Starter Home

You can still here this phrase on the varying HGTV flip shows. How they are still in business in this housing market is beyond me as now with rates over 6% and costs to rehab doubling down I suspect that there will be fewer and fewer of them doing this as a full time business. But then again they were always a bizarre mash of people doing the same home repeatedly and acting as if it was the greatest project ever done. Yes we need more shiplap.

With that there were two articles this weekend about what defines Starter Home. The LA Times says this about the California marketplace:

For decades, the single-family home has been Southern California’s ultimate lure — a chance to live a life of sun and sand from the comfort of your very own property.

Most buyers’ ticket into that life is the starter home. Something modest but not minuscule. Two bedrooms, maybe three. A picket fence in front and a yard out back for the kids and dog to play.

But the starter home has changed. As home prices have soared and higher mortgage interest rates have made everything less affordable, wish lists have become more and more wishful, and buyers have been forced to find something smaller and less practical.

Want two bedrooms? How about one, plus an office that might fit a twin-size bed. Want a backyard? How about a space shared with the rest of the condo complex. Want to paint the exterior of your townhouse? The homeowner association won’t allow it, but feel free to spruce up the inside.

Making compromises has always been a part of house hunting, but in a market where some two-bedroom homes are selling for $1 million or more — often for hundreds of thousands over the asking price — middle-class buyers are forced to take whatever they can get.

So we have over bidding and homes now in the six figures that defines a median or at least an average price in some markets – Seattle, LA, Portland are good examples of how out of control it has been as they are the “it” cities. San Francisco and NYC have always been out of range of many but now that includes the burbs and boroughs that were for years ignored are now equally competitive in the marketplace. Is it really jobs? I doubt it as New York City is facing a massive tax downfall from the pandemic and the offices that have not reopened fully to workers. So with that comes that many of the higher tax bracket did leave and have not returned. As the article states:

The sheer number of people who left in such a short period raises uncertainty about New York City’s competitiveness and economic stability. The top 1 percent of earners, who make more than $804,000 a year, contributed 41 percent of the city’s personal income taxes in 2019.

About one-third of the people who left moved from Manhattan, and had an average income of $214,300. No other large American county had a similar exodus of wealth.

On that note the reality is that many of them never left and with that they are pushing the housing market into untenable reaches as they bid up for rentals the same way one does in purchasing housing. And many who did kept their apartments for pied a tier’s for when they do return and/or visit keeping them vacant and off the market. So who is moving here? I suspect many who dreamed of living here and with that sold homes, cashed out savings and are living off 401Ks and investments the same way I am. The difference is that the market is shit now and with that we are all at risk. Things will not end well I am afraid.

The article goes on to state:

In the years before 2019, the people who left and the people who stayed in New York City had similar average incomes, the IRS data showed. But during the pandemic, the residents who moved had average incomes that were 28 percent higher than the residents who stayed.

Still, New York City collected more tax revenue in both 2020 and 2021 than in 2019, thanks in part to at least $16 billion in federal pandemic aid.

The outlook for this year has become much less certain as the stock market has plummeted in recent months and certain forms of federal aid, like stimulus checks and expanded unemployment benefits, have (long) ended.

Again the current financial state of Manhattan and its environs are at risk in ways not seen since the 80s. And with that I suspect many a newcomer will find themselves wanting to leave, but the costs of leaving are considerably higher and for many it will be akin to a hostage situation. I saw that quite a bit in Nashville during its “it” heydays. People come for jobs, to seek adventure, to find a new life and a tribe. It never works out that way. Sorry folks I know this better than most.

Inside the incredibly shrinking Southern California starter home

By Jack Flemming Staff Writer LA TIMES Sept. 23, 2022

For decades, the single-family home has been Southern California’s ultimate lure — a chance to live a life of sun and sand from the comfort of your very own property.

Most buyers’ ticket into that life is the starter home. Something modest but not minuscule. Two bedrooms, maybe three. A picket fence in front and a yard out back for the kids and dog to play.

But the starter home has changed. As home prices have soared and higher mortgage interest rates have made everything less affordable, wish lists have become more and more wishful, and buyers have been forced to find something smaller and less practical.

Want two bedrooms? How about one, plus an office that might fit a twin-size bed. Want a backyard? How about a space shared with the rest of the condo complex. Want to paint the exterior of your townhouse? The homeowner association won’t allow it, but feel free to spruce up the inside.

Making compromises has always been a part of house hunting, but in a market where some two-bedroom homes are selling for $1 million or more — often for hundreds of thousands over the asking price — middle-class buyers are forced to take whatever they can get

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” said Zach Zyskowski, a TV producer who bought his first home last summer.

His search started with two-bedroom homes in West Hollywood and Mid-City, but he quickly realized that everything was out of his price range.

“Anything under $1 million was hard to find,” he said. “There was nothing that was both nice and unique, and I wanted something that wasn’t cookie-cutter.”

Zyskowski decided to switch strategies. He stopped searching for homes on the market and got creative, asking friends if anyone was planning to sell in their respective condo complexes. He ended up buying a one-bedroom condo directly from a seller in an off-market deal.

In the end, he sacrificed space for character. His new home is in El Cabrillo, a Spanish-style courtyard complex built by movie mogul Cecil B. DeMille in the 1920s.

It’s a bit small at 800 square feet, and he uses a pull-out sofa in the living room to host guests. But the stylish building, which has been featured in shows such as “Hollywood” and “Chuck” and enjoys a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, more than makes up for it.

“Would I have loved something bigger? Yes, there’s always more you can want,” he said. “But I’d rather have something smaller and nicer than bigger and boring. I was just amazed I could buy a place at all.”

For Elena Amador-French, smaller wasn’t an option. A planetary scientist for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, she grew tired of working on the Mars Rover from her dining room table during the pandemic. The newborn baby didn’t help.

She and her husband started house hunting last year and set their sights on Altadena, a community tucked into the San Gabriel Mountains filled with charming Craftsman, English Tudor and Colonial Revival-style homes.

With a budget of $800,000, they wanted a house with character — as long as it had two bedrooms. But their search played out like many others: putting in an offer, watching dozens of other buyers drive up the asking price, and seeing the house sell for hundreds of thousands more than they could afford.

“You just have to laugh at a certain point. We couldn’t get upset because we couldn’t even compete,” she said.

They switched strategies and aimed for a duplex, which didn’t have the appeal of the single-family lifestyle but also didn’t have dozens of buyers swarming every open house.

In the end, they paid $970,000 for an 1,800-square-foot duplex with three bedrooms and three bathrooms in an east Pasadena complex.

“There’s still a piece of me that wants a single-family home that I can truly make my own.”

— Elena Amador-French

It didn’t have the charm of a single-family home, and it didn’t quite check off all the boxes; they couldn’t fit a swing set for their daughter into the outdoor space, and they weren’t able to add any personal touches to the exterior because of HOA regulations that require all houses to be painted the same color.

But it was an easier process that ended with more space for less money.

“There’s still a piece of me that wants a single-family home that I can truly make my own,” she said. “But this was so much less of a battle.”

In today’s market, it makes sense to settle. Homes that check all the boxes — hip neighborhood, plenty of space, interesting architecture — are still attracting plenty of offers and often selling for over the asking price. But for buyers willing to let go of the dream of single-family housing and redefine what a starter home can be, there are plenty of options.

Condos are regularly on the market in L.A. in the $300,000 range, a fraction of what some single-family homes are commanding. Other buyers are opting for tenancy-in-common units, arrangements in which residents share ownership of a building.

As more buyers choose alternatives, condo price increases are outpacing single-family home price increases. In August, the median sale price for L.A. condos was $675,000, a 7.1% jump year over year, according to Redfin. During that same stretch, single-family homes increased 0.4%.

The same is true for townhouse prices, which have increased 6.7% year over year for a median of $700,000.

For many Southern Californians, single-family homes are simply out of reach. The Times has published a “What Money Buys” series for the last five years that highlights homes on the market at certain price points in different neighborhoods. Now, those stories read like a time capsule.

For example, a 2019 piece featured homes on the market for $800,000 in a handful of L.A. neighborhoods including Jefferson Park and Cypress Park. Both areas had a five-bedroom home listed for around $800,000.

The Jefferson Park home ended up selling for $850,000 in 2019. Now, Redfin estimates that the home is worth $1.28 million. The Cypress Park home grew even more valuable, selling for $800,000 in 2019 and now worth an estimated $1.45 million.

Those prices have become standard. In Jefferson Park, there are no five-bedroom single-family homes on the market for less than $1.2 million. The $800,000 price point now buys a two-bedroom home — or a three-bedroom fixer-upper.

The change becomes even more pronounced at lower price points. A 2017 entry in the series explored what $500,000 buys in the L.A. neighborhoods of Van Nuys, Leimert Park and Boyle Heights. Every single home on the list had at least 1,000 square feet, and most had three bedrooms. One had four.

Five years later, Redfin values all the properties on that list at $750,000 or more, with a few valued north of $850,000.

A look at the options currently on the market in those three communities finds no three-bedroom homes for $500,000 or less. The closest thing is a three-bedroom townhouse in Van Nuys asking $550,000 — cash offers only.

For comparison, a 2022 story exploring homes at $500,000 highlighted much smaller options including a 648-square-foot bungalow in East L.A. listed at $485,000 and a one-bedroom condo in downtown L.A. asking $509,000 (plus $813 in monthly HOA dues.)

Spoiler alert: Both homes sold shortly after the article ran, and the East L.A. bungalow sold for $10,000 more than the asking price.

More buyers are settling for two-bedroom homes as a starter, and it’s driving up prices.

In L.A., the median two-bedroom home — the typical size for starter homes — sold for $765,700 in August, a 10.1% increase year over year, according to Rocket Homes. That outpaces one-bedroom homes, which increased 8.8% year over year, and three-bedroom homes, which increased 9.1% year over year.

Earlier this year, Compass agent Allie Altschuler sold a two-bedroom home in the hills of Eagle Rock for $1.442 million — or $293,000 more than the asking price. What it lacked in bedroom count, it made up for with unique features such as a breakfast nook with a built-in booth and a separate structure in the backyard that can be used as an office or studio.

“Younger buyers are OK with buying smaller homes because they know they won’t be in it forever,” she said. “Buying a house and living in it for 30 or 40 years isn’t the case anymore.”

