Monday, May 14, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
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.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
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) |
“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) |
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) |
More than just a Picture: Photography for Social Change
 |
| (www.jtlissphotography.com) |
Although using art as activism is not a new concept, using
photography for social change is something that New York photographer, J.T.
Liss, feels is important.
“I wanted to find a way to combine my love for working with
at-risk youth and helping others in general with photography,” he wrote in an
email. “Once I sold my first piece of art, I didn’t think twice about giving
the proceeds to the school I was working at at the time.”
Liss’s mission statement is brief and to the point, he hopes
to use photography as advocacy, in turn helping others and allowing his art to
spread creativity. While Liss originally came to New York City as a teacher, he
quickly realized immense disparities as he walked the city streets and wanted
to do more.
“It ended up being the best decision I ever made,” Liss said
about moving to New York. “NYC is a living, breathing organism. The people,
their interactions, transit, buildings, and how it can all change over the span
of one city block,” he said. “It was certainly a stage and I wanted to be a
player.”
 |
| (www.jtlissphotography.com) |
Liss currently teams up with six non-profit organizations
that find unique ways of giving back to others: B.E.A.T., Hear the Hungry, Off
The Mat, Into The World, Hug It Forward, EcoThrive Art Coalition, and Fighting
for Futures.
Each organization has a distinctive story. “Hear the Hungry
does more than just give food to the homeless, they develop relationships with
the homeless and document their stories to give a voice to the voiceless,” Liss
said. “B.E.A.T. uses break-dancing, beat-boxing, and beat-making to empower at
risk youth.” All of the organizations began as grassroots initiatives and use
creative means to create change.
In partnership, Liss gives 25 percent of his proceeds to
these organizations. In addition to monetary donations, he also holds events
for them, in turn raising more funds, and perhaps just as importantly, more awareness.
Liss said his work continues to grow and expand as he is
always experimenting. More recently he has been exploring surreal photography
by creating images based off of quotes from famous writers and poets.
 |
| (www.jtlissphotography.com) |
Liss also noted that his journey into photography and
activism has been particularly meaningful. “Because of photography I have come
into contact with total strangers who have become friends,” Liss said, “Friends
who are on a similar mission of making the world a better place.”
Visit www.jtlissphotography.com to learn
more about Photography for Social Change
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Continuing to Raise Awareness of Corporate Welfare
By Stephany Chung
 |
| Michael Pellagatti holding his sign in Bryant Park. |
In Bryant Park, a short man with a stubble and a patch of turquoise-dyed
curly hair was walking around in a blue poncho holding a
small sign on May Day. This 24-year-old man, Michael Pellagatti – who was at
the birth of Occupy Wall Street on September 17, 2011 – supported this movement
until today; he continually stood against corporate welfare.
“Personally it [May Day] stood for people from all different
backgrounds and occupations coming together and essentially fighting against
corporate tyranny,” stated Pellagatti, an Occupy Wall Street TechOp.
In 2007, he had written an anti-war poem just for himself.
When he was cleaning out his backpack, it was exposed next to him and when
people read it, they misinterpreted the hypothetical situation and context of
the poem and were “offended.”
“I had a bad personal experience was I was younger,” stated
Pellagatti. “I got apprehended by authorities because I wrote some poetry that
scared some people and that’s what clicked to my mind, which made me want to
become a political activist.”
Back in high school, he was a “hard-core Republican.”
However, after meeting various people such as, the Jersey City Council and
anti-war activists, his ideas started changing.
From then onward, Pellagatti
believed corporate welfare to be a “huge” problem.
Recently, he went on a “two year reading binge.” He read books,
such as The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire and The Histories of Heradotus
and these were some books that also affected his way of thought.
From his readings, he shared that
according to a report of the Office of Government Accountability, the bankers
launched their own private audit of the Federal Reserve.
“It turns out that the Federal
Reserve secretly loans $16 trillion to these banks on Wall Street. $16
trillion,” Pellgatti emphasized.
The Federal Reserve directs the
government to print more dollar bills, inflation occurs, and the American
people have to pay more.
He believes that the national debt
is directly correlated to the greed of these bankers.
“I started raising this [the
problem of corporate welfare] up and hopefully this will catch on soon,” stated
Pellagatti. “I don’t think people know how big of a problem it is. They just
brush it off.”
The Lone Ranger of Zuccotti Park
By Harrison Golden
While
over 7,000 Occupy Wall Street protesters marched across New York City on
Tuesday, Anam Farooqui returned to where the movement began nearly eight months
ago.
 |
| EPISCOPAL NEWS SERVICE |
Farooqui,
25, spends most of his nights working at a FedEx store in Queens. But instead
of spending his afternoon getting some pre-shift shuteye, he skipped around
Zuccotti Park, waving a sign that read “Occupy the World” and listening to
Aretha Franklin on his iPod. For most of the afternoon, Farooqui was the only
OWS demonstrator stationed inside the park. But he still demanded respect.
"We're
gonna re-occupy the park,” he said. “It's always been about the park."
Farooqui
lived at the former “Liberty Square” during the first five weeks of last fall’s
occupation. He slept on a yoga mat and snuck into the nearby Burger King
whenever he had to use the restroom. The experience, he recalled, built a
community that he had never seen before.
"Yeah,
of course I still keep in touch with the other occupiers,” he added. “We're
like a family."
But
when he texted his friends, asking if they would join him at the park, he got
no responses. The majority of the New York’s demonstrators instead decided to
spread the city’s role in the Occupy movement past its Zuccotti Park roots.
Activists called for a general strike -- no work,
no school, no shopping, no banking – and worked to hold 99 pickets in front of
99 New York City-based corporate offices, such as those of Bank of America, News
Corporation, and Chase. At parks like Bryant Park and Union Square, a majority
of the day’s demonstrators held rallies protesting corporate greed. As the day
passed, most of them marched down Broadway to Wall Street, passing by Zuccotti
Park with little hesitation.
In
between skips, Farooqui continued checking his phone for possible replies,
muttering to himself in the process.
“It’s
no big deal,” he said. “I’ve never been one to care about numbers.”
As
sundown approached, Farooqui continued his demonstration, fearing that the
history of the Occupy movement was in danger.
“If
I stop now, then the entire movement is over,” he added. “Who cares if I’m late
to work? I gotta keep moving.”
Cheryl
Smith, a single mother of two who participated in September’s demonstrations, got
off work early and decided to visit the former protest hub. She sat on a bench
for five minutes, watching Farooqui – and no one else – hopping around the
park’s east end. She furrowed her brow.
“Is
he on drugs?” Smith asked, looking at her watch. "Oh well. I'm thinking maybe I should go
home and cook."
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)