New York Shifts Its Thinking and Reopens Elementary Schools |
Weather: Rain, sometimes heavy, with wind gusting up to 50 m.p.h. and a possible thunderstorm. High in the mid-60s. |
Alternate-side parking: In effect until Dec. 8 (Immaculate Conception). |
 | | Sarah Blesener for The New York Times |
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When New York City closed its public school system earlier this month, the backlash from many parents was swift and severe. Some were forced to abruptly find new child care arrangements. Others worried that their children would miss out on learning if they weren’t in classrooms. Many felt that closing schools actually did little to protect the city from the spread of the coronavirus. |
On Sunday, the city offered a partial reprieve. |
Mayor Bill de Blasio said that public elementary schools would reopen starting on Dec. 7. Middle and high schools remain closed for now. Mr. de Blasio also signaled further changes in how the city manages the school system during the pandemic. |
Richard A. Carranza, the city’s schools chancellor, said at a news conference on Sunday with Mr. de Blasio that “getting our children back in school buildings is one of the single most important things we can do for their well-being.” |
The school system was first shut down because of the pandemic in March, prompting teachers, administrators and students to scramble to adjust to a new remote learning dynamic. |
In October, the city completed an ambitious reopening of all of its public schools for in-person instruction, becoming the only large district in the country to do so. Data seemed to indicate that reopening schools had not led to many new infections. |
But Mr. de Blasio had vowed that if the city’s seven-day test positivity rate reached 3 percent, schools would close again to guard against the spread of the virus. Many parents wondered whether the 3 percent threshold was appropriate or a relic from earlier days of the pandemic, when scientists knew less about the relative safety of schools. |
Still, Mr. de Blasio held fast, and earlier this month, public schools closed down again. |
Children in pre-K, kindergarten and grades 1 through 5 can return starting Dec. 7. Mr. de Blasio also announced that students with the most complex disabilities can return on Dec. 10. |
Students can return only if they have already signed up for in-person learning. About 190,000 children are eligible to return next week. |
The city will increase testing: A sampling of students and staff in each building will be tested every week, instead of every month. |
The city will also abandon the 3 percent positivity threshold and instead close schools those that have multiple confirmed virus cases. |
A tavern on Staten Island that declared itself an “autonomous zone” and defied the state’s coronavirus restrictions was given a cease-and-desist order. [Gothamist] |
A Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus driver veered off his route to a secluded area of the Bronx and groped a passenger, the police said. [N.Y. Daily News] |
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is looking to close a loophole that allows a police officer accused of misconduct in one department to get a new job at a different department. [N.Y. Post] |
And finally: New York’s holiday windows |
Vanessa Friedman, The Times’s fashion director and chief fashion critic, writes: |
It was just a little over a month ago that President Trump declared that New York City was a “ghost town,” that it was “dying” and that “everyone is leaving.” His statement — and the sentiment it reflects — provoked a social media storm of urban jingoism, rippling out in an even more visible, if unexpected, place: the holiday windows of our remaining department stores. |
Once upon a time vehicles for entertainment, they suddenly resemble nothing so much as statements of belief. They are a “light,” said Tony Spring, the chief executive of Bloomingdale’s, at “the end of a very difficult year.” |
Linda Fargo, Bergdorf Goodman’s fashion director (and its former head of windows), agreed. “We believed it was more important than ever to stay our course this year,” she said. |
In this, there are parallels with the holiday seasons after both Sept. 11 and the Great Recession of 2008, when dire predictions of New York’s demise filled the air, said Marc Metrick, the chief executive of Saks Fifth Avenue. |
The windows are reminders, he said, “of the greatness of this city,” hence Saks’s decision to focus deliberately on New York-specific scenarios. The idea that Christmas windows could be canceled was never a possibility, he said. |
Saks has six vignettes in the six vitrines facing Fifth Avenue depicting “How we celebrate now,” including houses strung with holiday lights and other decorations in Dyker Heights; a family coming home with presents on the Roosevelt Island tram; and a food truck parked outside an apartment building for a virus-safe dinner party. Also, a light show created with 600,000 bulbs on the facade can be seen up and down the avenue. |
The Bergdorf Goodman windows are designed to be read even from across the street. Nine color-blocked vitrines, each celebrating a “core value” such as “love,” “harmony,” “equality” and so on, are rendered in towering three-dimensional letters and backed by fractured mirror so they gleam like giant faceted jewels. |
Macy’s celebrates essential workers with gleaming Thank You-themed vistas of cheer. |
At Bloomingdale’s, a half-dozen windows are aglow, each bathed in its own primary color linked to emotion and illustration — “Give a Smile,” with a giant yellow smiley face and a hillock of gold disco balls; “Give Snuggles,” with a wreath made of evergreen plush teddy bears. |
And Nordstrom revealed 253,000 feet, or nearly 50 miles, of twinkling red and white lights covering its waveform facade. |
Metropolitan Diary: Off the menu |
We were hungry high school kids in Sheepshead Bay in the early 1960s. A Chinese takeout restaurant opened on Nostrand Avenue, and it became our favorite neighborhood hangout. |
The owner was sympathetic to our poverty, and we negotiated with him for a dish that never appeared on the menu. |
For a nickel, he would serve us a medium-size container of white rice with a ladle full of egg foo young gravy. For another dime, we could get a can of Patio orange soda from the machine there. We enjoyed this special meal four or five times a week. |
Time passed, and we were headed off to college. We encouraged our kindly friend to raise his price to a dime to future customers. |
He smiled and said it would stay a nickel for hungry kids like us. |
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