Anyone familiar with Philadelphia knows Kensington Avenue as an open-air drug market. Tucked under the elevated train tracks in North Philadelphia, business is open, even in the pouring rain on a recent Sunday afternoon. Nearly every drug, including heroin, fentanyl, marijuana, K2, and benzos, can be bought under the dingy underpass, in front of rundown stores and corners piled high with garbage.

Despite the occasional presence of a police car, dealers sold openly, ducking under awnings and in doorways — avoiding the rain, not law enforcement. Users didn’t even bother to go behind closed doors before cooking and injecting their drugs, completely unconcerned with anyone who might be watching.

While the opioid crisis in Philadelphia has been a status quo for years, this endless drug use is causing a new problem: an increase in HIV rates for the first time since the mid-2000s.

“We don’t need another health epidemic. We have enough with addiction,” said Carol Rochuster, founder of Angels in Motion, an advocacy organization that does outreach and policy work for those who use drugs. Seven years ago, her own son was living on Kensington Avenue, trapped in his own addiction. He’s currently in recovery, but the isolation and conditions on Kensington Avenue inspired her to start talking to those on the streets and try to help. Since then, she’s spent almost every day since then working with opioid users, offering counsel and conversation, helping them find spots in treatment centers, and generally doing everything she can to help put a dent in Philadelphia’s opioid epidemic.

A woman with track marks on her legs runs past another man on Kensington Avenue, Philadelphia. Photo by Kerry Breen.

“Just last week, one of my people said to me ‘I just [tested] positive for HIV.’ It is increasing. It’s just a small percentage, but it is still an increase – it hasn’t increased in years, and now all of a sudden it’s increasing. That could spiral out of control.”

The increases have been small so far, according to James Garrow, Director of Communications at Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health. Diagnoses in the city were decreasing until 2016, when there were 27 diagnoses of HIV among those who use drugs. From 2016 to 2018, the number more than doubled, with 59 new diagnoses among people who inject drugs. The amount may be small, but Garrow describes it as an “outbreak.”

The Trump administration has announced a plan to combat HIV, with the goal of almost completely eliminating the illness by 2030. The plan would target 48 counties where HIV is spread at the highest rate, including Philadelphia, as well as focusing on seven states that have high rates of HIV in rural areas. The plan will have almost 300 million in funding, which is one of the largest increases in HIV funding. However, advocates and experts worry that the plan falls short, and will not reach the people who need it most, including those in Kensington.

“There needs to be a lot more consideration of ‘How do we reach to that set of people that isn’t just able to engage in the healthcare system as easily?’,” said William McColl, the Vice President for

Policy and Advocacy at AIDS United, an organization that works to end AIDS in the United States. “Homelessness is a primary example, but also people who are involved with drug use, that aren’t necessarily seeing [doctors]. I do think they’re going to have their work cut out for them in reaching all of the people that truly need to be reached.”

Garrow is also concerned that President Trump’s other healthcare policies might affect the access that would be necessary for this plan.

“What’s been proposed isn’t really new, and the administration’s assault on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would probably undercut any gains,” he said. “Health insurance is necessary for many people to get the care that they need to treat HIV infection and prevent the infection from spreading to others.”

Other proposed plans have included safe injection sites and needle exchange programs, but these plans have received significant amounts of backlash. Safehouse, a safe injection site that would operate in Kensington, has been tied up in legal battles with the federal government, and needle exchange programs are not the most popular solutions.

Carol Rochuster, founder of Angels in Motion, an advocacy organization that does outreach and policy work for those who use drugs, sits in the Fishtown Diner. Photo by Kerry Breen.

There’s also a focus on clean equipment, even among the trash-ridden streets of Kensington. Groups like Rochuster’s Angels in Motion do their best to provide not just clean needles and cookers, but also information on why using it is important.

“If you don’t keep people alive, they can’t make it to recovery,” said Rochuster, whose organization has begun doing mobile needle exchanges to reach as much of the city as possible. “HIV has increased in the city, and the access to needles hasn’t. They’re still in one location, but South Philly needs it, Northeast Philly needs it, Southwest — they all need access to free needles. You need clean needles. And not just needles – supplies, cookers, you need everything.”

Beyond these efforts, Philadelphia is already doing many of the things the administration’s plan outlines, including funding programs and outreach efforts.

“We are expanding syringe exchanges, working to increase access to PrEP, and working to link people who inject drugs to medical car to ensure viral suppression,” said Garrow. Rochuster says that in her own advocacy, she focuses on making sure that the people she talks to know how important HIV medications can be.

Even with the efforts of health departments and harm reductionists, Kensington seems as stricken as ever. Dealers huddle under the awnings of drug stores and takeout Chinese restaurants; an encampment filled with users sits directly across from a mobile unit run by Prevention Point, another organization that does outreach with opioid users. A police car with its sirens off drives across the intersection, not even acknowledging the open sale and use of drugs.

Despite the police presence, crime rates in Kensington are high, and drug sales and use continue with little enforcement. Photo by Kerry Breen.

However, to Rostucher, the solution is not to abandon areas that seem hopeless, but to keep trying, to break through the barriers of stigma and isolation that surround such neighborhoods.

“I started this because of my son. I would go down to find him. I just wanted him to know I loved him. While going down and looking for him, I saw so many lost individuals, so many lost souls,” she said. “And then I realized that the isolation is just feeding this disease. The more I went down, the more I could see — the isolation just took people down deeper into their addiction, and they were so alone, and they just keep going deeper.”

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In 2001, Ed Bisch heard the word OxyContin for the first time, standing outside his home in Philadelphia. Inside, his son, 18-year-old Eddie Bisch, lay dead in his bed from an overdose of the drug. It was the early stages of the opioid crisis. Even local high schools knew nothing of the potent drug, and nobody could predict how it would affect the country in the coming decades.

“The first time I heard the word OxyContin, my son was dead,” he said, recalling how a paramedic had to explain the medication to him. He remembers being told of the drug’s extreme strength and highly addictive quality. Meanwhile, Oxycontin creator Purdue Pharma was downplaying the danger.

