Feature Writing

The Election from an Army Reserves Soldier

By: Nicole Caropolo

The presidential candidate that gets elected into the White House affects every citizen of the United States, but some more than others. In this election, many topics have risen that focus on specific demographics such as minorities, organizations and social classes. A group of voters that are often in the political spotlight are soldiers, veterans, and gun owners.

In January of 2016, Gabriella LoDico enlisted in the Army Reserves to become a military police officer. As war and guns are popular topics in political campaigns, she believes that being in the army is a large influence in who she wants to be elected president.

I will be asking Gabriella about her views on multiple political issues, how she feels about the candidates, and how enlisting the army has changed her point of view on these issues.

For the profile feature story, I hope to highlight the presidential debate through a micro lens. The story will center around New York City’s political landscape- focusing mainly on Baruch. This semester, many students at Baruch have been following this particularly boisterous campaign and many students for the first time ever, will have to choose a candidate to support.

Recently, Baruch Democrat and Republican clubs have been more vocal on campus, posting flyers, advertising meetings, and hosting events. I would like to interview the presidents of both of these clubs and be able to get a new view of the election through their eyes. This very much two-sided story will give a unique perspective to the election that will be very relevant to Baruch students.

I have already reached out to both clubs. I will be interviewing the Baruch Republicans’ President, Vincent Gangemi, on Wednesday afternoon and am looking to schedule a time to meet with the Baruch Democrats’ president. In addition to these interviews, I hope to get some quotes from a few Baruch students. To put the story in a broader perspective, I will also research political views of New Yorkers and NYC residents.

HUMAN TRASH 

By Yulia McClamrock    SEPT. 26, 2016

On a Saturday morning in mid-September, five volunteers with three New York Restoration Project (NYRP) staff members were determined to clean the Harlem River’s shorelines at Sherman Creek Park, Inwood, New York. But nature took its unpredictable course. On this Stewardship Day, high tides forced Shakara Petteway, NYPR volunteer manager, to use her plan B.

“It is hard to coordinate schedules with nature,” said Petteway, who had been volunteering for a year before she got an offer to become an NYRP staff member. “We can try to clean up other parts of the park today. Hopefully next time the tides will be low.”
The park is supervised by a non-profit organization that collects funds through public and private donations. It is able to afford only three full-time employees who are not always able to pick up trash in hidden areas of the park. Situated on 15.38 acres of rich land, the park requires constant maintenance.
“Non-profits, such as NYRP, help to support parks and the community by tackling projects on public and private land, something the city agency cannot do,” said Rosemarie Miner, NYRP Citywide Volunteer Program Coordinator. “Non-profits are generally not as tied up in bureaucracy as city agencies and can work faster, and even on the fly, with community-based organizations.”
The city’s parks and community gardens rely heavily on volunteers. Miner shared her concerns about the volunteer shortage in smaller parks located in low-income neighborhoods. She said that for Central Park, it is easier to get more volunteers, but for distant parks such as Sherman Creek, it’s a struggle.
“During the fiscal crisis in the 70s there was not enough money and many organizations started up funds by wealthy people to help fix up the parks,” said former Deputy Director of Planning, Joseph P Chu. “The Central Park Conservatory was the first because it had so many rich people that live near the park. Others like the non-profit Prospect Park Alliance started later on. Those and many other organizations still exist. They supplement the city’s funding.”
NYRP is one of the non-profit organizations. Bette Midler, an American actress, songwriter, singer, and producer, founded it in 1995. There are more than 1700 parks across the five boroughs, according to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. NYRP owns now 52 community gardens and stewards four parks across the five boroughs. The main focus of NYRP was to restore parks in neglected neighborhoods. It took decades of constant work. Now, rehabilitated parks and community gardens, such as Sherman Creek Park, serve local communities in less fortunate neighborhoods. They are filled with trees, plants, some with mini waterfalls, ponds with turtles and vegetable gardens for children.
“It is our second visit at Sherman Creek Park. We love how clean and peaceful this park is. Kids love it,” said Maria Marte, an event planner who came with her family on Saturday afternoon to have a picnic and get inspiration for a commissioned birthday party at the park.