Covid Chronicles

I feel that should be a new daytime drama on the networks or just title the endless press conferences State and Federal Governments endless bullshit Covid pressers that are less about Covid and more about dick waving.  Yes Andrew your mother loved you best.  Honestly Andrew Cuomo needs a big dose of shut the fuck up.  That and an art curator for the bullshit he pulls out as “art” projects, from the mask medley, to the strange art poster of yesterday, his new visual aid obsession is much like an eighth grader doing a science project and dad spent all night crafting this shit to ensure his prodigy gets an A.

This is what living in a pandemic is with men at the helm.  And meanwhile New Zealand is at zero.  Yeah they flattened it alright, as did Taiwan, another country with a woman leader. Her official title, Her Excellency.  Appropriate.  And to think it is not a member of WHO and is a Chinese colony in the way Puerto Rico is or was if Trump ends up selling it.  Are there any perverts looking for an Island to hide money and girls? So what was the deal with the woman President? Was it just THAT woman?

I used to count the days and fuck that they blended like a Margarita on a hot day.  If I read one more fucked up study about drinking I am going to smash those researchers heads in with an empty bottle.  Again we get it and could you spend your time doing something worthwhile, like curing Covid? Or Cancer or whatever is killing us? Booze is the one thing we know kills us so let us die drunk or at least with a buzz.  Where are we going? Nowhere right.?  What else is there to do? Read books? Fuck that. Look at this Millennial.  At least he went out partying, sort of, as you are drugged up prior to the hospital killing him via a ventilator as I seriously doubt right before signing out he spoke to the Nurse in clear coherent manner, “I thought it was a hoax” then fades away. END SCENE.

Meanwhile we really don’t know anymore about Covid then we did four months ago, five months ago or six months ago when it first showed up on American shores.  We know its a virus. Good. We know it is bad. Good. The variations of bad we don’t know why some are asymptomatic, or have minor affects or some are just DOA.  Bad.  We know that surfaces and touching is the least method of transmission.  Good.   We know it affects the brown folks more severely but we don’t know why. Bad.  We know it doesn’t go away like the flu during the seasonal shift.  Good. We know it is a virus. Good. Whoops said that already but at this point repeating myself is better than of late where I lose my train of thought mid thought and that along with Covid, alcoholism, OCD to worry about I can worry about Alzheimers.  Good. No BAD!

We think it is airborne but how airborne? Is it like LeBron James or more like Michael Jordan? Is it a rebounder or more like a floater that just stays aloft like a ball in free throw? I really haven’t thought about basketball in decades so this is just an attempt for an analogy that seems relevant.  This is now the time of Covid where we are grasping at anything to sound interesting in conversations with ourselves.

What we do know is that people are stupid and that most of the current spread is tied to events, such as parties, weddings, and my personal favorite Church.  Let’s not forget bars and rubbing elbows, shoulders and virus droplets. And perhaps Charlie Daniels funeral will be a super spreader event, I mean one party in Michigan is responsible for over 43 cases.  Hope the food was good as for some it might be the last meal.

This was from the New York Times Magazine, Why We’re Losing the Battle with Covid-19.  I highlight this passage:

Shah and his team had not been particularly well armed for any of these fights. Decades of research shows that a robust national public-health system could save billions of dollars annually by reducing the burden of preventable illnesses and keeping the population healthier over all. But like most public-health departments across the country, Harris County’s was grossly underfunded

The same goes here in the New York/New Jersey area. The New York Times has covered extensively the missteps, the underfunding and the way the Covid crisis was handled in the area demonstrating how funding and location regarding one’s real estate affects care. Not new news but in this crisis it only proves that we loathe social services as it might keep brown people alive!

And with that issue is the one of public education another critically underfunded public resource that has a history of educating the best and brightest in the globe until the arrival of Voodoo Reagan and that ended that when the Welfare King and Queen said “off with their heads” and destroyed the role of public in education.

This odd story about the dead Teacher had me concerned. As they are municipal essential workers most I knew who were working were required to get tested every two weeks.  So were these women tested before they went to work, and considering one woman was high-risk, I am unclear why they thought this was a good idea.   I am shocked that was not discussed about protecting her from the virus as well as each other. Was this, “Oh she will not like me!” You want to work in the same building, do so,  just across the hall and you can talk across it or on the phone. My god folks this is all again so odd.    And again the time frame for still being positive is now at the 21 day plus mark, which again shows another marker being added to the field of confusion and chaos.  But one of those women came in positive and passed it in an enclosed space with shitty ventilation. In other words a typical public school.     And having been a teacher why would I do this “team teaching” in the same room, regardless. Wasn’t that what Zoom was created for?  Something about this story is where I go, “See back in the day Journalists would do that job of answering this question!”  Another casualty of covid, the loss of true meaningful news and reporting. ***

***On a side note the moron Barri Weiss, exited the building and by building I mean the home of the great gray lady, The New York Times.  She is an example of how opinion and bullying is described as news and she is on the masthead of the paper, in the most influential page, Opinion.  The legacy of great writers who have graced that section deserve better in memory than that self-entitled brat.  And on that note, speaking of bitches, that horrid self hating, Queen, Andrew Sullivan, is also leaving another journal  of which I subscribe (kids that means PAY FOR) New York Magazine.  It’s a double decker exodus!  Two for the price of more to follow, I hope.  Again I don’t confuse Journalism with a capital J with writing and opinion.  That is an entirely different skill set and in fact education.  Journalism is its own skill of which you should be both trained and educated and in turn work one’s way up with dogged reporting and writing skills.  There are many who have entered through a back door in that career but they have stepped up to the challenge.  This is to you in memorium, David Carr. ***  And double side note, Weiss and Sullivan are hacks always on Bill Maher, a man who doesn’t let any word get in edge wise of his.  Cannot wait for the return of that show aired from his faux Playboy pad in the Hollywood Hills.  Maybe he will hit the velvet robe next time and accidentally let it swing open. I am sure Weiss would be as thrilled as Andrew. He seems though to have dick envy.  Wonder whose is smaller. They both seem to have tiny dicks. 

And this brings me to the fall season. Another six weeks away but we can only hope!  But to add to the list of what we know that kids have Covid, don’t have Covid, can’t get Covid or transmit if they do.  Remember the paralysis disease they thought was Covid which was early June I believe in the daily hysteria reports on the nightly news.  Remember they don’t have the money to give the time to actually research any story, find conflicting data and ask salient questions, like this one:  WHAT THE FLYING FUCK? WHERE DO YOU HAVE PROOF?  Ah the good old days. So at this point we are not sure as Europe, which by the way is not America and therefore cannot be used to compare or contrast. As really do you need to ask why? Schools have reopened in Europe and at this point no one again knows shit but hopes this works out.  It won’t.  Nothing they have said about Covid has been accurate yet, other than its a virus.  So K-12 schools starting soon? Maybe or most likely not.

That debate is ongoing and of course another opportunity to politically posture so let the dick swinging begin. What I love is that Betsey DeVos’ dick is a metaphor but she has the BIGGEST DICK, Donald Trump, standing alongside her swinging it away, like a golf club.  Look a double metaphor!  I am bored, really bored.

And the media has become a cheap whore sucking that dick daily. Truly cocksucking is the special of the day on the agenda as Trump’s press conferences are nothing but propaganda and we have no business being subject to that under the guise of news. Is this what vulture capitalism has done to the industry. Really? Leave that to the Professionals, and by that I mean Hookers.

As for Colleges and Universities I don’t see much happening there as they are ill prepared, have no clue and don’t give a shit until the check clears. In other words, same as usual.  For the record Teaching is a craft and not everyone practices said craft at the same level. Like Journalists and Writers do or more importantly don’t.  And that is the difference between writing and reading other than the ability to do it on a basic sixth grade level

What is more alarming is that again public schools let alone colleges have proper medical and nursing care and services available. This is from the Washington Post that discusses how many campus medical services make basic seem the equivalent to your mother dressing your broken ankle with sticks and duct tape.  As they say in the subtitle: The coronavirus pandemic will be the biggest challenge yet for campus health services.

But medical care again is running itself into the ground and exposing its anal warts as Gorilla’s do in the zoo as they really don’t want anyone in its business.  The Medical Industrial Complex is much like a massive Ape den where all the biggest thump chests and make noise all to get fucked and in this case they turn that around and fuck us all with tiny tiny dicks over and over and just to make it stop we pretend to care and immediately write a check as that is the way to make it stop.  I wish all men would simply do that all the time. Right Bill Maher?

Hey and if Covid did not kill your aging Vet relative, this bitch might have.  What this points out AGAIN is that from health care to child care, we have the most undertrained, unsupervised and lowly paid individuals minding us literally from birth to death.  The current state of pre-K schools are right now another good example of how that model works and in the best of times grossly insufficient, in the worst of times, utterly inaccessible if not impossible.

And here is another charming tale of Nursing Homes and their inability to hire/train/keep competent professionals:

A 71-year-old man was found dead on Sunday at a coronavirus testing site in Utah after nursing home employees brought him there.

A nursing home caretaker and driver brought a patient to Intermountain Healthcare’s testing site, a clinic in North Ogden, Utah, Intermountain said in a statement. Less than 45 minutes later, by the time the nursing home’s van reached the testing tent, the patient was found to be unresponsive and cold to the touch and appeared to have died.

Fox 13 in Salt Lake City reported that a deputy fire chief said the man was discovered in “cardiac respiratory arrest,” which can be caused by a variety of medical reasons, including complications from covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, or a heart attack.

“We don’t diagnose in the field,” North View Fire District Deputy Chief Jeremiah Jones told Fox 13. “Our job is to just treat the symptoms that we see and the signs that we see. We don’t make any diagnosis.”

Intermountain Healthcare’s caregivers called 911 immediately, the clinic said in a statement, but emergency responders couldn’t revive the man. Local news outlets identified the patient as a 71-year-old, but his name has not been released.

Intermountain said the testing center was fully staffed and fewer people than usual sought testing there on Sunday, with a wait time averaging less than 45 minutes.

“Anyone who is seriously ill should call 911 for help or go directly to a hospital emergency room, not to a COVID-19 drive-thru testing center,” Intermountain said in a statement.

As we wind down these days of our lives I am going to stream a yoga class to offset the pot chocolate I found during another massive clean so I elected to get high and nap as what else is there to do? Go to church and get Covid? Uh God doesn’t care where you pray, so try converting a closet to an alter and go there.

