Whatever Happened to Student Power?
By Raanan Geberer
Reprinted from Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Most people, when they think of student demonstrations in the ’60s and ’70s, think of students demonstrating for civil rights, against the Vietnam War and the like.
This is correct — but only up to a point. Often, even at the same time as they were protesting for these weighty causes, they were often demonstrating on their own behalf. At times, student issues took center stage, such as during the (over the top, in my opinion) demonstration about the Columbia University Gym in 1968.
The Columbia University demonstration aside, student demands, at least at my high school, the Bronx High School of Science, took a more moderate form. Some of these demands seem positively innocuous, such as the right to go outside during lunch, the right to have soda machines in the school (alternative health types would consider this “politically incorrect” today) and, believe it or not, the end to the rule that girls couldn’t wear pants. One day, hundreds of girls came to school with paper bags, went into the bathroom and emerged wearing pants. That was the end of that rule!
Along with these were more serious issues — students’ seeking more electives, the right to distribute “underground” newspapers on campus, and more student control over the curriculum. At some point, a student-faculty-parent committee was formed, and although I was only dimly aware of what it did, it apparently did have some positive effect. (By the time I got to college, the protest era was largely over.)
Today, the idea of students’ rights has largely disappeared, at least in the high schools — the victim of more intense competition for college admissions, of the rising rate of crime within many schools and the resulting crackdown on it, and more rigid curriculum requirements dictated from Washington, Albany and the Department of Ed.
And in the final analysis, one might think, of what consequence is it anyway whether someone has the right to buy a can of soda in the school building or wear jeans?
Very little — but those who think only in such terms are missing the point. Participating in demonstrations, challenging the “powers that be” gave young people an incredible high! Jumping out of planes with a parachute, bungee jumping, backpacking in Thailand, taking mind-altering substances, driving 200 miles per hour in a racing car — forget it! No one who ever lived through those years and took part in these events will ever forget the thrill of collective action, of challenging our parents’, our teachers’ world — and winning!
All of their lives, we had been dictated to — and now, here we were, saying, yes, we might be 16, we might be 17, we might be 18, but when we say something, we deserve to be listened to! And today’s young people are all the poorer for not experiencing the same thing.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Needed: A Job Applicants' Bill of Rights
By Raanan Geberer
About 10 years ago, I had an interview with a well-known financial news organization as an editor. I won’t tell you its name, but I will tell you that its offices were here in Hudson County.
Anyway, I must have impressed them on the interview, because the woman in charge invited me back for a test. After the test, she said, "Well, there was one section you didn’t do so well on, but you did so well on all the other sections, we’ll overlook it." She scheduled a three-day try out a few weeks away, and I thought I was on my way.
The big day came. Because of my relative inexperience with the PATH train, I got confused by the directions and I got there late, but I did get there. I was prepared to apologize for being late – but I never go the chance. I was kept waiting for about a half hour. Finally, the person who interviewed me emerged.
"There’s been a staff crisis," she said, "and the people who were supposed to supervise you aren’t here. Why don’t you go home and we’ll call you." I smelled a rat, but was willing to give them a chance.
After I still didn’t hear from them in two weeks, I gave her a call. "Well," she said, "we’ve had a change of plans and have decided to look elsewhere." Stunned, I asked what the problem was. She just mentioned that one section on the test – the section that she earlier said she would be willing to overlook.
A few days later, I wrote a letter addressed to her, several executives in the company and their human resources office, telling my story and demanding an apology. And I got one, although it was written in rather vague, tepid language.
Recently, I wondered what would have happened had I engaged a labor lawyer and put the screws to them so that they would have to give me another tryout. I asked several attorneys and they were unanimous – nothing. In the U.S., one lawyer friend said, employment "at will" is the rule. This means that, other than in those instances where a particular company policy or union contract specifies otherwise, the employer has the right to hire and fire people at will. If this is the case for actual employees, he continued, it follows that job applicants also have few rights.
Just about the only time that an applicant can challenge a decision in the job-hunting process, this lawyer told me, is when that applicant suspects that he or she was excluded because of race, religion, age or disability. Another exception in which a "reasonable argument" can be made – and only in certain states – is if that applicant leaves a job upon the promise of another job, only to have the second employer cancel out at the last moment.
But these exceptions, as necessary as they are, leave out the majority of instances of lack of simple politeness or honesty on the part of employers. Already, according to an article I read online recently, fewer companies are even bothering to send out letters to candidates who didn’t get the job once they’ve made their choice. This can wreak havoc upon a person who has his heart set on a certain job, and only wants to apply for other jobs when he knows for certain whether this particular job was taken or not.
The whole job application process resembles a plantation, where one party holds all the cards and the other is forced to plead and grovel. That’s why I’m proposing a Job Applicants’ Bill of Rights in this country. Among its provisions might be:
A) If an employer says, "I’ll let you know in two weeks," he would have to give the applicant a progress report – within two weeks.
B) The employer, on request, would have to let the applicant know where he stands in the process – whether he’s one of two, one of three, or whatever. There would also be a deadline by which the employer would have to let the applicant know his status – possibly, within a month.
C) The employer would have to let the applicant know as soon as possible when someone else was hired.
D) If someone else has been chosen, but the employer says, "We’re impressed with your credentials, and we’ll keep your resume in case something else turns up," the employer would have to specify how long he will keep that applicant’s resume, and if an appropriate position turns up within that period of time, he would have to let the applicant know and ask whether he’s still interested.
E) If the employer promises the applicant a second interview, a test or a tryout, he would have to give that applicant a second interview, a test or a tryout, except in extenuating circumstances.
