“We are here today with a very clear message. There’s too much gun violence in New York, there’s too much gun violence in this country, and we have to go back to Albany to do something about it,” state Sen. Daniel Squadron told a cluster of people in Alphabet City on Friday, Oct. 5.

Squadron gathered with community leaders and elected officials to call for an urgent legislative meeting to address gun control statewide. General statewide legislation is held in Albany from January through June, so Squadron’s call for a special meeting would mean the bills be looked at before January. Although the session itself would take place in Albany, Squadron made his announcement at Campos Plaza, a public housing project on East 13th Street and Avenue C, and the site of a shooting earlier this month.

According to New York City Police Department reports, there have already been 1,329 shootings in the city this year, and this summer shootings reportedly increased by 5.2 percent compared to 2011.

“Before one more innocent life is lost, it’s time for the legislature to pass these critical bills,” Squadron said.

The gun control bills that Squadron is proposing include a limit on how many guns one can buy per month, more thorough background checks, and a broadening of the definition of assault weapons to encompass various military-style guns.

“I can think of no legitimate reason that an individual would need a military-style assault weapon with the capacity to fire hundreds of rounds in seconds,” Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal said at the conference.

The package of laws would also require the microstamping of shell casings. Microstamping is a new technology, in which a laser stamps a specific number onto the shell casing, so that when a bullet is fired it can—theoretically—be traced back to the person who purchased the weapon. Gun rights activists have come out strongly against microstamping, saying it is ineffective, costly to gun companies, and affects legal gun owners more than criminals, since most shootings involve illegal guns.

“It will make firearms much more expensive to purchase,” said Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle Association, in a telephone interview. He cited California, where a microstamping law has already been upheld but is not yet enacted, saying a few gun companies had stopped shipping to the state in reaction to the bill.

But, he added, the real problem with microstamping is “it just doesn’t work.” He pointed to a study conducted at UC Davis, a branch of the University of California, to defend the technology’s ineffectuality. King added that anyone could dismantle the stamping mechanism in a matter of minutes.

King maintains that there are better ways to stop violent crimes than gun control. Asked what he would propose, he replied, “putting people who commit the crimes in jail, and keeping them there for a while.”

Dereese Huff, the Campos Plaza Tenant Association President who also spoke at Squadron’s conference, is of a different mind.

“We are a community that has been fired upon,” she told the crowd, as neighbors nodded emphatically. “I support efforts to control the rampant spread of guns in our neighborhoods. We all deserve the right to live a long and secure life, and not to be killed by a stray bullet.”

Next to Huff stood Aida Salgado, 42, a mother whose 17-year-old son was fatally shot in October 2011, just three blocks from Campos Plaza. Donovan Salgado was a senior at Washington Irving High School when another youth fired at him while attempting to rob him. Donovan was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was declared dead.

After her loss, Aida founded “Mothers in Arms”, a parental organization dedicated to protecting children’s safety. Salgado believes the New York Police Department does not have gun violence under control, and is either in denial or simply does not care. She says she does her best to keep her other teenage son close nowadays, and inside her apartment as much as possible, for fear he will get hurt in the street.

“I hope that lawmakers hear our voices, our chorus of pain, and act quickly,” Huff urged, as councilmen and fellow tenants murmured in agreement.

Whether or not the governor will agree to review these bills before January remains to be seen.

City Approves East Village Landmark District
Neighborhood preservation groups secured a victory on Tuesday, Oct. 9, when the New York City Landmarks Preservation Society voted to approve the Lower East Side/East Village Historic District. The district includes 330 buildings and covers parts of the 15 blocks between Avenue A and the Bowery, and between St. Mark’s Place and Second Street in the southwest corner of the East Village. Local groups have been clamoring for such protections for years now, under mounting pressure from developers. The president of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Andrew Berman, lauded the approval, saying, “This neighborhood has been a mecca for artists, immigrants and innovators for the past two centuries. That proud and dynamic history not only shaped New York, but our nation and the world. Too much has been lost of late in the East Village to new high-rise dorms, hotels and luxury condos.”

Wall Street Collectors Bourse
The Wall Street Collectors Bourse returns for its second year at the Museum of American Finance from Thursday, Oct. 18, through Saturday, Oct. 20. The show, this year titled “Memorabilia of Finance,” includes items such as stock and bond certificates, autographs, medals, bank notes and coins, connecting them to historic events. In addition, there will be the “Inaugural Anniversary Celebration of Important Global Companies.” Some leading companies celebrating their anniversaries this year will offer objects or services connecting themselves with the news of the day—reminding the audience that their anniversaries are important on a larger historical scale.

