have not been taken seriously by Mayor Adams, and contracts for nonprofits that provide workforce development have been cut citywide. Yet Rikers continues to get paid for what doesn’t work – to the tune of over $550,000 per incarcerated person per year. Instead of investing in solutions to scale, such as workforce development programming and training, our City is languishing in debt from a mismanaged Department of Correction and our community members are literally dying on Rikers Island. We can and must do better as a city.

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Brittany Smith is Associate Vice President of Workforce Development and Kandra Clark is Vice President of Policy & Strategy at Exodus Transitional Community. On Twitter @etcnyorg.

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Ensuring Our City’s Landmarks Reflect Our City’s Diversity


 

The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary


New York is perhaps the most diverse city in the world. Few places on Earth can claim to be home to so many sites of important contributions to the history of groups as varied as African Americans, Latinos, women, LGBTQ+ people, and the disabled community, to name just a few.

But too few of our city’s officially designated landmarks reflect that wonderfully rich and diverse history, though preservationists and communities across the city have been laboring hard to change that. The City, however, has been slow to act — particularly when sites are endangered. 

One need look no further than 14th Street, one of New York’s defining thoroughfares, for evidence. On and just off what was once called “the poor man’s Fifth Avenue” are an incredible array of sites connected to these multifaceted histories New York embodies. Several are imminently endangered, and all are awaiting action by the City to recognize and preserve that precious history.

Starting from the west, the former Our Lady of Guadalupe Church at 229 West 14th Street was the very first New York church established for a Spanish-speaking congregation. Originally serving Spaniards, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and other Latin Americans, the church’s congregation grew over the years as did New York’s Hispanic population — now encompassing about 30% of all New Yorkers. But less than a handful of New York City’s thousands of designated landmarks reflect the history of our rich and varied Latino community. The church has been closed, and may soon be sold for development.

Just east at 50 West 13th Street sits the Jacob Day house, once the home and place of business of one of 19th century New York’s most prominent and successful Black businessmen. Day was also a leading crusader for reform of New York’s racist voting laws (which placed unequal property requirements upon Black New Yorkers), and a prominent abolitionist whom evidence indicates helped the Underground Railroad. The recent death of a longtime owner who had pledged to preserve the house leaves its fate very much in doubt.

Footsteps away at 80 Fifth Avenue and 14th Street sits the former headquarters of the very first national LGBTQ+ rights organization in the country, then known as the National Gay Task Force. From there, between 1973 and 1986 the Task Force got the first national gay rights legislation introduced, homosexuality removed from the list of mental disorders, the ban on gay people working for the federal government lifted, and the first White House meeting for an LGBTQ+ group, all while combating HIV/AIDS, anti-LGBTQ+ violence, and workplace discrimination.

Across Fifth Avenue at 10 West 14th Street stands the former headquarters of the NYC Woman Suffrage League. Beginning 130 years ago, multiple campaigns were led here to extend the franchise to New York’s women. That decades-long struggle finally succeeded in 1917, just three years before the 19th Amendment made it the law of the land nationwide. 

And just a bit further east at 218 Second Avenue/301 East 13th Street sits the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (NYEEI), founded in 1820 as the first specialized hospital in the Western Hemisphere, and New York’s second oldest hospital. Over two centuries, NYEEI offered groundbreaking care and services for people with visual and hearing disabilities. The existing building, the oldest part of which dates to 1856, is where Helen Keller spoke at the 1903 ribbon cutting for its final section. The historic structure is now endangered by a reorganization plan that staff and patients oppose, arguing it will destroy both the services and the building.

For years now, we have been urging the City to consider these sites for landmark designation, even as the clock has been urgently ticking on several of them. They are just a few examples of the underrepresented histories that are awaiting action by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). Women, African Americans, Latino New Yorkers, the LGBTQ+ community, and disabled New Yorkers collectively make up the vast majority of our city’s residents. But only a tiny fraction of our city’s recognized and protected landmarks speak to their histories.

Progress has been slow, especially on endangered sites. Many sites representing diverse histories the LPC has designated, like the Stonewall Inn or the James Baldwin House, were previously landmarked for other reasons, and thus already protected and in no danger.

Others, like the former Colored School No. 4 in Chelsea, took years of relentless campaigning by the public, led by African American historians, to get the City to act, even though it was an empty, City-owned property with no other planned use.

Change in our city is inevitable. But too often the price for such change is the erasure of the histories of New Yorkers with the least power and privilege. The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has the ability and the obligation to change that. These sites, on and just off 14th Street, along with others elsewhere across the five boroughs, present a critical opportunity for them to do so. Now is the time for the City to act, before it’s too late.

