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☆ Homelessness Is Especially Hard on Children. Making Music Helps.
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-28 | by ( Andy Newman | Todd Heisler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“We’re going to be making a beat,” Dannyele Crawford said as the kids settled noisily into their seats at a homeless shelter in Brooklyn. The room filled with clashing, tinny riffs leaking from headsets as the pint-size producers danced and bobbed in their seats. What the children did not know this recent Monday afternoon was that Ms. Crawford, 27, is not just a teacher. She is a music therapist, there to help children deal with the stress of not having a permanent place to call home. Since 2015, therapists who work for the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music have made regular visits to the 158-family shelter in the Brownsville neighborhood, run by the nonprofit Camba.

Persons: “, ” Dannyele Crawford, Bella Diaz, Crawford Organizations: Brooklyn Conservatory of Music Locations: Brooklyn, Brownsville

Before Carlton McPherson was accused of fatally shoving a stranger in front of a subway train last week, he was placed by New York City into specialized homeless shelters meant to help people with severe mental illness. But at one shelter, in Brooklyn, he became erratic and attacked a security guard. At another, he jumped on tables and would cycle between anger and ecstasy. At a third, his fellow residents said it was clear his psychological issues were not being addressed. “That man needed help,” said Roe Dewayne, who stayed with Mr. McPherson at a mental health shelter in the Bronx.

Persons: Carlton McPherson, ”, Roe Dewayne, McPherson Organizations: New, Mr, ” Locations: New York City, Brooklyn, Bronx, ” As, York

☆ Man Charged in Subway Shoving Had History of Mental Illness, Family Says
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Hurubie Meko | Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The man who the police said pushed a subway rider in front of an oncoming train in East Harlem on Monday night, killing him, appears to have had a history of committing violent acts against others and struggles with mental illness. The man, Carlton McPherson, 24, was arrested and charged with murder after pushing another man in front of an oncoming No. The man who was killed was identified by two police officials and an internal report as Jason Volz, 54. Responding officers found Mr. Volz underneath the train car with “severe trauma to the body and face,” according to the report. Witnesses pointed out Mr. McPherson to officers as he was leaving the scene and he was taken into custody.

Persons: Carlton McPherson, Jason Volz, McPherson, Volz, Witnesses Organizations: Lexington Locations: East Harlem

☆ A Fatal Instant on the Subway Captures New York’s Persistent Challenges
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-26 | by ( Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Before the paths of Jason Volz and Carlton McPherson collided in a terrible moment on a Harlem subway platform on Monday, their lives had seemed to be heading in opposite directions. Mr. McPherson had been hospitalized at least half a dozen times since last year for mental health treatment, according to someone who has seen some of his medical records. Last October, a man whom prosecutors believe to be Mr. McPherson — he had the same name and birth year — was charged with beating a Brooklyn homeless shelter employee with a cane. Mr. Volz, 54, was recovering from addiction and had also endured homelessness, but had gotten sober two years ago and had just moved into a new apartment, his ex-wife said. On Monday night, the police say, Mr. McPherson, 24, walked up to Mr. Volz on the uptown platform of the 125th Street station on Lexington Avenue and shoved him in front of an oncoming No.

Persons: Jason Volz, Carlton McPherson, McPherson, McPherson —, —, Volz Organizations: Brooklyn, 125th Locations: Harlem, Lexington

☆ Migrant Children Sell Candy on the Subway. New York Has No Solutions.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-13 | by ( Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

On a subway platform in the Bronx recently, a girl in a puffer coat strolled past passengers with a basket of M&M’s, Kit Kats and Trident gum slung across her shoulder. One rider captured her on a video posted on X, calling out, “No parent, no parent, where the parent at?” as she walked by. Of all the manifestations of human misery that the two-year-old migrant crisis has brought to New York City, few trouble the conscience more than the sight of children selling candy on the subway — sometimes during school hours, sometimes accompanied by parents, sometimes not. On trains and on social media, New Yorkers have asked: Isn’t this child labor? Shouldn’t someone be doing something to help these children?

