Manhattan is Deteriorating Rapidly

[OrdinaryTa]

It doesn't sound plausible that wealthy Manhattan would be poor, but it's true! The City doesn't have the money to pay for basic services like timely garbage collection. The rats have learned to break open plastic garbage bags left on the street, but from what I saw today, they don't even need to do that. Manhattan is filthy - there's garbage all over the place. Maybe the tourist areas are still being maintained, but New York's deterioration over two years is stunning.

I'm waiting for the less visible deterioration to start manifesting itself. When will New York crime make a comeback? The city was once notorious for street muggings and murders. Rudy Giuliani got away with neglecting the poor and disoriented during good times, but those days are gone. Bob Herbert writes about the despair of the jobless in America, but it is especially acute in New York:

The stories have been rolling in for some time about the stresses and misfortunes that are inevitably associated with long-term joblessness: the bankruptcies, foreclosures and evictions, the dreams deferred, the mental difficulties — anxiety, depression — the excessive drinking and abuse of drugs, the family violence. There are few things more miserable than to need a job and be unable to find one ...

http://truthout.org/docs_03/080803G.shtml

[paulsbc]

1. sounds horrible..

i've heard that NYC is so expensive that the only people able to live there are the uber-rich or the complete poor, and it is getting worse, not better...

any ideas on how to fix it?

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Republican suburbanites.

You can thank all those middle-class Republican suburbanites who make their living commuting into Manhattan to make bundles of dough, but don't feel they owe the city a penny in taxes.

[NYC]

2. Garbage pick up was not decreased in Manhattan.

In the other boroughs, the schedule was cut back. In Manhattan, they left it the same.

During Giuliani's reign, the garbage pick up was decreased, and the rat extermination budget was decreased significantly. (I think it was cut in half, but I don't remember definitely.) I used to see pictures on the evening news of the numerous rats that were disturbing residents.

Billionaire Bloomberg cuts services, then reinstates them. (???) I don't know what is going on with the paving, but in midtown (prime real estate) some of the avenues have become very choppy. They've been repaved with something that clumps. Very weird, and probably the result of cost cutting.

[OrdinaryTa]

3. It's Not Just Rats

I knew when it happened that September 11th might be turned into a mythical event absorbed into pop culture. I feared that New York would be shocked into a collective post-traumatic depression. New York was proud and vibrant before the attack, but since then there's a lingering gloom over the city. We're not supposed to acknowledge it, it's bad for business.

New Yorkers' vaunted resilience is a myth. September 11th was traumatic in itself, but the event was subverted and used as justification for Bush's phony war. Our grief was stolen from us; we couldn't mourn our dead without warmongers interpreting it as support for killing the innocent of other nations.

Can a whole city be traumatized like an individual? Do the same psychological processes take place? Perhaps New Yorkers, quite unused to seeing ourselves as victims, unconsciously feel that we brought the attack upon ourselves. This loss of self-esteem manifests itself in garbage all over the place. A recent news story reported that rats drove firemen out of their firehouse - what a symbolic denouement to the September 11th attack.

Faithless Giuliani went off and made huge piles of money for himself, abandoning the public interest the same way he abandoned his wife. If he were a true New York patriot, he would have demanded generous reparations to New York for an attack on America. Instead, he allowed Bush to get away with a stingy, half-hearted response, most of which amounted to putting up barricades and filling the streets with soldiers.

It will be high irony if New Yorkers turned out en masse to protest the 2004 Republican convention. How shameful of Republicans to steal our grief and use it as justification for wars they'd planned long before September 11th.

[ReadTomPaine]

4. Your words strike right to the heart of the matter.

As a person who lived in NYC for over a quarter century and had friends and old classmates lost in the tower attacks, I thank you for writing this. The fury I feel whenever 9/11 is invoked by the current administration is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. There will come a day when Bush/Cheney bumperstickers will be as rare as Nixon's were in the 70's and no one will admit to having supported them, but I will never forget or forgive those responsible for breaking the spirit of NYC or the people who help them make it happen.

[aquart]

5. Nobody stole our grief.

Our grief is ours. And it's the nation's, too, which we sometimes forget, it's such an intimate, personal pain.

Bush USED our grief. He dares to continue to use it. It's clear, though, that he doesn't feel it.

We are not the first city, however, that's been overtaken by disaster. San Francisco and Chicago and Atlanta could tell us a few things about getting on and getting better.

I'm sorry you can't forgive Giuliani. You might want to remember that he was a victim who nonetheless kept functioning AND KEPT THE CITY FUNCTIONING for months on end. That was the same year he was battling cancer and dealing with a nasty divorce (much of the nastiness being his) and an inevitable career change because of term limits. You reserve the right to be blighted and depressed but Giuliani must stay in harness forever?

