City Limits articles from June 2003

City Limits archives from June 2003

No fee lunch. (Editorial).(Editorial)
June 1, 2003... As the federal government and New York State choke off billions in funding for essential services, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is not the only agency our there demanding fee hikes like a troll at an East River bridge. By the...

Letters.
June 1, 2003... A PERFECT TAX Two pieces in your March 2003 issue made important points that need to be considered together. In "Future Shock," Mary-Powel Thomas described, depressingly, how slowly New York State is moving to upgrade its energy mix...

Salsa and sweat. (Frontlines).
June 1, 2003... FOR SOME, THE VIEW FROM THE TREADMILLS at El Gym is breathtaking: A Burger King sirs just across East 149th Street. Felix Velazquez just hopes his bay windows, shiny weight machines and thumping merengue are enough to pull local residents away...

Criminal phone bills: the state punishes inmates who want to make cheaper calls home. (Frontlines).
June 1, 2003... WHEN BRIAN PRINS was released from prison on May 3, 2002, the first thing he did--before he saw his parents, before he met with his friends, before he bought himself a decent meal--was head to the small office in Rockville Center, Long Island,...

Karen Overton: bicycle entrepreneur and activist DUMBO. (Urbanlegend).
June 1, 2003... KAREN OVERTON does not look Dominican. But when Yoandy Ramirez' high school shut down a few years ago, he says, Overton--white, blonde and blue-eyed--"made believe that she was my moms," to help her young student get his transcript for his new...

Psyching out the Bronx: how a Pataki plan rips off the mentally ill. (Frontlines).(Governor George Pataki's Community Mental Health Reinvestment Act)
June 1, 2003... MARY MARCO, AN ELEGANT, soft-spoken woman, spends a lot of her time on the grounds of the Bronx Psychiatric Center, but she doesn't have to. It's been nearly 20 years since the keeper of the hospital's gift shop called the wards home. She...

Depression awareness. (Welfare).(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... THE STATE WELFARE AGENCY cannot penalize welfare recipients with mental illnesses for missing appointments or paperwork deadlines, according to a recent court decision. In February, a New York State Appellate Court ruled in favor of Juana...

Older kids lose out. (Education).
June 1, 2003... EDUCATION OFFICIALS are quietly pushing a plan to reorganize six alternative high schools for the system's oldest and hardest-to-serve students--a plan that could eliminate seats for older students in the future. Department of Education...

A new crew. (Sports).(rowing teams in high schools)
June 1, 2003... DAWN LADSON USED TO PLAY basketball. Then she heard about the college scholarships available for girls who row. Now she can't wait to get out on the water. "Anybody can play basketball," she says. "I row to make my mark as an individual."...

New director, old ties. (Praxis).
June 1, 2003... THE NEW ACTING DIRECTOR of Praxis Housing Initiatives, chosen in mid-April as investigations into the group's spending practices continued, may have a record as questionable as the directors he's replacing, according to former Praxis officials...

Training time. (Welfare).
June 1, 2003... THE BLOOMBERG ADMINISTRATION is threatening to sue the City Council over a new welfare and education law the mayor says would severely strap the city for cash, but the mayor is passing up a precious opportunity to enforce the measure without...

Resilient mind. (Firsthand).
June 1, 2003... Kurt Sass, as told to William Wichert MY NAME IS KURT SASS. I've suffered depression since 1979, but the really bad depression, the one that lasted around 11 months, that was in 1998. That was the one that I was actually in bed for six...

Sobro goes soho: Borough President Carrion wants to bring artists to the South Bronx, and local residents are bracing for big changes. (Inside Track).
June 1, 2003... THE BLUE OX BAR sits amidst the South Bronx's vacant manufacturing buildings and public housing high rises--an area Tom Wolfe characterized as a "war zone" in his novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. But stepping into the bar is like entering a...