But, before NYRP became a steward of Sherman Creek Park, it was a place for illegal dumping.
“In the past, we used to find buried cars in this park,” Petteway said.
The announcements about volunteer events are constantly being posted at the NYRP and the New York City Department of Parks websites. Despite that attendance, such as on this Saturday morning, is oftentimes low, volunteers play a vital role in the city’s communities. According to Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a federal agency, volunteers contributed 352.6 million hours of work that equals to almost 15.5 billion dollars in New York back in 2014. This means that donated funds can be used to build more parks, create more public facilities in the parks such as playgrounds, amongst others.
“Volunteers are important because they give people an opportunity to form a deeper connection with the space they use recreationally,” said Miner. “It is also a way for people to build as stakeholders in a community.”

All attendees on this sunny and humid morning were women, most regular participants. At the meeting spot, bottles of bug spray, anti-itch creams for poison ivy, sunscreen lotion, and cold water bottles were provided. Everybody was required to sign a waiver and provide an emergency contact before getting to work.
“You never know who has an ivy allergy,” said Petteway.
Then Petteway asked everyone to introduce each other and name a food they would choose to eat for the rest of their life.
“I love eggs. You can fry them, boil them, etc.,” said Natalie Peralta, who began her volunteering a few months ago. The women giggled. Positive vibes infused the air. It was time to clean.
NYRP provided gloves, trash pickers, and garbage bags. The group divided into ‘pickers’ and ‘bag holders.’
“Oh there is a buried black plastic bag, I don’t know if I want to pull it out,” one of the volunteers said.
Miner shared a story with a smile. She said that some volunteers had previously stumbled upon dead bodies in a plastic bag. “It happened years ago and not in this park,” she added.

Aside from plastic bags, foam particles were the prevalent garbage found in the park, as well as bottles, plastics cups, and even baby diapers.
None of the women shied away from carrying heavy trash bags. While many of their friends were still asleep or heading out to a leisurely brunch, they preferred to spend a beautiful Saturday morning bending, lifting and patiently picking up trash.
“It gives me a peace of mind,” said Kathy Peng on her way home after three hours of volunteering. “It is Saturday morning, and I’ve already done something useful.”

On March 15^th, 1847, Townsend Harris, the founder of what is now The City University of New York (CUNY), said “Open the doors to all, let the children of the rich and the poor take their seats together and know of no distinction save that of industry, good conduct, and intellect.” Over the last couple of decades however, recent data has reflected that there has been a decrease in the percentage of black and Latino students who attend public colleges in the city of New York. According to a report released by the Community Service Society for example, from 2001 to 2012, there has been a four percent decrease of Hispanic students CUNY wide, and for African American students that decrease is at an even greater figure, which is estimated at seven percent. And if this trend continues, it only means that CUNY would face an even greater divide among the rich and the poor students that attend CUNY colleges; rather than there being a shrinking of this gap in the way that Harris would had initially envisioned. And the reason as to why this is so, is because there is a greater percentage of lower income African American and Hispanic students who graduate from public high schools in New York than there are for Whites or Asians. Yet it is these very same black and Latino kids that experience a lesser rate of acceptance at the various city colleges in New York too, when compared to the enrollment rates of White or Asian freshmen at CUNY.

So why is there a smaller percentage of African American and Hispanic students today, than there was just ten years ago? It is because factors such as raised admission standards, a decrease in public funding, and higher tuition costs are just some influences that play a part of these wealth and ethnic divides. And while black and Latino students make up about 70 percent of the student body of public high schools, there has been an increase in the numbers of White and Asian students that actually end up making it to the top city colleges, such as Baruch College. In fact, according to U.S. Census data and a 2015 fact sheet taken from the Baruch website, while Black and Latinos represent over fifty percent of the total population in New York City as a while, only a little bit less than 27 percent of these students are actually admitted to Baruch College. Yet in 2001, black and Hispanics students reflected over a third of the student body at Baruch College, which means that there has been more of a six percent drop of Hispanic and blacks at Baruch, just over the last fifteen years as well.

