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Affordable Housing Crisis in NYC

More New Yorkers than ever are struggling to keep up with rising rents, leaving less and less of their paychecks for food and healthcare. 

"From Worker Education Center to Hedge Fund and State Department Cabal: An Open Call to Struggle Against an Obscene Transformation"

John Alter Committee of Concerned Students, Alumni, Faculty, & Staff
The struggle to save Worker Education continues. This battle is an integral part of the defense against the class warfare waged on unions, public education and institutions, the working class and those who work toward a democratic society, and human rights and opportunity for the oppressed, not hedge funders and warmongers. We have deeply disturbing developments to report about management's recent actions.

Streets of New York - The Subway

Photoessay by David Bacon The Reality Check
New York has a real subway. Seems like anywhere I want to go is walking distance from a station. There are 421 of them, so it figures they're close to almost anywhere along its 656 miles of tracks in four boroughs. The great thing about the subway is the people. New York is so diverse - it feels like you're seeing people from everyplace on earth in just a few subway cars. I see people tired from work, having trouble keeping their eyes open, or sometimes just asleep.

labor

New York Hospitals On Notice

Mark Brenner Labor Notes
Till now, NYSNA has negotiated separate hospital-by-hospital contracts for its entire history—while Service Employees (SEIU) mega-local 1199 was winning high standards and industry-shaping political power through master contracts with the same facilities. Now the nurses union is putting common demands on every table. At most hospitals it’s conducting open bargaining, with as many as 200 members showing up to participate in negotiations.

tv

Netflix' Daredevil Is TV's First Gentrification-Fighting Superhero

Jeet Heer The New Republic
“Daredevil,” adapted from the long-running Marvel comics franchise, is a superhero show about the evils of gentrification—a politically engaged work which is energized by debates about urban inequality. These debates are salient not only in the era of Mayor Bill de Blasio but also have roots deep in the city’s history.

books

Kicked to the Curb

Alex Pareene Book Forum
Gentrification is no myth, and saying so is magical thinking. Through oral histories and a solid grasp of urban history and urban geography, journalist GW Gibson shows not just its quite palpable and direct contribution to the displacement of low-income people, but, using New York City as his template, traces the radical decline of affordable housing city-wide. Case closed!

books

Coney Island Exposed America's Spirit

Randy Shaw Beyond Chron
Coney Island's standing for some 147 years as inspiration for artists, from its inception as an elite seaside resort through its days as an entertainment mecca and leisure refuge for New York's working people, up to its more recent decline and the closing in 2008 of Astroland, its last iconic amusement park.

Tidbits - January 15, 2015 - NAACP Bombing, Charlie Hebdo, Ferguson, NYPD, Selma and U.S. history and more...

Portside
Reader Comments - NAACP Bombing; Ferguson Grand Jury; Charlie Hebdo and the Religious Right; Ukraine, Russia and Nazi Revival; TPP Power Grab; 2014 Worker Victories; NYPD Insubordination = Drop in Crime; Thomas Piketty; Selma,Martin Luther King, LBJ and Reality; Gap Between Productivity and Pay; BDS, Palestine and Israel; Cheap Gas; Announcements - Cuba Five Book Signing; New Resource - Greece, Golden Dawn and Fascism

NYPD Insubordination Results - Drop in Crime

Nathaniel Downes; Charles F. Coleman Jr.
Statistics speak for themselves - revealing the New York Police Department has been needlessly arresting people who were not criminals at all. The NYPD has given Mayor Bill de Blasio proof that the department is indeed out of control, and not accountable to the people they are there to protect. The "broken windows" approach to law enforcement needs to be scrapped, and also the age-old trend of funding America's cities on the backs of the poor.
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