Good morning. Today is Thursday. We’ll take a look at the latest round of crackdowns in Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign to eliminate homeless camps. We’ll also take a look at a former vice president of the company – better known for his earlier career – who will feature the company’s featured product image later this year.
The news from the city had sounded four days earlier: A cleaning crew would be picking up any belongings left behind on Anarchy Row.
It’s what they call a miniature tent city on the sidewalk across from Tompkins Square Park.
On Wednesday, the site – the starting point for resistance against Mayor Eric Adams’ campaign to rid city streets of the homeless – was visited at least by a city clean-up group. seventh time in six weeks.
When dozens of police officers, a cleaning truck and a homeless outreach officer arrived – and an audio recording was played over police loudspeakers exclaiming “you are ordered to leave the area” – no one move.
8 people were arrested and charged with obstructing the administration to prevent the planned cleanup. Those arrested included activists from anti-deportation organizations and groups against the sweeps. My colleague Andy Newman writes that all but one in eight are willing – Johnny Grima, a homeless man who has emerged as the mass face of the movement. The officers dragged him out of his tent and took him towards a police van.
“They have 250,000 vacant apartments in the city, man,” Grima, who wants permanent housing for every homeless person in the city, shouted at one point. “Why am I homeless? Why are my friends homeless? ”
Under Adams’ predecessor, Bill de Blasio, raiding homeless camps were as frequent as under Adams. But de Blasio rarely talks about them, while Adams focuses his attention on the sweeps as an essential element of what he describes as a push to restore order on the streets.
Adams’ efforts to present cleanup in the best interests of those being moved out were complicated by video shows police officers handling homeless people and their belongings roughly.
Between March 18 and May 1, the city conducted more than 700 cleanups, many of them at the same locations.
Over the same six-week period, 39 people have “accepted the position,” according to statistics the mayor’s office released Tuesday.
The city implied that the locations were located in the shelters, but officials did not say how many of the 39 are still where they are located. Those who agree to go to shelters usually leave within a few weeks, often returning to the streets.
Some advocates say Adams should stop the sweeps and focus on adding extra beds in specialized shelters known as safe havens, which typically offer more privacy and activity. with fewer rules than traditional shelters that many homeless people avoid. Adams recently announced plans to add more than 900 beds in dedicated bunkers.
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It was a mild sunny day in the low 70s. At night, it will be cloudy, with temperatures dropping to the mid-50s.
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Image of a former executive walking on a coffee can
Coffee drinkers who are still drowsy might not realize it, but an instantly recognizable New York icon changed last month. The jagged New York skyline on cans of Chock full o’Nuts is partially obscured by photographs of a former vice president of the company.
He was on the phone at his desk, an executive in a suit and tie. “Mr. Jack R. Robinson,” reads the nametag in the foreground of one of the photographs. “Vice President.”
The other photo shows Jackie Robinson in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform.
Chock full o’Nuts hired him after the 1956 season ended when he appeared in Game 7 of the World Series and the Dodgers lost to the Yankees. His salary is $30,000 a year, and the job comes with a company car. Assigned responsibility for industrial relations, he dived in, toured the company’s restaurants and got to know the employees.
“What appealed to me most was that I wasn’t hired to put my name on the letterhead,” he said, “but I was asked to join the company and be an integral part of the operation.” He describes his job as “a challenge, but that’s the way I like it.”
In the film, he met William Black, who founded Chock full o’Nuts. Author Courtney Michelle Smith writes: “Black people have a “good reputation for their hiring practices” and “maintain fair practices for both Black and white employees. Other accounts note that while working for Chock full o’Nuts, Robinson led a fundraising campaign for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
But Robinson’s job may not be a perfect fit. Smith writes that Robinson “has encountered some friction not unlike the kind he experienced as a baseball player.” After the unionization attempt was aborted, “several employees lashed out at Robinson and accused him of preventing Black employees from forming a union. An investigation by the National Labor Relations Board has cleared up any wrongdoing by Robinson, but the case hints at growing tensions within the Chock full o’Nuts company. “
In February 1964, “around the time his contract expired,” Robinson resigned, according to Smith, who cited news reports that described the split as “friendly” and that Robinson “wanted to dedicate himself to the company.” his energy for Nelson Rockefeller’s presidential campaign.” Rockefeller, governor of New York and the first candidate to enter the race for the Republican nomination, dropped out in June of that year.
The photos of Robinson were taken on Chock full o’Nuts cans as Major League Baseball celebrated his 75th anniversary with the Dodgers. Chock full o’Nuts – now owned by an Italian coffee conglomerate that also controls brands like Chase & Sanborn and Hills Bros. – said it will pack its original mix in Robinson cans through the end of the year. Part of the proceeds will go to the Jackie Robinson Foundation, which has given more than $100 million in aid to college students since its founding in 1973, a year after Robinson’s death.
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METROPOLITAN . Diary
“Untitled”, 1986
Dear Diary:
I was at the Museum of Modern Art. After reading the curator’s introduction on the wall to the wooden bed that artist Robert Gober had built himself, I went back to take a look.
It looks like any ordinary single bed I’ve ever slept in. Leaning against one of its legs are a pair of white, knee-high boots and a small, fashionable backpack.
Wait a minute!
Under the bed sheet and purple blanket is a woman looking back at me. I made an unnecessary comment. She smiled politely, then closed her eyes and fell asleep.
I immediately went back to the blank on the wall to find out if I had missed anything about the performance art.
My answer came from the mouth of a security guard, who sped out from an adjoining gallery and ordered the woman out of bed.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, put on her boots, got up, put on her backpack, and walked over to the white wooden platform in support of Jeff Koons’ “Pink Panther.” She walked up there and retrieved the smartphone she was using to record herself. Then she walked away, slow and stylish.
After that, I returned to the Gober’s art bed and chatted briefly with a guard standing near it. I told her I had seen what happened before and asked if she had remodeled the bed.
A curator was called in to do just that, she said.
– Bob Siegel
Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and Read more Metropolitan Diary here.