Founded in 2005, the Black Male Initiative (BMI) was established to offer greater support to many of the CUNY students who were a part of an ethnically underrepresented population at their colleges. According to the CUNYBMI website, “BMI’s mission is to increase, encourage, and support the inclusion and educational success of students from groups that are severely underrepresented in higher education, in particular African, African American/Black, Caribbean and Latino/Hispanic males.” Yet individuals such as Dr. Arthur Lewin, a member of the Advisory Board of the Black Male Initiative at Baruch College, has expressed that CUNY “doesn’t really support” organizations such as the BMI. And that CUNY uses the organization for “just a public relations game” instead. Lewin himself even wishes that CUNY  would “[take on] diversity as a serious issue, and try to really recruit students here and not just keep on raising the criteria…. Because when somebody does good on the SATS, and has a good gPA, it doesn’t mean that they are going to succeed necessarily better than somebody else [who doesn’t].” And because black and Latinos score less well than Asians and Whites on average; Lewin feels that because “Most of the public school students in America are people of color… You can’t just not be educating these people and think that you are going to have a country down the road.”

But achieving high SAT scores just to be accepted into some of the better city colleges is only a fair part of the many other issues that students who are part of the ethnically underrepresented face. For example, according to Lewin “when you only have a few black and Latino students, it’s hard for them to maintain their identity and their culture.” Which means that adapting to CUNY is often a cultural as well as an academic challenge for the small percentage of blacks and Hispanics that are admitted to these city colleges. And overall, Lewin feels that a more diverse CUNY is something to be desired as it “benefits the majority of people in New York City because they are black and Latino, but they are being excluded from the city university.” And when asked if he feels if organizations such as BMI are doing enough to support underrepresented students; “It’s like putting on a windbreaker or sweater and going out to a blizzard, it’s almost next to nothing,” said Lewin.

It is five in the afternoon, on the corner of Vesey and Church Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The majority of people pacing on the street are trying to catch the New Jersey Path trains or the subway to go home after a long day of work.

After 8 p.m., on that same corner, it is lifeless. It has been like that since September 11, 2011. Before, the attacks that changed the neighborhood, The World Trade Center area was lively after work hours, with full restaurants and bars.
After 15 years it is back to being what it was before.

Just recently, This Summer. The new World Trade Center Hub operated by Westfield Properties opened, last year Brookfield Place formally known as the World Financial opened, and the Fulton Street Transit Center opened, which provide connection to 12 subway lines and the Path Trains. Inside have major brand stores like Cole Hann, Apple,

Forever 21, and Gucci. Restaurants like Eatly and La district, Shake Shack, and Hudson Eats.
However, as the neighborhood is growing, small businesses in the area that have been there before or after September 11th for years are worried that this downtown resurgence may raise rents and lose them business.

Since 1983, O’ Hara’s Restaurant and Pub has been serving up food and cold beverages, Owner Paul Mackinhad 52, has seen next-door neighbors come and go. “Just recently the nail shop next door had to closed down, it has been here for many years. The owner of the property of 133 Greenwhich just sold it to the Marriott; Now they making a new hotel, which I am hopeful will bring a lot of businesses to us” Adding “I’m happy that this area is restoring, but hopefully people don’t forget about us the small guys”

Businesses are booming again in that section Lower Manhattan after 15 years. According to Market Watch, Westfield Properties expects the World Trade Center mall to be the most productive shopping center in its portfolio and generate up to one billion in annual sales. It expects almost 100 million customers visits a year to the mall, taking its total customer visits each year to half a billion.

Justine Torres 34, who works at a law firm around the area, is excited about the World Trade Center Hub “It feels like I’m in the strip of Fifth avenue, with all these stores around, now I can sneak out during my lunch break to shop,”

Haley Jackson, 43 has been living in gateway plaza since 2003, a apartment complex near the World Trade Center, she explains great things do come with a cost. ”I’m very happy to see the area to be back as it use to be, but I know for a fact that the prices to live here are going up as we speak”

According to MNS Real Estate, Battery Park City rent has dropped over the last year one bedroom and two bedrooms prices decreased the most this month, by 6.6% and 7.4%, respectively. Since last year, prices in Battery Park City have decreased 4.5%.

