With tuition rising across CUNY’s more than twenty schools, many students are becoming frustrated. The Students for a Free CUNY group is taking that frustration one step further, calling on the CUNY administration to abolish tuition altogether and make CUNY free, like it was 40 years ago.
The CUNY Chancellor’s office has pointed out that CUNY schools are still some of the cheapest in the U.S., but that hasn’t stopped thousands of students from taking to the streets to voice their anger.
Photo Courtesy of Flickr User Hackett
Here is my survey:
http://toiltown.com/2011/11/04/does-yelp-help/
Analyzing the results of my survey is very easy…because there weren’t any. I tweeted to different business organizations and newspapers/ blogs in Brooklyn. I posted on their Facebook pages, pleading with people to take my survey, but still no one did.
I think coming from an unknown news organization, asking people to follow a link to an unknown website, will never work because people have no incentive to click, and no reason to trust that I am not a spammer.
If I had more time, I would print out my survey and go around to different businesses in Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, asking individuals what they think. I’m aware this isn’t online “interactive”, but people will have a harder time saying “no” to taking a survey if I am there, in person, asking them to take it.
As Occupy Wall Street reaches the two-month mark, many (1, 2, 3) are wondering if the protests can last through the winter. Some protesters I spoke to said they were anxious that at the first sign of cold, a large chunk of the group would give up their protests and go home. But after several recent frigid nights, it seems like the protests have enough momentum to continue.
That’s partially because at the core of the Occupy Wall Street protests is a smaller group who are prepared to weather the storm. They spend their days spend nights in tents, and their days organizing, cooking, cleaning, and battling boredom. Here are three of their stories.
Brian Gluck behind the counter of Red Lantern
Red Lantern Bicycles on Myrtle Ave. in Fort Greene opened in July. In addition to selling bikes its employees make out of repurposed steel frames, Red Lantern serves coffee and beer. Owner Brian Gluck says he wants to sell affordable bikes, and create a space to solidify biking culture in the city.
As the Occupy Wall Street protesters have shown, passion and a couple of signs are all that’s needed to start protest. And that’s all David Huber has.
For the past week, the 25-year-old Fort Greene resident has been standing outside his local Corcoran real estate office on Lafayette St., protesting what he says is a company-wide policy of unethical behavior.
“I’ve had bad experiences from as low as the broker I’ve dealt with to as high as the vice president,” said Huber, an editor for an architectural journal.
The drama began after Huber worked with a Corcoran broker to buy a Clinton Hill studio for about $210,000. It would have been Huber’s first real estate purchase. The deal fell through unexpectedly when Huber’s lawyer realized that the property’s seller had not obtained a permanent Certificate of Occupancy – a document issued by the City Department of Buildings and required for almost all real estate transactions. As New York’s caveat emptor (buyer beware) law protects sellers in cases like this, Huber admits Corcoran isn’t legally responsible for knowing there was no certificate. But Huber argues that remaining within legal bounds is the bare minimum a real estate company should do to help its customers.
“I think the public needs to be warned of the unwillingness of the company to take responsibility for the situation,” he said.
Huber plans to continue his protests next week.
Within the 10 x 15 block area known as Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, user-generated review website Yelp lists a whopping 2,339 business, services, and other locations with ratings of one to five stars. Given the fact that Yelp is one of the most popular sites in the country, the overall star rating generated by individual reviews can have a significant impact on businesses: an increase of one star can mean an extra 5 to 9 percent revenue for a businesses. But even people with local establishments that are reviewed generally well, have mixed feelings about Yelp and other internet review sites.
So, totally unsuccessful!
I first posted my question blog post as a status update on Facebook about a week ago and so far no one has answered it. I think this is because things that go out to a general facebook audience are easily lost in the weeds — i.e. if they are not directed toward certain people no one will care to look at them.
