NYC NOW - September 20, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

New York Governor Kathy Hochul says her push to ban smartphones in schools is designed with teachers in mind. Plus, a new report finds that traffic speeds in midtown Manhattan are worse than they’ve been in the last half-century and its impacting emergency response times. And finally, WNYC’s Janae Pierre talks with artist and author Jane Rosenberg about her new book, “Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist.”

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. New York Governor Kathy Hochle says her push to ban smartphones in schools is designed with teachers in mind. The governor made her pitch directly to Teachers Friday at a conference in Albany. The teachers are the most effective because they're being denied the chance to have distraction-free classrooms. They're in competition with these devices when they're trying their best to give our kids the greatest education possible. For months, the governor has been leading the effort to prohibit students from using smartphones during school hours. But she has yet to put together a formal proposal.

Hockel says she's working on that behind the scenes, and she hopes to have something ready to go when lawmakers return to the Capitol in January. The speed of traffic in Midtown Manhattan has slowed dramatic. dramatically over the last half century, and it's impacting emergency response times. That's according to a new report. WMYC's Stephen Nesson has the details. This June, state Senator Brad Hoyleman Siegel stood waiting with a man in Chelsea who had called an ambulance. After an agonizing 37 minutes, emergency responders finally arrived. Hoyleman Siegel was appalled and enlisted traffic expert Sam Schwartz to study response times. Across the board, they found responses are slower

than they were a decade ago. Ambulances take almost two minutes longer. NYPD critical responses over a minute longer. It might not seem that bad, but one minute could be the difference between someone surviving or dying. The authors argue congestion pricing, capping the number of four higher vehicles, and cracking down on illegal parking placards could help reduce traffic and speed up response times. The NYPD and FDMI did not respond to a request for comment. Life Long New Yorker and courtroom sketch artist Jane Rosenberg has been on the job for four decades, capturing some of history's most notable trials. Coming up, she discusses her career in the moments that defined it. Stick around. Imagine having a front row seat to some of the biggest court cases of the last few decades. That's

been the reality for courtroom sketch artist Jane Rosenberg. From the recent indictment against former President Donald Trump to cases against Galane Maxwell and several mob trials, including the case against the Teflon Don, John Gotti. I recently talked with Rosenberg about her new book, drawn testimony, my four decades as a courtroom sketch artist. I asked her how she became interested in art in the first place. You'll have to ask my mother for the facts, but she tells me I was peeling crayons in my crib,

and I was always interested in art. In college, I was only taught figurative art as passe, portraits are passe, and I was a closet portrait artist. would set up a mirror in my kitchen and do little self-portress. I did love drawing people always, always. After college, I found my way to the art students league where I studied portraiture and oil painting and figurative work. And that's when I started to really do a lot more of that. You just referred to yourself as a closet portrait artist. Why do you use the word closet? In college, it would be embarrassing to come out as interested in figurative art. Where I

went to college, it was passe. It was all about abstract art. So tell me about the moment that really sparked your interest in this particular line of work as a courtroom sketch artist. At some point, I saw a lecture by another courtroom artist, Maryland Church. I was very intrigued and I said, I'm going to go after this. And I had friends who were lawyers who took me to 100 Center Street, the same court where Trump was just tried. And I started practice. And I started practicing. to sing and practice. I kept asking the court officers, where do the artist sit? What do they bring? And they said, come next week, we'll let you sit with the media in the jury box. So when I went, it was an arraignment. The case was Craig Crimmons murder at the Met. Craig Crimmons had murdered a violinist

on the roof of the Metropolitan Opera and raped her first. And it was a horror scene. But I did the sketch and I thought I really have to try to sell this. So I called the startup company. This is 1980. The startup company was CNN and they told me they had another artist there. I was really pretty disappointed. I thought the startup company would be more likely a good shot for me. But then I had to call one of the big three and I called NBC and they said come on in to 30 Rock and they showed me around the newsroom. It was incredible, scary. And they shot my work on a wall with film, and they took me in a back room and arranged for payment. And after that, I kept getting calls by other stations as well. And that's how it started. Oh, wow. Can you talk a bit about the

purpose of having a courtroom artist in the room? Usually the reason I'm there is because cameras cannot get in. Cameras are never permitted in any federal courts in the U.S. But State courts are different. They vary state to state. In New York State, they sometimes let them in. Photographers have to come and file paperwork, and the judge will deny or permit at the last minute. So I'm often sent anyway because we don't know if the cameras are going to be allowed in. You write about a few interesting requests by those either on trial or some taking the stand. I'm thinking about Donald Trump Jr., who asked you to make him look sexy. Yeah, that was odd. How do you respond to requests like that? I mean, do you grab the sexy crayon or just ignore the requests? Well, let me tell you how that went about.

