A Harbor That Will Charge the Next Superstorm With Belles On

 

The quaint town of Belle Harbor is a drop of suburban heaven in the New York City borough of Queens. The town is a nest of its own kind on the Rockaway Peninsula; it conjures images from the 1998 film “Pleasantville,” as the neighborhood of everyone knowing each other.

Two-story houses with manicured lawns and patio decks line up between Beach 126th and Beach 142nd Streets. These homes are filled with families, whom are mostly Irish Catholic and upper-middle class.

Belle Harbor is less than a five-minute walk from the beach and an hour’s drive away from Manhattan.  It’s a 45-minute bus ride (Q35) to Brooklyn College. It’s considered part of Queens County, but over the Marine Parkway Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge the pavement becomes part of Brooklyn.

However, the pristine shrubbery that once decorated the facades of these dreamy, urban castles has been swept away. Most residences are now empty and silent. All sentimental items and furniture kept hidden inside these dwellings have been swallowed by Hurricane Sandy and spit out as piles of rubble that litter the sidewalks and streets.

Residents with vacant, dry eyes walk around inside the FEMA tent, waiting for their turn to submit an application.

Sandy hit New York City on October 29th and slowly filled the streets with salt water. Cars floated down the block. Basements filled with fish. The power blew out.

“During the day we didn’t think it was going to be that bad because we are used to having storms here and people just migrate to the beach and everybody was walking around because they love it – it’s a beach community,” said Felicia Brunetti, a resident on 129^th Street.

By 2:00 PM Brunetti was on the beach and “knew we were in trouble” with the waves growing more massive and the surge already reaching land. About an hour later the bridge closed so anyone left on the peninsula could not evacuate. By 4:00 PM “the water starting taking over the blocks”

“We were stuck here,” said Brunetti.

Rockaway resident Barry Cotter told a story about a 50 year-old woman going down to her basement during the storm to turn off the gas. A mirror fell on her arm and she bled to her death on 124th Street.

“All of us stayed behind almost because nobody thought the magnitude of it and that’s what happens. We think okay, its over exaggerated and nobody wanted to leave their home in case of looting,” said a retired NYC firefighter in a baseball cap, who went by Frank.

He had fish swimming through his apartment. He joked that if he stayed at his house he would “be sleeping with the fish as they say in the mafia — in other words, I’d be dead!”

Since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, Belle Harbor has not been the same. Sorrow flushed through the roads since it experienced a heavy loss of inhabitants employed by the New York Police Department and the New York City Fire Department.

Over 2,700 New Yorkers lost their lives that day and for Belle Harbor, it was not quite the closing of a chapter for aerial crashes. In November of 2001, American Airlines Flight 587 took off from JFK Airport, soaring through the sky to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic.

“There was a lot of community people killed at the World Trade Center and then a month later this plane crashes right here in this same community,” said Kenneth Monahan, a local and retired New York City Police Department, Detective of the 67th precinct in Brooklyn.

George Miller — a resident of Belle Harbor at the time — was at work and received an email from his mother telling him a plane crashed. He made the last train allowed back into the Rockaway and went to his parents’ on the 10th floor of the building.

“You could still see these plumes of black smoke and everything from it perished,” said Miller.

The plane hit land in the morning, while some people were still at mass at St Francis de Sales Church a few blocks away. Next to the church is a Catholic grade school. All of the householders that were directly affected by the crash were members of this church.

“How it didn’t kill hundreds of children is still beyond me,” said Miller.

All 260 passengers on the plane died immediately. Five Belle Harbor residents on the ground died: the Lawlers, a mother and her son at No. 262; the Concannons, a retired husband and wife at No. 266; Franco Pomponio, a father and husband at No. 258.

“It wasn’t just living so close to them as they were very well known and very well loved – they were very involved with the community and you’d see them in the church, in the neighborhood,” said Mary Alison Cuneen, a Belle Harbor resident on 123rd Street remembering her neighbors who died.

