The High Line Field Trip

Energy Provider Shines Light on Solar Power

By Harrison Golden

Although the hot days of summer can fill New Yorkers’ minds with anticipation – of leisurely park strolls, farmers markets, and T-shirts – the impending season often worries employees at Consolidated Edison, the city’s largest energy supplier. More blackouts and power shortages occur during the summer than any other time of year. But while engineers at the power provider will remain busy, hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2003 Blackout, a budding competitor’s solar-powered alternative will make its way to the Union Square Greenmarket.

Green Mountain Energy Company has donated $16,599 to GrowNYC, the market’s primary organizer. The money will finance a solar-powered van, parked on a surrounding street, where park-goers can receive lessons and workshops on farming and sustainable energy.

“We could not have imagined a better program to donate our money,” said Paul Markovich, president of Green Mountain. “Both solar power and the Union Square market are critical in bringing sustainability to New York’s ecology and economy.”

This is not Green Mountain’s first contribution to New York’s power supply. It has powered the Empire State Building with solar panels since January 2011. And at the national level, in February, the company partnered with Indianapolis's Lucas Oil Field, providing Super Bowl XLVI with 15 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy.

“New Yorkers will now have access all of the freshest and healthiest foods under the sun while learning about all that the sun can do,” said Michael Hurwitz, director of Greenmarket. “Solar power will bring us full circle moving forward. Nothing Con Ed has done comes close to this.”

Hurwitz added that Con Edison has nearly monopolized the city’s energy. But through educational projects like the market-side van, consumers can better understand the role of smaller providers.

“[Green Mountain] knows how to publicize itself,” he said. “But they also know when to give money to help local causes. They don’t wear themselves thin.”

Markovich hopes that the seasonal rise in temperatures will lead New Yorkers to step outside, away from the air conditioners, and to appreciate the environmental impact of energy.

“This is a perfect time to learn about how solar power affects us,” added Markovich. “The Greenmarket van will let people understand all the issues that the big energy companies leave in the dark.”

Guard Your Manholes

image via The Gothamist

Without notice, millions of New Yorkers walk on manhole covers every day. What if one wasn’t there? Aside from the rare exploding manhole cover, and the two or three stolen annually, that hasn’t been a problem for most pedestrians, until recently.

            Some thirty manhole covers have disappeared since March, according to an article by The New York Times. Residents of the outer boroughs have witnessed thieves, dressed as Consolidated Edison workers, stealing covers at night. When asked why theft of the covers has skyrocketed in the past months, Con Edison spokesman Chris Olert says, “It’s the price of scrap metal, it’s gone up.”

Thieves have been heaving these metal discs, which can weigh as much as 300 pounds, to be sold for scrap at metal yards. Con Edison owns 900,000 miles of underground wiring, which is accessible by the manhole gateways. “Number one, it’s a safety issue,” says Olert.

            According to Olert, Con Edison is responsible for 250,000 manholes and their covers across the city. The covers can cost as much as $200 to replace, but only yield a profit of around $30 to thieves. “Put this into your story, it’s stupid and it’s dangerous to our neighbors.”

            Some heavy lids are made of metal, others are made with composite synthetics. Only the metal covers are being pilfered. An account documented by The Times says that some thieves lay down traffic cones and a “Men at Work” sign, put on orange work vests and wheel the manhole covers into beds of pickup trucks, leaving the cones behind.

While the stolen lids present a major risk to traffic, correspondents from the Queens and Brooklyn borough commissioner offices said that the city was not responsible for missing manhole covers. The privately owned companies, such as Con Edison, are called when an access panel needs replacing.

            With such a small profit from stealing covers, the alarming rise in pilfering may not continue. In the Times article, Michael Clendenin, another spokesman for Con Edison said, “I can’t imagine people are decorating their living rooms with them.”

            Although the already alarming rise in theft seems unlikely to continue growing, Olert isn’t absolutely sure. “I’m not going to make any predictions”

The Streets Over Family

By Stephany Chung

In front of a McDonald’s by Union Square, Jessica, a 30-year-old Caucasian homeless woman sleeps alone on a sheet she carries around in her bag over a piece of cardboard she finds around the park. She sleeps with two pairs of scissors, one under the cardboard and one in her sleeve. She dozes off but tries not completely fall asleep; she is always aware of her surroundings. The two bags filled with a fruit or two, hygienic products, clothes, and other necessities she always carries around lie beside her. Once night becomes day, she usually walks back to her usual spot in front of Chipotle on 6th Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets.

Jessica Holding Up Her Sign.

Instead of returning to her distant family or abusive ex-fiancé, Jessica prefers to live alone on the streets of Manhattan. However, this decision has its own consequences and struggles.

However, an expert believes that she does not have a choice to return home.

“It’s not a choice to go back to her fiancé who abused her,” said Patrick Markee, Senior Policy Analyst of Coalition for the Homeless, the country’s oldest advocacy and direct service organization assisting homeless people. “It’s like going back to a burning building.”

Jessica, who wishes not to disclose her last name, left her abusive fiancé -- to whom she has been together for seven years -- six months ago due to domestic violence. They have been living together in Morristown, New Jersey, the town she grew up in.

Based on Coalition for the Homeless’ website and although Jessica is a single adult, it states that one out of the four immediate causes of homelessness for families is domestic violence. In addition, 6% of homeless shelter residents in New York City are white.

She lost her mother last year and had not seen or spoken to her father and younger brother since the age of 12.

