February 12, 2012 · www.gothamgazette.com

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Eye on Albany

Image: Gotham Gazette Drawing the Line :
Hearings on proposed district lines draw outcry from lawmakers and community groups who say that LATFOR is provide an unfair advantage to Senate Republicans and splitting up communities.




Eye on Albany

Image: Gotham Gazette Battle Lines :
Queens groups are split over how they want to see legislative districts drawn in their communities.




Arts

Image: Gotham Gazette Marking Absence:
Michael Arad, the designer of the memorial at Ground Zero, discusses the evolution of what he calls the 'built equivalent of a moment of silence. '




Arts

Image: Gotham Gazette A Fitting Tribute:
A complicated, often agonizing process will come to fruition soon as a memorial to victims of 9/11 opens on possibly the most complicated – and fraught – construction site on Earth.




Children

Image: Gotham Gazette Cops In High Schools:
High school students have a mixed view of police presence, especially in the so-called Impact schools.




Children

Image: Gotham Gazette Teen Court Days:
New York City foster youth would like a great voice, and presence, in family court.




Civil Rights

Image: Gotham Gazette Criticizing Stop and Frisk :
Community members try to find a nuanced voice in their critique of the NYPD's stop and frisk program while dealing with the stigma of speaking out against the police.




Civil Rights

Image: Gotham Gazette :
For the last decade, New Yorkers and their political leaders have all but deified the police and Ray Kelly. Will the crackdown on Occupy Wall Street and recent scandals change that?




Community Development

Image: Gotham Gazette Coop City?:
Tired of skimpy wages, some low-income workers have formed their own cooperative businesses. Can this help change New York's s poorer neighborhoods?




Community Development

Image: Gotham Gazette Greener, Greater, Fairer:
In PlaNYC, the mayor missed a chance to create not only a more environmentally friendly city but a more economically equitable one too, argues this installment of 'Sustainability Watch.'




Crime and Safety

Image: Gotham Gazette Demanding Accountablity :
New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly faces calls for increased police oversight after revelations about his participation in an anti-Muslim video that was used to train officers.




Crime and Safety

Image: Gotham Gazette Under Review:
Will City Hall grant an exception to the hiring freeze so that the Civilian Complaint Review Board can hire a lawyer and independently prosecute police misconduct?




Demographics

Image: Gotham Gazette Tallying the Toll:
Some sense of the almost incalculable impact of 9/11 can be gained from then numbers. Andrew Beveridge offers a statistical portrait of our losses – personal and economic.




Demographics

Image: Gotham Gazette Census Data Stands Ready for Perusal:
The 2010 census has been rolling out since February with New York state getting the first of its data on March 24 and more data releases during the summer.




Economy

Image: Gotham Gazette Rapid Response:
Groups quickly coalesce to protect Occupy Wall Street-- forcing the authorities to reassess plans to clean Zuccotti Park.




Economy

Image: Gotham Gazette The Jobs Deficit:
With more than 600,000 New Yorkers unemployed or underemployed, James Parrott examines the work crisis and how the nation, the city and state might help solve it.




Education

Image: Gotham Gazette Know Before You Owe:
A city-wide campaign warms New Yorkers away from for-profit education scams that can leave students in debt and without a job.




Education

Image: Gotham Gazette Cuomo Takes on Education :
Gov. Andrew Cuomo says he wants to be an advocate for students. What does his new-found focus on education policy mean for the city?




Environment

Image: Gotham Gazette Ready to Frack? :
After major budget cuts is the Department of Environmental Conservation capable of overseeing hydraulic fracturing in New York?




Environment

Image: Gotham Gazette Local Fracking Bans :
Communities across the state have passed resolutions to outlaw hydraulic fracturing. Will home rule win out in the legal battles to come?




Public Finance

Image: Gotham Gazette Straining the Safety Net:
What is the city's response? Budget cuts.




Public Finance

Image: Gotham Gazette Billion Dollar Questions:
With the city facing a yawning deficit, the mayor will likely make more cuts. Is there another way to stave off the red ink? Glenn Pasanen reviews the challenges and options.




