Banners Over Our Streets, or Roofs Over Their Heads? Part Three — What honor looks like when it costs something EDITING The clearing. Banners over roads, or roofs over their heads? For two installments I argued … […]
Topic: City Affairs
Honor or Obligation
Part 2: Whose Speech? The argument as I imagine a court might hear it The thorny thicket. Yesterday I made the citizen’s case: that a program in which the City chooses whose service to honor on the public way cannot be the neutral tribute it claims to be. The City will not answer that as […]
Honor and Obligation
Part 1: Whose Hero? What the Hometown Heroes campaign asks a city to decide Today I wade into a thorny thicket. There is a clearing on the other side. With any luck I’ll get there unscathed. photograph © NIA Photograph and image manipulation: Michael Lebron © NIA A Newburgh council member has proposed that the […]
Where Broadway Flows
The Planning Board rules on “2 Washington Street“ The “2 Washington Street” site, looking toward the Hudson. Photo, © NIA It’s late Tuesday afternoon. I am at my home office, struggling with my latest essay with the working title “Architecture, Authoritarianism and Democracy”. It is the densest thing I have written since I started writing […]
The History Is The Room
PART ONE: That Is Not What The Historical Record Says I have sat quietly — more or less, but mostly more (really, ask around) — in Newburgh City Council meetings for seven years. I have watched budget presentations that obscured more than they revealed. I have listened to city managers explain away FOIL non-responses with […]
Two Crises, A City Manager, One Way Forward
Note to reader: This is long, and I apologize. Usually, for an essay of this depth, a magazine will have an editor, a copy editor, a researcher, a fact checker and a lawyer supporting me. I really need that editor! But for now, I am one guy, writing within 48 hours for a deadline: the […]
The Man Who Stayed For The Show
His mom was seated in the front row. Representatives from Senators Schumer’s and Gillibrand’s offices sat behind them. So too were officials from state, county and municipal levels, as well as executives from the business and non-profit sectors. It must have been several dozen in all, who had driven up to an hour or more […]