Me, I forgive Giuliani. His rent is paid. He can be a flaming asshole every day for the rest of his life and I'm fine with it. He did what I needed him to do when I desperately needed it.

Bush, I will never forgive. We needed help and healing and all he offered was a phony revenge. May he never sleep.

[Gin]

7. I live in Virginia and felt the shock and horror of 9-11 from a distance..

The effect it had on me was much deeper than I expected and lasted much longer than I expected. I can only imagine the depth of grief and shock the people of the city felt, and feel.

Yes, you can still be feeling the effects of the tragedy. Two years is not a long time.

Yes, the white house is exploiting the tragedy. Compassion is not on their agenda. Sociopaths say they feel your pain while adding to it.

[OrdinaryTa]

8. Forgiving Giuliani

I'm sorry you can't forgive Giuliani

It's not about forgiveness; it's about keeping the record straight. Giuliani gets way too much credit for keeping the city going after September 11th. It's true that he didn't lose his composure the way Bush did, but let us candidly admit that Bush was a disgrace. The fact that Giuliani managed to face live cameras would ordinarily be minimal except that Bush couldn't do it.

Who really kept the city going after September 11th? New Yorkers did, not Giuliani. If the truth be told, Giuliani's incompetence made September 11th even worse than it needed to be. He knew an attack on New York was in the works; they all did. He fortified City Hall a full year before September 11th, and had a command bunker built in 7 World Trade. But his emergency management team didn't even check to see if Fire Department radios on the ground could communicate with fire fighters on the upper stories of the Trade Center. Giuliani's command bunker was worse than useless in the crisis; its huge reserves of diesel fuel helped bring that building down.

Yes, it's petty to comment on Giuliani's personal life. However, as mayor he made it a personal crusade to shut down the sex industry in New York. He harassed movie theaters out of business. Meanwhile he was screwing his mistress in Gracie Mansion while his wife and children slept upstairs.

September 11th shouldn't make people forget about the victims of police brutality that went out of control during the Giuliani years. Abner Louima had a billy club shoved up his rectum; Amadou Diallo was gunned down in front of his house by undercover cops who later got away with it; and Patrick Dorismond, killed by a narcotics cop who was trying to entrap him.

Now that Giuliani is gone from City Hall, nobody wants to contest whether he's really the hero of September 11th that the press turned him into. It doesn't bother anybody that he lives like a maharajah now, but the reality is that he hasn't done anything to goad the Bush Administration into providing the substantial help that Bush promised New York after the attack.

[GabysPoppy]

9. There is plenty to lay on Rudy, this is not one of them

"Yes, it's petty to comment on Giuliani's personal life. However, as mayor he made it a personal crusade to shut down the sex industry in New York. He harassed movie theaters out of business. Meanwhile he was screwing his mistress in Gracie Mansion while his wife and children slept upstairs."

Nothing like that happened at Gracie Mansion and that has never been charged by Donna. If you want to be taken seriously you should know the facts about this.

[OrdinaryTa]

11. Source of the Reports

Donna Hanover was not the source of these reports. Gracie Mansion is always swarming with cops, some of whom soured on Giuliani after the ongoing Zeroes for Heroes controversy. The Palace Guards were only too happy to divulge the salacious details to the Democratic shit machine. That, not prostate cancer, pushed Giuliani out of the Senate race. It may also be the reason Bush hasn't appointed Giuliani to anything.

Granted, Rudy boffing the first mistress in Grace Mansion isn't common knowledge, but it was reported in the Village Voice. He may or may not have boffed the second one there, but he did want to move her in. Donna had to go to court to stop it. That's part of the public record.

Rudy is a big time hypocrite, right up there with Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich. During the Giuliani years, an ordinance was passed forbidding same-sex hand-holding in movie theaters. Don't tell me it didn't happen - it's also part of the public record.

[GabysPoppy]

13. You are still incorrect

"Granted, Rudy boffing the first mistress in Grace Mansion isn't common knowledge, but it was reported in the Village Voice. He may or may not have boffed the second one there, but he did want to move her in. Donna had to go to court to stop it. That's part of the public record."

That is not why she went to court.


This is the end to the public discourse. Feel free to PM me if you must know why you are wrong.

[OrdinaryTa]

15. The Details Aren't Important

I don't keep up with Page Six of the Post, so it's possible I'm wrong about some details of when and where Rudy boffed his mistresses. This wouldn't be of interest except that he did this schtupping when he was posing as a crusader for sexual morality.

You can't deny the fact that the New York Civil Liberties Union went to court to overturn Giuliani's ordinance against same-sex hand-holding in movie theaters. The fact that you never heard of that does not mean it didn't happen.

He's a mutt.

