One of the major lessons I've learned in recovering from the Sandy disaster is that to remain optimistic you have to make some progress, no matter how little, every day. Don't be impatient but look to gain at least an inch a day. And for the most part I can say that a day hasn't gone by without moving ahead. By the way, I can apply that same principle to organizing efforts in the UFT -- build it right a step at at time. (I know there are lots of people who feel the growing emergency doesn't allow us that luxury, but if the foundation of any building or org is not done right it will fall.)
Sunday, December 9
Big news this past Friday on this end: over 90% electricity restored after Ken the Great (electrician) sent Tommy and 2 other guys to spend the day cutting out the BX cables that had been under water, installing new lines and reconnecting others. All bedrooms, living room, frig, oven most lights are on. The only things left to do are overhead kitchen lights and some outlets.
I took my first shower with the light and exhaust and heater on. First time I saw myself naked in 6 weeks. Not a pretty sight.
A key was getting wrecked laundry room connected so machines can be ordered and hooked up for now, at least until walls are put up. That room was just completed with new machines the last week in Sept. Oh Lord of Flood Insurance, be kind. In the meantime, the machines my wife wants are no longer on sale and she is waiting them out. So we are planning our next big trip to the laundromat this Thursday.
Ken showed up for a while on Friday, pointing out that the tolls were back, an outrage given that all these contractors and workers and volunteers now have to pay for the privilege of coming to Rockaway. As my wife utters on a regular basis -- that fuck'n Cuomo. We found out on the first day of the toll while driving through that I forgot to put the easy pass in my car and we had to pay $3.25 each way. We get resident reductions and with Easy Pass who really pays attention, but the idea that everyone who comes to Rockaway has to pay $6.50 a day, and given there are few stores or gas stations open, that is piling on.
My basement was filled with the cut-out BX cables by the time they left. Tommie told me I could get a hundred bucks for it at a scrap yard. Later I dumped it all into a garbage can that I left in front of my house and it was all gone by the morning, along with my old shop lights and any other metal scrap I put out. Even with the great heroes in sanitation (my wife told me when the sanit dept was mentioned at the Town Hall meeting last week they were the only agency to receive a standing ovation) there are also so many scrap guys picking up what they can.
When I point out all the electrical wiring I had done in the basement and den, Ken is not discouraging me from doing some of my own work -- he will check it for me. I gotta say, given that I have not done much work around the house for 15 or 20 years, I an getting that old itch again. But of course with no power tools yet (finding the right ones is becoming an obsession) I am holding off. But I spent an hour in the empty basement last night figuring out ideas for storage and work areas.
One of my inch-like moves has been getting my garage door
opener working again. Up to now I have to lift this very heavy door
manually. The plug, button and remotes all got wet. So I got some lamp
cord with a plug and cut off the damaged part and rewired it and plugged it in. Then I
tried the remotes and mine which was not under water worked. My wife's
which was under didn't. But when I took out the rusted battery and put mine in
it did work. A miracle of survival, for a remote. Next move is to get the button and wire it in. After that a key of some sort to open from the outside. And then that remote pad that is ruined replaced. Like I said, an inch at a time.
Ken the the guys pointed to some mold but said our situation was the best they've seen. But we feel we have to attack that problem, which we can handle ourselves rather than pay thousands of dollars to have it done. My neighbor across the street showed me what he was doing -- Home Depot has a mold product and you put it in a pump-type spray jug and go through the basement spraying the ceiling. We looked it up and it's a green product -- no chemicals, etc an it gets great reviews.
So on Saturday we were off to Home Depot where we spent almost $200 on "stuff" including new lights for the basement -- if Ken's guys come back Monday maybe they can get me some light down there so I don't have to rely on work lights. I also got that garage door button, some storage bins and got to fondle all kinds of power tools until my wife pulled me away. Really, at this point my favorite centerfold would be a giant Sawzall.
Well, after all that shopping it was off to the diner across the street from Home Depot on Cropsey Ave but the lot was full, so we went to another diner on Flatbush Ave where I went whole hog -- French toast with 2 eggs and cheese. And nary a bit of heartburn.
Back home for an afternoon of mold spraying using this cheap plastic pump jug I was given by the Mormons. I don't like the plastic nozzle and parts tend to come loose. My wife insisted on doing this job no matter how much I tried to dissuade her. I had some more destruction to do down there -- I am in love with my giant crow bar -- and we had to work around each other.
Within 10 minutes we were ready for a divorce. Every time she had a slight problem I had to stop what I was doing. So I wasted an hour just trying to help her. I tried to give her a plan for getting the spraying done but she wanted to do it her way which really wasted the stuff. And it kept leaking so more was getting on her than on the ceiling. Luckily she ran out of the $35 a gallon stuff soon enough so I could get on with my work. We realize we need a better sprayer and my first task today is to go get one.
Well, after she left the basement I was free to demolish things and just was feeling great. I swept up and the place is looking better. We're thinking of hosing down the concrete walls and floor but are worried about the damp leading to mold. But there is a plan. Do a section at a time, use the new wet-dry vac to get the water up and the leaf-blowing attachment to blow dry it and run the new dehumidifier.
I can start doing that today while listening to the Jet game. Two disaster relief efforts for the price of one.
Showing posts with label Rockaway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rockaway. Show all posts
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
Rockaway Update: THE WAVE IS BACK - Bloomberg Visits
I got a call last night from one of the leaders of Occupy who I met last year -- he found my business card and realizing I lived out here and wrote for The Wave called. "Our Occupy Sandy crew said Bloomberg visited The Wave," he said and wanted to know what I knew. Apparently Bloomberg's visit was somewhat secretive and most of the press corps didn't know about it. So he hung out at The Wave office for an exclusive interview.
The Wave is out today with its first print edition and it is FREE. I may resume my column next week or the week after. The fact that Bloomberg went there is recognition of the importance of The Wave to Rockaway.
Here is the Wave temp web site with links to all the stories.
http://m.rockawave.com/news/
And here is the Bloomberg interview. He talks about the city workers and the job they did and he is totally on target. Special credit goes to the Sanitation Dept which has been working 24-7 to clean this place up. Without them we would be way behind.
The Wave is out today with its first print edition and it is FREE. I may resume my column next week or the week after. The fact that Bloomberg went there is recognition of the importance of The Wave to Rockaway.
Here is the Wave temp web site with links to all the stories.
http://m.rockawave.com/news/
And here is the Bloomberg interview. He talks about the city workers and the job they did and he is totally on target. Special credit goes to the Sanitation Dept which has been working 24-7 to clean this place up. Without them we would be way behind.
Concrete Boardwalk For Rockaway On Tap
Mayor Visits Wave For Exclusive Interview
At The Wave office on Thursday, from left, City Councilman Eric Ulrich; Director of Operations Caz Holliway, Wave General Manager Sanford Bernstein; Wave Publisher Susan Locke, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chief Service Officer Diahann Billings- Burford. Mayor Michael Bloomberg dropped into The Wave’s temporary office on the second floor in its washed-out building on Thursday to talk about the issues facing Rockaway in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, which inundated the peninsula a month ago.
The discussion was wide-ranging and inclusive and the mayor, his aides and City Councilman Eric Ulrich were expansive in their comments.
