What’s News, Breaking: Friday, September 15, 2023

September 15, 2023 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

REP. GOLDMAN’S BILL WOULD HONOR
BROOKLYN’S SHIRLEY CHISHOLM
WITH CONGRESSIONAL GOLD MEDAL

BOROUGHWIDE — SHIRLEY CHISHOLM, THE FIRST BLACK WOMAN ELECTED TO CONGRESS, SHOULD BE AWARDED A MEDAL, says Congressman Dan Goldman (NY-10), who has introduced a bill to make that happen. Congressman Goldman joined colleague Rep. Barbara Lee (CA-12) to introduce the bill to honor the late Shirley Chisholm with a Congressional Gold Medal, the highest expression of national gratitude for distinguished service and achievement. The Shirley Chisholm Congressional Gold Medal Act would posthumously award one of the nation’s highest honors to the trailblazing New Yorker, who was elected to the House of Representatives in 1968 and represented New York’s 12th Congressional District (Bedford-Stuyvesant) until 1982.

A founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, the seven-term Congresswoman was also the first African American and woman to campaign for the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1972 — with the slogan “Unbought and Unbossed.” Although she lost the Democratic nomination, she continued serving in Congress for another 11 years.

✰✰✰

CLIMATE WEEK EVENTS INCLUDE FAIR ON
ENVIRONMENT-FRIENDLY BUILDING UPGRADES

BROOKLYN BOROUGH HALL — BUILDING OWNERS AND MANAGERS IN THIS BOROUGH MAY BE INTERESTED IN a Brooklyn Sustainable Building Resource Fair that Borough President Antonio Reynoso is hosting at Brooklyn Borough Hall on Thursday, Sept. 21, from 4-7 p.m., as part of Climate Week. The Resource Fair, which aims to help property owners and managers do the retrofits and other maintenance work to comply with Local Law 97, will bring in experts and experienced contractors who specialize in heat pumps, solar, weatherization, HVAC, lighting, electric, renewable energy, and waste management. Financial and tax incentives will also be discussed, with experts in those fields also present.

Several elected officials and organizations are co-sponsoring this event: Borough President Reynoso, Councilmember Lincoln Restler, Con Edison, Better Buildings NY, and the NYSERDA-funded Brooklyn Energy Hub.

✰✰✰

CITY WANTS IDEAS FOR SAFE AND HANDSOME SIDEWALK SHEDS

CITYWIDE — ARCHITECTURE, ENGINEERING FIRMS AND OTHER QUALIFIED VENDORS IN THE CITY ARE BEING SOUGHT to reimagine sidewalk pedestrian protection designs, according to a NYC Department of Buildings Request for Proposal that was published in the City Record this week. The RFP seeks ideas for new designs for sidewalk sheds and alternative pedestrian protection measures, as part of the city’s “Get Sheds Down” plan. The new designs that emerge from the RFP will be considered in the strategy to make these structures both safe and aesthetically pleasing. The deadline to submit a proposal to the Department is Oct. 5, 2023, via the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services, with a three-year contract term and a one-year renewal option.

These designs will be incorporated directly into Codes, and will eventually replace the ubiquitous hunter-green plywood and pipe sheds that cover over 370 miles of New York City sidewalks.

✰✰✰

MAYOR ADAMS AWARDS KEY TO THE CITY TO SEAN ‘DIDDY’ COMBS

CITYWIDE — MAYOR ERIC ADAMS AWARDED THE KEY TO THE CITY OF NEW YORK to musician, entrepreneur and philanthropist Sean “Diddy” Combs on Friday. Combs (aka Puff Daddy) has produced and released countless iconic rap songs and albums over the decades while discovering some of hip hop’s biggest names. He is also a leading Black entrepreneur in the fashion and cannabis industries and is a philanthropic donor to Black schools and universities. “Sean Combs is the embodiment of the New York City attitude. A son of Harlem, Combs worked his way to the top, becoming a successful musical talent both in front of and behind the mic,” Adams said in a release.

“Today, I accept this key not just for me, but for every dreamer, every hustler, every artist, and every kid from New York who dares to dream big,” Combs said.