F) These provisions would not apply to an applicant who has never been contacted as a possible candidate – but once contact has been made, the wheels would be set in motion.
None of these provisions would require any more than a negligible expenditure on the part of any company, especially a large corporation. At most, they would require a little more bookkeeping, which would be easy given today’s computer programs.
I call on all municipal, state and federal elected officials! Come on! Who will be the first to introduce the Job Applicants’ Bill of Rights?
About 10 years ago, I had an interview with a well-known financial news organization as an editor. I won’t tell you its name, but I will tell you that its offices were here in Hudson County.
Anyway, I must have impressed them on the interview, because the woman in charge invited me back for a test. After the test, she said, "Well, there was one section you didn’t do so well on, but you did so well on all the other sections, we’ll overlook it." She scheduled a three-day try out a few weeks away, and I thought I was on my way.
The big day came. Because of my relative inexperience with the PATH train, I got confused by the directions and I got there late, but I did get there. I was prepared to apologize for being late – but I never go the chance. I was kept waiting for about a half hour. Finally, the person who interviewed me emerged.
"There’s been a staff crisis," she said, "and the people who were supposed to supervise you aren’t here. Why don’t you go home and we’ll call you." I smelled a rat, but was willing to give them a chance.
After I still didn’t hear from them in two weeks, I gave her a call. "Well," she said, "we’ve had a change of plans and have decided to look elsewhere." Stunned, I asked what the problem was. She just mentioned that one section on the test – the section that she earlier said she would be willing to overlook.
A few days later, I wrote a letter addressed to her, several executives in the company and their human resources office, telling my story and demanding an apology. And I got one, although it was written in rather vague, tepid language.
Recently, I wondered what would have happened had I engaged a labor lawyer and put the screws to them so that they would have to give me another tryout. I asked several attorneys and they were unanimous – nothing. In the U.S., one lawyer friend said, employment "at will" is the rule. This means that, other than in those instances where a particular company policy or union contract specifies otherwise, the employer has the right to hire and fire people at will. If this is the case for actual employees, he continued, it follows that job applicants also have few rights.
Just about the only time that an applicant can challenge a decision in the job-hunting process, this lawyer told me, is when that applicant suspects that he or she was excluded because of race, religion, age or disability. Another exception in which a "reasonable argument" can be made – and only in certain states – is if that applicant leaves a job upon the promise of another job, only to have the second employer cancel out at the last moment.
But these exceptions, as necessary as they are, leave out the majority of instances of lack of simple politeness or honesty on the part of employers. Already, according to an article I read online recently, fewer companies are even bothering to send out letters to candidates who didn’t get the job once they’ve made their choice. This can wreak havoc upon a person who has his heart set on a certain job, and only wants to apply for other jobs when he knows for certain whether this particular job was taken or not.
The whole job application process resembles a plantation, where one party holds all the cards and the other is forced to plead and grovel. That’s why I’m proposing a Job Applicants’ Bill of Rights in this country. Among its provisions might be:
A) If an employer says, "I’ll let you know in two weeks," he would have to give the applicant a progress report – within two weeks.
B) The employer, on request, would have to let the applicant know where he stands in the process – whether he’s one of two, one of three, or whatever. There would also be a deadline by which the employer would have to let the applicant know his status – possibly, within a month.
C) The employer would have to let the applicant know as soon as possible when someone else was hired.
D) If someone else has been chosen, but the employer says, "We’re impressed with your credentials, and we’ll keep your resume in case something else turns up," the employer would have to specify how long he will keep that applicant’s resume, and if an appropriate position turns up within that period of time, he would have to let the applicant know and ask whether he’s still interested.
E) If the employer promises the applicant a second interview, a test or a tryout, he would have to give that applicant a second interview, a test or a tryout, except in extenuating circumstances.
F) These provisions would not apply to an applicant who has never been contacted as a possible candidate – but once contact has been made, the wheels would be set in motion.
None of these provisions would require any more than a negligible expenditure on the part of any company, especially a large corporation. At most, they would require a little more bookkeeping, which would be easy given today’s computer programs.
I call on all municipal, state and federal elected officials! Come on! Who will be the first to introduce the Job Applicants’ Bill of Rights?
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Dad and His Diners
By Raanan Geberer
(first published in "Smith" online magazine)
Ever since my wife and I got married, my father, when he met us, would only eat at diners. And he would only order three things: a tuna fish sandwich, a mushroom omelette or a cheese omelette. He’d make a big show of going through the menu, then summon the waiter or waitress and declare: "Ummm, I think I’ll have a cheese omelette!"
Sooner or later we got tired of this, and we suggested other places. We first suggested an Italian restaurant a block away. Dad got upset. "I don’t like spaghetti!" he said. Then we suggested a Chinese restaurant nearby. This made him even more alarmed. "Seventy-five percent of what you get in a Chinese restaurant is pork!" he declared. Dad wasn’t strictly kosher, but eating pork and shrimp was where he drew the line, and he would never take a chance on eating something new that turned out to be pork. We reassured him that the Chinese restaurant had many chicken or vegetable dishes. We ordered for him – pan-fried noodles with vegetables – and surprisingly, he liked it. "This is very tasty," he beamed. But after that, he went back to his diner-only regime. Every time we saw him, he would repeat over and over, "I’ll go anywhere you want," but "anywhere" usually turned out to be either the Regal diner, the Moonstruck diner or the Chelsea Square diner.
This continued until the time took us out to one of the People’s Symphony Concerts, a series of low-cost chamber music concerts held at a high school on Irving Place on the East Side. My wife had recently been to Irving Place, and was excited about the prospect of going to one of the interesting-looking restaurants on that short but historic thoroughfare before the concert. There was a Northern Italian restaurant, there was a place with the evocative name "Friend of a Farmer," there was a European-style coffeehouse that served sandwiches, and there was the historic Pete’s Tavern, which had been there since 1864. At last, we would have something different! She was elated.