Since that didn’t work, I directed my attention toward Twitter and tweeted my question at a few local blogs in hopes they’d retweet to their followers. Surprisingly, @BrooklynBased tweeted my question to their nearly 12,000 followers! And, also surprisingly, not one person answered my question blog post after that tweet!
Here’s a link to my question to BrooklynBased and their RT:
http://twitter.com/#!/PeterMoskowitz/status/119206766989938689
Because no one answered my question, I’ve decided my survey should probably be about the same topic. This week on Facebook I directed my inquiries toward local businesses by posting
“Hey Fort Greene Businesses! Please help a CUNY Journalism student out by answering the following question in the comments: What do you do to keep customers from shopping online instead of at your store?”
on the pages of blogs and local business associations like MARP and the FAB Alliance.
I think part of the problem is that no one knows who I am, so they have no reason to answer my questions. I don’t really know where to go from here because it seems like people have no incentive to give me their time and answers.
Behrens Pharmacy in Clinton Hill
Mohammad Rahman has been working at Behren’s Pharmacy in Clinton Hill for decades. He is one of the millions of workers employed at a small business, the lifeblood of the American economy (PDF). And to New Yorkers, and Green Point and Clinton Hill, Brooklyn residents in particular, small businesses are a way of life. The threat of their disappearance is enough to incite protest, as seen with the Atlantic Yards development.
But, according to Rahman and workers at other businesses in the neighborhood the deadliest small business killer is less tangible than the Atlantic Yards and local residents have less control over it’s operation: it’s the American economy.
Rahman, standing behind the pharmacy counter waiting for customers said business was very slow, but doesn’t blame people for not shopping locally.
Unless people have a disposable income – unless they have money in their pocket, this economy can’t work…people don’t have the jobs, how will they spend the money?
Rahman said local residents are shopping online at places that don’t have the overhead that a local store like Behren’s does.
Down the street at the cafe Tillies of Brooklyn barista Khephran Riddick echoed Rahman’s sentiment.
“It’s been a little show…It’s tough to find jobs out here.”
Still, small businesses seem to be holding on, despite the continued economic downturn.
Where do you fit in?
If you are a small business owner in Fort Greene or Clinton Hill:
How has your business been affected by the ecomonic downturn?
And residents:
Are you still shopping locally and eating out?
Please respond in the comments.
Original Headline:
New Headline:
No Jobs for Black New Yorkers in Dismal American Economy
Credit: whitehouse.gov
Last week, President Barack Obama called on Congress to pass The American Jobs Act. The act’s proposals run the gamut from tax breaks to stimulus spending, and policy experts’ reactions to the bill ran the gamut too. But it’s still unclear whether the bill will actually help Americans, and New Yorkers in particular, get jobs. So let’s parse through the three best arguments for and against the bill.
Positive Reviews:
1. One of the most fervent supporters of the act is New York City Comptroller John Liu. For every $1 billion invested in New York City, Liu’s office estimates that 7,500 jobs would be created. Obama’s plan would funnel approximately $3 billion to New York State, but it’s not known how much of that would go to the five boroughs.
2. Obama’s proposal would give New York State about $2 billion to retain teacher and first responder jobs, and another $2 billion to modernize public schools in the state. New York State United Teachers, which represents 600,000 educators in New York, sided with the president because of that funding.
3. While America seems to be growing less fond of Obama in general, 45 percent of people surveyed by Gallup responded that they’d want their member of congress to vote for the act, compared with 32 percent that would vote against.
Negative Reviews:
1. James Parrott, the chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute says the jobs act is too heavy on tax cuts (toward bottom of article). He says federal spending creates many more jobs per dollar than tax cuts do.
2. Business groups are saying the payroll tax cuts might seem business-friendly, but in reality can’t help in the long-term because businesses are struggling too much to hire new workers.
3. The president of the same teachers union that supports the bill (NYSUT) thinks it might be used as an excuse to not fund New York schools on a state-level.
Unless Obama finds a way to convince a vocally opposed Republican party otherwise, all the praise and criticism of the bill might be moot.