NYC NOW - November 14, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: November 14, 2023

The Adams administration is moving to further limit how long migrants can stay in the city's strained shelter system. Plus, neighbors in Crown Heights, Brooklyn are grappling with the deaths of 3 residents who died in an apartment fire. Also, WNYC’s David Furst talks with reporters Jessy Edwards and Bahar Ostadan about conditions at New York’s overcrowded juvenile jails. And finally, WNYC’s Arun Venugopal looks at Anthony Davis’s opera, “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X.”

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jene Pierre. The Adams administration is moving to further limit how long migrants can stay in the city's strange shelter system. Single adult migrants in Department of Homeless Services shelters began getting notices this week, saying that they have 30 days to find new housing. Those receiving notices are supposed to get extra help finding another place to stay.

But legal aid staff attorney Josh Goldfine says the city isn't doing enough to help. It doesn't make sense to sort of uprood somebody and send them to an office to have this conversation. They should be having it on an ongoing basis for people. Mayor Eric Adams introduced the shelter caps in July to make space for even more migrants. The policy first targeted single adults outside the DHS system, then expanded to families outside the DHS system. In Brooklyn, fire officials say a lithium-hundred. ion battery caused the blaze that killed three residents in Crown Heights over the weekend. WNYC's Brittany Crickstein reports from the neighborhood grappling with the debts.

The smell of smoke still lingers at the brownstone where 81-year-old Alberta West, her 58-year-old son Michael West, and her 33-year-old grandson, Jamil West, used to live until they were caught in the powerful blaze. George Williams says he was leaving his house when he saw the flame shooting from his longtime neighbor's home. I feel like a loss of, you know, family. me a member of friends. FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanaugh is again urging New Yorkers to only buy batteries with a UL

certification, which confirms they're regulated. Stay close. There's more after the break. While political leaders in New York have been urging action to improve conditions on Rikers Island, the city's juvenile jails continue to deteriorate. The jails are now so overcrowded that teens are being forced to sleep on the ground in common areas. And for the first time ever, the state has allowed the city to bypass the law and house teen detainees in classrooms until January. For more, my colleague David First talked with WMYC's Jesse Edwards and Baha Osteron.

Jesse, what are you hearing from inside the juvenile jails? Well, in June, we reported that the city was forcing teens to sleep overnight in classrooms in the juvenile jails. But now we've learned the practice has been formalized with an official document from the state. New York state law normally requires that every juvenile detainee get a single bed in their own room. But last month, the city asked the state to grant this temporary waiver that would allow it to bypass the single bed laws and house teens dormitory style in classrooms, which the state approved. So over the last two weeks, teens as young as 14 years old have been sleeping in groups on the ground in classrooms,

visiting areas in hallways. That's according to staffers at the jail and lawyers for young detainees at the facilities. We're told that at least two teens have reported being physically assaulted so far. And others are reporting just being cold, being uncomfortable and afraid to go to sleep at night. Bahaar, tell us more about these jails and more about who's incarcerated there. This is a group of about 200 young people between the ages of 12 to 21 and they're jailed at two different sites around the city. One is in the South Bronx and the other is in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Over 93% of these kids are black or Latino, and the jails are run by the city's administration for children's services or ACS.

This is not the first time, as Jesse mentioned, we've reported on juvenile jails. In March, we exposed a staff smuggling network of guards, bringing in everything from Percocet to cash to razor blades tucked into wads of chewing gum. In April, we covered a guard who was fired and arrested. for actually having sex with an 18-year-old detainee. And the Federal Monitor last month reported some really gruesome, violent attacks that have left teenagers with very serious injuries. Bahar, you reported that the city was keeping detainees in classrooms months ago. And that's still happening? That's right.

So like Jesse said, we reported in June that the city was forcing kids to sleep in classrooms. We actually got a rare photo from inside the jail of a teenage boy sort of hunched over in a school chair with a bed sheet covering his head. And at that point, the city told us, you know, they were only doing this occasionally to keep kids safe from violent attacks. But then at a city council hearing a few weeks ago, a deputy commissioner of ACS, her name is Nancy Ginsburg, she adamantly denied putting kids in classrooms other than for educational purposes. But it was just 10 days after that that the waiver Jesse mentioned was issued to Ginsburg by name. How overcrowded are these jails? Youth detention rates in New York City have soared over the last two years.

Admissions have almost doubled to more than 1770 this year. That's according to city data. In a recent report, the city attributed this spike to the growing number of young people who are being arrested, and that's particularly around gun violence, they say. But city lawyers also say it's driven by a lack of funding for alternatives to detention, So programs that would provide therapy while the young person stays at home with their family. So that means that judges are sending teenagers to jail when they might actually be eligible for these at-home programs. Okay, Bahar, what is the city saying about all of this?

ACS is essentially disputing what attorneys are reporting. They're saying teens who don't have their own rooms are getting a mattress, sheets, pillows. And longer term, they're saying, you know, they're working to exit. the release of some of these teens and build more bedrooms in the meantime. And Jessie, what happens next? The waiver that allows the city to keep kids sleeping in groups and keep them sleeping on the ground, that doesn't expire until next January, unless it's revoked sooner, of course. It's possible the rate teens are being detained will continue to outpace the rate that they're being released,

and that could make the situation even worse. It's unclear at this point whether the city will. create enough beds to actually house the number of teens that are detained by the January deadline that the waiver expires. That's WMYC's Jesse Edwards and Baha Ostadon, talking with my colleague, David First. You can read more of their reporting on our news website, Gothamist. The life and death of civil rights activists Malcolm X has been brought back to the stage, nearly 40 years after its world premiere.

A three and a half hour opera opened at the Met earlier this month. WMYC's Arum Vannegapal has more on Anthony Davis's X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X. Director and playwright Tazwell Thompson vividly remembers the first time he encountered X, the Life and Times of Malcolm X. He took the subway from his Harlem home to Lincoln Center and set with nervous anticipation as the world premiere began at New York City Opera. It was 1986. had seats dead center in the orchestra.

When the curtain rose, it seemed I held my breath until the final curtain was brought in. Thompson is black and says it's extremely significant that the opera by Anthony Davis has now returned to the stage, that too, at the Met. That it's happening at the Met, that it's officially branded, that it's worthy of the status of a great American opera. It has entered the repertoire. Naomi Andre is a scholar of music and author of Black Opera, history, power engagement, and says for centuries

opera has been an extremely white, rarefied arena. But the killing of George Floyd in 2020 forced the industry to look inward. Finally, opera companies began to say, whoa, we have been incredibly exclusive. I mean, anybody could have told you that, but they finally, they finally noticed it. In 2021, the Met presented Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Terrence Blanchard, the first time the company at stage in opera by a black composer in its 138-year history. Not long after, the Met signed on for a revival of X, the life and times of Malcolm X. Robert O'Hara is the director of this production. He also directed the Tony-nominated slave play.

O'Hara says early on he told the Met that it had to earn the right to tell the story of Malcolm X. You have to acknowledge that you have not had us here before, that you have not told these stories. Part of earning that riot was sitting in the discomfort of what Malcolm X told America and making sure that the audience felt that discomfort as well. You don't have the right to put an X in front of your building

and expect comfort. Malcolm X didn't provide comfort. He provided the treatment. And because we continue to talk about Malcolm X, O'Hara believes the civil rights icon never really died. X, the life and times of Malcolm X, continues its run at the Met through December 2nd. That's WMYC's Arun Vinnigapal. I want to note that a story we ran yesterday about an exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage included an outdated Israeli death toll number. The Israeli government now says about 1,200 people were killed in the October 7th attack by Hamas.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Junae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.