The MTA cannot usually be counted on to raise deep philosophical and moral questions. But it happened last month during a ride on the 1 train.

The voice came through loud and clear. You know the voice—it’s the one that has replaced an actual person to provide announcements on the train. “We ask you not to give,” the voice told passengers, who, being New Yorkers, were not listening anyway. “Please help us maintain an orderly subway.”

The message is simple enough, but I question whether the MTA really needs to take a stand on whether its passengers should give cash handouts to panhandlers. Especially given that the MTA itself is so good at taking our money—without asking.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not walking around with a lot of cash. And I tend not to part with it. I’m generally in the Don’t Give camp on the panhandling question, but that’s mostly because I think it’s unwise to flash money around belowground. Or aboveground. Or at a family dinner.

I wonder, though, if there are not costs to not giving. When I do hand over a little cash, I usually feel better than when I do not.

Yes, I’ve heard all the arguments against giving, mostly when they were coming out of my mouth. Like how the money is just going to be spent on booze or drugs; the money would better be spent in a donation to a social service agency; the money is not as important as stopping and speaking to the person in need and then going and buying them a sandwich or even a bottle of water.

The last piece of advice seems most valuable to me. I was moved a few months ago when I saw someone on West 78th Street, a customer of La Caridad, heading out the door to deliver a special order to a homeless man on the street. Realizing I cannot remember the last time I did something like that makes me feel ashamed. So does the act of not giving, of passing someone in need—even just a human being who is asking for something, whether he or she is really in need.

For about a decade I have lived here full-time. Somehow, this question of giving or not giving never really goes away. Neither does the larger subset of questions on the best ways to give. These issues resonate even more after surviving—sorta—the Great Recession. After a lost job and unemployment checks a while back, I have a lot less trouble imagining myself as the person doing the asking.

Still, I hesitate to give, partly because by not giving, I get to opt out of what feels like a bad reality show. Responding to pleas at some times and not at others may seem like a reasonable response, but it winds up requiring a constant series of judgments. I don’t like the idea of trying to size up whether someone is telling the truth, or the hugeness of his or her horrible circumstance, after listening to a brief diatribe. I feel like I’m the panelist on a bad game show, one called Are Your Troubles Bad Enough For Me to Care? Instead, I choose to try to ignore the plea and finish a Gail Collins column.

I guess I’m fairly good at shutting myself off into my own little world. Sometimes I’m proud of that; other times I think it’s a necessity in the bustling big city.

But when the MTA voice told me not to give and I realized that I’ve been mostly following that advice, it gave me a start. When the MTA and I are on the same page, something’s gone wrong.

Christopher Moore is a writer living in Manhattan. He can be reached by email at ccmnj@aol.com and is also on Twitter (@cmoorenyc).

Anyone who attends will also be able to attend the “Pink Slip Plus” mixer afterwards, featuring complimentary beer and wine, as well as an opportunity to network and meet other like-minded individuals.

By Kirsten Gillibrand

As I meet people during my travels across the state, New Yorkers of all ages and backgrounds have the same thing on their minds: jobs. With unemployment in New York City still in double digits, and an estimated 15 percent of our state’s construction workers out of work, it is clear that we must continue to help working families weather the economic storm. For example, since the downturn began, more than 40,000 construction and manufacturing workers in New York state lost their jobs, and millions more workers across the country suffered significant losses.

Tough times demand bold action and seizing opportunities. One of those opportunities is reducing our dependence on foreign fossil fuels. Bush-era policies were about talking tough when it came to fighting terror and defending America, but it was their policy that sent a billion dollars a day to oil-producing countries that some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world call home.

That is money that should be spent here. By decreasing our dangerous reliance on foreign oil and making smart, green investments, we can create quality jobs and put our construction laborforce back to work.

The Building Star legislation, which I am pushing in the U.S. Senate, would create as many as 12,500 new, good-paying jobs for hardworking New Yorkers, providing incentives to retrofit co-ops, apartment buildings and commercial buildings and rid them of dirty fuels and pollutants.

