Operation Hochul Drop

THE CITY 

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday announced the latest in a series of subway safety initiatives, placing MTA police officers, state troopers and 750 National Guard members at some of the city’s busiest stations to conduct bag checks.

Following some headline-grabbing incidents underground — including the slashing last week of a conductor that led to what a top transit official called “some kind of work-stoppage charade” by the transit workers union — Hochul said beefing up the uniformed presence in stations will curb rider and worker fears.

“There’s a psychological impact, people worry they could be next, anxiety takes hold,” the governor said. “And riding the subway, which would be part of your everyday life, is filled with stress and trepidation.”

Hochul unveiled a “five-point plan to rid our subways of people who commit crimes” while standing alongside police officers, National Guard troops and MTA Chairman and CEO Janno Lieber at New York City Transit’s Rail Control Center in Midtown.

The five elements are: deploying about 1,000 more uniformed personnel for bag checks; accelerating the installation of cameras on every train and in conductor cabs; a proposed bill that would allow judges to ban people convicted of assault; expanding the number of mental health response teams; and holding regular meetings between transit personnel, police and prosecutors.

The MTA’s police force, which patrols the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North, already posts officers at subway stations connected to commuter rail hubs.

The latest anti-crime effort in the subway comes as NYPD numbers show transit crime in 2024 through March 3 is up by 13% from the same period last year and just last week TWU International President John Samuelsen said assaults on workers have increased by nearly 60% from last year.

“No one should have to go through what Alton Scott went through,” Lieber said, citing the veteran subway conductor who was slashed in the neck last week.

Overall, crime in the subway system is rare. According to the MTA’s latest data from January, less than two major crimes took place per one million riders that month. Major crimes are defined by the NYPD as burglary, felony assault, robbery, grand larceny, rape and murder.

Richard Davis, president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, praised the plan to put more police in stations, while saying the union’s calls for beefed-up subway security were ignored for months.

“As a result, riders and workers alike have suffered,” Davis said. “While MTA leadership willfully looked the other way, blood has been spilled.”

Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams — who pinned his absence from the latest subway safety announcement on a scheduling conflict — have previously unveiled multiple versions of plans to cut into subway crime and homelessness by increasing the number of police officers in stations.

In an interview on WPIX-11 Wednesday along with Chief Michael Kemper, head of the NYPD Transit Bureau, Adams insisted the new bag checks would not lead to racial or ethnic profiling. 

“We’re not profiling, we’re random based on the count, a number,” the mayor said. “And people who don’t want their bag checks can turn around and not enter the system. You don’t have to come through and do the bag checks, but they are random.”

Bloomberg cursed out Smith over National Guard help

From the NY Post:

When Queens state Sen. Malcolm Smith asked the mayor to send the National Guard to patrol the Rockaways a day after Superstorm Sandy hit, Hizzoner said, “F--k you,’’ a source told The Post.

Smith confirmed that he called the mayor to request the Guard after looting broke out in the area, which is part of his district.

“We exchanged aggressive words about the use of the National Guard,” Smith said when asked about the spat.

“I saw the devastation. I saw the looting going on. People were all over the street. Things were out of control. Someone even tried to break into my car with me in it. The mayor felt the resources we had were fine,” Smith recalled.

“In the end, I was correct and the National Guard got involved.”

Bloomberg had initially said, “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”

But spokesman Marc LaVorgna said the mayor never dropped the F-bomb and welcomed the Guard’s help in search-and-rescue missions — but thought the NYPD could handle security.

Bloomberg says no to National Guard request because they carry guns

From The Brooklyn Paper:

Mayor Bloomberg has snubbed Borough President Markowitz’s impassioned plea to bring the National Guard to Hurricane Sandy-scarred Brooklyn — arguing that approving the Beep’s request would be a waste of federal manpower and turn the borough into a police state.

“We don’t need it,” Mayor Bloomberg said on Wednesday during a press update on the city’s ongoing Hurricane Sandy cleanup. “The NYPD is the only people we want on the street with guns.”