The big day came. We told my father that there were several restaurants we were interested in near the school. But before we had the chance to mention them by name, he smiled conspiratorially and said, "I knew a place. It’s right nearby. It’s a secret. Follow me!"
"It’s a secret?"
"Trust me!"
We kept walking, with my father saying "Trust me!" every few seconds and chuckling. Suddenly, he stopped. "Here it is!"
"Oh, no!"
In the middle of this street of exciting restaurants, my father had managed to find the one diner.
"It’s got everything!" he enthused. "You can get pancakes, omelettes, sandwiches, soup, hamburgers, you name it! OK?"
"Well, I guess so," my wife said in a low, disappointed voice.
"I knew you’d like it. See, I told you I’d go anywhere you want to go!"
Well, we suffered through the diner, which wasn’t bad as diners go, and went to see the concert. We finally got the chance to go to one of those Irving Place restaurants a few months later – on our own. And my wife must have gotten over it, because she was one of the last people to see my father alive when he was in the hospital and was glad about that.
Now, when go out to eat, we go to a Chinese restaurant, a Thai restaurant, a burrito place, a pizza place – or a diner. And when we go to the diner, it’s because we want to go, on our own terms.
We tell this story a lot, with a slight laugh. And we hope that wherever Dad is, there are old-fashioned New York diners with tuna fish sandwiches, mushroom omelettes and cheese omelettes.
(first published in "Smith" online magazine)
Ever since my wife and I got married, my father, when he met us, would only eat at diners. And he would only order three things: a tuna fish sandwich, a mushroom omelette or a cheese omelette. He’d make a big show of going through the menu, then summon the waiter or waitress and declare: "Ummm, I think I’ll have a cheese omelette!"
Sooner or later we got tired of this, and we suggested other places. We first suggested an Italian restaurant a block away. Dad got upset. "I don’t like spaghetti!" he said. Then we suggested a Chinese restaurant nearby. This made him even more alarmed. "Seventy-five percent of what you get in a Chinese restaurant is pork!" he declared. Dad wasn’t strictly kosher, but eating pork and shrimp was where he drew the line, and he would never take a chance on eating something new that turned out to be pork. We reassured him that the Chinese restaurant had many chicken or vegetable dishes. We ordered for him – pan-fried noodles with vegetables – and surprisingly, he liked it. "This is very tasty," he beamed. But after that, he went back to his diner-only regime. Every time we saw him, he would repeat over and over, "I’ll go anywhere you want," but "anywhere" usually turned out to be either the Regal diner, the Moonstruck diner or the Chelsea Square diner.
This continued until the time took us out to one of the People’s Symphony Concerts, a series of low-cost chamber music concerts held at a high school on Irving Place on the East Side. My wife had recently been to Irving Place, and was excited about the prospect of going to one of the interesting-looking restaurants on that short but historic thoroughfare before the concert. There was a Northern Italian restaurant, there was a place with the evocative name "Friend of a Farmer," there was a European-style coffeehouse that served sandwiches, and there was the historic Pete’s Tavern, which had been there since 1864. At last, we would have something different! She was elated.
The big day came. We told my father that there were several restaurants we were interested in near the school. But before we had the chance to mention them by name, he smiled conspiratorially and said, "I knew a place. It’s right nearby. It’s a secret. Follow me!"
"It’s a secret?"
"Trust me!"
We kept walking, with my father saying "Trust me!" every few seconds and chuckling. Suddenly, he stopped. "Here it is!"
"Oh, no!"
In the middle of this street of exciting restaurants, my father had managed to find the one diner.
"It’s got everything!" he enthused. "You can get pancakes, omelettes, sandwiches, soup, hamburgers, you name it! OK?"
"Well, I guess so," my wife said in a low, disappointed voice.
"I knew you’d like it. See, I told you I’d go anywhere you want to go!"
Well, we suffered through the diner, which wasn’t bad as diners go, and went to see the concert. We finally got the chance to go to one of those Irving Place restaurants a few months later – on our own. And my wife must have gotten over it, because she was one of the last people to see my father alive when he was in the hospital and was glad about that.
Now, when go out to eat, we go to a Chinese restaurant, a Thai restaurant, a burrito place, a pizza place – or a diner. And when we go to the diner, it’s because we want to go, on our own terms.
We tell this story a lot, with a slight laugh. And we hope that wherever Dad is, there are old-fashioned New York diners with tuna fish sandwiches, mushroom omelettes and cheese omelettes.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
I Had Asthma Before It Was Popular
By Raanan Geberer
Originally appeared in "Currents" section of Hudson Reporter, Hoboken, N.J.
The rate of childhood asthma has risen steadily in the last 20 years. Some people link this to air pollution: others blame global warming.
This should give me some perverse satisfaction, although it really doesn't. I was born with hereditary asthma, and have had it most of my life.
My childhood was filled with syrupy, icky-tasting liquids that my father called "the green," "the yellow" and "the red," eventually replaced by pills. I spent many evenings during my pre-teen years hunched over the vaporizer, breathing in the steam as my mother stood over me. As for allergy injections, don't even ask! I still remember my smiling, elderly allergist pricking my arm with the needle, then joking, "Ouch! That hurts!" as I smarted in pain.
Nowadays, there are special sleep-away camps for kids with asthma. But when I was young, there either weren't any such camps or my parents didn't know about them, so I had to watch jealously as most of my classmates went away to camp. When I was 15, thinking I could do an end-run around my parents, I applied for a job as a waiter in a camp. But when I let the word "asthma" slip, the interviewer said, "We've had to send several staff members home because of asthmatic conditions." Foiled again!