And on that note, pray that this fuckwit gets God’s wish.

Mr. Satterwhite, the pastor in Oregon, said that scrutiny had fallen unfairly on churches, while businesses with outbreaks did not face the same backlash. “I think that there is an effort on the part of some to use things like this to try to shut churches down,” he said, adding that he appreciated Mr. Trump’s supportive remarks about churches being essential.

When weighing his responsibility as a faith leader, Mr. Satterwhite said, he returned to his beliefs. “My personal belief is, I have faith in God,” he said. “If God wants me to get Covid, I’ll get Covid. And if God doesn’t want me to get Covid, I won’t.”

Friday. Okay, whatever

I am still on unofficial lockdown as the area begins to open up to Stage 2, 3, 16, whatever at this point it is all just smoke, mirrors, games and bullshit.  That said I have no interest in contacting, speaking or giving a shit as these next two weeks will be game changers.

Today in the Washington Post there was considerable alarm at the way we as a country have emerged from our cocoon but rather than a butterfly we are some type of moth that will race to the flame and ultimately die.  Yes folks, while I have long been calling bullshit on all of this I was always sure there was a serious virus, it was and is killing people but what was being done, what is being done and will be done will continue to allow this to happen. At this point they have run out of cards and have nothing left to even bluff with.  The overwhelming failure of all countries regarding Covid other than a few, New Zealand, Iceland to name those with land in their names have done not just a stop the spread but made it literally a flatline.  Why? Each had very unique strategies and of course they were countries run by women, go figure. Women can rule just not in America. What? Ever.

The New Yorker does an excellent piece on why Iceland was a success story despite the numbers that in the U.S. was akin to a death sentence and in turn why Europe is working so well to stem the tide that they are now laughing while secretly being received that Britain did BREXIT given the state of that country’s fiasco handling Covid, as Boris and Trump are two strands alike and both fatal to their country’s well being.   This is an article about the horrific contact tracking/tracing Britain has assembled and it only beats the U.S. in that there is one. No State has taken that on and I just received an email that they are looking for an appropriate administrator of such a program here and will be letting us know soon. In other words they are just hoping numbers go down enough to make that moot and they can move on.  What? Ever.

The posturing today in Cuomo’s last state of the state of covid speech veered to tears as he of course takes no responsibilities for the numerous fiascos of any of it, while DiBlasio is still trying to figure out how to run the city during a pandemic and civil unrest.  It is clear he could barely manage in the best of times so why do it any differently.  And here the third amigo of the posse of stupid, Murphy, once again bores us to the point that there is no point except to remind us that we have a lot of malls here and they need to be open. Okay, then. What? Ever.

Covid is quite serious and every day between protest stories another runs about a drug that is working or failing or how it is spread or not spread, to mask or not and basically how no one is social distancing and Fauci is now backtracking on the second wave and capitulating to the moron in charge who is having a racist rally and whining about Bolton as if he was shocked that an asshole would turn on him. Well had he given him a war to keep him busy then no he wouldn’t but hey what? Ever.

Everyday is another story about Covid, how asymptomatic people spread or don’t spread the virus. **note the constant corrections, contradictions and oxymorons when it comes to this.*** Again I think it is like Herpes and in the first few days, 3 or so, the virus sheds and goes dormant until it leaves the body and again we believe that is after 14 days.  Apparently because no disease actually manifested no antibodies are found meaning there is no immunity but that also may apply to those with Covid as many are coming back testing positive and getting sick. Meaning it is dormant like Herpes and then it flairs up.  Funny that it is steroids that are having the strongest affect as that is often the same treatment for what? Herpes.  (tricked you there, just like herpes)  I may not be a Doctor but watching this and remembering Herpes and AIDS,  the parallels are not lost it is just the transmission that is different.  And again we are being warned that the phase one is getting worse.  Or is that the first wave is now just kinda bigger and longer.  Really or is that NOT a second wave? So is there a third? Folks we are confused about what waves mean and this is now into full blown Tsunami versus Hurricane.  And the difference is that Tsunami starts with an earthquake under water that is stage one then it turns the water into tidal waves which bash the shore with force that comes from the quake A Hurricane is a water gathering wind that passes over land so the first wave is damage via wind and its second wave is the water that follows.  Okay they are kinda the same. Like Covid only not. Okay, then. What?Ever.

We don’t know shit and the CDC has deferred much of the prognostication and projection onto two schools of thought and they are east versus west and it appears that the are dueling it out for who kills more.  Okay, then.  But one thing is certain Covid ain’t leaving anytime soon, like Herpes it is the guest for life. They have never found a cure for it either.

Today is Juneteenth and I found this opinion in the Times much like I too learned of it when I was teaching, like Kwanza I had no real traction on it but it has gained a strong hold of positive energy and for that let’s end on it.

Why Juneteenth Matters

It was black Americans who delivered on Lincoln’s promise of “a new birth of freedom.”

By Jamelle Bouie
Opinion Columnist
The New York Times
June 18 2020

Neither Abraham Lincoln nor the Republican Party freed the slaves. They helped set freedom in motion and eventually codified it into law with the 13th Amendment, but they were not themselves responsible for the end of slavery. They were not the ones who brought about its final destruction.

Who freed the slaves? The slaves freed the slaves.

“Slave resistance,” as the historian Manisha Sinha points out in “The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition,” “lay at the heart of the abolition movement.”

“Prominent slave revolts marked the turn toward immediate abolition,” Sinha writes, and “fugitive slaves united all factions of the movement and led the abolitionists to justify revolutionary resistance to slavery.”

When secession turned to war, it was enslaved people who turned a narrow conflict over union into a revolutionary war for freedom. “From the first guns at Sumter, the strongest advocates of emancipation were the slaves themselves,” the historian Ira Berlin wrote in 1992. “Lacking political standing or public voice, forbidden access to the weapons of war, slaves tossed aside the grand pronouncements of Lincoln and other Union leaders that the sectional conflict was only a war for national unity and moved directly to put their own freedom — and that of their posterity — atop the national agenda.”

All of this is apropos of Juneteenth, which commemorates June 19, 1865, when Gen. Gordon Granger entered Galveston, Texas, to lead the Union occupation force and delivered the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to enslaved people in the region. This holiday, which only became a nationwide celebration (among black Americans) in the 20th century, has grown in stature over the last decade as a result of key anniversaries (2011 to 2015 was the sesquicentennial of the Civil War), trends in public opinion (the growing racial liberalism of left-leaning whites), and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Jamelle Bouie’s Newsletter: Discover overlooked writing from around the internet, and get exclusive thoughts, photos and reading recommendations from Jamelle.

Over the last week, as Americans continued to protest police brutality, institutional racism and structural disadvantage in cities and towns across the country, elected officials in New York and Virginia have announced plans to make Juneteenth a paid holiday, as have a number of prominent businesses like Nike, Twitter and the NFL.

There’s obviously a certain opportunism here, an attempt to respond to the moment and win favorable coverage, with as little sacrifice as possible. (Paid holidays, while nice, are a grossly inadequate response to calls for justice and equality.) But if Americans are going to mark and celebrate Juneteenth, then they should do so with the knowledge and awareness of the agency of enslaved people.

Emancipation wasn’t a gift bestowed on the slaves; it was something they took for themselves, the culmination of their long struggle for freedom, which began as soon as chattel slavery was established in the 17th century, and gained even greater steam with the Revolution and the birth of a country committed, at least rhetorically, to freedom and equality. In fighting that struggle, black Americans would open up new vistas of democratic possibility for the entire country.

To return to Ira Berlin — who tackled this subject in “The Long Emancipation: The Demise of Slavery in the United States” — it is useful to look at the end of slavery as “a near-century-long process” rather than “the work of a moment, even if that moment was a great civil war.” Those in bondage were part of this process at every step of the way, from resistance and rebellion to escape, which gave them the chance, as free blacks, to weigh directly on the politics of slavery. “They gave the slaves’ oppositional activities a political form,” Berlin writes, “denying the masters’ claim that malingering and tool breaking were reflections of African idiocy and indolence, that sabotage represented the mindless thrashings of a primitive people, and that outsiders were the ones who always inspired conspiracies and insurrections.”

By pushing the question of emancipation into public view, black Americans raised the issue of their “status in freedom” and therefore “the question of citizenship and its attributes.” And as the historian Martha Jones details in “Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America,” it is black advocacy that ultimately shapes the nation’s understanding of what it means to be an American citizen. “Never just objects of judicial, legislative, or antislavery thought,” black Americans “drove lawmakers to refine their thinking about citizenship. On the necessity of debating birthright citizenship, black Americans forced the issue.”

After the Civil War, black Americans — free and freed — would work to realize the promise of emancipation, and to make the South a true democracy. They abolished property qualifications for voting and officeholding, instituted universal manhood suffrage, opened the region’s first public schools and made them available to all children. They stood against racial distinctions and discrimination in public life and sought assistance for the poor and disadvantaged. Just a few years removed from degradation and social death, these millions, wrote W.E.B. Du Bois in “Black Reconstruction in America, “took decisive and encouraging steps toward the widening and strengthening of human democracy.”

Juneteenth may mark just one moment in the struggle for emancipation, but the holiday gives us an occasion to reflect on the profound contributions of enslaved black Americans to the cause of human freedom. It gives us another way to recognize the central place of slavery and its demise in our national story. And it gives us an opportunity to remember that American democracy has more authors than the shrewd lawyers and erudite farmer-philosophers of the Revolution, that our experiment in liberty owes as much to the men and women who toiled in bondage as it does to anyone else in this nation’s history.

No to Both

The chant goes: No Justice No Peace and that could not be more true as the events have unfolded the past few days.   I am not sure what to make of what I watched and read from my home in Jersey City, relieved that Newark’s protest went without violence and destruction and that again made me proud of where I live.   That said, we were at the coffee shop talking about South Jersey and agreed that they are a different breed and it would be very different there. And sure enough Atlantic City decided to gamble on that plan but it was shut down quickly.  And Trenton too had a minor issue.  But many here have been very vocal about not harming small business as they are owned by many faces of color and minorities/immigrants and perhaps that may be why.  For whatever reason this part of New Jersey has figured this out and let’s hope it stays this way as the week unfolds with more memoriums and events scheduled in the area this week.

