Getting Post-Sandy Help

Earlier this week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a statement explaining what recovery and emergency aid is now available throughout the city. The Human Resources Administration has established sites where people can learn how to apply for emergency and economic help. These centers are located at:

• Mount Loretto – 6581 Hylan Blvd., Staten Island
• New Dorp High School – Corner of Mill Road and New Dorp Lane, Staten Island
• Coney Island – MCU Parking Lot, 1904 Surf Ave., Brooklyn
• Rockaway – Walbaum’s Parking Lot, 112-15 Beach Channel Drive, Queens
• Breezy Point – Fort Tilden Park (end closest to Breezy Point) – Beach Channel Blvd., Queens
• Edgewater Firehouse Parking Lot, 1 Adee Place between Ninth Avenue and Edge Street, Bronx

There are also hurricane shelters, of course, with 15 operating throughout the five boroughs. A list of these sites for those in need of emergency housing is posted on nyc.gov.

The Human Resources Administration is offering financial help with covering relocation costs, a first month’s rent, a furniture stipend and more, for those eligible. People with no access to kitchen facilities can also apply for a restaurant allowance. For all the details of these modes of assistance, visit nyc.gov.

As the weather gets increasingly cold and concerns turn to those who still don’t have heat, the city has opened Warming Centers at the following downtown locations during the day:

• BRC Senior Nutrition Program, 30 Delancey St., 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
• City Hall Senior Center, 100 Gold St., 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• John Paul II Friendship Center, 103 E. 7th St., 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
• La Guardia Senior Center, 280 Cherry St., 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
• NY Chinatown Senior Center, 70 Mulberry St., 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
• Sirovich Senior Center, 331 E. 12th St., 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
• University Settlement Nutrition, 189 Allen St., 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Bloomberg also warned of wet property turning into moldy property, which can have various health consequences. He urged people with flooded homes to take careful measures to ensure the apartment is fully dried out, such as opening windows and using fans and dehumidifiers. If you have other concerns, such as food stamps, health insurance and small business support, the motto of the day is: go to nyc.gov.

For those who weren’t affected but want to help, the city has a website pulling in information about how to volunteer with or donate to several organizations, including New York Cares, Catholic Charities, Housing Works, Salvation Army, the Red Cross and New York Blood Center. Check out nycservice.org for more info.

Gas Shortage May Persist for Several More Days

Prior to hurricane Sandy, politicians and media outlets made plenty of predictions regarding its potential to wreak havoc on the city. But what went largely unmentioned was the gas shortage that New Yorkers, Long Islanders and New Jersey residents now face. Late Friday, President Barack Obama had deployed mobile fuel stations to New York and nearby ports, giving emergency response vehicles first dibs on the coveted gas. Gov. Andrew Cuomo requested that citizens use their cars as little as possible, saying now was not the time to drive. The first fuel shipment held 8 million gallons of gas, while 28 million gallons were on their way over. In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie mandated that even-numbered license plates get their gas on even dates, and odd-numbered plates gas up on the other days. Many stations lost power during the storm and are still recovering. In addition, right after the storm the city’s ports were closed, blocking new gas shipments. They are now open, and hopefully by the end of the week gas will be as accessible as before.

LES Gun Buyback a Success

Two weeks ago, pre-hurricane, the NYPD and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office held a gun buyback on the Lower East Side, the first in the neighborhood, at the Rutgers Houses Community Center. The event brought in 50 guns, 14 of which were semi-automatic weapons. The program, which was partly funded through asset forfeiture money seized by the DA’s office, paid $200 bank cards for each operable handgun turned in, and $20 bank cards for rifles and shotguns, with no questions asked and complete anonymity for those bringing the weapons.

“Every gun removed from city streets can be viewed in terms of crimes prevented and, hopefully, lives saved,” District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement after the event. He also praised the Lower East Side youth basketball program that the DA’s office co-hosts as another tool to keep violence down in the neighborhood.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who co-sponsored the event, said that Lower East Side community leaders have been expressing their “serious alarm” about gun violence in the area, and Community Board 3 chair Gigi Li said that the community is grateful that the program came to them.

There have been 154 people shot in Manhattan this year in 129 separate shootings, 19 of which have been fatal.

Item 3: The Mag-Lev Suit.
During a particularly suspenseful scene, Jeremy Renner is rigged up in a chain mail Magnetic Levitation Suit that he then uses to save the world. By floating.

To be totally honest there’s nothing exceptionally mind blowing about a Magnetic Levitation suit except how little real world purpose it would serve. I mean, most of the applications I could think of for this suit/lev-bot combo would be easily achieved with actual things. I’m going to go so far as to say that the only instance I can think of where I would really need to have this suit would be the exact situation in which it was used in the movie. But, whatever. Is it possible?

Absolutely. Magnetic Levitation has been around for a long time. We often use it effectively (#ShanghaiMagLev) to lift objects many thousands of times heavier than Jeremy Renner. There are some issues that one would come up against though. If you’ve ever held two magnets of opposing polarities close enough to where they repel, for example, you’ll understand why stability would be a problem. Then if the lev-bot were using electromagnetic levitation like we’d see with superconductors, the device would have to be cooled to extreme degrees to stop overheating. No spoilers, but anybody who saw the movie will get why—unless the bot was strapped with some incredible super-coolant—there’s no possible way that could’ve been a superconducting magnet. There have been recent experiments by NASA, looking to simulate anti-gravity, where scientists created a magnetic field strong enough to levitate the water molecules within the body of a living mouse. Whoa. RIP NASA. What morons thought it was a good idea to quit on Outer Space? It’s only, like, 99.99999…. percent of everything. OOF! I need to calm down.