In the corner of Liberty Street and Greenwich Street, Harry John Roland, The World Trade Center Man has been giving in depth information about the World Trade Center past and present for almost 15 years, he believes World Trade Center resurgence is good change for the community. “When people come to World Trade Center, they come to the memorial and leave. “We want to show that yes, this tragic event happen, but we have grown and are stronger then ever”

The Future of the World Trade Center is getting bigger, as World Trade Center building number 3 is about to completed in 2018, The Performing Arts Center in 2020, bringing more business to the area. Small business owners and residents are hopeful that the downtown comeback does not come with a hefty price soon.

New York’s first food forest looks more like your typical vegetable garden than anything else, with a kind of controlled chaos. Circular beds nearly overflowing with vegetation are dotted around the entrance, some with vines that snake up trellises and others with blankets of clover and larger leafy bushes. The smaller beds give way to larger expanses of green towards the back with gravel paths meandering in between and a set of picnic tables in the center. It’s only the gentle sway of the tide moving out and the briny smell of the air that gives it away, because Swale is on a barge in the middle of the East River.

The people behind Swale call it a floating food forest, and the title is an accurate one. All of the plants aboard Swale are either edible or medicinal in nature. The idea is to create an eventually self-sustaining garden, where all of the plants work together to thrive and all are edible. This is the beauty of this concept, one that Swale is currently trying to prove the validity of in urban spaces, food forests can provide a great deal of food for a community with relatively little effort. In a way Swale is a sustainability minded community garden that is open to all.

Mary Mattingly is the artist behind the exhibition. She wanted to create a platform that allowed people to better think about and understand food. And in fact creating Swale on a barge and into an art exhibition is the only way it could happen. Because part of the exhibit’s purpose is for people to gather their own food, on land that would be illegal. Whether it’s food or just a pretty flower picking something from public land is considered destruction of property.

“We can do this more publically on a barge, you can’t on land,” she went onto say that being on water, “makes you more aware of your surroundings.” The water adds an almost surreal element; it changes Swale from being merely a garden into something that does make you think about the environment around you. The constant ebb and flow of the water makes you have to think about each step as you walk around the barge and pick some herbs or a few vegetables.

Swale is proof of concept in two ways, one this it is possible to have a food forest in New York City, and two that it can be done in new and different ways. The barge is hopefully a temporary home for the food forest as the people behind it petition the city to give them public park space to create a permanent home. Swale will be at Brooklyn Bridge Park until Oct 15^th, after that the future of the project remains unclear Mattingly hopes that they will be able to stay longer.

The practices behind Swale originates in something known as permaculture. On paper permaculture sounds almost coldly scientific, various plants are grouped in such a way that they all work together. It is a science, to be able to determine what plants would work best in an environment, but it’s also an art. The results are not a clean cut and polished garden, but something that has more in common with the jungle.

Uyen Huynh, 24, from Harlem NY, is studying sustainability in the urban environment at City College. She said that she had found out about Swale through a post a classmate had made on Facebook. Huynh said, “When I first got here I didn’t think New York was very sustainable, you have to dig but it’s there.” She discovered her interest in permaculture design after moving to New York.

Huynh said, “Permaculture is about more than just growing food it’s about building relationships.” In her opinion it draws connections between people and the ecosystems around them. This idea of fostering the relationship between people and the food they eat is a large part of the foundation of Swale.

Amanda McDonald Crowley is one of the contributors to Swale, she’s worked with Mattingly in the past and has been part of the project from the beginning. She said, “Food is also about generosity… and art into that mix you can start to ask the important questions.”

To McDonald Crowley those questions revolve around how we as a culture look at food. Part of Swale’s objective is to have us look differently, both at where it comes from and how it gets to us.

Part of the purpose of art is to make us think about the world around us differently, it’s how Swale works and why it attracts people as they pass by. As Mattingly put it each visitor brings a new element to the piece contributing something to the project, helping to grow and shape the message that Swale shares as it ripples outward. Swale is currently docked at Pier 6 of Brooklyn Bridge Park overlooking the downtown Manhattan skyline.

