6:32 pm Nov. 1, 20124
Ros Stone was supposed to start a new job this week.
"It's in real estate," she told me. The office, unfortunately, like her apartment, is in the Lower East Side.
Stone has lived in New York City for 16 years, with 11 of them in this neighborhood. She's always loved it, but the camaraderie she's seen from her neighbors "makes me feel better about New York City" and that "it's important for me to see that we get through this."
While we were talking on the phone, a neighbor knocked on her door and asked to put food in her fridge.
"I still have some ice, which is unusual," Stone told me.
She's knocked on doors, delivered food and water and has been checking up on her neighbors in the Seward Park coop. It's a mixed-housing complex full of long-time residents who bought their apartments when they were unimaginably affordable; and newer arrivals, mostly financially successful young couples who walk to good-paying jobs in lower Manhattan.
(As she put it, the coop has "older residents who probably purchased their pads for $30,000, and newer residents who bought theirs for $600,000.")
One young neighbor—a "very young, 20 or something, computer-genius dude," she said—created an open internet connection so everyone nearby can check their email and connect with people online.
"All because this one guy volunteered and did it," she said with a mix of admiration and pride.
The building has a generator, so people can also charge their phones.
But in other ways, the storm has begun wedging a bigger cleave between the neighbors who, prior to the storm, easily rubbed elbows in Seward's elevators and hallways.
"A lot of the newer residents left," Stone said. "A lot more of the older people stayed. It seems like from what I was observing, the people who are staying here are the poor people. The people who stayed are not well-off."
Stone said she went to a sit-down Mexican restaurant two nights ago. It's located three blocks away and was lit by candle light. She was there with friends and the place was doing a brisk business. It sounded like a reprieve from the storm.
The restaurant drew some, like Stone, who were escaping from the storm. Others, apparently, went there for a a taste of what Hurricane Sandy had done to New York. Stone said she found that unsettling.
She said she senses a divide, between the "people [who] are struggling downtown and people uptown who don't have a clue."
Downtown, she said, people like her are "constantly worrying about getting ice to keep food from spoiling, when is their next shower and can you flush a toilet" without running out of water.
She looked at some of the people in the restaurant and said it was "clear they came from the Upper West Side" and were "happy and comfortable and just wanted to see what was going on. It's like Armageddon down here and people coming down to check it out, which doesn't make sense. A person at the other table came down from the Upper West Side by taxi," she said, "just to fuck around."
"A police officer came in," she recalled, "and said, 'You need to travel home in groups and the streets aren't safe.'" Stone said that made her worry.
Instead of walking the three blocks with friends, Stone took a cab.
Home was also somewhat less safe than before.
"Normally we have a security system with a TV system but the power is out so we don't have any of that right now," Stone said. The co-op does have security guards, which helps a lot. But there are no street lights or businesses opening, and that is "part of the reason I don't feel comfortable on the streets in the Lower East Side at night."
I know Ros. She and Izzy are the heart of the lower east side.
On Monday during Sandy I worked a 19 hour shift for OEM (medic like stuff) at the evacuation shelter for medical needs at John Jay College west side in the 50s – didn't handle many many people but there were so so many supplies, tons and tons of everything – food, water, med supplies, personal hygiene stuff, blankets, everything, pallets and pallets of the stuff.
On Thursday I went to the Lower East Side/Chinatown on my own, by Jacob Riss school, Catherine Street, near the East river. Insane – hundreds and hundreds of people lined up (Chinese and black and Latino folk from the nearby Smith projects) for promises of food and water for hours and hours, holding buckets and pots for water– they had nothing, little children and old people filling up and drinking out of fire hydrants, small children half naked using the streets as a toilet, old Chinese women burning newspapers in large flaming cans in the streets -- absolutely no one there (volunteers, OEM, FEMA, city – FEMA had one big truck elsewhere in Chinatown, all they had was a power strip to charge phones for people) -- nobody there to give them anything or tell them anything, know one knew anything – only a huge police presence at the distribution center and one man from the Salvation Army doing nothing (all those supplies from John Jay and likely the same supplies at many other evac shelters in upper Manhattan that didn’t need them – they could have easily been positioned or sent down there to LES/Chinatown if there was any proper or good coordination).