Stuyvesant High School is scheduled to open the show with a ribbon-cutting on Thursday morning, and on Friday two important numismatic organizations will hold special events for their members at the Bourse. The featured speaker for Friday’s dinner at historic India House will be the prominent Belgian auctioneer and dealer Mario Boone. The auction, by Archives International Auctions, will be on Saturday, Oct. 20, in the gallery of the Museum of American Finance.
The Museum is free during the Bourse events. For more information, visit www.wallstreetbourse.com.

Léman Prep School Hosts Compost Sale to Benefit Feeding Children Everywhere
On Oct. 3, Léman Prep hosted a fundraiser for “Feeding Children Everywhere,” a charity devoted to getting healthy meals to hungry children across the world. The school raised money through selling handmade compost, comprised of food scraps and other cafeteria leftovers, which the students have been storing in containers on Léman’s roof since September. The bundles of nutrient-rich compost cost from $5 to $15. Each parcel came with a packet of seeds, promoting sustainability and giving the compost a purpose even for those not used to gardening. Léman Prep is part of the Meritas family of institutions, which has sister schools throughout Latin America, Asia and Europe. Accordingly, Léman strives to make its students “see beyond the Manhattan harbor and engage in a conversation with others around the world.”

Mayor Announces Huge Gun Bust in Manhattan
One hundred firearms were seized and 16 gun traffickers indicted in what amounted to one of Manhattan’s biggest gun busts in the last five years, Mayor Bloomberg, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced last Friday.

The confiscations came after two ongoing undercover police investigations in East Harlem. In both cases, undercover detectives purchased dozens of weapons from illegal sources. At least 10 of the sold guns were reportedly bought in South Carolina and smuggled up to New York.

“This investigation illustrates both the problem of illegal guns being purchased in other states and brought here illegally, and the skill and dedication of the NYPD officers who take the guns off the street, often at great risk to themselves,” Bloomberg said at a press conference.

“There have been 127 shooting incidents this year in Manhattan, with 152 victims,” District Attorney Vance added in a statement. “Gun traffickers are bringing violence to our neighborhoods by selling illegal firearms—they are at the root of the problem of gun violence in this city.”

City Council Approves Seward Park Project
The Seward Park Redevelopment Project (SPURA) was approved last Thursday in a unanimous decision, to the delight of Community Board members, council members and many residents of the Lower East Side. The project will convert 1.65 million square feet of vacant city land into a space with commercial and community facilities, and 1,000 housing units, many of which will be permanent, affordable housing.

Councilwoman Margaret Chin, who spearheaded the modification of the City Planning Commission’s original proposal, said, “Today’s vote to approve development of the SPURA site is truly history in the making.”

The project has many provisions that would benefit local and low-income families.

“My body, my life, as a young brown gay person is policed by the NYPD,” Mitchell Mora, 23, told hundreds of New Yorkers at the rally for Communities United for Police Reform, held in City Hall Park on Thursday, Sept. 27.

Last March, Mora was walking alone on the Lower East Side when a police car pulled up with flashing lights and three officers jumped out, yelling, “Stop! Get against the wall! Open your bag!” Mora is a Latino, gay male. Police had stopped him before, but tonight was different as he was dressed in tights and high heels. He told the officers he did not consent to a search, as one took his bag and another frisked him while he stood against the wall. They found nothing. The officer patting him down then grabbed his buttocks and called him a homophobic expletive, before the men got back in their car and drove off. Mora had no way of identifying the police who had just searched him, engaged in sexual misconduct and used hate speech.

Elected officials, civil rights, community and labor leaders from dozens of organizations citywide held Thursday’s rally in front of City Hall, in support of the Community Safety Act. The act, which aims to increase transparency and accountability in the Police Department, has been endorsed by over 50 organizations, and a majority of the City Council has sponsored all four of its bills.

“Our bodies, our lives, our very beings as LGBTQ youth of color are policed by the NYPD,” said Mora. “This is why we need the Community Safety Act.”

The act would enforce the ban on racial profiling, require NYPD officers to identify themselves and explain their actions during stops, protect civilians against unlawful searches, and instate an Inspector General to provide independent oversight of the NYPD. The proposal comes after hundreds of allegations across the city, accusing the NYPD of discriminatory and unconstitutional policing methods.

Stop-and-frisk, the practice of stopping and searching people the police consider suspicious, has become the mainstay of such complaints; in 2011, 700,000 New Yorkers were stopped. Out of these thousands, the overwhelming majority were found innocent, according to an analysis of police reports conducted by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Of those stopped, 85 percent were black or Hispanic. According to a study by the New York Times, more than 20 percent of these stops involved physical force.

Heather MacDonald, political commentator and fellow of the Manhattan Institute, however, argues that stop-and-frisk rates do not disproportionately affect people of color because of prejudiced policing, but because the NYPD goes where crime is highest.