Ricotta pancakes with a side of pancetta, and two eggs over easy covering a roasted pork sandwich on ciabatta are placed down on the table set for two. A couple of hot cups of coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice complete the meal. After the plates are wiped clean and cleared from the table the check is presented. Right away the guest paying notices that the bill is significantly higher than it has been since the last time she has dined at the restaurant. She asks her server why the bill seems to be higher than usual, and he explains that the restaurant has become gratuity-free.

At the start of 2016 restaurateur, Danny Meyer, led a shift in the industry towards gratuity-free dining in his NYC restaurants. Beginning with his most expensive restaurant, The Modern, and then spreading to thirteen of his establishments in the Union Square Hospitality Group. On February 25^th, 2016, Maialino in the Gramercy Park Hotel made the switch.

Danny Meyer is a trendsetter and innovator in the restaurant industry. The decision to go gratuity-free is said to provide fair wages to the front and back of the house staff. Since there is a large disparity in the amount of money being made through tips by the wait and bar staff verses the front and back of the house, this change attempts to spread the wealth for more sustainable jobs as a chef or a food runner. This new policy means that in return there is a rise on menu prices.

A pastry chef from Maialino finishes a full night of baking almost 200 croissants for a private party and I catch her on her way out of the locker room. I ask her about the recent change to the gratuity-free system and she explains, “Well it’s a touchy subject.” She pauses and then goes on to explain that after the restaurant eliminated tipping and raised the menu prices, the compensation of the staff for the lack of tip money did not show up until two months after the change was implemented. Meaning that the servers and bartenders were not making tips nor were their paychecks being raised at all. Because of this disparity many members of the staff quit. As many left, many joined the team.

One member of the new team is Meredith, a food runner. Meredith previously worked at a law firm doing assistant work. From there she decided that she needed a career change and made her way to Maialino. Since she started in May, after the two-month period of no pay raise ended, she did not feel the blow of the pay cut that happened to the former staff. Meredith says, “ I really like the way it is going now. I feel like I have more security in knowing how much I am going to make every week. There is a lot more consistency in this type of system.” She explains that the servers are provided with a certain type incentive to work hard despite the lack of tips. The restaurant offers rewards to whoever has the most sales every week. For example, one week they gave out a free dinner for a restaurant that was also owned by Danny Meyer, Marta. Meredith believes that the new members of the staff are content with their paychecks and rewards they can acquire.

One question of this policy asks whether or not this is beneficial for the security and consistency of the service staff or if this is putting extra money into the pocket of the owner. A response to an article written about this topic on NY.Eater.com by Ryan Sutton, reads, “This is nothing more than robbing Paul to pay Peter. USHG is in a better position to pay its cooks than probably anyone else, but the solution is to take from the servers”. This user who goes by “Vfw”, feels that the motive of the new policy is not for the benefit of the cooks but for the people on top. He thinks it is nothing more than taking from one employee to give to another, rather than the ownership extending themselves to benefit the workers as a whole.

Although this is a strong perspective that many of both guests and employees share, a server at Maialino, Christian, has a similar perspective of food runner, Meredith. He quotes, “at first it was confusing when the pay wasn’t what we thought it should but, but after they fixed that issue within a couple of months, I feel like I’m making close to the amount of money I was making before. I think this system helps everyone work together instead of having the competition of who gets the best tables.”

In 1916 William Scott wrote a book called “ The Itching Palm”, where he explains his belief that tipping creates “a servile attitude for a fee.” He says, “In the American democracy to be servile is incompatible with citizenship.” He continues, “If any form of service is menial, democracy is a failure.” He then adds, “If tipping is un-American, some day, some how, it will be uprooted like African slavery.” Maialino is a modern day example of Scott’s mentality being applied in American democracy.

We can still ask the question, is tipping culture perpetuating the attitude of menial service in a democracy or does it represent a personal exchange of generosity and gratitude from one citizen to another through service?