Her parents divorced when she was four and her brother chose to live more comfortably with her father while she chose to be raised under the care of her impoverished mother.

Jessica’s father remarried and his family lives in Pennsylvania, only three and a half hours away from Morristown. Some of her relatives also live in Pennsylvania but Jessica prefers to live on New York City’s streets and parks.

According to Coalition for the Homeless, there is no accurate number for the unsheltered people except that thousands are living on the streets of New York City.

She has to constantly be aware of her own safety, especially at night and with “the crazies.” In addition to sleeping with scissors, she also keeps a switchblade underneath the piece of cardboard or sleeping bag. When she was homeless at age 18, she was afraid of “knocking out.”

“There’s been so many times I’ve woken up by guys standing over me jerking off,” said Jessica.

When she was sitting in her usual spot in front of Chipotle, one Caucasian woman with dirty blonde hair acted as if she were taking out cash from her purse when suddenly, she took a photo of Jessica with her phone and yelled, “I’m putting it on Facebook!” then mockingly laughs at Jessica.

This concerned Jessica since she fears that her fiancé, to whom she placed a restraining order, will find and kill her.

However, some people regularly and amicably greet her or give her money, food, and other necessities. One of which is Ken Heyman, a famous photojournalist who first greeted her about two months ago and from then on greets her everyday. He also gave her a book of his work.

“He gave it [his book of his work] to me yesterday [Monday]. He signed it and everything,” said Jessica. “He gives me a kiss my forehead.”

Jessica also has to fight for “good spots.” A little further south of her current spot, she fights for a spot in front of Citarella with a “short black guy.”

The spot Jessica fights for with the black man sitting on 6th Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets.

“Even me, when I wasn’t homeless and I saw two homeless people [next to each other], you just get annoyed by their presence,” stated Jessica.  

The spot also needs to be comfortable and safe. She does not prefer shelters because she does not want to sleep with many people, many who are alcoholics and drug addicts in fine quarters.

She said that there are “nicer people than in other locations” on her current spot. Another spot she is fond of is by Union Square on 1st or 2nd Street by Houston Street.

Jessica feels uneasy in certain locations, such as 23rd Street & 6th Avenue and Broadway between 24th and 25th Streets. She encounters more “crazies” in these areas.

She also faces health problems, both of which are hereditary traits: hypoglycemia, a condition when her glucose level is low and heart problems. In order to manage her hypoglycemia, she needs to eat every couple of hours.

Many homeless people she has met have lice or scabies – a skin disease caused by a certain type of mite.

Day by day as she sits out on the streets all day and face such circumstances, she is waiting for her birth certificate and social security card so she can go on food stamps. 

Spring Street Music

Before You Watch my Movie, Watch my Trailer

Instagram as Art: New York City's First Exhibit

(taken from W Hotel Facebook Page)

Last week, The W Hotel in Timesquare launched New York City’s first ever Instagram Exhibition.  The photos, taken with cellphones, edited with the Instagram and printed on canvas will hang in the Hotel’s Living Room Lounge through June. And while the Hotel manager seems excited about the display, (“we hit a homerun with this one,” he told the Wall Street Journal), not everyone is ready to celebrate this new form of photography.

(taken from W Hotel Facebook Page)

Instagram, a free application for the iPhone and Android, allows users to take photographs and choose from a variety of filters and boarders to alter the aesthetic. Users can then share their photographs on the Instagram website, and post it to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.  It was created in October 2010 by two Stanford graduates in their twenties, and ever since its inception, it has proven to be a contentious subject amongst photographers.

(Christina Paik)

“Instagram goes against everything I believe in as a photographer” says Christina Paik, a 21-year-old photography student at Parsons Paris.  Paik is a firm advocate of film photography over digital. She believes the restricted number of frames and the inability to see a photo until it’s finished, forces the photographer to focus more on the creative process. 

“I think the filters are cheesy,” she says.  “Why would I try to make it look like its something it's not?  Everybody just takes photos and uses these dumb filters and they are stoked because they think it looks so sick, but it’s not genuine.”

Matt Kelly, a 20-year-old photography student at SVA agrees that the Instagram filters create a lack of authenticity. 

“People don’t notice that when they apply filters or add these boarders, they suggest the photo is a type of film,” he says.  “Their almost ignoring the history of photography, medium format film, and other things that as a photographer I’ve taken time to learn and respect.”

(Matt Kelly)

Despite this criticism, Instagram has enjoyed a wealth of success since.  In April, Facebook bought the comapny for $1 billion.  According to an article by Chris Taylor for abcnews.com, the number of people using the app surpassed 50 million at the start of May.

Its masses of users has made it a staple in social networking.  In fact, photographs for the W Hotel exhibition were chosen from twitter users who shared their pictures with the hash tag #wdesign. Staying true to Instagram’s online origins, photographers twitter names are listed next to their work at the exhibition, not their real names.

While the idea of an Instagram exhibition appalls Christina Paik, she admits that application isn’t entirely a bad thing.  She herself began using it a few months ago, but never alters her photographs with Instagram filters.

“Instagram’s opened up other peoples eyes to the art of photography and the magic of it,” Paik says.  But she maintains that Instagram photographs don’t compare to film photography.

“Maybe this isn't how other people see it” she says. “Maybe people on Instagram think they are good photographers because they have over 300 likes.”

(instagram photo at the W Hotel exhibition by @cxcart)