Then Hurricane Irene hit in the Summer of 2011 and it didn’t do much to New York besides encourage residents to “ride out” Hurricane Sandy when the superstorm approached over a year later.

And then as if the devil lit a match, a fire started in Belle Harbor during Sandy. The flames lit up the neighborhood and became the town’s main source of light and horror.

According to Brunetti, this was around 6:00 PM.

On 129th Street, the back of Rockaway Seafood caught on fire.

The famous 32-year-old restaurant, Harbor Light Pub, only has the entrance left of it. On Newport Ave between 129 and 130 Streets, neighbors decorated the only part of it still standing with a Christmas wreath and two photos — on the left, a young man holding a full mug of beer and on the right, the same man but aged and in uniform. The photographs are of the owner’s son, who died at the World Trade Center. All the photographic memories that decorated in the interior the pub: gone.

“It has brought us together in many ways because we are all in the same boat where when everyone needs and wants the same things you can relate to one another. We all lost things near-and-dear and just the basics to get along everyday and so you want to help each other,” said Cunneen.

Cunneen told the story of a widow named Elcy Naas on 117^th Street, whose basement was flooded “to the point she said it looked like a great, big indoor pool.” None of her neighbors could spare a water pump or generator and at her wits end, Naas sat on the top of her stoop, crying with her head in hands. A young man walked by named Billy Taylor asked her if he could help. He left and returned with all the equipment she needed. He spent hours emptying the flood from her basement. Naas asked how she could repay Taylor and he responded with “you don’t have to repay me – what I’m doing — this if for you.” Cunneen ended the story with tears in her eyes.

“We are fighters here in the neighborhood; we all stick together, but it really shook up the whole neighborhood,” said Brunetti.

Belle Harbor is a town that looks like a hot pink sign hanging in from of Danielle’s Rockaway Florist at No. 436. Handwritten in marker, it reads: “We have all suffered a great loss but will rebuild better and stronger. It was my honor to serve you and I look forward to seeing my friends and neighbors at our grand opening. We are working hard at restoring our business and community and will be back soon.” It is signed by Danielle.

Belle Harbor is a town that looks like a constant stream of people entering and leaving Beach Bagel, a shop on 129th Street that was closed for a month. The patrons talk to each other in line and then refer to the manager behind the counter — the same counter that a month before was only a few inches away from being submerged underwater — by his first name, Mohamed. The children collect at a table in the corner and discuss missing their classmates who relocated and giggle at the idea that those students will be Photoshopped into their yearbook.

Belle Harbor is a town that has a count of over 16 American flags on one block. Some flap from the porches of houses or tall steel poles. On the stretch, over five massive piles of torn wood sit in front of houses. They look like splinters in the heart of 126th Street between Newport and Cronston Avenues.

“I’ve heard a few people that say ‘aw, that’s it, I can’t do this’, from whom are mostly elderly, but for 99.9% of the people, they’ll rebuild, I’ll think,” said Steve Stathis, president of Graybeards, a local nonprofit dedicated to helping the community.

The Curse of Belle Harbor

[audio http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5533510/belleharbor2.m4a]

Hold on the Sweaters and Blankets: Hurricane Sandy Victims Need Money

NPR: Want To Help Sandy Victims? Send Cash, Not Clothes

During Mayor Bloomberg’s announcement for his Rapid Relief plan for homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy, he mentioned the recovery work already done.

“Over the past eight days distribution sites we’ve established have provided nearly 2 million prepared meals, nearly a half million bottles of fresh water, one hundred ten thousand blankets and other essential supplies to the people that need them the most,” said Bloomberg.

The Tuesday after Hurricane Sandy struck New York City nearly 20 percent was blacked out, according to Reuters. A cold front barreled through, leaving most victims freezing and homeless.

Now weeks later, power has been restored to most houses. There isn’t a need any longer for blankets, clothes donations or hygienic supplies. Victims need the hands of volunteers and money to fix their homes.

