Photoville NYC 2019 is open as of yesterday, September 12th, in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The weather wasn’t perfect, but the rest of the weekend should be fine for the show.
Continue reading → Photoville NYC 2019 OpenRIOC punts on safety for residents and visitors. Recent incidents expose indifference, incompetence and failures in responsibility. Public safety is a core responsibility, but RIOC flunks the test. People compete with cars and trucks in Main Street traffic, bikes run free, and RIOC’s mum on troubling construction at 851 Main Street.
Continue reading → RIOC punts on safetyDanny Simmons Alone Together collects recent paintings by the abstract expressionist whose complex, subtle works defy an ebullient personality. Simmons is an artist worth discovering or rediscovering. It’s up at the George Billis Gallery, 521 West 26th Street, 7th Floor, in New York City, until September 28th.
Continue reading → Danny Simmons Alone Together, New PaintingsPSD flunks on bikes and does so in spectacularly bad fashion. The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s Public Safety Department takes a hands-off policy toward dangers caused by reckless biking.
PSD‘s failure to deal with bikes creating safety hazards by ignoring all traffic rules is not official. But it’s actual, and it’s blatant. Managers at RIOC are aware of what they should be doing as well as what they are not.
One month ago, on July 9th, a RIOC official released this statement: “PSD is also going to be keeping a closer eye on vehicles that run stop signs as we know it has become a concern on the island. “
Riding along as an email attachment was a flyer (see attached) telling all local businesses that traffic laws would be “strictly enforced.” But with logic that passeth understanding, PSD would not do so until September 1st.
A free pass, then, until the end of August, right?
No, that free pass came with infinite shelf life, and I can prove it.
Read on.
Firmly inside September, I took a walk on Main Street with an eye on bikers’ behavior. Here’s what I saw first, after just a few minutes:
This guy had not gotten the word about strict enforcement, and PSD’s laissez faire enforcement moved him along.
What I saw, seconds later, was worse.
The next violation came so quickly, I didn’t have time to reset to video from still, but as this sequence shows, the hazard was obvious and immediate.
As I turned to shoot a second still, he nearly hit two people in the crosswalk and kept going as they watched in shock.
As luck had it, I ran into acting PSD chief Kevin Brown, a few minutes later, outside 591 Main Street.
I told him I’d just been watching bikers violating traffic laws and documenting them.
“What happened to the crack down?” I asked.
Was it staged?
Like magic, an eBike rider suddenly appeared, advancing our way toward the stop sign in front of us.
“Watch this,” I said. “He won’t stop.”
It was a low risk prediction. They never stop.
Sure enough, this guy coasted straight through the stop sign and crosswalk and with a twist. He was talking on his cellphone at the time. It was a double violation, and he could not have been watching for pedestrians, wheelchairs or anything else.
Acting chief Brown reacted. “You can see that on any intersection Manhattan,” he said.
True, but this isn’t Midtown. It’s my hometown, it shouldn’t happen here, I told him. And it sounded too much like surrender, giving in to the constant two-wheeler abuse threatening to turn Manhattan into Naples.
In case you haven’t visited the Italian city, I confirm that its reputation for having traffic laws that are no more than advisory is accurate. And that’s what we have here with bikes.
Brown objected, saying that violations don’t happen when his officers are nearby. I believe he honestly thinks that’s true, but it isn’t.
I took it as a challenge. When he brushed off my story about talking to three of his officers, the day before, and hearing that none of them admitted knowing anything about an eBike crackdown, I decided to test myself.
My belief that PSD flunks on bikes was reinforced when I watched an officer fail to blink an eye when one of the most notorious violators whizzed by.
He was the first to disavow knowledge about a crackdown. Then, two bicyclists tripped happily through the crosswalk right in front of us. No problem, not from PSD anyway.
Next, I talked to two other nearby officers. They didn’t know anything about cracking down on traffic violations either.
But “we try to look out for riding on the sidewalk,” one reported.
Just a little while later, I saw this:
About a half-hour after my conversation with Brown, I leaned against the wall in Good Shepherd Plaza with my video camera ready. What follows are recordings of the first pair of two-wheelers to hit the crosswalk.
I’m reluctant to single out individual officers because, in reality, they all do this. What I recorded was no exception. It just happened to be convenient.
At a RIOC board meeting later that day, I showed acting chief Brown the videos. In fairness, I asked him if he would like to make a statement.
No, he told me. RIOC’s official spokesperson would.
I waited five days. Never heard a word.
Anyone can walk down Main Street and see bike riders running stop signs, ignoring pedestrians in crosswalks and going the wrong way on one-way streets. Except for parking my butt for five minutes in Good Shepherd Plaza, I made no plans at all. In every instance, I was on my way to something else when the violations came tumbling out.
Bike riders are not aware that they are breaking laws and endangering the safety of others because PSD’s overt passivity virtually waives the laws.
In one case, I confronted an eBiker riding on the sidewalk in Southtown. A very busy local deliveryman, he reacted with sincere puzzlement. He really didn’t think he was doing anything wrong because…
PSD flunks on bikes, and they do so in spectacular fashion.
Such abysmal failure to enforce or even influence safety seems perplexingly difficult to mismanage, but it’s right there for anyone to observe.
Someone, a pedestrian, a bike rider without a helmet, is going to get hurt because of RIOC’s negligence.
Residents and visitors need to watch out for themselves. PSD is not going to help you. It’s a two-wheeler free-for-all on Roosevelt Island.
The Roosevelt Island Community Garden’s space on a tucked away island harbors an urban retreat impossible anywhere else. A gift from the state flourishes with well-kept plots and a near secret lily pond.
Continue reading → Roosevelt Island Community GardenRelated’s Roosevelt Island ignorance stuns on several levels. From collecting money here for decades, the real estate giant learned next to nothing. And the published proof makes your head spin.
Continue reading → Related’s Roosevelt Island ignoranceJanet Falk roasted RIOC’s board in a tour de force presentation that savaged the “ugly” RI Monument. It was as much an indictment of the board for negligence concerning resident opinions.
Continue reading → Janet Falk Roasted RIOC BoardOur Photo Gallery Kite Flight for Peace and Human Rights celebrates last year’s fun for all ages event. Each year, Four Freedoms Park hosts Kite Flight coinciding with International Peace Day. Here’s how it flew by in 2018.
Continue reading → Photo Gallery Kite Flight for Peace and Human RightsRoy Eaton plays Bryant Park. His annual weeklong gig runs from September 23rd to the 27th. 89 years old, recovered from a stroke in 2017, he continues to amaze.
Continue reading → Roy Eaton Plays Bryant Park