NYC NOW - September 30, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

A correction officer at a Brooklyn federal jail is facing up to 10 years in prison for allegedly chasing a civilian vehicle in a bureau-issued minivan, firing multiple shots, and injuring a passenger last year. Meanwhile, some East New York residents, part of Mayor Eric Adams' voting base, express disappointment over his indictment for allegedly taking bribes from the Turkish government. Plus, fall marks cranberry season. WNYC’s Michael Hill talks with Stephen Lee IV, a 6th-generation cranberry farmer from New Jersey, about the upcoming harvest. Finally, WNYC's Ryan Kalaith shares free activities for October

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hanson. A correction officer at a federal jail in Brooklyn is facing charges for allegedly chasing a civilian vehicle in a bureau-issued minivan, shooting multiple times at the car, and striking and injuring one of the passengers early one morning last year. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York says 49-year-old Leon Wilson lacked the authority. authority to pursue the car. He's accused of depriving the passenger of his civil rights while on duty and of continuing the car chase for five miles. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in prison. Neither the Federal Bureau of Prisons nor an attorney for Wilson immediately responded to inquiries.

When New York City Mayor Eric Adams was elected to office in 2021, he relied heavily on neighborhoods like East New York, Brooklyn, where he won more than 60 percent of. of the vote. The community is a key part of his base, but many who live there say they're disappointed by Adams' indictment for allegedly taking bribes from the Turkish government. WNYC's Ramsey-Kalifé reports. I'm standing in the middle of Broadway Junction, where Brownsville, New Lotz, and East New York share the same streets. In the 2021 primary, voters in these communities helped propel Mayor Eric Adams to City Hall, voting for him by overwhelming margins. But after Adams was indicted on

federal charges that include bribery, wire fraud, and conspiracy. Many of those same voters are questioning his ability to lead and hoping that charges against him aren't true. I hope that news is false because all these people putting hope on him and he's a personal power, you feel me? He's supposed to be a mayor. He's supposed to be hope for the people, not somebody that is taking advantage of the people. That's Luis Bredo.

He says he didn't vote for Adams in 2021, but regardless believes that a convicted mayor would put a stain on New York City that nobody wants. Adams is defiant of the charges. He pled not guilty in court and is publicly asserting his innocence. 61-year-old Margarita Strada has the same attitude. Let them find him guilty or innocent. I'm still with him, no matter what. People are entitled to mistakes.

But I say he's innocent until proven guilty. Adam says he'll get his day in court to prove his innocence. He also says he'll continue to lead, even though there are calls from politicians across the city for his resignation. That's WNYC's Ramsey Caliphay. Fall is upon us, which means it's cranberry season. We'll hear from a sixth-generation cranberry farmer in New Jersey after the break.

There's a chill in the air. But before the leaves start changing colors and New Jersey residents say hello to October, there's one last thing that must begin, the cranberry harvest. That crop is king in the garden state, which is the third biggest producer. of cranberries in the country. Almost nobody knows more about the fruit than the Lee family, who owned the Lee Brothers Cranberry Farm. Stephen Lee, the fourth, is a sixth-generation cranberry farmer.

He spoke to my colleague, Michael Hill, about the upcoming harvest. Stephen, tell us a little bit about growing up at a cranberry farming family. What was your first memory of the cranberry bogs? The very first memories I have are putting my feet in the bog and helping my family gather the crop. It's truly an amazing experience and it's something that we very much cherish. I can only imagine this is a pretty busy time for the Lee Brothers Cranberry Farm. Would you paint a picture of what it's like this time of year?

This time of year is the romantic part. This is the part that you see in photograph with the berries on the bog, the blue water, the leaves changing. It's absolutely breathtaking. But a lot of the heavy lifting happens from roughly the middle part. part of April through the month of August getting into September, where we are essentially nurturing the crop to be able to deliver here in another two weeks or so. We go through pollination, we go through the fruit development. We are basically taking care of the crop throughout the year to get us to the harvest period. Because cranberries are perennials,

it's essentially 18 months of work that go into a crop that we're about to deliver. It's because they are perennials. They're kind of like our children. We have bogs that have been here since the early 1990s. We had some that were ones that my grandfather had planted. So it's a very unique plant and a very unique crop that we deliver. The well-being of cranberry crops is pretty deeply tied to the Jersey Pinelands. Fruit grows indigenously there. Have you watched the Pinelands change over the course of a year, if at all, Stephen, has it changed the way you farm? The one thing that is unique about what we do is the fact that we are, we're essentially holding the keys for the generations after us. And management of the land is very, very critical. You have to have roughly 10 acres of uplands and other land and watershed to be able to support one acres of cranberries. So in our case, we also have some blueberries that we have here on the farm. But the biggest probably component of what we do is forestry. we have a very active forest management stewardship plan.