Persons: Kit Kats Organizations: Trident Locations: Bronx, New York City

The Gaza aid convoy that ended in bloodshed this week was organized by Israel itself as part of a newly hatched partnership with local Palestinian businessmen, according to Israeli officials, Palestinian businessmen and Western diplomats. Israel has been involved in at least four such aid convoys to northern Gaza over the past week. It undertook the effort, Israeli officials told two Western diplomats, to fill a void in assistance to northern Gaza, where famine looms as international aid groups have suspended most operations, citing Israeli refusals to greenlight aid trucks and rising lawlessness. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter. Israeli officials reached out to multiple Gazan businessmen and asked them to help organize private aid convoys to the north, two of the businessmen said, while Israel would provide security.

Organizations: United Nations Locations: Gaza, Israel

Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesIn a tidy suburban apartment complex on Long Island, a Venezuelan mother of two surveyed her new home and declared herself blessed. Sury Saray Espine and her family had spent 13 months in a homeless shelter in New York City. Now, in early February, they were moving into a one-bedroom in Central Islip with a galley kitchen and access to a swimming pool. Best of all, the state would pay their rent for a year, through a resettlement program designed to house 1,250 migrant families at a fraction of the cost of keeping them in New York City’s overflowing shelters. The family’s experience, however, has been an anomaly.

Persons: Sury Saray Espine Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Long, Venezuelan, New York City, Central Islip, New York

The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, will convene a grand jury on Tuesday to hear evidence against a group of men caught on video last month assaulting police officers in Times Square, he said in a statement. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly. “They should be sitting in Rikers right now, on bail,” John Chell, the Police Department chief of patrol, said on Wednesday of the men charged in the attack. “You want to know why our cops are getting assaulted? There are no consequences.”

Persons: Alvin L, Bragg, “, ” John Chell, ” Organizations: Times, Police Department Locations: Manhattan, Rikers

☆ The New Migrant Shelter Hurdle: Waiting for the City to Call No. 14,861
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-24 | by ( Andy Newman | Wesley Parnell | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The men are all migrants who have come up against New York City’s 30-day limit for single adults on stays at any one homeless shelter. As of Tuesday, several migrants said, the city had reached people with numbers in the 14,000s. For those with higher numbers, the city offered only a spot on the floor or a chair at one of a handful of waiting centers scattered around the five boroughs. New York City has a unique “right to shelter” that requires it to provide a bed to every homeless person who asks. In recent weeks, however, for increasing numbers of migrants, the guarantee has become something that exists only on paper.

Persons: Moises Chacon, Jon Cordero’s, Camara’s wristband Organizations: New York Locations: Manhattan, New York City

☆ Migrants Sleep in the Snow in Desperate Wait for ID Cards
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-17 | by ( Andy Newman | More About Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Lorena Garcia, who journeyed from Colombia with her 3-year-old son, said shelter workers told her that “after the 60 days, I have to leave there and pay rent.” She said she did not know how she would find an affordable room. A city spokeswoman, Kayla Mamelak, said that every family who has reapplied for shelter has received it. She added that if families can’t find housing after the second 60-day period, the city will do everything in its power to offer them shelter beds. The mounting uncertainty comes as the state and city governments grapple with the cost of the crisis. Kathy Hochul announced a state budget that includes $2.4 billion to help New York City with migrants, a $500 million increase over last year.

Persons: Lorena Garcia, ”, Kayla Mamelak, Kathy Hochul, Eric Adams Organizations: New York City’s Locations: Colombia, New York City, New York, Boerum

☆ On a Single Day, Two Men Are Cleared in Decades-Old Manhattan Murders
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-27 | by ( Andy Newman | Nate Schweber | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The killings happened eight blocks apart within nine months, near the height of New York City’s crack wars, in a Harlem precinct that was becoming synonymous with police corruption. As of Monday, the two otherwise unrelated murder cases have something else in common: The men who were convicted were exonerated at a Manhattan courthouse. They are the latest in a long string of New Yorkers, overwhelmingly Black and Hispanic, who have had their names cleared after decades in prison. One of the men, Jabar Walker, 49, was convicted of shooting two men in a parked car in 1995 and remained incarcerated even though a man who had testified that he heard Mr. Walker confess recanted in an affidavit.

