March 20, 2010 · www.gothamgazette.com

Gotham Gazette
Topics

Eye on Albany

Image: Gotham Gazette Lock Down?:
Upstate prisons with full staffs but a dwindling number of inmates offer a tempting target for budget cutters. For years, political muscle has kept the jails open. Will the fiscal crunch change that?




Eye on Albany

Image: Gotham Gazette Monserrate's New Face:
To win back his old job, the former state senator, expelled from office after a domestic violence dispute, is campaigning as a defender of family values.




Arts

Image: Gotham Gazette Four Arts, Three Rs:
Despite some strong programs, arts education in New York City schools must still struggle against the focus on testing and a shortage of funds,




Arts

Image: Gotham Gazette Patron of the Arts:
Even in the face of the faltering economy Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken steps to insure New York's cultural institutions survive and thrive.




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 Beating Bullying:
A new programs aims to teach students to stop harassing and begin respecting one another. The administration hails its success, but some experts have their doubts.




Civil Rights

Image: Gotham Gazette Disputed Mosques:
In the late 1980s, Mayor Ed Koch chanted in Arabic, hailing the building of a mosque in Manhattan. A controversy in Sheepshead Bay reveals how much has changed since then.




Community Development

Image: Gotham Gazette A Rising Tide of Foreclosures:
Long after the sub-prime mortgage crisis wreaked havoc across the country, it has hit parts of New York hard, and despite government efforts, shows no signs of abating.




Community Development

Image: Gotham Gazette Landmarks Loophole:
The city's preservation law essentially allows the buildings departments and landmarks commission to ignore -- and even contradict -- one another. Several bills in City Council seek to change that.




Crime and Safety

Image: Gotham Gazette New York's Rescue Team:
After the earthquake in Haiti city police and firefighters flew to Port-au-Prince, where they saved six people from the rubble. How was that mission organized and how did it operate?




Crime and Safety

Image: Gotham Gazette Bloomberg and the Police:
Crime has hit new lows under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but experts wonder if he deserves the credit and some critics charge that new police practices infringe on the rights of New Yorkers.




Demographics

Image: Gotham Gazette Redrawing New York:
The GOP managed to stave off a massive redistricting after the last census. This time around, they may have no choice but to accept the demographic realities -- and a loss of power.




Demographics

Image: Gotham Gazette Documenting the Undocumented:
The U.S. Census Bureau wants to count undocumented New Yorkers next year, but some want real immigration reform first.




Economy

Image: Gotham Gazette The Need for Jobs:
The recovery act helped stave off economic disaster but, with spending and employment remaining anemic, Washington will consider further action in the new year.




Economy

Image: Gotham Gazette Jingle Bell Blues:
Despite city efforts to revitalize commercial districts and signs of economic improvement, many small businesses in the city are not ringing up sales. Our slideshow visits shopkeepers facing a sour holiday season.




Education

Image: Gotham Gazette Raising the Bar:
Now that city graduation rates are at an all-time high, will tougher requirements change that? A teacher suggests how to help students finish school with a diploma that means something.




Education

Image: Gotham Gazette School Space Wars:
The administration's push to expand the number of charter schools has ignited bitter fights over real estate, power and jobs. A look at what's at stake for the city and its children.




Environment

Image: Gotham Gazette Quiet Please:
City laws have muffled jackhammers, bar bands and even Mr. Softee, but, to the distress of sleep-deprived New Yorkers, the code does nothing to silent noisy neighbors.




Environment

Image: Gotham Gazette E-Waste Stalemate :
n 2008 New York became the first U.S. city to pass a law requiring manufacturers to dispose of old computers and other electronics. So why is the toxic trash continuing to pile up?




Public Finance

Image: Gotham Gazette Framing the Figures:
The recent Mayor's Management Report has lots of numbers and good news, but little to say about many key issues. Glenn Pasanen looks at what the administration left out.




Public Finance

Image: Gotham Gazette Cutting the Cuts:
Wall Street's reversal of fortune could help those suffering on other city streets -- if the city adopts a creative budget strategy.




Governing

Image: Gotham Gazette A New Way to Vote:
New York's clunky lever voter machines should fade into history before September's primary -- unless a federal probe and a lawsuit stymie the switch to a new technology.




Governing

Image: Gotham Gazette From Landslides to Defeats:
Incumbency remained a huge advantage in the 2009 City Council contests, but it was not quite the ticket to victory it once was. Just ask five defeated council members and several others who managed to eke out only narrow victories.




