Tag: New York City

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Never forget, and if you don’t know, understand the past

A few weeks back E and walked west to the Hudson and walked down the pier towards Battery Park city, an exercise we don’t do nearly enough in this busy city. It’s not the same as walking along Lake Merritt in Oakland, and not even close to walking barefoot through the sand along the ocean side but there’s a definite soothing comfort listening to the the small waves crashing against a mosaic piers contend with auto traffic noise on the West Side Highway.

We stopped at a bench near a Water Taxi stop and a man made stone structure I found soon enough to be the Irish Hunger Memorial. The Irish Hunger Memorial (or Irish Famine Memorial), is designed to raising public awareness of the events that led to the “Great Irish Famine and Migration” of 1845-1852 and to encourage efforts to address current and future hunger worldwide. One and a half million Irish were lost through famine related death and the Diaspora. The design expresses a desire to react and respond to changing world events without losing its focus on the project’s commemorative intent.

The 96′ x 170′ Memorial, designed by artist Brian Tolle, contains stones from each of Ireland’s 32 counties (#2), and is elevated on a limestone plinth. Along the base are these bands of texts separated by layers of imported Kilkenny limestone. The text, which combines the history of the Great Famine with contemporary reports on world hunger, is cast as shadow onto illuminated frosted glass panels.

Central to Tolle’s project is an authentic Famine-era cottage donated to the Memorial by his extended family, the Slacks of Attymass, County Mayo, Ireland. The cottage has been painstakingly reconstructed on the Memorial’s halfacre site as an expression of solidarity to those who left from those who stayed behind. From the cottage, visitors to the Memorial meander along paths winding through a rugged landscape thickly planted with native Irish flora-plants often found growing in fallow fields. Ascending to an overlook twenty-five feet above the ground, the visitor confronts a breath-taking view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island beyond. This landscape is cantilevered over a stratified base of glass and fossilized Irish limestone, presenting a theater of historical and modern sentiments about famine worldwide. Layers of mutable text, appearing beyond touch as shadows upon the glass, wrap around the exterior of the Memorial and into the passageway leading to the cottage while accounts of world hunger are heard from an audio installation overhead.

Brian Tolle is an internationally renowned sculptor and public artist. His recent public works include Waylay for the Whitney Biennel in Central Park (2002), Man’s Achievements on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe for the Queens Museum of Art (2001) and WitchCatcher at MetroTech Center Brooklyn (1997) reinstalled in New York City Hall Park (2003). Using a variety of media, his works draw themes from the scale and experience of their surroundings provoking a re-reading by cross-wiring reality and fiction. In much of his work he uses cutting-edge technology in unexpected ways, blurring the border between the contemporary and the historical.

Surprisingly more info is on this Irish site, not a NYC site.

Most of our citizenry believes that hunger only affects people who are lazy or people who are just looking for a handout, people who don’t’ want to work, but, sadly, that is not true. Over one-third of our hungry people are innocent children who are members of households that simply cannot provide enough food or proper nutrition. And to think of the elderly suffering from malnutrition is just too hard for most of us. Unlike Third World nations, in our country the problem is not having too little – it is about not caring enough! Write your elected representatives and promote support for the hungry.
— Erin Brokovich

pictures by Wally

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NYC Taxi cab rides are dangerous in hybrids?

In a cab ride last week I got into a Ford Crown Victoria and noticed the windows were covered with the new car listing and the ride was missing that distinct NY cabbie smell. In fact the ride was spankin new. Ricardo got to venting: Apparently the first of October is the last day cabbies can buy and run the Crown Vic in the streets of NYC so he and many of the other cabbies bought up the crown vics in both the defiance of the new law and for the extension of customer comfort.

Earlier this year Mayor Bloomberg had announced laws that enforce a new policy that all the cabs in NY(13,000 this year) were being phased into more gas efficient vehicles. Taxis will be required to achieve a minimum of 25 miles per gallon and a year later, all new vehicles on the road must get 30 miles per gallon and be hybrid.

The Crown Vic has been the primary taxi auto in New York because of it’s easy access to parts, large space and comfort and deals with the Ford Motor company. Bloomberg’s push for a greener fleet has brought up a few objections to the new policy and even a suit brought on by Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade. The suit claims that the new hybrid taxicabs “pose extensive risks and dangers to passengers riding in these yellow taxicabs.”

And you thought that it was really the driver’s lack or regard to the laws of the road and the pedestrians on the sidewalk that posed the most risk from taxicabs. The report says that hybrids are not made to withstand the 24/7 rough wear-and-tear of taxicabs as the “purpose-built” Crown Victorias are. It also claims the hybrids are not designed to hold partitions, which are mandated by the New York Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) to prevent drivers from being assaulted, robbed, or killed. According to Gambardella’s research, partitions could compromise the vehicles’ safety systems by preventing side airbags from being deployed, can be easily dislodged in accidents, and severely diminish passenger legroom.

Ricardo and I also commented on the leg room in the Crown vics: Roomy, you can extend out and even “express yourself“. Eight people can fit in a NY Cab:



Also some of the new hybrids on the road are these Ford Escapes that I have been told are harder for the elderly and disabled to get into because of their increased hight. The Crowns are lower to the ground and thus easier to get in and out of. I’ve been in a few of these Escapes and I can’t even sit in them facing forward; but have to hang my legs to the side. If I’m flagging a cab, I’ll let one of these pass in favor of a Crown and from our conversation, cabbies rolling these vehicles are loosing fairs from the same mentality.

Hybrids obviously offer a savings at some level, both an environmental as well as economic (according to the TLC, hybrid taxi’s are saving drivers $6,500 a year and they have better rates of passing inspection). Ultimately I’m siding with favoring the hybrids, just as long as the automakers create roomier options in the future. If not, I’m sure Ford will be loosing out on sales to Toyota if they don’t resolve these obvious marketing flaws.