Author: jonbaumann (page 1 of 1)

Housing shelters in New York City have a bad reputation. They are often characterized by high crime and poor access to services. Because of this reputation I was unsure what I would see at the Capitol Hall Residence, despite it being single room occupancy and not a traditional shelter. During my time visiting Capitol Hall, I was shocked by the conditions, in a very good way. The residence was almost the opposite of the typified shelter.

Residents there have much more than just a shelter, instead they have a home. Capitol Hall allows those in need to get help while maintaining their safety and dignity. The accessibility of services can often be the difference in whether or not they will be used by those who need them. Capitol Hall provides its residence with access to food, mental and physical healthcare, and even help with things like taxes and paperwork. Having this kind of access is wonderful in helping those who need it, and the Capitol Hall Residence serves its residents remarkably well.

The only downside to the residence comes in its apparent uniqueness. The residence came about as a result of uncommon level of community support for such a place, and owes its continued existence and growth to the actions of that community. Most places would not be so supportive of such housing for the homeless, and because of this the success of Capitol Hall does not seem as easily repeatable as just making more buildings into similar housing.

-Jon Baumann

On paper, broken windows policing sounds like a good idea. By preventing neighborhoods from appearing rundown and in need of repair, policing minor crimes heavily can foster a sense of community that ends up self-regulating its population. However, in reality this method led to a deepening distrust of police by the communities they served, caused among other things by the lop-sided rates of arrest in the black and hispanic communities. Very often police would arrest black and hispanic offenders for crimes that would only very rarely lead to an arrest for a white offender.

As a result of this, the intended benefits of broken windows policing were hugely negated by the antagonism that developed between the police and the communities they patrolled. Instead of being able to have less of a police presence in areas kept in check by locals, more police were needed to patrol areas looking for minor offenders. The police being seen as only going after minority offenders, which statistically was much more likely then them going after white offenders, made it much harder for them to effectively combat crime. When the police are seen as the enemy, no one wants to help them, and this makes it harder for police to find those responsible for major crimes.

Broken windows, while seemingly a good idea, did not account for the discriminatory policing that it would eventually lead to. As a result of this, broken windows lead to a worsening of the relationship between the community and police.

-Jon Baumann

In my opinion, the future of New York City’s transport looks grim. The subway system is crowded, and there are large swathes of the city with little to no coverage. Traveling by car in New York is very difficult, especially with the popularity of ride services such as Uber creating major traffic. The bridges and tunnels connecting the city are in need of major work, and the frequent construction and maintenance on them makes the traffic even worse for cars. The cost of traveling is rising as well, and tolls on bridges and subways have rose drastically in the past few years, and the increase doesn’t appear to be to stopping soon if nothing is done. Major work has to be done, and in my opinion, Sam Schwartz’s MoveNY seems like a very good starting point.

The plans proposed changes to bridge tolling should help with both congestion and raising the revenue necessary to fund the other aspects of the project. Having tolls within Manhattan itself is an interesting idea, and should do wonders to keep the tolls from being seen as only being a burden to the outer boroughs. At any rate, repairing the bridges and tunnels around the city is a priority, and having the funds necessary is essential to complete these projects. Other parts of the proposal, like the walking bridges, sound like they could be very good for the cities image, and could even be sources of revenue on their own from the tourism they attract.

-Jack Baumann

Robert Moses, by many accounts, was not a good man. He was manipulative, conniving, deceitful, and a terror to his enemies. However, it cannot be argued that Moses was not a great man. A titanic figure in the history of New York, he has arguably done more than any other single person to change New York City.  He used all of the powers to him to shape New York City to conform to his vision. The projects completed under Moses’ watch include highways, parks, bridges and housing across the city.

The arguably most influential of his projects would be the system of highways that would spread across the boroughs, connecting what had once been the distant outskirts with the hub of the city. With this connection, people could move out of the city to the newly established suburbs of Long Island while still remaining connected to the city for work. Because of this ease of connection, Robert Moses’ highways would be a leading cause of the “white flight” of the 1960s and 70s, and the wide spread decay that would come to define the city in the late 70s and early 80s as a result of it.  Those that left were predominately white and upper class, and the loss of a substantial part of the tax base would leave the city starved for money in the years before its near bankruptcy.

Despite this, Robert Moses did do some good for the city. Cultural landmarks such as Lincoln Center would not exist without Moses, and controversial as they are, his highways would become a template for the expansion of the highway system across the country.

Jon Baumann