On reconstructing the iconic Rockaway boardwalk:
“I guess this settles the issue of wooden boardwalks versus concrete boardwalks. There will be no more wooden boardwalks in Rockaway or anywhere else. I don’t know that we can reconstruct the boardwalk before this summer, but it will be done,”
On city workers:
“I am proud of what our city work-ers did during and after the storm. The things that the city had control over went well. Our workers did what our taxpayers had the right to have done for them. They all worked hard and did a great job.”
On bringing back business:.
“Business has now become our number one priority. Business means that people will have a place to shop – to buy food and gas, to go to a restaurant. It also means jobs for those who got laid off because their job no longer exists. We are talking to small business to insure that we do all we can to get them back running, including private money, city money and Small Business Administration loans.”
On evacuating the peninsula prior to the storm:
“We told everybody to evacuate and a large chunk of the population did. Many did not. We thought of sending cops around and taking people out of their homes, but we rejected that. We believe that people thought that we were crying wolf, but now they know better.”
On Schools:
“Somewhere in the vicinity of 50 to 60 schools were damaged and did not open when the vacation ended. We are down to five and most of them will be open in early January.”
On Looting Problem:
There was no real looting. There was a problem with burglary of homes that were dark and abandoned, but that is different than looting. Given the context of the devastation that we suffered, there was virtually no looting and local district attorneys have dismissed most of the looting arrests that were made initially.”
On the lack of electricity:
“Rockaway would have been better off if it had Con Edison rather than LIPA. National Grid is also not too great and does not even have good records about its customers. We concentrated on the larger buildings and then moved to homes. We started our Rapid Repair program to help homeowners back on line and those who signed up got the work done and paid for by FEMA. The program got emergency and potentially dangerous things taken care of – heat, hot water and electricity. More than 10,000 people signed up for the program and we have 150 teams working. We could use 500 teams.”
On issue of rebuilding in a waterfront area:
“People have to make their own decisions because there is obviously a risk in living near the water. If people don’t want to live here anymore, they can sell their property and I am sure that somebody will want to buy it.”
On the A Train:
“The trestle over Jamaica Bay was badly damaged and it will take a long time to fix it. This is not a city project, so I really can’t talk about it knowledgeably, but I do know it will take some time.”
On his continuing role in the storm’s aftermath:
“I can’t predict the future. That’s impossible to do. My job now is to make sure everybody is safe for the next 397 days and then I will be unemployed and it will be somebody else’s problem.”
2012-11-30 / Top Stories
Thursday, November 29, 2012
The Nation on Rockaway and Occupy Sandy
Great piece on Rockaway in The Nation.
I'm getting closer to finishing up the work I have to do to get closer to normal and I'm hoping to get over to Occupy Sandy at YANA out here to lend a hand. But at the rate they are going helping people they may be done before I am.
By the way -- rumor out there that Bloomberg came out by helicopter today and went to The Wave offices. Gotta do some checking on that.
The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/blog/171499/photoessay-sandy-ravaged-rockaways-one-month-out?rel=emailNation#
In the wake of one of the worst hurricanes to ever hit the East Coast, stories have surfaced about the phenomenal job Occupy Sandy has done to bring relief to some of the most affected sites in the New York area. For anyone who has not experienced the organized chaos that have marked Sandy volunteer efforts, it may seem surprising that Occupy, the group which US media outlets have criticized for disorganization and lack of clarity, has emerged as one of the most effective implementers of hurricane relief efforts.
Not only does Occupy continue to successfully manage two major distribution hubs in Brooklyn, which daily disperse thousands of materials to other hurricane relief sites, but Occupy volunteers have proven their ability to provide aid to affected populations even when government agencies have not.
While FEMA was setting up its relief stations miles from some of the most vulnerable populations, Occupy volunteers were hiking up dark stairwells in buildings without power, bringing supplies and medical aid directly to doors. When FEMA abandoned relief efforts during the nor’easter which hit the region shortly after Sandy, Occupy volunteers were still on the ground, dispersing supplies and helping residents clear out their waterlogged homes. Pictures snapped since then have documented FEMA workers turning to Occupy organizers for information about how to best serve the neediest communities.
Ironically, one year after its organizers were routinely rounded up by the NYPD for arrest, Occupy has turned out to be the most invaluable asset to New York’s largely unprepared first responders during this $42 billion crisis. The aftermath of this hurricane has proven that the months of group discussions and deliberation surrounding economic justice in Zuccotti Park last year were not “occupied” in vain. Today, anyone who walks into one of these Sandy relief centers will see those same communication systems in use.
Volunteerism in the Rockaways is a brilliant example of Occupy’s mutual aid in action. The Rockaways’ narrow strip of land, which juts westward at the bottom of the Long Island peninsula between Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the areas hit hardest by Sandy. At one point during the storm, the water from the bay and the ocean met on the Rockaway peninsula, filling the first story of many homes and storefronts with water and destroying hundreds of parked cars. Streets were left filled with piles of sand. It is also an area where Occupy’s organized volunteerism has had the biggest presence.
The surge also twisted the A train tracks off their course, which stripped residents and visitors without cars of their main means of commuting to and from the rest of the city. Immediately, the Rockaways were at a volunteer disadvantage because of its now (even more) remote location. One of Occupy’s first major contributions to volunteer relief was to establish St. Jacobi Church in Sunset Park as a place where volunteers could self-organize carpools.
At the end of each day, volunteers make sure everyone who makes the trip down has a ride back to Sunset Park before dark. On multiple occasions, I have asked a volunteering stranger if they knew of a ride back to Brooklyn. Each time, word would travel to another stranger, who would walk up to me to offer a free seat. That is the power of mutual aid.
Once volunteers and supplies make it to the Rockaways, there are several locations where one may go to drop off or pick up materials like cleaning products and yard tools along the peninsula. The main Occupy hub in the Rockaways is located at the YANA community center on Rockaway Beach Blvd, between Beach 113th and 112th streets.
YANA, which stands for You Are Never Alone, opened as a worker training facility only a week before Sandy hit. Barely surviving a massive fire that destroyed the block of property just a few storefronts west of its own facilities, YANA was badly water damaged and required a complete gutting. Occupy volunteers and Greenpeace members came together at the site to support the effort. Now, powered by Greenpeace solar energy generators, the entire block hosts medical relief. hot food and the supply center where volunteers keep lists of residents who call in for assistance, whether it be a medical need, material request, or a need for manual labor.
The volunteers at the YANA site then assign people to attend to each request. Partnership efforts made with local organizations and small businesses have connected Occupy volunteers with local residents, who play a critical role in advising the unfamiliar eyes and ears, creating a relaxed, shared learning environment amid overwhelming scenes of destruction.
One YANA site volunteer, Rasul Murry, explained that Occupy Sandy volunteers are beginning to understand both the short-term and a long-term scope of needs in the Rockaways. Partnerships with local organizations and faith centers have spurred discussions about ways to support local leadership, during the storm cleanup and beyond.
“Something impressive is that we see residents go in to supply centers for help and then later come back to volunteer,” Murry explained. “There is real evidence of the beginnings of a local infrastructure that can begin to look at the longer-term needs of the disaster that Rockaway has seen for several decades.”
Murry is referring, in part, to the razing of large swaths of beach bungalows during New York’s period of urban renewal that produced large vacant land plots, and their recent infill by mass suburban style luxury condominiums, which are generally seen as paying little respect to local community needs.