Up by blacked out 1st ave and the 20s tin Manhattan where I live here was a one legged man in a wheelchair seemingly disoriented in a traffic. Turns out he was three days without the heavy methadone dose he takes daily (think he said 150 mgs) and also Xanax – withdrawing, weak, freaking out, crowds of people he couldn’t navigate through. He said he needed to get to Bellevue for the methadone; I pushed him like 12 blocks hard to even push him through all that chaos and when we got to Bellevue he saw the people who run the program in the lobby – they told him the program was shut. What do I do he asked? Um, I think you have to go up to Metropolitan hospital (in Harlem) and I think their meth program is working, they said. 100 blocks and many avenues. How am I going to get there? He asked. The clinic people, health care professionals said, "Um maybe you can find someone who’s going and get a ride with them." Yeah, right. No handicap transport van, no transport ambulance offered, The guy was screwed so bad. I asked him if he wanted money for a cab and he said no that’s alright and I left him there as he was talking to them about how anguished he was and how much he hated himself.
Traffic cops all over directing traffic without flashlights, without flares at the intersections in absolute dark blackout -- They finally got/employed both on Thurs or Friday night. No OEM stand alone floodlights attached to those generator boxes deployed anywhere -- I walked all through lower Manhattan everywhere and I saw one.
There was terrible devastation in SI and Rockaways and LI but up above where I was writing about – this wasn’t Japan tsunami or Katrina, etc – proper logistics, leadership, coordination could have so so easily made things so much better for those people. The neglect of info and supplies and the feeling neglected waiting for nothing was so bad; with the overwhelming standing around guarding police presence, the younger people were getting near riot stage and talking about robbing. I said to the police commander shouldn’t you tell these people something about when stuff might be coming, or how you’re trying, or what’s going on to at least try and keep things a little quiet, keep hostility in check – he was nice to me but he or no one else never did any informing to the crowds who were going a little crazy.
One vicious fight did break out with a bunch of people at another location where i was and me and two very gutsy unarmed supposed to just watch and report security guards broke it up. I said to one fighter , come on chill, cops are gonna be here soon you don’t want to get arrested- the reply was no, I want the cops to come – wanted to get arrested and get the other fighter arrested, wanted to keep on fighting until cops came – but they weren’t, the didn’t, I wanted them to come too, but they didn’t and we just eventually dragged them away from each other. Both sides vowed revenge and I’m sure they got it; I saw way too many crowds of police gathered around guarding banks.
The city/agencies can’t handle the relatively minor, doable, handle-able emergencies or problems in a disaster – if we do get hit by something really big and widespread the failure and suffering is probably going to be so horrible, so calamitous. Damn NYC what the hell is the matter – we’re not paralyzed by poverty, or widespread violence, or corruption, or terrible infrastructure like some cities in the world. We’re going to suffer, hurt, die because we have a really really shitty bureaucracy; such a ridiculous shame.
Kevin Heldman
People living in the projects on the LES are STILL suffering. November 8th 11am, thelodown just posted this: Power Still Out at Knickerboacker Village; Situation Called an “Emergency.”
http://www.thelodownny.com/2012/11/power-still-out-at-knickerboacker-vil...
If you want to donate or help, email vickimehmel@hmhonline.org
thanks, Ros
Who’s Really Looting Who - To be poor in a hood in Hurricane Sandy/Coney Island (acting nothing like your idea of the poor in the hoods)
Coney Island, Nov.9, 2012, 12 days after Sandy hit.
Arrive down there and find the nyc medical command center for medical/health issues in a trailer in MCU parking lot. Hey, I say to the man in the trailer, I’m medic trained, mass casualty/crisis training, wildland firefighter, worked Irene and Sandy for Office of Emergency management, I have all my certifications, can I be of some help down here? No we’re good, don’t need any volunteers.
Nothing I say, you need absolutely no help at all, everybody and everything is ok, I’m willing to do anything?