But I have to ask the million dollar question about how we are filming nation and not an active on unless it is a mass with no clear leadership or any actual plan of action other than stating our feelings. Great but you need more than signs, you need to know how to accomplish said goal, find the resources, individuals and long term organization to achieve them.  You know like back in the day  with the Women’s Suffragette movement,  the Civil Rights and Gay Rights/AIDS activists did. Remember them? Not all that long ago and perhaps they have some actual facts and history available to not only emulate but improve upon.   But that would require again doing more than yelling, staring down, walking and then going home and posting videos on social media to show everyone you care.

Now if I was murdered in the street by a Cop or by anyone and it was filmed as an individual kneeled on my throat for eight minutes and no one felt compelled to intervene, even risk there own life to try to stop this is one thing that has gone unnoticed.  Why no one ran up to even create a diversion that may have indirectly led him to lift his knee is one thing, the other, being his own colleagues just stood there and watched a fellow Officer commit murder.  All of this over an alleged accusation over a $20 bill.  What is the shopkeepers take on all of this? Funny of all the businesses destroyed has his been? And that too is another tragedy when many of the small businesses have been closed due to Covid to find themselves victimized again may find themselves permanently out of business which again lends to a community.  Building empathy comes from within and this is not the way to do it.

This is from the Wall Street Journal:

In some cities, smaller businesses bore the brunt of the damage. In Minneapolis, a family-owned liquor store, an Indian restaurant, a chiropractor and other businesses were left in rubble near the closed Lake Street Target.

Cynthia Gerdes, co-founder of Hell’s Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis, shut down her 18-year-old restaurant because of the coronavirus in March. She had drawn up plans to start offering takeout in July, but is now weighing how Mr. Floyd’s death and the resulting unrest will impact the city’s business and reputation going forward.

“It’s a double whammy. It’s a gut punch,” said Ms. Gerdes, whose business depends on conventions and office workers downtown.

Ms. Gerdes said her building near one of the city’s main police stations is now boarded up, with some windows smashed. She put up a sign in her restaurant’s windows supporting the protesters, but wonders about how long the impact will last.

“It’s just so surreal at this point,” said Ms. Gerdes, who said she was exploring options for her establishment and 138 employees.

Bob Grewal, a Subway franchisee and development agent for the sandwich company in the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., areas, said one of the chain’s stores in downtown Washington was looted and had its windows smashed Saturday night. The store had just begun to reopen with limited hours after being closed for the coronavirus.

“They were just starting back up. It’s just horrible,” he said.

Police arrested looters that had targeted another Subway location in the hard-hit Fairfax District in Los Angeles on Saturday night, Mr. Grewal said. That store had just invested in food to get running again. Owners are contacting insurance companies and assessing the damage now, he said.

“It’s crazy. I was hoping to start opening back up. And then this happens,” he said.

“These business owners have nothing to do with this,” Mr. Grewal said. “They are suffering. The communities are suffering.”

And this brings me to Trump’s statement “When the looting begins so does the shooting” (further proving his insanity)  Well the looting began with SOHO in NYC taking the largest hit as it is luxury central for the “bougie” items and accessories coveted by many in the minority community.  An irony that is not lost that while this is excused as a retaliation for long term oppression, injustice and elitism are the same brands that are duplicated, sold and emulated if not outright purchased with hard earned dollars to demonstrate status.   As a white woman with means I would never wear or carry any of it but to those who think spending 5,000 dollars on a purse have at it, but there are better ways I choose to spend my money. Think of all the education, the travel, the way one lives that it could buy but instead you carry on your arm, walk on the streets or wear on your back. Funny I would not want to wear anything associated with oppression, racism and elitism let alone finance that.  And yet we all do or do we?  Again fashion is an industry that has made the idea that what one wears is what makes one better, brighter and shiner.  I quit giving a shit awhile ago and it doesn’t mean I have given up I just choose to be better, brighter and shiner without a label rubbing against my neck.

And this again makes me ask is this how any of us want to be remembered as the one who died on the street at the hands of police while being filmed and then denigrated as kids who share the same color of skin raid and vandalize businesses for personal gain or simply because they can.  And then have hundreds of people # and laugh about on social media?   Is that the image I would want my memory to be associated with?

I once explained to a kid why wearing pants around the base of his ass was offensive.  He said it was black culture and I asked him where in the cultural milieu of black history was showing one’s underwear as a statement.  He said it was music. And then I asked him where these musicians got the idea and he said it was what black youth needed to say about showing their ass.  It was clearly made up and again the same people who claim what women wear inspires rape need to examine how exposing your underwear is any different. And then I gave him the article about where that came from – prison culture.   One concept is that  young men wore them to indicate they were bottoms in the “relationship” and it was sexual assault only in the most tragic of ways to survive in prison.  Or that they were ill fitting so this was what they wore.  And there is one more, one again tied to slavery.  Either/or the story behind sagging may well be a statement about prison, but regardless, who wants to embrace that history?  And while we incarcerate black men at surreal rates I would not want any part of it, it is not a badge of honor and this does not make white people feel guilt nor shame and if that is a message that you want to make, why not wear orange jumpsuits full time then?  I don’t see the elite of black society doing it so why would you? This issue has been brought up by Bill Cosby now wearing said jumpsuit and by Barack Obama who attained the highest position in the world as a black man who never did, had this to say: “Having said that, brothers should pull up their pants. You are walking by your mother, your grandmother, your underwear is showing. What’s wrong with that? Come on. Some people might not want to see your underwear. I’m one of them.” so again why are you showing me your underwear?

For the record I find it repugnant that medical professionals wear scrubs to and from work. Please don’t.

Meanwhile as much of the looting, violence and damage was done by young black youths, there have been some not who were very much involved, including one man they believe was paying young black me to do so and my personal favorites are the two educated Attorneys that threw Molotov cocktails at the Police precinct in Brooklyn; One was a woman and the other a young black man so while I applaud that they were willing to risk their privilege to demonstrate solidarity is that the way you earn your stripes or are you that stupid?  I hope they enjoy wearing orange as that is the new black in fashion.

But in Seattle a white town of white privilege it was not exempt from the riots but again only in Seattle would a looter take an entire cheesecake and carefully carry it away as if it is was the royal jewels. Ah Seattle home of the WTO riots and a city that had been under a Justice Department watch for its own role in killing an Native American woodcarver. So again it is not just black individuals who are murdered by Police on the streets.  Even in Nashville there was a disruption in the city that did not surprise me in the least.  The division of race, class and of course culture has placed a city in a clear divide of the have and the many who have not.  And the reality is that I was afraid there every day, regardless of color I have never  met so many angry damaged children as I did there.  Poverty is the outlier that distinguishes it and the reality that it contributes to the racism and violence that perpetuates the city is the real issue first and foremost and all the rest falls into line.  And again the surrounding region enables the nuts who love the new white nationalism to travel into the city and take advantage of opportunities like this to wreak havoc and lay blame on the black community.  That is one group that has trauma that goes back generations that are yes racially based but now go way beyond just that attribute.

And in the same manner we do not want to generalize black individuals as a singular “type,”  we need to extend that to the Police as well.  I have struggled with that as my encounters with the Police have been horrific and I have the court transcripts to prove it and my rights taken from me while in a coma so again if you think I have white privilege think again.  But the Police are not all united in their rage and on Saturday several cops took to their knee to show solidarity with the protesters and in turn I find it interesting that there was no rioting in that area later.

But on a sadder note another officer took her life for reasons at this time unknown but it is clear that the weight of a profession so associated with murder, rage, violence, all the things they are supposed to protect us from cannot be easy.  Add to this she appears to be a Lesbian which again cannot be easy in a profession that is a culture of male superiority if not toxicity.

I read this essay by Roxanne Gay in the New York Times and she makes salient points about how one more story, one more death only shows that we are nowhere near the level of dialogue or change needed to make this end.  This again is a culture, history and way of belief that is ingrained in our social belief mores.   And I can assure you that for many watching the riots and lootings of the past few days have done little to change minds and hearts on anything more than a superficial level.  So expect more and less done in response.

Remember, No One Is Coming to Save Us

Eventually doctors will develop a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait for a cure for racism.

By Roxane Gay
Contributing Opinion Writer.
The New York Times
May 30, 2020

After Donald Trump maligned the developing world in 2018, with the dismissive phrase “shithole countries,” I wrote that no one was coming to save us from the president. Now, in the midst of a pandemic, we see exactly what that means.

The economy is shattered. Unemployment continues to climb, steeply. There is no coherent federal leadership. The president mocks any attempts at modeling precautionary behaviors that might save American lives. More than 100,000 Americans have died from Covid-19.

Many of us have been in some form of self-isolation for more than two months. The less fortunate continue to risk their lives because they cannot afford to shelter from the virus. People who were already living on the margins are dealing with financial stresses that the government’s $1,200 “stimulus” payment cannot begin to relieve. A housing crisis is imminent. Many parts of the country are reopening prematurely. Protesters have stormed state capitals, demanding that businesses reopen. The country is starkly dividing between those who believe in science and those who don’t.

Quickly produced commercials assure us that we are all in this together. Carefully curated images, scored by treacly music, say nothing of substance. Companies spend a fortune on airtime to assure consumers that they care, while they refuse to pay their employees a living wage.

Commercials celebrate essential workers and medical professionals. Commercials show how corporations have adapted to “the way we live now,” with curbside pickup and drive-through service and contact-free delivery. We can spend our way to normalcy, and capitalism will hold us close, these ads would have us believe.

Some people are trying to provide the salvation the government will not. There are community-led initiatives for everything from grocery deliveries for the elderly and immunocompromised to sewing face masks for essential workers. There are online pleas for fund-raising. Buy from your independent bookstore. Get takeout or delivery from your favorite restaurant. Keep your favorite bookstore open. Buy gift cards. Pay the people who work for you, even if they can’t come to work. Do as much as you can, and then do more.

These are all lovely ideas and they demonstrate good intentions, but we can only do so much. The disparities that normally fracture our culture are becoming even more pronounced as we decide, collectively, what we choose to save — what deserves to be saved.

And even during a pandemic, racism is as pernicious as ever. Covid-19 is disproportionately affecting the black community, but we can hardly take the time to sit with that horror as we are reminded, every single day, that there is no context in which black lives matter.