Since that day, Bisch has watched Purdue avoid most accountability for their actions. While his son had been using the drug recreationally, and had not been given a prescription, Bisch believes that if the company had been more honest about its addiction rates and the strength of the drug, it would not have spread as it has.

For decades, Purdue Pharma and its operators, the Sackler family, were not open about the dangers of their medication, citing a study that said less than one percent of patients became addicted. But the study had been done in a hospital setting, while patients were under a doctor’s supervision, tainting the validity of the results. Richard Sackler, the former chairman and president of Purdue, has particularly been blamed for the aggressive tactics he used to convince doctors to prescribe OxyContin. In the 1990s, he spoke about creating “a blizzard of prescriptions” to “bury [the] competition” and increase their own profits. Court documents also showed that Richard Sackler did not want to correct misinformation about the drug, and knew of the “significant” misuse soon after it was released in 1996.

Bisch isn’t the only one who blames Purdue for their marketing tactics. The pharmaceutical company, and the Sackler family, have been the subject of more than one thousand lawsuits. And 1,600 of them have been consolidated under one case in Cleveland. Generally, the lawsuits have revolved around the company’s marketing, sales, and production of the painkiller, and their overall responsibility for the country’s opioid crisis.

However, much to Bisch’s distress, the lawsuits have often been settled, letting the company off the hook and letting them avoid long-winded trials, the court of public opinion, and what he sees as true accountability.

“The problem with this, all along, has been that Purdue settles, and in the settlement they seal the records, so the full truth never gets out,” Bisch said, pointing out that the recently settled Oklahoma trial would have been broadcast on television — and by settling, Purdue was able to continue to say they were innocent of all charges. While the settlement cost the company $270 million, Bisch calls it “chump change” compared to what the company makes annually, especially off sales of Oxycontin.

His activism involved attending trials with other parents, watching the company continue to evade genuine consequence for their actions. Bisch remembered one particularly bitter day in Abingdon, Virginia in 2007.

The trial focused on the company’s misleading marketing — which claimed that less than one percent of Oxycontin users became addicted, among other statements — and forced Purdue Pharma and three of its top executives to pay more than $630 million in federal fines, along with fulfilling probation and community service requirements. 

However, despite those fines in what was seen as a then-landmark case, many believe Purdue Pharma continued to mismarket the drug. Beth Macy, the author of “Dopesick,” which chronicles the opioid crisis, has also been watching the legal battles.

“I think the companies and the families involved at Purdue are a huge part of why the opioid crisis is happening because back in the 90s they changed the narrative,” Macy said. “We knew for millennia that opioids were addictive, but through their misbranding, they changed the narrative, and made doctors and patients more comfortable with taking opioids.”

Macy said that while she wants to see the company held accountable, she also wants to see the families affected find peace.

To Bisch, the way Purdue Pharma has consistently blamed addicts for their situation is one of the company’s most despicable traits. From his son’s death in 2001 to 2007, he ran a website called OxyAbuseKills.com; one of its most haunting features is a series of mini-memorials to those who died of overdoses. It serves as a reminder of those lost – and of Purdue’s role.

“A lot of stuff could have been done to alleviate this crisis,” Bisch said. “They could take Oxy off the market tomorrow, and that isn’t going to change anything now. There has to be a reckoning.”

While the continuous cycle of trials and settlements can be exhausting, Bisch is still hopeful. Recently, a lawsuit in New York was amended to include the Sackler family. The company is currently trying to get a Massachusetts lawsuit thrown out.

“I just hope that, whether it’s Massachusetts or New York, that someone has the balls to take them to trial, all the way to the end,” he said. “And don’t settle. Don’t seal the records. This has been going on for more than 20 years and Pandora’s box has opened now. There has to be some justice.”

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The New York City subway system may soon be getting an update. Commuters are often frustrated by the MTA’s Metrocard system – sometimes, they don’t swipe properly; when the funds on the card run low, the machines in the stations sometimes aren’t working, or will only take cash.

A potential solution is a contactless subway card. The MTA has begun introducing this system into a few stations and on buses in Staten Island, and is expanding it over the next several years. Once the contactless system, called One Metro New York, or OMNY, is fully operative, Metrocards will be phased out.

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Eric Weil and Belinda McLin’s lives changed forever when they found a packet of white powder in their guest bedroom in August 2016.

Family friend Justin Levesque, 30, was high, squatting on the ground and talking about how he wanted to kill himself. Both adults had seen the effects of the opioid crisis in their small New Hampshire town of Alton and were concerned for his well-being. Not sure what else to do, they called the police, bringing three officers to their doorstep.

One officer, Jaime Fellows, ordered Weil to drop the packet of still-unidentified white powder. He complied, but after nearly 15 minutes it had not been picked up. Fearing for the safety of his dog, two cats, and nine free-range chickens, Weil picked it up again. A small amount of the powder got on his finger so he blew it off – which was when the nightmare began.  

The officer was seen by a paramedic, but Weil, McLin, and Levesque never received medical attention, according to McLin, despite having the same or greater exposure as Fellows. As a result of the incident, Weil was charged with reckless conduct with a deadly weapon, a class B felony with a sentence of three and a half to seven years. He was initially convicted by a jury in September 2018, but Judge James O’Neill set aside the verdict. The prosecutor swore to try again, but the ordeal finally ended on February 13, because the prosecution did not believe they could prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

This isn’t the only case where the concern of a fentanyl contact overdose has affected people and led to harsh charges. Fentanyl is an extremely powerful drug, and a few grains of it are enough to do severe damage, or even cause death – but it can’t be absorbed through skin contact or basic airborne exposure.

“In powder form, it should have no ability to cross your cell membrane and get into your skin that way,” said Ryan Marino, a toxicology fellow in Pittsburgh, acknowledging that if one’s hands were sweaty or had liquid on them, there was a slim possibility that powder fentanyl could diffuse in. “In terms of aerosolization, it is a powder, so theoretically someone could blow it down your mouth – but those situations would have to be pretty wild.”