As for sports, forget it! My mother insisted that every time i registered for gym class, I give the teacher a note saying that I could withdraw from physical activity when my asthma acted up. One day in junior high, I told her I was invited to play touch football. She interrogated me until she found out where the game was. She then told me that if I went there, she would stand there to make sure I didn't play.
A few years later, when I told Mom I was applying for a summer kibbutz program in Israel, she angrily made me list every single medicine I had ever taken, as if I were a former felon trying to hide a prison record. Needless to say, I wasn't accepted, although I did get to go on an archaeological dig there many years later.
My asthma began to fade away in my late teens, and I was finally able to persuade my parents to let me go to an out-of-town college -- the college had an infirmary where I could take my injections.
The illness basically disappeared by my early twenties, although I continued to take medicines as needed. I began to do activities that I wouldn't have thought of doing as a child, such as jogging, going on long bike trips, playing paddleball, canoeing and even taking martial arts classes (I now think of this period as a "golden age.")
Then, when I was around 30, I caught a bad strain of the flu. After it went, my asthma came back--in spades. I went to the emergency room many times. I often gasped for air just to walk one block to the pharmacy. At the time, I worked as a copy editor for the now-defunct Hudson Dispatch in New Jersey, and many nights when I left the newsroom, I had so little breath that the trip down the block was like climbing Mount Everest.
After a few months of this, I went to an allergist. She gave me new medicines and weekly injections. When that didn't work, she increased the injections to twice a week. Still, I kept going to the ER, and was admitted to the hospital several times. I tried acupuncture, but that didn't help either.
On top of it all, there was the girlfriend who, after I found it hard to talk one night because I was so short of breath, accused me of having "withdrawn Piscean moods" and ended our relationship.
During this period, I changed jobs twice. When I took a position in Brooklyn, I decided to find a doctor nearby. My new doctor gave me some sort of a test, then discontinued the injections while continuing the medications. I began to get better almost immediately. The visits to the ER became more infrequent, then stopped.
Eventually, I began taking newer medications and began paying attention to my diet. With one or two exceptions, I've been asthma attack-free for about 12 years.
So, to all these new childhood asthma patients that you hear about, good luck. You'll certainly enjoy better care than I did!
Originally appeared in "Currents" section of Hudson Reporter, Hoboken, N.J.
The rate of childhood asthma has risen steadily in the last 20 years. Some people link this to air pollution: others blame global warming.
This should give me some perverse satisfaction, although it really doesn't. I was born with hereditary asthma, and have had it most of my life.
My childhood was filled with syrupy, icky-tasting liquids that my father called "the green," "the yellow" and "the red," eventually replaced by pills. I spent many evenings during my pre-teen years hunched over the vaporizer, breathing in the steam as my mother stood over me. As for allergy injections, don't even ask! I still remember my smiling, elderly allergist pricking my arm with the needle, then joking, "Ouch! That hurts!" as I smarted in pain.
Nowadays, there are special sleep-away camps for kids with asthma. But when I was young, there either weren't any such camps or my parents didn't know about them, so I had to watch jealously as most of my classmates went away to camp. When I was 15, thinking I could do an end-run around my parents, I applied for a job as a waiter in a camp. But when I let the word "asthma" slip, the interviewer said, "We've had to send several staff members home because of asthmatic conditions." Foiled again!
As for sports, forget it! My mother insisted that every time i registered for gym class, I give the teacher a note saying that I could withdraw from physical activity when my asthma acted up. One day in junior high, I told her I was invited to play touch football. She interrogated me until she found out where the game was. She then told me that if I went there, she would stand there to make sure I didn't play.
A few years later, when I told Mom I was applying for a summer kibbutz program in Israel, she angrily made me list every single medicine I had ever taken, as if I were a former felon trying to hide a prison record. Needless to say, I wasn't accepted, although I did get to go on an archaeological dig there many years later.
My asthma began to fade away in my late teens, and I was finally able to persuade my parents to let me go to an out-of-town college -- the college had an infirmary where I could take my injections.
The illness basically disappeared by my early twenties, although I continued to take medicines as needed. I began to do activities that I wouldn't have thought of doing as a child, such as jogging, going on long bike trips, playing paddleball, canoeing and even taking martial arts classes (I now think of this period as a "golden age.")
Then, when I was around 30, I caught a bad strain of the flu. After it went, my asthma came back--in spades. I went to the emergency room many times. I often gasped for air just to walk one block to the pharmacy. At the time, I worked as a copy editor for the now-defunct Hudson Dispatch in New Jersey, and many nights when I left the newsroom, I had so little breath that the trip down the block was like climbing Mount Everest.
After a few months of this, I went to an allergist. She gave me new medicines and weekly injections. When that didn't work, she increased the injections to twice a week. Still, I kept going to the ER, and was admitted to the hospital several times. I tried acupuncture, but that didn't help either.
On top of it all, there was the girlfriend who, after I found it hard to talk one night because I was so short of breath, accused me of having "withdrawn Piscean moods" and ended our relationship.
During this period, I changed jobs twice. When I took a position in Brooklyn, I decided to find a doctor nearby. My new doctor gave me some sort of a test, then discontinued the injections while continuing the medications. I began to get better almost immediately. The visits to the ER became more infrequent, then stopped.
Eventually, I began taking newer medications and began paying attention to my diet. With one or two exceptions, I've been asthma attack-free for about 12 years.
