The History of the High Line

Originally published in Chelsea News/Our Town/West Side Spirit

The High Line is certainly the most popular attraction in west Chelsea today, attracting 5 million visitors annually. Most local residents know that the High Line itself was originally a freight railroad. But its history goes back well before the elevated structure was even constructed. Where tourists now walk, cowboys once rode on horseback.
In the 1840s, the Hudson River Railroad, the ancestor of today’s MetroNorth Hudson Line, built a street-level railroad with tracks on 10th and 11th avenues. After the line was merged into the New York Central in 1869, most passenger trains were re-routed into Grand Central. A local train known as the “Dolly Varden” provided passenger service to the West Side until around 1930, but in the main, the route became a freight line.
But even in horse-and-carriage days, operating a street-level railroad was dangerous. In 1852, a law was passed stating that a mounted “cowboy” had to ride in front of the trains to alert pedestrians and vehicles. That still wasn’t enough. According to the rail fan website www.kinglyheirs.com, in 1908, the city’s Bureau of Municipal Research reported that since 1852, the trains had killed 436 people. Both 10th and 11th avenues became known as “Death Avenue.”
Protests were mounted, plans were made, but it wasn’t until 1929 that the city agreed to build the High Line to replace the street-level freight tracks below 34th Street (the northern portion of the former freight line is now used by Amtrak trains heading to Albany and Buffalo). A brochure from 1934, celebrating the New York Central’s opening of the High Line, describes the original terminal on Spring Street, which had eight tracks and 14 elevators, and gives the names of the freight customers (such as Nabisco, whose building is now the Chelsea Market).
Perhaps the most innovative feature of the High Line was the fact that it went right through many of the buildings that it served, off-loading goods inside these openings. One of these openings can still be seen at the former Bell Laboratories building between Bank and Bethune streets, now the Westbeth residential complex. Some street-level rail traffic persisted for years, possibly to serve customers that the High Line couldn’t access. The last street train ran in 1941, according to the New York Times, and that trip’s “cowboy,” George Hayden, wore a 10-gallon hat to celebrate.
 The High Line prospered for many years, serving the Meatpacking and Printing districts. But beginning in the 1950s, truck traffic began to eat into its volume. The freight terminal and the line south of Bank Street in Greenwich Village were abandoned in the 1960s. When the line was taken over by Conrail, which was created by the government to run bankrupt freight lines, the writing was on the wall. The last train, which carried three cars of frozen turkeys, ran in 1982.
In 1984, rail fan Peter Obltetz, described by the Times as an “eccentric neighborhood visionary,” bought the line for $10, but after owners of businesses underneath the structure, who favored demolition, mobilized against him, the federal government reversed the sale. In 1991, the Times reported, another section of the line, between Bank and Gansevoort streets, was sold for real estate development. Meanwhile, the line continued to deteriorate, attracting vandals, prostitutes and arsonists.
In 1999, two Chelsea residents, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, had the idea of making the unused structure into an elevated park and formed Friends of the High Line. Around 2001, this writer attended a debate at a local political club between the Friends, who displayed their plans for the park, and the Chelsea Property Owners Group, who complained of debris falling from the line and a lack of drainage that meant that “when it rained, it poured.”
Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, like the property owners, wanted the line demolished, but the Friends had the advantage of celebrity. A 2004 fundraiser covered by the Times was headlined by Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and Edward Albee, among others. In 2005, the Bloomberg administration assumed control of the former rail line, and ground was broken in 2006. The High Line Park opened in sections, in 2009, 2011 and 2014.
Today, on the High Line, visitors can experience t’ai chi, walking tours, meditation, comedy, music, gardening and even boxing. But there’s two things they won’t see. The first is a freight locomotive—and the second is a cowboy.

Whatever Happened to Student Power?

From Tikkun Magazine

What will the high school of the future be like? Different. It will surely be freer; students will be more independent. High school students of today haven’t reached any peak of possible maturity. The students of tomorrow will be more mature than we are. Just as administrations have already become more liberal about dress codes, so tomorrow they will become more liberal about studies. And `formal education’ will become less formal.

These words from the anthology “Our Time Is Now,” circa 1970, edited by John Birmingham, call attention to a part of history that is all but forgotten: the student power movement in American high schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The stereotype is that all the action as far as demonstrations were concerned took place in the universities, and that if it did spread to high schools, those younger students were copying their elders. Another stereotype is that students were mainly protesting the “big” issues, like civil rights and the war in Vietnam.

Maybe that’s how the protest era started, but once it did, students, especially high school students, were also seeking reform of their schools, demanding a bigger voice for students in how these schools were run. In my own high school, circa 1969 or 1970, a group of radical students issued a list of “10 demands.” The only two I remember – the right to go out for lunch and the right to have soda machines in the schools – seem laughable today.

But these demands, and others like them across the country, were part of a movement that was called “student power.” This movement is barely remembered today and has very little counterpart in today’s high schools.

