NYC NOW - August 16, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

An emergency shelter in Queens is now open and welcoming up to 1,000 asylum seekers. Plus, concertgoers are asking for immediate safety improvements to the neighborhood outside the Brooklyn Mirage, after two men were found dead near the venue earlier this summer. And finally, WNYC’s Ramsey Khalifeh takes us to a Brooklyn backyard where minority artists have found refuge in words.

Good evening and welcome to NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre for WNYC. We begin in Queens, where a tent city for up to a thousand migrants is now open. The emergency shelter near the Crete Moore Psychiatric Center welcomed its first guest on Tuesday. The word of today is collaboration with New York State, and this facility is critically important. The opening has spurred dueling protests in the past few days. Hundreds rallied in opposition, voicing concerns about safety and security. Meanwhile, a rival group hoping to welcome the newcomers staged a counter-protests.

Fabian Levy is a deputy mayor for the Adams administration. He says the city is scrambling to find space as hundreds of new migrants arrive each day. For those who are criticizing, look, we're out of good options. We're out of even okay options. These are the only options left. And it's a question of, do you want people sleeping on the street or do you want people sleeping in a cot? More than 57,000 migrants are currently staying in city shelters. New York City officials say the estimated cost to house new arrivals keep rising.

In 2017, a woman was critically injured when a massive tree fell on her in Central Park. This week, she reached a $5.5 million settlement with the city and the companies responsible for the tree. WNYC's Catalina Gonella has more. Anne Monarchy was taking a walk in the park with her newborn and two young sons when a 75-foot-tall tree fell on them. Court records say she suffered a traumatic brain injury and multiple spinal fractures that left her with a lifelong threat of paralysis. Monarchy sued the city and the companies that maintained the trees in early 2018.

Court documents show a settlement was reached last month. City Hall spokesperson Jonah Allen described the injury as a, quote, tragic incident and said the settlement was in the best interest of all parties. Stick around. There's more after the break. Now to Brooklyn, where concert goers are asking for immediate safety improvements to the neighborhood outside a major music venue in East Williamsburg. It comes after two men were found dead near the Brooklyn Mirage this summer. WNYC's John Campbell has a story. The Brooklyn Mirage is a huge outdoor concert space.

It's within the Avant Gardner Events Complex. It's one of the biggest of its kind in the city. hosting some of the hottest DJs in the world. But walking by during the day, you probably wouldn't know it. You'd have no idea this is a music venue if you were walking by. You'd just think it was any other warehouse. That's because it's in the middle of a dimly lit industrial zone in East Williamsburg, a 15-minute walk from the L train.

That can be a problem. When concerts let out at 4 a.m., cell service is often too spotty to call a ride-share service, and Avant Gardner doesn't offer Wi-Fi. So I will have to walk quite a bit, like basically to the subway station, to get service to call a lift. Miranda Miller is among those calling for changes outside Avant-Gardner, like better lighting and wireless service.

From a business perspective, I think it would be smart of them to offer Wi-Fi, and I also do somewhat think it's, you know, their responsibility. In June, a 27-year-old named Carl Clemente went missing after he was denied entry to the Brooklyn Mirage. The next month, 27-year-old John Castick left a show and went missing two. Both of them were found dead a few days later in the Newtown Creek. Avant Gardner is also linked with three overdose deaths

since opening full-time in 2017. A WNYC investigation earlier this year found the venue's owner has close ties to Mayor Eric Adams' administration. Adams' office brokered a meeting between the company and a top aide to Governor Kathy Hockel when state liquor regulators were cracking down last year. Jeffrey Kastic is John Kassick's father. He's been in frequent contact with the NYPD

over his son's death last month, though police haven't said much publicly so far. What I do know is that it was drowning and no foul play is involved. Concert goers have been urging local elected officials to support better lighting and wireless service around the venue. City council member Jennifer Gutierrez says she's on board and that she's spoken with Avant Gardner's owner twice about the proposals. She says the venue is interested in finding a solution, but...

They do know that they also feel like they've done a lot. They're like, well, we've done all X, Y, and Z. We cannot control what happens outdoors. In two brief statements, Avant Gardner said, it takes the safety of its patrons, quote, very seriously, end quote. But the venue has not committed to any new safety measures. That's WNYC's John Campbell. For the past few years, a group of Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim writers have been meeting up in one woman's Brooklyn backyard to recite their poetry and prose.

The meetup has now blossomed into a community that expresses views that often go unnoticed. WNYC's Ramsey-C-Ramsey-Colife reports on how minority artists have found refuge in words. Half-life in exile. I'm forever living between April's. The air hears smells of jaccarandas and lime. It's sunset before I know it. Helle Elyan is reciting a poem she published in The New Yorker called Half Life in Exile in 2021. In it, she describes the paradox of winning praise while feeling guilt for articulating a conflict so far away, over which she has no control.

I wrote the poem after weeks of despair. Alian is a Palestinian-American poet and psychologist in Brooklyn. She's also one of the founders of Kan Yamakhan, meaning once upon a time in Arabic, an open mic event in her Williamsburg backyard for poets and writers. Is it compulsive to watch videos? Is it compulsive to memorize names? Growing up through conflict in Kuwait, Alyan took her writing as a form of escape from the world around her. In some of her early work,

she wrote characters who had direct dialogue with dictators, involved with the real wars she found herself in. A child waits for a siren. It must be a child. I wrote these characters who I think had a lot of autonomy and a lot of agency in their life, which is probably symptomatic of a little girl who did not feel like she had any control.

After moving to New York in her 20s in discovering open-mic poetry, Alian decided years later it was time for her to do one of her own. It first started as a form of recreation during the COVID-19 pandemic, but organically grew into a sacred space for Alian and her writer contemporaries. Though not exclusive,

the crowd typically attracts Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim writers who have found a community of words and a shared struggle of identity. Zain Arafat, a Palestinian-American writer, is one of those people. Her debut novel is called You Exist Too Much. She chronicles a Palestinian girl's journey from a young teen to a grown adult,

dealing with reckless romantic encounters in the U.S. She says living in the U.S. can come with its challenges as an Arab writer. To criticize Israel and to support Palestinians is extremely problematic in the U.S. We've seen that at the level of academics and journalists and creative writers. In New York especially, the issue of Israel and Palestine can be challenging to speak on. without potential fallout. In May, Muslim Keuny student Fatma Muhammad faced severe backlash for saying that Israel was a settler colony in her commencement speech.

And for Alian, although Kanya Makhan has become a space for people like her to express themselves, it's not entirely enough. The arts can often be people's entryway into different discourse and activism and simply knowledge about parts of the world. While all that is true, they are not sufficient and they are not a replacement for actionable change. For example, proceeds from the latest event went towards the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund,

which helps provide medical care for local hospitals in the occupied Palestinian territories. At the most recent open mic, some spoke on Islam and heritage, while others spoke on love. I found home in heavy earrings that pull my grandma's earlobes

to her shoulders. You drank in tea, in leisure and in English, happy in spewers. A lot of $10,000 lira in his pocket. It got him an apartment and a few hot meals until he found work as a belay. In Lebanon, he was a chemical engineer.

Writer, Ankur Thakur shared a recent excerpt of a work of fiction. He says the practice of openly sharing writing is beneficial for humanity. It's a cliche to say that art can save us, but art can save us. And places like this make it feel like it can be a daily, weekly, monthly practice. As the writers of Kanyamakan continue to examine their identities and take the stage,

Hala Alian says her backyard will remain a refuge for writers for as long as she's there. That's WNYC's Ramsey Caliphate. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. We'll be back tomorrow.