Marino also said that while fentanyl itself has been around for decades, stories of people being affected by contact or airborne exposure seem to be fairly recent.

Doug Collier, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, has worked on opioid-related cases for almost 27 years. He’s had first-hand experience with crime scenes that are tainted with fentanyl, and  the fear of a contact overdose is real.

“It’s happened, with some of our officers, that they didn’t think they needed to put the gloves and mask on because, you know, ‘We’re narcotics agents, this is what we do’,” Collier said. “A plume went up in the air. It was airborne. The officers inhaled and then all of a sudden started to come down with the same symptoms that would affect anybody dealing with a central nervous system depressant. He wasn’t responding.”

According to Collier, the affected officer showed symptoms that included shallow breathing and lightheadedness, but to Marino, those symptoms, and symptoms reported in similar situations, appeared to be symptoms of an anxiety attack rather than symptoms of fentanyl exposure.

For agents like Collier, the fear is real, even if the risk is not. Because of the perceived risk, cases where fentanyl is present tend to be penalized more harshly, like it was in Weil’s case. As a result, people are becoming wary about calling the police in a case where fentanyl may be involved.

“I worry that criminalizing people for a drug overdose will make people who find overdose victims not call police, will make people more hesitant to contact first responders in the first place,” said Marino. “Being scared to respond to these scenes can delay the appropriate care. I think the response should just be to treat the person, and if crimes were committed, we could figure it out later – but making it a criminal enterprise instead of a resuscitation will just end up hurting people.”

He said that he has already seen the fear of a contact overdose impede immediate care.

“I have actually seen people, both in the community and in the hospital, who have overdosed and someone is hesitant and will not resuscitate them because of this fear that it’s almost contagious,” said Marino. “I’ve personally seen people sealing off someone who needs immediate resuscitation just because they don’t want that to spread to them.”

Tino Fuentes is the opposite – he has no fear of a contact overdose from fentanyl. He’s been working in harm reduction for over two decades, and since 2016 he’s been helping drug users test their drugs to see if they’re cut with anything. He also helps train people in harm reduction methods, including the use of Narcan. Before his career in harm reduction, he was a drug dealer – he’s had more experience with fentanyl, and other drugs, than many.

“I touch fentanyl every day,” said Fuentes. “I still go out into the street. I test drugs myself. I’ve taken these bags of dope that, when I test it, they don’t even have heroin in it, it’s just fentanyl, and I rub it on my fingers and show people. You can’t walk into a room with a ten-pound bag of fentanyl and overdose. If you touch it, it’s not going to kill you.”

Fuentes admitted that it’s possible to be affected by fentanyl if you touch it and then put your hands in your mouth or nose, but an airborne or on-contact overdose is “practically a myth.” Like Marino, he’s worried misinformation affects how people respond to overdoses.

“At one time I had a problem trying to train people in Narcan, because they were really going by these myths of ‘Well, somebody’s overdosing on fentanyl, I’m not going to try to rescue them, because I could die,”’ Fuentes said. “We have to break these myths because they could prevent somebody from saving someone’s life.”

McLin and Weil said that, if given the chance to do it over again, they wouldn’t have called the police, or helped Levesque in the first place. The couple is currently in deep debt due to legal costs and both of their small businesses are suffering, something Weil attributes to the negative publicity. The two have set up a GoFundMe to try and cover their costs, but said that in the future they’d avoid the trouble.

“If someone were overdosing in my house again, I’d drag them outside, leave them in the street, and pretend not to be home,” said McLin. “I won’t call the police again.”

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In May 2018, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced four safe injection sites would be built across New York. Nearly a year later, while the opioid crisis rages on, the sites are no closer to reality due to a mix of legal and financial issues and questions about the research that suggests them as a solution.

Not everyone is convinced that the mayor’s office is genuine about wanting to get these sites operational.

“I think they just [announced them] to shut everybody up,” said Axcel Barboza, a syringe exchange and outreach specialist at New York Harm Reduction Educators (NYHRE). “It takes a lot to start a safe injection site up, a lot of money and s–t like that. I think they just said yes to calm everybody down.”

Solutions to the opioid crisis are in high demand as overdose deaths continue to rise across the country. Providing a place to do drugs may sound counter-productive, but according to advocates, these sites they could be the new front lines in the opioid crisis.

“When someone says ‘Oh, I think these things are a bad idea because X,’ I think the thing you need to add onto that sentence is, ‘And that’s why I believe people shooting up in McDonald’s bathrooms is a better thing,’’’ said Peter Davidson, Ph.D., an associate professor at the University of California.

Underneath an expressway off-ramp near 181st Street and Amsterdam Avenue in Washington Heights, used syringes, crack pipes and empty liquor bottles are left lying on the floor in a popular spot for drug use. Photo by Razi Syed.

While SISs do not officially exist in the United States, more than one hundred such sites are operating around the world, including in Canada, Australia, and Europe. They allow drug users to inject themselves in a safe environment, with medical professionals on hand; they provide clean syringes and stock overdose-reversing medications, as well as a place to ‘hang out’ while the high wears off.

Liz Evans has been involved with harm reduction for over two decades. Currently the executive director of NYHRE, she was a co-founder of Insite, a site in Vancouver, Canada, established in 2003 – the first safe injection site in North America. Between 2003 and 2017, three million people injected there.

“[Insite] quickly became so much more than just an injection site,” said Evans. “No one ever died there. Millions of injections have happened there, so for one thing, no one ever dies at an injection site, ever, because there’s staff to make sure you don’t, which is huge.”

According to Evans, these sites are meant to protect those dependent on drugs, while also increasing general public safety in high-risk areas. Research does seem to indicate that they’re doing just that – but there are some who think that the research itself is flawed.

“Many [studies] fail to use an actual control group. They don’t compare the results of safe injection sites to other solutions,” said Alex Titus, a public interest fellow based in Washington, D.C. “The research is sloppy.”

Naloxone, a drug on hand at clinics used to administer in cases of opioid overdose. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

A significant blow to the safe-injection site discussion came in August, when a major study in the field was retracted. Another analysis, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, found that the sites have no significant effect on overdose deaths and only a small effect on crime reduction, and found only eight studies that were “rigorous and transparent.”