The 1960s was an age of protest, and many young people began to look at themselves as a vanguard of change. Inevitably, kids began to make connections between the hierarchical nature of American society and that of their high schools. Faculty and administrators usually had the right to overrule student governments and censor student newspapers, unilaterally impose behavior and dress codes on the students and, in some cases, inspect students’ lockers without permission. As a student at the Bronx High School of Science during that era, even during a “free” period, I couldn’t go from the study hall to the library without showing my program card.

An essay by Mike Fox, then a student at John Bowne High in Flushing, N.Y., that was first printed in an underground newspaper and then anthologized in “Our Time Is Now,” compared life in the school to his experiences working on a farm during the summer. “The farmer doesn’t give a damn about his cows,” Fox wrote.

“The only time farmer X—- (presumably the school principal) cases about us is when it involves out production. We produce marks and grades instead of milk. We are also bred for further production outside of Bowne. When a farmer notices that a cow isn’t producing well enough, he calls her out and sells her to the slaughter house. In the same way, we are called out after Bowne, into college, or remain with the herd or into the army to be slaughtered.”

As we’ve mentioned, many of these mini-revolts were at least partially instigated by things that we might consider trivial today, but at the time were considered important parts of young people’s identity. In Young Activists: American High School Students in the Age of Protest by Gale Graham, Graham mentions how some school districts forbade long hair and facial hair not only for male students, but also for male teachers. She quotes Geoff Burkman, who was a student at a Cincinnati high school in the late ’60s, as saying, “We pushed things as far to the limits as we could …. For instance, if the code said no sideburns below the bottom of the ear,
then we all made sure we grew our sideburns right down to that line.” Pants for girls were
another battleground. Graham recounts how female students at Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn organized, risked being sent home, and called for days when they all wore pants to school.

In time, the rebellious mood spread even to schools where students weren’t really political. Jean Schaffer, who taught in Boston and New York City schools for thirty years, in the late ’60s was teaching at East Boston High School, which served a conservative, working-class neighborhood. Toward the end of the year, the freshmen, sophomores and juniors were required to stay in their home-room classes for several days so they wouldn’t interfere with the seniors’ rehearsals for graduation. One student, says Schaffer, started to loudly object, and the others joined in. Schaffer encouraged them to write down their dissatisfactions. They soon turned their writings into an underground newspaper, with Schaffer as advisor, which they distributed off-campus because of school rules.

As Graham points out, many of the gains students made during this era were the result of lawsuits and court decisions, often involving the American Civil Liberties Union and its state affiliates. The ACLU backed the Tinker vs. Des Moines case, in which students successfully sought the right to wear black armbands to mourn the dead in Vietnam, and the Goss vs. Lopez case, in which students in Cleveland who were punished with suspensions won the right to due process. In 1968, the organization issued a Guide to Student Rights for young people.

What happened to student power? Just like the overall protest movement, it may have been a victim of Kent State, the recession of the 1970s, the increasing competition to get into colleges, the higher cost of college education and resultant student debt, the conservatism of the Reagan era or all of the above. Many of the situations that the high school rebels of the ’60s objected to, like cops in the school and dress codes, are still in place.

Frank M., who taught high school studies in Suffolk County, N.Y., from 1999 to 2013, says that
at his school, there was little censorship of the student newspaper. Students had a voice when
issues like dress codes or electives were being discussed, but the school board had the last word. Told about the “60s students” demands that current issues be discussed in the classroom, he said, “They are discussed in some classes, but overall, there are other outlets for that, like the Model U.N. Club.” Overall, he said, students who view themselves as a revolutionary force or part of a vanguard are “very few and far between.”

Julia Judge, who graduated from Onteora High School in Woodstock, N.Y., in 2011, recalls, “From what I understand, everything publicly organized at my school had to be approved by a higher up, either a teacher or a principal or someone otherwise employed by the school.” She does remember a student petition for a “senior lounge” in the basement of the school, but that was shot down by the administration. “A lot of the small changes that occurred over the years, dress code included, seemed to be more because of pressure from parents than students.”

Jean Schaffer, who moved from Boston to New York City in the ’70s and taught there, remember that in the ’90s, many students in her school became very active in a “Stop the Violence” club, but the impetus for the club came from the principal, not the students themselves.

Will a new student power movement emerge? In today’s increasingly competitive world, students often look on high school as a mere way station to college and career. In these circumstances, it doesn’t seem likely. Still, the student power movement touched untold thousands of lives and, in this way, made a lasting contribution to society.

–

Why Are the Republicans Ignoring Bernie Sanders?

Originally published in "Tikkun" online blog

Why are the Republicans seemingly ignoring Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and his campaign for the Democratic nomination for president?

