Earth Day on the Gowanus Canal

A friend on the Gowanus.

Novelist

Marilyn Robinson writes,

“The oldest anecdotes from which we know ourselves as human, the stories of Genesis, make it clear that our defects are sufficient to bring the whole world down.”  

 

We can see it here in New York, where developers plunder neighborhoods.

 

Over and over again.

Neighborhood after neighborhood, developer agendas moving forward.

Our battle to keep the Temporary Restraining Order for the Gowanus Rezone lost in court.

Now, this neighborhood, like Times Square and Williamsburg before it, faces the pressures of developer redesigns, rebranding neighborhoods into chains of big boxes.

 

The Gowanus rezone is making us sick,

say my friends Penn Rhodeen and Marlene Donnelly in the New York Daily News:|

“The battle over the massive Gowanus rezoning plan roiling Brooklyn involves urgent environmental issues that we ignore at our physical and moral peril.

The latest news is the discovery by a longtime Gowanus blogger that lethal coal tar poisoning land next to the canal had, as early as 2005, migrated beyond that land and slithered underneath existing buildings to the north, the canal itself and beyond to the east and Smith St. to the west….Despite that remaining coal tar, developers backed by City Planning intend to build a 950-unit apartment complex ironically called Gowanus Green on Public Place.”

 

“We are burning the great library of biodiversity,” says Jimmy Tobias, at Judson on Sunday, on the week of Earth Day.

 

Saturday, our union endorses Scott Stringer, to support a public sector of essential workers, a clean environment, and education for all.

 

“Ready to work, on day one,” we chant in English and Spanish.

“How about Bengali?” says one organizer, referring to the taxi drivers on hand.

 

Ready to go day one.

He’s been there for us.

We'll be there for him.

 

Press conference and a bike ride, music shows in the park, very few masks, one step up, two back.

 

Riding through the East Village, kids are out in holy NYC, bands playing, people meeting, talking, sharing the city together.

 

Graffiti and murals everywhere in the boarded up downtown.

 

Detach, we are infinite, says one.

 

Illness out there.

As well as joy.

 

A magic mountain approaches.

One day we’ll all be living there.

Not quite sure of the affliction.

 

A rapper dead, cars everywhere.

“Monster Truck Carries Rapper DMX's Coffin to Memorial Service…”

A sea of cars… grips.

Up to Garrison, we see the folks, playing frisbee in the country,

And walk about to St Philip's Church in the Highlands,

Stone Gothic Revival on Rt 9D.

 

Al and I talk about music for hours.

Agree, disagree, music must change.

We all must.

I still love Kronus’ “Purple Haze…”

Even if Al doesn’t like Aaron Copland.

He’d rather play Béla Bartók’s quartets.

 

I find myself thinking of Chuck, a high school teacher, who met me up here.

And then Tom who drove us to and from the show, splashing in the son with the kids.

Long gone.

Cancers real.

Everyone growing, life changing.

Out to LA, New Haven, Boston, their kids go.

 

Cities and stories loom.

Calling us.

 

Rebecca Katz@

@RebeccaKKatz

 tweeted:

 "The soul of NYC is standing strong w/ @scottmstringer - they're the working class, union members, NYkers who helped us all survive ... Good point here from Barbara Bowen - for the first time in over 20 years, all three public education unions - @UFT, @PSC_CUNY & @FollowCSA - are united behind the same candidate."

 

The People's Shareholder Meeting #FreetheVaccine

 

This blogger and Emily Sanderson, of Health GAP.  

 by Maryellen Novak

Health GAP's Emily Sanderson sent me an invitation to the People's Shareholder Meeting outside the Pfizer Headquarters:

“Pfizer has spent the past year making billions of dollars in profits while people are still dying from COVID. Of an estimated 700 million coronavirus vaccine doses that have been administered across the globe, just 0.2% have gone to people in low-income nations, and many low-income countries are facing the reality of waiting until 2024 for vaccine access because of manufactured scarcity.

Governments and corporations continue to hold the value of COVID patents above people's lives, but no one is safe until we are all safe. While Pfizer and other pharmaceutical corporations hold on tight to the COVID patents, President Biden could free the vaccine and make it available in poor countries faster and at no cost to the U.S by saying YES to the TRIPS Waiver. The TRIPS Waiver will temporarily waive all COVID vaccine patents until the pandemic is over.

On the same day Pfizer hosts their annual shareholder meeting, we are organizing the People's Shareholder Meeting outside their Manhattan offices.

 

This action is part of a #FreeTheVaccine week of action happening across the U.S.

Sign up here, and see you in the streets! bit.ly/VaccineEquityNow

Speakers from a range of global action groups, including Health GAP, Center for Popular Democracy, and ACT UP NY spoke about  the need to get everyone the vaccine as fast as possible, breaking pattens as Brazil did.  With twin mental and public health crises, global health depends upon it.

 

Jason of ACT UP put it:
“Hi my name is Jason Rosenberg. I use he/him pronouns and I am an ACT UP NY and Reclaim Pride member. I am speaking to you all today as a family member in rage. As someone who had to watch their uncle die and be buried in isolation. As someone who watched their loved one time and time again be failed and neglected by the state. My uncle Richard Rosenberg died of COVID-19 on April 2, 2020. He was a longtime survivor of HIV/AIDS that was displaced by the de Blasio administration under the Rivington House scandal and died in a nursing home in Harlem with no thanks to Governor Cuomo. As a family member of someone who died of COVID-19 I am scared and enraged that people in the global south won’t see a vaccine until 2024. Much like the HIV/AIDS epidemic, folks in the global south waited and waited for antiretrovirals in the late 90s/early 00s because of pharmaceutical greed. We cannot wait to see history repeat itself. President Biden, you made a campaign promise to share taxpayer-funded technology. Don’t break your promise. Pandemic profiteering has and will cost lives and must end now. When I say “What do we want?” you say “Vaccines for all”.   “What do we want?” “Vaccines for all.” “When do we want it?” “Now!