Persons: Jabar Walker, Walker Locations: York, Harlem, Manhattan, Black

On Thursday, Vinicius Funes, a 26-year-old migrant from Honduras, went in search of a bed. He had spent two nights waiting in a chair at New York City’s official arrival center for migrants at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. But it turned out to be a “reticketing” office, where the city buys migrants a one-way passage out of town. There were no beds there either, though, just a big waiting room. Mr. Funes spent the night on the floor.

Persons: Vinicius Funes, Funes, Roosevelt Organizations: New York, Roosevelt Locations: Honduras, New, Midtown Manhattan

New York City’s homeless system is sheltering record numbers of people week after week, as an influx of migrants accelerates to its highest rate since the crisis began. The city is moving more and more migrants out of its vast network of emergency shelters by combining pressure tactics with help in finding permanent housing. But the jump in arrivals — to more than 500 people per day in recent weeks — has outpaced those efforts. On Monday, the mayor announced a 60-day limit on how long a family can stay at any one shelter. A similar limit was imposed on single adults over the summer, and later reduced to 30 days.

Persons: Eric Adams Locations: York

☆ Judge Blocks Migrants From Former School, Questioning Shelter Guarantee
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-26 | by ( Andy Newman | More About Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A judge on Staten Island temporarily blocked New York City on Tuesday from using a former school as an emergency shelter for migrants, in a decision that could have broader implications for the city’s long-established obligation to offer shelter to anyone who asks for it. The city has struggled to provide housing to the more than 110,000 migrants who have entered its shelter system since early last year, in part because of a decades-old legal obligation, known as “right to shelter,” that requires it to provide a bed for anyone who is homeless and asks for one. Citing “right to shelter," Mayor Eric Adams issued an emergency order that let the city bypass the normal review process for opening homeless shelters. But on Tuesday, Justice Wayne Ozzi of State Supreme Court wrote that the “right to shelter” does not exist, and ordered the Staten Island school emptied. The ruling came in a suit against the city and state brought by a man who lives near the school and eight Republican city, state and federal elected officials who represent the island, New York City’s most conservative borough.

Persons: Eric Adams, Wayne Ozzi Organizations: Staten, Court, Republican Locations: New York City, Staten, New York

☆ House Democrats Visit a Migrant Hotel as Political Tensions Erupt
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-15 | by ( Andy Newman | More About Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

However, a small but very loud crowd of protesters, whose shouts of “Close the border!” and “Send them back!” rendered the speeches by the Congress members nearly inaudible, signaled a different and more difficult reality facing the city. A Republican-controlled House is unlikely to offer much help for New York. Rather, conservative-leaning politicians have been using the spiraling crisis as a talking point in their own push to secure the border and reduce immigration. Mr. Adams has said the president has “failed” the city. Still, Mr. Espaillat tried to sound a hopeful note.

Persons: “, Biden, Adams, Espaillat, ”, Ocasio, Cortez Organizations: Republican, New Locations: New York

☆ Mother Wins $75,000 After New York Took Her Baby Over Marijuana Use
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( Andy Newman | More About Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

were tested without her consent or knowledge and both tested positive for marijuana. told Ms. Rivers it was opening a neglect case and moved to place T.W. policy states that marijuana in an infant’s system is not grounds for removal without a finding that the baby might be impaired. But it took Ms. Rivers nearly a week, multiple trips to court and a judge’s order — over A.C.S.’s objections — to gain custody of T.W. pursued Ms. Rivers “not because A.C.S.

