Last Friday, a lone gunman, identified as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, shot and killed his mother in her home, took her legally purchased firearms and proceeded to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he had once been a student. Lanza forced his way into the school and shot and killed six adults who worked at the school and 20 children, all ages 6 and 7, before committing suicide on the scene.
Later that day, Congressman Jerry Nadler issued a statement condemning the attacks and asserting that such unthinkable violence merits swift action on gun control laws.

“I am absolutely horrified by news of the cold-blooded shooting of dozens of children in Newtown. Yet another unstable person has gotten access to firearms and committed an unspeakable crime against innocent children,” Nadler said in the statement. “We cannot simply accept this as a routine product of modern American life. If now is not the time to have a serious discussion about gun control and the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our society, I don’t know when is. How many more Columbines and Newtowns must we live through? I am challenging President Obama, the Congress and the American public to act on our outrage and, finally, do something about this.”
Fellow New York Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who represents the Upper East Side and parts of Queens and Brooklyn, echoed Nadler’s call for action.

“Our first thoughts must be with the families of those killed and injured today. But we can no longer allow tragedies—like Columbine, and Virginia Tech, and Tucson, and Aurora, and Newtown—to occur over and over without finally taking meaningful action to prevent them from happening again,” Maloney said in a statement. “Together as Americans, we must engage each other in a civil discourse about ways to deter would-be mass killers who are currently able to legally purchase guns and ammunition more easily than they could register an automobile.”

Mayor Bloomberg also spoke forcefully in support of stricter gun control laws, and on Monday announced the release of a series of videos produced by the Mayor’s Alliance Against Illegal Guns. The 34 videos (the same number of Americans who die every day due to guns), which can be viewed on DemandAPlan.org, all feature stories from people around the country who have been personally affected by gun violence.

“Gun violence is a national epidemic—and a national tragedy—that demands more than words. We are the only industrialized country that has this problem,” Bloomberg said at a press conference at City Hall. “That’s why we need immediate national action, from the president and from Congress. It should be at the top of their agenda because what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School was, sadly, no aberration.”

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christie Quinn announced on Tuesday that a study by the City Clerk’s office  and NYC & Company, the city’s tourism agency, estimated that same sex-marriages have contributed $259 million to the city’s economy since New York passed the Marriage Equality Act one year ago on July 24.

“Marriage equality has made our City more open, inclusive and free – and it has also helped to create jobs and support our economy,” Bloomberg said in the statement. “New York has always been a great place to get married and since the passage of the Marriage Equality Act, we’re welcoming more and more couples, their families and friends from around the country and the world.”

According to the survey, over 201,000 same-sex wedding guests visited from outside the city. They booked over 235,000 hotel rooms at an average rate of $275 a day, as well as paid for dining, celebrations, gifts and various other wedding-related purchases. Add this income to at least 8,200 gay-marriage licenses that were purchased in the last year (couples are not required to disclose their sexes) and $16 million in tax revenue from the marriages, and you start to get a sense of the same-sex wedding business’s size.

“Thirteen months ago our legislators did the right thing and voted to make same-sex marriage a reality, ensuring that New York State was among the leaders in equality,” said City Comptroller John Liu in a statement. “Today’s announcement is simply the icing on the wedding cake.”

In addition to New York, same-sex marriage is legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia. Massachusetts led the charge in 2004, and found similar economic growth: gay marriage added an estimated $111 million to the state’s economy in five years.

Saturday, Nov. 12, K-12 grade students gathered at Battery Park City School, the city’s first “green” school, for the seventh annual Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots Northeast Youth Summit. Students traveled from all around New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Jersey, as did environmental and humanitarian leaders from across the region, to participate in the event. The group built reflective mobiles for skyscrapers to deter migrating birds from collisions, made dog and cat toys from reused materials for local animal shelters and created a peace-themed collage from recycled materials to be displayed at the school.

The Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots program was founded in 1991 by Dr. Jane Goodall and a group of Tanzanian students. The program focuses on making positive changes in communities, for animals and for the environment.

Chinatown
PIONEERING BIG BELLY TRASH COMPACTORS

Last Wednesday afternoon, on the corner of Canal and Mott streets, City Council Member Margaret Chin and members of Community Board 3 held a press conference to unveil Chinatown’s newest effort to go green. The Chinatown Partnership has teamed up with Big Belly Solar to install solar-powered Big Belly trash compactors in the neighborhood. The compactors have a unique green energy sensor that monitors how full the cans are and sends a message to the unit’s command center when the trash needs to be compacted. The sensors also monitor when the garbage must be collected, which cuts down on unnecessary collections that waste fuel and increase pollution.

Chin noted the financial gains the city stands to make from this installation. The compactors hold roughly five times more garbage than regular trash cans, so the city will pay less for trash collection. This program was implemented in Philadelphia, where collections were reduced from 17 to 5 in one week, with immediate savings of 70 percent, according to the Big Belly website.

Lower Manhattan
RIBBON-CUTTING CEREMONY AT MEDHATTAN

Doctors Leslie Miller and Alicia Salzer, co-founders of Medhattan Immediate Medical Care on Liberty Street, hosted the ribbon-cutting at their new facility Monday, Nov. 14. The Medhattan center is a state-of-the-art medical facility that provides the luxury of a high-class hotel chain to ease the all-too-painful hospital experience.

Patients can expect snacks, plush robes and a host of unanticipated amenities, including wellness services such as acupuncture and massage. As many New Yorkers know, luxury has its price. However, the goal of this facility is to provide luxury at a discount. According to the press release, “Medhattan promises luxury that patients can afford, with visits costing as little as $200.” As cold and flu season hits full swing, a hospital visit is often an unfortunate reality, but New Yorkers may be more willing to spend some time at the new Medhattan Immediate Medical Care Facility—in plush robes and slippers, of course.

Students Margaret Christman and Sara Healey make mobiles as part of the Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots program, which focuses on making positive changes in communities.
Photo courtesy of the Jane Goodall Roots and Shoots Program