 

(Img Credit: Wing on Wo)

At 26 Mott Street, folding chairs are stuffed into the crowded store between shelves of porcelain and other imports. A row of eclectic twenty and thirty somethings are speaking to whoever will listen about their ties to the community and what they’re doing as business owners to save it.

Mott Street is the main artery of New York City’s Chinatown, with some parts virtually unchanged since the late 80’s. Chinatown has long been a destination for steamy soup dumplings, freshly baked egg tarts, and trinkets— a tourist trap for visitors to  explore, enjoy, and leave. But for many of its residents, Chinatown has become a battleground.

Chinese immigrants have found a home in the Lower East Side of Manhattan since the 1970s, when massive migration to the area unofficially dubbed the neighborhood as Chinatown. Today, the children of these first immigrants have grown up to see their neighborhood, their parent’s neighborhood, changing around them.

The W.O.W. project was created this summer to start a discussion about the rapid changes in the neighborhood. It seeks to bring together community members— old and new to create positive growth for all of Chinatown’s resident. “Chinatown is a much different community then it once was. I think the future of the community is based highly on the values and traditions that our neighborhood is able to maintain,” says one panelist.

Mei Lum is a second-generation Chinese American. Her small frame maneuvers nimbly around her shop—well, her parent’s shop—on 26 Mott Street. She expertly tiptoes around ceramic pots and shelves of delicately hand painted statues of dragons and Buddhas. Lum is the third generation of shop owners at Wing on Wo, Chinatown’s oldest shop, which still remains relatively unchanged today.

After living and working abroad in Asia for the past three years, Mei returned to the United States last November at a crossroad. With the lease up and building for sale, her parents and grandparents were faced with the decision of whether or not to sell the store they had owned and operated for the past 91 years.

Mei knew the risks: a developer or an outside business could move in, effectively raising property values, drastically altering Mott Street. She knew the dangers of gentrification, and was fearful for the already rapidly changing neighborhood. She committed, in May, to take up running the shop, “training” under her 86-year-old grandmother.

The decision wasn’t easy for Mei, who was considering grad school and other options for the future when she came home. But having grown up in Chinatown her entire life, she felt a sense of commitment to the community that raised her, and resolved to fight to preserve its integrity.

Many immigrants in the area, were drawn to the United States by promises of better opportunities, education, and futures here. Success meant getting out of Chinatown. “Growing up our parents and grandparents wanted us to get an education so that we could move out from Chinatown,” said one business owner in the area. Many of Chinatown’s current residents still include the original immigrants, now elderly, and a small number of new immigrants. Gentrification has become rife in the area. The percentage of all non-white groups decreased in the area, while the number of white nonhispanic in Chinatown increased by an alarming 42 percent. Drawn by once cheap rent and “Chinatown charm,” transplants have been flocking to the neighborhood at alarming rates. Census data indicates that while Chinatown’s original population continues to age up, the number of people moving to the area increases. Between 2000 and 2010, census data shows decreases in the percent of people 50 and younger. 

Perhaps Chinese culture itself is to blame for Chinatown’s struggle to maintain and preserve its history and authenticity. The search for better meant leaving the community that shaped much of the early life for many immigrants. 

This year, Mike Tan, a third generation Chinese American, opened up Eggloo, a Chinese dessert shop that specializes in Hong Kong-style egg waffles served with ice cream and topped with colorful sweets. The shop on the edge of Chinatown on Mulberry Street (just around the block from Mei at Wing On Wo) always has a line out the door. When he opened he couldn’t have imagined the popularity. There are thousands of tagged images on Instagram of the virally popular dessert.

“My parters and I knew it was a snack that would have a good reception and blend into the local community,” Tan said. We also knew that we would benefit from the support of our friends and family that we grew up together with.”

But the demographic he now serves doesn’t look like the people he had in mind. For him, having tourists and and people from outside of Chinatown visit the store is exciting and concerning.