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Andrew Berman is Executive Director of Village Preservation. On Twitter @GVSHP.

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New York’s Compassionate Release Laws were Designed to Keep People from Dying Behind Bars; They’re Failing


On the inside (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Even if he were younger than his age of 80, Diego’s health condition would be dire. A heart attack has left him with a weakened heartbeat. He cannot walk very far, and a physician has recommended that he not climb stairs and should only perform sedentary activities. He was recently rushed to the hospital because his ailing heart could not pump properly, and his lungs filled with fluid. It will likely happen again – if his heart does not completely give out in the meantime.

People with heart failure, like Diego, have poor odds of living for very long.

Diego is also a New York State prisoner. He has been incarcerated for 40 years. He will likely perish in prison despite a law allowing him to die at home, as his request for medical parole, like that of countless others, was summarily denied. This despite the existence in many jurisdictions of what is often referred to as compassionate release mechanisms ostensibly enacted to allow people to die surrounded by family and with some small measure of comfort and dignity. (We changed Diego’s real name to protect his privacy.)

In 1992, New York State adopted a medical parole statute in recognition that incarcerated individuals suffering from terminal disease spent their final days far from their families and at a significant cost to the state. In 2009, the law was expanded to grant incarcerated individuals release if they suffer from a non-terminal condition that renders them so debilitated, mentally or physically, as to be severely restricted in their ability to self-ambulate or to perform significant normal activities of daily living. As stated in the New York Board of Parole’s 2020 legislative report, the medical parole law represents a “compassionate and practical response to dying incarcerated individuals.”

The implementation has been neither compassionate nor practical.

In our experience, the application of the law is rarely compassionate. Despite the humane and moral impetus for the laws, from 2016 to 2020, only 60 people were released pursuant to medical parole. Meanwhile, a study from Columbia University’s Center for Justice found that nearly 1,300 people died inside New York State prisons from 2010 to 2020. Thus, a person dies behind the walls every three days. Surely, many of the 1,300 met the statutory requirements for medical parole. After all, numerous New York prisons have their own hospice units, and there are several Regional Medical Units (RMU) for the severely ill.

When someone submits a request for medical parole, the opaque process of eligibility often leads to unsubstantiated denials. Not long ago, we began working with Frank (not his real name), a middle-aged man with stage four pancreatic cancer. His cancer was incurable, and death was imminent.

Despite his grave illness, he received a three-sentence denial stating that he was not an “appropriate candidate” for medical parole. The bureaucratic official rejection letter he received was originally for someone else, had that person’s name crossed out, with Frank’s name scrawled in its place. Frank died in a New York prison several weeks later.

In the case of Diego, an independent physician provided a detailed report outlining how his conditions qualified him for medical parole. The physician was a volunteer with the Medical Justice Alliance (MJA), a network of over 200 medical professionals in 24 states who volunteer their time and medical expertise to protect the constitutional rights of those in carceral facilities. The New York Department of Corrections’ chief medical officer denied the request for medical parole without any written explanation of the reasons. The MJA volunteer reached out to better understand the medical basis for their decision. Two months later, he has yet to receive any response.

Neither has the implementation of the medical parole law been practical. Even if a person is deemed eligible for medical parole, the length of the process means that they often die in prison before they are released. People must complete a parole interview, which can take weeks to schedule. Furthermore, the process of testifying before the New York parole board significantly taxes people who are near death. One person we know was interviewed despite being unable to speak more than a few words before having to stop and gather his breath with the aid of an oxygen tank.

We agree with the parole board in seeking a “compassionate and practical response to dying incarcerated individuals.” However, the current failed implementation has allowed over a thousand people to perish in New York prisons despite many who should qualify for release under the law.

We advocate for simple reforms to improve implementation of the New York law – regularly referring people who qualify for hospice or RMUs; utilizing independent physicians to evaluate whether persons qualify for medical parole; increasing transparency by providing detailed explanations when a request for medical parole is denied; abandoning the parole board interview in favor of a brief review of the medical facts, release plan, and any public safety concerns; and studying every case where a person perishes in prison to determine why they were not granted release pursuant to medical parole. Such reforms would reduce the heavy emotional and financial burdens of keeping incarcerated those people near death.

***
By William Weber, MD, MPH, Medical Justice Alliance; Brooks Walsh, MD, Yale-New Haven Health System; and Steven Zeidman, Professor, CUNY School of Law.

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