NYC NOW - February 20, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka has added his name to the list of Democrats running for governor of New Jersey next year as Gov. Phil Murphy's final term comes to an end in 2026. Plus, New York City’s evacuation plan for a tent shelter in Brooklyn lacks details on what to do in a weather emergency. Also, what you need to know ahead of the enormous Lunar New Year parade in Manhattan's Chinatown. And finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill talks with All of It producer, Simon Close, about the show’s “Public Song Project.”

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Junae Pierre. We begin in New Jersey, where Newark Mayor Ross Baraka has added his name to the list of Democrats running for governor next year. Baraka made the announcement Monday night at a Black History Month event in Trenton. Just a kid from Newarkness that you too can stand here at the Trenton Memorial and say, I'm going to be the governor. Barack will run against Jersey City Mayor Stephen Fulip and former state Senate president Stephen Sweeney in the Democratic primaries.

State Senator John Bramnick is so far the only Republican to officially throw his hat in the ring. However, Republican Jack Chittarelli said he intends to announce a run as well. Governor Phil Murphy's final term comes to an end in 26. If elected, Baracka would become the state's first black governor. Now to Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field. New York City's evacuation plan for a migrant tent shelter there doesn't say where the family should go if the city orders an evacuation. WMYC's Andrew Jambrooney has more.

Since November, Floyd Bennett Field has sheltered nearly 2,000 recently arrived migrants in a massive tent facility overseen by the city. But the official evacuation plan for the former airfield, obtained by WNYC, doesn't say where residents will go in an emergency evacuation. The city temporarily evacuated the shelter ahead of a powerful storm last month. Families were bussed to a Brooklyn Public High School for the night. Many said they had to sleep on the floor or auditorium seats because cots weren't available. City officials say they consider multiple factors when deciding to evacuate the shelter

and have general emergency plans for all city-run sites. They also say staff are trained on evacuations and make relocation decisions based on real-time conditions. Lunar New Year festivities are still in full swing, with the enormous parade in Manhattan's Chinatown happening this coming weekend. WMYC's Ryan Kailath caught up with the organizer of the event. Stephen Tin is a busy man. Hello? Yeah, what can I do for you?

Director of the group Better Chinatown, Tin has planned several events around the city, including last weekend's Firecracker Parade. Firecracker represents chasing away the devil and welcoming the new. Now he's preparing for the first. main event. The big Lunar New Year parade is Sunday, the 25th, but the entire neighborhood is getting ready. This being the year of the dragon, Tin says there are two new custom-made dragons in the parade. We're bringing a lot of new groups, a sign-up, the younger generation.

We're getting younger the parade groups. You can find more about Lunar New Year festivities and ways to celebrate at our news website, Gothamist. There are hundreds of thousands of songs and other creative materials that belong to the public. It's called the U.S. public domain. Those items can be shared, copied, and adapted by anyone at no cost. After the break, we'll discuss WNYC's public song project, an opportunity for listeners to show how that music can be used creatively. Stay close.

A new batch of songs, plays, books, and more, enter the public domain each year. And for a second year in a row, WNYC wants to explore everything your imaginations have to offer. WNYC's Oliveid is hosting its public song project, where listeners can put their spin

on works released in the public domain. And this year, there's a twist. WMYC's Michael Hill talked with Oliveid producer Simon Close about what the project has in store this year. Would you quickly explain the public domain to us? Sure. You'd probably get a better answer from a lawyer, but my attempt at it is it's a sort of conceptual space that encompasses all material works of art, you know, books, movies, songs that no longer or were never protected by intellectual property law like copyright. So the way that a lot of stuff ends in there is that its copyright expires, which is the case with a bunch of work that entered the public domain from 1928 this year. And what it means for something to be.

in the public domain is that that work can be freely reproduced, covered, adapted by anybody for free. You don't need to get the rights to it, pay royalties. It's up for grabs, basically. In year one, the team of all of it heard all sorts of creative takes on songs, poems, and books, you name it. But what's new to the project this year? This year, there are two main new things. The first is that we're focusing on works from the 1920s, and the second is that we, also have contributions from Friends of WNYC. So those are names that you would often hear on the air and interviews on all of it and other shows. They include Riannon Giddens, Arturo Farrell, Valerie June, Locut Connie, Nellie Mkai, Terry Roach, and some others. And over the next few months

that we'll be accepting songs, we'll also be sharing more contributions and announcing more Friends of WNYC who are submitting to the project. Yeah, that sounds exciting. What a list there. There are some big things entering the public domain this year. Famously, Disney's debut of Mickey Mouse, Steamboat Willie, is entering the public domain this year. Virginia Woolf's Orlando and J.M. Barry's play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, are now in the Public Domain, too. Which Works coming out this year are you most excited to see listeners put a spin on? There are a few that I'm excited to see. One is the Cole Porter song, Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love. That's a favorite of There are also some song recordings that people could sample for their public song project submissions.

Those include Charleston by the great Stride pianist, James P. Johnson. There's also a song called Yes, We Have No Bananas, which is a really funny song about a store that, in fact, has no bananas. And one other that I'd love to hear people do their musical spin on is a book called Millions of Cats, which is this wonderfully illustrated book about a man who goes out in search of the prettiest cat in the world to give to his wife, and instead somehow comes back with millions of cats. So I'd love to hear a song based on that story. Why the focus on works from the 1920s this year? The short answer is, a century is a nice round number.

It's also the case that a lot of work that recently entered the public domain is from the 1920s, so this year is 1928. and it just so happens that WNYC is celebrating its centennial this year. We started broadcasting in 1924, so it felt like a nice nod to that fact to focus on the decade. What will all of it do with these works, Simon? So once listeners submit their songs, we'll present them in front of a group of judges who will rank them based on creativity, the amount of effort that went into these recordings, and we'll pick a few of our favorites, and those favorites will get to be featured on all of it, and we'll play the songs, and the creators will be interviewed by Allison.

Now I have one last question for you. Can you play us out? Sure. Yeah. So last year, I came along with a recording of a song that I played on ukulele, and I understood that there was a request to do it again this year. So I tried my hand at a song called When You're Smiling, which entered the public domain this year. I changed up the lyrics just a little bit to fit the theme. When you're smiling, when you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you. When you're singing, when you're singing, the sun comes shining through. So just try singing something from the public domain and send it into us, provided you're at

18 years old. Hey, when you're smiling and when you're singing, the whole world smiles with you. That's Simon Close, producer of WMYC's All of It, talking with my colleague, Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.