The management of land is very, very critical. We've had some forest fires that are in the Pinelands over the last couple months, certainly a dangerous time of year for us. But that's something that we pay very close attention to, and it's very important that we manage our resources here in the Garden State, and specifically in the Pinelands region where we are. The Lee Brothers Cranberry Farm is part of the Ocean Spray Collective. How does being part of a farmer's...

collective change the way you do your work and what benefits does it bring? One of the really unique parts about our cooperative is the fact that we're a family. We have 700 families that are multi-generational families that do the same thing. And essentially what we do is we own that brand. That brand belongs to those 700 families. In very simple terms, we have a management team and a leadership group that helps to run the business on our behalf. So anytime that someone goes in the grocery store and they see that ocean spray blue label, what it does is that essentially supports the livelihoods of 700 families. And the big benefits of that, specifically on the farm levels, the fact that we work together. My next door neighbor is one of the largest growers in the country. And we share

information. We share materials. We share assistance. We share water in our case. And so it's truly a family organization. That's my colleague Michael Hill talking with Stephen Lee of the Lee Brothers Cranberry Farm in New Jersey. October brings, among other things, Halloween. My colleague Sean Carlson spoke to Culture and Arts reporter Ryan Kyloth to talk us through some great free things to do in the spookiest season. I understand that October has one of your favorite events of the year. It's open house New York. Remind us what that is again? Do you know about this?

No, I have no idea. Oh, dude. Yeah. Open House New York is amazing. It's been going for, I don't know, longer than I've been here, so maybe 20 years. If you're like a design or architecture or just like weird New York history and spaces fan, it's an organization that one weekend every year, it's always in October, they open up all these places all around the city that normally aren't open to the public for this weekend they're open to the public. And there's hundreds of them. So we'll have a story next week.

The lineup for this year isn't announced yet. We'll have a story on our news website, Gothamist, with some of the top picks. But, like, in the past, I got to go up the construction site of One World Trade Center when it wasn't built yet, like, in a hard hat, and sign my name on a beam on the 25th floor. Wow. Which is presumably still there. So your name's immortalized in One World Trade Center. Behind their drywall, yeah. And so, like, stuff like that, they do it every year, and there's always cool stuff like that.

So they haven't announced the lineup. I think that's coming Tuesday or something like that. But they've done a sneak preview of a few. So three highlights. One, the New York Sign Museum. Do you know about this place? No. It's great.

It's a guy who, for a living, he makes signs, like big storefront street signs around the city. But on the side, he collects old signs when businesses are closing that have a cool one, neon or, you know, just old school. He collects them, stores them in his warehouse, like way out by Broadway Junction and has turned it into an official nonprofit. The New York Sign Museum. And this will be open to the public for Open House New York. That's very cool. There's also the Domino Sugar Factory, you know, that big rehab project right at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge on Oakland. I think there's tours of that often and probably again this year.

Some of the new condos, if you want to see some of the crazy ones that are crowding out our skyline. They'll give you inside tours of those. So it's totally worth checking out as a big dork for this kind of stuff. Totally one of my favorite. Okay, late in the month, of course. Halloween. I'm not the biggest Halloween guy in the world, but I totally understand and see and appreciate people who are. Now, there's a costume party of sorts based on Fran Liboitz?

What's that about? Yes, remind our listeners who Fran Libowitz is. Fran Libowitz is like the quintessential New Yorker. I feel like if I had to sum it up in just a couple of words, right? Yeah. Comedgeonly, comedian might be the wrong word, but certainly, comic, signature look, you know, sort of like dark blazer, white shirt, jeans cuffed, maybe some boots.

Okay, so Fran Khan is this thing that's been going for a few years around her birthday, which is late October, coincidentally near Halloween, where a bunch of people dress up as Fran Lieberwitz and go to a bar. So you've got like 100, 200 Franz all in the look, the blazer, the jeans drinking at holiday cocktail lounge. Oh, I like that spot. Great spot. Vibe.

Very fall vibes. Delights and everything. So that's coming up near the end of the month. It's a fun time. Very cool. Of course, there are also all the parades. And we're not just talking about the one in Greenwich Village, the classic Halloween parade, which is on the last day of the month.

But also a perennial favorite, love this part of it, the dog parades. What neighborhoods are having them this year? Yeah, I feel like our listeners are probably familiar with the Tompkins one. That certainly seems like the biggest one. Sometimes they have to like turn people away. It's so crowded or you're just standing so far back. You can't see anything. But giving it a run for its money is the Fort Green Park.

That's been getting big. I think a lot of people don't want to come into the city. It's the weekend, et cetera. They're like, ah, I got a dog costume parade over here. There's also ones in like North Jersey. There's ones out in deep Brooklyn and Queens. I think we'll probably have a roundup on our website later in the month. But there's more and more of these.

things they're multiplying. That's my colleague, Sean Carlson, talking with culture and arts reporter, Ryan Kailoff. Before we go, another thing locals can look forward to is the New York Liberty attempting to take a 2-0 lead in the WNBA semifinals at home on Tuesday. That's after their 87-77 win over the defending champion Las Vegas Aces on Sunday night. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNY. Catch us every weekday three times a day. I'm Tiffany Hansen. We'll be back tomorrow.