Tenants on the peninsula tell me they suspect the recent real estate surge has prompted some Rockaway building owners to prefer that their properties be condemned. This way they may stop providing services to tenants, collect insurance, destroy property and repurpose it for profit. “My landlady, she’s from Brooklyn and she wants me out. She knows she can make a lot more money off someone new to the Rockaway Beach area, so she’s not turning the heat or electricity back on. She says she wants me out by the end of the month,” one resident explained.
Among the Occupy volunteers are a few lawyers who are helping organize rent strikes and pushing for mechanisms whereby the government will not condemn a building without prosecuting the landlord for failure to provide services. Murray added, “We need to assure that residents have a long lasting real voice and that Rockaway recovery does not become a replication of New Orleans, not an opportunity to systematically remove people of color.”
The horizontal leadership model used by Occupy (wherein no one is “in charge,” and volunteers may start initiatives without the official clearance of a head figure), on the one hand, makes it difficult to know if the organizing is as effective as it could be. On the other, it's working at least as well as other, more traditional relief efforts and much better than most.
A Sandy Relief Resources newsletter was started recently by a few volunteers and distributed in South Brooklyn, South Queens (including the Rockaways) and Staten Island. The newsletter provides information about disaster unemployment and hiring opportunities, staying warm without heat, emergency snap benefits, FEMA disaster relief, cleaning up, shelters and care and food and supplies. Another similar publication that came out of the Occupy splinter organization Strike Debt is the Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual, which provides tips to those who will have to take out FEMA loans to rebuild their destroyed properties. As Murry put it, “the Occupy movement is a sort of organism—it generates cells that move out, bound by a broad supra-ideological consensus.”
Technology has, of course, played a huge role in the success of Occupy Sandy’s relief efforts. At the end of each day, each distribution hub submits a list of needs for the following day to Celly, a website that forwards messages to any cell phone tapped into the social network. The affiliated Twitter and Facebook channels which are updated several times per day to tell volunteers where they are needed and which supplies to bring. Camera phones have also proved useful: a sign taped up in YANA’s headquarters instructs volunteers to “Take a picture of this with your phone,” referring to a map of the Rockaways with relief headquarters marked.
Perhaps it is the adopted motto “Another World is Possible” that has mobilized thousands of volunteers to join the newly directed Occupy movement. “Last year Occupy was criticized for promoting class warfare,” said one first-time volunteer, “It’s much easier to stand behind Occupy now that we are not only critiquing the government’s assistance granted to big banks and business, but are actively stepping in to provide assistance to the individuals and small businesses that are being ignored.” For several volunteers I’ve spoken with, the Occupy Sandy effort is their first experience working within the mutual aid framework.
Occupy volunteers continue to spend donation funds as needed, with an eye towards the future. In times of crisis, New Yorkers do come together, though many residents have expressed worry that as soon as Sandy headlines begin to wane, so too will the much-needed volunteer support and supplies. “The Rockaways is New York’s ugly stepchild,” remarked one resident, expressing frustrations the Rockaway community has had with Mayor Bloomberg’s lack of attention to community concerns, both before and after Sandy hit the peninsula. While the community was still reeling in response to storm damage, the Mayor’s administration was still championing the construction of a natural gas pipeline to be built straight through the Rockaways’ Jacob Riis Park—a move which many environmental groups believe will endanger local wildlife and residents, in light of recent pipeline leaks and explosions elsewhere.
Gasland Filmmaker Josh Fox has been on the ground since Sandy hit to create a documentary “guerilla” film which will air today (November 27, 2012) somewhere in the East Village (text @climatecrime to 23559 to stay in the loop.) Meanwhile, Occupy Sandy intends to hold a long-term occupation in the Rockaways, and will use the donated funds that continue to come in to provide further support for the community’s reconstruction. You can make a donation to the ongoing effort here.
I'm getting closer to finishing up the work I have to do to get closer to normal and I'm hoping to get over to Occupy Sandy at YANA out here to lend a hand. But at the rate they are going helping people they may be done before I am.
By the way -- rumor out there that Bloomberg came out by helicopter today and went to The Wave offices. Gotta do some checking on that.
The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/blog/171499/photoessay-sandy-ravaged-rockaways-one-month-out?rel=emailNation#
PHOTOESSAY: The Sandy-Ravaged Rockaways, One Month Out
In the wake of one of the worst hurricanes to ever hit the East Coast, stories have surfaced about the phenomenal job Occupy Sandy has done to bring relief to some of the most affected sites in the New York area. For anyone who has not experienced the organized chaos that have marked Sandy volunteer efforts, it may seem surprising that Occupy, the group which US media outlets have criticized for disorganization and lack of clarity, has emerged as one of the most effective implementers of hurricane relief efforts.
Not only does Occupy continue to successfully manage two major distribution hubs in Brooklyn, which daily disperse thousands of materials to other hurricane relief sites, but Occupy volunteers have proven their ability to provide aid to affected populations even when government agencies have not.
While FEMA was setting up its relief stations miles from some of the most vulnerable populations, Occupy volunteers were hiking up dark stairwells in buildings without power, bringing supplies and medical aid directly to doors. When FEMA abandoned relief efforts during the nor’easter which hit the region shortly after Sandy, Occupy volunteers were still on the ground, dispersing supplies and helping residents clear out their waterlogged homes. Pictures snapped since then have documented FEMA workers turning to Occupy organizers for information about how to best serve the neediest communities.
Ironically, one year after its organizers were routinely rounded up by the NYPD for arrest, Occupy has turned out to be the most invaluable asset to New York’s largely unprepared first responders during this $42 billion crisis. The aftermath of this hurricane has proven that the months of group discussions and deliberation surrounding economic justice in Zuccotti Park last year were not “occupied” in vain. Today, anyone who walks into one of these Sandy relief centers will see those same communication systems in use.
Volunteerism in the Rockaways is a brilliant example of Occupy’s mutual aid in action. The Rockaways’ narrow strip of land, which juts westward at the bottom of the Long Island peninsula between Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, is one of the areas hit hardest by Sandy. At one point during the storm, the water from the bay and the ocean met on the Rockaway peninsula, filling the first story of many homes and storefronts with water and destroying hundreds of parked cars. Streets were left filled with piles of sand. It is also an area where Occupy’s organized volunteerism has had the biggest presence.
The surge also twisted the A train tracks off their course, which stripped residents and visitors without cars of their main means of commuting to and from the rest of the city. Immediately, the Rockaways were at a volunteer disadvantage because of its now (even more) remote location. One of Occupy’s first major contributions to volunteer relief was to establish St. Jacobi Church in Sunset Park as a place where volunteers could self-organize carpools.
At the end of each day, volunteers make sure everyone who makes the trip down has a ride back to Sunset Park before dark. On multiple occasions, I have asked a volunteering stranger if they knew of a ride back to Brooklyn. Each time, word would travel to another stranger, who would walk up to me to offer a free seat. That is the power of mutual aid.
Once volunteers and supplies make it to the Rockaways, there are several locations where one may go to drop off or pick up materials like cleaning products and yard tools along the peninsula. The main Occupy hub in the Rockaways is located at the YANA community center on Rockaway Beach Blvd, between Beach 113th and 112th streets.
YANA, which stands for You Are Never Alone, opened as a worker training facility only a week before Sandy hit. Barely surviving a massive fire that destroyed the block of property just a few storefronts west of its own facilities, YANA was badly water damaged and required a complete gutting. Occupy volunteers and Greenpeace members came together at the site to support the effort. Now, powered by Greenpeace solar energy generators, the entire block hosts medical relief. hot food and the supply center where volunteers keep lists of residents who call in for assistance, whether it be a medical need, material request, or a need for manual labor.
