David Brooks Swings and Misses Again

In what might have been a terrific column yesterday about how New York groped its way back from the chaos of the 1960s, 70s and 80s that engulfed us, David Brooks relies on the simplisticism of John Podhoretz, the unerringly inaccurate neo-con, to launch an attack on everything and everyone from hippies to minorities.

Simultaneously, Brooks sanctifies in a backhanded way the old middle class who abandoned New York primarily for racist reasons after World War II while bemoaning the fact that slum clearance, the wholesale destruction of some of the most beautiful housing stock in the city, and the building of housing projects failed to stem the deterioration of conditions.

Babbling Brooks says, among other things, "The crime wave killed off the hippie movement. The hippies celebrated disorder, mayhem and the whole Dionysian personal agenda. By the 1970s, the menacing results of that agenda were all around."

In reality, judging simply by the calendar, the rising crime rate could not have been a result of "hippies," (whoever they were,) since the entrenchment of dangerous conditions began in the mid-1960s when the Baby Boom had not even emerged from adolescence.

Rather the vertiginous decline in manufacturing jobs in New York above all else contributed to the dwindling of employment opportunities for undereducated inner city youth. Secondly, the traditional gate for immigrant and emigrant success - civil service - remained slammed, locked and bolted in the collective face of minorities.

White flight initiated and exacerbated the situation. Cheap suburban housing and the construction of outer-borough projects like Co-Op City sucked the heart and soul of old Jewish and Italian New York away. (The Irish had been decamping since right after the war.)

If any group celebrated disorder and mayhem, it was the nihilistic, right wing and pro-war "Greatest Generation" that blundered into and stubbornly stayed in Vietnam; who saw any sign of protest as reason to act repressively; and whose self-medication through excessive alcohol use was transmogrified into drug experimentation and addiction in the 1950s and forward. 

Further, the failed redevelopment projects, from warehousing the poor in what amounted to the permanent cell blocks of housing projects to the destruction of entire neighborhoods by superhighways championed by Robert Moses such as the Cross Bronx and Bruckner Expressways, created more havoc than any thousand things hippies ever might have done. (170,000 to 200,000 middle class people were displaced and relocated by those two roads alone.)

Atop of all that, beginning with the tail end of the Wagner administration into the two Lindsay administrations, roughly 1962 to 1970, the city entered a financial tailspin that the helmsmen were unable to stop. Hippies, as one might imagine, had very little to do with this. Inefficiency and corruption in practically every city undertaking had everything to do with it.

Eventually this led to a hiring freeze of public employees, including police and fire fighters, from 1976 to 1980. Neither department recovered to adequate levels until well into the 1990s. As the city recovered financially, policing improved dramatically.

Meanwhile, all those raving hippies turned 30, then 40, then 50 as the city recovered. Manhattan in particular experienced a reversal of white flight, although the city would become an almost indescribably diverse town. The "aging" hippies bought co-ops, had children, helped to better schools, and to demand better services - especially clean streets and public safety.

The liberal spirit of the former youth of the 60s welcomed and encouraged an enormous wave of new immigrants. So much for disorder and mayhem.

This cycle played out in many Manhattan neighborhoods, but especially the Upper West Side, which, along with the Lower East Side, the East Village, and Chelsea, had deteriorated most from white flight. By the 1970s, the Upper West had already seen the gentrification of a swath from the West 70s to lower 80s. (My brother, born in 1946, was among the pioneers on 74th between Columbus and Amsterdam, a neighborhood my mother literally cried over when she saw where he was going to live.)

By 1987, the change had pushed approximately to West 98th where it curiously stopped to take a breath then leaped a dozen blocks to Morningside, the neighborhood around Columbia University, from 110th north.

Why did it skip the intervening blocks? An unimaginably large housing project, the Frederick Douglass Houses, squats between 100th and 104th Streets, stretching from Amsterdam Avenue across Columbus to Manhattan Avenue. It incarcerates thousands upon thousands of people and has helped keep poverty and crime in the immediately surrounding area high, although that has changed, too.

Today the phantom hippies are of grand-parenting age. The Upper West Side is one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Manhattan, and even though a depressing portion of it was destroyed by urban redevelopment, its architectural charms, park-like atmosphere, and overall ambiance are readily evident on a short stroll through its side streets.

Mr. Brooks' and Mr. Podhoretz's city view could not be any more false and corrupt. The hippies couldn't have brought down the West Side. At best, they were very young adults when the malaise began and most of us were no more than college students who, until 1971, couldn't even vote, thank you. (A person born in 1948, for instance, was only 21 in 1969.)

By moving back into Manhattan, the so-called hippies heartily began countervailing, as they did in so many respects, the destructive impulses of their parents toward the urban centers of America. I'm not sure what Brooks thinks we were doing en masse, but I can tell him that by 1973, when I was 23, I was married, working two jobs, saving for a co-op, and going to museums and concerts in my spare time, even though I was and am a hippie to the marrow. I cannot think of literally one of my friends for whom this was not also the case.

