(BRAD HOYLMAN) April 20, 2021

Neighbors:

Today, a verdict was delivered in the case of Derek Chauvin, the Minnesota police officer who killed George Floyd. He was guilty on all counts. I hope this verdict brings comfort to George’s family and marks the beginning of real systemic reform of policing in America.

COVID-19 Vaccine Updates

The City’s in-home vaccination program, which had been on a pause along with all J&J administration in New York City, will resume using the Moderna vaccine starting this week. Screening calls for verifying eligibility have resumed, and New Yorkers interested in receiving an in-home vaccination can sign up at nyc.gov/homebound or by calling 877-VAX-4-NYC. The CDC updated its guidance on this issue based on new stability data on the vaccine. The City is taking all necessary precautions to ensure the vaccine remains potent and is transported safely. The city offers walk-up vaccinations for residents 50+. In addition, one individual age 16+  may accompany that 50+ New Yorker and also receive an immediate appointment. Both individuals must show proof of age upon arrival at the vaccination site.

How to Schedule a Vaccine Appointment

There are several ways to schedule an appointment online:

• For NYC-run sites, visit https://vax4nyc.nyc.gov/patient/s/ to schedule an appointment.
• For NYS-run sites (including Javits Center), visit https://am-i-eligible.covid19vaccine.health.ny.gov/ to schedule an appointment.
• Visit https://vaccinefinder.nyc.gov/locations to view a list of all vaccine providers in your area, including pharmacies, urgent care clinics, and community health centers. This website will link you to each provider’s website where you can schedule an appointment with them either online or by phone. 

To schedule an appointment by phone:

• For NYC-run sites, you can call 877-VAX-4NYC (877-829-4692).
• For NYS-run sites, you can call 1-833-NYS-4-VAX (1-833-697-4829)

If you are 75 years and older, there are a number of sites you can just walk into without an appointment. You and another person 16+ can both get your vaccines. Walk-up site locations and age eligibility will change, so please keep an eye on the list of sites that is updated weekly on NYC’s Vaccine Command Center website. 

If you live in my district and are still experiencing difficulty scheduling an appointment, please sign up for assistance from my COVID-19 Vaccine Appointment Help Center. https://bit.ly/HoylmanHelpCenter. If we are successful in securing an appointment for you, we will contact you to let you know.  We have helped over 2,100 people receive the vaccine and will not rest until every New Yorker who wants the vaccine has received it. 
 

COVID-19 Testing

When it comes to COVID-19, there is no such thing as over-testing. Getting tested keeps all of us healthy and helps to identify hot spots and variants before they spread. 

NYC Health + Hospitals offers free testing throughout the five boroughs. A schedule of mobile testing locations throughout the City, as well as detailed information on locations and types of testing offered at regular testing sites (including rapid testing and antibody tests), can be found https://www.nychealthandhospitals.org/covid-19-testing-sites/. ​

New York City’s Comeback: A Four-part Virtual Event Series

In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce presents a four-part virtual event series, “New York City’s Comeback,” which is focused on the best ways to accelerate the city’s economic recovery:

• Ensuring an Equitable Recovery for our Workforce (April 30)
• Building Back Record Tourism (May 13)
• Unleashing Entrepreneurship (May 19)
• Attracting Back Remote Workers (June 10)

All events will start at 1:00 pm and be moderated by Jessica Walker, the Chamber’s President and CEO.

Learn more here: https://www.nycindicators.com/event-series

Community First Fair: Centering Holistic Care

On April 30th from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. in Times Square, Community First will be hosting a fair full of  to celebrate the work that has been done so far to bring the community together in 2021. On site will be linkages to mental health support, homeless outreach and case management, care and services for eldery people, sexual health and medical services, COVID-19 vaccine support, clothing, bras from I support the girls, fresh sandwiches from Sullivan Street Bakery, water, free haircuts, public naloxone administration training for community members, a gardening class, free public yoga class with Wesley Collier at noon, and more.

Source: https://pubfiles.nysenate.gov/crm/hoylman/view/3cd9372b61348588

(THE CITY) June 16, 2019

Our reporting gravitated to a few main themes last week: Rikers, Albany and housing. Here’s where we try to tie some of it together. If you have any questions, do let us know (by replying to this newsletter).