The volunteers at the YANA site then assign people to attend to each request. Partnership efforts made with local organizations and small businesses have connected Occupy volunteers with local residents, who play a critical role in advising the unfamiliar eyes and ears, creating a relaxed, shared learning environment amid overwhelming scenes of destruction.
One YANA site volunteer, Rasul Murry, explained that Occupy Sandy volunteers are beginning to understand both the short-term and a long-term scope of needs in the Rockaways. Partnerships with local organizations and faith centers have spurred discussions about ways to support local leadership, during the storm cleanup and beyond.
“Something impressive is that we see residents go in to supply centers for help and then later come back to volunteer,” Murry explained. “There is real evidence of the beginnings of a local infrastructure that can begin to look at the longer-term needs of the disaster that Rockaway has seen for several decades.”
Murry is referring, in part, to the razing of large swaths of beach bungalows during New York’s period of urban renewal that produced large vacant land plots, and their recent infill by mass suburban style luxury condominiums, which are generally seen as paying little respect to local community needs.
Tenants on the peninsula tell me they suspect the recent real estate surge has prompted some Rockaway building owners to prefer that their properties be condemned. This way they may stop providing services to tenants, collect insurance, destroy property and repurpose it for profit. “My landlady, she’s from Brooklyn and she wants me out. She knows she can make a lot more money off someone new to the Rockaway Beach area, so she’s not turning the heat or electricity back on. She says she wants me out by the end of the month,” one resident explained.
Among the Occupy volunteers are a few lawyers who are helping organize rent strikes and pushing for mechanisms whereby the government will not condemn a building without prosecuting the landlord for failure to provide services. Murray added, “We need to assure that residents have a long lasting real voice and that Rockaway recovery does not become a replication of New Orleans, not an opportunity to systematically remove people of color.”
The horizontal leadership model used by Occupy (wherein no one is “in charge,” and volunteers may start initiatives without the official clearance of a head figure), on the one hand, makes it difficult to know if the organizing is as effective as it could be. On the other, it's working at least as well as other, more traditional relief efforts and much better than most.
A Sandy Relief Resources newsletter was started recently by a few volunteers and distributed in South Brooklyn, South Queens (including the Rockaways) and Staten Island. The newsletter provides information about disaster unemployment and hiring opportunities, staying warm without heat, emergency snap benefits, FEMA disaster relief, cleaning up, shelters and care and food and supplies. Another similar publication that came out of the Occupy splinter organization Strike Debt is the Debt Resistors’ Operations Manual, which provides tips to those who will have to take out FEMA loans to rebuild their destroyed properties. As Murry put it, “the Occupy movement is a sort of organism—it generates cells that move out, bound by a broad supra-ideological consensus.”
Technology has, of course, played a huge role in the success of Occupy Sandy’s relief efforts. At the end of each day, each distribution hub submits a list of needs for the following day to Celly, a website that forwards messages to any cell phone tapped into the social network. The affiliated Twitter and Facebook channels which are updated several times per day to tell volunteers where they are needed and which supplies to bring. Camera phones have also proved useful: a sign taped up in YANA’s headquarters instructs volunteers to “Take a picture of this with your phone,” referring to a map of the Rockaways with relief headquarters marked.
Perhaps it is the adopted motto “Another World is Possible” that has mobilized thousands of volunteers to join the newly directed Occupy movement. “Last year Occupy was criticized for promoting class warfare,” said one first-time volunteer, “It’s much easier to stand behind Occupy now that we are not only critiquing the government’s assistance granted to big banks and business, but are actively stepping in to provide assistance to the individuals and small businesses that are being ignored.” For several volunteers I’ve spoken with, the Occupy Sandy effort is their first experience working within the mutual aid framework.
Occupy volunteers continue to spend donation funds as needed, with an eye towards the future. In times of crisis, New Yorkers do come together, though many residents have expressed worry that as soon as Sandy headlines begin to wane, so too will the much-needed volunteer support and supplies. “The Rockaways is New York’s ugly stepchild,” remarked one resident, expressing frustrations the Rockaway community has had with Mayor Bloomberg’s lack of attention to community concerns, both before and after Sandy hit the peninsula. While the community was still reeling in response to storm damage, the Mayor’s administration was still championing the construction of a natural gas pipeline to be built straight through the Rockaways’ Jacob Riis Park—a move which many environmental groups believe will endanger local wildlife and residents, in light of recent pipeline leaks and explosions elsewhere.
Gasland Filmmaker Josh Fox has been on the ground since Sandy hit to create a documentary “guerilla” film which will air today (November 27, 2012) somewhere in the East Village (text @climatecrime to 23559 to stay in the loop.) Meanwhile, Occupy Sandy intends to hold a long-term occupation in the Rockaways, and will use the donated funds that continue to come in to provide further support for the community’s reconstruction. You can make a donation to the ongoing effort here.
Rockaway Update: Heat, Glorious Heat After Two Different Electricians Show Up
Where do I turn in my absence note for missing yesterday's Delegate Assembly and MORE planning committee meeting?
Note: My boiler is ready to go but the wiring has to be done and Pat the plumber said his electrician will contact us. No word so far.
Wednesday, November 28 went like this:
Early morning -- I move my new car out of the driveway onto the muddy street. One day and it's already filthy. Rockaway is one giant dust bowl. The cleansing rain didn't cleanse enough.
10AM: Mike the air condition/heating guy sends over a 3 man crew to finish the work of replacing damaged equipment which will give us heat on the main level of the house (we already have the 3 bedrooms working off the individual room heat exchangers. All we need is for Ken the electrician to come and run a new line to the compressor and we could stop hovering over the stove burners, which we are sure is giving us CO2 poisoning. (Excuse me while I take a nap). We also need Ken to start rewiring and reconnecting our power throughout the house so we can stop running extension cords from the garage throughout the house. But my last contact with Ken was not promising. If he ever finishes I would be close to back to normal.
1PM: I'm in the midst of demolishing more sheet rock between basement and den, along with a basement closet that was never taken apart -- and I'm finding some ugly mold. I should have taken care of this before. I figure I could leave for the DA around 2:30. But lo and behold Ken shows up to run the line to the compressor. I practically beg him to connect up some of the lines that didn't get wet. He says maybe if he has time. In the meantime he tells me some bad news. He won't rewire the wet stuff in the basement which powers our entire kitchen/dining room and who knows what else until I clean up the area near the ceiling and spray it for mold. My wife doesn't want these pros in who will toss all kinds of poison around --- they want to use a fogger and we would have to abandon the house for most of a day with the cats. She wants us to mix up a solution of vinegar and water and go at it. She orders a dehumidifier to help dry out the basement. Now we did have some anti mold spraying done when the crew we hired cleaned out the basement just 5 days after the storm. But there's a hell of a lot of remaining grit up near the rafters that has to be sprayed and we have to do that before the new wiring. I'm seeing Xmas with extension cords. Ken says I should cut all the BX cables myself and pull them out. But where do I cut them so he can follow the trail when he comes back? Jeez.