Breonna Taylor was killed in her Louisville, Ky., home by police officers looking for a man who did not even live in her building. She was 26 years old. When demonstrations erupted, seven people were shot.

Ahmaud Arbery was jogging in South Georgia when he was chased down by two armed white men who suspected him of robbery and claimed they were trying perform a citizen’s arrest. One shot and killed Mr. Arbery while a third person videotaped the encounter. No charges were filed until the video was leaked and public outrage demanded action. Mr. Arbery was 25 years old.

In Minneapolis, George Floyd was held to the ground by a police officer kneeling on his neck during an arrest. He begged for the officer to stop torturing him. Like Eric Garner, he said he couldn’t breathe. Three other police officers watched and did not intervene. Mr. Floyd was 46 years old.

These black lives mattered. These black people were loved. Their losses to their friends, family, and communities, are incalculable.

Demonstrators in Minneapolis took to the street for several days, to protest the killing of Mr. Floyd. Mr. Trump — who in 2017 told police officers to be rough on people during arrests, imploring them to “please, don’t be too nice” — wrote in a tweet, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The official White House Twitter feed reposted the president’s comments. There is no rock bottom.

Christian Cooper, an avid birder, was in Central Park’s Ramble when he asked a white woman, Amy Cooper, to comply with the law and leash her dog. He began filming, which only enraged Ms. Cooper further. She pulled out her phone and said she was going to call the police to tell them an African-American man was threatening her.

She called the police. She knew what she was doing. She weaponized her whiteness and fragility like so many white women before her. She began to sound more and more hysterical, even though she had to have known she was potentially sentencing a black man to death for expecting her to follow rules she did not think applied to her. It is a stroke of luck that Mr. Cooper did not become another unbearable statistic.

An unfortunate percentage of my cultural criticism over the past 11 or 12 years has focused on the senseless loss of black life. Mike Brown. Trayvon Martin. Sandra Bland. Philando Castile. Tamir Rice. Jordan Davis. Atatiana Jefferson. The Charleston Nine.

These names are the worst kind of refrain, an inescapable burden. These names are hashtags, elegies, battle cries. Still nothing changes. Racism is litigated over and over again when another video depicting another atrocity comes to light. Black people share the truth of their lives, and white people treat those truths as intellectual exercises.

They put energy into being outraged about the name “Karen,” as shorthand for entitled white women rather than doing the difficult, self-reflective work of examining their own prejudices. They speculate about what murdered black people might have done that we don’t know about to beget their fates, as if alleged crimes are punishable by death without a trial by jury. They demand perfection as the price for black existence while harboring no such standards for anyone else.

Some white people act as if there are two sides to racism, as if racists are people we need to reason with. They fret over the destruction of property and want everyone to just get along. They struggle to understand why black people are rioting but offer no alternatives about what a people should do about a lifetime of rage, disempowerment and injustice.

When I warned in 2018 that no one was coming to save us, I wrote that I was tired of comfortable lies. I’m even more exhausted now. Like many black people, I am furious and fed up, but that doesn’t matter at all.

I write similar things about different black lives lost over and over and over. I tell myself I am done with this subject. Then something so horrific happens that I know I must say something, even though I know that the people who truly need to be moved are immovable. They don’t care about black lives. They don’t care about anyone’s lives. They won’t even wear masks to mitigate a virus for which there is no cure.

Eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy. We live with the knowledge that, still, no one is coming to save us. The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free.

Lessons Learned

Funny how Trump loves strong armed Dictators and there is no country more exemplary than Singapore when it comes to the concept of Big Brother. 

While China initially fucked this up they are now seeing declines in new cases once they shoved their fists up the asses of the population via testing and quarantines.  Now again we knew this months ago and we have Trump laughing during a whatever that is he does when he rambles on, perhaps he should do what he did during Puerto Rico’s hurricane crisis just throw toilet paper to the herds of hysterical Americans at least that is better than what he is doing or more importantly not.  

So instead we have crazy fucking DeWine in Ohio coming up with this shit in a way to subvert Democracy as if this virus was a wet dream to Republicans now being duplicated across the country and in turn each leader throwing down another flag to prove they are the toughest bestest leader in the country.   Like Trump is doing. 

Clearly again none of it has been actually handled correctly (as in sufficient notice or actually supporting this with financial compensation or laws and enforcement of said laws) or with any real plan of action as we have Hoboken a light rail stop away from Jersey City on shelter in place but sure come here fuckers and bring your diseases or whatever with you meaning our already fragile resources will finally close, thanks assholes.   Then we have San Francisco and its environs locked down but Los Angeles a two hour drive just following careful parameters.  Does Jake Tapper know?   Now in NYC DeBlasio is backtracking the shelter in place idea as Cuomo has mandated all businesses have 50% or less workforce present at any given time so that means Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s will finally have to close.  Bye Forty Carrots.  I assume all ongoing construction will also largely cease. But it also includes Wall Street and the infamous stock market.  Trading goes on but electronically but I suspect that will stave off the hysterics and swings that are only making things worse.    All of this while Amazon has a warehouse with a worker testing positive.  So much for prime delivery from that location anytime soon.

Chaos, confusion, lack of coherent cohesive messaging makes me think that I would like to age out in Singapore.  I am a clean freak and good with limited Democracy at this point.  Not full Putin but if the best we have is Trump this is a sign that we have a virus that is way more deadly.

How the U.S. can defeat coronavirus: Heed Asia’s lessons from past epidemics

By
Shibani Mahtani and
Simon Denyer
The Washington Post
March 18, 2020

HONG KONG — When authorities in Wuhan announced on Dec. 31 that they had detected a cluster of viral pneumonia in the Chinese city, with 27 cases linked to a seafood market, they said the disease was preventable and controllable, with “no obvious signs of human-to-human transmission.”

But in wealthy places on China’s periphery — Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea — a rapid response swung into action.

One reason was that they had learned from the past.

“We were the SARS countries,” said Leong Hoe Nam, an ­infectious-disease specialist at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore who contracted severe acute respiratory syndrome during the 2002-2003 outbreak. “We were all burned very badly with SARS, but actually it turned out to be a blessing for us.”

Political will, dedicated resources, sophisticated tracking and a responsible population have kept coronavirus infections and deaths in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore relatively low. South Korea, with more deaths, has led the way in widespread testing. Now, after seeing unprecedented increases of imported cases, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore have all moved to implement travel bans, essentially closing their borders to nonresidents or mandating 14-day quarantines, to prevent a new uptick of cases.
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This offers lessons for the United States and Europe as they grapple with thousands of new cases and sometimes-confused responses to the crisis.

Just hours after China’s disclosure of the first cases in the city of Wuhan, Hong Kong’s Center for Health Protection warned local doctors to obtain travel and exposure histories from patients who had fever and acute respiratory symptoms, and to isolate those patients. In Taiwan, officials boarded planes arriving from Wuhan and assessed passengers for symptoms before allowing anyone to disembark. Within days, Singapore, South Korea and other Asian states had implemented similar steps.
A police officer stands guard outside the market where the coronavirus was detected in Wuhan, China.
A police officer stands guard outside the market where the coronavirus was detected in Wuhan, China. (Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images)

Asian economies have close links with mainland China and were among the first hit by the novel coronavirus. Yet, with 100 cases in Taiwan, 181 in Hong Kong and 266 in Singapore, their infection rates are dramatically lower than the West’s. Spain has recorded more than 11,000 cases; New York state — whose population is similar to Taiwan’s — has more than 2,300 cases.
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China learned some lessons from SARS but failed to grasp the danger of covering up an outbreak, while South Korea learned plenty after grappling with Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, in 2015. Both countries struggled with big outbreaks of the coronavirus this year but appear to have brought them under control, thanks to stringent and sometimes unprecedented measures within their borders.
South Korean hospital opens ‘telephone booth’ coronavirus testing facility
The Yang Ji General Hospital in Seoul opened booths on March 16, where people can get tested for coronavirus without being in direct contact with medical staff. (Jason Aldag/The Washington Post)

Experts are urging countries including the United States, France and Spain to use time bought by newly enforced social-distancing measures, lockdowns and quarantines to reset and work out their strategies before it is too late. These Western nations, they say, were simply not ready.

“So many countries have sat there, wondering what will happen,” said Dale Fisher, a professor in infectious diseases at the National University of Singapore who also chairs the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network and was part of the WHO’s mission to China in February. “It is extremely disappointing, as a member of the mission, that we couldn’t make it clear to the world that this was coming.”

Taiwan’s quick action

After getting off the mark early, countries and territories around China ramped up border restrictions as the scale of the epidemic became clear.

Taiwan, unencumbered by political obligations to China — the self-governing island has a tense relationship with Beijing, which views Taiwan as its territory — had the structure in place to cope. A year after SARS, Taiwan established a National Health Command Center that brought together all levels and branches of government, preparing for the possibility of another disease outbreak. Its interventions over the past two months have been decisive in keeping Taiwan ahead of the curve, said C. Jason Wang, director of the Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention at Stanford University.

“They didn’t hesitate, they didn’t want to die,” Wang said. “The mortality rate was so high [during SARS] and they didn’t know how bad this one was going to be. Nobody thought it was like the flu.”

As early as Jan. 5, Taiwan was tracing people who had been in Wuhan in the previous 14 days. Those with symptoms of respiratory infections were quarantined.

In subsequent weeks, authorities used data and technology to identify and track cases, communicated effectively to reassure the public, offered relief to businesses and allocated medical resources where they were needed most — rationing face masks and dramatically increasing their production.

On Jan. 27, Taiwan combined the databases of its National Health Insurance Administration and National Immigration Agency, allowing it to track everyone who had been in Wuhan in the recent past and alert doctors to patients’ travel histories.

Now, Taiwan is hoping to keep its infection numbers down and has asked residents not to travel abroad after its biggest single-day jump of cases — 23 — on Wednesday. It is also barring most noncitizens from entering.

China has won plaudits from the WHO for its massive mobilization of medical resources to test and treat people suffering from the coronavirus, but it failed to learn from its coverup of SARS. Chinese authorities initially silenced doctors who tried to raise the alarm about the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak, denying the rest of the world precious early days to assess the risks.

South Korea, meanwhile, has become the poster child for testing. Its success is rooted in a previous failure: The limited availability of test kits was seen as having aggravated the 2015 MERS outbreak, when the country suffered the second-highest caseload after Saudi Arabia.

