By Jeanne Martinet

When the doorknob came off in my hand, I couldn’t understand what had happened. It was as if I had been shaking a friend’s hand and had somehow pulled it completely out of its socket, like a scene from a horror film. After the initial shock, I felt incredibly stupid. I had known that the knob was loose; it had been loose for months, but I had put off doing anything about it.

I stood there with the detached knob in my hand. Panic started to take hold—mostly, I confess, because I was experiencing, on a fairly urgent level, the call of nature (having just woken up), and it was sinking in that I was stuck inside my bedroom with the bathroom on the other side of the door.

“Don’t get hysterical, just use your head,” I told myself. I took a deep breath, and slowly, gingerly, attempted to reattach the doorknob to the scant 3/4 of an inch length of spindle that was protruding from the doorknob hole. (The spindle is the square rod that connects the two knobs. You can see that I am now an expert.)

This proved to be a mistake; it slid backwards, threatening to fall out the other side. Cursing, I took the knob back off and grabbed onto the spindle with my left hand. I tried turning it with my fingertips, but the piece that was sticking out was too short to get a good grip.

At that instant I realized the fix I was in.

There was no phone in the room; my cell was charging on the hall table. What was I going to do? How would I ever get out? Would I be found weeks later with a brass doorknob in my lifeless hand?

Since I couldn’t open the door, my only course of action seemed to be to call out the window and hope that a stranger, in one of the dozens of apartments lining my inner courtyard, would come to my aid.

But would anyone listen? We boundary-conscious New Yorkers are pretty good at ignoring the outside world when we’re at home. We learn to tune out people’s loud moments of temper, frustration and other passions.

A lot of people scream out their windows when they are mad, or drunk, or both. It’s no wonder most of us are a bit suspicious when someone we don’t know yells something out there. Is the person unbalanced? Dangerous? Trying to scam us in some way?

And exactly what should I say? I could go with the traditional, and yell, “Help!” But this seemed too extreme for my situation. The last thing I wanted was to make anyone think I was seriously hurt or being attacked, and then have the police breaking down my door.

Also, I would have to give my address, which might be audible to hundreds of people. (I could see it now, the whole thing would be Tweeted: Woman in apt on Upper West Side, NYC, trapped in bdrm, yelling out window. If u want to know who this idiot is, her address is_____.)

What if I were to calmly, but loudly, call out, “Excuse me? Is anyone able to hear this? I’m sorry to bother you but I’ve been accidentally trapped in my bedroom—can you make a call for me?”

Then I remembered that the friend who had my spare keys is on my speed dial, and I couldn’t remember his phone number! Was he listed? Would an unseen bystander be willing to go that extra mile and look up a number? It seemed a lot to ask.

Perhaps I should I start with “sorry to bother you”?

The truth is that without visual contact, it’s very hard to get a New Yorker’s attention. And I am not a good yeller. Having lived in this city for many years, I have become a good nagger, a good bargainer and good at talking to strangers. But yelling to unseen hordes?

I decided I really didn’t want to yell out my window, unless it was absolutely necessary.

I steeled myself for one last attempt at saving myself. I reached into a bureau drawer, where I latched onto a cotton handkerchief. Carefully, praying under my breath, I wrapped it around the end of the spindle. The fabric was stiff enough that I got traction, and the door opened.

I sleep with a screwdriver in my bedroom now. And you would not believe how carefully I listen to the sounds coming from nearby apartments.

_
Jeanne Martinet, aka Miss Mingle, lives on the Upper West Side and is the author of seven books on social interaction. Read her blog at www.missmingle.com.

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By Ian Alterman

Alan Chartock’s piece should be must-reading with respect to the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero (“First Amendment at Stake,” Aug.19). I would like to add some facts to the debate:

Most people opposed to the project say that it is “too close to Ground Zero.” Yet before and since 9/11, there has been an active mosque only four blocks from Ground Zero, and no one ever expressed any opposition to it. As well, the congregation of the imam behind the project outgrew its storefront mosque near Canal Street some time ago, and has been using a portion of the Park Place building ever since. Yet no one expressed any opposition to that either.