He was walking right behind me, very close. Usually I don't get to talk to anybody who's a witness or defend it. But in his case, he walked right near me. And I was bouncing between the Sam Bankman Free trial and the Trump's civil fraud trial. So somebody had just done an image of Sam Bankman Free trial. Sam Backman-Fried using artificial intelligence, and it was making Sam Backman-Feed look very handsome. So he took out his cell phone, and he shows me an artificial intelligence image of Sam Backman-Feed looking very handsome and sexy. And he said, look, they made him look like a superstar. Why can't you do that for me?

And I said, that's fake. It's not a little courtroom. So, you know, that was kind of like sort of funny. But I don't have a sexy chalk. Yeah. I'd like to talk more about the Trump trial. Now, though that trial was a low point for the billionaire businessman, your sketch of Trump marked a high point in your career because that very sketch landed on the cover of the New Yorker. And that was the first time the magazine has ever used a courtroom sketch as its cover.

How did that make you feel? I was very happy. And it happened very, very quickly. That day, I came home and I was asked to be interviewed by a, a TV show Inside Edition. And then I got an email from New Yorker magazine saying, we'd like to see what you've done. And I said, okay, I sent it in.

And right after the interview was done, I looked at my email, and I had one saying, we'd like to use the sketch on the cover of New Yorker, and we'll pay you. And I thought, oh, wow, that's great. And by that evening, the sketch was out in the composition of what they were going to use on the cover.

It was so quick. It was very exciting. and it was a big deal. A lot of people reacted to that sketch in a positive way, which is nice. Have you ever felt intimidated by anyone you've drawn in the courtroom? I'm thinking about Galane Maxwell.

Can you talk a bit more about that? Okay. She did not intimidate me. Maybe she was trying to intimidate me. She started to sketch me as I was sketching her. She was drawing you. She was drawing me. She had a paper and pen in front of her.

I could see that she was. was drawing me, her head was bobbing up and down, and I could, you know, I didn't have a perfect view of her drawing, but I could see curly hair and glasses. I felt like that's great. Now, I'm drawing her. She's drawing me. I'm getting a front view, which is really very important to me. I did run after her lawyer during a break. I said, can I see the drawing? She said, oh, Jane, you know I can't do that. So I never got a chance to see it. What are you hoping folks take away from your book? People are always interested in what I'm doing. They don't know. I'm actually not. I'm actually not. working for the courts. I'm working for the media. That's one question I'm asked. And how do I

get my work out there? I actually have to shoot my own artwork with a cell phone now. In the early days, there was a TV crew waiting for me to bring my sketch outside of the building, and they'd tape it up on the side of a truck and shoot it and feed it in via satellite. Or very early days, it was film, and a motorcycle courier would ride it to the newsroom. But now I have to do it all myself. And in the Trump trial, the movement was so restricted due to all the security and the secret service that once I stepped out of that courtroom, I couldn't leave the floor without coming back through all those metal detectors, which would take way too long. So I would step right into the ladies' room right next door to the courtroom.

They had a nice big window and I propped it up on a garbage can there, and that's where I shot it and sent it. Just have to make do with whatever I can. Yeah. Yeah. What have you learned about people and emotions, you know, as you sit there and you sketch. I did learn that you can't always tell looking at a face if somebody is trustworthy or telling the truth because there are people like Bernie Madoff who look like a kindly old grandfather and everybody trusted him with their money. And look what he did. He just used it on himself or whatever he used it on. There are brilliant con men out there,

and you can't always tell by looking at somebody. But I try to see what's behind it. I try to read body language. I do the best I can. But you can't always tell. That's Jane Rosenberg. Her new book is called Drawn Testimony, My Four Decades as a courtroom sketch artist.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutich, Amber Bruce, Owen Kaplan, Audrey Cooper, Leorne Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, Jen Munson, and Wayne Schoelmeister, with help from all of my wonderful colleagues in the WMYC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the people at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrato. I'm Jenae Pierre. Have a lovely weekend. See you on Monday.