NYC NOW - February 1, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

New city data shows nearly 30,000 cases for faulty apartment doors that are supposed to automatically shut to prevent fires spreading are unresolved since a deadly Bronx fire two years ago. Meanwhile, New York City Police are issuing tens of thousands of tickets for fare evasion in the subway. Tickets up by 160% since Mayor Adams' rook office. Plus, some New Jersey residents have been forced out of their homes several times over the last few months due to devastating flooding. WNYC’s Mike Hayes reports that making repairs could be complicated and expensive. Finally, this Black History Month, WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk is visiting Black-owned bookstores in our region. Today, we head to a children's book and toy store in Central Harlem that's deeply rooted in education.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, February 1st. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. New York City housing inspectors are issuing more violations than ever for faulty apartment doors that are supposed to automatically shut to stop fires from spreading. But according to newly released city data, nearly 30,000 violations are still unresolved since a deadly Bronx fire two years ago. Smoke from the fire at the Twin

Parks apartment complex in Fortham Heights spread through open doorways and killed 17 people, including eight children in January of 2022. The fire sparked new laws penalizing landlords who failed to fix their doors. The city's housing agency says it's now re-inspecting every open violation. New York City police are issuing tens of thousands of tickets for fair evasion in the subway system. WNYC mapped all the fair jumping tickets in arrest in the first nine months of last year and found that many of them were concentrated in about a fourth of all the city's subway stops. NYPD deputy commissioner of public information. Tarek Shepard says the subway feels expensive to lots of people who pay. That's why police cannot just give some people

a pass on paying. A lot of people who are buying it with their last couple of dollars. They don't have very much after they buy their food. pay their rent and buy their metro card. How is it fair to them to just say, oh, well, you know what? These other people just let them hop. What's the big deal? Fair evasion tickets are up 160% since Mayor Adams took office. You can see how many tickets police gave out at your station on our news website, Gothamist.

42 with clouds now mostly cloudy today in a high of 48. Slim chance tomorrow of morning rain, mostly cloudy in 45, and it'll be gusty as well. Stay close. There's more after the break. Some New Jersey residents have been forced to flee their homes multiple times over the last few months because of devastating flooding. Officials agree action is indeed needed before the problem gets any worse. But as WNYC's Mike Hayes reports, fixing it could be complicated, expensive, and contentious. When a powerful rainstorm dumped five inches of rain on her town over a single day in December,

Jeanette Martinez of Little Falls, New Jersey, became trapped in her home. First responders had to rescue Martinez and her family. The rescue was frightening. It was all last minute. Just weeks later, Martinez's home, which sits a few hundred yards from the bank of the Passaic River, flooded in another major rainstorm. The Martinez family was forced to flee to a hotel. It's actually irritating and it's expensive. Floating has long been a major issue for communities along New Jersey's rivers.

rainfall is increasing in the state each year and state environmental officials say climate change will only make it worse. But the Passaic River Basin is unique. A network of seven rivers converge in North Jersey and need to flow into the ocean at Newark Bay. What I refer to as a kind of a choke point here in town in this area. That's Little Falls Mayor James Domiano. He says flooding from recent storms in parts of Little Falls

was the worst in over a decade. But the issue dates back even further. Since the 1960s, the Passaic has flooded badly enough in North Jersey to prompt federal disaster declarations more than a dozen times, with some floods proving deadly. Damiano says the actions needed to address the flooding will be costly. I would probably target it in the, if not billion, maybe multi-billion dollar range to solve this type of problem that we are experiencing.

One longstanding proposal calls for a multi-billion dollar concrete flood tunnel, starting north of Little Falls and carrying water to Newark Bay. Environmentalists have opposed the tunnel for years. The Passaic River Coalition says it would wipe out trees, hurt wildlife, and limit river access for recreation. Rutgers Professor Dan Van Abbs is one of the group's leaders. He says he worries it would also make people think all their problems are solved. Any sort of major structural project makes people somewhat complacent.

You know, we're protected. It's all good. We don't have to worry about being flooded. But every structural project, there is some risk of failure. The tunnel project has been caught up in those debates for decades. Van Abbe says the initial proposal to build it dates back 40 years. So the flood tunnel was initially proposed by the Corps of Engineers, I think, in a late 70s study. The study just sort of sat around for a while, and then we had a big flood.

That big flood happened in 1984. According to the Army Corps of Engineers, three people were killed and it caused $642 million in damage, but the project still sat on the shelf. More recently, in 2019, local officials briefed by the Army Corps concluded it was the only comprehensive option. Representative Mikey Sherrill says discussions stalled again because some local municipalities still opposed it. But as flooding has gotten worse, she thinks that might change. Now that we've seen sort of the almost relentless flooding that many of these towns are facing, I think there is now a stronger coalition of people that do want to act on this.

But Dan Van Abbs worries that if a tunnel becomes the main focus for solving this problem, we'll just see more delays before any action is taken and more damage. We see this long, long, long delay to get this major project that will solve everybody's problems as a process that has damaged people over and over and over and over in the meantime. Instead, Van Abs and the Passaic River Coalition say the government should focus on things it can do right now, like purchasing more homes in flood areas and transitioning those spaces to parks. And that's at least part of the Murphy administration's strategy. In January, it announced $10 million to buy or elevate homes in flood-prone areas, especially the Pacific.

Eligible homeowners should hear more from state and local officials on that soon. Mike Hayes, WNYC News. The bookstore scene isn't what it used to be, but some neighborhood gems still remain. This Black History Month, WNIC's Community Partnerships Desk is visiting black-owned bookstores in our region. Today we head to a children's book and toy store in central Harlem that's deeply rooted in education. My name is Dawn Harris-Martine, and I'm the owner of Grandmonds' Place. in Harlem. I opened Grandma's place in 1999. There was a vacant building right next door to my house, and I did not want a laundromat or a restaurant in there. So I decided what did this community

need? And I said it needed a literacy center to teach parents and children to read. I was going to name it the Kindred Literacy Center. And my seven-year-old granddaughter said, no, grandma, it's your place. it should be named Grandmont's Place. Initially, the first five years of the literacy center, it was a literacy center. That's all it was, because I was working as a New York City school teacher at the time, and I could only open at 3 o'clock when I came home from work. But after five years, they went up on the rent, and I decided that I would use the 25,000 volumes of books that I had at my house and open a bookstore.

I got some people, but I didn't get a lot of them. And then I started putting toys and games, educational toys and games along with the books, and that took off. I am 84 years old. When I grew up as a child, there were no black positive books to read. I was doing fun with Dick and Jane

and the Three Pigs or whatever, but never saw a positive black child. The books that I curate, and put in the store of books, or positive books of kids overcoming great obstacles and making a name for themselves and living successful eyes. I want to make sure they get a good cross-section

of the ethnicities and the colors, and it's not all about black, it's black, brown, yellow. You know, everybody has a right to be in my bookstore. When kids read a variety of books that cross over, they see themselves not only as black children, they see themselves as Latino children and Chinese children and that certain things are just universal. Don Harris-Martine owns Grandma's Place.

That's a children's book and toy store in Harlem. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WMYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back this evening.