From "Flooding of illegal units belies NYC progressives’ self-righteous claims" by Nicole Gelinas (NY Post).
September 7, 2021
"In 1890, muckraker Jacob Riis’ 'How the Other Half Lives' chronicled the shocking fate of tens of thousands of New Yorkers, mostly poor immigrants and their children..."
"... crammed into the 'inhuman dens' of disease-ridden tenements. Even back then, though, New York had a law against this, enacted in 1867, giving people a 'legal claim' to 'air and sunlight,' as Riis wrote. The city just didn’t enforce it.
Similarly, 146 people died at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory downtown in 1911 not because New York didn’t have laws against locking exit doors, but because the owners didn’t follow them.
Both the laws and their enforcement improved, part of New York’s century-long public-health triumph. Now, we’re going backward. Eleven people, including 2-year-old Lobsang Lama, drowned in their basement apartments during last week’s flash floods.
Five of the six apartments in which they drowned were illegal. The city knew about at least three of these illegal apartments — and ignored the violations.
Most basement apartments are illegal for a good reason: You can’t easily escape from them. But Gotham has long ignored illegal dwellings: Last year, three people died in fires in illegal units."
From "Flooding of illegal units belies NYC progressives’ self-righteous claims" by Nicole Gelinas (NY Post).
From "Flooding of illegal units belies NYC progressives’ self-righteous claims" by Nicole Gelinas (NY Post).
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20 comments:
"Eleven people, including 2-year-old Lobsang Lama"
The tragedy rule for newspapers is abroad it's "X killed including Y Americans," and domestically it's "X killed including Y children." It's a well tested formula.
This is not counting bus-plunge stories, which are column fillers.
"Five of the six apartments in which they drowned were illegal."
So, serious question; how does the Rent Eviction Moratorium affect illegal apartments?
Yeah, there are real consequences for ignoring the Rule of Law. Just look at our open Southern border.
But if it helps the Dems, who cares?
'CHICAGO (CBS) — At least 65 people were shot this Labor Day holiday weekend in Chicago, and six of them had been killed. At least eight of the victims were children, including a 4-year-old boy ...'
And yet murder and shooting bullets randomly in a city has been illegal since the beginning of time and there is no great urgency...just another manic Monday...
The aristocracy never changes.
Well,to be fair, the residential real estate market in New York has always been brutal.
"Flooding of illegal units belies NYC progressives’ self-righteous claims"
Relying on an anecdotes should be mortifying, but it's not.
Progressives: no real goals beyond power. They share that with the Taliban. Insurrection and dreams are fun. Reality bites hard.
The article begins by asking why we have building codes if we aren’t going to enforce them. My cynical, but obviously correct, answer is that it creates wonderful opportunities for bribery and graft and corruption. Eleven people died? In a city with a population of 8.42 million, DeBlasio won’t even notice they’re gone.
people want more low income housing, but also want to make sure basements cant be used for any living space?
The problem is, of course, that there are already many thousands of homeless people in the nation's major cities. If you enforced the building and occupancy codes, there would be tens of thousands more. Substandard housing is better than no housing. You cannot solve this kind of problem by passing and enforcing laws without being prepared to deal with the inevitable consequences.
Most basement apartments are illegal for a good reason: You can’t easily escape from them.
Here in D.C., there are tons of basement apartments. Many of the rental townhouses have separate basement apartments. And plenty of other places have subterranean units.
The alternative to "illegal apartments" in New York, for these people, is probably the parks or the street. It's unlikely they would be in safer dwellings if the city were to shut down all illegal abodes. Getting rid of housing at the bottom of the ladder doesn't move people up, it just moves them out. Lots of people hate slums, tenements, favelas, but well-meaning attempts to eradicate them often result in greater misery. Cities get rid of the single-room occupancy hotels and end up with tents on the sidewalks.
Imagine the news coverage of those basement deaths if there were a Republican in power at any level.
This seems relevant here:
https://nypost.com/2021/09/03/de-blasios-excuses-on-ida-preparation-are-as-laughable-as-his-continued-political-ambitions/
When will De Blasio and Biden be denounced for hating illegal immigrants because they allowed them to die???
I guess a better question is when will the people who continue to vote for these jokers come to grips with their own hypocrisy? Having lived here through Giuliani, I have a sliver of hope, but it dwindles every day.
There must be some way they can blame this on Trump.
In the run-up to passage of the racist Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, authorities in San Francisco arrested and jailed Chinese immigrants for violating local "Cubic Air" ordinances requiring dwellings to have a minimum volume-per-person.
Those Chinese were crammed into jails that violated the same "Cubic Air" ordinances.
Illegal immigrants in illegal apartments?
Passing laws looks like action. Enforcing them looks, well, like just doing your job. Until we have grown-ups in office (is that ever going to happen?) no one will do the boring work of law enforcement.
Honestly it's a lot like parenting. The long boring parts of rule enforcement are where the good adults are created. Not glamorous or very fun, but certainly effective.
Admittedly I am missing something, but I can't work out the logistics of drowning in a basement apartment. How can you not see the rising water and open the door and get out?
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