Mayor Eric Adams presents Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs with a Key to the City of New York.
Photo: Caroline Rubinstein-Willis/ Mayoral Photography Office

✰✰✰

GOVERNOR’S NEW CARS ACTION SET
TO COMBAT VEHICLE THEFT

STATEWIDE — A NEW SERIES OF TARGETED ACTIONS AIMS TO COMBAT THE HIGH NUMBER OF CAR THEFTS, particularly of certain Kia and Hyundai model vehicles, in all New York State counties, Governor Kathy Hochul announced on Friday. These actions, together called the Comprehensive Auto-Theft Reduction Strategy, with the acronym CARS, will fast-track $50 million for law enforcement technology and equipment, direct the State Police and Division of Criminal Justice Services to implement new enforcement efforts, support local district attorneys in the prosecution of car thefts and other crimes, and launch a public engagement campaign targeting vulnerable car owners.

The CARS program will also provide $5 million to enhance youth justice alternatives and diversion programming for teenagers and young adults.

✰✰✰

SUNY DOWNSTATE LAB RECEIVES GRANT FOR GROUNDBREAKING KIDNEY RESEARCH

EAST FLATBUSH — SUNY DOWNSTATE HEALTH SCIENCES UNIVERSITY in Brooklyn received one of eight seed-funding grants distributed through the State University of New York’s Technology Accelerator Fund, SUNY Chancellor John B. King, Jr. announced Friday. The fund distributed a total of $450,000 across the state system for groundbreaking research in technologies intended to treat serious illnesses and safeguard the environment.

Downstate’s funding is earmarked for research by Professor Moro Salifu, who is developing a novel peptide drug to treat vascular access stenosis and thrombosis in kidney-failure patients on hemodialysis.

✰✰✰

NYC SCHOOLS REVERSE COURSE, WILL ALLOW AI IN THE CLASSROOM

CITYWIDE — THE NYC DEPART OF EDUCATIONAL HAS REVERSED COURSE on the use of AI in the classroom, and has partnered with Microsoft to create an artificial intelligence-powered teaching assistant, according to Microsoft Source News and reported by City & State. The AI, built on the Azure OpenAI Service platform that offers coding and language models like ChatGPT, is intended to answer students’ questions and offer them personalized, real-time feedback. After ChatGPT began sweeping the country, the city’s DOE originally blocked access to the program.

In May, school Chancellor David Banks acknowledged in a Chalkbeat op-ed that the AI ban “overlooked the potential of generative AI” to support students and educators and “the reality that our students are participating in and will work in a world where understanding generative AI is crucial.”

✰✰✰

CRACKDOWN ON TOBACCO SALES IN NYS BUILDINGS

STATEWIDE — GOV. KATHY HICHUL SIGNED LEGISLATION on Friday that prohibits the sale of tobacco products at vending stands and machines in New York State buildings. The bill, sponsored by Brooklyn Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn (Flatbush, Midwood) and State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal (Manhattan’s West Side) will apply to new leases and contracts with vendors.

“The fight against Big Tobacco isn’t over, but this is a significant victory as we continue to protect our communities from deadly nicotine addiction and save more lives,” Bichotte Hermelyn said in a statement.

✰✰✰

BROOKLYN CONGRESSMEMBER PRAISES
DHS’ NEW POLICY ON AI TECHNOLOGY

CENTRAL BROOKLYN AND NATIONWIDE — U.S. REP. YVETTE D. CLARKE (D-09), SENIOR MEMBER OF THE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY and the Committee on Energy and Commerce, has praised the new Artificial Intelligence (AI) guidelines that the Department of Homeland Security released on Thursday, Sept. 14. Rep. Clarke’s statement, excerpted in part here, commends the continuation of the “Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious approach to the responsible use of artificial intelligence, and I commend Secretary [Alejandro] Mayorkas for leading this important effort,” she wrote. “For years, we have seen the unintended and harmful consequences from the use of AI, particularly when it comes to bias, discrimination, and lack of explainability.”

“And it is all too important that our federal government works to keep pace with the rapid development of emerging technologies, while also ensuring the protection of the privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties that are enshrined within our Constitution,” wrote Clarke.