3PM: So as usual I ignore the issue and just keep demolishing -- the DA is slipping away but I am having more fun. I decide to hang around to try to catch Ken who is taking a very long time running and connecting this one cable to see if he would do some more work since he is already here. I go upstairs for a bite and to warn up. When I go back down Ken is gone. The AC crew is still working and since the line is hooked up we will have heat from the main level units by tonight. I have to wait until they finish so I can shut the garage door. If they are gone by 5 I can still leave and make the MORE meeting which will be in some bar where I can drink enough to forget the mold for a few hours.
5PM: The AC guys finish and proudly turn on the heating units on the main level. Glorious feel of warm air gushing out. We now have 5 individual units to heat the entire house other downstairs.
Just as the crew is finishing I get a call from Pat the plumber. "I was supposed to call you earlier in the day. The electrician is on the way and will be there soon." While we are talking Doug the boiler electrican's truck pulls up. Well, there goes the MORE meeting. I figure a half hour to an hour to hook up the 3 thermostats. I have a FIRST LEGO Robotics conf call at 6PM so at least I can do that. It is dark and cold and I have to leave the garage door and den door open so Doug can go back and forth. The new thermostat I bought for the room that was flooded and now without sheet rock or insulation reads 49 degrees. I'm going to try to stay in the basement with Doug to make sure he runs a new wire for that thermostat and also connects each zone to where it us supposed to go -- so that if I turn on the thermostat in the bedroom the heat doesn't come up in the kitchen. "I'm not leaving until this works and you have heat," Doug says. Did I fall into heaven? This morning I had heat in 2 rooms and by tonight I will have 2 separate heating systems working covering the entire house. Boy am I looking forward to Doug finishing so I can have a nice dinner and relax watching TV.
Doug doesn't finish until 11:30PM. Yes, I said 11:30 PM.
I was down in the basement with him almost every step of the way as it got colder and colder. I had no idea of the complexity of this wiring job. The new boilers have so many backup/safety features he has to connect all these weird little color coded wires, in addition to installing all kinds of doo-dads. And then test them. "You mean these are not ready to go?" I ask, naively. Doug spends a lot of time crawling around on the awful floor that 4 weeks ago had almost 8 feet of water. I wander around the basement looking at all the work I have to start doing to clean the grit up off the beams.
We hear all kinds of action on the street all evening -- front loaders and little wildcats racing up and down the street with loads of stuff from demolition on the block. My wife urges me to get my car back into the driveway. Good idea. We even see a street cleaner come down pushing the dirty mud away from the curb and into the middle of the street -- nice. But he has to go around the car stuck in front of my house. If only my neighbor across the street who had a messed up car towed out of his driveway and in front of my house can get the lying people who are supposed to tow it away to actually come and get it the crap might have been cleaned. It's been there for weeks and they keep promising to take it away.
Doug, who is from Brooklyn but now lives in Jersey, is amazing. Careful and deliberate working through the evening not complaining. If I knew I tell him I would have gotten him pizza -- except there are no pizza places open in Rockaway -- or any food stores nearby. So in sympathy I try not to eat and be as cold as he is -- though I do sneak upstairs every so often to warm up a bit.
Well, I learn a lot from Doug -- at the very least I can hook up the thermostat wires. He tells me all of them had been wet and have to be changed --- no light job given they are snaked through the walls. One has the insulation stripped off -- he tells me they were run along the heating pipe -- a no-no. That one is easy to replace so he runs a new line into the damaged den right up the stairs. And he does it right -- taking a lot of time -- I mean it is past 11PM. And then he installs the thermostat in the den where I will keep the temp at 50 degrees so nothing freezes. How long a drive home does he have? Two and a half hours -- commercial vehicle and he can't drive on the Belt. That means he won't get home until --- I can't even do the math. And until he walked out at 11:30 he never showed on iota of being in a rush. Wish I had that patience.
I know this has been one boring post but I had to get this long day out of my system. At least I found another reliable electrician in Doug who said he would come back if I needed him just in case I can't get Ken back soon. "Next time I promise to get pizza," I tell him.
Note: My boiler is ready to go but the wiring has to be done and Pat the plumber said his electrician will contact us. No word so far.
Wednesday, November 28 went like this:
 |
| wishful thinking |
Early morning -- I move my new car out of the driveway onto the muddy street. One day and it's already filthy. Rockaway is one giant dust bowl. The cleansing rain didn't cleanse enough.
10AM: Mike the air condition/heating guy sends over a 3 man crew to finish the work of replacing damaged equipment which will give us heat on the main level of the house (we already have the 3 bedrooms working off the individual room heat exchangers. All we need is for Ken the electrician to come and run a new line to the compressor and we could stop hovering over the stove burners, which we are sure is giving us CO2 poisoning. (Excuse me while I take a nap). We also need Ken to start rewiring and reconnecting our power throughout the house so we can stop running extension cords from the garage throughout the house. But my last contact with Ken was not promising. If he ever finishes I would be close to back to normal.
1PM: I'm in the midst of demolishing more sheet rock between basement and den, along with a basement closet that was never taken apart -- and I'm finding some ugly mold. I should have taken care of this before. I figure I could leave for the DA around 2:30. But lo and behold Ken shows up to run the line to the compressor. I practically beg him to connect up some of the lines that didn't get wet. He says maybe if he has time. In the meantime he tells me some bad news. He won't rewire the wet stuff in the basement which powers our entire kitchen/dining room and who knows what else until I clean up the area near the ceiling and spray it for mold. My wife doesn't want these pros in who will toss all kinds of poison around --- they want to use a fogger and we would have to abandon the house for most of a day with the cats. She wants us to mix up a solution of vinegar and water and go at it. She orders a dehumidifier to help dry out the basement. Now we did have some anti mold spraying done when the crew we hired cleaned out the basement just 5 days after the storm. But there's a hell of a lot of remaining grit up near the rafters that has to be sprayed and we have to do that before the new wiring. I'm seeing Xmas with extension cords. Ken says I should cut all the BX cables myself and pull them out. But where do I cut them so he can follow the trail when he comes back? Jeez.
3PM: So as usual I ignore the issue and just keep demolishing -- the DA is slipping away but I am having more fun. I decide to hang around to try to catch Ken who is taking a very long time running and connecting this one cable to see if he would do some more work since he is already here. I go upstairs for a bite and to warn up. When I go back down Ken is gone. The AC crew is still working and since the line is hooked up we will have heat from the main level units by tonight. I have to wait until they finish so I can shut the garage door. If they are gone by 5 I can still leave and make the MORE meeting which will be in some bar where I can drink enough to forget the mold for a few hours.
5PM: The AC guys finish and proudly turn on the heating units on the main level. Glorious feel of warm air gushing out. We now have 5 individual units to heat the entire house other downstairs.
Just as the crew is finishing I get a call from Pat the plumber. "I was supposed to call you earlier in the day. The electrician is on the way and will be there soon." While we are talking Doug the boiler electrican's truck pulls up. Well, there goes the MORE meeting. I figure a half hour to an hour to hook up the 3 thermostats. I have a FIRST LEGO Robotics conf call at 6PM so at least I can do that. It is dark and cold and I have to leave the garage door and den door open so Doug can go back and forth. The new thermostat I bought for the room that was flooded and now without sheet rock or insulation reads 49 degrees. I'm going to try to stay in the basement with Doug to make sure he runs a new wire for that thermostat and also connects each zone to where it us supposed to go -- so that if I turn on the thermostat in the bedroom the heat doesn't come up in the kitchen. "I'm not leaving until this works and you have heat," Doug says. Did I fall into heaven? This morning I had heat in 2 rooms and by tonight I will have 2 separate heating systems working covering the entire house. Boy am I looking forward to Doug finishing so I can have a nice dinner and relax watching TV.
