Author: isabelzayas (page 1 of 1)

When I first heard about our trip to this homeless residence, I imagined something more similar to a shelter than an apartment building. Capitol Hall had medical offices, a cafeteria, and common area. Rooms were big and offered residents a good amount of privacy. From both the outside and inside, Capitol hall looked surprisingly normal, and much more like a dorm than a shelter.

While discussing homelessness in New York and types of housing to help alleviate this problem, we gained some helpful insight from Capitol Hall’s management and the people who lived there. It was great to hear about the outreach they do, and how they got this huge plan to buy back the building, to actually work. Seeing occupied rooms and talking to tenants also helped bring a human aspect to the tour as well, and showed how fimiliar this living situation is to many of us in the class. Many of us have lived in dorms or small one room apartments were some facilities are shared and everyone is fairly close together, so we can somewhat relate to this style of living.

Although, being a student is very different than being homeless, and we are are surrounded by different types of people in a dorm, the size  and setup of the building creates a certain lifestyle that many of us can relate to. I’m grateful that we got to see this firsthand, and therefore grasp a more human understanding of the problems we discuss in class.

I couldn’t help but feel slightly offended while reading this article. It seemed as if the author thought that by mentioning some of the flaws in his argument, he would invalidate them. Stating the possibility that police officers attempting to “…maintain the racial or ethnic purity of a neighborhood…” is unacceptable, does not mean that it won’t happen and does not boost his credibility. I felt as if he was trying to prove that he was not influenced by his own, personal racial undertones because he was aware of them and acknowledged them – however, this article is obviously dated. On the most basic level, this argument does make sense, but it puts too much weight on the discretion of enforcing officers. He frames the police as the responsible moral enforcers of the neighborhood, and the good guys with good intentions in every case. Mentioning the role that race issues “may” play in how these discretionary laws are to be enforced, does not make his argument any more believable of free from these flaws.

New York City’s public transportation system is always facing repairs, train traffic, rerouting problem, and delays. Some subway cars are dirty, old, and can be extremely inconvenient, but when looking at other cities, it isn’t as bad as we think. Though it might be slow, and dangerous at night, it allows citizens of the city to get almost anywhere they need to. Cars may be quicker, but not always when you account for traffic jams, and they’re only a luxury here. I agreed with the proposal for a system of tolls that attempts to minimize car usage, and update and expand the subway system, but I don’t think that this goal of a better public transit system should be a weapon in competition with other world cities. Trams and underground trains in other places may be more efficient or cleaner than our subways, but the crowdedness and grit is all part of the honest experience.

Despite this, New York’s transit could use an update. By trying to reduce car traffic and therefore, its environmental impact, Move NY also creates a more natural system that pushes for a higher efficiency route for toll collection. As a result of these larger yields, the city has more money to invest in a faster, more reliable, and more accessible, system of public transit for citizens living in suburban areas in outer boroughs.

I think Move NY is a great plan for New York and a looks toward the future. It is a more responsible, efficient, and environmentally friendly idea that NYC should be proud to accept. Even though it isn’t completely necessary in the competition between us and other global cities, being a testing ground for innovation on a large scale is something unique to New York and something that we as a city should be actively seeking rather than trying to push away. So, I support the ideas that were presented by our guest speaker last Wednesday, I just don’t completely agree with a small part of the reasoning, or advertising of the project.

From this introduction, it seems as if Robert Moses gained his power by pretending he already had it. The retelling of Moses’s confrontation with the Yale swim team captain hinted at the stubbornness and egocentrism that characterized Moses later in his career. With the ruthlessness of an entitled aspiring politician, he used the claim that he was above politics to draw the favor of the masses. His dedication and talent for getting what he wanted done seems undoubtable after reading even only the introduction, and accomplishing these projects consistently and in whatever secretive manner he wanted to was a feat in itself. He accumulated money, demanded respect, and was surrounded by a sense of mystery, which all in turn created power. However, to kick start this cycle it takes more than brains, and that’s where unbending self confidence can catapult someone into a position like his, especially when paired with the ability to actually produce what they claim they can. Caro stated that Moses’s empire was built on a lie – which in a sense is true – but creating a system of that magnitude with yourself at the center is a difficult task. Perhaps the fact that Moses could build that from scratch demanded its own respect – respect for creating power out of nothing but a bluff.