So, to all these new childhood asthma patients that you hear about, good luck. You'll certainly enjoy better care than I did!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Why Commercial Rent Regulation Is Needed
By Raanan Geberer
Originally from Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 2006
The recent news of the closure of the Musicians General Store, the musical-instrument store in Cobble Hill, is saddening–but hardly unique.
In another example, in Manhattan, an entire block of stores on Eighth Avenue north of 14th Street, including the Cajun jazz club, one of the few places to hear 1920s-style jazz in the city, was forced to close down. Don’t forget, also, what happened to the Bottom Line and CBGB’s. And the same thing is happening to many small neighborhood restaurants.
What’s going on here?
Nine times out of ten, the owners of these buildings are kicking out these stores in hopes that a chain store will move in. Many large retail chains, it seems, have no limit on what they are going to spend. For example, where I live, you have a Duane-Reed, a CVS and a Rite-Aid within three blocks of each other. The market clearly isn’t big enough for all three, but there they are. And there is a second Duane-Reed coming five blocks away!
I have nothing against chain stores. For years, chain stores such as the A&P and Woolworth’s co-existed with small "mom-and-pop" stores. In many underdeveloped areas, chain stores have played an important, valuable role in bringing these neighborhoods back to life–for example, look at the Lowe’s in Gowanus.
But in general, however, building owners have let themselves be carried away with dreams of easy money and quick fortunes, not just a reasonable profit. Forest City Ratner, in its Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls, has allocated space only to chain stores, without any set-aside for local merchants.
Under these circumstances, the idea the "owning your own business" is the ultimate dream for people has turned out to be a cruel joke.
Quite a few years ago, a former City Council member, Stan Michaels, who represented Washington Heights, sponsored a measure to introduce commercial rent regulation in this city. Needless to say, it failed. When I asked his assistant about it a year or so later, I was told that there was no support for it, and that efforts were being concentrated on lowering taxes for commercial buildings so that the owners wouldn’t have to charge such high rents.
Whoever made the last argument doesn’t understand human nature. While there are doubtless some ethical businesspeople, there are as many, or more, who are not. As the influence of traditional ethics, religious faith and civic responsibility wanes, it is increasingly replaced by an attitude of "I’m going to get as much for myself as I can, and to hell with everybody else." That’s why the government must step in as an arbiter among diverse groups (in this case, store-owners and commercial building owners) who would destroy each other otherwise.
This is why the idea of commercial rent regulation should be revived.
Originally from Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 2006
The recent news of the closure of the Musicians General Store, the musical-instrument store in Cobble Hill, is saddening–but hardly unique.
In another example, in Manhattan, an entire block of stores on Eighth Avenue north of 14th Street, including the Cajun jazz club, one of the few places to hear 1920s-style jazz in the city, was forced to close down. Don’t forget, also, what happened to the Bottom Line and CBGB’s. And the same thing is happening to many small neighborhood restaurants.
What’s going on here?
Nine times out of ten, the owners of these buildings are kicking out these stores in hopes that a chain store will move in. Many large retail chains, it seems, have no limit on what they are going to spend. For example, where I live, you have a Duane-Reed, a CVS and a Rite-Aid within three blocks of each other. The market clearly isn’t big enough for all three, but there they are. And there is a second Duane-Reed coming five blocks away!
I have nothing against chain stores. For years, chain stores such as the A&P and Woolworth’s co-existed with small "mom-and-pop" stores. In many underdeveloped areas, chain stores have played an important, valuable role in bringing these neighborhoods back to life–for example, look at the Lowe’s in Gowanus.
But in general, however, building owners have let themselves be carried away with dreams of easy money and quick fortunes, not just a reasonable profit. Forest City Ratner, in its Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls, has allocated space only to chain stores, without any set-aside for local merchants.
Under these circumstances, the idea the "owning your own business" is the ultimate dream for people has turned out to be a cruel joke.
Quite a few years ago, a former City Council member, Stan Michaels, who represented Washington Heights, sponsored a measure to introduce commercial rent regulation in this city. Needless to say, it failed. When I asked his assistant about it a year or so later, I was told that there was no support for it, and that efforts were being concentrated on lowering taxes for commercial buildings so that the owners wouldn’t have to charge such high rents.
Whoever made the last argument doesn’t understand human nature. While there are doubtless some ethical businesspeople, there are as many, or more, who are not. As the influence of traditional ethics, religious faith and civic responsibility wanes, it is increasingly replaced by an attitude of "I’m going to get as much for myself as I can, and to hell with everybody else." That’s why the government must step in as an arbiter among diverse groups (in this case, store-owners and commercial building owners) who would destroy each other otherwise.
This is why the idea of commercial rent regulation should be revived.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Doin' the Census in the Bronx
By Raanan Geberer
Published with the permission of SofTech, publisher of BronxBoard, where it originally appeared in the "Bronx Diary" section
A t the age of twenty-one, I graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton. I was still unsure about what I wanted to do with my life. I was trying to make up my mind between journalism (which I eventually chose), city planning and high-school teaching. So, like many of my peers during the laid-back 1970s, I decided to "take a year off," basically living at home in Co-op City, working at an "ordinary" job and maybe doing a little traveling before finally making a decision and going to graduate school for my master's.
The problem was, even getting an ordinary job, without any real job skills, was tough. For whatever reason, I didn't want to go back to either of my previous short-term employers, R&J Records, a record wholesaler on Sherman Avenue in Inwood, or the Record Hunter, the famed record store on Fifth Avenue. I tried driving a yellow cab out of a garage on Jerome Avenue near Yankee Stadium, but I found it so stressful that I soon quit. For a while, I worked part-time doing title searches in the Bronx County Courthouse for a real-estate company, but that came to an end after two months. Then, my friend Angelo told me that the Census was hiring, and told me how to apply.