Hurricane Sandy damaged thousands of homes in New York City. An additional 200 homes that were declared irreparable by the city are in the process of being bulldozed.  This is a brutal housing crisis that left 3,000 adults living on the street among the other “47,000 people forced into homelessness by the economy”, according to New York Magazine.

So the next time you want to help out Hurricane Sandy victims, lend one hand to help with reconstruction and the other to flip through your wad of cash.

Occupy Sandy is taking in money donations for New York City here.

 

 

Mayor Bloomberg Announces Rapid Relief

 

Mayor Bloomberg introduced “Rapid Repair”, a FEMA-assisted plan to rebuild homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Although New York governor Andrew Cuomo asked Washington for $30 billion in emergency aid, Brooklynites are getting fed up and returning to grassroots for help.

Members from the Occupy Wall Street movement mobilized immediately after Hurricane Sandy struck New York and proved to have re-surged from the fading corners of Wall Street. Occupy Sandy has proved to be incredibly significant to those affected most by the catastrophe of Hurricane Sandy.

Members have set up orientations at meeting places for volunteers to gather and distribute food and first-aid, help with the clean up of trash left by the super storm and to even help pump water from peoples homes.

In the case that New Yorkers want to help with Hurricane Sandy, but do not have the time to volunteer or extra blankets to donate, Occupy Sandy’s website has this covered. Members set up a “wedding registry” where donators can purchase things the victims do need such as flashlights, cookware or a self-powered radio.

Although Con Edison’s utility workers have brought power back to over a million customers in New York City and other affected areas, their website on November 12th updated that “the 1 million restorations do not include approximately 16,300 customers in flood-ravaged areas of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.”

Residents of Gerritson Beach still do not have power. Residents of Coney Island, Canarsie, Howard Beach and through out Queens do not have power. They feel abandoned.

Amidst an arguable humanitarian crisis, Occupy Sandy volunteers have proven to give their support to the 99% of those who desperately need them.

Occupy Sandy has two main distribution centers: 520 Clinton Avenue (between Fulton & Atlantic) with hours between 9am and 9pm and 5406 4^th Ave at the St. Jacobi Church with hours between 9am and 9pm.

Bullying

The family of a Brooklyn teenager is in the process of suing for $16 million for a brutal assault that left their child to undergo two surgeries in his right eye and little faith that he will be able to see out of it again. Kardin Ulysse, 14, is the victim of bullying.

Preston Deener, a fifteen year-old sophomore at Brunswick High School in Maryland, was attacked by his peers while preparing for an on-camera interview with a television station about his exposure to bullying. He has also been a victim of cyberbullying on Twitter.

A mother in Flagler County, Florida was arrested for fighting a teenage boy at his bus stop. She was protecting her child from a bully.

When one thinks of bullying their mind may flutter through images of kids being hung in a locker in the buzzing hallways of high school, a jock tripping the kid in glasses while running in gym class or the prom queen spilling punch on the girl with braces who is waiting on the wall to be asked for a dance. At the end of these scenes, the nerd always wins. Locker boy plots a harmless and quasi-successful revenge and a lesson is learned on both sides. The boy in glasses steals the jock’s girlfriend and the girl in braces comes back to the high school reunion as a foxy bombshell. The nerd has to win. Right?

Today bullying is on the rise and things aren’t exactly the same as portrayed in a John Hughes film. The use of force to intimidate others ends in physical, emotional and psychological damage, which may or may not be capable of healing.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, New York is placed second in ranking the states with the highest level of bullying. Thirty-seven percent of teenagers report being bullied at school.

The medium of bullying has changed since the wacky portrayal of bullying in 1980s films. Expansive access to the Internet provides a more isolated platform for bullying, known as cyberbullying. Bullying can now be through physical coercion, verbal abuse or via the internet.

Erin Gallagher, an Irish thirteen year-old, committed suicide after warning the bullies that she intended to only 24 hours before her body was found.

October is Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, when protestors march through the streets of New York in solidarity with the greater world to support it.

Information on how to get involved can be found here.