Governing

Image: Gotham Gazette Apps Can Be Fun:
But advocates say New York needs to go beyond the cute and clever and join other cities in making masses of data available to the public – without delays or legal battles.




Governing

Image: Gotham Gazette The Quick Campaigns:
As the parties anoint candidate for Sept. 13's special elections, voters in most of the affected districts can do little more than sit on the sidelines and prepare their rubber stamps.




Health

Image: Gotham Gazette A Healthy School Lunch?:
Congress' move to make pizza a vegetable only complicates the struggle to get kids to eat healthy. Even strict city regulations don't seem to be getting good food into student's stomachs.




Health

Image: Gotham Gazette 30 Years of AIDS:
After three decades, huge advances have been made, enabling many people with HIV to plan for their old age. That presents a reason for celebration and poses new challenges.




Housing

Image: Gotham Gazette Sick House :
Poor conditions in apartments across the city lead to unhealthy tenants. A coalition of housing and health advocates have started a program to send health-care providers to tenants to treat housing-related illness.




Housing

Image: Gotham Gazette Homes Delayed :
A housing project in Brooklyn that would provide 1,800 new apartments is delayed by political infighting.




Immigrants

Image: Gotham Gazette Fair Representation:
No matter how the state redraws boundaries for legislative and City Council seats, immigrant groups want to make sure the new districts reflect the city's changing population.




Immigrants

Image: Gotham Gazette Little Pakistan:
Facing suspicion and investigation, many south Asians left the city after 9/11. But since then, the community has started to bounce back.




Land Use

Image: Gotham Gazette Building Our Way Out:
With housing here reeling from the bubble and the bust, the mayor sees zoning as the key tool for creating affordable homes. Tom Angotti examines the city's latest plan.




Land Use

Image: Gotham Gazette Malled Seaport:
After more than 40 years of missteps, area aorund South Street girds itself for yet another effort to develop one of New York's oldest neighborhoods.




Law

Image: Gotham Gazette Unlimited Ride :
A case of a man using his Metrocard to sell discounted rides to others makes it to the state's highest court. Emily Jane Goodman Explains what happened.




Law

Image: Gotham Gazette Cooperative Housing:
An air conditioner sparks a legal battle between a family and a housing cooperative. Were health reasons enough to help the family prevail? Emily Jane Goodman explains.




Parks

Image: Gotham Gazette Uprooted:
Community gardeners fear city regulations could force them to till new fields and leave some of the green growing spaces unprotected.




Parks

Image: Gotham Gazette And No Selling or Singing:
As New Yorkers clamor to go outside, the city has put new restrictions on what they can do when they get there.




Searchlight on City Hall

Image: Gotham Gazette Bloomberg's Budget:
The Mayor's proposed budget spares teachers and uniformed employees and avoids raising taxes but it features hefty cuts to a number of other programs.




Searchlight on City Hall

Image: Gotham Gazette Promises Kept :
Fulfilling pledges Speaker Christine Quinn made in last year's State of the City address, the Council passed two bills that will protect tenants of buildings facing foreclosure and add more transparency to contracts.




Social Services

Image: Gotham Gazette Hard Times for the Disabled:
Almost one third of disabled city residents live in poverty. Advocates blame systemic discrimination and barriers that keep many of these New Yorkers poor and unemployed.




Social Services

Image: Gotham Gazette Criticism Greets Bid to Limit Access to Homeless Shelters:
City Councilmembers Stephen Levin, Annabel Palma and Jumaane Williams sharply criticized the city's plan to tighten eligibility requirement for homeless adults to gain access to the city's shelters.




Technology

Image: Gotham Gazette Getting Up to Speed:
Unable to afford broadband, millions of New Yorkers are stuck in the slow lane on the information highway. Several initiatives now seek to bridge that digital divide.




Technology

Image: Gotham Gazette The Senate Opens Up:
A new website launched by the State Senate enables people not only to find out about legislation but also to comment on it.




