The Floating Pool Lady

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann L. Buttenwieser
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Projects ◽  
New Yorkers

Why on earth would anyone want to float a pool up the Atlantic coastline to bring it to rest at a pier on the New York City waterfront? This book recounts the author's triumphant adventure that started in the bayous of Louisiana and ended with a self-sustaining, floating swimming pool moored in New York Harbor. When the author decided something needed to be done to help revitalize the New York City waterfront, she reached into the city's nineteenth-century past for inspiration. The author wanted New Yorkers to reestablish their connection to their riverine surroundings and she was energized by the prospect of city youth returning to the Hudson and East rivers. What she didn't suspect was that outfitting and donating a swimming facility for free enjoyment by the public would turn into an almost-Sisyphean task. As the book describes, the author battled for years with politicians and struggled with bureaucrats to bring her “crazy” scheme to fruition. The book retells the improbable process that led to a pool named The Floating Pool Lady tying up to a pier at Barretto Point Park in the Bronx, ready for summer swimmers. Throughout, the book raises consciousness about persistent environmental issues and the challenges of developing a constituency for projects to make cities livable in the twenty-first century. The story functions as both warning and inspiration to those who dare to dream of realizing innovative public projects in the modern urban landscape.

Sunlight and Gaslight: Mapping Light in Mid-Nineteenth-Century New York City

2020 ◽  
pp. 009614422093987
Author(s):  
Rachel Eu
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Morphological Characteristics ◽  
Gis Mapping ◽  
Natural Light ◽  
Artificial Light

This article evaluates the distribution of natural and artificial light in New York City during the mid-nineteenth century. Analysis centers on the interplay between social factors and morphological characteristics of the urban landscape in impacting New Yorkers’ access to light. The article employs built environment data and geographic information systems (GIS) mapping methodology as its main approach. First, the article makes an exploration into the distribution of natural light. By analyzing the distribution of built features, the article demonstrates that natural light and darkness dispersed along lines of wealth and poverty, as sunlight commodified into a highly coveted resource. The second section of this article draws from archival sources to construct an unprecedented visualization of the street gas main network in mid-century Manhattan. Analysis demonstrates that spatial patterns of artificial light correlated strongly with commerce, as the new technology was prioritized along commercial streets over residential thoroughfare.

The Archaeology of Prostitution and Clandestine Pursuits

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Yamin ◽  
Donna J. Seifert
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Agency Theory ◽  
Historic Preservation ◽  
York City ◽  
First Century ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
National Historic Preservation Act

The archaeological study of prostitution in nineteenth-century American contexts grew out of the discovery of brothels in the 1990s during large urban projects done in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act. This book provides an overview of many of those projects as well as detailed discussions of a brothel found at Five Points in New York City and several parlor houses found in Washington, D.C. The large artifact assemblages recovered in combination with detailed primary and secondary historical research have produced a complex picture of commercial sex, which the book discusses in both nineteenth-century and twenty-first century perspectives. Agency theory is used to link the practice of prostitution with other forms of clandestine behavior that have come to light through archaeology. Issues of gender, class, and race run through the archaeological study of clandestine behavior, which includes acts of resistance in public—from drinking on the job to piracy—and acts in private—from hiding caches of artifacts in vulnerable places to scratching inscrutable designs on ceramic pots. The book ends with questions that touch on the age-old conundrum of passing judgment. Should prostitution be decriminalized? Should the efficacy of spiritual practices be questioned? The value of anomalous artifacts and their interpretation is stressed as crucial to recognizing brothels and evidence of clandestine pursuits.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aimée Boutin
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Mexico City ◽  
York City ◽  
First Century ◽  
Sound Perception ◽  
Cultural Experience ◽  
Sidi Bouzid ◽  
Collective Experience

This concluding chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. It argues that the collective experience of sounds is what gives aurality meaning, even though there is an element of idiosyncrasy in sound perception. The street cries of peddlers and hawkers were meaningful sounds that resonated as a shared cultural experience in the nineteenth century, even for those who rarely heard them, or chose not to write about them. In the twenty-first century, peddlers still operate and vocalize in locations as diverse as New York City, Mexico City, Dakar, Port-au-Prince, Calcutta, Sidi Bouzid, and even Paris. Modern forms of peddling are alive and well, and the intrusiveness of street trade remains a point of contention in today's noise-conscious society.

From Fort George to the Fields: The Public Space and Military Geography of Revolutionary New York City

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-642
Author(s):  
John Gilbert McCurdy
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Public Space ◽  
York City ◽  
The Public ◽  
Military Geography ◽  
British Military ◽  
Military Commanders ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
New Yorkers

Drawing on the literature of public space and military geography, this article explores the martial and civilian places of New York City on the eve of the American Revolution. Whereas martial and civilian places were largely undistinguished in New York before 1750, the arrival of British troops and the repositioning of New York as the center of British military power in North America initiated a process whereby New Yorkers debated if these two should be separated. While military commanders and local officials attempted to protect private spaces like the home through a joint martial-civilian occupation of public spaces with the construction of barracks, the Sons of Liberty contested this use of space and sought to evict the British soldiers. Ultimately, the Battle of Golden Hill and other clashes between soldiers and civilians forced leaders to segregate the city’s places, thereby removing all military geography from the city.