Doug doesn't finish until 11:30PM. Yes, I said 11:30 PM.
I was down in the basement with him almost every step of the way as it got colder and colder. I had no idea of the complexity of this wiring job. The new boilers have so many backup/safety features he has to connect all these weird little color coded wires, in addition to installing all kinds of doo-dads. And then test them. "You mean these are not ready to go?" I ask, naively. Doug spends a lot of time crawling around on the awful floor that 4 weeks ago had almost 8 feet of water. I wander around the basement looking at all the work I have to start doing to clean the grit up off the beams.
We hear all kinds of action on the street all evening -- front loaders and little wildcats racing up and down the street with loads of stuff from demolition on the block. My wife urges me to get my car back into the driveway. Good idea. We even see a street cleaner come down pushing the dirty mud away from the curb and into the middle of the street -- nice. But he has to go around the car stuck in front of my house. If only my neighbor across the street who had a messed up car towed out of his driveway and in front of my house can get the lying people who are supposed to tow it away to actually come and get it the crap might have been cleaned. It's been there for weeks and they keep promising to take it away.
Doug, who is from Brooklyn but now lives in Jersey, is amazing. Careful and deliberate working through the evening not complaining. If I knew I tell him I would have gotten him pizza -- except there are no pizza places open in Rockaway -- or any food stores nearby. So in sympathy I try not to eat and be as cold as he is -- though I do sneak upstairs every so often to warm up a bit.
Well, I learn a lot from Doug -- at the very least I can hook up the thermostat wires. He tells me all of them had been wet and have to be changed --- no light job given they are snaked through the walls. One has the insulation stripped off -- he tells me they were run along the heating pipe -- a no-no. That one is easy to replace so he runs a new line into the damaged den right up the stairs. And he does it right -- taking a lot of time -- I mean it is past 11PM. And then he installs the thermostat in the den where I will keep the temp at 50 degrees so nothing freezes. How long a drive home does he have? Two and a half hours -- commercial vehicle and he can't drive on the Belt. That means he won't get home until --- I can't even do the math. And until he walked out at 11:30 he never showed on iota of being in a rush. Wish I had that patience.
I know this has been one boring post but I had to get this long day out of my system. At least I found another reliable electrician in Doug who said he would come back if I needed him just in case I can't get Ken back soon. "Next time I promise to get pizza," I tell him.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Rockaway Update: Singin' in the Rain
But perhaps most disturbing of all, when I heard that the bridges supporting the shuttle train tracks to Rockaway Park had been completely wrecked, I got a chill. It took 6 years to get the bridge rebuilt and train service restored, after the trestle fire of May, 1950. Let’s not even think about it… Vivian Carter at Oy Vey Rockaway blog.Well, it doesn't look like we will have train service to Rockaway for a loooong time. How about starting over with a monorail of some sort similar to the link to the JFK? Service often sucked anyway --
Some people might think it is a bad sign to pick up a new car in lousy weather. Not me. Yesterday's full day of fresh water cleansing rain was a welcome sight. It hasn't rained in the month since Sandy and the sense of freshness washing away some of the muck was invigorating. I almost felt like standing naked in front of my house but luckily for all passed on that, especially as PS 114 reopened yesterday.
Plus it gave me a day off from the crap I had to do outside. Besides, the new Honda CRV was ready to be picked up at noon and I was rearing to go. I got an exact replica of the car I bought at the end of June so it was like being right at home. Andy Feldman didn't have to review how the car works and due to the rain didn't even have to wipe it down. And paying was just so easy --- deposit the check from Geiko and take the money right back out again. Other than some of the taxes I broke even.
Monday was an active day out here with two sets of workers -- Pat the plumber sent his guys to finish installing the new burner -- other than wiring up the thermostats -- he has to send his own electrician, so we still don't have our regular heat. And Mike the air conditioning/heating guy sent his crew to replace the compressor which was hanging only 2 ft off the ground. The removed all the old inside and outside stuff and today may be back to hang the new units which will also pump some heat -- except I still need Ken the electrician to come back and run a new line since the old one was covered with salt water in my basement. Their hanging it 8 ft off the ground like the one on the other side of my house --- ugly but until the predicted 25 foot sea rise comes --- and maybe sooner rather than later it seems -- I am good for a while.
My fellow Wave columnist Vivian Carter is back up and running at Oy Vey Rockaway (http://rockviv.wordpress.com/) with some wonderful commentary and pics where she points out the important fact so many of us who figured we wouldn't die from 4 feet of water missed: fire. The only moments of panic we felt was the smell of smoke -- we thought it was our house -- and looking out at the ocean surrounding our house there seemed to be no way out. We finally realized it wasn't us and didn't find out until the next morning that almost a whole block had burned down 4 blocks away. Many of our friends saw the flames from their houses and watched them jump from house to house, terrified that it would burn the neighborhood down like happened in Breezy Point. Vivian was closer to the fire.
I survived Hurricane Sandy, which struck the Northeast coast of the United States at about 9 p.m. on Monday, October 29. I sent a panicked text message to a friend a few minutes later that said: ”the entire basement and first floor is flooded, and the house is shaking. My car is filled with water up to dashboard. The whole 400 block here has water half way up first floors!” That panic was nothing compared to how I felt a few hours later as I watched the embers of the Harbor Light Restaurant fire blowing hard to the north, landing on the Maroneys’ house, just across the back yard. I only managed to sleep once I was assured that Bulloch’s gas station was not going to blow up, as tanks are always sealed off from such catastrophes, these days. The risk of fire was something the OEM brochure on hurricanes didn’t mention. Something few of us had thought of.
http://rockviv.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/we-demanded-the-sand-but-this-is-ridiculous/
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Today I might actually take a shot at going to the Delegate Assembly and the MORE planning committee meeting following for a change of pace. I took the great Accountable Talk piece - Real Questions for our Unity Leaders a and made a quick 2-sided leaflet. If I get there early I may make some copies and distribute some. MORE has lots of stuff to give out but I feel there is a need for some stronger stuff attacking Unity.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Rockaway Update: Positively Dystopian
But then I saw a light -- one store still standing seemed to be the HQ of Occupy Sandy with a big green sign saying "Global Warming?"Monday, November 26, 2012
 |
| This is mostly cleaned up now |
Sunday morning I felt I was in the final scene of the original Planet of the Apes (spoiler alert) when Charlton Heston, who thinks he has been on another planet, comes upon a wrecked Statue of Liberty and realizes humanity had destroyed itself.
We're a month into post Sandy. I haven't been getting out and about Rockaway much other than basic entering and leaving, with a few side trips to the parking lots where the cars were towed to grab certain items and my license plates. These lots, full of wrecked cars, are on the bay side, so I haven't really seen much of the beach side, though we did take one walk to friends on a beach block and saw some of the devastation to the beach houses around 137/8th St. where the wonderful singer Kenny Vance* who grew up in Belle Harbor, had his beach house totally destroyed.
My friend Susan who lives in a 10 story building facing the ocean on 106th St. left town a few days after Sandy after finding the boardwalk and 4 ft of sand in her lobby. She left us her car. She came home Sunday morning and I picked her up at Laguardia. As we came into Rockaway over the Cross Bay Bridge driving on Shore Front Parkway along the beach I felt like Heston. The concrete skeletons of the support structure the boardwalk had rested on were sticking up like ancient dinosaurs. There seemed to be no beach with the ocean running under the concrete structures.