Not only would this proposal boost our national security and save condo-owners, landlords and building managers millions in energy costs, but it would also protect New York City families by cleaning the air we breathe. According to a recent air survey by the New York City Health Department, the Upper East Side and Midtown’s business district are just two of the neighborhoods in the city with alarming levels of dangerous contaminants in the air. Many of the city’s residential and commercial buildings burn heavy amounts of heating oil and emit large amounts of sulfur dioxide and other pollutants. If these buildings were to use cleaner fuels, you could see reductions of harmful emissions between 65 and 95 percent.

City landlords and building owners concerned about the high cost of replacing outdated boilers or switching to cleaner fuels, such as natural gas, would benefit from the Building Star rebates, which are designed to cover 20 to 33 percent of the installed cost of equipment. This initiative also covers other energy efficient programs to help ease installation costs, including window renovations, duct testing and sealing, and energy audits.

The process for applying for a rebate would be clear and straightforward: An owner would run an energy audit on a building, then submit an application to the Department of Energy. Once the department verifies the project, a rebate would be issued within 30 days.

There is much to lose and little to gain if we do not begin to rebuild our economy by putting more money back into the pockets of city residents and taking them out of the hands of hostile regimes. For every dollar we invest in energy efficiency, we save $3 in energy use down the road. In the long run, residential and commercial buildings citywide could save up to $407 million in energy costs, nearly $160 million of which would benefit Manhattan alone.

Manhattan renters, owners and residents have an opportunity to make the most of their energy dollars and move away from decades of dependence on foreign oil. It’s time to act. 

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U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand sits on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and Subcommittee on Green Jobs & the New Economy.

Kate possesses a huge and original talent for comedy. Starting at age 17, she began performing at an open mic every Wednesday at the Laugh Factory on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. She was frequently the only woman and the youngest performer.

As an NYU student, Kate interned in Martin Scorsese’s office two days a week for two semesters (she knew someone in the office). That led to months of personal assistant work for a prop designer. She now runs a stand-up comedy night (without pay) that she calls “Crime & Punishment,” every Tuesday at the café and experimental music venue Cake Shop. (She loves the space because “it’s dark and smells like a swimming pool.”) Kate improvises her own routines, slipping in and out of what she describes as an “absurdist non-linear narrative structure.” She tries to occupy “an ambiguous space on stage, a place where laughter often springs from confusion.” She also recently presented her multi-media performance piece, “An Illustrative Colonoscopy into an Epistemological Kitty-Cat,” at St. Mark’s Church Poetry Project.

A Santa Monica native, Kate already feels rooted in Manhattan and is eager to do virtually any kind of work, “ideally something involving the arts.” A couple summers ago, Kate worked for California artist Chris Burden, helping to assemble his massive erector-set skyscraper at Rockefeller Center. She had a great time and met fascinating and dynamic people.

Kate is blessed. Beautiful, with pale skin and black hair, she’s as witty and charming as anyone in our thrumming city. Kate’s successful artist parents still live in Santa Monica, a city she figures she will one day return to.

More background on Kate: freshman year (straight A’s) at Bard College, she organized a stand-up comedy group. She commuted weekends to Manhattan, staying with an NYU friend and falling madly in love with the city’s edgy downtown performing arts scene. Sophomore year, Kate transferred to NYU, graduating with honors, a serious work ethic and a fierce desire to perform stand-up comedy.

She now lives with her boyfriend, a poet, in a small East Village apartment where she sometimes feels she doesn’t have room to walk around. “I love my block,” she says. “I see the same people every day. I get the most incredible coffee and fresh olive shortbread cookies at this tiny Brazilian café, Abraco, which is run by my neighbors. I walk to the comedy clubs and to the store where I work weekends.”

Her friends mostly live in Brooklyn and eventually she’ll move to Greenpoint. “Two years ago, I considered Williamsburg. But it’s too much like a bizarre sleep-away camp, completely inhabited by white kids under 30.”

I wish Kate all good things—a rich creative life in comedy and, in the meantime, I wish her a solid day job with good people.

–
Susan Braudy is the author and journalist whose last book, Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left, was nominated for a Pulitzer by publisher Alfred Knopf.