Monday Bulletin: Waiting for Playgrounds to Open, Sick Man Tased by Police, Parents Playing Group Therapy
Photo by David L.
June 15, 2020 Weather: Sunny, with a high of 73 degrees.
Notices:
Our calendar is full of events you can enjoy from home.
Parents and students: Let the DOE know what you’re feeling about next year’s school year in this survey.
News:
New York City playgrounds remain locked after 10 weeks, and Mayor Bill de Blasio now has the keys. Last Thursday, Governor Andrew Cuomo “paved the way for reopening, saying the decision to open or close playgrounds and public pools is now up to ‘the discretion of local governments,’” The City news site reported. The mayor isn’t ready to open them yet and didn’t say when he would be. “‘The day is coming. It’s not here yet. But the day is coming where we’ll be able to open up them again,‘” he said. “‘We don’t have a timeline yet. But it will be absolutely connected to how we do in fighting back the disease.”
An NYPD body cam showed that an Upper West Side man was tased for five minutes by the police while in diabetic shock in February, according to NBC. “The video shows officers showing up to (Shawn) Collins home at the time, a men’s shelter on the Upper West Side of Manhattan…demanding he get on the ground. He says he likely couldn’t respond because he was in diabetic shock.” Another report of allegedly abusive tasing has also emerged.
“One of the three teenagers the police say was involved in the stabbing death of an 18-year-old Barnard College student in Morningside Park pleaded guilty to robbery in Family Court on Wednesday,” wrote The New York Times. His name has not been released because he is a juvenile. He was 13 years old at the time Tessa Majors was killed.
Update: The teen was sentenced on Monday to up to 18 months in a juvenile detention center, serving no less than six months,” the Times reported. Time already served will be credited. “The sentence did not satisfy Ms. Majors’s family.”
A community garden has been closed for more than a year in the Frederick Douglass housing development, NYCHA buildings, and the president of the complex is fighting to get it reopened. “Carmen Quionones, the president of the Douglass Houses, said the community garden once flourished,” according to PIX11. She wants to turn it into a vegetable garden to help feed families hurting during the ongoing pandemic.
“New York has seen a spike in requests for absentee ballots, almost 10 times the number of mail-in ballots cast four years ago,” according to Gothamist. But will they arrive in time for the primary election? And what to do if you haven’t received yours.
Where else would the vintage, “greatest board game of all time,”, Group Therapy have originated? “The year was 1968. The place — it almost goes without saying — was the Upper West Side of Manhattan, land of 1,000 therapists, Shrinkri-La.” The game is back, according to the Times, and it just might help — or destroy — your relationships.
And a hopeful sign: The protests do not appear to have led to a spike in Covid infections so far, the Post reports. That could still change, however. “First, the lag in test results and COVID-19’s long incubation period mean the Big Apple may not be out of the woods, yet.”
Please open the playgrounds De Blasio. The children need a safe place to run and sprinklers to cool off in this summer!
Why aren’t the city golf courses open?
YOU CAN PLAY TENNIS – THE ULTIMATE SOCIAL DISTANCING SPORT – ANYWHERE OUTSIDE THE FIVE BOROUGHS. YOU CAN’T TRANSMIT COVID FROM A TENNIS BALL, THE SAME AS YOU CAN’T THROUGH A DOG’S FUR – THEY ARE POROUS SURFACES. IT’S AS THOUGH DE BLASIO IS BENT ON PUNISHING THE PEOPLE WHO STOPPED COVID-19 IN NEW YORK. OPEN THE DAMN TENNIS COURTS DE BLASIO. AND WHILE YOU’RE AT IT, OPEN THE PLAYGROUNDS SO KIDS CAN PLAY AND THE DOG RUNS SO DOGS CAN SOCIALIZE. THIS IS RIDICULOUS!
“We’re all in this together!”
Opening tennis courts might upset basketball players!
And golf – fuggetaboutit! A really bad visual!
This is EXACTLY what is in “the minds” of our fearless leaders.
Repeat repeatedly: “We’re all in this together!”
What I find interesting is that decisions are being made by the De Blasio administration simply by caveat and without explanation. Apparently, drunken people in Riverside Park at Ellington’s every night, and the outdoor bacchanalia we’ve all seen pictures of on St. Marks Street in the East Village – those things are fine. De Blasio has decreed that getting drunk (and making all those bad decisions while drunk) is an acceptable risk in times of pandemic, but tennis (and golf, and kids’ playgrounds and dog runs) these are not. Oh the carnage of two toddlers on a see-saw! Oh the irresponsibility of dogs socializing in a dog run.
The dog parks and playgrounds are closed for good reason. The pandemic is NOT over with! Don’t be impatient with authorities who are protecting humans from themselves and other foolish people. https://youtu.be/KHMYC5Comio
Tell that to the protesters!
The mayor and council lack the talent, grit and intellectual discipline required to set criteria for closing, opening or managing anything related to the pandemic. We get the representation we deserve I guess…
Mitchell Silver (Commissioner of Parks) is the worst. Riverside Park is a disgrace, a trash dump. Why? Because they REMOVED trash cans instead of ADDING them. People bring their garbage to trash cans that are already over-flowing. Great for the rat population, not so much for people who use the park. I’ve written dozens of emails to Silver, and still haven’t gotten one single response. Corruption or incompetence? Probably both.
What’s going on with fireworks from 10 pm on for the past few days and yesterday again at 1 am. Dog going ballistic
its happening all over NYC. cops are doing nothing, as they believe its better to have fireworks than other ways of “venting”.
I know this is off topic, but does anyone know why the Chase Bank on 90th and Broadway is “temporarily” closed for weeks now? Just the ATMs are open, but nothing else.