Only a fraction of the project will be prayer or worship space; the vast majority of the 13-story building will be taken up by an auditorium, a gymnasium, a pool, offices, exhibition spaces and the like. The Board of Directors will be comprised of Muslims, Christians and Jews. And programming will include multi-cultural and multi-religious courses and exhibitions. It will essentially be the Islamic equivalent of the Jewish Community Center or 92nd Street Y.

There will be no domes, minarets or other obvious Islamic architectural elements. The building will look like a fairly plain office building. Thus, most people visiting the memorial and new buildings will not even know it is there.

I would also like to add three comments.

First, the broad-brush claim that Muslims build mosques to mark triumphs is not historically accurate. Although it is true that in some cases conquering Muslims did build mosques, this should not be surprising. In fact, the Old Testament is replete with cases where the Israelites built temples shortly after they conquered an area. And the Christians did similarly during the Crusades. In all cases, this was far more a practical matter than any sense of triumphalism. With specific respect to the name of the project developer, the Cordoba mosque was actually a nearly completed church that was simply converted into a mosque: It was not “built” by the conquering Muslims.

Second, even if we accept that Ground Zero is somehow “sacred ground,” the proposed project is not on Ground Zero, so it is not “desecrating” it in any way. In fact, the new complex actually being built at Ground Zero is expected to have a commercial element likely to include such things as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Duane Reade and other stores. I would suggest that selling Big Macs and chai lattes on “sacred ground” is a far greater desecration than a nearly invisible Islamic center two blocks away.

Third, most of those opposed to the project consider themselves patriots, and ostensibly support the Constitution—and the troops who fought and died (and continue to do so) to defend and protect that Constitution and the freedoms it provides. Yet many of these same people are all too willing to ignore the Constitution—in this case its provision supporting “the free exercise” of religion—when it is inconvenient. Some counter by saying that although Muslims may have a right to build the project, they should not do so out of “respect” for those who died. One pundit responded to this by saying, “In other words, freedom of religion… should be exercised only if first ratified by a ‘popularity contest.’”

Many Muslims died on 9/11, including in the planes (other than the hijackers), in the Twin Towers, at the Pentagon and at Shanksville. And many Muslim first responders (police officers, firefighters, etc.) responded to the attacks—some losing their lives when the towers collapsed. And the vast majority of the world’s one billion Muslims practice their faith privately and quietly; they do not engage in or support violence, and they repudiate the acts of those extremists who participated in the attacks.

In this regard, those opposed to the project are defining an entire religion by the acts of a few. And that is about as un-American as anything I can think of.

_
Ian Alterman is a non-denominational protestant minister. He lives on the Upper West Side.

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By Jay Hershenson

As the fall semester nears, The City University of New York is brimming with a record number of students—more than the University can accommodate.

For the past 10 years, CUNY’s baccalaureate programs have seen increasing enrollments even as more rigorous entrance requirements were instituted. Now the University’s community colleges are swamped by applicants who, like community college applicants nationwide, need only a high school diploma or GED for admission.

For the first time, CUNY has established waiting lists for more than 3,000 people who applied after the May 8, 2010, deadline for admission to the university.

But CUNY has found a way to turn their wait into a benefit.

The typical community college freshman needs at least one remedial class to prepare for college-level work, although those classes do not count toward a degree. Why not place wait-listed students into remedial work in the fall, so they will be ready to enroll in academic courses in January 2011?

That’s the idea behind CUNY Start, which offers prospective students an intensive program in pre-college math or academic reading/writing for 12 hours a week over 13 weeks, in day or evening sessions. For a modest fee and the cost of their schoolbooks they can improve their skills and jumpstart their college career.

CUNY Start builds on the CUNY Language Immersion Program (CLIP) and College Transition Initiative (CTI), full-time programs that help students develop the skills needed for college-level study.

That includes GED graduates who don’t get the results of their tests until June, too late to meet admission deadlines. For such students, the transition to college is a critical time, and maintaining momentum is a high priority.

