Week of 16 April 2001:
Clubs and 911
Some Manhattan nightclubs hire private ambulance companies to wait outside,
and take to the hospital any patrons who have overdosed on drugs. City
officials who long have been trying to close down the clubs, which include
Roxy and Twilo, say the clubs do this in order to avoid calling 911 and thus
escape the attention of the police. "I do this to protect my clients who go
into cardiac arrest," answered the general manager of the Roxy, saying that
911 would be too slow. "People who go out dancing are in more medical need
today than they were 10 years ago because of the way that they entertain
themselves," said the lawyer for Twilo, meaning their consumption of drugs;
Ecstasy and GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate, known as a date rape drug) are
especially common. But Twilo is being sued by two young patrons who said
that, after they suffered drug overdoses last summer, employees of the club
tried to hide them from Emergency Medical Service personnel. And the
Manhattan district attorney is investigating the death of a medical student
after he collapsed at Twilo last summer.
Rent Suit
A coalition of tenant groups is planning to file a lawsuit today against the
New York State agency that changed the Rent Stabilization Code, charging that
the new code undermines tenant protections, the Daily News reports.
Hale Hail
Hale House, the charity in Harlem that cares for children born to
drug-addicted or HIV-infected mothers, has been the subject of a continuing
series of revelations, in the News and the Times, of questionable practices,
such as mismanaging its apartment buildings and spending too much on
fundraising. One Harlem brownstone it owned was so full of housing code
violations, the Times reports today, that the city ordered its tenants to
move out. Hale House director Lorraine Hale, the Daily News reported
yesterday, took a personal loan of $115, 800 from the charity to fix up her
$405,000 home in Scarsdale. Her husband Jesse DeVore, the News also reported,
is paid a salary of $110,000 to be Hale House's public relations director.
Several long-time supporters have distanced themselves from the charity,
which as a result has delayed its annual fundraiser until October. Yesterday,
Congressman Charles Rangel and former Manhattan Borough President Percy
Sutton attacked the newspapers for their coverage. "I think it is very, very
important that our community come together and think in terms of the
thousands of children that have been taken care of by Hale House," Rangel
said.
Millions to Ellis Island
On the first day it opened, the new Web site that offers information on some
million immigrants who arrived at the Port of New York between 1892 and 1924,
the American Family Immigration History Center www.ellisislandrecords.org,
has been getting 27,000 hits PER SECOND, or an estimated eight million by the
end of the day.
Campaign Finance Delayed
The City Council delayed by one week the vote to overturn Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani's veto of the campaign finance law, which allows for a match of
four dollars in public funds for every dollar raised by a candidate who
agrees to certain restrictions. City Council Speaker Peter Vallone said the
delay was due to the absence of 13 of the 51 council members, but Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani implied they were missing because of his intense lobbying,
and declared a victory.
Librarians
The Giuliani administration reached an agreement with the largest of the
librarians' unions to grant an unusually large raise of 16 percent. Though
the city's largest municipal union recently only got eight percent, city
officials said the librarians' raise was needed because of the problems in
recruiting and keeping librarians, which were detailed earlier this month in
an article in Gotham Gazette. The
union agreed to certain "productivity increases," such as the elimination of
daily 20-minute breaks and night differential pay.
Ellis Island Online
Starting today, if all goes as promised, the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island
Foundation will launch
The American Family Immigration History Center, a Web site that will contain the lists of
names from ships (passenger manifests) carrying some 17 million immigrants
to Ellis Island from 1892 to 1924.
Museums
Though it was hyped far less than the boom in Internet start-up companies, a boom in museums, happening at the same time, was in some ways no less impressive in its unprecedented scale and pace. Over the past few years, in the United States alone, about 50 museums were being built or expanded every year -- just about one a week. In New York alone, the 100 or so museums were being touted as the city's new billion-dollar entertainment industry. As Maxwell Anderson, director of the Whitney museum, liked to point out, more people were going to museums than attending sporting events. It would be difficult to find a major museum in the city that has not just finished, started or at least announced plans for an extensive renovation or expansion: The Museum of Modern Art is in the midst of a $650 million expansion. The Guggenheim is planning a new $700 million branch downtown. There are ambitious plans for expansion at the Museum of the City of New York and the Museum of Jewish Heritage, to give just a couple of examples.
It would be unfair to say that the museum boom has turned into an Internet-like bust. But, as Crain's New York Business reports, the downturn in the economy is apparently having its effect. Starting six months ago, there has been a sharp decrease in attendance at several of the major museums. For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is the single most visited institution in New York City, has seen 200,000 fewer visitors from November through February, an 11 percent drop from the previous year. And the dip in the stock market is sure to lead to a drop in revenue. "Everybody's taken a hit," Eric Siegel, chairman of the Museums Council of New York City, tells Crain's. Though some museum officials say attendance always fluctuates, and none have publicly scaled back their expansion plans, several new local museums have been canceled (People Magazine Museum) or their openings postponed (Museum of Sex).
Campaign Finance Vote
Tomorrow, the full Council will vote to override Mayor Giuliani's
veto of the current campaign finance law, which matches four dollars
in public funds for every dollar that candidates raise in private
funds.
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