NYC NOW - September 29, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 29, 2023

Mayor Adams urges New Yorkers to shelter in place due to ongoing impacts from Tropical Storm Ophelia. Also, tobacco-related cancers are declining in New York State. Meanwhile, NYC's "open streets" program has transformed a Brooklyn road into a worship space, as WNYC's Ramsey Khalifeh reports. Finally, the Writers Guild of America ends its 5-month strike, signaling a slow recovery for the film and TV industry, according to WNYC’s Precious Fondren.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNMIC. I'm Sean Carlson. Mayor Adams is warning New Yorkers to shelter in place as rain and flooding from tropical storm Ophelia continues to fall hard on the region. The mayor warns the dangerous weather situation is not over, regardless of any gaps in heavy rainfall. If you are home, stay home. If you are at work or school, shelter in place for now. Adam says New Yorkers could possibly see up to eight inches of rain. before the day is over. Both Adams and Governor Kathy Hokel have declared states of emergency

in response to the storm. There are major disruptions across transportation in both New York and New Jersey. MTA President Jan O'Leber says half the subway system is either a shutdown or partially suspended due to extreme flooding, and the Harlem Hudson and New Haven Metro North lines are partially suspended. L-I-R trains are still running on schedule. There's also significant flooding on many roadways. The city is warning people not to attempt to drive or walk through flooded areas. Officials say six inches of water is enough to reach the bottom of most passenger cars, which could cause a vehicle to stall or the driver to lose control. JFK and LaGuardia both have major delays, and at LaGuardia, Terminal A remains closed due to flooding. Airport officials are

asking travelers to avoid the area. Tobacco-related cancers are on the decline in New York State. WNIC's Jacqueline Jeffrey Walensky explains why. A new report from the State Health Department shows that rates of lung cancer and other smoking-related cancers have gone down significantly over the last 15 years. Lung cancer diagnoses went down by more than 25% statewide and by nearly a third in New York City. A big part of it is that cigarettes have gotten a lot less popular over the decades, and state officials have helped that along by banning smoking in restaurants and putting taxes on cigarettes. Unlike cigarettes, though, e-cigarettes have gotten more popular over time, especially with teens. Health officials say it may take decades for the full health effects of vaping to show up

in the data. Stay close. There's more after the break. During the pandemic, New York City launched an open streets program to allow people to safely gather outdoors on car-free roads. W.NIC's Ramsey-Col-Colife reports on one open street in Brooklyn that has become a place of worship. It's Friday at noon in Kensington, and the call to prayer is being broadcast from Masschid Nour al-Islam. is time for Muslims to head to the mosque and pray. The mosque looks like any typical Brooklyn storefront. Men and women arrive separately and go inside to wash their feet, hands, and face.

Mia Muhammad Yusuf is an executive committee member of the mosque. He says it is far beyond capacity every week. We need it because this much is very small, you know, like first floor, second floor, like about 150 people, but there is almost 400 people, sometimes 500 people come to pray. So worshippers lay down mass. in the middle of Chester Avenue. They begin to bow, kneel, and tip their foreheads

on what is normally a street meant for car traffic. They're worshipping in the road thanks to a new agreement with the Department of Transportation. The mosque has a three-hour open street every Friday for the noon call to prayer. It's the first of its kind in the city for a mosque. The transportation department says only a few houses of worship have a similar arrangement.

Thanks, God, finally we got it. Blocking this street, we've been trying to a long time before, but they don't give the permission. But finally, they give the permission to do this. Local council member Shahana Hanif helped the mosque get the permit. She's the first Muslim woman elected to the city council. This Muslim community, we've really embraced taking to the streets for our faith and to keep our neighbors safe.

It's really a community builder. It's automatically creating a sense of safety. Muslims pray five times a day, typically at home with family. Fridays are when Muslims meet at a mosque, to pray, chat, and listen to a sermon from an imam. Stephen Tyler Kent, a neighbor of Mesjid Noot Islam, says he welcomes open prayer from people of different backgrounds. I like it. It cuts traffic down for us. I also like that the neighborhood is a good mix of everybody, and it's awesome that people are tolerant of each other.

The Transportation Department says the public worship on Chester Avenue is a great example of the diverse ways New York. have put car-free streets to good use. Demsie Khalifa, WNYC News. Hollywood labor issue showed some improvement this week. The Writers' Guild of America ended its five-month strike. While the writers had back to work, it could be a slow crawl for a lot of others in the industry. WNYC's precious fondron talked to some New Yorkers from the film and TV world about how they've been managing offset. Since the beginning of the writers and actor strikes, some film and television crew members in New York City have had to pivot to pay

their bills. Alex McBean was working as an assistant costume designer on NBC's The Blacklist when he was sidelined by the Hollywood strikes. I think I spent a lot of like end of May and June kind of freaking out about my finances. These days, he's doing some personal shopping for his former co-workers. He's also applying to seasonal retail jobs. But McBean is eager to get back to his regular day job. It's very hard to, you know, translate what I do every day. into other industries and other areas. I've worked to get to a certain place in the industry and I make a certain amount of money.

I can't just like overnight, like switch careers and still have that same yield of income. Not only have crew members been dealing with less money coming in, some say they also lost a sense of purpose they used to feel from their work. Take Lucia Shapiro. Shapiro spent years dressing actors for big budget movies. she also runs a business making protective cover-ups

actors wear for intimate scenes. In order to make ends meet, she's been selling clothes from her closet and now working on an independent film that pays half of her normal salary. I wish I didn't have to be cleaning out my closet and selling things or just like thinking of how to make money

when like I've already, for 15 years, I've known how to make money, I know how to make money. And that is frustrating because I'm not in control of it. Christine Bean was the costume designer on the blacklist, but is now working at the Mulberry Bar in Manhattan. Bean says she's overjoyed about the possibility of going back to work, but she remains cautious. There's no date on when she'll return to set.

I guess I'm optimistic, but I am planning on remaining at my position that I have currently until I hear otherwise. Alex McBean shares that feeling of uncertainty. I'm just anxious about whether it'll resume in full force. and if we'll all be able to kind of like go back to work, or if it's going to be like more time spent, trying to, you know, reach out, interview, call around. So for some crew members, this is another Hollywood cliffhanger. Precious Fondren, WNYC News.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. A quick shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutich, Amber Bruce, Ave Carrillo, Audrey Cooper, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marse. and Wayne Schalmeister, with help from the entire WNYC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the folks at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrardo. I'm Sean Carlson.

Have a good weekend. We'll be back on Monday.