This Week's Stories
GG's quick takes on recent NYC news


Week of 02 April 2001:

Ellis Island
There are 33 buildings on Ellis Island, all but one of them closed down and crumbling. Yesterday, the acting governor of New Jersey, which has jurisdiction over 30 of them, announced a plan to raise $300 million over the next ten years to rehabilitate them. Between 1892 and 1924, the island in Upper New York Bay was the point of entry for sixteen million immigrants, or 71 percent of all immigrants into the United States. At the time, 98 percent of those who sought entry were granted it, very different from the situation today. The main building of Ellis Island was restored in the 1980' s and since 1990 has been a museum of immigration.

New Board of Education President
The Board of Education chose Ninfa Segarra as its president. Though Segarra, who has been on the board for 12 years, is a long-time ally of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, it was the Manhattan representative on the board, Irving S. Hamer Jr., a long-time Giuliani foe, who cast the deciding vote in her favor. The two board members share little in common in educational philosophy, but neither of them reportedly like the current Schools Chancellor Harold Levy. Segarra, the first Latina chosen for the post, said that her priorities would not be on divisive issues like privatization but rather she would focus on special ed, low-performing schools, and high schools

Power Plant Halted
In a suit brought by Silvercup Studios, a New York State Supreme Court Justice has ordered the New York Power Authority to halt construction on a power plant going up in Long Island City, close to the movie studio where "The Sopranos" and "Sex and the City" is filmed. The ruling said the authority failed to take "a hard look" at the environmental impact on the neighborhood. Although the ruling does not take effect right away and affects just one of the sites where the authority is planning to put power generators in the city, a separate lawsuit is pending that seeks a full environmental review of all six

McCain-Feingold in NYC
Most campaign finance experts predict that McCain-Feingold will have little effect on New York politics and its culture of aggressive fund-raising

What Is Decent, I
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani yesterday formally introduced the 20 members of what he is calling his Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission, which features more lawyers than artists, including former Nixon White House lawyer Leonard Garment and Giuliani's divorce lawyer Raoul Felder, and ministers of three faiths. Also serving are Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels. One of the three artists is Constance Del Vecchio-Maltese, wife of state Senator Serphin Maltese, a Republican from Queens. Missing from the list were pop artist Peter Max, painter LeRoy Neiman, and actor Danny Aiello, whose names were reported last week, but who apparently declined to participate. A sub-group of the 20 will form the "decency committee" that is charged with looking at "what standards, if any, should be applied to publicly supported art," the mayor said.
"There isn't going to be censorship," Leonard Garment said. "Paintings are not going to be torn down off the walls."

What Is Decent, II
A citywide AIDS Summit was announced yesterday at a press conference held at the same time as the mayor's announcement of his decency committee and therefore far more sparsely attended. Public officials and a dozen HIV organizations called for $7 million in city tax dollars to help fight the disease among people of color, which make up three-fourths of the total number of people with AIDS in New York City.
Members of the City Council also contended that the city has not released $9 million in federal funds earmarked for AIDS, and that money approved by the City Council last June has not been dispersed to organizations that provide direct services because of delays in the city contracting process.
"The actions on the part of the current administration are inexcusable," said Manhattan Councilmember Margarita Lopez. "People are dying and the quality of their life while living is being compromised."

Final Tally
The plan for the private company Edison Schools to take over five poorly performing New York City public schools was resoundingly defeated. Four out of five parents who voted were opposed. A total of 2,292 votes were cast on the Edison Schools plan out of 4,862 eligible, a 47 percent turnout.

Opener
At the Yankees first home game of the season, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the city is having some "pretty fruitful negotiations" with both the Yankees and the Mets to build new stadiums here, the Daily News reports. The mayor has spent or set aside $700 million for such stadiums. He pooh-poohed an economist who said that such publicly financed stadiums do not wind up benefiting the public economically.

Campaign Finance
The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Bill passed the United States Senate, 59 to 41.

Locally, all four major Democratic candidates for mayor pledged to discourage "issues" or attack ads financed by independent advocacy groups, the same pledge that Hillary Rodham Clinton and Rick Lazio made in last year's Senate race.

Edison
Though the final tally will probably not be complete until tomorrow, everyone acknowledges that Edison Schools failed to win approval by a majority of parents to take over five poorly performing public schools in the city. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani urged the Board of Education to give control of 20 failing public schools to Edison Schools anyway, saying that this would not need parental approval. "I don't think that is legally permissible, and even if it were, I think it is a very bad idea," Schools Chancellor Harold Levy replied. "Privatization without parental support is doomed to failure."

Albany Outrage
Though the 2000 Census clearly established a gain in population in New York City, and a loss in population upstate, the Times reports that upstate legislators, charged with reapportionment, may well eliminate two Congressional seats from the city rather than from upstate.

Hale House
Two apartment buildings that were virtually given by the city to Hale House, the much-heralded charity started by Mother Clara Hale to take care of the children of addicted parents, were supposed to be rented to formerly addicted homeless mothers and their children. Instead, according to the Daily News, they are being rented to middle-class professionals at market rates, in violation of the charity's legal obligation.

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