NYC NOW - August 9, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

A hole in the sidewalk outside a coffee shop in SoHo is raising concerns about New York City’s infrastructure. Plus, details on three days of events honoring the life of New Jersey’s late Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver. And finally, WNYC’s Sean Carlson talks with advocates in New York City’s Haitian community amid violence in Port-au-Prince after the kidnapping of an American nurse and her daughter.

Good evening and welcome to NYC now. I'm Jenae Pierre for WNYC. I am concerned. It's alarming. And like I didn't realize that sidewalks could just erode like that. Imagine you're walking down the street and you notice a crack in the sidewalk. One so deep, you can see trains running in the subway station below. Well, that's what happened outside a coffee shop in Soho at Spring and Lafayette Streets. Tuscany Fussard works there.

They notice the hole in post. posted a video to social media that soon went viral. Fussart says it raises bigger concerns about city infrastructure. This is horrible street maintenance, and it's always dirty, it's always neglected. I don't know. I was just, it was just silly to me that, like, there's a real hole to it. There are more than 150 311 complaints about the hole. Officials with the New York City Department of Transportation say it needs the MTA

to repair the Spring Street subway station before it can do anything. The MTA says it's investigating. Now to New Jersey, where the funeral for Lieutenant Governor Sheila Oliver is set for Saturday in Newark. But beginning Thursday, there will be three days of events to honor her life and service. WNYC's Nancy Solomon has the details. First, Sheila Oliver's body will lie in state in the rotunda of the capital in Trenton. Then it'll be transported by Honor Guard to the Essex County Historic Courthouse on Friday. The public is welcome to attend either viewing.

On Saturday, an official state funeral and memorial service for the lieutenant governor will be held at the cathedral basilica of the Sacred Heart, one of the largest cathedrals in North America. Oliver died last week at the age of 71 from an undisclosed illness. Governor Phil Murphy will speak at the funeral. He's ordered flags in New Jersey to fly at half staff for a month, and will have a portrait of Oliver installed at the state house. Stick around. There's more after the break. But why secret?

The U.S. government is urging American citizens to leave Haiti, after an American nurse and her child were kidnapped. They've just been released, but the violence is ongoing. Last week, thousands of people marched through the capital porter prince, demanding protection from the bloodshed. Kenya recently offered to lead a multinational police force to restore order. As the crisis unfolds, Haitian communities in New York City have been struggling to help people in their native country.

For a local perspective, WNYC's Sean Carlson talked with Rico DuPui, co-founder of Radio Soleil, and Maurice Cadet, president of the Association for the Children of Renei Haiti. Rico, what have you been hearing from the community here about the current unrest, and what are they hearing from family and friends who are still in Haiti? The talk of the town now is the projected foreign intervention by foreign forces with Kenya at the head. this is the matter being debated. Some people for it, some people against it. My understanding is that the people who have the least sense of history, they would embrace it. But the people who are schooled in Haitian history, they're not applauding because foreign intervention is part of what

our problem is. The U.S. entered Haiti in 1915, and they stayed there for 19 years. And then you have the series of intervention by the United Nations that was supposed to give us a Haiti free of gangs, free of political persecutions, and things intensified. Things got worse. So foreign intervention has never been good for us. In fact, foreign intervention is to a great degree why we are where we are. Maurice, can you tell us more about your organization and how the decision to start a school in Réniei came about? Basically, the association for the children of Rénier was founded in 1995. We opened a school in Caius, which is in Lé, one of the town. And then we found out a majority of the people over there doesn't know how to read and write. And also we have families

that has 10 to 11 children. None of them go to school. So we see there was a need there for education. And also they have to leave the town to go to the city of Caius, which is on distance. And some of them doesn't have parents over there in the city of Caius, and then those that could afford it, go send people, those children, to the city of Caius, when the majority of the girls, they come back quickness. So there was a need, a big need over there for education. How has the unrest in Haiti affected your work?

And are you still able to send resources to the school? It's a big problem for us, because not only we cannot go to visit the school, to visit the students, to visit the students, to visit the staff, to have meeting with them. We have to conduct everything on Zoom, on WhatsApp, and sometimes because they don't have electricity over there, and sometimes with the WhatsApp,

you have the communication keep breaking and everything you don't get well. It's not conducted the way we expect it to be conducted. And in addition to of that, we send school supplies and clothes for the students and meal for the kids, and those things doesn't reach the school at all. So it's a big thing.

And the teachers also, that some of them come from the city of Kites, to go to teach the kids, they cannot come because of the insecurity. What have you been hearing from students and teachers who are on the ground in René right now? Basically, everybody that is in Haiti is afraid for their lives. It's like they go to sleep at night. They don't know if they're going to be alive tomorrow. That's the way it is. That's the way it is. And these kids, they cannot afford laptop.

Well, they cannot afford to have classes, visual classes on Zoom, just like over here. Not only the parents cannot provide them at the laptop, but also there is no electricity over there. Rico, has the Haitian community in New York City been coming together to support each other during these times? The diaspora, to a great degree, they carry the bunt of everything. So whatever they used to send to their relatives in Haiti, they had to increase it. The price of everything has gone up. If, for example, in a normal situation, you make a call to Haiti and the person doesn't answer, you wait and you make another call.

But in Haiti right now, if you call once, you call a second time, the person does not answer. The first thing that comes to your mind is, did something happen? Was that person kidnapped? It gets to that point. People have their death in the family. They can't go there. and Haitians are very, very family-oriented. For Haitians not to be able to go to a parent funeral,

that's in the death sentence. Kidnap family members in Haiti. They call the diaspora for help. And so we essentially are the one paying for those ransoms. And just imagine the level of stress associated with all this. So whatever they're feeling in Haiti, to a great degree, we feel it as well. RICO, how do you think people can help Haiti right now? The way to help Haiti is to understand.

what Haitians want. They want to be able to choose their leaders, and that is the problem. Haitians have been denied, and this for a long time, their leaders are chosen by the international community, the so-called core group. It's a group of like six, the UN, the US, the US, Canada, France, and so on. Not a fly flies in Haiti without the approval of the international community. It is that bad. And they prefer to a so-called December 21st accord by Ariel. about who is Ariya. I don't even call him the prime minister because he was not elected. He's totally illegitimate. And the international community is okay with it when the vast majority of Haitian are saying upon our dead body. So the way for people to help us is to allow the

Haitian story, the true Haitian story, to be told, not the concocted story by the international community. That's Rico Dupuy and Maurice Kadee talking with WNYC's Sean Carlson. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us everywhere. weekday, three times a day. We'll be back tomorrow.