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Aug. 13th, 2020
Good job, Mayor de Blasio!
Aug. 13th, 2020 12:14 pmСледуя заветам мэра Динкинса
For many years I’ve lived in paradise—the Upper West Side. We have convivial neighbors, beautiful buildings, great subways, excellent theater and dance, fine libraries and bookstores, wonderful restaurants, pleasant markets. There were problems but we worked them out amicably.
Then Covid-19 hit. The streets emptied as people sheltered in place. Retail stores, already hurt by online shopping, closed. Restaurants were shut down. The city cut sanitation pickups. Cops stopped walking the beat. At the same time, vagrancy—a perennial problem—seemed to increase, with panhandlers on many corners, and people with their belongings occupying space on the sidewalks.
Weird things started to happen, and the city government was missing in action. Rather than returning to the depot, bus drivers began parking in undesignated areas overnight and for hours during the day. When challenged, they dismissively told residents to call 311, the city’s nonemergency service number. Private delivery drivers selected blocks as distribution areas, with dozens of workers suddenly showing up and unloading hundreds of boxes onto the bike lanes and sidewalks. The Transportation Department refused to help, saying it hadn’t authorized the trucks and therefore couldn’t regulate them.
Things got even worse when the government did show up. Without a word of warning to residents or elected officials, the Department of Homeless Services, citing “emergency Covid powers,” in May moved more than 100 single men into the boutique Belnord Hotel on a quiet residential block of West 87th Street. Four buses full of people had pulled up unannounced in the early morning. The department, which has a six-month lease, refuses to say whether the shelter is permanent.
Almost simultaneously the department moved 130 men into the Hotel Belleclaire, 10 blocks south. In late July it converted yet another hotel, the Lucerne, to a temporary shelter, moving in 283 men, most recovering alcoholics and drug users according to the agency.
( Read more... )
For many years I’ve lived in paradise—the Upper West Side. We have convivial neighbors, beautiful buildings, great subways, excellent theater and dance, fine libraries and bookstores, wonderful restaurants, pleasant markets. There were problems but we worked them out amicably.
Then Covid-19 hit. The streets emptied as people sheltered in place. Retail stores, already hurt by online shopping, closed. Restaurants were shut down. The city cut sanitation pickups. Cops stopped walking the beat. At the same time, vagrancy—a perennial problem—seemed to increase, with panhandlers on many corners, and people with their belongings occupying space on the sidewalks.
Weird things started to happen, and the city government was missing in action. Rather than returning to the depot, bus drivers began parking in undesignated areas overnight and for hours during the day. When challenged, they dismissively told residents to call 311, the city’s nonemergency service number. Private delivery drivers selected blocks as distribution areas, with dozens of workers suddenly showing up and unloading hundreds of boxes onto the bike lanes and sidewalks. The Transportation Department refused to help, saying it hadn’t authorized the trucks and therefore couldn’t regulate them.
Things got even worse when the government did show up. Without a word of warning to residents or elected officials, the Department of Homeless Services, citing “emergency Covid powers,” in May moved more than 100 single men into the boutique Belnord Hotel on a quiet residential block of West 87th Street. Four buses full of people had pulled up unannounced in the early morning. The department, which has a six-month lease, refuses to say whether the shelter is permanent.
Almost simultaneously the department moved 130 men into the Hotel Belleclaire, 10 blocks south. In late July it converted yet another hotel, the Lucerne, to a temporary shelter, moving in 283 men, most recovering alcoholics and drug users according to the agency.
( Read more... )