What happened at Rikers?

On June 7, Layleen Polanco, a 27-year-old transgender woman, died in solitary confinement at Rikers Island. She had been locked up for prostitution and the lowest level of drug possession charges stemming from a 2017 arrest. Her bail was $500. She didn’t have it.

Sources said jail officials put Polanco in solitary as punishment for her part in a fight at Rikers. 

Following her death, a demonstration and our reporting, the news spurred strongly worded calls for reform from some lawmakers. “The restrictive housing unit where Laylee Polanco died stays in lockdown for 17 hours out of the day,” state Senator Luis Sepulveda (D-Bronx) wrote on Twitter. “This is torture and it’s time to end this inhumane practice before more lives are lost to solitary confinement.”

While we still don’t know how Polanco died, on Friday we found out that she spent eight days in the hospital just two weeks before her death.

During the course of our reporting, a *second* detainee died while in Department of Correction custody. Jose Rivera, held a little over a month, never got see a lawyer.

What’s happening in Albany?

A lot. But maybe nothing more groundbreaking than the generational changes to rent regulation. 

The law eliminates or downsizes multiple ways landlords long had to increase rents and remove rent-regulated apartments from the system. Now, landlords have just three ways to legally raise rents for the nearly 1 million New York City households covered by the rent laws. There are also additional protections for tenants who aren’t in regulated units. 

We could tell you more about those laws here in this newsletter but it’d get too long and we want you to check out our visual guide. (We explain those new laws using windows.)

But it’s not ALL rent. You may be asking yourself: What about legalizing recreational weed, driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, scaling back solitary confinement and victims’ rights? Good question. Lawmakers still have some unfinished business.

What about the evergreen issue of housing in New York City?

For those involved in Third Party Transfer, following lawsuits from foreclosed property owners and backlash from elected officials, the city’s housing agency launched a task force to take a fresh look at its TPT program for buildings that owe back taxes. 

For those living in NYCHA housing, we discovered that some NYCHA workers were using expired dust wipes to test for lead in apartments with children. And now the city Department of Investigation and NYCHA are looking into the matter. 

For those keeping track of the shelter system, an appeals court this week cleared the way for a homeless shelter to operate on Manhattan’s Billionaires’ Row, yet the 140-bed men’s facility still isn’t able to open. Why? Looks like the state — that for two years has had a hand in an application to certify the shelter to operate — is the last remaining obstacle.

For those concerned about that proposed 50-story building at the Holmes Towers complex in Yorkville, housing officials have scrapped the existing plan. It’s been controversial from the get-go, and it probably didn’t help when the Manhattan borough president sued to challenge the project.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Have a great Sunday!

Love,
THE CITY

(COMMON DREAMS) Jake Johnson, October 26, 2018 — After federal authorities on Friday arrested 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc in connection with the explosive devices that were sent to nearly a dozen public officials and critics of President Donald Trump over the past week, a Twitter user posted close-up photos of the suspect’s van, which is covered in photos of Trump, American flags, and bizarre right-wing paraphernalia.

The photos posted on Twitter—which are from an earlier date—show the same covered object on the back of the van that was seen in video footage after the suspect was arrested.

via Of Course Somebody Took Close-Up Pictures of Suspected Bomber’s Van: Here They Are.

(CNN) September 14, 2018 — The first book John Bunn fell in love with, curled up in his cell at a maximum-security prison in upstate New York, was Sister Souljah’s novel “The Coldest Winter Ever.”

In the book, a maternal woman advocates for the improvement of her black community in Brooklyn as she watches the people she loves suffer from the consequences of incarceration, violence and a seemingly endless cycle of poverty.

“I related to that book on so many levels,” Bunn says.

Bunn knows more than most what it’s like to face injustice. Arrested and imprisoned as an adolescent in New York City, he spent 17 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit and a further decade on parole, fighting for his exoneration. In that time, he battled, among others, the courts, police investigators, PTSD and the challenges of illiteracy. He was 16 before he could read and write.

Today Bunn is 41 and a free man at last, mentoring at-risk young people and advocating for the power of reading through his own program that brings books to prisons.

