Religious Freedom and Local Conflict: Religious Buildings and Zoning Issues in the New York City Region, 1992–2017

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 462-484
Author(s):  
Brian J Miller

Abstract Religious freedom in the United States is negotiated in local conflicts arising from proposals from religious groups to municipalities in order to use or alter land and buildings. This study examines 116 cases of zoning conflict involving religious buildings in the New York City region between 1992 and 2017 as reported by the New York Times. Jewish and Muslim congregations experienced opposition at higher rates compared to their proportion in the region’s population and to Christians. Proposing to use a single-family home for worship or use a building near residences topped local concerns. Neighbors regularly expressed worries about traffic, parking, and preservation. More zoning controversies occurred in the suburbs. These findings advance our knowledge of religious freedom and pluralism in detailing how local religious land conflicts involving multiple social actors operating at different levels engage larger questions about religious gatherings, ideal land uses, and the character of communities.

2006 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDWARD WHITLEY

Despite the attention given to New York City as a source of the poetic imagery and democratic energy in Walt Whitman's poetry, the space of mid-century New York has never fully been explicated as a site of convergence for Whitman's conflicting allegiances to a local working-class urban subculture, the global community, and the United States itself. The reason for this critical lacuna stems in part from a tendency to focus on Whitman's private lyrics rather than on the type of poetry that is necessarily connected with a specific geographic space-namely, public occasional verse. In "A Broadway Pageant" (1860), the only occasional poem that Whitman wrote after publishing the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855 and before the outbreak of the Civil War, New York City is presented as a site where city workers and international merchants converge during a moment of national celebration. Originally published in the New York Times to commemorate a parade held for the Meiji Japanese ambassadors who had come to Manhattan in 1860 to ratify a trade agreement with the United States,"A Broadway Pageant" demonstrates how the requirements of occasional poetry allow Whitman to articulate the local and global framework within which his otherwise nationalist poetics operates.


1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-223
Author(s):  
Lillian Taiz

Forty-eight hours after they landed in New York City in 1880, a small contingent of the Salvation Army held their first public meeting at the infamous Harry Hill's Variety Theater. The enterprising Hill, alerted to the group's arrival from Britain by newspaper reports, contacted their leader, Commissioner George Scott Railton, and offered to pay the group to “do a turn” for “an hour or two on … Sunday evening.” In nineteenth-century New York City, Harry Hill's was one of the best known concert saloons, and reformers considered him “among the disreputable classes” of that city. His saloon, they said, was “nothing more than one of the many gates to hell.”


1984 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avraham Shama ◽  
Joseph Wisenblit

This paper describes the relation between values and behavior of a new life style, that of voluntary simplicity which is characterized by low consumption, self-sufficiency, and ecological responsibility. Also, specific hypotheses regarding the motivation for voluntary simplicity and adoption in two areas of the United States were tested. Analysis shows (a) values of voluntary simplicity and behaviors are consistent, (b) the motivation for voluntary simplicity includes personal preference and economic hardship, and (c) adoption of voluntary simplicity is different in the Denver and New York City metropolitan areas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin Gruer ◽  
Kim Hopper ◽  
Rachel Clark Smith ◽  
Erin Kelly ◽  
Andrew Maroko ◽  
...  

Abstract Background There has been increasing recognition that certain vulnerable populations in the United States of America struggle to meet their menstruation-related needs, including people experiencing homelessness. Media and policy attention on this subject has focused on the provision of free menstrual products to vulnerable populations, including a New York City legislative bill, which guarantees access to menstrual products for Department of Homeless Services shelter residents (Intros 1123-A). Methods This qualitative study explored the challenges people experiencing homelessness in New York City face in accessing menstrual products. Data collection was conducted from June to August 2019 and included: Semi-structured key informant interviews with staff from relevant government agencies and homeless service providers (n = 15), and semi-structured in-depth interviews with individuals with experience living on the street and in shelters (n = 22). Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Results Key themes that emerged included: (1) insufficient and inconsistent access to menstrual products; (2) systemic challenges to providing menstrual products; and (3) creative solutions to promote access to menstrual products. Both shelter- and street-living individuals reported significant barriers to accessing menstrual products. While both populations struggle, those in shelters were more likely to be able to purchase menstrual products or access free products at their shelter, while those living on the streets were more likely to have to resort to panhandling, theft, or using makeshift materials in place of menstrual products. Across both populations, individuals described barriers to accessing free products at shelters and service providers, primarily due to distribution systems that rely on gatekeepers to provide a few pads or tampons at a time, sometimes of inadequate quality and only upon request. Shelters and service providers also described challenges providing these products, including inconsistent supply. Conclusion These findings highlight the critical importance of expanding and improving initiatives seeking to provide access to menstrual products for vulnerable populations. Despite policy level efforts to support menstrual product access, individuals experiencing homelessness in New York City, whether living in shelters or on the street, are often not able to access the menstrual products that they need to manage their monthly menstrual flow.


