#Omnipresence nypd generator

You can argue that black bodies should not be criminalized for being in public: Eric Garner (July 17, 2014), Michael Brown (August 9, 2014), Black Lives Matter. “Safe? I don’t know,” he shrugs, “but I can see.” “The light and sound come in my window.” He’s tall and lean, midthirties, with a strut. “I live right here,” Nathan says and points up two floors. Then he slowly waves his hand, arcing across everything-the street, the light, the fall chill, “It’s like this.” Do they keep crime down? Nathan shrugs like he has a chill. “They’re always here,” meaning the lights, the cops. Use asset forfeiture to pay for the lights ($5.6 million). Get some folks from the projects to weigh in, call it a partnership for the Mayor’s Action Plan. In March 2016, Mayor Bill de Blasio launched a study to look at the effect that lighting has on housing developments, “advancing the de Blasio administration’s commitment to promote safe and strong neighborhoods through comprehensive and innovative strategies that extend beyond traditional law enforcement.” This is how it works. With three offices: Long Island, New Jersey, Philadelphia. Did you? “They say I did.”Ī label on the light behind him reads in big, red Barnum & Bailey letters: ABLE. “They say I killed a man,” he says, drawing the words out real slow.

“My whole life, except I was upstate for a while.” He means prison. I know him from the neighborhood he’s usually over by the deli on Columbia. Square silver glasses, cream knit shirt, dress shoes. He looks like he got dropped out of the 1970s. He walks up to me and stops like we planned to meet here. Safety, surveillance: It’s hard to tell the difference. No one wants to live in darkness, but the lights aren’t really for the residents. They were necessary, the NYPD said, for safety.

#Omnipresence nypd generator

That’s when the NYPD wheeled in the generator lights. The hurricane’s toxic tide killed half the trees in Coffey Park and corroded all the underground wiring for the Houses’ outdoor lights. The rainbow-colored slick of oils and god-knows-what coated the benches, the cars, the trees. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy steeped the neighborhood in a cocktail of sewage, chemicals from the nearby Superfund site, the Gowanus Canal, and fuel oil from basements. A rumble and brightness undergird life here. The lights are the background, the ballast, for their footsteps, their shopping, their gossip and small talk with neighbors, their going out and coming home. These are the largest housing projects in Brooklyn-6,500 people, mostly African Americans, Asians, and Latinos. Dozens of them, chained fast under the pretense of safety, slapping light across the sidewalks and plazas. With a rumble, a gas-generated light pools between buildings, collecting like water, concentrating as the sun dies. The generators rumble to a coughing start as the waterfront’s sunlight slides off the red brick of the four-, six- and fourteen-story buildings, retreating from Red Hook Channel and Buttermilk Channel, Erie Basin and Atlantic Basin. “I guess it’s safe, but they still harass the kids.” She means the cops.įrom dusk to dawn, the Red Hook Houses hum with construction lights, though there is no construction. They turned some of the lights then,” but the glare and noise continue. “At first that light was right in my window,” Tiffany says. The area between the buildings, Tiffany’s front yard, is pretty and fresh. It’s too early for any green to show through the dirt. An urban garden of raised beds fills the dark. Past the trees, beyond the light’s reach, the playground equipment sits empty. Somebody’s always outside watching the kids as they play. The adults, Tiffany tells me, have known one another their whole lives. Her gold hoop earrings sparkle.Įach building of Red Hook Houses is a community, often comprising several generations of families. She tosses a hello to a passing neighbor who’s pushing an overflowing grocery cart. Tomorrow she’s going to a pole-dancing class with friends. Tiffany needs to fix dinner her kids are hungry. We raise our voices over the noise of a generator, one of a score of rumbling machines across the city that has flooded housing projects with chemical light, noise, and the guise of safety for five years. Tufts of white flowers cover the branches like a sweater, against the chill of early evening. A white plastic bag rustles in a spring tree. “Cops come and sit in here,” she says, waving her hand at the shadows on the small plaza around us. Her hair is woven into a neat French twist.

Tiffany-“like Tiffany & Co.”-has lived here her whole life.