Magdalena Cerda, DrPH, the Director of the Center on Opioid Epidemiology and Policy at New York University, points out that the research on safe injection sites is mostly preliminary and comes from out of the country, especially from Canada and Australia, where such sites are legal.

Even if safe injection sites can overcome the research-based hurdles they face, they still have to counter legal challenges. In many cities, they are on the brink of reality,  including a mock site in San Francisco and an attempted start up in Philadelphia that is currently being challenged by the federal government. Evans thinks that the future of safe injection sites depends on that case.

“The mayor isn’t going to move on it until the governor says it’s okay, and now that there’s this legal case that’s just come up in Philadelphia, I don’t think anyone is going to do anything about it until they hear what the outcome of that case is,” she explained.

The Philadelphia site is being challenged as violating the “Crackhouse Statute,” a law which makes it a felony to “knowingly open, lease, rent, use, or maintain any place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, or using any controlled substance.”

Despite these restrictions, there is at least one site operating illegally in an undisclosed location somewhere in the country.

“In about 2013 or 2014, an organization in the United States who provided services to people who use drugs was struggling with the fact that a lot of their service-users were dying of overdose, and they didn’t want to wait,” said Davidson. “They just opened one.”

Davidson performed a research study there, along with Alex Kral, Ph.D., an infectious disease epidemiologist at RTI Health Solutions. The study showed him that safe injection sites are a valid response to the crisis.

“It can be fairly difficult to study something that’s so underground, our research to date has basically said that this facility has saved multiple lives, and doesn’t seem to be having any negative impact on the surrounding community,” he said.

Titus seemed less convinced.

“These sites lead to drug normalization, which is exactly what we’ve been trying to fight,” said Titus. “Advocates claim such sites save lives. Sure, you’re saving that individual that single time they overdose, while continuing to allow them to be slaves to the drug.”

“People are going to shoot up wherever they’re going to shoot up,” said Evans. “That’s a given. This is a response to something that’s already happening.”

Davidson argues that the sites are especially useful when it comes to helping users get into treatment, which can break the cycle of addiction.

Davidson says that while the sites are backed by research, it almost doesn’t matter how effective these sites are – they are always a better option than the alternative.

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Hillary Clinton is said to be contemplating another presidential run in 2020. But young women, who were a majority of her voters in 2016, are not sure if they will support her.

“She will lose again,” said Mia Flanagan, 18, who said that she had seen the news about the potential run on Twitter and had hoped it was fake. “She will obviously lose again.”  

If Clinton does decide to run, 2020 would be her third presidential bid. In 2008, she campaigned against Barack Obama, losing in the primaries. In 2016, she lost in the general election to Donald Trump, despite winning the popular vote, following a campaign marred by scandals.

Many of the women spoken to said that they thought a stronger Democratic candidate would be needed in the 2020 election. It is expected that President Donald Trump will run for re-election in 2020, especially following a pledge of support from the Republican National Committee. As of now, there are no other obvious Republican candidates.

“It’ll be the same chase [as 2016] again, where we had decent candidates up against Hillary,” said Rosa Miranda, 21. “She came through – and she was not my favorite – and she came up against Trump, and Trump got her. I’d rather her not run.”

There was also a concern that Clinton would have enough support to win the primary, against candidates such as Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Elizabeth Warren, but that she would again lose in the general election.

“I think if Hillary runs again, none of those other Democrats are going to be able to stand a chance,” said Miranda. “I don’t know why she keeps winning [primaries], but she’s going to, and then the Republicans are going to win again.”

Flanagan thought the opposite – that Clinton would lose in the primaries, leaving the field wide-open for another Democratic candidate.

“She’ll lose again,” said Flanagan. “Judging by her opponents in the first election and the way that all went down, it doesn’t look good for her, especially with everyone else running.”

Despite her reservations about Clinton, Flanagan was also hesitant to support any other Democratic candidate, as was her friend Maddie Janz, 18.

“I’ve heard some weird stuff about [Kamala Harris],” said Flanagan. “When she first came out about her candidacy I was like ‘Oh, this is great.’ And then I was like ‘Oh, her policies…’” Harris has caught some pushback for her record as a prosecutor, with some saying that her history doesn’t match her persona as a progressive candidate.

Janz hoped that others, including Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden, who are expected to announce 2020 campaigns, wouldn’t run.

“That’s not happening,” said Janz, about the possibility of Biden running. “I won’t allow it. Please don’t.”

While they were hesitant about the other candidates, both Flanagan and Janz said that they would rather support them than Clinton.

“I just can’t believe that she’s willing to put herself through that again,” said Janz. “I don’t think she should run.”

Ramirez agreed. “I would rather her not run.”

The post Not a lot of youthful excitement for a redo of Clinton for president appeared first on Pavement Pieces.

For many students, after-school theatre club is a place of refuge. They become stage managers and costume designers; they are lead actresses and featured dancers. It’s an activity that lets them relieve stress, form friendships, and can lead to better grades.

But thousands of students across New York State don’t have access to these opportunities. Their schools don’t even have art classrooms, let alone space for a theatre. Budgets can barely cover classroom supplies – costuming and staging a production is out of the question. While arts funding is actually slightly increasing, a lot of New York City students won’t see any changes.

“I constantly bemoan the state of arts in the schools,” said Judy Tate, a professor at New York University. “For as long as I’ve been in arts education, I feel like the resources have been shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.”

Tate is a teaching artist who works with Manhattan Theatre Club. It’s one of many organizations that works to make sure that students across the city get the opportunity to study and practice theatre.

With the help of these organizations, students from schools across the city get the chance to go backstage at best-selling Broadway shows, learn from professional actors, and bring theatre into the classroom.

A Neighborhood-Specific Crisis

While arts funding is slowly improving, the majority of schools are still at a disadvantage, especially in lower-income neighborhoods.

“People want to come to school when they’re going to stay for the after-school drama club, or when they’re going to play music,” said Tate. “Arts is one of the things that helps people stay in school, and that people in charge don’t recognize that – it’s really disheartening.”