No we got it, everything is fine, we have all the resources we need, everything is fine, sorry you came all the way down here?
You sure, no help at all, you guys completely got this?
Yes.
I so doubt this from experience so I start walking into the neighborhood. Within 10 minutes I was working, almost everybody I encountered or asked needed some kind of help. I had a back pack of gear and phone numbers for connections and I the night before I hit NYCHA (the agency that manages nyc public housing projects) where they had a list of projects and which ones were without power, electric, ect.) so I just worked.
O’Dwyer Gardens, a project complex with 6 large buildings, 572 units, with over a 1,000 residents. Dead, no service at all. I was doing outreach around there and some guy who turns out to be a CVS delivery man with a bag full of prescription medications and asks me for help. He’s been sent over to one of these buildings and he’s scared, worried about danger and doesn’t have a flashlight to go up. I look at the meds and see the DOB and the patient is 73 years old, he’s trapped up in this hell hole 13 floors up; yeah of course I’ll go, he probably needs a lot of help. Delivery guy calls the pharmacist, it wasn’t the patient’s his regular pharmacy because his regular one was destroyed, but pharmacist said great. So I went in. Hell hole, damage, pitch black, walked up 13 floors, get up there, shining light on every door and there’s no 13 N, the address on the script, only A-F. What the hell. I Walk down, double check the address, call the patient’s number, dead. Call the pharmacy, does he have an emergency contact on file, no, she’s no help.
Talk to two different cops, one nothing, one tries, calls somebody he knows who might be able to run this name but we wait and the person never calls back, he says they’re screwed up down there in general that precinct or whoever he called. He says it might be a set-up for you, if it’s psychiatric medicine and you go up there you could be attacked. Though he doesn’t offer to escort e up there. I think I can handle it, I say, thanks for your concern. Any ideas how to find this guy I ask him, databases you guys have access to No. Maybe go up other buildings 13 floors see if you can find an N he suggests. Then he’s radioed away.
I finally track down the NYCHA manager for the units, Scott. I explain ask him, he said computers are down, no power. I say I ‘ve got a small generator in my bag can he just log on using that, no, it’s not like that he says, no access. I’m calling everybody I can think of , manager comes by 30 minutes later, apologizes, says there’s nothing he can do everything is down, no computers. Isn’t there a central database in Manhattan or on a generator or someplace that you can check. He says no.
I start asking around the projects, most helpful two latino women who were NYCHA maintenance workers raking, cleaning up amid the huge downed trees that fell in the project common areas. They tell me there’s a NYCHA command center, another trailer, try there, they tell me where it is. I go in and explain what’s going on. They were very nice, but they called and called all these different places, they couldn’t get through or couldn’t get the info. Finally, they called the manager, he’ll be able to help you out. They offered me food, water, were real nice but I was there for almost an hour. One guy said, the resident probably evacuated. Another said leave the meds here, we’ll get it to him– I said I can’t do it. Finally, I said, “Wait is the manager that I’m waiting for named Scott?” Yeah, they tell me. I said I talked to him twice he can’t help. One worker there, a decent young black man, I’ll call him out by name, Kevin Norman, said call “global,” which turned out to be NYCHA’s (ESD) Emergency Services Department. Another worker called, someone actually picked up, they gave the residents name, I said tell him to run it through any public housing in that park of Brooklyn. Finally got it. The address was completely wrong on the prescription, turns out the database showed he lived in a different housing project 12 blocks away. I shook all their hands, Kevin Norman gave me his cell number and said call if you need any help with him or any other residents — I said are you serious. Another worker, Louis, I believes said, “Yeah, they’re our tenants to take care of.” We thanked each other and while I was thanking them manager Scott walked into the trailer, looking a little abashed. Went to the other project and delivered the man his medicine. Maybe 2 hours this whole thing took.
I talked to another project resident, said she hadn’t had a hot shower in 12 days, she said FEMA hooked her up with a hotel room. I was surprised and said that’s good. Yeah, but she said that FEMA just called and said all the rooms are booked up. So she’s hoping and waiting.
