NYC NOW - May 27, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

On this Memorial Day, Mayor Adams is celebrating plans to build a new memorial honoring the 99 fallen post-9/11 service members from New York City as part of the Utopia Parkway Seawall Replacement and Street Improvements project. In other news, time is running out for New York lawmakers to vote on a bill that would provide health insurance for undocumented immigrants. Meanwhile, Tuesday, May 28, is the last day for New Jersey residents to apply for a mail-in ballot for this year’s primary election. Also, police in Wildwood, New Jersey, say an overnight decision to close the boardwalk and enact a state of emergency in response to several incidents of “civil unrest” was “necessary to ensure public safety and maintain law and order.” Plus, WNYC’s David Furst and Rosemary Misdary suggest looking beyond the Earth’s atmosphere this Memorial Day. Finally, WNYC’s Bahar Ostadan visited the Green Haven Correctional Facility for a staged Broadway show.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. This is our one and only episode today. Like many of you, we're taking Memorial Day off. But not to worry, here's your news headlines from Michael Hill. On this Memorial Day, Mir Adams is celebrating plans to build a new memorial honoring the 99 fall in post-911 service members from New York City. The mayor promoted the memorial at a ceremony this morning at the Intrepid Museum.

The memorial will be built on the waterfront in Whitestone Queens. We lost the largest number in the city due to post-9-11 service. We will stand firm in our patriotism. We will stand firm in our belief in our country. This country stands for something not only substantive but symbolic. It's part of the utopia, a parkway seawall. replacement and street improvements project that will include a bike path, pedestrian walkway, and real beat rebuilt bulkheads to revitalize the area and mitigate storm risk. Time is running out

for New York lawmakers to vote on a bill that would provide health insurance for undocumented immigrants. Double U.N.C's Caroline Lewis reports. For the second year in a row, the state Senate passed a bill that would allow New York to provide public insurance to undocumented residents, as long as the federal government signs off. But the Speaker of the Assembly has yet to commit to putting the measure up for a vote. Supporters say coverage could be paid for entirely through federal surplus dollars. Governor Kathy Hochle expressed concerns last year that costs would be unpredictable and end up falling on the state. So the new version allows the state to cap enrollment as needed to keep spending down.

Hokel's office would not comment on whether that addressed her concerns. Attention, New Jersey voters. Tomorrow, Tuesday, May 28th, is the last day to apply for a mail-in ballot in this year's primary election on June 4th. There are some unusually competitive races this year, such as in the 9th congressional district, where longtime Democratic Congress member Bill Pasquerel sees a challenge from Prospect Park Mayor Mohammed Corrula. In the 8th district, Hoboken Mayor Robbie Bala is taking on incumbent Rob Menendez, the son of indicted U.S. Senator Bob Menendez. Police in Wildwood, New Jersey, say an overnight decision to enact a state of emergency

was, quote, necessary to ensure public safety and maintain law and order. The emergency declaration has since been rescinded, but police say several incidents of, quote, civil unrest caused them to temporarily close the popular boardwalk just after midnight. Wildwood is one of many waterfront destinations for New Yorkers and New Jersey

looking to celebrate Memorial Day weekend as the summer season kicks off. This Memorial Day, many of us have plans for grilling or heading out to the beach, but here's another activity you can add to the list, astronomy during the day. I know it's out of left field, but here's WMYC's David First and Rosemary Misdairy to fill us in. Why should we take out our binoculars and tell us in? Because the sun is sizzling right now. It's so active. It's at its solar maximum, which is, you know, it has an 11-year cycle and this is the most active the sun is during its cycle. So there's electromagnetic storms raging. It's the reason why the northern lights were visible from New York City earlier this month because there was so much solar activity. So there's explosion, eruptions and storms going on right now that people can see through telegrams. and binoculars. Now, if you're telling us to look at the sun, we need to take precautions, right? There's special lenses that we'll need to do that. Definitely. Special filters for binoculars

and telescopes can be as little as $20 or $30, and they'll save your eyesight because you should never look directly at the sun without protection. If we have all of the proper equipment that you're talking about, what can we see? Well, when you point your binoculars or telescope at the sun, the first thing you'll notice is these little black dots all over the place. And those are electromagnetic storms brewing all over the surface of the sun. And right now, there are many of those little black spots. You can see flares, which are just eruptions. It looks like little volcanic eruptions from the sun's surface of electromagnetic energy. You can also see, if you look on the sun's edge, pieces of it whipping out. It looks like it's looping out and looping back into the

