Anti-Asian Attacks Continue as City Reopens |
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Six months into a spate of brutal attacks against people of Asian descent in New York City, the police and prosecutors face challenges in both preventing the violence and punishing the perpetrators. |
As of last month, reports of anti-Asian hate crimes had increased this year by 400 percent compared with the same time frame in 2020, according to the Police Department. |
Now, as New York reopens, the violence feels fresh in some communities even though the spotlight on it has dimmed. |
"It's not so much catching Covid," said Chung Seto, a community leader and political strategist in Chinatown. "There's no vaccine for racism." |
In March, the Police Department formed a volunteer group of Asian American officers who hoped to stop attacks during their time off, including with a program in which plainclothes officers would walk the streets. |
But the program left officers vulnerable to harassment, and some were nearly attacked. |
The city still maintains a hate crimes task force for anti-Asian incidents. From March 1 to March 30, that group made 27 arrests in attacks or harassment against Asian American victims in the city — 22 of which were recorded as hate crimes. |
Many of the attacks in the past several months were unpredictable and carried out by people having mental health episodes, the authorities said. Officials also said they doubted many of the hate crime charges related to the attacks would stick in court. |
Shop owners in Ms. Seto's Chinatown neighborhood remain fearful of staying open late, and her own parents refuse to venture outside. Don Lee, a community organizer, said seniors he works with in South Brooklyn have been hesitant to attend the local community center after it recently reopened. |
Mr. Lee added that he knew firsthand that some victims of harassment and hate crimes were no longer reporting incidents to the police because they believed no significant change would happen. |
"What is the point?" Mr. Lee said. "I don't think it's the police, I think it's the system." |
Anti-violence programs have formed across the city as an alternative to the police in response to rising rates of shootings. [New York Magazine] |
Some New York lawmakers want to block new Chick-fil-A restaurants from opening at the state's highway rest stops because of the owner's stance against L.G.B.T.Q. rights. [New York Post] |
New York City is reopening more IDNYC offices to help residents get identification to apply for pandemic relief programs. [Gothamist] |
And finally: The Metropolitan Opera faces union negotiations |
When the Metropolitan Opera's stagehands finally returned to work last week after an agonizingly long furlough that was followed by a seven-month lockout as they negotiated a new contract with pay cuts, they found a time-capsule backstage. |
The wings were crammed with the mammoth sets of the operas that were in rotation when the pandemic forced the Met to abruptly close its doors on March 12, 2020: "Der Fliegende Holländer," "Werther," and "La Cenerentola," which had been scheduled to open that night. All had to be carted away and placed in storage so the company could begin preparing to reopen in September after the prolonged shutdown. |
The stagehands returned after reaching a deal in a dramatic all-night bargaining session earlier this month in List Hall, the small auditorium where the Opera Quiz is held during the Met's Saturday matinee radio broadcasts. Management and representatives of the stagehands' union, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees — all of whom were required to be vaccinated to attend negotiating sessions — talked through the night, capping the deal with a 7 a.m. handshake. |
"We were coming down to the wire," said James J. Claffey Jr., the president of Local One. "If talks had dragged on any longer it may have been impossible to prepare the opera house for a September opening." |
The deal with the stage hands increases the likelihood that the Met will be able to reopen on schedule after one of the most trying periods in its history. But a significant obstacle remains: The company has yet to reach a deal on the pay cuts it is seeking from the musicians in its orchestra, who went unpaid for nearly a year after the company closed. |
The Met, which said that it lost $150 million in earned revenue during the pandemic, and is concerned that it could be some time before its box office revenues return to prepandemic levels, has said that it needs to cut the pay of its workers in order to survive. |
"The Met has a simple decision to make," Adam Krauthamer, the president of Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, which started negotiating with the opera company more than three months ago, said in a statement. "Do they want to continue to have a world class orchestra. If so, they will need to invest accordingly." |
It's Wednesday — make some music. |
Metropolitan Diary: Fight night |
It was a June day in 1954, and the city was buzzing over that night's heavyweight championship fight between Rocky Marciano and Ezzard Charles at Yankee Stadium. |
I was the newest copyboy at The New York Journal-American and on the verge of going into the Army. The city editor called me over and asked me to do an errand in Midtown that involved picking up a carton of boxing gloves. |
As I rode the subway back to the office, another passenger noticed that the label on the carton said "boxing gloves." |
"Is that for tonight's fight?" he asked. |
I was sure it wasn't, but the coincidence gave me a nice feeling. |
"Maybe," I replied dramatically. |
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