As my own college-age daughter said once regarding our Upper West Side home: "I can't imagine how growing up anyplace else could be as good."

Thanks, honey. We did it for you and your compatriots. And we invited people from every country on Earth to lend a hand.

Happy Earth Day - Measuring 40 Years

The swirl of history was in an uproar 40 years ago this month.

Earth Day was born out of a populist movement that articulated the burgeoning unease with the severe damage being done to the planet. The damage wouldn't stop merely because an enormous conglomeration of idealistic, mostly young people decided enough was enough. There is a lot of work to be done yet. But much positive change grew out of those first demonstrations of love for what, to this point, is the only home we have.

On April 22nd of 1970, something else was going on in the land. Republican President Richard Nixon's administration had been conducting a secret war in Cambodia that was finally coming to light. Twelve days later, 4 students - innocent bystanders it should be remembered - were murdered by members of the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State University campus.

Lost in this toxic brew of anti-Vietnam War politics and enmity between young and old, were not just the warm and fuzzy emotions that the first Earth Day engendered but the tangible effects of the early environmental movement on legislative change:

The Clean Air Act of 1970, which, among other things allowed for citizen suits against polluters. (In 1970, cars emitted 20 x more pollutants than they do today!)

The 1973 Endangered Species Act which provides for the conservation of ecosystems upon which threatened and endangered species of fish, wildlife, and plants depend;

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 which gives the EPA authority to control the generation, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal of hazardous waste.

The 1984 Federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments to the above which focused on waste minimization and phased out land disposal of hazardous waste. Some of the other mandates of this law included increased enforcement authority for EPA, more stringent hazardous waste management standards, and a comprehensive underground storage tank program.

The 1986 amendments which enable the EPA to address environmental problems that could result from underground tanks storing petroleum and other hazardous substances.

The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which mandate the elimination of lead from all U.S. motor fuel by 1996. This represented the final step in a gradual reduction of lead in gasoline that had started in the early 1970s.

Along with environmentally friendly legislation, recycling went from an occasional fund-raising event to municipally-provided pick-up.

The same people who struggled against the inhumanity of the Vietnam War, the mass psychopathy of segregation, and the oppression of women, also began the battle for planet earth. This is what they looked like on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the first Earth Day:

How did the kids get there? One can argue that it began with Rachel Carson's seminal work on the DDT poisoning of nature, Silent Spring, but you can also look back farther at the legendary efforts of Teddy Roosevelt to preserve the beauty of the American West; the 6 million acre amalgamation of land in New York State's Adirondack Park in the second half of the 19th century through the 20th; and you can also look even deeper into the 18th and early 19th century American Romantic notions of our continent as a sort of new Eden as typified in the Hudson River School of Painting.

Closer to the time of the first Earth Day there were eccentrics (and I use the word in its most complimentary sense) like Stewart Brand, impresario of The Whole Earth Catalog. (An electronic version its first edition can be viewed by clicking here.) The catalog is hard to describe, being part tools and alternative household living catalog, part work of art, and part philosophy anthology. One of its famous mottoes about the Earth was "We can't put it together... it is together," a semiotics-driven declaration that intimated that while we can't put the Earth together, we can certainly tear it apart.

Brand was emblematic of his time. In the mid 1960s, he was associated with author Ken Kesey and the "The Merry Pranksters" and in San Francisco with his partner Zach Stewart, Brand produced the Trips Festival, an early effort involving rock music and light shows, and one of the first venues in which the Grateful Dead performed. Tom Wolfe describes Brand in the beginning of his book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as "a thin blond guy with a blazing disk on his forehead too, and a whole necktie made of Indian beads. No shirt, however, just an Indian bead necktie on bare skin and a white butcher's coat with medals from the King of Sweden on it."

"Time it was and what a time it was, a time of innocence, a time of confidences..." 

- Paul Simon

Many of the founders of Earth Day wring their hands today at the corporatism that has crept into the celebrations. Pepsi, Google, all the usual suspects have their fork in the pie. “This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green,” said Hayes, who was national coordinator of the first Earth Day and is returning to organize this year’s activities in Washington. “It is tragic.”

I'm not so sure. When it comes to the most crucial decisions we have to make to save the Earth, we want everyone on board. Humans will always consume products. The big question remains, "How can we do so in a planet-friendly way?" Individuals, companies and goverment have to come to a solid understanding about what's best for all of us. Although there are many things an individual can do inependently.

Use less, use natural and organic products, re-use what you already have, recycle that which you can't re-use. Turn the lights out. Get out of the car and walk, ride, or use public transportation. Control your thermostat, insulate your house, buy local, start a garden if you can.

