City Limits articles from February 2004

City Limits archives from February 2004

An unhealthy habit.(Editorial)
February 1, 2004... As the state legislature opens its session, the big piece of meat on the carving table is the proposed conversion of HIP, the giant health insurance nonprofit, into a publicly traded company. In exchange for the tax-exempt status HIP has...

Wanted: oversight.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2004... As a social worker and teacher of nonprofit management, I was encouraged to read Geoffrey Gray's "Charity Busters" [January 2003] about Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's plan to "crack down on nonprofits." Reluctantly, I have come to the...

Santa's secret sorrow.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2004... As a one-time Santa, I never thought I'd read an article that provides such an intimate look at Operation Santa Claus as Debbie Nathan's "Miracle on 34th Street" [December 2003]. For the past seven years, I have been living a nightmare. My...

Correction.(Correction Notice)
February 1, 2004... Due to an editing error, the story "Dog Days" [January 2004] erroneously suggested that the San Francisco airport's living wage mandates apply to the entire city of San Francisco. That law, and associated costs, apply only to its airport.

Dominicans to send votes home.(Frontlines)(Dominicans living in the US vote in Dominican elections)
February 1, 2004... CENTER CARE HEALTH INSURANCE, in the largely Dominican neighborhood of Inwood, is usually closed on Sundays. But for the past couple of months, Sunday has been its busiest day. That's because it is also a location for voter registration in...

The battle for BCAT; has public access become a political tool?(Frontlines)(Brooklyn Community Access Television)
February 1, 2004... ANY COUCH POTATO worth his or her chips has surfed cable television channels and landed on shows like Gbettonomics, Rent Wars or Dyke TV. Maybe the production is a bit raw, but that's what public access to the airwaves is all about. Or is...

Famous, still homeless.(Firsthand)
February 1, 2004... "STOP PLAYING, ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Those were my words when my father told me we were being sent to a Tier II shelter in the Bronx. I quickly packed my bags. I was ready to leave. My thoughts? I am finally one step closer to getting my own...

Unfinished business: five years after HUD's scandal, its culprits run free.(Frontlines)
February 1, 2004... MICHAEL FOX IS A LUCKY MAN. A mortgage lender at the center of the 203(k) real estate scam, Fox pleaded guilty last March to falsifying business documents. As 2003 came to a close, though, he had yet to be sentenced. On October 30, his hearing...

Rotten deal.(Environment)
February 1, 2004... THE STATE DEPARTMENT of Environmental Conservation (DEC) ignored its own regulations by renewing the operating permit of a controversial garbage transfer station in Springfield Gardens, Queens, according to newly obtained documents. Last...

Heeding the call.(Social Services)(211 another citywide hotline)
February 1, 2004... FIRE BREAK OUT in the living room? Dial 911. Need a phone number? That's 411. "Quality of life" concerns got their own touch-tone resource last spring with 311. And if local social service gurus get their way, another citywide hotline--one that...

Money for nothing? Campaign matching funds are supposed to help elect new blood. They're being used to employ blood relatives.(Inside Track)
February 1, 2004... LUANA MALAVOLTA, a dress shop owner and three-time candidate for public office, is tired of losing political races. When she ran for a Bronx City Council seat last year against Democratic incumbent Joel Rivera, Malavolta, who has been an active...

AIDS goes gray: HIV has been with us for over two decades. Its survivors will live much longer than that--which is more than can be said for the safety net keeping them housed and healthy.
February 1, 2004... There's not a lot of gray in Brenda Curry's worldview. At 58, she's been around the block enough times to know black from white, to tell the good guys from the bad. And one thing's for sure: Both of her ex-husbands were saints. "Neither one of...

The war on catfights; teenage girls get into scuffles with fists and nails--and more and more of them are getting prosecuted. Here's how bad behavior became a crime.(Cover Story)
February 1, 2004... KIRA * IS A QUIET KID. Sometimes she weaves purple extensions into her braids to match her grape-colored lip gloss--a getup that projects her independence of mind. She's 17 now, but even at 15 she was big for her age. The boy was smaller, and...

A second look: making art has long been part of healing for addiction and mental illness. At a gallery in East Harlem, it's something more, too: the artists' vision for the future.
February 1, 2004... It was an art opening unlike most in New York. In East Harlem, in the 96-degree heat of a June afternoon, guests started lining up 15 minutes early. When they got in, there wasn't a glass of white wine, or any other alcoholic beverage, to be...

Prison break: we're spending millions of dollars a block to send people up the river. What if we sent that money back instead?(Intelligence the Big Idea)
February 1, 2004... WHEN TODD CLEAR and Eric Cadora talk about New York's million-dollar blocks, they are not referring to the townhouses on Park Avenue or the penthouses on Sutton Place. Far from it. They mean streets in places like Brownsville and East New York,...

New reports.(Drum Major Institute for Public Policy list of best and worst public policy in 2003)
February 1, 2004... On one hand, 2003 brought us a war, $330 billion in tax cuts, and a ban on "partial birth" abortion. On the other, the Campaign for Fiscal Equality won its suit forcing the state to up school funding for the city and the Supreme Court threw out...

New reports.
February 1, 2004... Black and Latino students trail their white classmates on every one of more than a dozen predictors of academic achievement, according to this study from the national testing giant Educational Testing Service. Researchers picked 14 measures...

New reports.(Forbes ranking of nonprofit groups)
February 1, 2004... As usual, Forbes magazine rang in the new year with its ratings of the country's 200 largest nonprofit groups, judging them by their fundraising ethics and financial health. On average, the groups spent 85 percent of their money on their core...

Crossing oceans: Kadiatou Diallo explains how she reclaimed her son's life by talking about her own.(Intelligence City Lit)(My Heart Will Cross this Ocean: My Story, My Son, Amadou)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... My Heart Will Cross this Ocean: My Story, My Son, Amadou By Kadiatou Diallo One World/Ballantine Books, 272 pages, $24.95 IT WAS LATE in February 1999 that I shared a memorable dinner with Kadiatou Diallo at her sprawling home in...

Now read this.(Think Again)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... Think Again By Stephen G. Fullwood and Colin Robinson New York State Black Gay Network, Inc. & AIDS Project Los Angeles, Free Fullwood and Robinson have compiled a remarkable collection of essays on growing up with the AIDS...

Now read this.(Street Justice: A History of Police Violence in New York City)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... Street Justice: A History of Police Violence in New York City By Marilynn S. Johnson Beacon Press, $30 Johnson takes us all the way back to the NYPD's 1845 founding and walks us up through Amadou Diallo in her exploration of the...

Now read this.(The Slow Food Guide to New York City: Restaurants, Markets, Bars)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
February 1, 2004... The Slow Food Guide to New York City: Restaurants, Markets, Bars By Patrick Martins and Ben Watson Chelsea Green Press, $20 Here's the point for the "slow food" movement: "Eating is a political act!" Even if you disagree,...

Safety 'net: we're wired to help the poor like never before--but are we willing?(Intelligence NYC Inc.)
February 1, 2004... NYC.INC. GETTING IN THE CITY'S BUSINESS A project of the Center for an Urban Future FORGET THE DIVIDE. Let's start conquering. Yes, inequitable access to technology is a continuing problem in America. Nonetheless, huge numbers of poor...