NYC NOW - March 14, 2024 : Midday News

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

More than 200 police officers in New Jersey are getting new training after an investigation by the comptroller’s office found that an earlier training encouraged practices that violated state laws. Meanwhile, a new Siena poll shows almost half of New Yorkers are paying more every month for childcare than they were two years ago. Also, Roosevelt Island is set to get its own mini-forest. Plus, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams focused on the housing affordability crisis in her State of the City address Wednesday. WNYC’s Sean Carlson spoke with Adams about her vision. And finally, the musical “Six” just celebrated its 1,000th performance on Broadway. It narrates the lives of Henry VIII’s six wives. WNYC’s Precious Fondren visited the Lena Horne Theatre to understand why the show has such staying power.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, March 14th. Here's the midday news from Tiffany Hanson. More than 200 police officers in New Jersey are getting new training today in Trenton because they attended a controversial seminar back in 2021. The state attorney general issued an order to retrain last month after an investigation by Comptroller's office found a seminar hosted by the company Street Cop Training, glorified violence,

used discriminatory language, and encouraged practices that violated state laws. The state's acting comptroller says at least 75,000 state dollars were used to send the officers to the earlier seminar. The training company has since filed for bankruptcy and moved to Florida, saying it's being harassed by the state of New Jersey. A new CNN poll finds that almost half of New Yorkers are paying more every month for child care than they were two years ago. WNYC's Caring-Yee reports that's why child care providers are urging families to sign up for Head Start, one of the city's free programs for low-income families. The federal child care program has been around since the 1960s. It serves more than 35,000 children from birth until five years old and pregnant moms in New York State. It's a year-round program that's

free for eligible families. Margot Simone from Children's Aid says the goal of Head Start is comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition and family support services. To qualify, families have to make below a certain income. But even those who earn more might be able to get in if there's room and if their child has a mental health issue or developmental concern. You can find more about how to apply for Head Start at gothamis.com. Forecast for today, warm up near 70 degrees with some sunshine. We are at 60 now under a fair sky in the city. I'm Michael Hill. Sixth, The Musical, celebrated its 1,000th performance on Broadway last week. It's about the six wives of Henry VIII, most of whom died early violent deaths.

Despite these adult themes, the show is hugely popular with kids, tweens, and teens. Deputy N.YC's precious fondre went to the Lina Horn Theater in Midtown to learn about the show's staying power. Sixth The Musical on Broadway isn't your average history lesson. It's a girl-power take on the six wives of Henry VIII told through original pop songs. On this Saturday, fans are waiting in the pouring rain to catch a manned. The show's message about uplifting other women

resonates with a lot of people, like the Hayes family, who are all wearing coordinating six t-shirts. 14-year-old Francesca Hayes explains why she was excited to see the show for the first time. I love the wives. I love all the songs.

I've been wanting to see this forever. There's even a name for, Six fans, The Queendom. There are TikTok videos where people share their experience going to the show and how to get tickets before they sell out. There are online quizzes to see which queen you are. There's even a cottage industry of merch on Etsy that includes candles and charms. High school freshman Lauren Zolan is seeing six with her friends,

Lela El Mazzelli and Alice Nicosio. It was Zolan and Elmoselli's second time seeing the show. I just really loved the music, and I wanted to come again when I knew the music. music so I could sing along. Because it teaches you about history and it just teaches you about like owning like your part of like your story. The musical was originally slated to open on Broadway on March 12th, 2020. That's the day theater shut down due to COVID.

It didn't open until October 2021. Lindsay Lorraine is seeing the show with her sister, eight year old daughter and seven year old niece. We just love like the female empowerment message, the costumes and every single woman can belt, like nothing we've ever heard before. Actors Storm Leaver plays Anne Bolin, the first of Henry's wives to be beheaded. Lever joined the Broadway cast in December 2023. She says performing for the sixth crowd is different from other productions she's been a part of.

In other shows, she'll forget the audience is there. But in six, she says she picks someone out in the audience to be her, quote, collaborator. Someone that I can see in the audience that's just as eager and excited as I am, that I can constantly be referencing back to. It just is fantastic because it makes the show different every night. Performances of Sixth The Musical happen Wednesday through Monday. Precious Fondren, WNYC News.

Stay close. There's more after the break. On WN MISC, I'm Sean Carlson. City Council Speaker Adrian Adams offered her vision for the city in her state of her city address, focusing on the housing affordability crisis. We are losing, working in middle-class families. who are leaving New York at the fastest rate of any New Yorkers. What this tells us is that as a government, we are not fulfilling our duty to New Yorkers. Speaker Adams joins us now fresh from delivering her annual address to tell us more about her vision for the city.