While the amount of hours mandated varies based on grade, the state requires that students spend between 93 hours and 186 hours per academic year on arts education, taught by a certified arts teacher. High school students must complete a certain amount of arts education hours to graduate – at least on paper.

But according to a 2014 report released by the office of the city comptroller, 28 percent of schools in New York City do not have a full-time certified arts teacher, while an additional 20 percent of schools have neither a full- nor part-time certified arts teacher. More than 42 percent of schools without these teachers are located in the South Bronx and Central Brooklyn, despite these neighborhoods only having 31 percent of all NYC schools.

The above charts, taken from the NYC Department of Education, show median household income compared to the amount of arts teachers in the districts. Right: schools with no part-time or full-time certified arts teacher, focusing on the South Bronx. Left: schools with no full-time certified arts teacher, focusing on Central Brooklyn.

“There are instances, significant instances, of inequity, studies showing there’s a kind of correlation between high poverty areas and low arts in schools,” said David Shookhoff, Director of Education at Manhattan Theatre Club,. “There are problems, and we’re trying to adjust those problems.”

Filling the Gap

In the neighborhoods where these gaps exist, there’s no theaters or concert halls, not even off-off-off-Broadway spaces. There’s hardly any museums, and no art galleries. Instead, streets are lined with fast food restaurants, convenience stores and small businesses. As a result, many students don’t even have the chance to consider a career in the arts, let alone work towards one.

That deficit can be seen at The Academy of Applied Mathematics and Technology, or MS-343. Located in the Bronx, it’s among the schools that have no full- or part-time arts teachers, and while it’s highly ranked, according to the city’s Department of Education’s performance dashboard, it is located in one of the poorest Congressional districts in the country. In 2011, they were approached by Damian Bazadona, founder of the Situation Project.

“The school was missing something critical,” said Bazadona, “access to the extraordinary arts and cultural offerings of their city.”

Bazadona worked with MS-343 principal to secure 300 tickets to the then-running Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark. According to Bazadona, it was the first time many students had been on a field trip, let alone seen a Broadway show.

“Knowing what theatre meant to me as a young person, I think we have a responsibility to share our work with as many young people as we can,” said Seth Greenleaf, a producer at The Play That Goes Wrong, which the Situation Project recently brought students to. “Especially those without the means to attend on their own.”

The program has grown to include employee shadowing, artist talkbacks, on-site education seminars, and multiple shows. By the time a student whose school is involved with the Situation Project has graduated middle school, they’ve seen half a dozen shows.

“The biggest benefit our students have had is the opportunity to expand their cultural lens while also being given the chance to appreciate the arts,” said Tania Sanchez, an assistant principal at PS/MS 278, via an email with Bazadona. “Students have also made a personal and real connection to the performing arts especially through the opportunities to meet the cast and ask questions.”

The Situation Program can’t bring the arts directly into the classroom, but it makes sure that students at least have the chance to experience live theatre, and see the potential career paths ahead of them.

Meanwhile, Manhattan Theatre Club gives students a chance to write their own plays and see them staged by professional actors. MTC’s teaching artists also work alongside classroom teachers, blending theatre education with the existing curriculum.

In the past year, MTC has gone into 50 schools, working alongside 83 classroom teachers and impacting the lives of nearly 3,000 students.

“The work is designed as a collaboration between classroom artists and classroom teachers,” said Shookhoff. “Ideally, and i think in most cases in reality, the teacher and the teaching artist plan the work that’s going to take place in the classrooms, and collaborate in the classroom, and the expectation is that the classroom teacher is going to carry the work forward.”

The classroom work can include anything from learning about and preparing to see a play, learning how to write and stage plays of their own, and having the chance to see their work performed by professional actors. While MTC offers multiple programs, they all have a similar mission: ensuring that students across the city get a chance at a quality arts education.

“The idea is to bring [students] in contact with the power of live theatre, as a way to help them understand themselves and the world,” said Shookhoff. “What we’re doing is filling a gap. We’re making up a deficit.”  

Arts Leading to Increased Outcomes

Arts education leads to increased outcomes – but not just in academic terms. Students who are exposed to arts are more likely to go to college, to be civically engaged, and be better off socially.

“The crazy thing is, if you put [resources] into the arts, kids will tend to stay in school,” said Tate, who went on to explain that she has seen students become interested in, and eventually go to, colleges due to the increased opportunities for theatre there.

Bazadona said that in addition to seeing an increase in students wanting to go to college, many of them were specifically looking at performing arts schools.

“Before Situation Project, the number of kids in our founding school [MS-343] who applied to performing arts schools was about zero to two, out of a class of 100,” he said. “By the time the first Situation Project class was ready to graduate, 16 students had applied.”

Students involved with the Situation Project attended a performance of The Play That Goes Wrong. Photo courtesy of the Situation Project.

Both organizations agreed that while they don’t exist deliberately to lead students into theatrical careers, letting them see the potential careers that lie ahead of them is always a benefit.

“Our mission is not audience development, or talent development, per se,” said Shookhoff. “It’s about expressing aspects of humanity. That’s what we want our students to do, by coming to see our plays and preparing to see the plays. The plays that we ask them to write ultimately are ways for them to express what’s on their minds and in their hearts.”

Shookhoff explained that it’s also easy to see the changes in students in just a few weeks, both as they write their own plays and see live shows performed.

“The kids are excited about what they see and what they’ve done,” he said. “When the lights go down at the end of the play, there’s a palpable enthusiasm in the audience. They really dig the work, and connect with it. It becomes, in some cases, an almost rock-concert sort of enthusiasm.”

Always Hoping to be of Use

While arts education is still almost nonexistent in some parts of New York, there are indications that it’s getting better. This year, the National Endowment for the Arts, which President Donald Trump has frequently threatened to cut, actually saw an increase in its funding. City mayor Bill de Blasio has increased the amount of funding that goes towards arts education.

“The trend is positive,” said Shookhoff. “There’s been an effort to rectify a deficit situation. The hole is so deep that it certainly hasn’t been completely filled, but they’re trying.”