Health

Image: Gotham Gazette Critical Condition:
The death of St. Vincent's Hospital, on life support from the state, would threaten heath-care delivery in lower Manhattan and beyond, dealing another blow to an overburdened system.




Health

Image: Gotham Gazette Aiding 9/11's New Victims:
Advocates for those who became sick or who died from working at Ground Zero want aid from Congress and recognition from City Hall.




Housing

Image: Gotham Gazette Tourist Spot?:
Upper West Side apartment buildings lure budget-minded travelers from around the world. The visitors boost landlord profits, but many low-income tenants feel threatened.




Housing

Image: Gotham Gazette Deadly Divisions:
Illegally carved-up homes endanger their residents, crowd neighborhoods and have caused fatal fires. But these cramped quarters also house thousands of people who otherwise might have no place to go.




Immigrants

Image: Gotham Gazette Old Crime, New Punishment:
The case of a Haitian immigrant convicted of drug dealing in the 1980s has focused attention on other long-ago offenders who face deportation.




Immigrants

Image: Gotham Gazette Opening the Door to People with HIV:
President Obama lifted the ban on immigration by people who test positive for the AIDS virus, giving hope to those who must confront their medical condition along with being denied the opportunity to live illegally in the U.S.




Land Use

Image: Gotham Gazette Farming Food Deserts:
Corn from Corona? Canarsie cantaloupe? Tottenville tomatoes? City grown produce, along with public markets and better bodegas, could help New Yorkers eat better -- with a boost from City Hall.




Land Use

Image: Gotham Gazette Dancing in the Bronx:
The controversy over the Kingsbridge Armory features the living wage, a suburban-style mall in the city, community concerns -- and the city's land use process.  Tom Angotti explains the fancy footwork.




Law

Image: Gotham Gazette No Campaigning in Class:
The teachers' union has lost a legal battle with the city over whether its members can wear political buttons in class.




Law

Image: Gotham Gazette Finding Fault:
Under New York's divorce law, breaking up is hard to do. And a recent ruling by a Brooklyn court does nothing to change that




Parks

Image: Gotham Gazette Protecting Pouch:
Strapped for money, the local Boy Scouts may sell their storied camp on Staten Island -- just as the state seeks to divert funds intended for wilderness preservation to other uses.




Parks

Image: Gotham Gazette Federal Money for City Spaces:
As Congress considers a bill to provide federal funding for urban parks, Washington seems to have learned a lesson from New York: Improved open space has the power to transform communities.




Searchlight on City Hall

Image: Gotham Gazette Closing Day:
To close a gaping budget hole, the Bloomberg administration is proposing to shutter 16 day care centers, many in gentrified areas. But the centers aren't going without a fight.




Searchlight on City Hall

Image: Gotham Gazette Towering Debt:
The capital budget has almost doubled during Bloomberg's tenure. Budget experts now wonder whether that was such a smart investment.




Social Services

Image: Gotham Gazette Animal Rights Activists Split Over Bill to Save 'Oreos':

The sad story of Oreo the dog made headlines last year. Now her unfortunate death may spur a change in state law that could, supporters believe, ultimately lead to saving more animals from being put to sleep.






Social Services

Image: Gotham Gazette The Search for Safety:
New York has made big advances in dealing with domestic violence, but women all too often must confront a choice between going back to their abusers and being homeless.




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.




Technology

Image: Gotham Gazette DOB to implement GPS:
A GPS system lets the city know where its inspectors are -- but, critics say, not necessarily what they are doing while they are at a construction site site.




Transportation

Image: Gotham Gazette The Long Way Home:
Access-a-Ride provides the disabled with a pokey, cumbersome way to travel, advocates say. Now they fear the MTA's proposed cuts will make the service virtually useless.




Transportation

Image: Gotham Gazette A License to Pedal:
Two months after city laws on pedicabs took effect, drivers and owners still feel the pain of a dismal holiday season and wonder what effect the new regulations might have.




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 Taking a Toll:
Some politicians want the government to intervene in a heated labor dispute at a privately run E-ZPass center that has cost 14 workers their jobs and cut off service in Spanish.




Work and Labor

Image: Gotham Gazette Living Wage:
In the aftermath of the Kingsbridge Armory debate, a more widespread bill on living wages may not come as easily as some expect.





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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