Few people knew, and probably still don't, that the census doesn't only come to life every ten years. During the "off years" it does surveys for every federal agency under the sun. The survey I would be doing was for the Justice Department and called the National Crime Survey. Families were chosen at random to be interviewed for the purpose of seeing whether the rates of specific crimes were going up or down.
I applied, was accepted, and was told I would work on a team in the Northeast Bronx, near where I lived. But first, I had a to attend a one-week training session in Lower Manhattan. Our tours with the Census Bureau would be only six weeks, but, we were assured, the bureau did one survey after another and was always hiring. "If you're good," one head honcho addressed us, "You can become a crew chief!" Definitely something to consider.
After the training session, I was assigned to a team that would operate around the Allerton Avenue area - the same area where Angelo and several of my high school friends used to live. I was overjoyed, and although I had never lived there myself, I knew those streets inside-out, so the job would be easy. The first day, our whole group, about twenty of us, met at the diner on the north side of Pelham Parkway and White Plains Road for a little orientation with our new crew chief, Nick, a young, well-dressed Greek-American guy who'd previously worked as a painting contractor.
We got our list of interviewees and our interview questions, and it was off to the races. I was a little annoyed that the policy of this survey was to not notify people in advance that we were coming, but on the whole, people were cooperative, especially after I displayed a big badge that identified me as a federal employee. The only exception was one woman on Gun Hill Road who slammed the door on me for reasons unknown. A few people politely refused to answer the questions, like three young Fordham University coeds who shared an apartment on Cruger Avenue, but those I could tolerate.
A lot of the bureau's rules were a pain. For example, if only one member of the family was home, you had to put the answer down as a "partial," and then come back the next day, or the day afterward, to speak to the wife or husband. After a while, I learned to just ask, "Does your wife feel the same way you do?"
Also, the question "During the last year, were you ever robbed, raped, assaulted, physically attacked..." could be inflammatory, so eventually I just asked, "in the last year, have any crimes been committed against you?" and let them do the talking.
The job did have its pleasant features. Often, I took a break to sit down at Al's Luncheonette on Allerton, listening to the war stories of the colorful Russian immigrant owner, or I sifted through the old records and books at Lianna's antique store, further to the east.
One time, I interviewed an elderly, very well-spoken doctor on Williamsbridge Road who talked about the neighborhood and how stable it was. "Of course, there was one building on the street that had, shall we say, that bad element, but of course, that building just burned down." He winked his eye, implying that he had something to do with it.
Another time, I was so taken with a young lady I interviewed on Holland Avenue that the day after I interviewed her for the Census, I called her and asked her for a date. She was the daughter of a State Senator, no less, whose office was on Pelham Parkway North, right next to the diner. Completely unprofessional behavior, perhaps, but at twenty-one, pursuit of the opposite sex overrode everything and anything. She wasn't interested.
Once a week, we all got together at the diner, handed Nick our paperwork, then got a new list of people to interview. Nick tried to start a contest among us by announcing who had the most completed interviews for the week, something I didn't appreciate. I usually came in second or third, but one very jovial and outgoing man - Mr. Del Giudice - always came in with the highest totals. Del Giudice, who was born in the old country, spoke Italian, and since at least half of the Allerton Avenue area was still Italian-American, he apparently was a hit.
"It's those stories he tells," Nick related to us, cheerfully.
After the sixth week, we met in the diner one last time. Nick congratulated us and then said, "You might not have noticed that Mr. Del Giudice isn’t here." He was right, although I hadn't noticed it until he mentioned it.
Well, it seemed that Nick's opinions of him had cooled a little bit. "His totals were a little too high, so we decided to re-interview some of the people he said he interviewed. He made all his interviews up, and we're prosecuting him. Oh, by the way, Ron?"
"Yes?"
"We checked up on a few of yours, too, but you're OK!" I breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently Nick didn't know - or care - about my "partials."
"What about more surveys? How do we apply?"
Nick breathed heavily. “They just announced that they're cutting back on the number of surveys they're doing. I don't know when the next one is. I’m gonna go back to contracting for a while. I wish you guys the best."
A week or two later, I took a trip over to the trusty Lehman College job board (supposedly for Lehman students only, but no one was checking). Soon, I was working as a "permit clerk" for a plumbing company on Webster Avenue. I had to go down to the Buildings Department every day and try to get permits for the jobs they were doing. That job, too, was a quite a trip, as they said in the '70s, but that's a story for another day.
Published with the permission of SofTech, publisher of BronxBoard, where it originally appeared in the "Bronx Diary" section
A t the age of twenty-one, I graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton. I was still unsure about what I wanted to do with my life. I was trying to make up my mind between journalism (which I eventually chose), city planning and high-school teaching. So, like many of my peers during the laid-back 1970s, I decided to "take a year off," basically living at home in Co-op City, working at an "ordinary" job and maybe doing a little traveling before finally making a decision and going to graduate school for my master's.
The problem was, even getting an ordinary job, without any real job skills, was tough. For whatever reason, I didn't want to go back to either of my previous short-term employers, R&J Records, a record wholesaler on Sherman Avenue in Inwood, or the Record Hunter, the famed record store on Fifth Avenue. I tried driving a yellow cab out of a garage on Jerome Avenue near Yankee Stadium, but I found it so stressful that I soon quit. For a while, I worked part-time doing title searches in the Bronx County Courthouse for a real-estate company, but that came to an end after two months. Then, my friend Angelo told me that the Census was hiring, and told me how to apply.