I was there all day I didn’t see anybody going door to door in the projects, or even in the projects except utility workers and a bunch of volunteers from the Brooklyn Presbyterian Church/Brooklyn Jubilee (Pastor Brian Steadman in charge, the volunteer I talked to down there was a very decent cat named Steve). The were busting their ass going up in those dark dangerous buildings knocking on every door — that’s all I saw.
Cops were everywhere, but has been pointed out in other places, they are primarily guarding not assisting. At almost ever corner is an unmarked police car with cops inside and a siren flashing. For food people were lined up at soup kitchen distribution sites set up at schools, churches. This is a small thing but I passed by a patrol car with 4, 5 cops standing around eating slices of pizza on paper plates. It’s nothing really but damn, just from a sensitivity, public relations, community relations angle — at least eat it in your car. There’s so much resentment already toward the cops in that neighborhood — for broken down residents carrying donated charity food past them munch on slices (no idea where they got it, most stores are destroyed, and I didn’t see any pizzeria open) you know they’ve got to feel something. Red Cross, I saw two rinky dink trucks, not trailers, parked by the relief centers handing out something to residents, soup or coffee and a little something else. You all can’t go door to door guys, e-mail me, give me a bunch of supplies and I’ll do it. I’m serious. Work outside of the box, be creative – kevinjayheldman@yahoo.com — unless you guys got it under control or you’re going to try and tell me that National Guard (I saw none on Friday), OEM (I saw them nowhere), FEMA, city agencies etc. got it under control. I was there and they don’t. Good people all I’m sure, but nobody is hustling, coordinating, doing real outreach — maybe they’re too tied down by their organizations bureaucracy — no insurance or protection for someone to go into abandoned, messed up, dangerous dark buildings in a high crime area.
On more outreach, just walking around, asking what’s your situation — batteries, I gave out all the batteries I had with me, flashlights, I gave out all the flashlights I had with me. You need advil or alleve — god yes they said, so many people cupped their hands and I dumped pills into their hand, that they pocketed. Found an Latino man sick with cirrhosis and his wife living in a small side street that had nothing. You cold I asked. Yes. I said I have two winter coats in my pack, they were so appreciative, one for her, one for him.
Two young black girls were pushing this huge sofa down the street on some sort of makeshift dolly, they couldn’t get it up the curb. I offered to help and carried the thing, me on one side, the girls on the other. Their project elevator worked. Isn’t there a cargo elevator in this building for big things. Super said no, that’s only in Manhattan buildings. Worked like hell to somehow squeeze that thing in the passenger elevator and out into their apartment. Russian woman comes up to me saying FEMA, FEMA, water where FEMA, I hooked her up with the cop I bonded with and they directed her.
And here’s who’s looting legally, pawn shops, we sell gold shops, all open for business, doing well — the whole community is now plastered with these signs, ” we buy pawn tickets, we pawn things” with a number to call on the flyer. And on every slightly damaged or seemingly abandoned car or car of a now broke hurricane resident someone went around putting signs on them “we buy flood cars, call this number” and they listed their phone number on the sticker — make that money.
All the residents were grateful as hell, everybody tried to help me with directions, answered my questions — no hostility, just kindness and appreciation. I know it’s a high crime area but if you come correct, you’re coming to do the right thing — they were beautiful decent good people, the woman I gave the coat to when i shook her hand she was worried that my hands were cold and told me to wear gloves.
Was getting late, not much more supplies to give, tired so I headed home. Last man I met on the walk to the subway at Stillman Avenue was this grizzled tough looking scrawny white man, maybe 75 years old standing outside his small home with a flashlight. How you doing sir? “This, this is nothing, I’ve lived here 50 years, I’ve been through so many disasters, fires,” and he started listing the history of all the disasters that have hit Coney Island. He had it all under control, jerry rigged something, was all prepared, just waiting for his lights, heat, electricity, hot water to come on. He was fine, you need some batteries or anything I said. No, no I’m fine. I said I admired his strength. Wished him well . Hit the subway by the boarded up with wood McDonald’s and got on the long empty train ride back home, feeling, I’m not quite sure why, but feeling like shit.
Kevin Heldman