CUNY Start represents one of many ways that CUNY, like public colleges and universities across the country, is responding creatively to a changing higher education environment, as shrinking state funding conflicts with national imperatives to maintain access and increase the country’s college graduates.

Demand is surging at the 23 institutions that make up the nation’s largest urban public university. In the fall, CUNY expects 267,000 students to enroll; that’s about 3 percent more than last fall and fully one-third more than 20 years ago.

Without doubt, the economic downturn has factored into rising demand for college education, but the economy is only part of the story behind CUNY’s increasing popularity. Since 1999, CUNY has added about 65,000 students.

A decade-long academic transformation has created new opportunities for students and reshaped CUNY’s classrooms.

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein and CUNY’s Board of Trustees grabbed headlines in 2001 when they launched the William E. Macaulay Honors College.

The last decade has also seen the launch of CUNY’s School of Professional Studies, offering professional programs in partnership with business and industry. The school also houses CUNY’s online baccalaureate degree programs. The CUNY Graduate School of Journalism is highly regarded and a CUNY School of Public Health is preparing graduate level health professionals.

The new Advanced Science Research Center at The City College of New York, now under construction, will house researchers from across CUNY’s campuses.

Investment has not been limited to the sciences, however. The number of full-time faulty members has risen from less than 6,000 in 1999 to more than 7,100.

Encouraging student access and success remains at the heart of CUNY’s mission. If CUNY Start represents that commitment writ small, the university’s plans to open a new community college, its seventh, demonstrate that mission on a much larger scale.

The college, CUNY’s first in four decades, is expected to open in midtown Manhattan in fall of 2012.

Students will enroll full-time for at least the first year and take a common first-year core curriculum including math, professional studies and the college’s multidisciplinary City Seminar course examining the complexities of New York City.

It’s a bold initiative, suited to a higher education environment that demands innovative thinking. Just another reason that CUNY is increasingly worth the wait.
_
Jay Hershenson is Senior Vice Chancellor for University Relations and Secretary, Board of Trustees at CUNY.

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Raise your hand if you are a person of a certain age and you have recently seen an absorbing, serious, or truly witty American-made movie, a film with a penetrating, insightful, thought-provoking narrative, whose plot and dialogue are not contrived to appeal to audiences 14 years old and above, as well as to avoid alienating consumers with IQs in the 90s or lower. Where would Hollywood be today without special effects, robotics, mind- and time-bending science fiction scenarios, end-of the-world catastrophes, vampires and monster serial killers, “meeting-cute” teen and twenty-something romances, gross-out frat-boy farces, and every possible form of animation?

Whither plot? Whither character? Whither mystery? Wither, you know, Great Movies? Where is our day’s Alfred Hitchcock? David O. Selznick? Rod Serling? Paddy Chayefsky? John Huston? What ever happened to Steven Spielberg?

I know someone who made $400,000 a few years ago for a scenario, just a scenario, submitted to a Hollywood studio in four words: “Earthquake hits New York.” A hundred grand a word! The movie was never made, but the studio owns the rights to the screenplay that was subsequently written. It’ll happen, baby, count on it – likely after it has been re-written a bunch of times by a team of west coast pros.

Is this not the worst summer ever for movies? The ironically titled Grown-Ups merely underscores the undercooked gruel that La-La Land keeps dishing out. And why, by the by, are weekend box-office gross figures now a mandatory feature of Monday morning newscasts and Monday’s New York Times? Is it at least in part because so much real news – about Iraq, Afghanistan, and our government’s clandestine activities are off limits to journalists? It’s about the movie business, dummy. Duh.

Here’s how bad it is. At this writing, at my local SONYplex, the following films are showing:

• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Good wizard recruits Nicholas Cage to defend New York against a bad wizard who wants to… don’t ask.)

• Inception (More catastrophic special effects, collapsing cities, etc., No hit tunes)

• Despicable Me (Animation for kids. Ugly is good.)

• Predators (Elite warriors hunted by merciless alien race. Video game on the big screen, minus the joystick.)