Transportation

Image: Gotham Gazette Lhota's First Test :
Will the new chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority be able to overcome the divide with transit workers union?




Transportation

Image: Gotham Gazette Paving the Way For Bikes:
Months from the start of a major bike share program Tom Angotti says the city needs to be ready to work with neighborhoods




Waterfront

Image: Gotham Gazette The Staten Island Ferry Crash Three Years Later:
Three years later, the crash that killed 11 people remains a continuing and costly drama for those involved, including City Hall.




Waterfront

Image: Gotham Gazette Waterfront In Fits And Starts (And Stops):
Pat Arnow updates the progress – or inaction, or reversals – in several waterfront projects, including Hudson River Park, East River Park, Belt Parkway Bath… and why the Statue of Liberty can still gaze lovingly at the statue of Minerva in Green-Wood Cemetery.




Work and Labor

Image: Gotham Gazette Navigating the Jobs Gap :
Tens of thousands of unemployed New York turn to workforce development centers only to find the programs can polish a resume but can't place people in jobs that do not exist.




Work and Labor

Image: Gotham Gazette Labor Signs On:
Spurred by their members, many unions, including some representing New York City workers, have joined Occupy Wall Street, bringing people, clout and expertise.





Special 9/11 Topic Pages:

9/11/01-/02: Our topic page columnists analyze a year of changes in New York City, in everything from arts to civil rights to technology to the environment.

Arts
Martha Hostetter explains how the arts institutions suffered economically, even while artists helped build community.

Civil Rights
Andy Humm assesses the state of civil liberties since 9/11. Also: the 12 vacant seats on the human rights commission; the new local law about same-sex marriages.

Crime/Justice
Julia Vitullo-Martin attempts to answer the question: Are New Yorkers right to feel as safe in the city as anywhere else in the country?

Demographics
Andrew Beveridge looks at the numbers to present a portrait of those who died at 10048, the zip code that was the World Trade Centerƒs alone.

Environment
Eric Goldstein looks at "the World Trade Center cough" and the other environmental health impacts of the World Trade Center attacks.

Finance
Glenn Pasanen explains what he sees as two major results of 9/11: compounding the "long-ignored structural budget deficit," and exposing the "insider decision-making" in the budget process. It is a process, he says, that has resulted in a reduction of funding for education at a time when education is supposed to be a priority.

Health
Maia Szalavitz reports on how New Yorkers have been coping in the year since 9/11, and offers tips from mental health counselors on how to handle the anniversary.

Housing
Some rents are lower, Rebecca Webber points out, but otherwise the story of housing in the past year is one of more homelessness, fewer vacancies, canceled plans for affordable housing, and unknown consequences in the future.

Immigrants
A special section on the anniversary of Sept 11, which affected immigrants in special ways.

Land Use
Laura Wolf-Powers details the land use rebuilding issues that New Yorkers should be watching to figure out where we are going to go from here -- the swap, the lease, the governor, the Olympics, etc.

Parks
"This September 11, people will again find their way to the parks," as they did a year ago, Anne Schwartz says. But if the parks are more important than ever to New Yorkers, one result of 9/11 is a further reduction in their funding.

Social Services
In the year since the terrorist attack, 70 percent of Americans are said to have offered some kind of aid -- and that includes donations of more than $2.2 billion so far. But, as Linda Ostreicher relates, this outpouring of charity is now accompanied by sharp disagreements over what to do with it, stirring up almost as much passion as the disaster itself.

Tech
Laura Forlano reveals the many important lessons that the rebuilding and recovery effort has taught us about the functioning of technological systems during times of crisis.

Voting
Most people have probably forgotten that September 11, 2001, started out as a day when New York City held primary elections. This year's primary election is not just a calendar year away from the attacks, but it comes at the end of a year when the political fortunes of many candidates have been deeply affected by the implications of the tragedy. The attacks were the background of political life in New York starting with last year's mayoral race and continuing through this year's race for governor.

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