The increases will inevitably help students across the city. However, even if the situation continues to improve, these organizations still hope to be involved in bringing theatre to students.

“Even if all the schools were in  compliance with state mandates for art education, which they’re not, there would still be a role for organizations like MTC,” said Shookhoff. “We are the professionals, if you will. No matter how great your theatre program is, without the existence of Manhattan Theatre Club, you’re not going to see world class productions of plays by August Wilson or Sam Shephard. We’re always, all of the organizations, a value add.”

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Candidate signs are clumped together by buildings and near parking lots. Stickers for candidates are plastered on phone booths and newspapers stands in the Memorial Student Union, and flyers for candidates hang on public bulletin boards.

But despite the Election Day buzz, students at this historically black university have already had to jump through hoops to even be allowed to vote in the predominantly white Waller County.

“This might be the biggest election during our lifetime,” said Jayla Allen, a student at Prairie View and the elected precinct chair of precinct 309, where Prairie View is located. “Prairie View A&M University and the county of Waller have always had tension, we’ve always had problems with voting rights.”  

Allen is one of five students involved in a federal lawsuit against Waller County, where Prairie View is located. The lawsuit, which was filed on the students’ behalf by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, alleged voter suppression due to the lack of early voting opportunities for students on campus.

“When you look at turnout rates, students voting at Prairie View have one of the highest turnout rates,” said John Cusick, a legal fellow with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “Just looking at the sheer number [of voters] alone, there’s no justification for the unequal distribution of early voting days.”

During the first week of early voting, there was no polling site available in the city of Prairie View or on PVAMU’s campus. In the second week, the city was granted five days of early voting, but two of those days were off-campus and inaccessible to most students, who lack transportation. These polling sites also offer less hours than polling sites in Waller, with no extended hours.

“Currently, students get no days in week one, and only three in week two, where’s Brookshire, Hempstead, and Waller, none of which has a population as large as the student body, get polling stations for the entire 11-day early voting period,” said Lisa Seger, Democratic candidate for Texas House District 3. Her opponent, three-term incumbent  Cecil Bell, did not respond to requests for comment. “Any barriers to voting are disenfranchising, even when the vote is not literally being taken away.”

Lisa Seger is the Democratic candidate for Texas House District 3. Photo courtesy of Lisa Seger campaign.

The lack of early voting access was not the only problems that students faced this year. PVAMU does not provide individual student mailing addresses. Students were given two addresses to list on their voter registrations. But one address was in a different precinct, meaning that student voters going to what they believed was their assigned polling place would be turned away. Other students found that their registrations were incorrect.

Tayelor Stevenson-Murphy, a senior education major, was one student whose registration was affected. She had registered in Waller County and kept the receipt from her registration. During the early voting period, she was driven to the off-campus polling station by volunteer Charlene Shafer, who lives in Houston.

Upon arriving at the polling place, Stevenson-Murphy was almost kept from voting, because her registration was still listed as being in a different county. She was offered the opportunity to vote on a provisional or limited ballot, both of which presented drawbacks.

“Provisional ballots, they usually end up in the trash. They don’t count, because you have to have so many days to prove why you should be allowed to vote,” said Shafer.

According to NPR, many provisional ballots do not count in the end, due to the problems that can arise.

Shafer said that she had never heard of a limited ballot before, and was told that it would mean that Stevenson-Murphy would be able to vote for state and national offices, but not the local offices, since the rolls said she was still registered in Harris County.

“I live here,” said Stevenson-Murphy. “This is my home away from home. Most of the time I’m here, I go to school here, I don’t really go home too often. So what’s going to affect my day-to-day life is what happens locally.”  

Shafer eventually reached out to Jacob Aronowitz, a field director for the campaign of Mike Siegel, candidate for Representative for the 10th Congressional District of Texas. Aronowitz passed on information to the two of them, saying that since Stevenson-Murphy had her receipt, they had to let her vote.

“When [Charlene] said that, because I have my receipt, they have to let me vote a regular ballot, the woman working asked ‘Who told you that?’” said Murphy-Stevenson. “It made me believe that she knew that all along, and just didn’t want me to vote regularly.”

Election officials from Waller County could not be reached to comment on the situation, or on voting in general. The office did make a statement to the Texas Tribune, saying that the county will be “vigorously opposing allegations of voter disenfranchisement” and that the lack of early voting sites was due to the county’s limited resources.

Stevenson-Murphy was able to vote regularly, though she expressed concern for other students who had also registered in the county, but had not kept their receipts and might face issues during the remainder of the voting period.

“If my registration was messed up, I wonder how many other people’s registrations are messed up,” she said. “A lot of people registered the day that I registered, so I feel like a lot of people’s registration statuses could have been affected.”

Signs promoting local candidates at Prairie View A&M University in Texas. Photo by Kerry Breen.

Candidates in the election are also concerned about the voting abilities of students at PVAMU.

“It is 2018,” said Lupe Valdez, Democratic candidate for governor. “When an HBCU is treated as a clear target for voter suppression, we must call it for what it is. Prairie View A&M is the largest institute of higher learning in Waller County, and the historic and repeated attempts to disenfranchise the voting rights of its student body remain an ongoing injustice.”

Valdez’s opponent, current governor Greg Abbott, did not respond to requests for comment.

Students at PVAMU expressed disappointment that voting in the county always seems to come with problems.

“It’s always something, when it comes down to elections,” said Asia Joubert, a junior nursing major at PVAMU. “There is always an issue; there’s always a struggle.”

A HISTORY OF COMPLICATIONS

This is not the first year that Prairie View students have had difficulty voting in elections. The history of voting complications goes as far back as 1972, when students were told that they could not vote in the presidential election because they were not legal residents of Waller County. Efforts to keep students from voting included propertyownership requirements and residency questionnaires.

Local elected officials and students worked to bring a lawsuit against Waller County, which was resolved in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1979.