* Grown Ups (aka The Young Morons)

* The Last Airbender (A young Avatar must stop the fire nation (who?) from enslaving the earth. Call 911.)

* Knight and Day (Secret agent Tom Cruise defies death, again.)

* Cyrus (Boy meets girl, then meets girl’s grown up momma’s boy – see Grown Ups above)

* Toy Story 3 (Casablanca it ain’t)

A little further up Broadway at the Loewsplex, it’s:

• Inception
• Despicable Me
• The Last Airbender
• Toy Story 3
• The Twilight Saga (Love-struck high school senior must choose between a vampire and a werewolf. A Kevlar neck brace could save her a lot of trouble.)
• Get Him to the Greek (A record company intern must accompany  a nut-case rock star to a concert. More bad behavior. Earplugs advised.)

Action films are contrived to travel – globally – where dialog and plot are less important than spectacular images and outrageous action, and whence the bulk of their income derives. The deliberately lowball comedy/farces rise, if they can, to the level of TV sit-coms, but with a higher gross-out index.

The rest of us are left to forage off the few and far between worthwhile foreign imports such as The Girl with the Golden Tattoo, The Secret in their Eyes, and the occasional high-quality documentary.

Yoo-hoo, Hollywood: We’re here, we read, we want quality movies. Broadway is too expensive and there is nothing for us on TV (We’ll get to those media in future columns), and for us you can save bundles by dropping the special effects and lowering the volume. We’re not deaf, or dead, yet.

_
Daniel Meltzer is a resident of the Upper West Side.

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As I travel the state and listen to New Yorkers, I’ve found that people have absolutely no faith that Congress is working to solve their problems. When they look to Washington, they see a lot of people who are more concerned about scoring political points than solving problems.

I have not been in Washington long, but it does not take long to know that Washington is broken.

Everyday people are not being heard because too much business is happening behind closed doors. Over the last several months, I have put together a reform agenda that aims to clean up Washington by making government more transparent and making members of Congress more accountable to the people back home.

When it comes to transparency, I have always done my best to lead by example, and my reform agenda starts by making the earmark process completely transparent. I’ve done this since my first term in office. I list each of my federal funding requests, along with my daily public schedule and my personal financial disclosure reports on my own website.

If every American can see who and what their lawmakers are requesting taxpayer money for, we can keep people honest, end the special interest favors and reduce wasteful spending.

I’ve authored bipartisan legislation that creates a searchable earmark database in which lawmakers will have to disclose the amount of their initial earmark request, the amount approved by Committee and the amount approved in final passage. They will also need to disclose the type of organization receiving the funding and justify why they need taxpayer dollars to fund their project.

Next, we have to get corporate special interest influence out of our elections. Corporate PACs have spent over $1 billion to influence voters. Now with the corporate victory in the Citizens United Supreme Court case, private corporations will have unprecedented power to spend unlimited sums of money to buy elections.

To help keep our elections fair and honest, I am an original co-sponsor of the DISCLOSE Act—legislation that requires corporations to stand by their political actions the same way candidates are required to today.

Third, we need to end automatic pay raises for members of Congress. There isn’t a single middle-class worker who is guaranteed a pay raise each year, and neither should Congress. From 1991 to 2009, the Senate raised its own pay 13 times, raising its annual salary by more than $70,000.

I’ve never accepted a pay raise in office, and I’ve opposed the automatic pay raise since I came to Congress. Last year, I helped pass legislation to permanently end the automatic pay raise. Now, I’m writing to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to take up and pass that legislation in the House of Representatives.

Lastly, we have to end the culture of obstructionism that creates gridlock in Congress. We can start by banning the anonymous holds. The fact that one senator can single-handedly hold legislation hostage just to score cheap political points is shameful. These holds bring the legislative process to a screeching halt, with no way to hold the obstructionist accountable. Banning these holds is common sense.

Washington needs to actually solve problems and get things done. With 67 of my Senate colleagues, I’ve written to Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urging them to get rid of anonymous holds for good.

