The mosque’s minister, accompanied by the Rev. Al Sharpton, drove downtown to register their outrage with the police commissioner, a street theater ritual grudgingly tolerated by past mayors.
Except the new mayor—Rudolph W. Giuliani, fresh off his November victory over the city’s first black mayor, David N. Dinkins—decreed that no one would meet with Mr. Sharpton. No more antics, no more provocations.
“I’ve taken a golden opportunity to act like a sensible mayor rather than a mayor who will be moved in any direction,” he said. “I’m an observer of the last 10 years of this city, and I hope to God we don’t continue in that direction.”
His 1993 mayoral campaign slogan, often repeated, of “one city, one standard,” emphasized his view that no ethnic or racial group should expect special treatment.
In the years to come, Mr. Giuliani would rebuff not just the histrionic Mr. Sharpton but nearly every high-ranking black official in the city, even those of moderate politics: congressmen, a state comptroller, influential ministers.
“He just drew a line and said, ‘Anyone who represents the black community, all of the elected officials, are irresponsible and I won’t meet with you,’ ” said former State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, a black Democrat who had a long record of building alliances with whites. “If you’re the leader of the city, you really can’t justify that.”
A record plunge in homicides earned the mayor a large measure of good will. Black New Yorkers appreciated safer neighborhoods and applauded that thousands more of their young men remained alive. But even as crime dropped by 60 percent, officers with the street crime unit stopped and frisked 16 black males for every one who was arrested, according to a report by the state attorney general.
Then came three terrible episodes that raised a pointed question for black New Yorkers: Was crime reduction worth any cost?
One hot night in August 1997, police officers grabbed Abner Louima, a black security guard, during a tussle in Flatbush. Mr. Louima exited a precinct house bleeding after officers jammed a broken broomstick into his rectum and his mouth.
Mr. Giuliani was eloquent in his disgust. “These charges are shocking to any decent human being,” he said.
He created a task force to examine police-community relations, and invited adversaries to join. But when the task force released a report the next March, Mr. Giuliani belittled its findings as “making very little sense.”
Two police shootings of unarmed black men followed, one death upon another. In February 1999, the police fired 41 bullets at Amadou Diallo, an African immigrant. They said they thought he was reaching for a gun; he was trying to pull out his wallet. A year later, an undercover officer sidled up to Patrick Dorismond, an off-duty security guard, and asked to buy marijuana. Mr. Dorismond took offense; punches flew. Another undercover officer shot him.
Mayor Giuliani released the dead man’s juvenile arrest record. Mr. Dorismond, he said, was no “altar boy.” In fact, he had been.
There were marches and a civil disobedience campaign—Mr. Dinkins and Representative Charles B. Rangel were arrested. Mr. Powers, the mayor’s friend, said Mr. Giuliani fell victim to racial provocateurs and an amnesiac city. “A lot of the people in the minority community forgot all the good he did in lowering crime,” he said. “Rudy got demonized.”
In Harlem, Delight Over a Favorite Son’s Rise to Governor
By JONATHAN P. HICKS | March 13, 2008
Governor Paterson, seen here with mayor Bloomberg, was born in Brooklyn and attended Columbia University.
AMONG PEOPLE IN CENTRAL HARLEM, where Barack Obama posters seem to be taped to nearly every store window and where many residents say they feel disconnected from political power, there is a palpable mixture of pride and fascination that one of their own is to become governor of New York.
The No. 1 topic was the unexpected ascension of David A. Paterson, who represented the neighborhood in the State Senate for two decades before becoming lieutenant governor little more than a year ago.
“I can hardly believe it,” said Aisha Diallo, a co-owner of La Perle Noire Café and Bakery, a block from Lenox Terrace, the complex of buildings where Mr. Paterson lives. “It’s like something out of my wildest dreams. I have met him a few times in here and he’s a good person. I think it’s a good thing for this community and for the people of New York.”
Theo Caviness, a graphic designer who lives near the cafe, said he was thrilled to see a Harlem resident as governor. But, he said, “I wish he would have just won the position rather than to have him get it this way. “
Protesters’ Encounters With Delegates on the Town Turn Ugly
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD | August 31, 2004
OUTSIDE A HOTEL IN TIMES SQUARE, DELEgates to the Republican National Convention were swarmed by protesters dressed in black and swearing at them. Blocks away, delegates engaged in shoving matches with protesters seeking to spoil their night at the theater. And outside “The Lion King” on 42nd Street, a delegate was punched by a protester who ran by.
Although the organized protests have been largely peaceful, there has been a starkly different tone to smaller incidents in Midtown and elsewhere: angry encounters and planned harassment of convention delegates as they go out on the town.
Sometimes the delegates answer back in toe-to-toe, finger-pointing shouting matches. Other times the police, who are guarding delegate gatherings, have dispersed protesters, who move on to other locations to taunt other delegates.