[greekspeak]

10. Your view of things...goes seriously unheard

I have not heard much about how Manhattanites have been treated. The media concentrates on the glittering memorial, presidential photo-ops right after the attack, and posters of rescuers. We dont hear much about how the rescuers are treated in day to day life. We dont hear about what living in New York has come to be like. The "librul" media doesn't want us to see what life is really like there.

I have been to Manhattan once, in December of 1999. I did not see the blight you described. In fact, the Manhattan I saw had no more infrastructural big city problems than Kansas City. To bad the rest of us are not allowed to see ther reality of the situation post attack.

[HootieMcBoob]

12. NYC is in a downward spiral.

I've lived here since 1987 was here off and on since 1980. Things were bad and sometimes really scary in the 80s but at least people could afford to live here. There were places in Manhattan where a normal (not rich) person could actually afford to live. Not anymore. Manhattan is a freakin' theme park. You either have to be outrageously rich, outrageously poor or outrageously lucky to find an affordable place there. Almost all of my friends who are still living in Manhattan, are living in rent stabalized places that they managed to get ahold of over 10 years ago.

I live in Brooklyn and it's bad here too. Luckily, my partner and I are in a stabalized place. Nothing fancy at all, just a railroad. Last week just for kicks we looked at an apt in a builing that is going co-op. It was the same size as the apt we live in but had been renovated. Again, just a little railroad. They were asking $450,000! Can you freakin' belive that? Get out while you still can!!

[Liberate]

14. Its just as bad as most of you have described

I live in Brooklyn and visit the City frequently. Pollution due to a lack of garbage pickup in the five surrounding boroughs is getting bad. Theres more homeless on the trains then ive noticed in the past, and the City is losing alot of money due to a lack of tourism. But thats the least of the citys problems.
Theres not a large republican base here so no coup or "recall" can be planned to unseat our governor or mayor. As a student I can tell you a very sad tale due to a city deficit(caused by the national deficit). Governor Pataki and City University officals have decided to raise tuiton on the citys affordable schools, to help close a budget gap. So on top of the unemployment which is the highest in New York City out of the whole nation...Poor students who were just getting by with bills for school will now be shut out with no chance of an education at all.
Who ever commented about only the very wealthy being able to afford to live in the city is correct. An extremly small studio apartment cost just as much as a big affordable house in the suburbs. Maybe that explains why studys show more and more people are leaving for the suburbs.
I believe New York City is just a sample for the rest of the nation of whats to come under another four years of Bush. The Middle class is all but eliminated in the city, and everything is either funded by the rich or balanced on the backs of the poor. I remember when those two towers stood proudly in the air, when more people were gracious. I plan to protest when Bush and the Republican convention comes here to exploit the names of the dead for political gain. I only hope more people of this city and in the country do.

[SpiralHawk]

16. "Bring 'em on" - Repubs set 2004 Convention for NYC

in Sept., 2004 -- to place themselves in immediate juxtaposition to the site of the 9/11 disaster site at the time of its 3rd anniversary. They want to EXPLOIT this tragedy and posture themselves as saviors. But I predict that instead, New Yorkers will SEE THE TRUTH, and so will the rest of America. This Republican shit just won't float.

I think the Rs and their sorry-ass Chimp-in-Chief* are going to rue this decision, and rue it on a scale destined for the history books.


* Clearly rejected by discerning and patriotic American voters in 2000; appointed to office by the so-called supreme court.

[indigo32]

18. I think thats the most transparent

and in poor taste maneuver they have ever pulled. Every time I think about it I get angry.

[OrdinaryTa]

19. Echoes of February's Anti-War March

I was part of New York's massive anti-war demonstration in February, the largest I've ever seen. Despite the bitter cold, people came out by the hundreds of thousands. Some crowd estimates went up as high as a million. Fortunately, the marchers were peaceful and orderly. If there had been any trouble, the police could not have maintained control. They were barely able to keep a lid on it as it was.

The Republicans are asking for trouble when they bring their triumphalism to New York. New Yorkers' resentments haven't really been heard, largely out of respect for the dead. That has helped to temper expressions of disgust over what Bush is doing in our name. The Republican convention of 2004 could turn out to be a donnybrook like the Democratic convention of 1968. The anger is right below the surface.

[sweetheart]

17. twaz my experience this spring on wall street

I was a software engineer on the street late 80's and early 90's. There was a time of confidence. I contrast that feeling to what i felt this past march in the closed section of wall street by the exchange or the attitudes of the people i met.

Huge police patrols dominate wall street like an occupying army from washington. Some moron says security, yet no terrorists are attacking "from" manhattan... but instead, the police presence was horribly stepped up... it was that sort of vibe that keeps investment out of the street.

These bushta;s blew up the towers and now occupy mahnattan with a mega police force... all appearing returned to normal... and a peace park... blah blah. Cognitive dissonance. It is understandable with the shock manhattanites experience daily, let alone near death trauma and a police occupation from orwell's darkest dream closet.