sun, these are called solar prominences, and those can also be seen. So there's a lot of action going on on the sun. There's a lot of action going on right now, just if you're going to be staring, be very careful that you have the right equipment. Yes, basically the sun is belching energy right now. So is all the action happening in the daytime, or is there anything we can check out at night as well? Actually, there's something very interesting that astronomers are watching with anticipation every night, and that's the T-Corona Borealis star, which is normally this faint, nondescript star, astronomers tell me that even with an accurate star chart and a good telescope, it's still hard to find. But every 80 years, it explodes into a really bright star in the sky.

This is called a recurrent nova. This is supposed to happen any day now. The word around observatories is that any time between now and the end of summer, this could happen. so everybody's watching every night to see if that star is going to go Nova. And it only happens every 80 years, so you don't want to miss it. No, chances are most of us will not be able to catch the next time. That's WNYC's Rosemary Misdairy, talking with my colleague, David First. Coming up, we head to the Green Haven Correctional Facility,

where some inmates staged a Broadway show. Stick around for that story up next. A show about life as a black show. Black man in Brooklyn came to an unexpected stage inside the visiting room of the Greenhaven Maximum Security Prison. The nonprofit running the program says its members are 20 times less likely than other prisoners to be reincarcerated after they're released. WMYC's Baha O'Sadan attended a recent performance. A makeshift stage is surrounded on all four sides by rows of seats. Behind the audience, Tall murals show scenes of Brooklyn, a barber shop, new buildings replacing old brownstones.

Correction officers and families are here to watch the last of three performances of a show called Thoughts of a Colored Man. The actors are all incarcerated at Greenhaven. The show follows seven black men as they go about their days. One gets shot by a stray bullet. Another spends hours hitting on women. A barber dispenses wisdom while cutting hair. both need to watch what you're saying and how you're saying. Beyond the walls of the visiting room,

2,000 prisoners sit in their cells. But on stage, a select few are standing in front of a prop bench tagged Gowanus houses. The audience is transported to a Nica complex where the characters mourn a gentrifying neighborhood. This area has changed so much. They'll turn around and look at me like, I'm not supposed to be here, and I've been here my whole life.

It's like, right, you don't expect to see me. no more. They have a Paris baguette right there on the corner. It's familiar territory for the actors. Many are from East New York, Brooklyn, or Burnside in the Bronx. Eddie Cordero plays the owner of a barbershop in the show. Cordero's been in prison for 22 years and says he relates to the characters. It was me.

The streets, it's probably all of us that are in here. Whatever we did, whether you robbed the bank, whether you killed somebody, whether you raped them, whatever you did. Whatever you did, it's all about it. The play is put on by nonprofit rehabilitation through the arts, which was founded at Sing Sing Prison in 1996. Its mission is to bring human dignity to the justice system. Organizers boast that their work changes lives. While 60% of people nationwide return to prison within three years of being released,

the recidivism rate for their actors is just 3%. Jesse Williams was beaming as his 6-year-old daughter watched him in the front front row. His wife and mom sat beside her. I was one of those moments. It's one of the best moments of my life. They're not. My wife, my daughter, and my mom's. They never seen this honor.

After the show, the actors have just a few minutes to hug and talk to their families. Prisoner Kenny Porte joined the program in 2018. He says, acting helps him stay present. When I come down to RTA three nights out of the week, I'm in the moment. I'm not in the yard. I'm not in my cell. I'm not nowhere. My main focus is I'm not in my night.

whatever they have to teach us. I ask Porte how he feels when he acts. It's just a joy. I just feel joy right now. Keenan Scott, who wrote thoughts of a colored man, is here for the show. He says he's seen his play on Broadway in a velvet curtain theater,

but this hit different. Broadway was great, but these men have a lived experience in these characters that I haven't experienced before in the past. As the audience pours out of the prison into the parking lot, Porte is returning to his cell. He says he'll spend the night replaying the show in his head again and again,

the closing scene in particular that features this song. And one day, if I keep on praying, the Lord will let me into heaven. Oh, oh, the circus is my skin. And I ask the Lord to take away my sins. And one day, if I keep on praying, the Lord will let me into heaven. That's WNYC's Baja Ostan. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC.

I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back on our regular schedule tomorrow. Enjoy the holiday.