NYC NOW - April 28, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

Mother and two daughters, aged 8 and 10 have died in Bed-Stuy apartment fire, investigation into the cause is underway, US Attorney's Office in Manhattan expresses concern over Rikers Island jails' dysfunction but won't take immediate action, WNYC's Kerry Shaw spends a morning with Miss Universe R'Bonney Gabriel and finally an unconventional documentary "32 Sounds" premieres at Film Forum; WNYC's John Schaefer provides insight.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, April 28th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Police and fire officials say a mother and her two daughters have died from a fire ripping through a bed-sty apartment just before five this morning. The names of the family have not been released, but police said the mother was 40 and the two girls were 8 and 10. neighbor Darlinger Brown-Bazir described the children as always happy and the mother as a loving parent.

She loved them kids. She was beautiful. She don't need to die. She didn't need to die. Fire officials say the fire was well advanced when they arrived, an investigation is underway, but officials have not released details about the cause just yet. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan told the federal judge, it's extremely concerned about the dysfunctional jails on Rikers Island, but officials won't pursue any immediate action to stop the humanitarian crisis there. WNYC's Matt Katz reports. Despite the admitted dysfunction of the jails, the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District

is not asking for a federal takeover. In fact, at a long hearing about the nearly eight-year-old federal monitoring of Rikers, no new solutions to the problems were raised. U.S. District Court Judge Laura Taylor Swain said conditions there are deeply disturbing, citing the exorbitant rise in stabbings, But she declined to issue orders forcing the Adams administration to follow through with promises on improvements that it made last year. The only ruling that came out of the hearing was a schedule for the next hearing in August. 55 and cloudy showers in some spots out there.

Early afternoon rain likely cloudy and 58 for a high today. Periods of rain tonight, low at 50 in gusty, tomorrow periods of rain high of 51 in gusty, and then rain Saturday night, rain on Sunday as well. NYC. Every year thousands of people moved to New York City for a job. This year, Armani Gabriel was one of them, but Gabriel is the only person on the planet with her particular job. She's the current Miss Universe.

WNYC's Carrie Shaw spent a morning with her. On a recent Tuesday, the reigning Miss Universe was at a non-profit in Soho called God's Love We Deliver. Gabriel was assembling chickpea platters that would be delivered to New Yorkers too sick to shop or cook for themselves. I'm in a packing area. I was here last time.

I'm happy to be back, seeing my friends. She was assigned to a table with five long-time volunteers. After they found out about her title, they wanted to discuss the important things. Like where does she go out to eat? She told them she'd been to Mr. Chow, but only for dessert. How'd she go for dessert? My friend and I already had dinner,

and we're like, let's just go for dessert. But they didn't know who you were? You wouldn't use your title everywhere you go? I don't know how to. If I'm with a friend, they're good at doing it for me, but I'm not good at it. You got to use that title everywhere you go, dear. You may wonder, why is Miss Universe in New York City? It's a tradition that dates back to the 90s.

For one year, the title holder lives in an apartment in New York City. Hers comes with a doorman, housekeeping, and proximity to Central Park. I won on a Saturday, and then Sunday I flew out to New York. Gabriel's win made history. She was the first Filipino-American and also the oldest winner ever at age 28. That's the age cut off for the competition. Her job is to be an influencer, a model, and a spokesperson for the Miss Universe organization and its partners. When people ask her why she moved to New York City, she has a line.

What I say is, you know, people say, why do you know, people say, why? how did you move to New York? I was like, I'm here for a year contract with my job. And they said, what do you do? I was like, well, have you heard of beauty pageants or Miss USA or Miss Universe? And they're like, yeah, I've heard of that. And I was like, well, I'm the current Miss Universe. And then they're like, oh, really? Oh, my gosh. And they get really excited. I asked her if there's something New Yorkers just don't get about her world. Kind of just that stereotype that we're not intelligent women. I think people that are not familiar with Padges, They think of that final show when we're on stage, in a swimsuit, in a gown, and we say that one question, and then that's it.

To be Miss Universe is a lot of pressure, to fit the image, to speak about a cause, and to package all this for social media on a regular basis. For the rest of her reign, she wants to do a design collab, continue speaking about her cause, eco-friendly fashion, and she wants to inspire young people. Carrie Shaw, WNYC News. A new documentary called 32 Sounds opens today at Film Forum, and as WNMIC's John Schaefer explains, there's almost nothing conventional about this. Philip Glass is playing one of his piano pieces for filmmaker Sam Green. Suddenly, a fly starts buzzing around the microphone.

Most directors might yell, cut, but for Green, that buzz is a revelation. I'm a documentary filmmaker, and I thought I knew about, sound, but to hear the world recorded through a binaural mic is dazzling. If you were listening to this on headphones, you'd be hearing that fly as if it were moving around you. That's why, at Film Forum, one screening each day of 32 sounds will be for an audience-wearing headphones with a live sound mixer in the space. Green's documentary breaks the most basic rule of filmmaking. At various points, Green invites you not to watch.

but to close your eyes and just listen. 32 sounds has a lot more than, you know, 32 sounds. I lost count of them after just a few minutes. But Green says the film is built around that specific figure, even if he doesn't actually number many of them on screen. But the film isn't just about sound. It's about what sounds can. mean. If you see a photo of somebody you've known who you loved and is gone, it can move you and

it can remind you of the person, but if you hear their voice, it's something different altogether. Poet Fred Moten talks about this in the film. The most sort of dominant sonic experiences I have are these ghost sounds, the sounds of people who are gone. One striking example of this is a recording not of a person, but of a bird. The Mohobrikotas, also known in Hawaii as the O-O, went extinct in the 1980s. There was a pair of these birds and the female got killed, and so then there's the male who's doing his mating call, and it's totally heartbreaking.

You know, we know there'll never be a response, and he just keeps doing it. For Green, one of the 32 sounds stands out. There's a recording made by someone named Mazen Kiro, He was a Lebanese experimental musician. And it's a recording called Starry Night. The Israeli Air Force was bombing Beirut. He was out on this balcony playing the trumpet and recording, so it's a duet between him and the Israeli Air Force dropping bombs.

Although Sam Green narrates his own film, there is another recurring character. And that's the composer and sound artist Anea Lockwood, who has been exploring natural sounds and the area between music and noise since the 60s. The film's final sound is Lockwood, just listening to the world behind her upstate New York home. Yeah, it's funny, because I've never made a film

where I kind of knew the end and just had to figure out how to make a film to get to that end. But it is Anaia Lockwood, who's sort of this main character sitting at dusk on her backstep, listening to the world, the crickets, the bugs. 32 Sounds is now playing at Film Forum. For WNYC News, I'm John Schaefer.

Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More this evening.