In many ways, his own story sounds straight out of a Sister Souljah book. Except that Bunn, who survived years of wrongful incarceration with his humanity intact, is determined to write the next chapter himself.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/08/health/john-bunn-exonerated-literacy-trnd/index.html

(COMMON DREAMS) Matt Taibbi, January 5, 2017 — On the heels of a California law legalizing recreational marijuana use, which took effect Monday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is planning to rescind the federal policy that has enabled Americans to grow, sell, and use cannabis in places where it has been legalized, without federal intervention, the Associated Press reported Thursday.

“The move will leave it to U.S. attorneys where pot is legal to decide whether to aggressively enforce federal marijuana law,” the AP noted, a move that will likely “add to confusion about whether it’s OK to grow, buy, or use marijuana in states where it’s legal, since long-standing federal law prohibits it.” The report cited anonymous sources with knowledge of the decision.

“RED ALERT!” the Drug Policy Alliance tweeted in response to the report. “This is not a drill. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is going after legalized marijuana.”

In California—which was the first state to legalize medical marijuana—state officials have, according to the Los Angeles Times, “issued dozens of permits for retailers to begin recreational sales this week, expanding a market that is expected to grow to $7 billion annually by 2020.”

via Goodbye, Erica Garner | By Matt Taibbi | Common Dreams.

(ABC NEWS) Julia Jacobo, Morgan Winsor, Dec 29, 2017 — A massive apartment fire that killed at least 12 people — including a 1-year-old girl found with her mother in a bathtub — was sparked by a small child playing with a stove, city officials said.

Add New York as an interest to stay up to date on the latest New York news, video, and analysis from ABC News.

When the family fled the first-floor apartment unit, they left the door open, allowing the flames to spread into the stairwell and shoot up the staircase of the five-story residential building.

“It took the fire so quickly upstairs, people had little time to react,” New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said at a press conference Friday morning. “Open stairs act as chimneys.”

The burned-out halls of the building are seen in video released by New York fire officials on Friday. Soot and ash cover the hallway and stairwell from floor to ceiling.

Source: abcnews.go.com/US/12-dead-including-children-massive-apartment-fire-york/story?id=52035689

(WASHINGTON POST) Renae Merle, Devlin Barrett, Wesley Lowery, Rachel Siegel and Samantha Schmidt, November 2, 2017 — Follow Wednesday’s updates here: New York truck attacker who killed 8 was a lone wolf who ‘radicalized domestically,’ governor says

NEW YORK — A 29-year-old man driving a rental truck plowed down people on a Manhattan bike path Tuesday in what authorities described as a terrorist attack that killed eight and injured 11 before the suspect was shot and arrested by police.

A sunny fall day along the Hudson River erupted in chaos just around the time students were getting out from nearby Stuyvesant High School, when a rented Home Depot truck turned on to the bike path along the West Side Highway.

Witnesses say the speeding truck struck unsuspecting bicyclists and pedestrians while onlookers screamed and scattered. The truck then veered left toward Chambers Street, where it collided with a small school bus, injuring two adults and two children inside, officials said.

Foreign ministries of Belgium and Argentina said five Argentines and a Belgian were among the victims. The Argentine nationals were part of a group of friends celebrating the 30th anniversary of their high school graduation, the Argentine Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

Source: Five Argentines among 8 dead in New York City terror attack – The Washington Post

(DNAINFO) October 30, 2017 — Eight people were killed and nearly a dozen injured when a terrorist driving a rental truck struck multiple people in a bike path on West Street Tuesday afternoon, officials said.

The unidentified 29-year-old drove the pickup truck rented from Home Depot onto the bike path at West Houston Street about 3:05 p.m. and started heading south, mowing down multiple people along the way, the NYPD said.

The driver then struck a school bus at Chambers Street, injuring two adults and two children on board, before exiting the truck with a paintball and pellet gun in hand, police said.

Responding officers shot the suspect in the stomach before taking him into custody, authorities said. He is expected to survive, police officials said.

Eight people were killed and 11 others seriously wounded in the rampage, police said. Six of the victims, all of them men, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Source: 8 Dead in Terrorist Truck Driver’s Bike Path Rampage, Officials Say – TriBeCa – New York – DNAinfo