Few people knew, and probably still don't, that the census doesn't only come to life every ten years. During the "off years" it does surveys for every federal agency under the sun. The survey I would be doing was for the Justice Department and called the National Crime Survey. Families were chosen at random to be interviewed for the purpose of seeing whether the rates of specific crimes were going up or down.
I applied, was accepted, and was told I would work on a team in the Northeast Bronx, near where I lived. But first, I had a to attend a one-week training session in Lower Manhattan. Our tours with the Census Bureau would be only six weeks, but, we were assured, the bureau did one survey after another and was always hiring. "If you're good," one head honcho addressed us, "You can become a crew chief!" Definitely something to consider.
After the training session, I was assigned to a team that would operate around the Allerton Avenue area - the same area where Angelo and several of my high school friends used to live. I was overjoyed, and although I had never lived there myself, I knew those streets inside-out, so the job would be easy. The first day, our whole group, about twenty of us, met at the diner on the north side of Pelham Parkway and White Plains Road for a little orientation with our new crew chief, Nick, a young, well-dressed Greek-American guy who'd previously worked as a painting contractor.
We got our list of interviewees and our interview questions, and it was off to the races. I was a little annoyed that the policy of this survey was to not notify people in advance that we were coming, but on the whole, people were cooperative, especially after I displayed a big badge that identified me as a federal employee. The only exception was one woman on Gun Hill Road who slammed the door on me for reasons unknown. A few people politely refused to answer the questions, like three young Fordham University coeds who shared an apartment on Cruger Avenue, but those I could tolerate.
A lot of the bureau's rules were a pain. For example, if only one member of the family was home, you had to put the answer down as a "partial," and then come back the next day, or the day afterward, to speak to the wife or husband. After a while, I learned to just ask, "Does your wife feel the same way you do?"
Also, the question "During the last year, were you ever robbed, raped, assaulted, physically attacked..." could be inflammatory, so eventually I just asked, "in the last year, have any crimes been committed against you?" and let them do the talking.
The job did have its pleasant features. Often, I took a break to sit down at Al's Luncheonette on Allerton, listening to the war stories of the colorful Russian immigrant owner, or I sifted through the old records and books at Lianna's antique store, further to the east.
One time, I interviewed an elderly, very well-spoken doctor on Williamsbridge Road who talked about the neighborhood and how stable it was. "Of course, there was one building on the street that had, shall we say, that bad element, but of course, that building just burned down." He winked his eye, implying that he had something to do with it.
Another time, I was so taken with a young lady I interviewed on Holland Avenue that the day after I interviewed her for the Census, I called her and asked her for a date. She was the daughter of a State Senator, no less, whose office was on Pelham Parkway North, right next to the diner. Completely unprofessional behavior, perhaps, but at twenty-one, pursuit of the opposite sex overrode everything and anything. She wasn't interested.
Once a week, we all got together at the diner, handed Nick our paperwork, then got a new list of people to interview. Nick tried to start a contest among us by announcing who had the most completed interviews for the week, something I didn't appreciate. I usually came in second or third, but one very jovial and outgoing man - Mr. Del Giudice - always came in with the highest totals. Del Giudice, who was born in the old country, spoke Italian, and since at least half of the Allerton Avenue area was still Italian-American, he apparently was a hit.
"It's those stories he tells," Nick related to us, cheerfully.
After the sixth week, we met in the diner one last time. Nick congratulated us and then said, "You might not have noticed that Mr. Del Giudice isn’t here." He was right, although I hadn't noticed it until he mentioned it.
Well, it seemed that Nick's opinions of him had cooled a little bit. "His totals were a little too high, so we decided to re-interview some of the people he said he interviewed. He made all his interviews up, and we're prosecuting him. Oh, by the way, Ron?"
"Yes?"
"We checked up on a few of yours, too, but you're OK!" I breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently Nick didn't know - or care - about my "partials."
"What about more surveys? How do we apply?"
Nick breathed heavily. “They just announced that they're cutting back on the number of surveys they're doing. I don't know when the next one is. I’m gonna go back to contracting for a while. I wish you guys the best."
A week or two later, I took a trip over to the trusty Lehman College job board (supposedly for Lehman students only, but no one was checking). Soon, I was working as a "permit clerk" for a plumbing company on Webster Avenue. I had to go down to the Buildings Department every day and try to get permits for the jobs they were doing. That job, too, was a quite a trip, as they said in the '70s, but that's a story for another day.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Googling the Dead
By Raanan Geberer
Originally Published in "Smith" Magazine
Like most computer-literate Americans, I find that one of my main activities on the web is looking up (or “Googling”) people I used to know. But when, a few years ago, I Googled one of my old girlfriends, Karen Dollinger, and found an obituary, I was devastated, even though we had never been “in love” per se.
Karen and I met through an ad I placed in the Village Voice back in the late '80s. Karen was a psychiatrist, very impressive to me, and I really got a kick out of the fact that she would consider me, who had a history of childhood emotional problems, suitable material to go out with. She was very heavy, about 250 pounds, and for that reason, men had avoided her for most of her life. But since I’m really attracted to large women, her body was an incredible turn-on. I couldn’t get enough of her, with her gigantic legs, ass and breasts, and sometimes we’d have sex several times in a day.
I would play little verbal games with her:“Karen, could you look at the clock and tell me what time it is?”“Eleven o’clock. Why?”“What do you think we’ll be saying to each other at midnight?”“Oh, please fuck me!”“And what do you think we’ll be saying at one o’clock?”“Oh, PLEASE, fuck me!”
