Community Council Meeting

I attended the Police Community Council meeting on Tuesday night. As I'd heard previously, our precinct has lost officers, although we have gotten some back. But we're still about 30 short of where we were in the beginning of 2006.

I also learned that the force overall is short about 5,000 officers, and is also missing the crime-fighting capabilities of the 1,000 who are occupied with counterterrorism . (Pathetic that our city has to do its own national defense because the feds are so not on-task. Seriously, imagine if residents of Peoria had to use significant local money to prevent it from being attacked like we were!)

The officers from the precinct are clearly working as hard as they can to contain the burgeoning violent crime problem, but there are not enough of them. They also would like to downplay that murder number and treat it as a fluke (and it's true that it looks extra-bad because any changes in small numbers results in a large percentage change), but I found the spin unconvincing; they just referred to the number of homicides being up for "various reasons". The only real fluke in the data, so far as I could tell, is a death in 2006 which was attributable to an injury inflicted 30 years ago -- but take that one out and homicides for 2006 are still more than double what they were in 2005.

The one bit of good news (other than the increased numbers of officers, which I regard as mixed news since we're still so far below the early 2006 numbers) came from a speaker visiting from the mayor's office -- someone (whose name I didn't get to write down and now can't locate online) involved in firearms policy. Considering carrying a gun? Don't. According to this gentleman, as of November, the minimum penalty for carrying a loaded firearm increased from 1 year to 3-1/2 years, and an "interest of justice" exception that was being used by judges in a majority of cases to give less than the minimum sentence was eliminated. If this change gets kids to change their gun-toting practices, it has the potential to have a palpable effect on murder rates -- apparently, those convicted of carrying loaded firearms are 4 times more likely than other felons to commit a homicide within the next 7 years.

With murder numbers like ours compared to the city, we need more attention. Regardless of any absolute shortage of officers, we obviously need a greater proportion of those who are available. At the very least, we need more and more resources until our trend data comes back in line with the rest of the city. And no fair comparing 2007 numbers to the appalling 2006 numbers and claiming things are improving -- we should not be further penalized for last year's failures!

Quote of the Day

(Do not read too much into the name of this post. I am not committing to a regular feature. There may be no quote of the day, or more than one, depending on my mood!)

"Housing prices are a problem. But better than boarded-up buildings. Everything changes. But Harlem will stay Harlem." - Charles Rangel, quoted in the 1/15/07 issue of New York Magazine

Bagel, I hardly knew ye!

People ask me all the time whether I "feel safe" in my neighborhood. Should I?

Check out the trend data for the 28th Precinct and compare it to the rest of the city.

Since these are numbers rather than rates, you might expect them to go up a bit when the population increases (all else being equal). More people and equivalent crime rates = more crimes. But I'm pretty sure the population is not increasing by the kinds of numbers you're seeing here.

My understanding is that the 28th Precinct has lost some number of police officers. MEMO TO NYC: WE NEED THEM BACK. PLEASE. ASAP.

Bagel in Harlem has hit rock bottom. Sure, what happened to her could have happened anywhere. And in fact, felony assault numbers are actually dropping more quickly in Harlem than elsewhere. But other categories of violent crime are on the rise. I hope she changes her mind and comes back, but I can hardly blame her if she doesn't.

Some new development (in progress) near our home

A non-representative sampling of some new stuff coming down the pike near our house:

- Dwyer Condominium (123rd and St. Nicholas)



- Just getting underway, a development site on Manhattan Avenue between 119th and 120th. (According to the people at the Brownstone Lane II sales office, this development site is slated for a twin of 444 Manhattan Avenue, which is very attractive inside and out.)


(In the background of the shot above you can see Brownstone Lane II which is almost done, and, off to the right, SOHA 118 going up. I'll get photos of those up on a different day, probably when it's not quite as cold. The fence was open, allowing me to get the unusual shot below.)
- 257 West 117th Street (a rehab of a non-residential building, not new construction)

Harriet Tubman Memorial!

Pretty cool. I don't remember ever seeing a sign explaining the construction previously.

The Playground with the Dangerous Equipment, Revisited

The Dangerous Equipment:



Note that the slides come straight from ladders which have little in the way of safety features (rather than, as is more common, from platforms atop monkey bars). The other side of the playground, which is geared at younger kids, has bucket swings and smaller versions of the same antiquated slides.

In addition to the equipment being dangerous, the intersections near the playground are also dangerous. For example, several of the closest intersections to the playground entrance lack traffic signals. Perhaps we should call it The Playground with the Dangerous Intersections.

117th and Manhattan Avenue:


117th and Morningside Avenue:



Note that Morningside Avenue is a total of 6 lanes wide -- two traffic lanes plus a parking lane in each direction. Note also that (a) this is the intersection closest to the playground entrance, and (b) the defect is not unique to this intersection, but, rather, is duplicated at 118th and 119th Streets.

I need to check to be sure, but I'm pretty certain there are no comparably ill-equipped intersections anywhere along CPW, which is an otherwise comparable configuration.

The Playground with the Dangerous Equipment

This afternoon I brought the kids to the playground at 117th Street and Morningside Avenue, a playground which in our household is known as The Playground with the Dangerous Equipment, in honor of its old-fashioned slides with exposed ladders and nearly nothing in the way of guard rails. The playground in question is slated to be demolished and replaced with a more modern playground, one with safer and more attractive modern equipment, beginning this coming spring. My friend Deborah, visiting from Weehawken, came with me, and we watched my nearly-4-year-old play while we took care of the twins, who are too young to play at The Playground with the Dangerous Equipment. (Being 10 weeks old, they're too young to play at any playground.) Deborah also took both twins for awhile and officiated while my son and I raced one another on the nifty racetrack they have at that playground.

While at the park we observed, to our great surprise, the daffodils in FULL BLOOM. I found the sight of those daffodils incredibly disturbing, and am less and less comforted by meteorologists' insistence that what is going on in NY this winter is unrelated to global warming. I was curious to see if anyone else had noted this phenomenon, and sure enough, there it was, in Joe Schumacher's blog. (I didn't get any pictures of it myself when I was there because (a) I don't usually carry a camera with me, and (b) I do not take pictures on Shabbat. In honor of this blog, though, I will try to start taking more pictures, something I've been meaning to do for awhile anyway. For starters, I'll try to post pictures of The (aforementioned) Playground with the Dangerous Equipment, sooner rather than later.)

We ultimately had to leave because my son was defying my instructions on how to play relatively safely on the Dangerous Equipment. (There's a huge surprise.)