As an admitted socialist who believes in universal health care, requiring companies to provide maternity leave, sick leave and vacation time; taxing financial transactions, breaking up big banks and expanding Social Security benefits, Sanders seems like the perfect target for the almost-completely-right wing Republican Party.

Despite all that, Republicans don’t seem particularly interested in taking the bait.It seems logical that given the upsurge in Sanders’ support, the Republicans would view him as a serious threat and act accordingly. In August, Sanders drew a record-breaking 27,000 people in Los Angeles and 28,000 people in Portland, Oregon — the largest turnout for any 2016 presidential candidate up to that time. A Politco poll in July of New Hampshire Democratic voters showed 47 percent favoring Hillary Clinton, but Sanders gaining on her with 34 percent.

During the Fox News-sponsored GOP candidates’ debates in early August, which featured 17 candidates, I didn’t notice any mention of Sanders at all. It was all Hillary, Hillary, Hillary as the anti-Republican- as the candidate to beat.

If you search for Hillary Clinton on the Republican National Committee site, 577 entries show up. You’ll also find 579 entries for Joe Biden. If you search for Bernie Sanders, you’ll find a mere 10. Some of these mention him only in passing and two repeat criticisms he’s made of Hillary.

Only one, “The 5 Flavors of Bernie Sanders,” by Raffi Williams, gives us the type of attack we’d expect from the Republican Party. Playing on the fact that Sanders and the ice cream entrepreneurs Ben and Jerry both hail from Vermont, Williams, accompanied by drawings of ice cream cones, names these flavors: “Taxes and Cream, “Socialist Swirl” (with a “Taste of Europe”), ” “Nutty Professor,” “Taxpayer Dough” and “Bureaucratic Bonanza.”

Searching the web for statements from state Republican parties, we don’t find much either. When Sanders visited Wisconsin, the local GOP there put up a billboard that didn’t really address Bernie specifically, but just characterized Hillary Clinton and her as “Left and Lefter—Yesterday’s Candidates, Extreme Policies.” Hillary and Bernie’s heads were superimposed on the bodies of the two actors from “Dumb and Dumber.”

The most obvious answer about why the Republicans are virtually ignoring Bernie Sanders is that Hillary is still leading in the polls, and they expect her to be the nominee (and if not her, then Joe Biden). But there may be other answers. I asked the question to two people, one a Republican activist and professor from Brooklyn, the other a respected political consultant, also from New York, who has advised countless political campaigns.

Bob Capano, a former aide to then-Congressman Vito Fossella, political science instructor at the City University of New York, and former Republican City Council candidate, agreed with the conventional wisdom: “Republicans just don’t believe Bernie Sanders will be the Democratic nominee. If Hillary Clinton continues to falter, another Democrat with the real ability to win the general election will jump in the Democratic primary. Specifically, Vice President Joe Biden.” Capano characterized Sanders as a socialist who would only appeal to the “far left” of the Democratic Party. He does seem to be on the mark about Biden, although, as a left-liberal Democrat, I would disagree with most of Capano's interpretation.

George Arzt, president of George Arzt Communications- a public relations firm that has represented a number of high-profile Democrats in their campaigns for office- has an interesting interpretation. “It’s difficult for the Republicans to `run against’ Bernie Sanders,” he says, “since Bernie Sanders is mainly in the race to run against Hillary Clinton. For the Republicans, it’s better to run against Hillary Clinton, especially for fundraising purposes—and they’re looking for money right now.”

In other words, nothing gets the Republican base more agitated and willing to donate than the mention of Hillary, one of their main targets for many years.

There’s a lot of truth to Arzt’s statement, but I believe there’s more to it than that. The Vermont Republican Party may have hit a nerve in its statement in response to Sanders’ entry into the race:

“For many years here in Vermont — the entire time Senator Sanders has been in public life — costs have been rising far faster than incomes.  The gap between the rich and the poor has been expanding faster here than in most places.  The working class has been getting smaller.  And we lose a higher percentage of young, talented residents every year to the appeal of hope and opportunity elsewhere than any other state in the Nation.”

Wait a minute- the “gap between the rich and the poor”? The “working class”? These are phrases that are straight out of Bernie’s playbook. In fact, they were not part of most DEMOCRATIC PARTY candidates’ rhetoric until two or three years ago. It sounds like the Vermont Republicans, in this very atypical statement for the GOP, are trying to “head Bernie off at the pass.”

It seems that as long as GOP leaders attack Hillary, they’re on familiar ground. The issues they associate with her, namely gay marriage, abortion, and Benghazi, are familiar to everyone and can be used to whip up support among their base. Bernie, however, concentrates on economic issues. The Republicans know that’s where they’re most vulnerable.

If, even when responding to some of Sanders’ positions on income inequality, they bring up these issues, Republicans might upset their donors, most of whom favor the unsustainable status quo. In my opinion, that’s one very important reason that the Republican Party can’t afford to focus too much attention on Bernie Sanders, no matter how popular he becomes.