These are just a few ideas that I believe could bring transparency and accountability to Washington. With these reforms, we would at least be moving in the right direction. 

–
Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator representing New York.

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By Daniel Meltzer

This will not endear me to many of you reading this, and it will undoubtedly cause some trouble with a few friends, but I feel I need to say something about bikes.

Bicyclists, and the biker lobby, are the new self-proclaimed environmentally friendly solution to everything from air pollution to traffic congestion to I don’t know what else—the Gulf catastrophe? (“Well, if everyone rode bikes, and got rid of their cars, then we wouldn’t need all that oil, and so…”) Well, everyone is not going to ride a bike, and the taxis, limos, tour buses, Bentleys and 18-wheelers aren’t going away any time soon.

I myself was a devoted rider until just a few years ago, when I gave up fighting the traffic and filling my lungs with car and truck exhausts on the streets, and retrieved some usable hall space when I got rid of the old 10-speed. What has inspired this?  Well, like many things, this had to build up some before I was ready to write about it.

After getting the nod from Community Board 7, the city has just approved a bike lane along Columbus Avenue, which will remove from use two traffic lanes on what is, at certain times of the day, a heavily traveled road and a designated truck passageway. (Disclaimer: I am, in fact, a member of Board 7, but I was on medical leave and hence was absent when the vote was taken.)

Houston, we have a problem. Actually, we have two problems.

For one thing, bicyclists do need to be protected from motor vehicles. But too many have not been all that responsible themselves when it comes to traffic laws and even the codes of common courtesy. Many still ride on sidewalks. They generally do not stop at red lights. And they go the wrong way on one-way streets. Many do not have horns or bells to warn you. Delivery bikers have no lights, wear black at night and are notorious for going the wrong way. The NYPD certainly has bigger fish to sauté, but stricter enforcement would help. Biker/pedestrian collisions have not been rare in this city in recent years, some of them causing serious injury.

The city and the West Side recently heralded the opening of the new, multi-million dollar extension of the promenade in Riverside Park. Its two broad center lanes are marked for cyclists, with narrow, single-file lanes along the edges for pedestrians. Try to walk hand in hand with your sweetie and one of you is at risk. The promenade itself, a designated cyclist “track” for want of another word, has been swarming with colorful, skin-tight racing suit-attired riders, many of whom conspicuously ignore the ubiquitous “Go Slow” signs. Webster’s New World Dictionary defines “promenade” as “a public place for walking.”

The other problem is that, as anyone with a basic knowledge of physics knows, when you squeeze an artery, the flow tends to get re-directed. As was observed when Times Square was shut to traffic to become a lounging area, cars and trucks and buses had to go elsewhere and all channels in that part of town were heavily trafficked to begin with.

We will have to wait and see if this happens here—will the southbound trucks head for Broadway, which is already a tractor-trailer crawlway in rush hours? Time will tell, as they say. But only, as I say, if it is tortured. n

–
Daniel Meltzer is a playwright and O. Henry and Pushcart Prize-winning fiction writer. His most recent production was A Cable from Gibraltar at Medicine Show Theatre in Manhattan.

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Susan Braudy’s photo and prior columns suggest that she is not old enough to be enrolled in Medicare. I assume, therefore, that her first-person column “Fired By My Doctor” (June 10) is literary license and that her statements are based on journalistic research. However, she has not been fair. She gives only one perspective.

First, let me state that although I am a retired primary care physician, my entire career was as a salaried employee of a non-profit organization. Thus, I never had to worry about Medicare or insurer fees—or any fee for service—income.

But I would like to comment on the physician’s side of the story, which applies not only to Medicare, but to many other insurance reimbursements. There are many reasons why physicians object to and decline to accept various insurance reimbursements. I base my comments, which follow, on my reading of medical articles, discussions with other physicians and personal opinion.

• Many fees are less than the cost of operating a practice. I just read Losing My Patience, by Mickey Lebowitz, M.D., who left private practice for a salaried position because income, largely from insurance fees, did not enable him to meet his expenses. If Medicare fees are indeed less than that of other insurers, and Lebowitz could not make ends meet with the relatively higher fees, how can one expect physicians to make ends meet with the relatively lower Medicare fees?