Whereas the United States and Japan keep testing tightly controlled by a central authority, South Korea opened the process to the private sector, introducing a path to grant “emergency usage approval” to tests for pathogens of pandemic potential.

More than 260,000 people in South Korea have been tested for the virus, the highest per capita anywhere, with testing and treatment fees covered by the government and drive-through centers capturing global attention. On a visit to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday, President Moon Jae-in called the expansion in testing “a great achievement that is acknowledged around the world.”

Singapore, too, benefited from its own capabilities to test, as did Hong Kong and Japan. All developed their own diagnostic tests when the covid-19 genome sequence was published.

“Singapore, through SARS, learned it the very hard way, that we have to develop these capabilities at the word go,” said Mount Elizabeth Hospital’s Leong. “Once you are in control of your own fate, you can decide what way to go.”

Few cases in Hong Kong

Rocked by eight months of protests, Hong Kong’s embattled leadership began responding to the outbreak from a position of weakness and was criticized for not moving fast enough to close schools and borders.

Outside mainland China, the territory had been the biggest casualty of the Communist Party’s coverup of the SARS outbreak, with some 300 deaths and little clarity on what was unfolding until it was too late.

This time, though, and without needing to be told much, Hong Kong residents took matters into their own hands. The city’s financial district was reduced to a ghost town in early February as companies closed offices. Bakeries known for hour-long weekend lines were abandoned.

Parties, weddings and family gatherings were canceled — without any government order. Almost everyone rushed to ­procure masks; a recent study ­estimated that 74 percent to 98 percent of residents wore them when leaving their homes. Voluntary social distancing was hailed as a key reason for the lower rate of infections.

“Hong Kong is a population which takes the idea of quarantine, masks and social distancing very seriously,” said Keiji Fukuda, director of the University of Hong Kong School of Public Health and former assistant director general for health security at the WHO.

Big Brother looks after you

From electronic wristbands to smartphone trackers, Asian jurisdictions have pulled out all the stops to ensure that suspected patients comply with quarantine and isolation orders, monitoring that is backed by laws that were tightened post-SARS.

Singapore used its FBI equivalent, the Criminal Investigation Department, to effectively interrogate every confirmed case with stunning granularity — even using patients’ digital wallets to trace their footsteps. Those caught lying face fines and jail time.

The city-state has been lauded as the gold standard for identifying cases, with a study by Harvard’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics finding that Singapore was 2.5 times more likely to detect infected people than the global average, because of “very strong epidemiological surveillance and contact-tracing capacity.”

In South Korea, information on the movements of infected people before they were tested is collected and relayed over smartphones, creating a real-time map of areas to avoid. Taiwan tracks infected people’s whereabouts via smartphones: Stray too far from home and you receive a message; ignore it and the police will pay a visit.

In Hong Kong, everyone subject to a compulsory quarantine must activate real-time location-sharing on their phone or wear an electronic wristband.

These measures have been backed by local populations that lived through previous epidemics and have largely shed concerns about privacy and tracking.

All these places have stopped short of a Wuhan-style lockdown. Matthew Kavanagh, director of the Global Health Policy and Governance Initiative at Georgetown University, said Americans should not focus “only on the kind of high-profile displays of state power that have made headlines from China” but also look at countries such as South Korea that are “balancing Democratic openness with rapid, concerted public-health action.”

Experts agree, though, that Western governments must be prepared to limit their citizens’ movements, mandate isolation for positive cases and track contacts regardless of privacy concerns.

“This is the process it will take to save thousands of American and European lives, billions of dollars of the economy, your own businesses,” said Fisher, the Singapore university professor. “Otherwise, it is just carnage.”

Road Less Traveled

Today the paper was full of reform and promise for change.   I am not sure which road to pick to see how this journey ends

The first was New York is looking to reform Rikers prison so the road is a winding one as once again it falls to  hiring consultants. McKinsey has no experience in this area and how they plan on finding solutions to resolve the abuse and overcrowding will be a fascinating experiment of which undoubtedly will profit – McKinsey.

Next up Police in NYC are looking at enhanced training techniques to not kill people by choking them to death.  Watch for more shootings as Cops, reform and pledges to do better means nothing. But we can hope.

Then we have promises of reform in Ferguson. What will result will be interesting to watch and hope. The excessive criminalization of poverty is what funds the city coffers so in lieu of this how will these cops on the beat be able to beat money out of citizens without fraudulent traffic stops, asset forfeiture, stop and frisks… who knows but many do care.  Hope and change. Well one is where we are now, the other?

This goes in line with the role of diversity in Police forces and that is easier said then done.  Frankly I don’t believe adding appropriate gender and ethnic balance will resolve what has become a culture immersed in power and exceedingly so.  Absolute power corrupts absolutely and its easier to join them and beat others.    Change the culture then change the color.

And lastly the Senate is “debating” the ever increasing role of the military cop. I don’t see that going away ever and if Congress will do anything that right there is shocking, I know.

We have many roads to travel and many that need not just paving but building if we are ever to restore America.

Ferguson-style militarization goes on trial in the Senate

By Niraj Chokshi September 9

The militarization of local law enforcement, fueled by federal equipment and funds, on Tuesday received its first congressional trial since the riots in Ferguson, Mo., last month.

Senators of both parties criticized what they described as a lack of oversight, coordination and training related to a trio of federal programs that have transferred billions of dollars in federal funds and equipment to local law enforcement agencies since the 1990′s. From the start of Tuesday’s hearing before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the senators harshly criticized the programs, arguing that they have fostered a culture-shift among local law enforcement agencies and undermined core constitutional principles.

“While this hearing may reveal many strong arguments why some of this equipment may be helpful for the safety of police officers in certain situations, I am confident that militarizing police tactics are not consistent with the peaceful exercise of first amendment rights of free speech and free assembly,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), whose home state was the site of the shooting death of Michael Brown and subsequent riots, looting and peaceful protests last month.

The federal transfers come largely from three programs administered by the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Justice. The latter two provide funds related to combatting terrorism and violent crime. The former, known as the 1033 program, transfers unwanted Defense Department equipment to local law enforcement agencies.

The 1033 program has transferred more than $5.1 billion worth of property since 1991. A recent National Public Radio review of transfers since 2006 found that it has distributed nearly 80,000 assault rifles, more than 200 grenade launchers, nearly 12,000 bayonets, 50 airplanes and more than 420 helicopters. But the program also transfers supplies as mundane as staples and only five percent of the equipment transferred are weapons. Less than 1 percent are tactical vehicles. More than 8,000 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies participate.

McCaskill focused on the program, singling out the more than 600 Mine-Resistant Armor-Protected vehicles—such as those employed in the war on terror—distributed to local law enforcement agencies since 2011 “seemingly without regard to need or size of the agency that has received them,” she said. MRAP’s have been distributed to at least 13 local law enforcement agencies with fewer than 10 sworn, full-time officers, she said. The police department in Preston, Idaho, for example, has an MRAP despite having only six sworn, full-time officers, an official confirmed.

Tuesday’s hearing coincided with the unveiling of a series of drug policy reform recommendations by a group of former world leaders in New York, a coincidence that underscores the tangled history of the militarization of local law enforcement and the drug war.

Congress first authorized the transfer of Defense Department equipment to federal and state agencies in the early 1990s to fight the drug war. In 1997, that mission was expanded to included counter-terrorism activities under section 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act.

“Police departments were outgunned by drug gangs, so they were looking for protection, and they were looking for firepower,” Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Alan Estevez said at the hearing.

Critics say the program has gotten out of hand. Even where local law enforcement hasn’t directly benefitted from federal assistance, they’ve been influenced by the trend toward militarization, critics say.

Earlier this year, a 19-month-old child was severely injured by a flash grenade during a drug raid in Georgia. The target of the raid, it was later discovered, was not home at the time and police say they didn’t realize there was a child in the home, according to the Associated Press.

“This is crazy out of control,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said on Tuesday.

The hearing was in part a response to the local police actions during the protests, riots and looting in Ferguson this summer after the shooting death of the black 18-year-old Michael Brown by a white police officer. Police monitored the protests from atop armored vehicles with weapons aimed at crowds and responded to riots with tear gas while dressed in camouflage and sporting shotguns, M4 rifles and gas masks. The images flowing from Ferguson provoked a national outcry, with President Obama ordering a review of the programs that provide aid to local law enforcement agencies.

Despite the high-profile, military-style response, the Ferguson Police Department has received only a small amount through the 1033 program in recent years, including nontactical items such as field packs, first-aid kits, wool blankets and medical supplies.

McCaskill vowed to hold more hearings and develop legislation.

Bust a Move

I have been reticent to post about a recent murder of a man named Eric Garner at the hands of the NY Police. I watched the video (which I will not link due to the violent tragedy) and  I truly cannot believe that we as a Country continue to allow this. But the story gets more tragic as the the number of participants included my favorite, EMT’s who are frequently labeled as heroes, did nothing in any sense of urgency.  Thankfully all of this was captured on video but was is tragic is that a man died over a cigarette.

And this came on the same week a State Trooper from the tri state area pleaded guilty for stripping a dying body of his personal possessions. Not that he would need them right?

Don’t make anyone associated with any of the departments of Fire, Emergency or Police as heroes. Heroes are rare and they are even rarer in these professions.  

‘Modified duty’ for medics after fatal NYC arrest

 NEW YORK (AP) — Four emergency workers involved in the medical response for a New York City man who died in police custody after being put in an apparent chokehold have been placed on “modified duty” and barred from responding to 911 calls, the Fire Department of New York said Sunday.

 The two EMTs and two paramedics removed from the city’s emergency response system are the latest public safety workers to face reassignment as questions mount about Thursday’s death of Eric Garner.

Two police officers — including the one who put his arm around Garner’s neck — have put on desk duty. The modified duty restrictions will remain in effect pending an investigation into the medics’ actions, fire department spokesman James Long said. Video of the arrest shot by a bystander shows one officer wrap his arm around Garner’s neck as he is taken to the ground — arrested for allegedly selling untaxed, loose cigarettes — while Garner shouts, “I can’t breathe!”

The fire department disclosed the medics’ reassignment after a second video surfaced showing at least a half-dozen police officers and emergency workers circling a man who appears to be Garner lying on the sidewalk, handcuffed and unresponsive.

