NYC NOW - Midday News: Subway Crime at Historic Lows but Felony Assaults Rise, Van Gogh Exhibit Opens in the Bronx, and New Jersey Braces for Wildfire Season

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

According to new police data, subway crime in New York City is at historic lows. However, felony assaults on trains are up 20 percent. Meanwhile, a new exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx pays tribute to Vincent Van Gogh. Plus, forest fire season is underway in New Jersey. Major wildfires in both the north and south of the state over the past year have put large areas at risk. Eric Weber, assistant division fire warden for the state Forest Fire Service, joins us to talk about how to reduce that risk.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, May 22nd. Here's the midday news. I'm Veronica Del Valle. According to police data, subway crime in New York City is at historic lows, but there's a troubling rise in one violent category. WNYC's Charles Lane reports. Felony assaults in the subway are up 20% this year. These are the attacks that cause serious.

injuries and rattle riders. The NYPD has added more officers and cracked down on low-level offenses, but former NYPD criminologist Chris Herman says that may be backfiring. Does broken windows or quality of life policing, you know, kind of like push people towards, you know, that breaking point where they, you know, start to fight back. Still, some writers told me that police on trains make them feel safer. And police data shows that more than a third of those assaulted are members of NYPD or transit workers. The NYPD has said that its strategy is working and it's committed to keeping writers safe.

A new exhibit at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx pays homage to the late, great Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. The exhibit is called Van Gogh's Flowers. It's an interactive tribute to the flowers that inspired so many of his works. It includes a field of both real and sculptural sunflowers and a giant painter's palette of petunias. Van Gogh's Flowers opens this Saturday. You can see a preview at our news site, Gothamist, and hear more about it on all of it.

A look at the Memorial Day weekend weather. Today, rainy, steady temperature around 50. Tonight, rain and continuing winds with a low around 46. Tomorrow, some more mediocre rainy weather, a high near 61. Stick around. There's more to come. NYC. On WNYC, Michael Hill. Forest fire season is well underway all over the country. In New Jersey, wildfires on average damage about 7,000 acres in the state each year. In the last 12 months alone, big blazes in both North and South Jersey have made headlines for putting large swaths of the Garden State seriously at risk.

Eric Weber has been a firefighter for more than 20 years. He's also an assistant division fire warden for the state Forest Fire Service in its northern New Jersey region. He joins us, to talk about how we can mitigate fire risk. Fire warden Weber, we're so glad to have you join us this morning. Just how common are forest fires in New Jersey compared to, say, other places in our region, other places in the country? Well, I mean, they're pretty common. On a good fire day, we can have anywhere from a half a dozen to 20 fires. They're usually small and significant. You know, we kind of have a early detection rapid response, you know, between our fire towers, protecting smokes and sending engines out to investigate, or people dialing 911, we respond pretty rapidly to wildfires. So we kind of tend to keep them small and not newsworthy. So you don't

hear about a lot of fires until they get, you know, larger in size. Now, you said fire towers. What exactly you're talking about there? And how do those work? So they're basically steel towers. Some of them are over 100 years old now. We still use them. And essentially there's a fire observer who sits in there during the daylight hours. And once they detect smoke, they cross it with other towers, try to locate where it is through triangulation, and then send an engine or a fire warden out there to investigate what's going on. What has wild fire season been like for you and your team so far this year? It's been pretty busy. Much busier than last year, probably higher than average fire responses. You know, we came off a dry fall. We were very busy in the fall. I think

It's no secret to anyone. And the trend is kind of continuing. We're kind of nearing the end of quote-unquote calendar fire season. But fire seasons are kind of turning into fire years. So we're always ready to respond to a fire at any time. You said fire seasons are turning into fire years? Well, it does seem like it's just the trend is getting longer. There was research recently that's talked about increased fire seasons in New Jersey.

since 1974, 11 days in North Jersey and five additional days in South Jersey. So I would say we're definitely seeing it that way where we just have more fire days. And it's just based on the weather. You can almost walk outside in the morning and know based on how it feels and the temperature, humidity, if it's going to be a fire day or not. What are drought conditions like this year and how does this affect the potential for a forest fires? I mean, we're still in a drought, even with the rains we've had. you know, particularly in a far north and far south parts of the state are still in a moderate drought.

So, you know, that definitely increases the threat of fire because everything is dry. You know, and basically dry fuels, easy to ignite, means, you know, a lot of wildfire potential. You know, I'm curious about something. After the devastating fires in California burned so many neighborhoods and so much real estate and risk so many lives, Do people get it after that? Are you seeing changes in prevention, changes in strategies to fight forest fires and so forth? I've definitely seen an uptick in interest in how do I protect my home from wildfire. But we have been getting inundated with questions, concerns, comments.

We've been making appearances at volunteer fire stations with township committee meetings. Kind of everywhere. Everybody's talking about it. It's definitely on everybody's mind. More so than ever, I would say. That was Assistant Firewarden, Eric Weber, with the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. Eric, thanks for joining us. Thank you very much.

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