Super Barrio Man: able to unionize tall buildings in a single drive, Hector Figueroa is moving Local 32BJ into progressive politics--and into a showdown over whom a union works for.
June 1, 2003... Squeezed between panelists at a forum on Paul Wellstone, wearing thick glasses, slacks and a sweater-vest--he's almost always wearing his sweater-vest--Hector Figueroa looks like a bashful intellectual. He speaks quickly and quietly and has an...

The stealth war.(ending rent controls in New York City)
June 1, 2003... The laws that keep housing affordable for more than 2.5 million New Yorkers expire this month. Governor Pataki says he wants to keep rent regulations alive. That's why tenants still have plenty to fear. So far, no one's making a huge amount...

That crazy mother Tucker.(New York Post columnist William Tucker's views on rent laws )
June 1, 2003... To make a case for abolishing rent regulations, a Post pundit turns to creative writing. Whatever happens in Albany this summer, there's one thing for sure. The forces that want to get rid of the city's rent laws can find their inspiration...

Misrepresenting families: what happens when there are more foster care cases than lawyers to take them? In family court, 'the system itself breaks down'.
June 1, 2003... Last July, Dettering "Kool D" Hamilton was accused of neglecting his three children by allegedly using cocaine. The city's Administration for Children's Services sent the children, including a newborn, to live with their mom's sister. Hamilton...

Ailing giant: the Medicaid colossus is about to fall--thanks to a shove from Bush. (Intelligence the Big Idea).(cuts at federal level affect New York Medicaid funding)
June 1, 2003... IN A STATE ACCUSTOMED to boasting about the breadth of its public health insurance system, Governor Pataki's proposed $1.6 billion in Medicaid cuts have struck a deep nerve. It was, after all, just a couple of years ago that New York...

Bronx tales: why there's no one "ghetto life". (Intelligence City Lit).(Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx)(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx By Adrian LeBlanc Scribner, 416 pages, $25 "IN THE BRONX, you always had to watch where you were going. The smallest moves in the wrong direction could have...

New York Ricans from the hip hop zone. (Now Read This).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Palgrave Macmillan, $22.95 The experiences of the city's Puerto Rican hip hop artists, like the late Big Pun (ne Christopher Rios) have been largely invisible to the outside world, which thinks all rappers of color are African American....

Lost ground: welfare reform, poverty, and beyond. (Now Read This).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Edited by Randy Albelda and Ann Withorn South End Press, $18 The only thing more irritating than the way the right talks about welfare reform--as an unmitigated success--is when the left does the converse. This collection of a dozen essays...

Void where prohibited--revisited . (Now Read This).(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Fanpihua Press, $8 When University of Iowa labor professor under revealed five years ago that American employers regularly forbid their employees from taking bathroom breaks, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration responded by...

Power to the poets. (Intelligence City Lit).(Dona Julia)(Book Review)
June 1, 2003... Dona Julia By Alberta Cappas 1st Books Library, 93 pages, $9.50 IF MORE PUBLIC OFFICIALS and politicians could write poetry as visceral as the Human Resources Administration's Director of Community Affairs Alberto Cappas, the world would...

Human resources: corporate America's new philanthropy donates helping hands. (Intelligence Making Change).
June 1, 2003... BEN HECHT SAT in the California headquarters of Cisco Systems looking for a corporate handout. Hecht, president of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit One Economy Corporation, was hoping his March 2001 visit to Cisco Systems would yield a...

Call for backup: the wireless way to make downtown's telecom system more secure than ever before. (Intelligence NYC Inc.).(Lower Manhattan Telecommunications Users Working Group shows economic benefits to wireless redundancy system)
June 1, 2003... HOW MUCH WOULD it be worth to the city to be able to tell employers that lower Manhattan is the most reliable place in the world to do business? A billion dollars? Two? Then imagine that boast could be fulfilled within one year. Without...

New reports.(government web sites with statistical information on social issues)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2003... The welfare rolls are catching up with the recession: Welfare caseloads rose in 38 states in late 2002, according to this new report. But as with any data, there are a few outliers--namely New York, where caseloads have dropped 34 percent since...