Mei, in her most recent venture is bringing people like Tan, and other second- and third-generation Chinese American business owners together to have discussions on the past and future of Chinatown. The W.O.W project (acronym for Wing On Wo) strives to “engage the community to shape the future of Chinatown by bringing together youth, elderly, business owners, and concerned residents in conversation and innovative idea generation.” Partnering with Diane Wong, a PhD student at Cornell University, Mei spearheaded a series of summer talks and panels all held in her shop.

Mei is focusing on cultivating a sense of responsibility for the younger residents of Chinatown. Without their support, she is convinced that Chinatown will fail. Without business owners like Tan, and others coming back to Chinatown and breathing new life, while having respect for the past and culture of the area, she says, Chinatown will simply be a tourist strip mall, a sort of Disneyland.

It’s Tan’s hope that local entrepreneurs coming back and continuing to open businesses on the neighborhood will help to continue the development of Chinatown—while still keeping it  the same community they grew up with.

Bianca Monteiro is a sophomore at Baruch College. She has short hair and enjoys wearing loose-fitting clothes. In her spare time, Bianca enjoys exploring New York and taking photographs of the lesser-known spots.

Monteiro identifies as gender fluid. Though she uses the female pronoun and frequents the female bathroom, there are days when she wishes that she did not have to choose between using the male and the female bathroom.

“Gendered bathrooms enforce binaries because a lot of people equate sex and gender.” Monteiro said in an interview. “I feel like a lot of people who don’t fit into what the typical gender binaries look like are forced to ‘pick’ what gender they are—or rather what gender they ‘look’ most like—when using the bathroom. Otherwise they may feel vulnerable to having to explain their identities when other people see and/or question them being there.”

The campaign to create a gender neutral bathroom at Baruch truly kicked off in the spring Semester with the LGBT community spreading information about the purpose of such bathroom and raising awareness about the issue. However, the Baruch administration was slow to make progress toward appeasing the group.

According to Gabe Roman, current president of The Gender, Love and Sexuality Spectrum, the idea to create a gender neutral bathroom was nonexistent when she entered Baruch as a freshman three years ago. After reaching out to the College Advancement Board, the LGBT community was told to get donations, collect signatures on a petition and create a committee to push the movement forward.

“What really helped us is that people besides people at the LGBT Resource Room, people besides people in G.L.A.S.S. were taking it seriously,” Roman said. “That was like the hardest part. Just letting people know what the bathroom was. They wouldn’t sign the petition because they were like, ‘I don’t want to sign this hippie thing’ or they were like ‘this is too liberal, I want put my name on it.’ But once they were educated, they started to want to get more involved.”

This prompted the club to create educational pamphlets and the petition. G.L.A.S.S. followed up with a YouTube video, titled Case for Gender Neutral Bathrooms at Baruch College, which aimed to answer some of the most common questions about the creation of a gender neutral bathroom. As of press time, the video collected 440 views. The LGBT community’s initiative on the second floor lobby collected roughly 200 signatures the petition, along with some donations to strengthen the cause.

“The students behind the campaign know that not everyone in the world is tolerant,” Roman said. “We want to figure out if there is a way for us to protect the genderless bathroom, whether through training security to be sensitive to the issue, or having an educational video about what the bathroom is.”

The campaign also has to deal with a lack of a clear line of communication with Baruch’s administration. There is no single person that the LGBT community could reach out to with questions, nor is there a website to find out about the progress of the project or a place to express one’s opinion about the project.

Roman assured that the gender neutral bathroom is in plans, although she received no clear date from Office of Student Life as to when the bathroom will be built. The biggest difficulties that the project is facing are space and funding, as the project is rumored to be costly due to high costs of converting a room into a bathroom that will meet all the safety codes while being in an easily accessible area.

However, a member of the administration said that the project was already in the works and the administration was looking for other possible locations for the bathroom.

“Baruch … successfully lobbied $1 million from City Council Speaker [Melissa] Mark-Viverito to fund the ADA and Single Occupancy ADA restrooms this fiscal year,” said Lisa Edwards, the vice president of campus facilities. “The funding allowed the universal restrooms to be added at the tail end of design to an existing ADA capital project. The design with the universal restrooms is now 100 percent complete and expected to go out to bid for construction in late fall.”

