NYC NOW - August 4, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Sunset Park Recreation Center in Brooklyn has been added to the list of green spaces the city plans to use to house adult asylum seekers. Plus, we take a look at a legal battle over a device that makes it easier to fire a barrage of bullets. Also, New York City’s animal shelters are bursting at the seams with unwanted animals. And finally, WNYC’s Amy Pearl looks into how plants are able to thrive across the five boroughs.

Good evening and welcome to NYC now. I'm Junae Pier for WNYC. We begin in Brooklyn, where the Sunset Park Recreation Center has been added to the list of green spaces the city plans to use to house adult asylum seekers. Councilmember Alexa Avelis says her office was notified about the move Thursday night. She says the city will settle 100 adults there. The center will be closed to the general public, but the pool remains open for now. Avelis calls the move frustrating. but says her office will do whatever they can to welcome the newcomers.

Also in Brooklyn, the McCarran Recreation Center is set to house 80 adult asylum seekers as soon as this weekend. A legal battle over a device that makes it easier to fire a barrage of bullets has been roiling in a Brooklyn courtroom this week. WNYC's Samantha Max was at the hearing. In two days of testimony, gun experts offered dueling opinions on whether a special trigger called the FRT-15 meets the legal definition of a machine gun. Prosecutors and defense attorneys asked the experts to explain in meticulous detail the inner workings of the device. They showed videos, displayed massive diagrams, and even brought in real gun parts to demonstrate how the different pieces work together to discharge a bullet. A federal judge has already temporarily banned sales of the triggers. She's expected to decide by next month whether she'll issue a longer injunction while the case continues to move through the courts.

Stick around. There's more after the break. New York City's animal shelters are bursting at the seams with unwanted animals, including an unexpected increase in straight dogs. WNYC's Sophia Chang takes a closer look at the growing number of pets in need of a new home. The barking starts as soon as you enter the doors of the Animal Care Center, or ACC in East Harlem. A pungent smell immediately hits your nose. The dogs are stressed, and more are joining them every day. In fact, so many dogs are coming into the...

the ACC shelters that staff need to double up animals in their kennels. Katie Hansen is a spokesperson for the shelter. So we are overpopulated and with overcrowding comes a lot of issues. You know, physically for the animals, it's hard for them. It's noisy. A lot of barking, as you heard. More than 1,200 stray dogs have been brought into the ACC shelters this year. That's roughly a 50% increase from last year.

While it's impossible to know why each was abandoned, New Yorkers adopted dogs at record rates during the pandemic. Three years later, staff say many owners are giving up on their new pets due to the cost of living in the city. East Harlem resident Malik Mitchell found a friendly young white and brown dog tied to a pole on 106th Street. He brought him to ACC, but if no one claims the dog, Mitchell says he wants to keep him. I don't got a name, man. Got to see what he do. they got to earn that. People are also giving up long-time family pets, like little mama, a six-year-old pup who looks like a plump hot dog.

She was quietly huddled in the back of her kennel in the small dog room. What we're seeing are family animals. People have had their animals for years. You know, these animals are eight, nine-year-old dogs and 12, 13-year-old cats. And it's families that are just struggling financially. Many New Yorkers tell the shelter they're giving. up their pets because they no longer have the time or money to care for their dog or cat or rabbit or guinea pig, or because they're moving to a new apartment that doesn't allow animals.

Another common reason, eviction. Meanwhile, adoptions are down. More animals are coming into the shelters than are being taken to new homes. In the shelter's cat rooms, there are felines everywhere. Many of the cats and kittens are sleeping on blankets and stacks of kennels that are no bigger than a hotel mini-frize. But Maddie, a stunning brown tabby with green eyes, was alert and eager to play and attacked this reporter's gear. Oh, oh, that's my microphone. That's my microphone. Maddie was a returned pet, meaning her owner brought her back to the shelter due to a behavioral problem.

She was one of more than 170 cats in the shelters, exceeding what ACC calls its humane capacity. It's gotten so bad that the shelters are refusing to take any more cats. A lucky few pets were getting adopted. Jennifer Uding came to the shelter from Astoria to help alleviate the overcrowding. She was heading back home with her new cat. His name right now is Macarena. So we don't know. Got to see his personality.

Yeah. And why choose to adopt here and now? Our cat died a few months ago. We were ready. We knew about the overcapacity. He's very young, but he has a terminal. illness and had no adoption increase for five months. Shelter officials are urging New Yorkers to come to ACC's facilities to find a new pet. Adoption fees have been reduced for older cats.

Three new shelters are being built in Ridgewood, East New York, and the Bronx, where the city can care for future abandoned animals. That's WNYC's Sophia Chang. It takes something special to thrive in New York City, especially if you're a plant. That's why the parks department, has 13 acres on Staten Island dedicated to growing flowers and trees that are specifically adapted to the five boroughs. WNYC's Amy Pearl went to take a look. That life in the tiny square of nature that New Yorkers call a tree pit is not easy. A lot of our beds have been like weed-wacked or get a lot of garbage or like dogs use it. It's a really tough spot.

But animals use all of that. The native insects are all still here and they need food. and a place to live out their life. That's where the Parks Department's Greenbelt Native Plant Center comes in. Lucy's the director. We grow native plants for use in New York City in public projects in green streets and tree beds around playgrounds. And all the plants they grow are native.

No, I mean really native. When we say native here, we mean specifically within like a hundred mile radius of New York City. Like the Black Cherokee. tree growing near the entrance. But it's not a black cherry like anyone would want to buy in the store. Nate McVeigh is the nursery manager. Would you like to try one?

Sure. There's a big seed. Yeah. There you go. It's good, though. We grow that. That cherry tree, and every one of the 200 kinds of plants and trees growing here right now, came into the nursery in a special way.

The way plants come into this nursery is we have seed collectors that make collections from wild populations. Is somebody's full-time job running around in the woods and collecting seeds? Yes. Consolation Prize, they are constantly covered in ticks. Inside a long barn called Building 8, we check out where the seeds are prepared. So when our seed collectors come back from the field, they bring everything back here. Look at backpacks, sun hats. Lucy points out a tray of red maple seeds.

They look like little pink helicopters. So somebody collected all these and then someone's going to plant them and they're going to become trees in our city. Yeah, not every single one, but a lot of them will. A short walk from Building 8, we find some seeds that have grown into saplings. Oh my gosh, I've seen those trees on the sidewalk all the time.

Yeah, that is a really cosmopolitan species. That's a sumac. And a low shrub with little fruits. This is beach plum, Prunis Meridima. You'll see it all along the bell. Parkway and the Rockways. You know, New York City values native plants, and they're not always available on the open market.

But they are available here. From seed to sidewalk, each plant is given the best chance of surviving in the Big Apple. Even the prickly ones. Cactuses. Eastern prickly pear, New York's native cactus. So it likes poor soil, difficult conditions. perfect for New York.

That's WNYC's Amy Pearl. Is that weeds or is that a garden? A weed is a plant that's where you don't want it. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutage, Amber Bruce, Ave Carrillo, Audrey Cooper, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, and Wayne Schoemeister,

with help from the entire WNYNYWNYS. YC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the folks at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrado. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back Monday.