NYC NOW - July 5, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

Summer is upon us and some advocates say New York City leaders aren’t doing enough to keep people safe from dangerous heat or respond to climate change. Plus, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signs legislation requiring landlords to disclose a property’s flood risk. And finally, WNYC’s Jon Campbell takes us to the Million Dollar Staircase in the state Capitol where a carving of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being added.

Good evening and welcome to NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre for WNYC. Summer heat is back in New York City, and some say city leaders aren't doing enough to keep people safe from dangerous heat or to respond to the climate crisis. Eddie Bautista leads the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance. The level of urgency that mayors take the snowstorms,

if they would apply that to climate change, we would see, I think, the kind of uptick in resources and attention and urgency that's lacking right now. During periods of extreme heat, the city opens cooling centers. But Bautista says there aren't enough cooling centers in low-income neighborhoods where cooling trees and air conditioning are scarcest.

In New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy signed legislation this week that will require landlords and home sellers to disclose a property's flood risk. The state wants residents to be better prepared for worsening storms due to climate change. WNYC's Karen Ye has more. The new rule requires

landlords and real estate agents to disclose whether a home is in a FEMA flood zone or has flooded before. Landlords will also have to tell their tenants about available flood insurance. To help property owners, the state will launch a look-up tool to identify which properties are in the floodplain. If landlords fail to disclose any known flood risks, tenants will be able to terminate their releases and sue for any damages. Environmental advocates have pushed for better flood disclosure rules since the remnants of Hurricane Ida drowned blocks of homes and left 30 people dead. They hope the law

will reduce the harm of coastal and inland flooding. Stay close. There's more after the break. Now to Albany, home of the state capital, which many say is a stone carvers' dream. It's filled with intricate carvings of animals, plants, and magical creatures

all done by hand in the late 19th century. The centerpiece of it all is the million-dollar staircase, a nod to its original cost. Their 77 famous faces are carved into a massive stone structure, but only six of those faces belong to women. That's about the change soon, though. WMYC's John Campbell has the story.

As you can see right here, we have Alex.comleton, as it's labeled, but I don't know if I would call Alexander Hamilton, Alex Hamilton. I think they just ran out of room. A dozen tourists crowd around a tour guide on the third. third floor of the New York State Capitol. One of the founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton, is looking down on them, his face meticulously sculpted into reddish-brown sandstone. They're standing on the million-dollar staircase.

It's cavernous, and it has them surrounded. The sandstone is above them, behind them, beneath their feet. But part of the massive structure is blocked off with pipe and a black drape. And you can see some scaffolding here because we're actually adding for the first time in 125 years a new face. to our staircase. And that is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Yeah, so very exciting.

The scaffold's covered by a white plastic tarp so you can't see in. A sign warns of ongoing construction. A stone carver by the name of Adam Paul Heller is inside, tap, tap, tapping away. Bevan Collins, the capital architect, invites me up. Oh, no, no, I feel totally comfortable. I just didn't want to interrupt.

I lied. The scaffold's way up in the air, maybe 40 or 50 feet from the ground underneath. It's not for the faint of heart, but I went up anyway. John? Yes. Adam. This is my little studio for the weekend. It's so nice, and it feels so safe because you can't see how actually...

Adam's job is to carve the name of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late Supreme Court Justice and Brooklyn native, directly into the wall. It's just below a brand-new sculpture of her face, which he covered up to protect from dust. Ginsburg is now the 78th famous face depicted on the famed staircase and the first since 1898. She's the seventh woman, and Colin says the first six were something of an afterthought. When the stair first opened, there was criticism in the papers because there was no women. And so six women were hastily added. The Ginsburg sculpture is no afterthought. The idea to add her first came from then-Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration back in 2020, the same year Ginsburg died.

Within, I think, 10 days of her passing, our agency started thinking through what are opportunities to honor this woman. That's Jeanette Moy, Commissioner of the State Office of General Services, the agency that oversees state buildings, including the Capitol. Moy was appointed by Governor Kathy Hochel. They both view the sculpture as kind of a two-birds, one-stone situation. This was an incredible moment to not just honor Justice Ginsburg in her life, but also to write a little bit of of a wrong that's happening right here in our building. The sculpture itself was done by Meredith Bergman, the same artist who did the Women's Rights Pioneers Monument in Central Park.

It's not the first time she sculpted Ginsburg. She crafted a bust of the late justice in 2013 after observing her for two days in her office. That work depicted Ginsburg in her later years. This new sculpture is different. This portrait is more like the emblem of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It's her younger. She's in middle age. It's kind of how she is remembered.

The artist crafted it in plaster at her studio in Massachusetts. From there, a Vermont carver named Evan Morse translated it to stone, the same type of terracotta-colored sandstone shipped over from Scotland when the building was first constructed. The sculpture shows Ginsburg's face looking much like it did at her confirmation hearing in 1993 when she wasted no time highlighting her New York roots. I am, as you know, from my responses to your questionnaire, a Brooklynite born and bred. Back at the Capitol, Ginsberg's stone portrait was installed a couple weeks back, though there's still some cleanup work to be done, so it's blocked from public view.

Adam Heller invited Commissioner Moy up on the scaffold for a sneak peek. You're beautiful. I'm ready. There she is. Oh, my God. She's very proud. This is beautiful. Justice Ginsburg is staring back at them.

Her intricate white collar from South Africa is carved with exquisite detail underneath her chin. A nod to the modest fashion statement she made while donning the otherwise drab black robes all the justices wear. But it's missing a final touch. When anyone conjures up an image of my grandmother in their mind, they think of glasses. That's Clara Spara, Ginsburg's granddaughter. There was internal debate among the family and discussions with the governor's office and the artist about what style of glasses would be most appropriate. Ultimately, they reached consensus. Ginsberg will wear big round glasses, a trademark of her early years on the court. But that left Meredith Bergman, the artist, with another problem.

I tried to sculpt the glasses so that they could be carved in stone with the bust, and that simply didn't work. They came out like massive goggles and shadowed her eyes too much. So she came up with a solution. She sculpted the glasses separately and had them cast in bronze. They'll be painted to match the stone before they're attached to the sculpture in the coming weeks. The million-dollar staircase is the Capitol's town square, where people hold rallies and protests from one cause or another when lawmakers are in town. There are chants and speeches that bounce off the walls.

and sometimes even songs like this one from a rally in June 2022. Ginsburg's sculpture will have a front row view, and her granddaughter says that seems right. Even in the 70s, Ginsburg wasn't on the front line of protests, but she supported the cause with her legal work. The sculpture will be looking approvingly and happily on those who choose to articulate their rights in that way. without being necessarily a direct participant in that kind of protest and that kind of work,

but acknowledging that the two have to go hand in hand. Governor Hokel's administration is expected to host a sculpture unveiling at the Capitol in August. That's WNYC's John Campbell. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday. Three times a day. We'll be back tomorrow.