Marina Abramović – An Artist’s Life Manifesto

 

“An Artist’s Life Manifesto” serves as a paradigm for how an artist should conduct his life. It is merciless yet coddling on the creative soul and at most heavily influenced by the creator’s own life.

Marina Abramović– a Serbian-born, New York-based, provocatively brutal teacher and queen of the performance art world—read the manifesto in Florence, Moscow, and other cities around the world. She read her constructive guide to other artists, students and enthusiasts.

The idea was derived from her upbringing under the communist-dictatorship in Yugoslavia. At the age of 29 Abramović carved a pentagram into her belly with a razor in front of an audience. She had to be home by 10 in the evening. Now as a world renown performance artist, Abramovićhas spent her life rewriting the script and has finally completed a version of her own manifesto to follow.

The manifesto is divided into sections ranging from an artist’s relation to the erotic or suffering, symbols to silence and different death and funeral scenarios. Take word from Abramović, evidence of her learning the hard way is weaved through out her body of work.

“An artist should avoid falling in love with another artist” is repeated three times by Abramović, although she had most notably only made the mistake once. Abramović had a romantic tangled into a working relationship with Ulay (real name Frank Uwe Laysiepen). In 1988 they decided to end their relationship with a performance, each of them walking from opposite start-points on the Wall of China to meet in the middle. This journey was initially planned for their wedding day. Instead of joining as one, they said their goodbyes and after meeting kept walking their separate ways.

Abramović still performs and remains a student (she provided a women-only lecture in London last August to explore the meaning of feminine energy), however concentrates on the creation of writing, films and knowledge in her fans and students.

Watergate 40th Anniversary

The Watergate scandal that occurred in 1970’s stands in journalism as a heroic example of press coverage and muckraking in politics. Journalists today place this tone of investigative journalism in their front pocket while covering their beat in the streets or writing under heavy pressure in the news room. Journalists learned a valuable lesson that extensive investigation to shed light in all dark corners of the room pays off.

The Watergate scandal revealed that U.S. President Richard Nixon indeed attempted to cover up his administration’s involvement with the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office in Washington, D.C. It further led to the resignation of Nixon in 1974. This is majorly due to the persistent muckraking done by journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in breaking the biggest story in American politics.

Watergate has reached its 40th anniversary and journalism has changed since then. Journalism now faces questions revolving around the widely spreading accessibility to the internet.  Does it enhance or simplify the investigative techniques used by Woodward and Bernstein in 1972? Or does the matrix of digital journalism provide layers of unchecked facts that could induce an inherent sense of laziness for graduating students of journalism today?

Journalists today face this problem, however it can be defeated. The internet’s immediate dispense of information at the click of a button, whether it be the latest census or court records, should drive muckraking journalism to even further depths of investigation. Journalists should act as quasi-spies, creating links and investigating on the “why?” For instance, instead of just merely writing an article on the rise of arrests in impoverished neighborhoods, the journalists needs to throw themselves in the lion’s den and find out why.

Is it the rise of stop-and-frisk rates in that neighborhood? Is it racial?

What are residents in this neighborhood saying? Are the arrests not crime-related and rather a result of an abuse of the power given to the police department?

These questions should rise in the investigative journalist facing the digital age. The facts that the internet can immediately provide should be connected and then investigated. Ground-breaking stories in the political, social or economic arena can still happen today. This is only if journalists adapt their ways of investigating in the digital age.

Presidential Debate 2012

 

The second round of the Presidential Debates proved to be heated and revealing of character: a recipe for hilarity. Both President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney were at neck with each other, cutting each other off to get the last word in the debate. Obama tried to seem as “keeping his cool” and Romney seemingly didn’t care – he continually cut off the moderator, talked over Obama and couldn’t seem to keep his seat.. Or cool.

In the heat of it, the tone of formality plummeted like a curtain, revealing a platform for each candidate to just say the wrong things, particularly Mitt Romney.

