Listen to WWRL-1600 AM
Listen to WWRL-1600 AM
I am the new host of the morning show on WWRL radio, talking about politics, culture and life in the big city every weekday from 6 am to 9 am. Tune in to 1600 AM or catch the show streaming live at http://WWRL1600.com.
Landing the show represents a bet by the station that there is a large potential audience in New York for progressive, intelligent talk in the early-morning hours. You can prove them right by tuning in and telling friends to do the same. Many of the topics I’ll cover will be familiar to regular Our Time Press readers.
The Crime Spike and the Homeless Shelter
Murder and rape are on the rise in New York City - and in north Crown Heights, there’s evidence that city government is consciously making the problem worse, not better.
There is a maddening absence of urgency in the corridors of government as some neighborhoods take steps down the dark path to the bad old days when thugs would brazenly attack people in broad daylight.
The numbers don’t lie. Citywide, murders are up 8.2% compared with the first half of 2007, and rapes are up 9.4%.
The crime increase clusters in particular neighborhoods: The precincts of northern Manhattan North have seen a startling 42% jump in rapes so far this year compared with the first six months of 2007.
And in Brooklyn’s 77th Precinct, murders are up 100% over last year - 12 murders so far this year versus six in the first half of 2007 - and rapes are up 100%, too, doubling from eight to 16 for the same period. This is a neighborhood where there were only nine murders in 1998.
We are losing ground in Crown Heights, and no amount of cheerleading can cover up that fact.
Even worse, city policies may be driving violent crime higher.
The Bedford-Atlantic Armory, which has a reputation as the city’s worst-run homeless shelter, is a dumping ground for men coming out of prison, many of them with convictions for sickening crimes.
As documented on my blog, http://closeitdown.blogspot. com, there are 27 Level 3 sex offenders living in the armory, and 14 more directly across the street in a residence subsidized by the city’s Department of Homeless Services.
Paging down the list, you find men who served hard time - 15 years, 18 years - for crimes like the rape of an 8-year-old girl, or an attack on a 23-year-old using a club or a hammer.
Forty-one of them clustered together within a residential block, thanks to deliberate city policy. Is there any wonder that this one precinct has seen a doubling of rapes and murders this year while every adjacent precinct has shown a decline?
The Bedford-Atlantic Armory remains a place where crime is rampant and supervision lax. Several times last week, men were sleeping on the sidewalk in front of the armory around 5 in the morning, right beneath the “No Loitering” signs.
And what goes on inside is downright disgraceful.
Nathan Ashford, who has been living at the shelter for months, publishes a revealing, depressing blog about life at “Castle Grayskull,” the nickname residents have given the place (http://bedford-atlantic.blogspot.com).
In a recent post, Ashford describes a resident known to be an addict yelling about methadone for sale. Another “used his locker as a drugstore. As soon as the lights were turned out, people lined up near his bed and the miniature pharmacy was open!”
And on a third date, according to Ashford, “two DHS policemen entered at a time when the air was heavy with the odor of cannabis. One of them observed, ‘It smells like pot in here.’ ‘It sure does,’ answered the other one before they both turned and left.”
DHS is now planning to turn this city-sponsored clubhouse for violent rapists and dope dealers into the central intake site for all homeless men in New York City, an act of civic vandalism that will drive a stake through the heart of a struggling neighborhood.
Small Business Under Pressure
The National Federation of Independent Businesses recently published the results of a survey called “Small Business Problems and Priorities”, in which 42% of the small business owners nationwide ranked the soaring cost of natural gas, propane, gasoline, diesel and fuel oil as a “critical” concern.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like things will get better anytime soon. Instability in the Middle East and loose regulations that allow banks, hedge funds and other speculators to dominate the energy markets has taken their toll.
It will require a mighty act of will from Washington – especially from the next President – to get prices under control so that families and small businesses can operate without fearing every extra nickel will go to pay outrageously high energy bills.
admin @ July 18, 2008