✰✰✰

HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUES NEW POLICIES ON RESPONSIBLE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

NATIONWIDE — THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY on Thursday, Sept. 14, announced new policies meant to ensure responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the department. As part of the longer Policy Statement 139-06, “Acquisition and Use of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning by DHS Components,” “DHS will not collect, use, or disseminate data used in AI activities, or establish AI-enabled systems that make or support decisions, based on the inappropriate consideration of race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, nationality, medical condition, or disability.” As part of the longer Directive 026-11, “Use of Face Recognition and Face Capture Technologies” dictates that all uses of face recognition and face capture technologies will be thoroughly tested to ensure there is no unintended bias or disparate impact in accordance with national standards.”

The directive also requires that U.S. citizens be afforded the right to opt out of face recognition for specific, non-law-enforcement uses, prohibits face recognition from being used as the sole basis of any law or civil enforcement-related action, and establishes a process for DHS oversight offices.

✰✰✰

REVIVED BILL WOULD REQUIRE
DISCLOSURE OF CEO PAY RAISES

NATIONWIDE —THE GROWING INCOMING DISCREPANCY BETWEEN COMPANY CEOs, their senior staffers and median-pay employees is at the heart of a bill that Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez (D-07), reintroduced in Congress on Thursday, Sept 14. Velázquez’s bill, the Greater Accountability in Pay Act, (House Resolution number still pending) would require public companies to disclose the pay raise percentage of its executives and median-pay employees and compare each to the inflation rate. It would also require public companies to disclose the ratio between the two pay raise percentages. Velázquez reintroduced the bill following disclosures that CEOs at the Big Three automakers make as much as 365 times more than their median employees, and pay for these CEOs has increased more than 40 percent since the first bill.

The legislation builds on the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which the Congresswoman was closely involved in drafting. Dodd-Frank required publicly traded companies to provide information comparing the annual compensation of their CEOs to their employees.

✰✰✰

ATLANTIC AVE. BID GETS NEW BANNERS,
CUSTOM-DESIGNED TO LOCAL CULTURE

ATLANTIC AVENUE — BRAND-NEW BANNERS WILL COME TO ATLANTIC AVENUE’S DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN CORRIDOR on Friday, Sept. 15, thanks to a Single District Small BID Support Grant. The Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District (AABID) was competitively selected as part of a program with the New York City Small Business Services office. The Studio of Joshua Levi, based in Boerum Hill, handled the creative project; Levi is a former senior art director for The New York Times who now specializes in brand design, with past clients including Apple, Google and Harvard University. The banners, which will be the avenue’s first set in more than half a decade, were custom-designed for Atlantic Avenue in a custom typeface and showcase quintessential Atlantic Avenue moments. Images depict street scenes, local culture and culturally-diverse cuisine, among other themes.

The banners, whose funding is part of Mayor Eric Adams’ “Rebuild, Renew, Reinvent: A Blueprint for New York City’s Economic Recovery,” will be installed along Atlantic Ave. and side streets, from the BQE to 4th Avenue. To read more about AABID’s exciting changes, read here.

The banners showcase a series of designs of Boerum Hill-based Studio of Joshua Levi.
Photo: Atlantic Avenue BID

✰✰✰

BROOKLYN SHOWS 2ND HIGHEST MEDIAN RENTS FOR AUGUST,
PER REPORT FROM DOUGLAS ELLIMAN REAL ESTATE

BOROUGHWIDE — BROOKLYN MEDIAN RENTS WERE THE SECOND-HIGHEST ON RECORD during August, while part of Queens reached new heights, according to a new report from the real estate company Douglas Elliman and appraiser Miller Samuel, which was republished in the Daily News on Thursday, Sept. 14. Average rent per square foot and average rental prices in Brooklyn set new records, the Elliman Report August 2023 indicated, while new lease signings declined annually for the fourth time in five months. Listing inventory dropped by more than half year over year and was well below pre-pandemic levels. Brooklyn median rent for August was at $3,850, $100 or 2.5% less than the previous month before, from the previous month, and reflecting a 10% bump from August of last year.

Meanwhile, studio rents in Brooklyn rose to $3,215, reflecting a 2.1% increase within a month of the last report.