On China:

While both candidates agree that China doesn’t play by the rules, Romney took the initiative to say, “now, we’re going to have to make sure that as we trade with other nations that they play by the rules. And China hasn’t.” He reiterated “China has been a currency manipulator for years and years and years.”

Please state, Governor, for how long again? Yes, Mitt Romney went there.

On Ak-47s:

When asked what each administration would do to keep AK-47s out of the hands of criminals, Romney just couldn’t help but to strike again!

“We need moms and dads, helping to raise kids. Wherever possible the — the benefit of having two parents in the home, and that’s not always possible. A lot of great single moms, single dads. But gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that’s a great idea.”

Romney plans to cut Planned Parenthood and is equating single parenthood with violence. Uh-oh.

On Bush:

When Susan Katz asked Governor Romney what the difference between himself and President Bush is, he immediately dived into a pool without water; he didn’t even try to answer the question.

“Thank you. And I appreciate that question. I just want to make sure that, I think I was supposed to get that last answer, but I want to point out that that I don’t believe…”

Vice Presidential Debate 2012

The 2012 Vice Presidential debate gave the power back to the Democratic party with Democratic V.P. Joe Biden setting the record straight: “that’s a bunch of malarkey.”

When asked by moderator Martha Raddatz why that is so, Biden answered “because not a single thing he said is accurate.”

The debate heated over the opponents’ challenge to each others facts — ultimately allowing the vast differences between each party’s vision for the nation’s future bleed on to the television screen.

Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan repeatedly asserted that the Obama administration has driven the country in the wrong direction in regards to the slow recovery of the economy and how the U.S. handles foreign affairs and defense.

Ryan also reiterated that the nation should not have to apologize, but rather stand up for its values

“What we should not be doing is saying to the Egyptian people, while Mubarak is cracking down on them, that he’s a good guy and then the next week say he ought to go. What we should not be doing is rejecting claims for — calls for more security in our barracks, in our Marine — we need Marines in Benghazi when the commander on the ground says we need more forces for security,” said Ryan.

Biden sat smug with a glare or amidst a chuckle.

This stands in stark contrast from when President Obama, looking weary and tired, allowed Republican opponent Mitt Romney take the wheel during the debate, steering the vote to the favor of the Republican party.

The Vice Presidential face off helped install faith back in the Democratic party and the ticket to win this election.

The next Presidential election is on Tuesday Oct. 16.

Juggernut

Imagine six plus men and women on stage dressed to the androgynous-nines in hyperbolic costumes. A guitar strums heavy and a shirtless man runs around the stage screaming “my sciatica” in the microphone as the others roll around the ground, take off their clothes or spread their legs in front of the audience, maybe revealing a bleeding diaper.

Meet the Jugger-nuts, a punk troupe of performance artists that met in Bushwick and exploded out of the womb of Brooklyn together. At introduction they may rub off as hosts to a nightmare or freakshow. However, the roots of their performance run deep in the performance art scene of Northern Brooklyn.

In the 1980s and 1990s Williamsburg was the neighborhood in Brooklyn known to be a drug hub for crack-cocaine.

Kokies infamously had two lines that would wrap around the bar: one to buy a drink at the bar and another for cocaine. Gradually it transformed to a neighborhood, where ground-breaking music birthed from. Various unlicensed theaters and music venues began to sprout and street artists began to roam the streets; however, their aim was not as clandestine as Williamsburg politics were. The theme was circus-oriented with trapeze artists using the Williamsburg bridge to suspend themselves with the air as their platform to perform.

Remnants of this movement still exist with studios, such as The House of Yes (providing performance space for Lady Circus Corps – a “troupe of femmes fatales, who are taking circus arts to new heights”) and Big Sky Works. In 2011 an aerial performer used the Williamsburg Bridge Tower to perform without a safety harness.

Jugger-nuts is keeping the boisterous theme in performance alive by incorporating noisy, explosive-punk music, along with an in-your-face performance.

They can be seen throwing themselves around at 2012 the Whitney Biennial, the greasy basements of crust-punks or  Time Square on October 5th, 2012.