• Medicare fees can be unpredictable as the fiscal year progresses, although I believe Congress has always stepped in at the last moment to prevent this. In theory at least, a Medicare budget is set using fees based on the predicted total and combination of services. To maintain budget neutrality, Medicare may reduce fees toward the end of the year if the rate of expenditure is greater than predicted.

• Although most insurance fees may be higher than Medicare fees, some managed care insurance fees are lower than Medicare fees; a factual error in Ms. Braudy’s column.

• If one can exclude the emotions related to health and healthcare, as well as the tradition which has tended to make healthcare a right, is it fair for physicians be the only professionals whose service value is dictated or controlled by others, rather than by supply and demand? Our Constitution and laws guarantee us legal rights; however, there is no control of attorney fees in order to provide similar access to legal care. If one cannot afford the high-priced attorney, then tough luck.

• Is it really fair to control or cap the income of one group of individuals while not controlling their expenses? To the best of my knowledge, the only other situation in which this occurs is rent control/stabilization—another emotionally charged issue.

• Physicians typically spend seven or eight years (and more in some cases) training beyond college, while attorneys spend three or maybe four years. When one considers these costs, which include forgone income, why shouldn’t physicians be reimbursed at the same rate as attorneys? My attorney charges $400/hour and his overhead is less than that of a typical physician. In addition to very costly professional liability insurance for the physician versus the attorney, supply costs for the physician undoubtedly far exceed that for the attorney. Both have the expense of utilities, paper, etc., but physicians use a considerable amount of disposable equipment, such as dressing gowns, needles, syringes, tongue depressors, etc.

• Physicians’ fees should also be higher to compensate for services (time) that is not considered reimbursable, but for which attorneys would charge. Fees paid to physicians do not compensate for services that do not involve direct face-to-face contact. These services are phone conversations, record reviews, calls to pharmacies, discussion with consultants, etc. Attorneys, on the other hand, typically charge for these services. An attorney once billed me for time spent researching the law and consulting with his partners. A physician, on the other hand, cannot charge for time spent researching a case-related matter of therapy.

• Is it fair that starting salaries for recent graduates with MBAs (perhaps two years of schooling beyond college) in law, finance and information technology exceed by far starting salaries for starting physicians, with seven or more years of post-college training? These other professions’ salaries equal and often exceed the income of established physicians at the peak of their careers.n

–
Seymour Herschberg, M.D., is certified in internal medicine and geriatric medicine, and received a certificate of advanced achievements in internal medicine in 1987. He is based on West End Avenue.

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By Kirsten Gillibrand

As I meet people during my travels across the state, New Yorkers of all ages and backgrounds have the same thing on their minds: jobs. With unemployment in New York City still in double digits, and an estimated 15 percent of our state’s construction workers out of work, it is clear that we must continue to help working families weather the economic storm. For example, since the downturn began, more than 40,000 construction and manufacturing workers in New York state lost their jobs, and millions more workers across the country suffered significant losses.

Tough times demand bold action and seizing opportunities. One of those opportunities is reducing our dependence on foreign fossil fuels. Bush-era policies were about talking tough when it came to fighting terror and defending America, but it was their policy that sent a billion dollars a day to oil-producing countries that some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world call home.

That is money that should be spent here. By decreasing our dangerous reliance on foreign oil and making smart, green investments, we can create quality jobs and put our construction laborforce back to work.

The Building Star legislation, which I am pushing in the U.S. Senate, would create as many as 12,500 new, good-paying jobs for hardworking New Yorkers, providing incentives to retrofit co-ops, apartment buildings and commercial buildings and rid them of dirty fuels and pollutants.

Not only would this proposal boost our national security and save condo-owners, landlords and building managers millions in energy costs, but it would also protect New York City families by cleaning the air we breathe. According to a recent air survey by the New York City Health Department, the Upper East Side and Midtown’s business district are just two of the neighborhoods in the city with alarming levels of dangerous contaminants in the air. Many of the city’s residential and commercial buildings burn heavy amounts of heating oil and emit large amounts of sulfur dioxide and other pollutants. If these buildings were to use cleaner fuels, you could see reductions of harmful emissions between 65 and 95 percent.