Persons: Rivers, ’, Arnold, Porter, A.C.S Organizations: Bronx Defenders, T.W Locations: A.C.S

☆ In a Decaying Queens Fortress, It’s One Man Versus 47 Kinds of Mosquito
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Andy Newman | More About Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In a damp, dungeonlike cell beneath a crumbling military fortress in northeast Queens, Dr. Waheed Bajwa and his team were counting sleeping mosquitoes and trying to divine the future. Soon the mosquitoes would awaken and secrete rafts of goo into puddles of standing water and lay hundreds of eggs onto them that would hatch into larvae that would feed and grow up and mate and lay eggs of their own — until sometime in late summer one of their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughters would bite a sparrow infected with West Nile virus and then, perhaps, a human. But that day was months off. On this balmy morning in mid-February, Dr. Bajwa, a mild-mannered, methodical, relentless medical entomologist who has spent 21 years heading the city Health Department’s Office of Vector Surveillance and Control, was hoping to find signs that the coming summer would be merciful. Last year saw the highest number of human West Nile cases since 1999, when the virus first appeared in the Western Hemisphere in Queens and killed four New Yorkers.

Persons: Waheed Bajwa, Bajwa Organizations: Health, Vector Locations: Queens

☆ The Latest Migrant Battleground: New York City Soccer Fields
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-11 | by ( Andy Newman | More About Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

For months, as New York City has struggled to find shelter for more than 50,000 migrants, Mayor Eric Adams has sought to rally residents to push Washington for more help. “I need you to raise your voice on the federal level,” Mr. Adams said at a town hall-style event in Manhattan Thursday night. “I need you to say, as New Yorkers, ‘We deserve to be treated better.’”New Yorkers have been raising their voices. It seems as if every place city officials choose to house migrants draws a new backlash. One of the latest skirmishes is being fought on Randall’s Island, off the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where a tent complex big enough to sleep 2,000 men is being built atop four soccer fields, just as the fall season prepares to begin.

Persons: Eric Adams, Mr, Adams, ‘ Locations: New York City, Washington, Manhattan, New

Part of the answer can be found at a large church in Long Island City, Queens, the Evangel Christian Center, which the city said accepted nearly 200 people last week who had been in the line outside the Roosevelt Hotel, which has become the main intake center for migrants. Several migrants from the West African nation of Mauritania said Wednesday that they had been moved there from their sidewalk sleeping spots. Mohammed Yerim, a Mauritanian in his mid-20s, said he came directly to the church, bypassing the line outside the hotel, after arriving from Florida. Two emergency lodgings in recreation centers in Brooklyn in McCarren Park and Sunset Park that opened over the weekend are housing about 80 people each. A small number of migrants leave the shelter system each week after finding homes elsewhere.

Persons: Mohammed Yerim, “ Organizations: Evangel Christian Center Locations: Long Island City, Queens, West African, Mauritania, Mauritanian, Florida, Brooklyn, McCarren, Clinton Hill

☆ A Quaint French Bookstore, a Vicious Dog and a Dead Toy Poodle
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-07 | by ( Andy Newman | More About Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The quaint little shop on the Upper East Side is New York City’s only store dedicated to French children’s books. But lately, the shop, La Librairie des Enfants, has earned a more sinister distinction: It has been the sometime home of Syko, a 98-pound white German shepherd with a penchant for eviscerating smaller dogs. On Friday, Akiba Tripp was walking her seven-pound toy poodle, Baby, past the store when the owner opened the door and Syko lurched out, sank his teeth into Baby and broke her spine, Ms. Tripp said. The attack followed two others in May in which Syko and his siblings injured three other dogs, their owners said. They terrorized people and dogs alike, according to several victims along with online reviews of the shop, which has an adjoining cafe.