Markowitz demanded the National Guard’s help just an hour before Bloomberg’s press conference, claiming that the NYPD and FDNY are “brave — but overwhelmed” by all the challenges Sandy brought when it visited the borough on Monday night: flooding, power outages, and looting.

“All of our resources have been stretched to the limit,” Markowitz said. “In the name of public safety we need to send more National Guard personnel into Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, Gerritsen Beach, Red Hook, and any other locations.”

Markowitz hopes that the sight of an armed soldier would deter criminal activity in the still-unaccessible evacuation zones — such as the rash of break-ins that took place in Coney Island hours after Sandy kissed the borough goodbye — but the Mayor said the NYPD was more than capable of handling the job.

“There are plenty of locations upstate and in surrounding states where they don’t have a police department the size of New York and they can use help [from the National Guard],” said Bloomberg.

Things getting heated in Broad Channel

From the Village Voice:

Two days after Hurricane Sandy, the situation in the storm-stricken Rockaways and other southern Queens neighborhoods is getting worse in terms of the need for basic supplies and aid. Anger is growing that the government relief agencies have been slow to deal with the problems.

Tonight, in Broad Channel, a sliver of land on Jamaica Bay which was hammered by the hurricane, there was a near riot when 280 people arrived for a much anticipated meeting with FEMA representatives, but the reps didn't show up. That caused already frayed tempers to boil over, and residents blocked traffic to vent their anger.

"It's fair to say there's a very high level of frustration," says Dan Mundy, a longtime resident of Broad Channel and a battalion chief with the FDNY. "It got ugly for a couple of minutes. People blocking traffic. We had the meeting in a pitch black parking lot and were able to calm them down."

There's a growing sentiment in Broad Channel and the Rockaways that the National Guard, FEMA and the city Office of Emergency Management should have been on the ground much faster than they have been with supplies, ready to provide aid. Some people are concerned that OEM is turning to nonprofits to supply aid, which is seen as slowing the process.

"People are saying, there's no National Guard, no Red Cross, no FEMA, they were elsewhere, but they weren't here," Mundy says. "This is a long term thing. They say 4 to 5 days for the power, but I think it'll be 7 to 10, and then you have to check it's safe, and then deal with the oil burners and the structural damage. Right now, we need a FEMA tent, food, hot showers."

Calls are flowing in to elected officials, who are hardly equipped to solve problems and at pains to supply answers until the big relief agencies get in gear.

And people in Old Howard Beach are wondering why they weren't told to evacuate.

Photo from the Times Ledger

National Guard wants to junk Admirals' Row

From Brownstoner:

Here's the latest in depressing Admiral's Row news: According to Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch, last week the National Guard sent a letter to local politicians telling them Building B has been deemed beyond repair, which means the Guard has washed its hands of one of only two buildings on the row that were supposed to be preserved. In February, the National Guard said the other building that was supposed to be salvaged, the Timber Shed, was also too far gone to be preserved. According to last week's letter, one of Building B's walls has partially collapsed and is unstable. Thus, the Navy Guard is not going to make any moves to preserve either building while it has custodianship of the row; as noted last week, it's unclear when the Navy Yard Development Corporation will be able to take control of the row and, in the meantime, the Development Corp. is not allowed to access the buildings in order to try and preserve them.

Admirals' Row in limbo

From the NY Times:

In recent months, preservationists and some advocates in the neighborhood have embraced the Navy Yard corporation’s plan, agreeing to save the shed and just one town house — Quarters B, the oldest, but the one in the best condition — and tear down the remaining buildings. The cleared land would then make way for a supermarket that the 13,000 residents of the three nearby housing projects have long desired, a retail plaza and a new light-industry building.

The entire plan’s price tag is $70 million, with $10 million dedicated to renovating the two historic buildings, whose costs the developer would pay as part of the lease.

But the hope that the steady decay might finally be stanched has been set back by the National Guard’s resistance toward allowing any work that would stabilize the dilapidated Admiral’s Row structures as long as the Guard remains the custodian.

The property cannot be transferred to the Navy Yard corporation until a historical and environmental review is completed. How long that process will take is unclear, and until then Admiral’s Row will remain in limbo.