In a phone interview, she used the following numbers to supplement her argument: “Ninety-eight percent of shootings in New York are committed by blacks and Hispanics. Whites commit 1.4 percent of all shootings.“ MacDonald added that she is against the Community Safety Act.

But advocates of the act, like Andrea Ritchie of Streetwise and Safe, say stop-and-frisk is unconstitutional, prejudiced, conducive to abuse and unnecessary. Streetwise and Safe focuses on LGBTQ youth of color’s experiences of policing.

If the Community Safety Act were to pass, an Inspector General would theoretically oversee the legitimacy of such arrests. At the rally, Udi Ofer, advocacy director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, spoke on the need of such an authority.

“The FBI has an Inspector General. The CIA has an Inspector General. The Department of Education has an Inspector General. In fact, every significant federal, state and city agency has an Inspector General. Yet the NYPD does not.”

MacDonald called the implementation of an Inspector General “preposterous,” saying it would waste millions of tax dollars and that the NYPD “already has an enormous amount of oversight.”

The parts of the Act that MacDonald agrees with—in isolation—are those that she says increase public transparency. For instance, many stopped are unaware that police must have “reasonable suspicion” or a warrant to legally search them. The act requires officers to explain these rights before attempting to conduct a search, which MacDonald said would be an improvement. Nonetheless, some argue that “reasonable suspicion” is a vague term, which is why sponsors of the Community Safety Act feel it needs stronger protections against racial profiling.

One of the act’s bills also stipulates that after a stop-and-frisk, the officer would have to give the civilian a card with his name and badge number, and information on how to report police misconduct.

Asked if such a law would have made Mora’s experience less traumatic, he replied, “Absolutely. I could have held them accountable.”
Communities United for Police Reform will gather again in front of City Hall on Oct. 10, when a City Council hearing for the Community Safety Act will be held.

The incident, which marked the second rape in a city park in the last two weeks, stirred up local politicians, who demanded that the city drop its proposed cuts to the NYPD and Parks Enforcement Patrol budgets. “When news of a brutal rape feels like deja vu, immediate action must be taken to protect the safety of all New Yorkers,” Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer declared.

Meanwhile, Speaker Quinn and others announced that a free self-defense class will be taught in Tribeca later this month. In addition, on Oct. 7 at 2 p.m. Quinn and other council members will host a free self-defense class in Central Park’s North Meadow Recreation Center.

Proposals for Better Safety at NYCHA Complexes
In light of a new report revealing safety concerns of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) tenants in the Lower East Side, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, state Sen. Daniel Squadron and Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh released recommendations for changes last Friday.

“This is a cry for help,” Stringer said at the Seward Park Extension housing complex, site of the shooting of Officer Brian Groves this summer. “It’s time to fix the damn doors.”
According to the report, which surveyed 520 residents at 10 developments, about half of respondents have broken locks and unsecured lobby doors, and 65 percent marked inadequate protections against trespassers. Tenant leaders joined the politicians at the press conference and echoed concerns. In some cases, a lack or shortage of security precautions causes residents to fear leaving the house, according Dereese Huff, president of the Campos Plaza tenants association.

NYCHA is still sitting on $42 million budgeted for security cameras, and tenants are growing impatient. Though NYCHA recently announced camera installations by the end of 2013, Stringer insisted that changes be made now and that such standards of living would be unacceptable anywhere else. He proposed restructuring NYCHA, adding that “we don’t need a whole bureaucracy to tell us what the tenants have told us in the survey.”

Besides equipping developments, the recommendations focus on re-evaluating the relationship with the New York Police Department. In a 1994 Memorandum of Understanding with the NYPD, NYCHA agreed to pay for “above baseline services,” now costing $72 million a year. Housing developments account for 20 percent of New York City’s crime but receive 9 percent of NYPD services. A renegotiated MOU would eliminate the surcharge without sacrificing current levels of police presence.
“We have a problem with crime, and we have a problem in terms of giving people the comfort they deserve,” Squadron said.

Reps Pledge to Protect 9/11 Funds from Cutbacks
The House sponsors of the 9/11 Zadroga Act have come out to defend their brainchild against imminent federal cuts. If Congress does not implement policies to lower the federal deficit by Jan. 2, 2013, the 9/11 health program and the Victim Compensation Fund will lose millions of dollars in funding, in an automatic cutback of federal expenses.
U.S. Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney, Jerrold Nadler and Peter T. King, who were the House sponsors for the James Zadroga 9/11 Health & Compensation Act, promised last week to resist any attempt to cut this funding. The proposed cuts would lop off $118 million from the World Trade Center Health Program, and $211 million from the Victims Compensation Fund.

Together, the representatives released the following statement: “Considering how long it took Congress to act, we cannot allow those receiving the care they need and deserve from the Zadroga Act to be stranded by a sequester. This is one of the many compelling and urgent reasons why we pledge to work together in a bipartisan manner to prevent deficit cuts from jeopardizing these vital programs.”