We turned into the courtyard of the building where loads of cars were parked, along with all kinds of maintenance trucks and a trailer which was probably a boiler. "Drive to the lot behind the building so I can see if my spot is available," Susan said. The lot was full of dead cars mixed with some live ones, some of the cars had clearly floated. The entire Rockaway peninsula is a cemetery for thousands of dead cars. It is almost incomprehensible. Everywhere you do you still see dead cars.
Susan told me to take her car since there was not spot. On the way home I passed more devastation. The stretch of Rockaway Beach Blvd between 116th and 108th street had a few blocks of rubble -- all stores are gone. Looked like another fire had hit them.
But then I saw a light -- one store still standing seemed to be the HQ of Occupy Sandy with a big green sign saying "Global Warming?"
Up for today: Air conditioner guys come to replace the compressor that was hit by the storm. When it was put in 7 years ago I insisted it be raised off the ground --- it was -- 2 ft. Now I'm having the new one hung 8 ft -- I don't care how ugly it looks. Since it is also a heat pump it will give us heat in the main area of our house when/if the electrician comes to run another line to replace the one that was compromised by sea water. But if the plumber comes first to finish installing the boiler that will give us our regular heating system back. Hoping both are done by the end of the week.
Did you know that NY State law says the insur co can't remove your car until the turn your plates in? Tomorrow we pick up our new Honda CRV so I am paying ins for 3 cars even though I already relinquished the titles to the dead ones to Geiko. My first stop will be the DMV and then I go tool shopping with a chain saw my priority. Here's why.
Inundated by Mormons
If I knew I might have considered Mitt. These guys and gals are all over the place. A few stopped by -- father and daughter from Virginia and a guy from Astoria -- they have Mormons in Queens? I took them to my backyard to check out a 20 ft high leaning emerald gold arborvitae, which we planted as a 4 ft shrub almost 30 years ago. "Get a chain saw and cut most of it down to give it a chance to survive" the lead guy said. He seemed to know what he was talking about. I didn't say I would put it on the roof of my car and drive to Canada.
Who knows what lurks inside our walls?
Mold: that is the fright word you hear all over. A group called Friends of Rockaway which will focus on the Rockaway Park (149-116th St) area is holding Sunday 3PM meetings at St. Francis church, the hub of relief efforts. We went to the meeting yesterday in the warming tent where volunteers were serving food, etc. and heard a mold expert scare us to death. The costs of spraying, washing, etc are high (65 cents a sq ft). Mix bleach or vinegar with water and start spraying. And don't close up those walls for weeks or put insulation in even with winter coming to let the air circulate. Mold spores hate cold. So do I.
*A Kenny Vance storm story I heard. Friends live on 136 on the bay block, 5 blocks away from Vance's former home. They found a box of Vance CDs in prime condition on their lawn and some letters that had floated over from his house --- just a sense of the power of the surge.
I hear The Wave office is reopening today. Yay!
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Rockaway Update: Did Your Jewelry Enjoy the Swim?
Here's a surreal Friday scene:
Being escorted through the corridors of the Chase building at 4 Metrotech in downtown Brooklyn by a Chase employee you recognize from the Rockaway Beach 116th branch (10ft of water in basement, 7 ft on main level that must have penetrated the vault) where you kept your safe deposit box. You are there to pick up the contents that may or not still exist.
You seem to remember having to reach up for the box so maybe you're OK. Your birth certificate is in there. If it got wet how will you know how old you are?
You are led a long way before coming to a big open room on the lower level with racks of safe deposit boxes from your branch all over the place. The bottom 4 or 5 levels are rusted. Yours is safe. You show ID, are asked for your key and you are escorted to a private area where you can look to see if the crown jewels have been tampered with. They are fine, so you wrap everything up and are escorted back out.
The escort is a Rockaway resident. She was at the bank the morning after. With 7 feet of water in the bank during the storm, they had no idea how much was in the vault, so before opening it they told everyone to stand back. Luckily it wasn't full -- only about a foot of water came out.
She tells you all sorts of fun stories that all Rockawayites seem to share, including the one everyone tells of the woman who went to her basement, was cut by glass from a broken window as the surge came in and bled to death. The Chase gal, who has worked for Chase for 37 years, is living in Brooklyn with her boy friend so she has seen all the reports on TV that you have missed. "They don't come close to the real story," she says. She tells about your favorite hardware store, across from a transit police building, that was broken into and vandalized. Interesting factoid: the bank on the beach block wasn't hit as hard as Chase witch was closer to the bay. Every conversation gives you another nugget of info. This one is important. Was it the bay more than the ocean that was the real culprit, especially since your house is only half a block away from the bay?
The night before a friend had told you that the storm sewers were bubbling up hours before high tide and that is water backing up the sewers from the bay. He also told you the bay was higher than the sea wall at the height of the storm. Hmmm. You are hearing stories of people on beach blocks who did not get hit as bad as you --- but that seems to be a minority. You even heard from a friend on the beach block whose truck survived the storm. New theory -- the waves surged and then spread out to the blocks towards the bay which absorbed the water until it met the bay. So some beach block houses which may have been on a higher rise escaped some of the worse damage. Lesson: Build up.
Get some lunch at a french place near metrotech and then head over to Court St for the movie Silver Linings Playbook which you love and develop a crush on jennifer lawrence. Then over to Sheepshead Bay for Thai food where just as you sit down your best Rockaway pals walk in and sit down with you after eating next door. You all continue to share stories even some you may have shared before. Luckily not the one about the lady who bled to death.
----
Saturday update:
Geiko says they can't take the dead cars off policy till you turn in plate to DMV -- NY State law. I have 3 of the 4 plates but my wife's car is pressed up against another and I haven't been able to get the plate off. I've already been there twice with some tools but no luck. I tried the gentleman's way --- trying to get the nuts off. Now it's time to get tough with the little bastard.
This time I take the big crow bar. I find a low angle and start bending the plate until one side gives and it comes loose. Then hit the other side using brute force. It comes loose. I love this crow bar. I may take it everywhere.
Being escorted through the corridors of the Chase building at 4 Metrotech in downtown Brooklyn by a Chase employee you recognize from the Rockaway Beach 116th branch (10ft of water in basement, 7 ft on main level that must have penetrated the vault) where you kept your safe deposit box. You are there to pick up the contents that may or not still exist.
You seem to remember having to reach up for the box so maybe you're OK. Your birth certificate is in there. If it got wet how will you know how old you are?
You are led a long way before coming to a big open room on the lower level with racks of safe deposit boxes from your branch all over the place. The bottom 4 or 5 levels are rusted. Yours is safe. You show ID, are asked for your key and you are escorted to a private area where you can look to see if the crown jewels have been tampered with. They are fine, so you wrap everything up and are escorted back out.
The escort is a Rockaway resident. She was at the bank the morning after. With 7 feet of water in the bank during the storm, they had no idea how much was in the vault, so before opening it they told everyone to stand back. Luckily it wasn't full -- only about a foot of water came out.