“That set a precedent, where any college student could declare their place of residence,” said Frank Jackson, the Assistant Vice Chancellor for State Relations in the Texas A&M University system, which PVAMU is a part of, and the former mayor of Prairie View. “It granted that right to all students. That’s where it started.”

Having worked at PVAMU for 36 years now, Jackson has seen multiple other issues arise at the University during almost every election during his tenure.

In 1992, 19 residents of Waller County, including 15 PVAMU students, were indicted for voter fraud. However, it was found that the campus had been gerrymandered so severely that when students moved across the street, they were placed in a different voting district and causing confusion. It took intervention from the United States Department of Justice to get the county to drop the charges.

“It’s easier to manipulate voting on a college campus,” said Jen Ramos, communications director and national commiteewoman for the Young Democrats of America. “Students move around dorms, there’s confusion about addresses and moving. It’s a perfect storm of voter suppression. It’s understandable, but it’s not right by any means.”

In 2004, the students were again challenged by the county’s district attorney, Oliver Kitzman. According to the Houston Chronicle, a Prairie View student announced that he intended to run for County Commissioner’s Court, and the D.A. declared that he would bring charges against any student who did not meet his personal definition of legal voting residence. An injunction was filed, but election officials then reduced the early voting period to a six-hour period on one day during PVAMU’s spring break. An emergency lawsuit was filed and normal early voting hours were restored.

In 2007, affecting the 2008 election, new requirements, seen as arbitrary and unnecessary, were placed on newly-registering voters, and many registrations, many of which belonged to PVAMU students, were rejected since they did not meet these requirements. Again, the U.S. Department of Justice was forced to intervene.

“They didn’t want the kids voting here in the local elections,” said Jackson. “The students had to protest again, to fight for the rights of students to participate in this election process.”

In 2013, the president of the student government association requested an on-campus ballot box, a request that was granted. However, prior to the 2016 election, there was again a problem with the lack of on-campus early voting polling stations. This controversy, which emerged just five months after the death of PVAMU graduate Sandra Bland, was again seen as an attempt to disenfranchise students on campus.

Sandra Bland , 28, a Prairie View A&M University  alumni, was found dead in a jail cell in Waller County three days after being arrested during a traffic stop. Her controversial  death was ruled a suicide. Photo courtesy of Common Dreams.

“It’s amazing that it’s 2018, and we’re still dealing with the same things that we were dealing with in 1979,” said Shafer. “It’s really sad.”

 Several people believe that the history of voting problems stems from the campus’s demographics. The campus currently has about 7,000 students, and is a predominantly black student body. The entire population of Waller County, as of 2010, is 43,205, and is predominantly white.

“Even though we’ve made progress, as a nation and as a state, we’re still dealing with vestiges of the past,” said Jackson. “It’s amazing how African American communities still have to deal with this stuff, even as we try to move forward into the new millennium. We just want our students, whether they’re African American, Hispanic, Asian, or white, to have equal rights to everybody else.”

Students of Prairie View A&M University, a historical black college in Texas. Photo courtesy of pvam.edu

MOVING FORWARD

While a solution has been reached for this year’s election, those involved at Prairie View are not optimistic about the future of voting on campus.

“We’ve had this fight every year,” said Shafer. “I don’t know what it takes to actually make the change. I guess every year they’ll fight it and maybe they’ll open the door a little wider. I feel sure they’ll fight this again next time. Every time there’s an election, there’s another road block.”

While there has been an increase in voting engagement among students, experts say that that increase means nothing if students don’t have access to the polls.

“It’s not a secret that we’ve had record-breaking turnout in Texas this election, particularly for young people and students,” said Zenén Jaimes Pérez, communications director of the Texas Civil Rights Project. “If we want more people to turn out to vote, particularly young people, we need to make it easy and accessible for them to do so, and not having an on-campus polling location [for the first week of early voting] doesn’t make sense.”

Stevenson-Murphy said that she thought that if voting were more accessible to students, there would continue to be higher rates of engagement among youth voters.

“To actually get [students] to vote is a struggle,” she said. “If you add on the hiccups that we have, it’s kind of like, ‘Forget about it.’”

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Hours before Judge Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court today, about 200 protesters gathered outside of Washington Square Park and mourned the battle they knew was lost, but pleaded with New Yorkers to vote in the upcoming midterms.

“This is a hot mess time,” said the Reverend Doctor Jacqui Lewis, a senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village. “Never, never have I experienced this.”

Lewis said that while the current situation looked bleak, Americans have been here before, and know that voting is the only answer.

“We know what to do,” she said. “We know how to pray with our feet. We know how to withhold our vote from all the folks who are taking money from the NRA, who are putting our children in cages, all the folks who believe in incarcerating (f0r) weed, for God’s sakes. Pay attention, let’s vote, and do not let your hearts be troubled. Instead, turn your rage into action.”

Women protestors spoke emotionally, sometimes shouting through tears, speaking to the crowd through a megaphone. Dozens held signs protesting Kavanaugh and the current administration, and a few led chants which included “Believe the women,” and “Find another nominee.” Others shared their own stories of assault and trauma, and were comforted and cheered on by the crowd.

Several speakers implored those in the crowd to vote and proactively support candidates in the upcoming midterm elections by canvassing and campaigning.

“The best thing for your mental health right now is proactive coping,” said psychologist Victoria Barry, who holds an elected seat on the Democratic County Committee. “I think voting is the most powerful and immediate way we have to change the course of the country in a very fundamental way. Not nearly enough people do it. It’s the only way we have to fight back legislatively, as people who are not government officials.”

In the 2016 election, only approximately 55 percent of eligible citizens voted, marking a 20-year low, according to CNN. In that election, New York ranked 41st in the nation for turnout, and in the last midterm election, statewide turnout was only 34 percent, according to The Atlantic. In the 2017 mayoral primary, just 12 percent of eligible voters in New York City voted.

Barry also encouraged protestors to do more than just vote, particularly highlighting buses organized by ActBlue, which travel from New York City to canvass throughout the rest of the state.

Protesters included images of Brett Kavanaugh during his testimony on their signs during today’s Washington Square Park protest. Photo by Kerry Breen.

