NYC NOW - July 11, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Amid calls to extend lifeguard hours at New York City beaches, Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue says it would pose a risk to the lifeguards, who must sit under the sun all day. Meanwhile, Lincoln Center is hosting “India Week,” a five-day festival for its “Summer for the City” series. Plus, new research from Climate Central shows how much hotter local cities like New York City and Newark can get. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with Dr. Michael Krisch, Deputy Director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation, to learn more.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, July 11th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Halls are mounting for the Parks Department to extend the hours lifeguards are posted at New York City beaches. But Parks Commissioner Sue Donahue says that would pose a risk to the lifeguards themselves who have to sit under the sun all day. When we have lifeguards that are out in the hot sun from 10. o'clock in the morning till six o'clock at night. We're worried about their health and safety.

Four people have drowned at city beaches this summer. In both instances, lifeguards had finished their shifts for the day. That prompted some city council members to call for extended lifeguard hours. Mayor Adams says he's focused on educating beachgoers about swimming safety. Every year, Lincoln Center's summer for the city festival highlights one country for a week of programming, and this year they're hosting India Week. It's a five-day festival of more than 20 performances, including comedy, dance, music, literary events, and more. Every night closes out with a dance party curated by the legendary producer DJ Raka, who hosted the club night basement Bunga for 20 years. We have five nights, like, who can we program that can reflect

a musical diversity of what something like India Week could be about. For example, the final night features an Indo-Caribbean DJ who RACA chose to reflect the musical crossover between the New York cultures. India week kicks off tonight at Lincoln Center. It runs through Sunday. And remember, W&MIC will bring you NPR's live coverage of the Biden News Conference when it happens, most likely, after 5 p.m. Taking look at that forecast now, 84 and sunny, mostly sunny today and 90, and then tomorrow, showers and thunderstorms in 85. Stay close. There's more after the break. NYC.

Amid the ongoing heat wave in our region, new research from the nonprofit group Climate Central is showing just how much hotter local cities like New York and Newark can be. Michael Crish is Deputy Director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at the Columbia Journalism School and Stanford Engineering.

His research focuses on the impacts of redlining on urban heat, and he joins us now. This new research from Climate Central finds that on average cities can be eight degrees hotter than they would be otherwise because of characteristics like buildings and roads in both New York City and Newark, this heat index is even more significant coming in at 9.7 degrees in New York City and 9 degrees in Newark. What exactly causes these conditions? Yeah, you know, the entire planet is warming due to human-cloth's climate change, but it's really the built environment that amplifies it.

So as cities develop and expand, changes occur in the landscape, so buildings, roads, and other infrastructure, it replaces open land and vegetation. And so surfaces that were once permeable and moist generally become impermeable and dry, and that's really what leads to the hot heat that's felt in Newark, in New York, in cities across the country. Your research specifically focused

is on the connection between formerly redlined areas in urban heat. Would you lay out the premise of your work for us? Sure. So during the 30s, the Homeowners Loan Corporation, which was a U.S. government agency established in 1933, it initiated a racially biased practice known as redlining. And the process was really to stave off a homeowners crisis. And so they assigned grades for providing mortgages. and they assigned four grades, grades A through D, to neighborhoods that were largely determined to be whether or not they were good investments by the government.

And one of the key indicators for if they gave a mortgage was the racial makeup of a neighborhood. And the urban heat burden is unequally shared, and it's directly linked to this history of racially biased housing policies. On average, how much hotter are these redlined neighborhoods than other communities? So it really depends by the city that you're looking at. And specifically in Newark, the temperature is experienced to be around 7 degrees warmer in the redlined communities of Newark relative to their non-redblind counterparts in Essex County. What specifically about Newark, though, makes it top. this list of places that tend to be hot and exposed to the climate crisis?

Yeah, Newark in particular has very little green space, and because of that, 97% of its residents reside in areas that are exposed to heat over 8 degrees relative to non-urban heat effects from their rural counterparts. So it is a dramatic percent of its population. By contrast, I think it's 83% of the population living in New York City that experienced that same heat island effect. So Newark, in particular, leads the country for the percent of its population, really feeling the impacts of urban heat. Now, we know that redlining has been outlawed for nearly 60 years, but the impact, the effect, the result of redlining are still around, aren't they? Yeah, and it's important to state that redlining isn't the sole cause of these high temperatures. But it definitely exasperates conditions.

So it's where we put industry. It's where we put roads. It's where we disinvest in things like parks and green space. And so those things and investments that we were doing in the 40s, 50s, 60s, even today, are continuing to contribute to these high heat disparities, especially experienced during heat waves and instances of the urban heat island effect. What's the impact on the people who live there, on their physical health, their physical health, their physical well-being. Yeah, I mean, heat is dangerous for everyone, and we know that extreme

heat is the deadliest weather condition in the U.S. And during these extreme heat events, like the one we are experiencing, the urban heat island effect really worsens heat stress and the related illnesses for millions. So it really puts vulnerable populations at risk. And it's these populations that generally are at risk of not. having air-conditioned spaces and are also unable to pay the high-energy costs associated with cooling off their spaces. So it really directly impacts low-income communities the hardest. Over the course of your research, have you come across any effective remedies or responses to the heat-related problems prevalent in these formerly red-line areas? How can cities act on

this information, for instance? Yeah, so there are short-term. term and long-term solutions. I mean, the short-term ones are the ones that our city should be addressing immediately. And the main short-term solution is just to allow access to cool spaces across a city, accessible cool spaces. But then there are also long-term solutions that really can help mitigate urban heat stress in these locations. Some of these are like planting trees or putting green roofs on buildings. There are also a lot of cool materials that can be used that help reflect as opposed to absorb heat. So cool materials that we can put on roofs or on pavements, those have dramatic impacts on helping cool off these different neighborhoods

and cities. Michael Crish is Deputy Director of the Brown Institute for Media Innovation. Dr. Crish, thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a date, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.