Speaker Adams, thanks again for coming back to WNIC. It is a pleasure to be back with you, Sean. In your speech today, you talked about getting back to the basics and making city government work, and we just heard you say that government is not fulfilling its duty to New Yorkers. Why not? And how much can the council do without the other side of City Hall on board? Well, you know, we're hoping to move together with the other side of City Hall, obviously. But New York's promise, of course, lies in its people, our great diverse communities and all of the institutions that support our success.

This is what makes our city great. But the foundations have been weakening since the pandemic. We have been losing working and middle class families. due to the housing and affordability crisis, the lack of affordable child care options, which I spoke about, the uncertainty in early childhood education programs. So we know that the heart of any thriving city is a strong city government that can meet the basic needs of residents and solve our city's challenges. We've got to get back to basics.

We've got to ensure that our government is strengthened and equipped to meet the core needs of our city and all of the people in it. I believe we've done it before and we can do it again. Now, going off something you just said, how does the city council plan to get more support for the city's free universal pre-kindergarten program, as well as 3K and other early childhood education programs? Yeah, well, again, this comes from, you know, working with our partners in the administration. We have faced funding cuts and challenges in the administration of 3K. We know that we have to fix it. It's a priority.

We've secured funding to expand access to full day and full year slots to. fix some of the challenges. But we really do need the DOE to implement those solutions and many others to stabilize the program and help protect the promise of early childhood education. We've got to support our children and families. We need for them to stay in the city. So we are going to do our due diligence. We're going to work with the DOE to do what's best by our children. A thing that you mentioned today was transforming the aqueduct racetrack in southern Queens. It's expected to close soon. And you said you want to turn into housing and other amenities. Now, we all know there's a local housing crisis, right?

Does it help to build new housing at a less dense corner of the city? Well, you know what? This is a vision of mine and of several others. We've begun to engage our stakeholders in the area. And let's just face it, we keep saying it time and time again. New York is facing a severe housing shortage. It makes it very critical to provide more homes for New Yorkers in three to four years. When renovations are complete at Belmont Park in Nassau County, all horse racing is going to be moved there, and it's going to open up aqueduct. That is a great potential site for redevelopment.

It's going to present a generational opportunity to build housing and home ownership and community amenities, all in a part of Queens that really hasn't produced much housing at all. But we know that it's needed in every part of our city. I am prepared to lead by example. I want to work with our state partners to make this happen. Now, in the last week, there have been reports that funding for Open Streets programs will be drying up. Would you like to see that program maintained? I believe that this is still a conversation that has to be ongoing. There are many communities, of course, that welcome Open Streets.

I think that it's been a beautiful thing for many communities. And I think that the conversation around Open Streets absolutely has to continue to go on. It gives more space to our children to folks to flow through without really worrying about influx of, during certain types of days. And it's definitely something that we have to continue to work with. One of many city agencies that are affected by budget cuts is parks. Now, WNYC has reported that the city's parks are divided between the halves, like say, Central Park, and a lot more have-nought neighborhood parks.

Recently, some council members have suggested legislation to make funding for parks more equitable. Is that something that's on your radar for the coming year? Oh, I think it has to be. You know, again, I use my own district and area as a prime example. We have probably the less volume of parks, probably in Southeast Queens and Queens as a whole. We need to invest more in parks. We need to build out more open spaces. We know that this creates great, great health and mental well-being for children, for seniors, really for everybody.

Parks were really the saving arm. For much of our population during the pandemic, we have to do. do rights by our parks. We've got to make it, make them more available to our residents. It's going to do nothing but benefit everybody in the city. We have to make it happen. We have about 20 seconds left speakers, so big topic in a small amount of time, but you have two years left in your term. What do you hope your legacy speaker will be? Oh, my goodness. You know, I was asked about this when I first came in. What is your priority? And at that time, I said everything is a priority. We came in during a global pandemic. So we were really taking a look at every single.

thing imaginable to get us out of this thing. Now that it looks like we're coming out of it, what are we faced with now? We are still faced with large numbers of folks that need some place to live. We are looking for parents that are working in single income homes now because mothers or fathers have to stay home and take care of their children. My legacy has got to be one where we build homes, where people can come back and stay in New York, and also where our children are going to want to be here. Generation after generation, this is, well, at least part of my legacy, will be to maintain sustain and build homes, affordable homes, to keep New Yorkers here, and to make sure that

our children stay here, right here in New York. New York City Council Speaker, Adrian Adams, Speaker, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, Sean. 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. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll be back this evening.