In the future, Roman hopes to get more people to support the campaign.

“We need more voices. There’s a very small but a very passionate group of people who are always on these campaigns, who are always pushing for more. But people don’t take groups seriously unless there’s a big number, unless they have dozens of students,” Roman said. “It’s hard for a lot of people to come out and speak on these issues because they don’t want to either out themselves or they don’t want to align themselves with a marginalized group.”

At any given hour of the day, a Manhattan or Brooklyn-bound L train generally looks the same—crowded. The benches are almost always full, the cars are loud with conversation and the platforms are bustling with musicians playing tunes ranging from banjo-plucking folk to synchronized percussion.

Commuters who rely on this train daily in neighborhoods which are largely disconnected from other subway lines, are hoping that they will soon reap the benefits of its closure. Many Brooklyn locals are anticipating that the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s plan to close the L train will actually help them afford to live in trendy areas such as Williamsburg and Bushwick, which have recently grown in popularity.

The subway line, which runs from 14th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan all the way to Rockaway Parkway in Canarsie, sees over 400,000 riders daily.

Due to extensive damage from Hurricane Sandy back in 2012, the MTA recently announced that the L train will shut down between Manhattan and Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg in January 2019 for 18 months so that it can be properly repaired.

Although the MTA’s plan will be highly inconvenient for some, most locals do not plan to relocate to other parts of New York. In fact, many residents are actually expecting to see their rents decrease as a result of the closure.

“I’m really hoping that the L shutting down will help decrease my rent. I can’t imagine people wanting to move to a place where there’s no subway. But as for me, I love this area and I don’t want to live anywhere else,” said Megan Lansky, 32.

“Taking a shuttle bus will definitely suck,” she added. “But commuting sucks in general, so I guess it’s not that bad.”

Lansky currently shares a four-bedroom apartment on the southeast end of Bushwick for a combined total of $2,350 per month.

Stephanie Pearson, 24, agreed with Lansky.

“I hope rent goes down here,” she said. “It makes sense that a remote area would become cheaper. Perhaps, with people moving out because of the shutdown, gentrification could reverse itself.”

Pearson lives on Williamsburg’s east end, in a loft that she shares with five other roommates for a total of $3,000 a month.

In fact, a rent decrease in the affected neighborhoods appears to be statistically likely, according to a rent analysis by FiveThirtyEight. The source claims, “The shutdown should shave about $200 to $450 off the rent of the typical Williamsburg one-bedroom—until the repair work is done, anyway.”

Although residents remain hopeful that their rents will in fact see a sharp decrease in the coming years, they are still left with the problem of getting into Manhattan without the L train. Many neighborhoods along the L line do not have other subway lines available, leaving many commuters wondering how they will be able to substitute for this integral mode of transit.

While Lansky is able to take the J train into Manhattan as an alternative, Pearson is rather isolated from other subway lines.

“Where I live in Williamsburg, the L train is pretty much it. Walking a mile to the J or M really isn’t realistic for my daily commute. I’m hoping the MTA will have shuttle buses, but I can’t say that I’m looking forward to riding one every day,” she said.

She added, “And paying for a daily cab ride to and from the subway plus a monthly unlimited metro card? Are you kidding me?”

This is the reality that many Brooklyn residents will be facing in two years. The question of whether or not it is worth it to pay extra for a lesser commute time will be lingering. But perhaps the MTA will take note of this inconvenience, and consider giving some of these neighborhoods more subway options, especially considering the L train sees some of the highest daily commuter rates in the entire subway system.

Jeffrey Schleider, founder of Miron Properties and a Williamsburg local, commented on the neighborhood’s disconnect from other subway lines, saying, “There’s a larger transportation issue…Hopefully what will come out of this is that they will continue to keep the additional forms of transportation [needed to help during the closure] whether it’s an express bus or express ferry.”

So whether it be a rent decrease, or the MTA ultimately realizing that the most popular neighborhoods in Brooklyn should be a bit more connected to the rest of the subway system, residents are hopeful that some good may eventually come out of the L train shutdown which looms in the near future.