Hospitals: N.Y. Appellate Court Denies Move to Privatize Public Hospital

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-203
Author(s):  
Robert Chatham
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Public Health System ◽  
Municipal Hospital ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Benefit ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Benefit Corporation ◽  
The City

The Court of Appeals of New York held, in Council of the City of New York u. Giuliani, slip op. 02634, 1999 WL 179257 (N.Y. Mar. 30, 1999), that New York City may not privatize a public city hospital without state statutory authorization. The court found invalid a sublease of a municipal hospital operated by a public benefit corporation to a private, for-profit entity. The court reasoned that the controlling statute prescribed the operation of a municipal hospital as a government function that must be fulfilled by the public benefit corporation as long as it exists, and nothing short of legislative action could put an end to the corporation's existence.In 1969, the New York State legislature enacted the Health and Hospitals Corporation Act (HHCA), establishing the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) as an attempt to improve the New York City public health system. Thirty years later, on a renewed perception that the public health system was once again lacking, the city administration approved a sublease of Coney Island Hospital from HHC to PHS New York, Inc. (PHS), a private, for-profit entity.

The Search for Order in Municipal Administration: Herman A. Metz and the New York City Experience, 1898–1909

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-74
Author(s):  
Ryan P. McDonough ◽  
Paul J. Miranti ◽  
Michael P. Schoderbek
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Internal Control ◽  
York City ◽  
Internal Controls ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Financial Reports ◽  
The Public ◽  
Operational Activities ◽  
The City

ABSTRACT This paper examines the administrative and accounting reforms coordinated by Herman A. Metz around the turn of the 20th century in New York City. Reform efforts were motivated by deficiencies in administering New York City's finances, including a lack of internal control over monetary resources and operational activities, and opaque financial reports. The activities of Comptroller Metz, who collaborated with institutions such as the New York Bureau of Municipal Research, were paramount in initiating and implementing the administrative and accounting reforms in the city, which contributed to reform efforts across the country. Metz promoted the adoption of functional cost classifications for city departments, developed flowcharts for improved transaction processing, strengthened internal controls, and published the 1909 Manual of Accounting and Business Procedure of the City of New York, which laid the groundwork for transparent financial reports capable of providing vital information about the city's activities and subsidiary units. JEL Classifications: H72, M41, N91. Data Availability: Data are available from the public sources cited in the text.

Nearly Got Shot Dead, and He Didn’t Get His Little Check Yet: Workers, Crime, and Law and Order in New York City, 1962-1970

2021 ◽  
pp. 009614422199964
Author(s):  
Glenn Dyer
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
York City ◽  
Important Research ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Management Conflicts ◽  
High Crime ◽  
New Yorkers

Historians have conducted important research on the rise of law-and-order politics in New York City, where anxieties over women’s freedoms, political battles over police oversight, and crime impacts in poor communities contributed to its rise. The numerous walkouts, negotiations, and worker-management conflicts around high-crime areas in New York City suggest that the question of law and order was a salient workplace issue as well for the members of Communication Workers of America Local 1101. In their case, such concerns predate the rhetorical rise of law and order and help us better understand why such politics found fertile ground among working-class New Yorkers, white and black. Repeated incidences, largely in the city’s black ghettoes, prompted workers with a strong class consciousness and commitment to solidarity to transform the problems and experiences of individual workers into a shared question to be addressed via collective action.

scholarly journals A statewide analysis of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in New York

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Lasek-Nesselquist ◽  
Navjot Singh ◽  
Alexis Russell ◽  
Daryl Lamson ◽  
John Kelly ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
New York State ◽  
The United States ◽  
York State ◽  
Multiple Introductions ◽  
The Public ◽  
Travel Restrictions ◽  
Westchester County

AbstractNew York State, in particular the New York City metropolitan area, was the early epicenter of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in the United States. Similar to initial pandemic dynamics in many metropolitan areas, multiple introductions from various locations appear to have contributed to the swell of positive cases. However, representation and analysis of samples from New York regions outside the greater New York City area were lacking, as were SARS-CoV-2 genomes from the earliest cases associated with the Westchester County outbreak, which represents the first outbreak recorded in New York State. The Wadsworth Center, the public health laboratory of New York State, sought to characterize the transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 across the entire state of New York from March to September with the addition of over 600 genomes from under-sampled and previously unsampled New York counties and to more fully understand the breadth of the initial outbreak in Westchester County. Additional sequencing confirmed the dominance of B.1 and descendant lineages (collectively referred to as B.1.X) in New York State. Community structure, phylogenetic, and phylogeographic analyses suggested that the Westchester outbreak was associated with continued transmission of the virus throughout the state, even after travel restrictions and the on-pause measures of March, contributing to a substantial proportion of the B.1 transmission clusters as of September 30th, 2020.

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