Prospects ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 433-450
Author(s):  
Alexis L. Boylan

This short notice, entitled “When a ‘Hobo’ Works,” which appeared in the New York Times, July 13, 1912, might seem overwrought to contemporary readers in its definitive nature. The need to delineate work and nonwork, however, was quite serious business for Americans in the first decades of the 20th century. During this period, as evidenced in newspaper and journal articles, legislation, and popular culture, there was growing apprehension about the perceived differences and slippage among the ideas of the tramp, the hobo, the vagrant, the unemployed worker, and the worker. Most of this conversation was directed toward defining work and nonwork for men — specifically for white men. Tramping came to be viewed as an affliction of both mind and body, with writers, politicians, and reformers seeking to define the tramp and then theorizing how to put these newly codified bodies to work.Some of the most complex images of joblessness from this period were produced by the Ashcan school of artists, who frequently portrayed jobless men in their paintings and drawings. The Ashcan school, a group of six realist painters who lived and worked in New York City from 1900 to the First World War, established a national reputation as radicals rebelling against what they argued was a conservative artistic community woefully out of touch with modern American life. Ashcan artists depicted what they claimed to be the realities of the city around them — busy streets, shopgirls, ethnic communities, construction workers, and prostitutes, as well as tramps. John Sloan's The Coffee Line, 1905 (Figure 1), is typical of the kinds of images that Ashcan artists produced. The scene is a snowy winter's night in New York with a band of men in line to get a free cup of coffee. Jobless men are the stars here; unwitting leads in Sloan's slice of New York City life. The painting did much to communicate nationally a visual image of the tramp in New York City; it won honorable mention in 1905 at the Carnegie Institute International Exposition and was then exhibited in Chicago; Spartanburg, South Carolina; Dallas; and Seattle.


2013 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 1339-1354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Pederson ◽  
Andrew R. Bell ◽  
Edward R. Cook ◽  
Upmanu Lall ◽  
Naresh Devineni ◽  
...  

Abstract Six water emergencies have occurred since 1981 for the New York City (NYC) region despite the following: 1) its perhumid climate, 2) substantial conservation of water since 1979, and 3) meteorological data showing little severe or extreme drought since 1970. This study reconstructs 472 years of moisture availability for the NYC watershed to place these emergencies in long-term hydroclimatic context. Using nested reconstruction techniques, 32 tree-ring chronologies comprised of 12 species account for up to 66.2% of the average May–August Palmer drought severity index. Verification statistics indicate good statistical skill from 1531 to 2003. The use of multiple tree species, including rarely used species that can sometimes occur on mesic sites like Liriodendron tulipifera, Betula lenta, and Carya spp., seems to aid reconstruction skill. Importantly, the reconstruction captures pluvial events in the instrumental record nearly as well as drought events and is significantly correlated to precipitation over much of the northeastern United States. While the mid-1960s drought is a severe drought in the context of the new reconstruction, the region experienced repeated droughts of similar intensity, but greater duration during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The full record reveals a trend toward more pluvial conditions since ca. 1800 that is accentuated by an unprecedented 43-yr pluvial event that continues through 2011. In the context of the current pluvial, decreasing water usage, but increasing extra-urban pressures, it appears that the water supply system for the greater NYC region could be severely stressed if the current water boom shifts toward hydroclimatic regimes like the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.


2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin C. Fenley ◽  
Sarah J. Bober ◽  
Mebane E. Powell ◽  
Jacquelin Berman ◽  
Barbara N. Altman

This article reports on the first 2 years of an ongoing project that examined the efficacy of a 10-hour dementia training provided to entry-level personal care aide (PCA) trainees from the Hispanic, White, African American, and Asian communities in New York City. Participants were enrolled in a 90-hour PCA training program offered by the New York City Department for the Aging and were either recipients of public assistance, displaced employees from September 11, or recent immigrants to the United States from China. Classes were conducted in Spanish, English, and Mandarin/Cantonese. An 11-item Knowledge of Alzheimer’s Disease instrument was developed for the purposes of this project and administered before and after the dementia training and at 3 months following graduation. All groups, regardless of language, showed a significant increase in knowledge of Alzheimer’s disease at the conclusion of the training and retention of this knowledge at 3 months follow-up. Age was strongly correlated with an increase in knowledge, while gender and education were not.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003335492110075
Author(s):  
Claudia Chernov ◽  
Lisa Wang ◽  
Lorna E. Thorpe ◽  
Nadia Islam ◽  
Amy Freeman ◽  
...  

Objectives Immigrant adults tend to have better health than native-born adults despite lower incomes, but the health advantage decreases with length of residence. To determine whether immigrant adults have a health advantage over US-born adults in New York City, we compared cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors among both groups. Methods Using data from the New York City Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2013-2014, we assessed health insurance coverage, health behaviors, and health conditions, comparing adults ages ≥20 born in the 50 states or the District of Columbia (US-born) with adults born in a US territory or outside the United States (immigrants, following the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) and comparing US-born adults with (1) adults who immigrated recently (≤10 years) and (2) adults who immigrated earlier (>10 years). Results For immigrant adults, the mean time since arrival in the United States was 21.8 years. Immigrant adults were significantly more likely than US-born adults to lack health insurance (22% vs 12%), report fair or poor health (26% vs 17%), have hypertension (30% vs 23%), and have diabetes (20% vs 11%) but significantly less likely to smoke (18% vs 27%) (all P < .05). Comparable proportions of immigrant adults and US-born adults were overweight or obese (67% vs 63%) and reported CVD (both 7%). Immigrant adults who arrived recently were less likely than immigrant adults who arrived earlier to have diabetes or high cholesterol but did not differ overall from US-born adults. Conclusions Our findings may help guide prevention programs and policy efforts to ensure that immigrant adults remain healthy.


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