City landlords and building owners concerned about the high cost of replacing outdated boilers or switching to cleaner fuels, such as natural gas, would benefit from the Building Star rebates, which are designed to cover 20 to 33 percent of the installed cost of equipment. This initiative also covers other energy efficient programs to help ease installation costs, including window renovations, duct testing and sealing, and energy audits.

The process for applying for a rebate would be clear and straightforward: An owner would run an energy audit on a building, then submit an application to the Department of Energy. Once the department verifies the project, a rebate would be issued within 30 days.

There is much to lose and little to gain if we do not begin to rebuild our economy by putting more money back into the pockets of city residents and taking them out of the hands of hostile regimes. For every dollar we invest in energy efficiency, we save $3 in energy use down the road. In the long run, residential and commercial buildings citywide could save up to $407 million in energy costs, nearly $160 million of which would benefit Manhattan alone.

Manhattan renters, owners and residents have an opportunity to make the most of their energy dollars and move away from decades of dependence on foreign oil. It’s time to act. 

—
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand sits on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and Subcommittee on Green Jobs & the New Economy.

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By Melissa Mark-Viverito and Mike Fishman

With the shift in our city’s economy from manufacturing to service jobs, the percentage of low-wage workers has reached record, if not epidemic, levels. Nearly one-third of working New Yorkers are struggling to stretch their paychecks to cover high prices for rent and rising costs for groceries and transportation. In order to stem the tide of what threatens to undermine not just our economic recovery, but the future of our city, we need to invest in increasing the number of good jobs.

Yet, while millions of tax dollars are being invested to redevelop buildings, blocks and entire neighborhoods, these projects do not always create family-
supporting jobs. In many cases, our tax dollars go to developers in the form of tax breaks and other incentives. This ends up creating low-wage service jobs that leave working families unable to make ends meet and communities deprived of much of the economic benefit, even though they helped subsidize the project.

New Yorkers can’t afford to see their hard-earned tax dollars go toward developments that leave their families and neighbors unable to pay their bills. Government should be creating jobs that do more than add to the number of working poor people in the city. We need job creation that will put our families and our city’s economy back on track.

Cities from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles are addressing this problem by instituting policies that ensure that when developers are given financial incentives from taxpayers, they give back good jobs to the community. The City Council is considering the Good Jobs Bill based on this model. The bill does not ask developers to pay extra for the workers at their sites; simply that they pay the going wage or “prevailing rate” that most established businesses already pay.

Although naysayers claim that job standards will somehow hamper businesses, guaranteeing good jobs through economic development programs is a smart public policy. Cities are establishing measures that guarantee good wages and health care at subsidized developments so workers can make ends meet, contribute to the local economy and get off public assistance for food, housing and health care.

Here in New York, less ambitious policies to ensure that development creates good jobs have proven not to stymie economic growth. The city’s 421(a) tax incentive program, which requires both affordable housing and good jobs, has not kept developers from taking advantage of this substantive tax rebate. And job-quality requirements, like those in the Good Jobs Bill, will create more than 500 good jobs for office cleaners, apartment building workers and security officers at Coney Island and Willets Point.

For all the good these small-scale, project-specific policies have done in New York, they don’t amount to the full-scale solution for good job creation the city needs. We need a reform of our economic development programs to ensure good job creation is a part of the tax-based incentive programs so that hard-working, tax-paying New Yorkers will see the benefits of these government programs. 

—
Melissa Mark Viverito represents District 8 in the City Council. Mike Fishman is president of 32BJ. With more than 120,000 members, including 70,000 in New York City, 32BJ is the largest private sector union in New York. 

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Daniel Meltzer is a playwright and O. Henry and Pushcart Prize-winning fiction writer. His most recent production was A Cable from Gibraltar at Medicine Show Theatre in Manhattan.

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