 Long said placing the emergency workers on modified duty — which includes a notice in their state health department file that they are not to respond to medical calls — is department protocol when questions arise about a medical response and was not a reaction to the post-arrest video.

 The fire department said the emergency workers are employees of Richmond County Medical Center, the Staten Island hospital where Garner was taken by ambulance and pronounced dead. Authorities said the father of six likely had heart attack, but more tests are needed to determine the exact cause and manner of his death.

A Richmond County Medical Center spokeswoman did not immediately respond to messages. Long said the fire department took action against the hospital’s emergency responders because it oversees the city’s 911 system, a patchwork of public and privately-operated emergency services.

 The restrictions on the medical personnel came a day after the police department said it reassigned Officer Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who used the apparent chokehold on Garner, and another unidentified officer while prosecutors and internal affairs detectives investigate.

Chokeholds are banned under department policy. The department said it stripped Pantaleo, an eight-year veteran of the force, of his gun and badge. Court records show that within the past two years, three men sued Pantaleo in federal court over allegedly unlawful, racially motivated arrests. Pantaleo did not return a telephone message.

 Earlier Sunday, the Rev. Al Sharpton demanded justice for Garner and accountability from citizens who attack police officers during an appeal from the pulpit at Manhattan’s Riverside Church. Garner was “choked by New York City policemen,” the Harlem preacher told the congregation. “What bothers me is that the nation watches a man say ‘I can’t breathe’ and the choking continues, and police surround him and none of them even say, ‘Wait a minute, stop! He can’t breathe!'”

 Garner’s funeral is scheduled for Wednesday at the Bethel Baptist Church in Brooklyn. Video of Garner’s struggle with police obtained by the New York Daily News shows the 6-foot-3, 350-pound man becoming irate and refusing to be handcuffed.

Garner, who has been arrested for illegally selling cigarettes numerous times in recent years, told the officers who confronted him that he had not done anything wrong, according to the video of the arrest. “Every time you see me, you want to mess with me. I’m tired of it. It stops today,” Garner shouts. “I’m minding my business. Please just leave me alone.”

Then, as four officers bring him down to the sidewalk, Garner, who was asthmatic, gasps, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!”

The video shows one officer using his hands to push Garner’s face into the sidewalk. The second video, which appears to have been shot shortly after Garner was handcuffed, shows him lying on the sidewalk, apparently unresponsive.

More than three minutes in, medics arrive and one checks his pulse. Garner is lifted onto a gurney and transported to a waiting ambulance about two minutes later.

A bystander asks why no one is performing CPR and one officer responds, “because he’s breathing.” ____

This is from the New York Times today. (I removed any link to the video and will not post that here)

Funny there will be no law or acronym group named after Eric Garner.  May he RIP.

Death of a Man in Custody Adds Fuel to a Dispute Over a Policing Strategy

By J. DAVID GOODMAN and VIVIAN YEE

JULY 20, 2014

A sidewalk memorial on Staten Island where Eric Garner died after a confrontation with the police.

Credit Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

Most afternoons Eric Garner could be found around Tompkinsville Park, not far from the Staten Island Ferry terminal, hawking loose cigarettes and making conversation. Police officers, too, were a familiar sight in the triangular spit of green where drug deals once dominated and fistfights and shouting matches still occasionally break out.

The cigarette seller and the police were far from strangers: In a city where the authorities are increasingly focused on stamping out petty offenses as a way of heading off larger ones, the local officers had tangled with Mr. Garner time and time again, arresting him for selling untaxed cigarettes at a price far below what local deli owners could offer.

A confrontation on Thursday that started like so many others ended with Mr. Garner’s death and an eruption of anger at the police as cellphone video of the clash drew millions of eyes to a changing pocket of Staten Island. Mr. Garner’s death on a sidewalk outside a beauty salon on Bay Street threw into sharp relief the tension between two pillars of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s law enforcement agenda: mending frayed relations between the police and people in black and Latino neighborhoods, while holding down serious crime by assiduously attacking minor offenses.

The mayor, upon arriving in Italy on a family vacation on Sunday, found himself once again answering questions about the death. The Fire Department said two paramedics and two emergency medical technicians who responded to the scene had been placed on modified duty while their conduct was reviewed. A seven-minute video, posted over the weekend, showed emergency medical workers doing little more than feeling for a pulse before lifting Mr. Garner’s body onto a gurney.

And the police commissioner, William J. Bratton, has suggested that the officers’ actions appeared questionable, but he has defended the department’s strategies as he grapples with the fallout.

The officer who placed Mr. Garner in what appeared to be a chokehold while trying to put him under arrest, Daniel Pantaleo, was ordered to turn in his badge and gun; another officer who first approached Mr. Garner, Justin Damico, was reassigned to desk duty; and the roles of the other officers at the scene who helped wrestle Mr. Garner to the ground are under review by the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau as investigators await the results of an autopsy by the medical examiner’s office.

To park regulars and local shop owners, it was devastatingly ironic that the police considered Mr. Garner, 43, a vestige of the disorder that still cropped up in the area, even as drug dens gave way to delis and vacant storefronts filled around the park. To them, he had been a bright spot, a peacemaker who with his size alone could — and often did — quell disputes.

A funeral for Mr. Garner is to be held on Wednesday. On Sunday, in pulpits on Staten Island and in Manhattan, ministers called for justice.

“I’ve heard what is needed is more police training,” Bishop Victor A. Brown told his congregation at Mount Sinai United Christian Church, a few blocks from Tompkinsville Park. “The police get enough training; a mind-set is the issue. Enough is enough. Stop killing our people.”

More than 20 miles away in Upper Manhattan, the Rev. Al Sharpton warned city officials that the family of Mr. Garner would explore whether to get the federal government involved, even before the Staten Island district attorney had made a decision about pursuing charges in his death. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office did not respond to a call seeking comment.

Mr. Bratton has described Officer Pantaleo’s arm gripping Mr. Garner’s neck as a chokehold, a banned maneuver in the New York Police Department. The reassignment of the officers and the emergency medical workers came after bystander videos documented the interaction between emergency responders and Mr. Garner. They received thousands of views online, fueling outrage over the episode. 

The two police officers were part of a plainclothes team based in the 120th Precinct, which covers the northern tip of Staten Island and some of its most diverse areas. It is also home to some of the borough’s most crime-prone streets and housing developments, as well as Wagner College and the Staten Island Yankees.

The police have said the pair were assigned Thursday to address “conditions” in the area of the park — a police term that broadly refers to local disorder and crime patterns but can also indicate particular people who are seen as drivers of crime.

The death of Mr. Garner, who was black, presents a potentially combustible mixture of race and policing for a mayor who promised to improve relations between officers and minority communities. Arriving in Rome, Mr. de Blasio received a briefing from his top aides and told reporters at the airport that delaying his departure by one day to address the death had been “absolutely worthwhile.”

Defusing lingering tensions has fallen largely on Commissioner Bratton, and he has navigated between describing the death as a “tragedy for all involved” and defending, in general terms, the use of force to subdue suspects who resist arrest on minor charges.

“I do not expect my officers to walk away from that type of situation,” Mr. Bratton said on Friday, noting the local precinct had received numerous complaints about untaxed cigarettes among the hundreds of 911 calls from the area around the park.

Critics of the department have described Mr. Garner’s death as among the most egregious results of a “broken windows” approach to crime that targets low-level offenses in largely minority neighborhoods. But officials have been quick to describe Mr. Garner’s death as an isolated incident. “This is one particular interaction between two people,” said Stephen Davis, the chief spokesman for the department. “You can’t judge the whole program on that.”

On Sunday, area business owners said that they were frustrated by the sale of loose cigarettes but that Mr. Garner was hardly a menace.

“He never caused any harm to anybody, unlike a lot of people around here,” said Adel Abouelala, 22, the manager of the Edible Arrangements store facing the park, who has worked there for two years.

Fadal Ali, another shop owner, acknowledged giving up on selling cigarettes because there were so many men, like Mr. Garner, who could undercut him on the sidewalk. “I can’t make a profit,” said Mr. Ali, who opened Elegant Grill and Deli opposite the park about four months ago in a spruced-up building once known for drug sales.

But the day Mr. Garner died, he had been trying to break up a fight shortly before his confrontation with officers, said Efrain Acosta, 35, who works at the Boost Mobile store opposite the park. It was the fight, not cigarettes, that drew the police’s attention, Mr. Acosta said.

What’s the Plan Stan?

As the devastation of Hurricane Sandy is still being assessed, the real fact is Brad Pitt better drop off the kids to day care and get his foundation to start building some foundations a.s.a.p.   The fact is that why the rich stay at the Carlyle Hotel, the poors stay in Schools and other Public buildings while their homes face destruction phase 2.

For those whose homes have never faced water infiltration you have no idea how invasive and frankly almost irreparable the damage is.  There is the risk of mold and simple rot, especially on older homes that were the predominant victims of the storm in Staten Island and Queens.  These are not the fantastic towers designed by Stararchitects or built with modern codes and features that would enable repair.  Add to the fact that most of the owners of these water “front” homes were not the Celebrities of the Hamptons but working class people who could not afford Flood Insurance or the additional premiums associated with homes in high risk areas. 

And as many now face the bulldozer the remaining question is where do they go and who builds it? The last GOP Convention said WE BUILT IT so I suggest they get there right away and start doing just that without Government help of any kind.  Walk the Walk you Talked.  Or in simple terms Prove it. 

What will happen is a massive foreclosure and in turn fire sale that will put land in a tightly knit housing market into play and the riches will ensure that they will secure their investments while the poors – well those FEMA trailers from NOLA still available.

What could be a great opportunity to redevelop housing and meet the needs of the largely working class communities that reside there and establish affordable sustainable housing that could weather a storm will in fact be awash in another kind of storm.  What a tragedy to think that this would be an amazing opportunity to examine alternative style housing – such as Living Building with its focus on using their own energy and not wasting any… a great place to prove how compost toilets really work or Pre-fabricated housing with its quick construction and focus on size and energy efficiency to offset the costs of already living in America’s most expensive city.  But none of that will happen. What will happen is the usual struggles and debates over who is going to build it.  I watch Treme and wonder if David Simon will do a Staten Island version next season.

In New York, Hundreds of Storm-Battered Homes Face the Bulldozer 

by William K. Rashbaum
Published November 17, 2012

New York City is moving to demolish hundreds of homes in the neighborhoods hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy, after a grim assessment of the storm-ravaged coast revealed that many structures were so damaged they pose a danger to public safety and other buildings nearby.