Persons: Akiba Tripp, Tripp, Baby, Syko, — Organizations: Librairie des Enfants Locations: York, Syko

☆ Migrants Sleep on the Sidewalk, the Face of a Failing Shelter System
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-01 | by ( Andy Newman | More About Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“There are many ways the city could shelter everyone who is on that sidewalk if that is what they wanted to do,” he said. Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the mayor, said on Tuesday that the 194 locations the city has opened to shelter asylum seekers are at capacity. “Our teams run out of space every single day, and we do our best to offer placements where we have space available,” he said. He added that the city is adding two more big humanitarian relief centers in the coming weeks, including a mega-tent big enough for 1,000 people in the parking lot of a state psychiatric hospital in Queens. The city has estimated that the migrants will cost more than $4 billion over two years.

Persons: Josh Goldfein, Roosevelt, ”, Fabien Levy Organizations: Legal Aid Society Locations: Washington, Queens

Mr. Heuermann went on to college at New York Institute of Technology on Long Island to study architectural technology. One of the few neighbors Mr. Heuermann spoke to was Etienne de Villiers, 68, whose immaculately kept house next door stood in keen contrast with Mr. Heuermann’s. Mr. de Villiers said he had only passing conversations with Mr. Heuermann along with a few minor conflicts, like the time he had to tell Mr. Heuermann to stop leering at his wife over the backyard fence while she was sunbathing. Mr. de Villiers watched as Mr. Heuermann seemed to be raising his children to be as isolated as he had been, in the same rundown off-limits house. “He just didn’t want any part of it, he didn’t want any part of sports,” Mr. DeMicoli said.

Persons: Heuermann, Etienne de Villiers, Heuermann’s, de Villiers, leering, Victoria, “, ‘, ’ ”, Johnny McGorey’s, DeMicoli, ”, Mr, Andy Newman Organizations: New York Institute of Technology Locations: Long, Manhattan

At his office near the Empire State Building, Rex Heuermann was a master of the meticulous: a veteran architectural consultant and a self-styled expert at navigating the intricacies of New York City’s building code. At home in Massapequa Park on Long Island, while some neighbors saw Mr. Heuermann as just another commuter in a suit, others found him a figure of menace. “He was somebody you don’t want to approach.”On Friday, Suffolk County prosecutors said that residents of Massapequa Park had a serial killer living in their midst. They accused Mr. Heuermann, 59, of leaving a quarter-mile trail of young women’s bodies on the South Shore of Long Island in what came to be known as the Gilgo Beach Killings. Yet he was so careful in covering his tracks, they said, that it took them nearly 15 years to arrest him.

Persons: Rex Heuermann, Heuermann, ”, Nicholas Ferchaw, Mr Organizations: Foods Locations: York, Massapequa, Long, Suffolk, Shore

☆ A Record 100,000 People in New York Homeless Shelters
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( Andy Newman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Of the 50,000 now in shelters, more than two-thirds are families with children. At the same time, the city’s nonmigrant homeless population may also be growing. When Mr. Adams took office, there were 45,000 people in the city’s main shelter system. (At least 17,000 migrants are in facilities outside the main shelter system, the city says, which include large hotels and other venues set up especially to house them.) In all, about 1 in 80 people in the nation’s largest city do not have a permanent place to live.

Persons: Anne Williams, Isom, “, Adams Locations: New York City

☆ Bobby Osborne, Mandolinist Who Flouted Bluegrass Convention, Dies at 91
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Bill Friskics-Warren | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Bobby Osborne, the singer and mandolin player who with his younger brother, Sonny, led one of the most groundbreaking bands in the history of bluegrass, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Gallatin, Tenn., a suburb of Nashville. His death was confirmed by Dan Rogers, the vice president and executive producer of the Grand Ole Opry. Formed in 1953, the Osborne Brothers band habitually flouted bluegrass convention during its first two decades. They were the first bluegrass group of national renown to incorporate drums, electric bass, pedal steel guitar and even, on records, string sections. They were also the first to record with twin banjos, as well as the first to amplify their instruments with electric pickups.

Persons: Bobby Osborne, Sonny, Dan Rogers, Osborne, Ernest Tubb, Randy Newman, Everly Organizations: Grand Ole Opry Locations: Gallatin, Tenn, Nashville

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