So! While it’s theoretically possible that a suit like this could be created, it’s unlikely that anybody’s going to take the time to think up solutions for the above problems anytime soon. Mostly because, like I said, why would you need an extremely limited levitation suit?

Item 4: The Car.
There’s plenty of information out about the BMW i8, scheduled for release, so I’ll just breeze through the basic specs:
The car can run on electricity only for 22 miles. Able to recharge in two hours from a domestic power source, it gets an unheard of 87mpg, and still satisfies the Wild Child in all of us with a 0 to 60 of just four seconds. Whatever! What I’m really stoked on here is the Windshield Display technology. Now, in the movie we saw a full, gesture controlled 3D environment, but for a few obvious reasons (#hugedistraction #askingforit #recklessmajority) that won’t be a option on the consumer models anytime soon.
What we can look forward to is a still very impressive full color 3D Heads Up Display that provides basic information to drivers without the need to take your eyes off the road. Like with the technology for transparent displays mentioned in my last post, HUD in cars has been around for a bit now. But as we’ll see the future of this is still wide open.
At CES 2012 (Consumer Electronics Show) this week, Audi presented their take on it with a three-panel gesture controlled setup that boasts stunningly clear graphics. Also showing some promising in-vehicle displays were GM and Mercedes-Benz, but still, none of these will be anything close to what we saw in M:I-GP.
The real obstacle here is distractibility. The tech we’re talking about is good to go as far as components are concerned:
1.Transparent displays are going to be what’s up as this “the-winner-is-thinner” computing trend comes to a head. (Samsung was doing a little bragging at CES with their Transparent LCD Smart Window #AwesomeScience). How much thinner can you get than a window?
2.Gesture control isn’t perfect yet. But with the technology introduced by the Microsoft Kinect game system, which will be built-in to new TVs (Samsung again), there’s no reason why they couldn’t slap it into a car.
3.GPS navigation systems are old news in cars. Here they just need to make an eight inch leap from the dash to the windshield. No biggie. If only the driver could keep their eyes on the road.
But if it’s all the driver’s fault for being so easily distracted, then what’s keeping us passengers from having some fun? According to Toyota: Nothing! The Toyota Window To The World concept turns the backseat windows into actual transparent touchscreen display. Using cameras and sensors mounted onto the car’s exterior Toyota is able to provide an interactive experience while on the road. Passengers will be able to use multi-touch and graphics technology to doodle on the glass, zoom in to specific portions of the world beyond, and even point at real pieces of the landscape which the window/computer will then translate as text in the local language wherever you’re driving. I.E. you pass a house in Mexico and get a little ‘casa’ floating across the display. Actually cool! I predict this is going to forever change parental road annoyances from “Are we there yet?” to “Do we have to get out of the car? Don’t wanna!”
While the Future of Stuff can never come too soon, we can safely say that splattered bugs on your windshield are about to get a whole lot more annoying in just the next few years!

Riverside Center, a development that includes several residential buildings, a public school, hotel, auto dealership and two levels of underground parking, is being planned for the area between West 59th and 61st streets from West End Avenue to the Hudson River.

Philip Habib, a traffic consultant for Extell Development Company, said that the area will lose about 600 parking spaces and that some streets will be widened in anticipation of increased pedestrian and vehicular traffic. West 60th Street is being studied as the main pedestrian thoroughfare, while West 59th Street will be a commercial corridor. Additionally, Freedom Place South will likely be continued south to West 64th Street, bisecting the block between West End Avenue and Riverside Boulevard. Elevators to underground loading bays are designed to get trucks off the street. Habib also noted that like many existing area residential buildings, newer buildings will likely run shuttle buses to subway stations.

Riverside Center covers the area between West 59th and 61st streets from West End Avenue to the Hudson River.

Community Board 7 members and public attendees voiced hope that the developer would find creative ways to make the project environmentally friendly.

“They’re bringing in lots of new residents in all those apartment buildings, and they’re going to bring in lots more traffic activity because of their commercial uses. We want to see them do something in terms of the use of public transportation to decrease those residents’ dependence on cars,” said Helen Rosenthal, chairperson of Board 7, in a separate interview.

Board 7 has made no official declarations and has not voted on anything in response to the meeting.

Council Member Gale Brewer, who represents the area, said she wanted to see parking spaces set aside for more environmentally friendly forms of transportation, such as shared and rented cars, bicycles and motorcycles. At press time, the City Council was poised to pass a bill requiring spaces for bicycles in garage and parking lots. In June, the Council’s Transportation Committee heard testimony about a bill that would require spaces in public parking facilities for cars that are part of car-sharing programs, like Zipcar. The full Council has yet to act on that piece of legislation.

The meeting also focused on the possibility of a light-rail line, the re-routing of buses to pass through the area and the creation of Metro-North station on the site, a proposal that Brewer has long supported. Extell representatives pledged to make room for such a station should Metro North decide to move forward with that plan, a conclusion that should be reached in about a month.

Board members and residents also noted that the planned hotel has no driveway, requiring that cars drop off at the curb, a recipe for congestion. Many also wondered whether Extell had considered the possibility of the IRT powerhouse at West 59th Street being landmarked and becoming a cultural destination; such a move would complicate plans to make West 59th Street a commercial thoroughfare.

In accordance with the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), the Riverside Center project won’t be certified until an environmental impact statement is completed, but due to the project’s scope Extell has begun community discussions. The company hopes to complete the buildings by 2018.

“I think it’s moving along on track, and my guess is that we’re looking to be in ULURP some time in the fall,” said George Arzt, spokesman for Extell, in a separate interview.

Extell representatives said at the meeting that the project will continue evolving as more studies are done. Board 7 is planning another Riverside Center meeting for Thursday, July 30.