About 200 homes will be bulldozed in the coming weeks and months, almost all of them one- and two-family houses on Staten Island, in Queens and Brooklyn. That is in addition to 200 houses that are already partially or completely burned down, washed away or otherwise damaged; those sites will also be cleared. 

The Buildings Department is still inspecting nearly 500 other damaged structures, some of which could also be razed, according to the commissioner, Robert L. LiMandri. 

Mr. LiMandri, in an interview late last week, said neither he nor his staff could recall the city ever undertaking this kind of broad reshaping of its neighborhoods. 

“We’ve never had this scale before,” Mr. LiMandri said. “This is what New Yorkers have read about in many other places and have never seen, so it is definitely unprecedented. And by the same token, when you walk around in these communities, people are scared and worried, and we’re trying to make every effort to be up front and share with them what they need to do.” 

No decisions have been made about rebuilding in the storm-battered areas — a complicated question that would involve not only homeowners, but also insurers and officials in the state, local and federal governments. Some of the houses that are being torn down were built more than a half-century ago as summer bungalows, then winterized and expanded. Current building codes would likely prohibit reconstruction of similar homes. 

The Buildings Department expects to have a more precise assessment by early this week of how many buildings must be razed. 

And then there is the emotional toll. Many of the homes set to be knocked down are in tight-knit working- and middle-class neighborhoods, where they are often handed down from generation to generation. 

“Listen, we want public safety, and we have to move on, but you have to give some people — — ” Mr. LiMandri said, pausing, then adding: “I mean, look, a lot of these are people’s homes that, probably, they may have even grown up in it, and it was their father’s house. I mean, that’s the kind of communities we’re talking about.” 

One challenge facing the department is reaching owners of the homes facing demolition. Many are now living elsewhere — with friends or family or in hotels or shelters — and are barred from entering the houses because they are unsafe. 

The city is trying to proceed with sensitivity, with Buildings Department staff members walking the streets in these neighborhoods, trying to track down those affected through their friends and neighbors and urging them to go to one of the six recovery centers set up by the city and to register their damaged homes by calling 311. 

But, in some cases, where the danger is imminent, the department will issue an emergency declaration to bulldoze the buildings, even if the owners have not been contacted. 

“This is not easy, in this case, because of all these displaced people, but we’re going to do the best we can, but we may have to move on it if we can’t find them,” Mr. LiMandri said.

Eric A. Ulrich, a Republican city councilman from Queens who represents Breezy Point, Belle Harbor, Broad Channel and some of the other affected neighborhoods, said that he had not been notified of the demolitions, but that the forced destruction of people’s homes would come as a terrible shock.

“My constituents have been through so much, and they are just so distraught, and if that were to happen and if they were told that the home that they grew up in or they bought has to be taken against their will, it’s just devastating news,” he said. 

Buildings Department employees were at work over the weekend issuing more demolition orders. Among the buildings razed last week was a home in Broad Channel, Queens, that was so pummeled by Hurricane Sandy that it was left leaning at a 30-degree angle. Two houses in other parts of the Rockaways were also demolished in recent days, with a grappler — a huge attachment affixed to a backhoe or bulldozer that looks like a set of steel dinosaur jaws and takes bites out of buildings.

In the days after the storm, Mr. LiMandri’s staff, with the aid of outside engineers and architects, fanned out to examine sections of the city that suffered water damage and other structural deterioration as a result of the flooding. They checked more than 80,000 buildings and declared 891 unsafe to enter, affixing red tags to the structures to signal the potential danger to owners and residents. 

The wholesale demolition of damaged buildings after natural disasters is not uncommon, and while the commissioner called the razing of hundreds of homes unprecedented for New York City, thousands were torn down in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. LiMandri said his staff had been in contact with officials there to learn from their experience. 

With the pace of the demolition work expected to quicken in coming days, one question that remains unresolved is who will pay for it. Ordinarily, the property owners are responsible for the costs; current relief programs provide only for funds to help repair damaged homes.

Mr. LiMandri stressed that just because a building has been given a red tag does not mean it will be torn down. 

Indeed, he said, many of those structures, including several giant commercial and residential buildings in Lower Manhattan, can be made safe for occupancy again after specific problems are addressed. These include weakened foundations and plumbing, electrical or mechanical damage caused by seawater flooding basements and, in some cases, mixing with fuel oil. 

Mr. LiMandri said he did not believe that any of the buildings set to be demolished were multi-unit apartment buildings and, while there might be a small number of houses razed in the Bronx, none were likely to be torn down in Manhattan. 

The damaged houses — in neighborhoods like Breezy Point, Belle Harbor and Rockaway Beach in Queens, South Beach, Midland Beach and Fox Beach on Staten Island and Gerritsen Beach in Brooklyn — all have two things in common: they were older homes, and they were close to the water. 

“Some of these neighborhoods have really been hit hard, and as you walk around, you realize that the newer buildings that have newer codes, that are built to newer codes, they have withstood; although they have water damage, they’re still standing,” Mr. LiMandri said. “And they can be right next to something that was built in the ’20s, which is not there anymore or essentially gone.” 

The High Line

In my tour of New York Open Houses and in between Occupying Wall Street, I toured the High Line Park.

As I have been writing about the concept of public/private spaces and how those can have great affect on a community both good and bad; I was very anxious to tour perhaps one of the most recent successful if not lauded public/private partnerships – The High Line.

I had blogged earlier about a modern development adjacent overlooking the High Line and I finally got to see it. Devoid of occupants as many of the buildings are in already expensive Manhattan (rents now average over 3K a month) the once gritty Meatpacking area is alive with trendy Hotels, Restaurants and shops. The new Tribeca.

But the High Line is not as exclusive. Teeming with people on the most windy of Saturday afternoons it is a glorious tribute of salvaging an industrial space and make it literally a green space.

The New York Times today had an article discussing the most recent generous donation to the park’s fundraising efforts to finish what is perhaps an elegant statement about the challenges and successes of public and private partnerships when done right.

Record $20 Million Gift to Help Finish the High Line Park

By LISA W. FODERARO
Published: October 26, 2011

Many visitors to the High Line, the popular park that wends above street level on the West Side of Manhattan, stop at its northern terminus and peer wistfully through a chain-link fence at the as-yet unreclaimed half-mile segment to the north. Until this week, the nonprofit conservancy that operates the High Line still needed to raise $85 million to finish the park and maintain it.

On Wednesday night, the conservancy took a major step toward that goal when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a $20 million gift to the High Line from the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation.

The gift, which will help build up the park’s endowment and pay for the design of the last section, is the single largest donation ever made to a New York City park, according to city officials.

It follows two previous donations totaling $15 million to the High Line from Barry Diller, chairman of IAC and Expedia, and his wife, the designer Diane von Furstenberg.

“It’s not surprising that Barry and Diane — visionaries that they are — got in early on the High Line project,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement. “But even better, they are seeing it through. Their generosity is leading the way for the High Line to become a New York icon that will be enjoyed for generations to come.”

The High Line is an unusual public-private partnership. The city paid most of the construction costs of the first two sections (the second opened earlier this year), which together run from Gansevoort to 30th Streets.

But Friends of the High Line, the conservancy that rallied to save the railway from demolition and raised money for its transformation into a park, assumed full responsibility for the cost of the operations from the start.

With three million annual visitors, 10 times what the founders of the conservancy initially envisioned, wear and tear, as well as educational programming, is a constant challenge for the 60-member staff. Annual operating costs for the park come to $3 million.

“If you ask Josh or me what keeps us up at night, it’s not next year or whether we complete it — we know it will get done,” said Robert Hammond, co-founder of Friends of the High Line along with Joshua David. “It’s the maintenance, and this gives us security. Having an endowment gives us another revenue stream to fall back on in hard times.”

But perhaps just as important is the gift’s ability to propel Friends of the High Line toward the finish line: the railway’s endpoint at 34th Street. Now the curvaceous teak benches and ornamental grasses that make up the park’s northern landscaping stop abruptly at that chain-link fence.

On the other side is a jumble of weeds, rocks and old ladders. The future section, which hugs the West Side Railyards, runs west to 12th Avenue and then continues north to 34th Street.

That segment is owned by CSX Transportation, which is now in negotiations with city officials, as well as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other interested parties, on an agreement that would allow for public access. In 2005, CSX donated the portion of the High Line south of 30th Street to the city.

Adrian Benepe, commissioner of the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, said the talks dealt with a “very complicated site.” But he added that “everyone wants for the city to eventually” obtain the site for the High Line park.

Mr. David and Mr. Hammond estimate that the final half-mile stretch will cost up to $75 million to build, about the same as each of the first two half-mile sections. Given the constraints on the city’s budget, private sources will have to cover the initial capital expense, they said. Before the new gift, Friends of the High Line had raised about $65 million toward its $150 million fund-raising goal.

In a statement, Mr. Diller took the long view. “In a hundred years, people will be amazed that this park was ever built, and during all that time it will have given pleasure to such great numbers of people,” he said. “I’m glad that our family is able to pay a small role in making the High Line a reality.”

In a city of deep-pocketed philanthropists, the donation from Mr. Diller and Ms. von Furstenberg turned heads, not least because it went to a park rather than a cultural or educational institution. Previously, the largest private gift to a park was $17 million from the philanthropist Richard Gilder in 1993 to Central Park.

Friends of the High Line hopes that the $20 million donation will inspire additional giving.

That happened once before. After the Museum of Modern Art mounted a small exhibition of designs for the park in 2005, the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation made its first gift of $5 million, generating interest in the project. Then came a gift of $10 million from the foundation in 2009. Earlier this year, Tiffany and Company Foundation gave a $5 million challenge grant.

The return on those investments has been substantial; the first two sections of the High Line have generated more than $2 billion in planned or new development, city officials said. The park has also become a major tourist attraction, drawing a quarter of its visitors from outside the United States.

Gazing at the unfinished segment, Martin Oeggerli, 37, a photographer visiting from Switzerland, said he would like the park to keep going. “It would go straight to the Hudson and give you a great view,” he said.

Last week, when Mr. Diller told Friends of the High Line of the gift over the phone, the conference room erupted. “A large number of people on our staff burst into tears,” Mr. Hammond said.