✰✰✰

NYU TANDON PROFESSORS WIN ‘TEST OF TIME AWARD’
FOR THEIR STUDY OF NEW YORK TAXICAB TRIPS

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN AND MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — A STUDY OF TAXI CAB TRIPS by two NYU Tandon School of Engineering Institute professors has won them the IEEE VIS Test of Time Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The full title, “Visual Exploration of Big Spatio-Temporal Urban Data: A Study of New York City Taxi Trips,” which institute professors Juliana Freire and Cláudio T. Silva wrote in 2013, was based on NYC taxi records and author engagement with economists and traffic engineers and explored the economic incentives of taxi locations and the impact that traffic patterns have on demand patterns. The paper earned the Test of Time Award at the 2023 conference in Melbourne, Australia, a commendation that “recognizes articles published at previous conferences whose contents are still vibrant and useful today and have had a major impact and influence within and beyond the visualization community.”

The study was also praised as “one of the landmark papers in urban data visualization.”

✰✰✰

NYU TANDON TEAM DEVELOPS SIMPLE
AI TOOL FOR VIDEO GAME MAPS

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — A SIMPLE AI TOOL IS CAPABLE OF CREATING VIDEO GAME MAPS, within just milliseconds and using just a single-sentence prompt, Associate Professor Julian Togelius and computer science MS graduate Timothy Merino have discovered. New Scientist magazine has published the duo’s study, in which they developed a simple generative AI tool to create video game maps, character models and emojis from a single-sentence prompt within this brief space of time. Togelius and Merino developed a simple generative AI tool, without feedback loops, with information flowing only from input to output.

Togelius told New Scientist, “This thing is trained on your home computer and runs on your phone, basically, in blazingly fast time.”

✰✰✰

DINAPOLI: STATE HEALTH DEPT. CAN SAVE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WITH PROPER ENROLLMENT OVERSIGHT

STATEWIDE — THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH (DOH) CAN SAVE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN COSTS if it strengthens its oversight of enrollment in Medicaid and other public health plans, according to two audits that State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli released on Thursday, Sept. 14. He says that State Medicaid needs to stop paying bills that federally funded plans, such as Medicare, should cover; most individuals receiving Medicaid are required to apply for federally-funded Medicare at age 65. Under DOH’s supervision, local departments of Social Services are supposed to identify those who appear eligible for Medicare and have them apply. The audit found state Medicaid could have saved up to $294.4 million in payments on medical services if 13,318 individuals who appeared qualified for Medicare had enrolled over a six-year period ending June 2021.

Included in that group are those who were eligible, but were not required to enroll in Medicare because the rules were suspended during the pandemic. The requirement was reinstated in June 2023.

✰✰✰

LANDER: STREET VENDOR LICENSING DELAYED
WHILE CITY STEPS UP ENFORCEMENT

CITYWIDE — STREET VENDORS ARE NOT RECEIVING THEIR LICENSES IN A TIMELY MANNER and then are being penalized for lacking these permits, charges City Comptroller Brad Lander in a letter to Mayor Eric Adams. Comptroller Lander is demanding to know the reasons that Local Law 18 (passed in 2021) has been delayed, as this law provides relief for unlicensed street vendors and it required the release of 445 new supervisory licenses for food vendors annually for ten years, starting in July 2022. However, the City missed the law’s first two deadlines in 2022 and 2023, causing more than 10,000 vendors to remain on City-administered waitlists. Meanwhile, multiple city agencies, including the Department of Sanitation, conducted aggressive and high-profile sweeps against the street vendors over the summer.

Lander’s letter to Mayor Adams pointed out that between March and May 2023, only four vendors received new permits.

✰✰✰

LATEST COVID-19 VACCINE ROLLOUT STARTS FRIDAY ACROSS NEW YORK CITY

CITYWIDE — THE LATEST 2023-2024 COVID-19 VACCINE WILL BE ROLLING OUT to pharmacies, clinics and local providers starting Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday. Immunity from previous inoculations is waning, and the state has been seeing a slight increase in case numbers and hospitalizations. “It is literally a new vaccine. It is not a booster shot. It is not an enhancer. It is a new vaccine designed to attack the new variants,” Hochul said in a statement. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone 6 months and older get the updated vaccine, which protects against serious illness.

The NYC Department of Health urges residents to look on nyc.gov/vaccinefinder for locations where the vaccine will be available, or check with their provider or local pharmacy.