The harassment of delegates came as organized protests continued to draw thousands of people. The Still We Rise march by advocates for social issues was peaceful, and a Poor People’s March, a column several blocks long, proceeded from the United Nations to the Madison Square Garden yesterday after the police decided to let it go ahead without a permit.
When marchers approached the Garden, a police detective was knocked off his scooter. He was then repeatedly kicked and punched in the head by at least one male demonstrator, the police said.
The detective, William Sample, was listed in serious condition at St. Vincent’s Manhattan Hospital, where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly both visited him, the police said. There was no immediate word of an arrest in the assault, but as of 9 p.m., the police said there had been 11 protest-related arrests.
The heavy police presence at the Garden apparently inspired the coordinated plan by anarchists and other radicals to strike out at the delegates at their hotels, breakfasts, parties, and on the streets.
The police are bracing for another round of unsanctioned demonstrations today, which protesters have designated a day of “nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action.” Among the parties expected to be a target is the Tennessee delegation’s gathering at Sotheby’s. A group calling itself the Man in Black Bloc plans to protest it, saying it is angered that the convention intends to honor the late country singer Johnny Cash.
War Protesters Say They Were Bound for Rally, But Ended Up In Human Traffic Jam
By SHAILA K. DEWAN | February 17, 2003
TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE GATHERED peacefully on Saturday, filling 23 blocks of official, fully permitted, rally-ready blocks on First Avenue beginning near the United Nations headquarters to protest a war against Iraq.
But tens of thousands more never made it, thronging Second and Third Avenues in what some described as baffling attempt to reach the protest.
The pedestrian traffic jam led to accusations that the police were unprepared, aggressive or even threatening, plunging through crowds on horseback or suddenly sealing off sidewalks. Organizers of the rally seized on those reports, saying that officers mistreated people that they took into custody and unnecessarily militarized the event.
The Police Department, on the other hand, gave itself high marks, saying that the huge event had resulted in only 257 arrests on mostly minor charges, no major injuries and no formal complaints of police misconduct. The police estimated the crowd at 100,000, but o
rganizers of the protest said it was more like 500,000.
Organizers stopped short of accusing the city of discouraging antiwar demonstrators as a favor to President Bush, though they admitted that the thought had crossed their minds. Mostly, they criticized what they saw as an oppressive approach to crowd control, noting that the police had even refused to allow portable toilets on the demonstration site, citing security concerns.
City Police Spied Broadly Before G.O.P. Convention
By JIM DWYER | March 25, 2007
FOR AT LEAST A YEAR BEFORE THE 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.
From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show. They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.
From these operations, run by the department’s “R.N.C. Intelligence Squad,” the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.
But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped “N.Y.P.D. Secret,” the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.
These included members of street theater companies, church groups and antiwar organizations, as well as environmentalists and people opposed to the death penalty, globalization and other government policies. Three New York City elected officials were cited in the reports.
Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department, confirmed that the operation had been wide-ranging, and said it had been an essential part of the preparations for the huge crowds that came to the city during the convention.
But Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which represents seven of the 1,806 people arrested during the convention, said the Police Department stepped beyond the law in its covert surveillance program.
“The police have no authority to spy on lawful political activity, and this wide-ranging N.Y.P.D. program was wrong and illegal,” Mr. Dunn said. “In the coming weeks, the city will be required to disclose to us many more details about its preconvention surveillance of groups and activists, and many will be shocked by the breadth of the Police Department’s political surveillance operation.”
The Police Department said those complaints were overblown.
ORDINANCES
New York’s Voting Machines: If We Find ‘Em, We’ll Fix ‘Em
By JAMES BARRON | September 13, 1989
John Costello, a Board of Elections technician, checking a unit at the board’s warehouse at 85 10th Avenue on October 27, 1992. He was making sure names on the ballot were co-ordinated with keys on the machine.
IT TAKES 22,000 PEOPLE TO RUN AN ELECTION in New York City, which is like bringing in the entire populations of Garden City, L.I., or Emporia, Kan., and having them make sure that everyone who goes into the voting booths comes out. New York City did not do that. But it did bring in John Miers of De Ridder, La.
Mr. Miers repairs voting machines. While New Yorkers voted in the primary, there he was, riding around in the back seat of a taxi that the Board of Elections had hired for the whole day. At the wheel, to carry him to his assigned precincts in northern Manhattan, was Constantin Jacob, who is from Brooklyn and who knows as much about finding the assigned precincts as Mr. Miers.
Mr. Miers, who is 23 years old, arrived in July to set up the machines for the primary. He has been living in a room at the Ramada Inn at 790 Eighth Avenue, near 49th Street. What he has seen of the city has not measured up to downtown De Ridder.
“Central Park didn’t impress me,” he said. “Dirty. Bums everywhere. But I did get my wife a gold chain for $15. I saw this guy coming out of a jewelry store. He threw a credit card in a garbage can and started putting stuff in his pockets. Then he said, ‘Hey, man, want to buy a chain?’ It still had the price tag, $249.95. He said $40. I said $15. I really enjoyed that.”
