NYC NOW - April 25, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

The New York City Council is reviewing legislation that would inflict harsher penalties on landlords after violations are found in building inspections. Plus, House Speaker Mike Johnson was at Columbia University this week condemning protests on the Upper Manhattan campus, where pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up tents and demanded the university divest from Israel. And finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill talked with Dr. Mitchell Katz, President and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals, and Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers about efforts to open additional medical trauma centers in Queens.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City. From WNYC, I'm Junae Pierre. The New York City Council is reviewing legislation that would impose harsher penalties on landlords with building inspection violations. Councilmember Perina Sanchez is a sponsor of the bill. She says it aims to prevent tragedies like what happened in her Bronx District last December, when a seven-story apartment building in Billingsley Terrace partially comes. If we're honing in on the worst actors, then maybe we're catching things a little bit earlier. 170 residents were displaced by the Bronx collapse.

Some tenants are also suing the building's landlord to complete much-needed repairs. The landlord did not respond to a request for comment. House Speaker Mike Johnson was at Columbia University this week, where he was met with a good old-fashioned Bronx cheer. Johnson spoke over a jeering crowd as he condemned the proclamation. protest on the Upper Manhattan campus where pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up tents and demanded the university divest from Israel. His visit to New York comes as both Republicans and Democrats have criticized some protesters at the Ivy League School for hurling anti-Semitic remarks at Jewish students. Speaking of protests, they're a common site in New York City. But for the residents of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's Brooklyn neighborhood, they have become a big.

big nuisance. WMYC's Charles Lane has more. We will not be used. We will not be silent. In Park Slope's Grand Army Plaza, several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters are rallying. Soon they'll take over the street, get arrested, and spend the night in jail. Around the corner, Roberto Martinez is schlepping home. Both hands are full with grocery bags. When you get to the police checkpoint, he sighs, sets them down, and presents his idea.

to the officers in riot gear. They inspect it and opened the metal barricades for him to continue home. It was a lot in the fall. It seems to have picked up now the warmer weather has come. It took me a half and how to get from Vanderbilt to Proswick Park Woods. The NYPD now keeps barricades permanently stacked around Schumer's neighborhood, so at a moment's notice, they can close off both streets leading to his 15-floor co-op. Neighbors running errands without their IDs have to use their phone,

to log into their Connet account to prove that they live there. David Vann says this happens several times a month. You know, this is a family neighborhood. Like, everyone has, like, kids and trying to, like, do stuff and, like, you rely on, like, streets being open. Then there is the 5 a.m. drumming and chanting. Resident Danny Nessie says it's too much. But the noise and the bedlam that follows

can be incredibly annoying and distracting. Jane Hirschman, a protester with Jewish forces for peace, who has been arrested several times outside Schumer's residence, believes loud, regular disruption is the only way to get through to the senator. Writing letters and being nice to the oppressor, to the occupier, has never worked. If you look at any liberation struggle, at some point, there's disruption. Nearly all of the neighbors sympathize with the circumstances. Some question why Schumer doesn't just acknowledge the disbursed. demonstrations. Then maybe the neighborhood would turn quiet once again. That's WMYC's Charles Lane.

Medical trauma centers are far and few between in Queens. After the break, we talk with leaders of a task force working to add new facilities in the community. Stick around for that conversation. There's a dire shortage of medical trauma centers in Queens. With a population of more than two million, the borough has three centers serving adults. And in Far Rockaway, the southernmost part of Queens, the closest facility is almost 10 miles away. But Manhattan, with a population of just more than a million and a half, has four centers. It's all according to NYC Health and Hospitals. Dr. Mitchell Katz is its president and CEO.

And council member Savannah Brooks Powers represents parts of Southeast Queens and all of Far Rockaway. They both lead the Far Rockaway Trauma Health Care Access Task Force that's working to add one facility, to better serve the community. For more, the two talked with WMYC's Michael Hill. Councilmember Brooks Powers, let's get started here. How did we get here? How did Queens and Far Rockaway in particular end up with so few trauma centers? Thank you for that question.

So following a commission study that was done well over a decade ago, Queens in particular saw a significant loss in hospital beds. Whether you think about Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, or Queens or Peninsula Hospital in Far Rockaway. As a result of that commission, the recommendation were for these hospitals to close. And what it did was it took away the sole trauma hospital on the Rockaway Peninsula. So where do people in need of trauma care? Where do they go now? So currently, depending on, let's say the age, for example, will dictate. where someone in trauma would go.

So when Detective Diller was shot, he was transported to Jamaica Hospital. We had a 16-year-old who was shot and transported to Cohen's Hospital in Long Island. Councilmember, what does the data say about the demand for another center? Well, what we found, thanks to the support and expertise of Dr. Katz and several members on the task force that we formed. There is a need for trauma care just in the sense that, for example, the Rockway Peninsula is a geographically isolated community, but it's also a growing community when you look at the past census data. And so there is a need as it pertains to that. And I know Dr. Katz could go a little further into what the data showed us in terms of the trauma that has taken place in our community, which also doesn't fully paint the picture because there's an entire.

community in Rockaway that does not utilize our local hospitals and we don't really, we're working with that community to get the data fully, which is the Jewish community that is a pretty significant population on the Rockaway Peninsula as well. So when you lay those two data statistics together, it shows how much more critical it is needed in a community like Rockaway to be able to secure a trauma facility. And I will go as far as to say it won't only save lives in Rockaway. Neighboring communities such as Rosedale and Springfield Gardens, that takes almost the same amount of time, if not more, to get to Jamaica Hospital could then be redirected to

this facility in Rockaway. Dr. Katz, I'll ask you the same thing. Well, we know on a yearly basis, there are over 15,000 EMS calls that originate in the Rockaways and that over 700 of them represent serious trauma where minutes matter. I mean, trauma requires immediate care because so often it involves blood loss. And the way you save lives is by stopping that blood loss as quickly as possible and pumping blood into the person. And so any of people who have commuted in a car in New York City knows what it means to say

that someone is going to have to go off the Rockaway Peninsula and travel 10 miles to Jamaica Hospital in order to stop the bleeding. Is there any question about whether there has been loss of life because you don't have enough trauma care centers there in that section of Queens? When I first was elected, there was a 10-year-old boy, Justin Wallace, who was shot and transported to St. John's Hospital. And it was not for an effort of lack of trying that he passed away when there was a young child that drowned that we were told had there been trauma care, that child could have survived. So there are countless stories where this is a reality of the Rockaways. And I often say, coming to Rockaway or living in Rockaway should not be a death sentence if you're in need of trauma care. And that's why I'm so proud of this council for calling on the administration to fully fund. a level one or two trauma facility. We've done a lot of work on this. This task force has been in place

since late 2022. We've done a lot of studies and communication with the communities. And we are really pushing forward for this to get done. It's my hope in this budget to be able to secure the funding. But there's been a lot of foundation set for this, even well beyond me being elected, since the day that Peninsula Hospital closed, the community has been rallying for a trauma hospital. Dr. Katz, as a medical provider, what criteria are you looking for when you all scope out potential locations here?

You really want it to be someplace you can get too fast, so you need excellent connections to other parts of the island, a wide street so that you can safely go with lights and sirens as quickly as possible. you want it to be centrally located. And I think there are at least two sites on the Rockaways that would do a good job of fulfilling those criteria. That's Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of NYC Health and Hospitals

and Councilmember Sylvana Brooks Powers, talking with WNYC's Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Junae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow. Bro.