NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Mayor Adams Defends Immigrants, Lawmaker Collects Pension While in Office, Homeless Services Seeks Volunteers, and MTA Tackles Crumbling Subway Stations

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

New York City Mayor Eric Adams pledges to defend immigrants regardless of status, in response to concerns over the Trump administration’s policy changes. Meanwhile, a Harlem lawmaker is under scrutiny for collecting a pension while serving in office. Also, New York City’s Department of Homeless Services calls for volunteers for its annual unsheltered population count. Plus, WNYC reporters Stephen Nessen and Ramsay Khalifeh examine the MTA’s plans to repair crumbling subway infrastructure.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he's ready to defend all residents, regardless of immigration status. At a forum in Corona Queens Wednesday night, Adams addressed concerns about the Trump administration reversing its ban on immigration enforcement at sensitive areas like schools and hospitals. He says meeting with the administration is part of his job, but adds, Children should go to school. Those who need health care should go to hospitals. Those who are involved in any type of interaction where they're victims of a crime, they should speak to the law enforcement agencies. We have maintained that over and over again. The mayor has previously expressed interest in loosening some protections under New York City's sanctuary city law. A quirk in New York state law lets some lawmakers get their pensions while still in office. W&YC's John Campbell has the story of a double dipper in Harlem. Assembly member Al Taylor filed his retirement papers on December 31st.

Then he started a new term the next day. Now he'll collect a pension that could exceed $75,000 a year, depending on which options he selected. That's on top of his $142,000 salary. 30 years ago, the state legislature closed a loophole that allowed elected officials to double-dip by retiring in between terms. But those who joined the state pension system before then were, grandfathered in. That includes Taylor, who has worked for the state since the 80s. Taylor's office didn't respond to multiple requests for comment. New York City's Department of Homeless Services is asking for volunteers to help with its annual count of people living unsheltered

in public spaces. Volunteers will team up with outreach workers across the five boroughs to estimate the number of people staying on streets, subways, parks, and other public spaces. Social Services Commissioner Maliwasso Park says it's one of the department's most important. nights of the year. It's really important data for us. It guides how we're allocating resources for the next year and helps us assess our progress in addressing unsheltered homelessness. The survey starts at 10 p.m. on Tuesday, January 28th, and runs until 4 a.m. the next morning, Wednesday, January 29th. New Yorkers can register a volunteer at n.yc.gov slash hope. Up next, as we continue our reporting on the state of the MTA subway system, we

turn our attention to the visible decay in train stations. We'll have more on that after the break. Sure sure, NYC, that. If you ride New York City's transit system, you've likely seen stations with rusty pillars, crack stairs, and dripping water. As part of WNMIC's deep dive into the subway system, transit reporters Ramsey Caliphay and Stephen Nesson explore how the MTA plans to tackle crumbling infrastructure visible to riders every day. We start with Ramsey. I'm standing at the Myrtle Broadway station in Bushwick, looking up at the tracks that carry the J and M trains. These elevated structures are old.

I mean, you can spend much of Brooklyn walking underneath Broadway towards Manhattan along the J-line where there's this elevated structure, and almost every beam you walk past is rusted, is aging, and it's quite concerning for people. You can see water seeping through cracked paint, which is discolored and flaking along the columns. Turns out, these tracks were built in the 1880s, around the same time the light pulp was invented. It's a similar story in the Bronx on the northern end of the two line at 241st Street and White Plains Road. And while obviously I don't see any cracks or anything that would cause immediate alarm, you can definitely see all the rust spots on the elevated structure.

It's painted green, but that just means the rusted brown and peeling paint is just even more obvious. And this visible rot worries riders. Sean Ebank says she's terrified of the elevated trains in the Bronx, where a majority of the subways are above ground. I always have fear that the whole platform will collapse one day, and I hope. And we don't speak it into existence, no, but I always have fear of it. 27-year-old Sadie Garcia, another Bronx commuter,

says she usually notices her elevated platform rock back and forth like a boat whenever she waits for her train. They need to do something because that's swaying, that's something that I feel like is kind of new. When I was younger, I never remember feeling that. Now, as I've gotten older, maybe I'm more aware, but those stations are swayed in the wind. Thousands of platforms, pillars, and stations across the MTA's vast system are in desperate need of repair. The transit agency has 61 miles of elevated subway structures. Nearly all of them are more than 100 years old.

Most are corroded and need to be painted. Some sections need to be replaced entirely. Those elevated tracks present another hazard, falling debris. Five years ago, a wooden beam fell off an elevated subway in Queens, nearly impaling an Uber driver. After that, the transit agency installed nets and baskets below most of the above-ground tracks. But the MTA says that's a temporary solution. The agency wants to invest billions to shore up those structures

as part of its five-year construction plan. It's now at the center of tense negotiations with Albany lawmakers. The MTA argues they need to move forward with the work quickly. The same problem plagues New York's Crown Jewel Transit Hall, Grand Central Terminal. Here's MTA Construction Chief Jamie Torres Springer. What we have done over the years is what we call priority repairs. It means you see something that's deteriorating and you go and patch it. A band-aing, effectively.

He says it's getting hard to keep up. We have to do this more systematic investment. To get a closer look at the problem, we head down to a Metro-North platform. There's some roofwork already underway. This is the 110-year-old Grand Central train shed. The structure holds up Park Avenue above the Metro North tracks. Tourspringer says a lack of maintenance is made worse by constant water leaks.

As a result of that, we get water, salt, chemical inundation that affects all of the structural elements of that that are holding up that train shed. And the worst thing that can happen if you don't deal with that is you have the potential for a collapse. We lose service. It's a danger to people in midtown. That also means 200,000 daily Metro North riders wouldn't be able to come in or out of Grand Central. Bob Laga is the vice president of infrastructure at Metro North and says there's just so many rusty beams and columns that have to be replaced now. The rust on a steel beam is like cancer, right? It just keeps spreading until you get.

It's got it. Laga says this roof was designed to hold the weight of horses and buggies, not today's massive trucks. Officials say the fixes will cost $1.7 billion. That price includes work on portions of the Metro North Tunnel and Viaduct that run up to Harlem. But with the future of the MTA's capital plan still uncertain, engineers like Laga are stuck in a holding pattern. It's kind of like buying groceries for your house, right? If you don't have money in your bank account, you can't go grocery shopping, right?

For now, Laga and his crew do what they can to make sure the concrete and steel structures don't come falling down. A chunk of concrete falling on a rider wouldn't be nice. That would be bad. That's why we do our periodic inspections. They sound the concrete on a frequent basis, and if they hear a problem with it, they remove it, make it safe, and then we continue on. Sound does that just mean hit it? Pretty much with a spike. The MTA hopes state lawmakers will come through with the money to replace the entire structure, not just make patchwork fixes, but that will require new revenue from Albany, which could mean tax increases for New Yorkers.

That's WNIC reporters Ramsey Caliphay and Stephen Nesson. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Sean Carlson. We'll be back tomorrow.