Karen and I had a strange relationship — we spent weekends together, but during the week, it seemed like we hardly knew each other. We had gone to the same state university, but outside of music and films, we didn’t really share each other’s interests. She was really into horses, having ridden from childhood, and owned at least one, which she kept at a friend’s farm upstate (I always suspected she was trying to hide the fact that she came from a fairly wealthy background; for example, she had owned a BMW in college, but claimed she’d gotten the money from an accident settlement).
She shared none of my consuming interest in politics — she never watched the evening news or read the newspaper, and once asked me, “Who’s Al Sharpton?” Although we were both Jewish, it also shocked me that she was so non-religious, she treated even Yom Kippur like it was just another day (she described her family, who I never met, as being “extremely white-bread”). Although I’m far from being Orthodox, I have strong religious and spiritual beliefs, and her total indifference threw me for a loop (at least if she’d told me she was a militant atheist, at least that would have been SOMETHING!)
Still, I respected her intelligence, and I liked her lack of pretense and the fact that we had really intense conversations. I might have turned her off a few times by yelling enthusiastically, in bed, about her “big ass” — to me saying this was merely an intensely sexual turn-on, but to her it was probably a reminder of the insults she’d gotten throughout her life.
Then, there was the matter of my asthma, which was pretty serious back then and which made me cough and wheeze constantly. She thought it was psychosomatic and advised me to return to therapy. She would have been better off telling me to go to a good pulmonary specialist, like the one who finally helped me a few years later.
The relationship lasted about nine months — we both sort of understood, from the very beginning, that it was basically temporary, and that at some point we’d move on to other partners. Still, I assumed that we’d always be friends, and I was shocked when she decided to cut off all contact with me (my leftist friend Bert later said this was proof of how “conventional” she was, since, “middle class-type women, unlike artistic and intellectual types, rarely have stay in touch with their ex-boyfriends”). About a year later, another friend, Dan Dinnerstein, answered a personal ad that she herself had placed, and I was relieved when she dropped him after two dates.
The obit said that she lived up in Putnam County and was married with two children. It didn’t give the cause of death — I wondered whether she had killed herself, since she always used to talk about how depressed she was. She might also have died of a heart attack. She herself had predicted this, since her mother had also died of one in her forties.
At any rate, here’s a shout out to Karen, I wasn’t in love with you, I'm still not in love with you, but I DO feel love for you.
And I hope we’ll meet n the next world.
Originally Published in "Smith" Magazine
Like most computer-literate Americans, I find that one of my main activities on the web is looking up (or “Googling”) people I used to know. But when, a few years ago, I Googled one of my old girlfriends, Karen Dollinger, and found an obituary, I was devastated, even though we had never been “in love” per se.
Karen and I met through an ad I placed in the Village Voice back in the late '80s. Karen was a psychiatrist, very impressive to me, and I really got a kick out of the fact that she would consider me, who had a history of childhood emotional problems, suitable material to go out with. She was very heavy, about 250 pounds, and for that reason, men had avoided her for most of her life. But since I’m really attracted to large women, her body was an incredible turn-on. I couldn’t get enough of her, with her gigantic legs, ass and breasts, and sometimes we’d have sex several times in a day.
I would play little verbal games with her:“Karen, could you look at the clock and tell me what time it is?”“Eleven o’clock. Why?”“What do you think we’ll be saying to each other at midnight?”“Oh, please fuck me!”“And what do you think we’ll be saying at one o’clock?”“Oh, PLEASE, fuck me!”
Karen and I had a strange relationship — we spent weekends together, but during the week, it seemed like we hardly knew each other. We had gone to the same state university, but outside of music and films, we didn’t really share each other’s interests. She was really into horses, having ridden from childhood, and owned at least one, which she kept at a friend’s farm upstate (I always suspected she was trying to hide the fact that she came from a fairly wealthy background; for example, she had owned a BMW in college, but claimed she’d gotten the money from an accident settlement).
She shared none of my consuming interest in politics — she never watched the evening news or read the newspaper, and once asked me, “Who’s Al Sharpton?” Although we were both Jewish, it also shocked me that she was so non-religious, she treated even Yom Kippur like it was just another day (she described her family, who I never met, as being “extremely white-bread”). Although I’m far from being Orthodox, I have strong religious and spiritual beliefs, and her total indifference threw me for a loop (at least if she’d told me she was a militant atheist, at least that would have been SOMETHING!)
Still, I respected her intelligence, and I liked her lack of pretense and the fact that we had really intense conversations. I might have turned her off a few times by yelling enthusiastically, in bed, about her “big ass” — to me saying this was merely an intensely sexual turn-on, but to her it was probably a reminder of the insults she’d gotten throughout her life.
Then, there was the matter of my asthma, which was pretty serious back then and which made me cough and wheeze constantly. She thought it was psychosomatic and advised me to return to therapy. She would have been better off telling me to go to a good pulmonary specialist, like the one who finally helped me a few years later.
The relationship lasted about nine months — we both sort of understood, from the very beginning, that it was basically temporary, and that at some point we’d move on to other partners. Still, I assumed that we’d always be friends, and I was shocked when she decided to cut off all contact with me (my leftist friend Bert later said this was proof of how “conventional” she was, since, “middle class-type women, unlike artistic and intellectual types, rarely have stay in touch with their ex-boyfriends”). About a year later, another friend, Dan Dinnerstein, answered a personal ad that she herself had placed, and I was relieved when she dropped him after two dates.
The obit said that she lived up in Putnam County and was married with two children. It didn’t give the cause of death — I wondered whether she had killed herself, since she always used to talk about how depressed she was. She might also have died of a heart attack. She herself had predicted this, since her mother had also died of one in her forties.
At any rate, here’s a shout out to Karen, I wasn’t in love with you, I'm still not in love with you, but I DO feel love for you.
And I hope we’ll meet n the next world.
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