Tag: NYC

Cross-posted at DailyKos and Firefly-Dreaming.

After it was announced this week that New York City would make a “first major changes to the city’s recycling laws since 1989” and “require the Department of Sanitation to recycle all rigid plastic containers,” I know I played a small part.

I’d like to think that waiting my turn at public hearings and constant letters to elected officials had something to do with keeping “more than 8,000 tons of plastic out of landfills annually.” I wish my low impact DKos diaries played a part but I’m pretty sure that my graffiti had some serious impact.

For about a year whenever I found myself in the privacy of a public men’s room stall, I just scribbled some message on the wall.  I also think that so many New Yorkers assuming that the city accepted all sorts of plastic played a role in the new legislature but a few saw my message.

Protest NYC’s limited plastic recycle program. Place all plastic in the Blue Bag!

I wrote other messages. Too many to remember but here are a few more.  

Cross-posted at DailyKos.

At 11:30 yesterday morning on the corner of Greene St. and Washington Pl. I met Firefighter James M. Sorokac for the first time. I’d never met him before but being the keeper of “The Last Alarm” and a member of the of the FDNY ceremonial unit, his face was far too familiar to me.

In the shadow of the Asch Building he explained that the bell that is rang for the fallen dates back to a time when there was one bell at every NYC fire house. He told me the story of the four fives. When firehouses would communicate to each other across the city by ringing five times in a series of four the message that “a brother has fallen in the line of duty.”

Today that bell is rang once by a white gloved firefighter at funerals and memorial services.

Yesterday Firefighter James M. Sorokac rang that bell 146 times.  

Cross Posted at Daily Kos, Firefly-Dreaming, La Vita Locavore and Progressive Blue.

No more snow job photo diaries out of me. Since it is midwinter and everyone can use a little break from the cold, I think a little Brazilian Modern is in order.

How about you? Join me below for more photos and see an amateur review of my South American trip from last year.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

Welcome to a new but old series that is all about photography. Do you have any photos or information about photography to share?

Yesterday’s diary was about snow pictures on a perfect blue sky day in Van Cortlandt Park. Tonight’s represents something a bit more challenging, trying to capture the snow as it is falling.

It’s not so easy and I really should have worn a hat and some gloves.

So if your in the mood for another snowy park, than take a walk below the fold for a park in a blizzard.  

Crossposted at Daily Kos

 I don’t need to tell you that unemployment is through the roof. U6 is at 20+% nationwide, and in NYC it is as bad as anywhere else. At some point, we as a nation need to figure out that the private sector will not save us, rather they are strangling us, but, that is not why I write today, although it is an issue that must be addressed if we are to recover from the Bush/Cheney depression anytime soon.

    In New York City you can see the class warfare at it’s prime. A few bonus baby Wall St types who tanked the whole economy on us yuk it up over drinks while a ton of busboys sweat it out for that extra buck.

    Well, I have hit my breaking point. I have no job, no money, and no more patience. As much as I love the Big Rotten Apple, I have to say Good Bye, New York City.

    This town is too rich for my blue collared blood. I have tried bootstraps. I have tried denying things like health care and dentist appointments, eating out and other non-necessities.

    And I have had enough.

    If that’s moving up then I’m moving out.

I was in my 20s (yeah, I’m old).  The Reagan era was a time of rampant homelessness, as the city had not fully recovered from its 1970s bankruptcy…and then, to save money, mentally ill people were being turned out onto the streets; there were not enough beds in homeless shelters and the shelters themselves were unsafe….

These problems got shoved aside during the gentrification years after Rudy Ghouliani took office.

there’s more:

I was working for a bar owner at 44th St. & 9th Ave.  He had the news on both TVs.  And people started streaming in as large buildings were closed all over town.  One guy I knew perished.  Another, made it out of the twin towers alive, and walked uptown.  Another woman was late for work: she got to the ground zero area in time to see the second plane fly into the second tower, turned around, and caught what was probably the last subway uptown out of that area.

Here’s what I remember about that day:

Shortly before 9 a.m. EDT, I went into the hardware store to buy some paper towels for the sister bar.  The store owner, who knew me from similar errands in the past, said, “Did you hear?  A plane just flew into the World Trade Center.”

I gaped at him; said something like, “You’re kidding.”  It didn’t register, at first: I mean, small planes do fly into big buildings on occasion but…

He said, “No, it’s on the radio,” and turned up the volume.