Someone called in a reported of a broken machine in the 46th election district polling place, at 3782 10th Avenue. Mr. Miers piled into the taxi. Mr. Jacob got lost. Before long, they were on West 57th Street, miles south of the assigned precincts. A turn and they were on the only 10th Avenue Mr. Jacob knew. The 700 block went by, then the 800 block. Tenth Avenue became Amsterdam Avenue.
After an hour and 18 minutes on the road, Mr. Miers finally arrived. He aimed his flashlight deep inside the problem machine and tugged a cable. Two minutes was all it took. And then he was back in the cab.
Politics of Voting Machines: 6-Year Fight for $300 Million
By DEAN BAQUET with MARTIN GOTTLIEB | October 20, 1990
SID DAVIDOFF WAS NO POLITICAL NOVICE. But when he saw New York State Assembly bill A-10238 in 1984, he says, he could not believe his well-traveled eyes.
The bill would have knocked his California employer out of the running for the biggest plum in the American voting machine business, the New York City contract, and presented it on a platter to a politically influential archrival, the R. F. Shoup Company, which had been doing business with the city for almost 30 years.
With the addition of 131 words to the state election law, the bill would have required square buttons on any machine sold in New York. None but the Shouptronic had square buttons. It also required a special electronic device to keep track of absentee ballots. Only the Shoup machine had one of those.
Mr. Davidoff, a consummate lobbyist with extensive political connections, was able to help kill the bill. But in doing so, he stepped squarely into a multimillion-dollar, six-year political scramble that underscores how the patronage of New York’s election system—a system that political leaders have used to generate contributions and limit insurgents’ access to the ballot—has also made politicking a near-requirement for potential contractors.
The battle reached something of a resolution three weeks ago. Shoup, based in Bryn Mawr, Pa., won the $50 million contract to supply 7,000 computerized machines to the city’s Board of Elections. It sold New York City its mechanical machines in 1962 and steadfastly kept the contract to maintain them even when underbid.
The new battle lines began to form nearly a decade ago, when the two companies that had supplied most of New York’s mechanical voting machines—Shoup and the Automatic Voting Machine Corporation—decided to discontinue their old machines and develop computerized ones that are lighter and give official vote tallies within hours. Their decision meant that, with a diminishing reservoir of replacement parts, New York’s machines were destined for extinction.
For the Shoup company, selling a new machine to New York City must have seemed like a sure thing. But New York City politics was changing, and the Board of Elections was one of the first institutions to feel it. The 1984 primary featured the first major black Presidential candidate, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and it had been a disaster for the board, with machine breakdowns and other complaints in black neighborhoods.
Mayor Edward I. Koch, responding to the pressure, set up an outside agency of longtime government reformers to take over important responsibilities from the board, most importantly, buying new voting machines. For many in the Koch administration, the choice—not Shoup, but Sequoia Pacific—came none too soon.
The story should have ended there. But a series of bizarre mishaps delayed a contract for at least another year.
First, Shoup executives admitted having received an advance copy of the highly secret S.R.I. report, and city officials accused them of using it to enhance its bid. Sho
up said the report arrived at its offices in a plain envelope; how Shoup got it is unknown.
Then a Sequoia Pacific lobbyist accused Anthony Sadowski, a member of the Board of Elections, of trying to shake him down, an allegation that started a criminal investigation. Mr. Sadowski, a longtime Queens politician who made headlines when he showed up at a 14-hour lunch with a mobster, a police official and District Attorney John J. Santucci of Queens, has denied the allegation.
Soon the board started considering alternatives to Sequoia Pacific. Some members wanted to start the process all over, arguing that Sequoia Pacific had met only 63 percent of their requirements.
Garbage Barge Prods Officials
By PHILIP S. GUTIS | May 2, 1987
The so-called “Flying Dutchman” was still looking for a place to unload when it arrived in New York Harbor on May 18, 1987.
AS IT FLOATS AIMLESSLY AROUND THE GULF of Mexico, the garbage barge to nowhere from Islip, L.I., has drawn anger from politicians, chuckles from Johnny Carson and chagrin from the very red-faced community from which it came.
But as the embarrassment continues to multiply, so does concern about the crisis over solid waste disposal—not only in the New York region but nationwide.
“The barge certainly has high symbolic value,” Gerald M. Boyd, the executive director of New York’s Legislative Commission on Solid Waste, said in an interview. “It does create a very strong image of the notion that the garbage has to go somewhere. And if people continue to say we don’t want it here, the question is now better framed: Where should it go?”
But the barge’s journey has also raised a larger question: Can environmental and elected officials capitalize enough on the barge’s plight to turn its sorry odyssey into action?
The New York Times Book of New York Page 40