She tells you all sorts of fun stories that all Rockawayites seem to share, including the one everyone tells of the woman who went to her basement, was cut by glass from a broken window as the surge came in and bled to death. The Chase gal, who has worked for Chase for 37 years, is living in Brooklyn with her boy friend so she has seen all the reports on TV that you have missed. "They don't come close to the real story," she says. She tells about your favorite hardware store, across from a transit police building, that was broken into and vandalized. Interesting factoid: the bank on the beach block wasn't hit as hard as Chase witch was closer to the bay. Every conversation gives you another nugget of info. This one is important. Was it the bay more than the ocean that was the real culprit, especially since your house is only half a block away from the bay?
The night before a friend had told you that the storm sewers were bubbling up hours before high tide and that is water backing up the sewers from the bay. He also told you the bay was higher than the sea wall at the height of the storm. Hmmm. You are hearing stories of people on beach blocks who did not get hit as bad as you --- but that seems to be a minority. You even heard from a friend on the beach block whose truck survived the storm. New theory -- the waves surged and then spread out to the blocks towards the bay which absorbed the water until it met the bay. So some beach block houses which may have been on a higher rise escaped some of the worse damage. Lesson: Build up.
Get some lunch at a french place near metrotech and then head over to Court St for the movie Silver Linings Playbook which you love and develop a crush on jennifer lawrence. Then over to Sheepshead Bay for Thai food where just as you sit down your best Rockaway pals walk in and sit down with you after eating next door. You all continue to share stories even some you may have shared before. Luckily not the one about the lady who bled to death.
----
Saturday update:
This time I take the big crow bar. I find a low angle and start bending the plate until one side gives and it comes loose. Then hit the other side using brute force. It comes loose. I love this crow bar. I may take it everywhere.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Lifeguard Controversy
Today's NY Times' front page Metro story by Corey Kilgannon on Peter Stein who heads the lifeguards' union, relates to a story in Ed Notes (Is the Parks Dept Racist?) on the way the Parks Dept. places lifeguards in Rockaway - lots of them in the wealthy west end, many less in the poorer east end.
Stein was a NYC teacher, as is Janet Flash, his current nemesis. We met with Stein in the 70's when he expressed some interest, briefly, in the opposition to Unity Caucus, but then he moved quickly into the city-wide union hierarchy.
Kilgannon has done some great stories on Rockaway over the years.
Here are some photos I took on Labor Day last year. This used to be the traditional day teachers were at their most depressed, but thanks to the UFT, they were already back at work for two days by then. The UFT does it's best to improve the mental state of teachers - "See, we won a great victory in the 2005 contract. No more depression Labor Day."
But in these pictures, you will see some teachers, after having attended 2 days of PD, trying to decide whether to just swim out to sea as an alternative to going in the next day.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Is the NYC Parks Department Racist?
One would certainly think so given the fact that small, insular, wealthy communities (full disclosure - I live in one of them) get lifeguards - lots of them while the poorer east end Rockaway communities get zilch.More evidence that Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has compared himself to Martin Luther King as a civil rights activist, supports closet racist policies that have lead to more segregated schools, the disappearing black teacher, and entire beach communities of people of color who do not have lifeguards and are threatened with summonses and arrest by Parks Dept. police if they should venture to put a toe in the water.
Message from NYC Parks Dept. head Adrienne Benepe:
Hey people of color: OK to sit on a crowded beach, but don't go in the water.
Here is an excerpt from a letter to Parks Dept. head Adrienne Benepe by Jeanne Dupont, who leads the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance:
The population in these areas are polar opposites; Neponsit has a population of .02% minorities, where Far Rockaway has a 98% minority population. This cannot continue, as this is racial discrimination and could put the Parks Department in serious danger of legal action if it were investigated further.
Here's Jeanne's entire letter:
Please register your complaint that Far Rockaway needs its lifeguards every day, not just on the weekends. Visit 106 Headquarters for Lifeguards at Beach 106th Street on the boardwalk, call (718) 318-4000 extension 0, or call 311.
From Beach 75th Street on up, there are lifeguards every 100 yards. The outright neglect of our neighborhood is abominable, so please make yourself heard.
You may also want to write to Adrian Benepe, the NYC Parks Commissioner. Attached (and below) is a letter that Jeanne DuPont of Rockaway Waterfront Alliance sent today.
Thank you.
July 8, 2008
Mr. Adrian Benepe
Commissioner
NYC Department of Parks & Recreation
The Arsenal
16 West 61st Street
New York, NY 10023
Dear Commissioner Benepe,
As you know, Rockaway Waterfront Alliance has been working to encourage the public to use their waterfront through programs and activities that are so desperately needed in the Rockaway community. But it is difficult to watch as much of our work is undone by PEP patrol officers who chase the public off their beaches in search of an ‘open’ beach with lifeguards.
Last year in our local paper, you ‘Pledged a Commitment’ to the Rockaway community. But since that time little has changed and we still have no “Learn to Swim” or local “Lifeguard Training” programs anywhere in the Rockaways and the lifeguard recruiting process does not seem to be getting the numbers of lifeguards required to keep our beaches safe.
As it stands now, certain beaches are extremely well staffed for the privileged few, while other beaches in Rockaway are extremely underserved; putting the public at risk and overextending the lifeguards themselves.
For the past two weekends the beachfront at Beach 25th Street in the Rockaways has had well over 500 people each day, and no lifeguard at all during the week. This beach is adjacent to one of the largest populations of people on the peninsula, exceeding 25,000 residents and yet there is only 1 lifeguard stand for miles of public waterfront all the way to Beach 74th Street.
This seems extremely unjust given the fact that areas on the far western end of the Peninsula like Neponsit, have more than 21 lifeguards; 7 stands, 100 yards apart for less than 2,000 residents in an area with no public boardwalk, parking by permit only, and no access to public transit. This would seem to be a “private beach” paid for with public resources that are required to serve seven miles of public waterfront.
There is a drastic contrast in services provided between City Council District 31 and 32; two districts that lie adjacent to one another along the same waterfront. City Council District 31 presently has only 4 lifeguard stands from Beach
It is also important to note that the population in these areas are polar opposites; Neponsit has a population of .02% minorities, where Far Rockaway has a 98% minority population. This cannot continue, as this is racial discrimination and could put the Parks Department in serious danger of legal action if it were investigated further.
To address the present shortage on the Eastern end, I would ask that the Parks Department in the very least, have lifeguards all week long at the 1 stand at Beach 25th Street and consider designating more stands along the beaches from Beach 25th Street to Beach 38th Street, to ensure the publics safety and emergency back up for the lifeguards that are stationed there.
Additionally, NYC legislation should to be revised, as it is in all other US coastal states to have a “swim at you own risk” policy. By doing this the city would reduce their risk of lawsuits and could use the funds, presently used for PEP officers to hire certified lifeguards, so we can have more ‘open’ swimmable beaches and less harassment to the public who deserve the right to use their waterfront.
I would be interested in speaking with you further about these issues. If you would like to meet to discuss how some of these things might be resolved, I can be reached 917 975-5623.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Jeanne DuPont
Director
Rockaway Waterfront Alliance
cc:
Councilman Joseph Addabbo
Steve Cooper, Frank Ave Civic of Edgemere
Richard George, Beachside Bungalow Preservation Assoc.
Phil Karmel/ Bryan Cave LLC
Congressman Gregory Meeks
Les Paultre. Rockaway Beachside Neighborhood Assoc.
Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer
Stephanie Samoy
Councilman James Sanders
State Senator Malcolm Smith
Barbara Smith, Deerfield Civic Assoc.
Assemblywoman Michele Titus
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