To return briefly to what this blog is all about: don't think for a moment that the right wing will embrace environmentalism in any way, shape or form. Theirs is to consume and leave the mess for subsequent times.

Coming up consistently with good, practicable solutions is the answer to their hysterically pro-business, pro-consumer posture. Someone who carries an automatic rifle to a political rally is not going gently into that good night.

Locally, I want to draw attention to New York City's Million Trees initiative. I was skeptical at first, but I decided to try it. The site tells you that if you want trees planted on your street or any street, all you have to do is call 311. It works!

Last year, I spied out about 80 empty tree pits in my Hamilton Heights neighborhood and called 311. They said it would take till this spring. Inside I was saying "Sure, sure."

Lo and behold, late in March the excavators were re-opening the holes and by early April the new trees - about 15 feet tall some of them - were in place. Now they are in full leaf.

The call took all of 5 minutes. Try it. 311.

Happy Earth Day, everyone.
...

Loco Local Friday - In NYC, No More Homemade Baked Goods, EVER!

  The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our homemade brownies, But in ourselves, that we are couch potatoes.

For some time now, I've been holding off on criticizing the NYC ban on homemade baked goods sold at public school fundraisers. (Click here for the NY Times story) This may not seem an earth shaking controversy, but it is indicative of how often government, even the best-intentioned, seems to suffer myopia when it comes to big picture problem-solving. 

Last week, looking through some old family photographs, I saw pictures of my brother and me, cousins, neighborhood kids and classmates. It is the late 1950s and we are between 7 and maybe 13 years old. Thus open the flood gates of memory and desire.

The remarkable thing about the photos is that no one is obese, and hardly anyone even looks chubby. In fact, we most look rather scrawny, and when in bathing suits we look pretty well muscled, even the kids who I knew not to be "athletic." 

To describe our diets as anything but rich would be a lie. We devoured milk, ice cream, butter, and red meat until we practically mooed; desserts for lunch and dinner; no such thing as diet soda; nickel candy bars; the constant temptations of soda fountains; and serving sizes that would choke triathlon competitors. 

Yet, there we were looking as lean as Spartans.

We spent enormous amounts of time walking, running, playing, jumping, hanging by our feet, chasing, tagging, pushing, shoving, building, destroying, hiding, seeking, batting, shooting, passing, and generally a rollin' and a tumblin'. 

By age 10 I was walking, running or biking about 3/4 of a mile each way to school. I had a full 45 minutes of recess. (It had to be pouring rain or below 15 degrees before recess was canceled.) I had an hour's worth of gym 3 days a week. At 3 o'clock when I was dismissed, I ran or furiously pedaled home on my heavy, clunky bike (passed on to me by an older cousin through my older brother) that was more suited for U-boat ramming than land transportation.

From roughly 3:30 until it was either dark or suppertime, dozens of kids would play outdoors like "wild Indians," as the expression went or, even more exotically, "like wild Armenians." Indoors, we were "wild banshees." 

We would then tumble to the kitchen table cornucopia and gorge until sated. An hour, maybe an hour and a half, of homework ensued and we were done. Bathed. An hour of TV, maybe, but I think less - that was saved for Saturday and Sunday. Exhausted, almost comatose. Full. Happy. And, as it turns out, pretty learned. (In 5th grade I remember a geography test asking us to give the twenty principal rivers of the United States!)

Long story short, it's not the diet or desserts that have really changed. It's the exercise, stupid. (Not that I am recommending the animal fat and sugar rich diet of the 50s.)

Kids in New York City schools currently receive 24 minutes per day on average of phys ed. They average 15 minutes of recess. Many, especially as they move up the grades, have no recess at all. 

Because conditions have changed, kids don't walk, if ever, very far to school. Biking is not in the equation generally. Homework has grown to outlandish proportions. In middle school, they can have 2 to 3 hours of homework if they're working mach schnell. By high school, it's up to 3 to 4 hours and even more at crunch time.

No wonder they're craving sugar. I'd be craving a month in the Caribbean on a sugar cane plantation.

Toss in a couple of hours of media time and a midnight bedtime and you have all the keys to the obesity epidemic you need.

Insisting that parents stop baking goodies is weird, mean, and counterproductive. Asking PTAs to buy wholesale lots of chemical-laden Doritos or Pop-Tarts to resell at retail prices adds absurdity on top of impracticality. It further demolishes a fragile sense of community. New microscope for the bio lab? We didn't do it - Doritos did!

What to actually do? 

One strong possibility is to lengthen the school day and work both phys ed and the fine arts back into the curriculum. Mind, Body, Soul. However, given that the academic requirements of preparing for the modern world are more strenuous than in yesteryear, perhaps it is even a better idea to add a full year between 7th and 12th grade, making the primary/secondary schedule 13 years as opposed to the traditional 12.