City Breaks Ground on Final Section of High Line
Last Thursday, the City broke ground on the third and final part of the High Line, the famed park that reuses the abandoned railway between Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 30th Street and 10th Avenue. The High Line has become a monumental part of Manhattan’s West Side and an architectural wonder as it is elevated above the city’s streets. Since its opening in 2009, it has attracted over 10 million visitors. The park’s final installment is scheduled for completion in 2014, and will extend to West 34th Street.
Mayor Bloomberg, who presided over the groundbreaking moment, celebrated the final wave of construction with this statement: “The park has become a local treasure and an international icon as well as an important generator of economic growth for our city.”

Compiled by Nora Bosworth and Naomi Cohen

More ‘Urban Backyard’ Events Ahead for LES
Why have nightlife when you can have DayLife? Those who enjoyed DayLife’s first event, which brought over 10,000 people to a closed-off Orchard Street in the Lower East Side for a day of pushcart vendors, live music and games, won’t want to miss their fall series.

On Sept. 23, DayLife will partake in “Imagining the Lowline,” a showcase on the solar technology for the proposed Lowline, an underground park. Then on Sept. 30, DayLife is back on Orchard Street, with Twister, badminton, DJs and a taste of the area’s local food and fashion.

DayLife events are sponsored and designed by the Lower East Side’s Business Improvement District.

NYPD Warns New Yorkers About Identity Thefts
The NYPD Community Affairs Bureau issued a written statement Sept. 12 urging citizens to be on the lookout for online scams that can result in identity theft. A common form of identity theft is executed via email, in a tactic known as “phishing.”

Phishing entails an email in which the sender poses as a legitimate institution, like a bank or insurance company, and requests log-in credentials. Often the email will have a link to a website that looks identical to the institution’s actual site, and the user then logs in, granting the criminals access to their username and password.

The best way to avoid this scam is to go to any official site directly, never through an emailed link. Also, the NYPD recommends having different passwords for each site. Sometimes a similar scam is carried out through a phone call using a fake caller ID, in which the caller poses as an employee asking for information. In such scenarios, decline to give any information before you have called the fraud department of the alleged business, and verified that they have contacted you.

In 2010 about 8.6 million families experienced some form of identity theft, a sharp increase from just five years ago.

Pedestrian Bridge Planned for West Street
On Sept. 13, Assemblyman Sheldon Silver announced the planned construction of a pedestrian bridge above West Street at West Thames Street. The bridge will make it safe and easy for Battery Park City residents to cross West Street, along with “students, faculty and parents of PS 276,” Silver said in a statement. He called the bridge, which will lead pedestrians to and from the Financial District, a “top priority.” The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation agreed to allocate $20 million to the bridge’s construction.

Delays Continue on MTA’s Broadway/Bleecker Street Project
The Broadway-Bleecker Street transfer is now taking longer to build than all of the first part of the IRT in the early 1900s. After rumors of openings in June, then July, then mid-August, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is remaining mum on a final date of completion for the Broadway-Bleecker Street Station.

The project, over budget at $135 million, will move Bleecker Street’s uptown 6 platform 300 feet south, as well as provide full ADA accessibility with five elevators and a new escalator. The MTA started designs in 2002 and construction in 2008.

Subway forums have been abuzz over when their commutes will finally be streamlined. The MTA installed, covered and uncovered signs since March and unveiled digital artwork in the station in July.

The delays are blamed on unforeseen construction difficulties like utilityinterferences and procurement issues.

Once completed, the new platform, designed by Weidlinger Associates and Lee Harris Pomeroy Architects, will offer access to Crosby, Houston and Mulberry streets.
2012 Vendy Awards Hits Governors Island with Proud Chefs and Drooling Mouths
About 1,500 food lovers swarmed Governors Island last Saturday to sample two dozen food trucks for the eighth annual Vendy Awards. The grand prize went to the Piaztlan Authentic Mexican food truck based in Red Hook, Brooklyn, which served beef, pork and goat tacos to excited attendees.

The People’s Taste Award went to Cinnamon Snail, a vegetarian organic truck serving such delicacies as smoked portobello mushroom carpaccio and raw jalapeño brownies. The owner, Adam Sobel, saw the publicly voted on award as a big victory for the vegetarian and organic food movement.

The “Most Heroic Vendor” honor went to Sammy Kassem, who cooks halal food in Bay Ridge and withstood persecution from neighboring restaurants in recent months. According to the New York Times, local restaurant owners organized to give Kassem the boot, claiming he was dirtying their streets and ruining business with his cart; his lawyer alleges Kassem faced discrimination because he is Middle Eastern.

The Vendy Awards are hosted annually by the Street Vendor Project, which provides legal and business services to vendors.