NYC NOW - April 10, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

Attorneys with the Legal Aid Society are calling out the Adams administration for missing a court deadline Monday for clearing a wait list of migrants seeking shelter beds. Plus, a transit union officer says a group of Muslim bus drivers were denied the day off to observe Eid al-Fitr. Also, The NYPD arrests a Bronx mother in the deaths of her 5 year old twins. And, WNYC’s Sean Carlson talked with Yma Andries, Director of Enforcement for Healthy Homes, about the importance of window guards as warmer days approach New York City. And finally, we’re celebrating poetry month with a reading from a special WNYC listener.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jinné Pierre. The Adams administration missed a court deadline Monday for clearing a wait list of migrants seeking shelter bids. That's according to Legal Aid Society attorney Josh Goldfine. A settlement reached last month allows the city to limit shelter stays for migrants. But a term of the settlement required the city to clear a wait list for migrants seeking shelter bids. Goldfond says single adult migrants waited overnight without getting a shelter bed on Monday evening.

How many is unclear. A city hall spokesperson says the city is working to make more beds available for migrants as quickly as possible. A transit union officer says a group of Muslim bus drivers were denied the day off to observe Eid Elfitter. WNYC's Ramsey Caliphé has more. The holiday celebrates the end of Ramadan and is observed by Muslims around the world, including the more than 750,000 who live in New York City. But the MTA denied a request from eight Muslim drivers to take the day off. The agency says they gave only two days notice.

Transport Workers Union Local 100 rep J.B. Patafio says he told the drivers to not show up to work. This is me like every other holiday and every other high religious event. The MTA says Local 100 is violating state law by directing drivers not to clock in. They say it constitutes an illegal labor strike. NYPD will arrest a Bronx mother in the deaths of her five-year-old twins. The city medical examiner ruled their deaths as homicides last month. WMYC's Catalina Gonella has the details. The warrant comes almost a month after the city's medical examiner's office ruled the siblings' deaths as homicides.

NYPD chief of detectives Joseph Kenney says police didn't initially suspect any foul play after Gloria Esamoa called 911 in December to report her children weren't breathing. Criminality wasn't suspected based on several factors, including police interviews with neighbors and school personnel. Police say the 42-year-old is currently in a psychiatric ward, but will be placed in NYPD custody and charged with murder when she's cleared by doctors. Attorney information for Osamoa was not immediately available. Spring has sprung in New York City. With temperatures on the rise, you may be inclined to open your windows for some fresh air. But have you checked your window guards?

We'll discuss the importance of doing so after the break. Stick around. It's getting warmer outside these days, and you may even be cracking open your apartment windows. Well, before you do that, check your window guards. New York City officials are reminding everyone to do just that to prevent children from falling out of windows. For more, WMYC's show.

Sean Carlson talked with Emma Andres. She's the city's Director of Enforcement for the Healthy Homes Program. Emma, can you tell us more about the law in New York City about window guards? Sure, Sean. The weather's getting warmer and we just want to remind all New Yorkers. Now's the time to think about whether you have window guards in your windows. The New York City law requires that buildings that have three or more units where there is a apartment that has a child 10 years old or younger, must have window guards installed. Why is this public awareness campaign important? It's really important because this is one of the preventative measures that New York City uses

to protect children. We used to have a very large problem. We would have falls in the hundreds. Any fall is one fall too many. So we really want to remind New Yorkers as it gets warmer, as they open up their windows, you want to make sure your children are safe and that you have window guards installed properly. Yeah, so like you mentioned, before New York City had a window guard policy, you'd see a lot of kids falling out windows. Why did that happen so often? Well, there was nothing in place. New York City's very proud of being the first jurisdiction in the country to have a window guard rule that was put in place in 1976. And since then, we've seen the falls drop from hundreds, as I mentioned, to really tens now. But,

It still does happen. It frequently happens in this season when it's spring or summer. And we want to remind people that even if they are, for example, putting in an air conditioner, leaving that window unguarded for any amount of time is a time when maybe something can happen. If you step out of the room, unfortunately, for a second, something can happen if you don't have a window guard installed. What if you do have an air conditioner in a window? It's not like you can put a guard on that, can you? Well, no, but what you can do is make sure that the air conditioner is securely installed in the window. And those accordion side panels that frequently come with the air conditioner when they're sold, actually, instead of putting those in, there should be a rigid panel at either side of the air conditioner. And it's also very important to make sure that there's no space even from the top of the window that can open more than four and a half inches. So, this might sound like a silly question, but what exactly counts as a window guard? Like, if you're out here getting one of these things, how do you know that it's legit?

Every window guard in New York City is supposed to actually have an approved code on it. At the side of the window guard, you'll see something called HDWG. That's the approved number that should be etched within the window guard. And that lets you know that the window guard you're buying has been approved by New York City. In addition, you should make sure that every year the window guard is still sturdy, carefully check it to make sure that it's in place properly. And window guards should be installed with one-way screws. And window guards are usually what we talk about when we're talking about the regular double hung window, which is that kind of window that opens up from the bottom and you can pull it up.

But now with newer buildings, we have different types of windows in New York City, and we use limiting devices for those. And those limiting devices also will have a number on it so that you know they were approved. In that case, it would be an HD-L-D number. And this will be for like a hopper window. Does it affect any communities in particular, say like folks who live in housing authority buildings? Is that kind of information even kept? We do keep track, but it really is an issue throughout the five boroughs.

It doesn't happen more, let's say, in public housing than it doesn't private housing. Once you have windows and you have children 10 or under, this is something that can happen to you. Regardless of the type of housing you live in, window guards can save your kids' life. What are the consequences for landlords who refuse to install window guards? And how fast should they be doing that if someone does request a guard? So when a tenant asks a landlord for window guards, they should really be installed right away. within the next 24 to 48 hours. If an owner doesn't install, tenants are able to call 311 and the city will follow up.

Eventually, if an owner doesn't install HPD, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, will actually send in people to install window guards. That's Emma Andres with New York City's Healthy Homes Program, talking with WMYC's Sean Carlson. April is Poetry Month, and WMYC is celebrating by sharing listeners' poems around the theme of local. Poems about the places near and dear to New Yorkers. What are they and what's happening there? Listener Zalika Maria Mokam sent us this poem entitled Harlem Renaissance at the Met. At the transatlantic modernism exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,

I forget myself. A dime for a ticket. I lie to myself. These moments belong to us, just you and I. Farther than the Esquitas in Sunset Park, farther than the chicas on Roosevelt Avenue, farther than our fathers who are long gone, here we are circling words, circling one another, sway with me until I pause. Aaron Douglas, a self-portured in shades of blues. I'm his Azareth, stares back at me vexed. He says, all bourgeois, as if I could listen to the sound of his voice above my beating heart. And I forget myself as I stroll marble halls. My moreno lindo, and I see him on those walls. Beauty piles on

beauty. I can never have enough. While I stare at him, Bessie Smith is holding feathers. I lose myself. We can pretend this coffee rhapsody is here for you and us. We can pretend that this was always the Met. We can pretend the riots ended in August, 1943. We can pretend to live forever in these paintings. We can pretend to exist in these eternal mirrors that never quite held our reflections. No, this art was never supposed to be for us, was it? And yet, art works that way.

Bizarrely, he says electric. Longing lasts lifetimes, as I hear the guards jingle their keys. And my God, life really is short when I think of our time together. Zelika Maria Mocha, Mokam lives in Jackson Heights. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Jenae Pierre.

We'll be back tomorrow.