Others at the protest passed out voter registration forms. Another speaker, Sarah O’Neill, spoke about the organization Postcards to Voters, which sends hundreds of thousands of handwritten postcards across the country, encouraging recipients to vote for specific, usually progressive, candidates.

Lewis, who has attended and been arrested at protests in Washington, D.C., added that voting is one of the most important steps New Yorkers could take in the upcoming elections, and said that people will be able to register to vote outside of the Middle Collegiate Church every Sunday until the election.

“What I want to say to New Yorkers is, if you haven’t registered to vote by now, run,” she said. “Run to the computer where you can do it easily. We only have until October 12th to do it. Two, to read, and educate ourselves on where the races are close. Find the news source that works for you. Pay attention to the races that are close, and send your money to the candidates that stand for what you believe. Find your issue and stay with it. Vote for the common good. Vote, vote, vote.”

Several people at the rally, including those involved with local grassroots organizations, agreed that they had seen an increase in engagement from the general public since the 2016 election, even among themselves.

“I hadn’t been paying attention to who was my state senator, to who was my state assemblyman, until the 2016 election,” said Allison Mingus, who serves on the executive committee of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats. “I think more people are motivated now, more than ever, to get involved at a local level, and that’s what changes things.”

Allison Mingus and Ben Theodore, members of the executive committee of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, came to the Washington Square Park protest to support Christine Blakey-Ford. Photo by Kerry Breen.

Ben Theodore said more people seem to want to work on get out the vote efforts.

“For this past September primary, the number of people who would walk through the door and say “I have never canvassed before, I haven’t canvassed in 30 years, but I’m showing up now” – that is the sign of this is it, that it is hopefully going to be different this time,” said Theodore, who serves on the same committee as Mingus.

Gus Christensen, the Chief Strategist of NO IDC NY, a grassroots organization working to flip the New York State Senate from Republican to Democratic, said the placement of Kavanaugh on the court made it all the more critical for progressive Democrats to take control of the New York State Senate, so that critical legislature covering reproductive health and non-discriminatory measures can be passed.

“The elevation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court presents a clear and present danger to Roe vs. Wade, and to the rights of women, of LGBT Americans, of immigrants and people of color.”

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As the MTA works to repair damage done to the New York City subway system, city residents wonder how they can trust an organization known for delayed trains, behind-schedule projects, and patchwork repair jobs.

“The real question for here is not what they’re doing now to improve infrastructure that’s been long neglected,” said Daniel Nauxe, a small-business owner who lives on 11th Street and Avenue A. “The real question is, where is this going to be in five years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years? This is not far-thinking. This is Band-aid thinking.”

In July 2018, it was reported  that just over 65 percent of weekday subway trains were arriving at stations on time. These trains, ridden by over five and a half million commuters on weekdays, were regularly delayed by mechanical problems and “major incidents,” which are issues that delay 50 or more trains, according to the MTA.

Andy Byford, President of the New York City Transit Authority, who has worked in transit organizations in England, Australia, and Canada, presented an ambitious plan to overhaul the subway system in May 2018. The plan, which focused on making major upgrades and speeding up the rollout of the signal system, would cost nearly $37 billion, according to Business Insider, and would require stations to close on nights and weekends for up to two and half years.

The plan, called ‘Fast Forward,’ is currently on hold, due to political clashes between New York City and New York State. Mayor Bill de Blaiso suggested that the state of New York was ultimately responsible for the state of the MTA and indicated that he would not be interested in funding it, according to the New York Times. In July, Governor Andrew Cuomo suggested that the city and state each pay for half of the repairs. No agreement has been reached to fund the plan; in the meantime, the MTA has been implementing an $800 million rescue plan designed to improve subway service in the immediate term. One part of this plan is the shutdown of the L-Train between Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, which will allow the MTA to make necessary repairs to the Canarsie Tunnel.

While the MTA and Department of Transportation have been preparing for the L-Trian shutdown since 2016, New Yorkers are worried about the effects it will have on their commutes and neighborhoods. Supplemental buses will run through Lower Manhattan, and commuters will also be encouraged to bicycle to work. Multiple new bike lanes have been installed on 12th and 13th Street; the CitiBike program has also been expanded. The MTA has stated that these bus lanes and bike routes are temporary, but residents of Lower Manhattan are concerned they may be permanent.

“Everything they’re doing, they want to make permanent,” said Ken Ettinger, who lives on 13th Street. “Although they don’t say that, that’s not what they say, they’ll never undo it. They’re making the changes that they want because they want them, not because there’s any reason to make the changes.”

While Byford called some parts of the project “legacy items” that will remain after the repairs are completed, the items he listed included subway trains with more cars attached and larger and more accessible subway stations, making no mention of the bus routes or lanes. He also said that while the L-Train is being repaired, the stations it stops at will also be altered so that they will be more effective in the future.

Ettinger also pointed out that while the tunnel repairs are not supposed to begin until April 2019, he had seen construction already beginning, more than six months before the project was supposed to start.

“We are starting some of the work right now, and the reason for that is, we have a construction season and we need to get some of the work done on the surface streets before the weather turns cold and the snow starts falling,” said Polly Trottenberg, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation.

Commuters are also expected to have no weekend service on the L line for 15 weeks before the line is shut down in April so the MTA can complete necessary maintenance work and track improvements. However, the project timeline has been shortened from an initial estimate of 18 months, after contractor Judlau Construction Corp. promised to get the job done in 15 months.

However, the contractor has had problems with the subway system before, finishing work on the Second Avenue Subway several months behind schedule, and has been repeatedly behind on work deadlines for Cortlandt Station, which only reopened earlier this month.

“If we don’t take action, the tunnel will end up closing anyway, because it wouldn’t be safe,” said Byford. “We need to get on with [the repairs], and make this tunnel good for future generations, and to make resilient. The program dates are 15 months long, and the contractor is heavily incentivized to do it quicker than that, and equally, heavily penalized, by the day, if they don’t meet that target.”

Smaller repairs are also a problem for the MTA. As of 2017, more than half of the subway’s signal replacement projects were delayed, according to NY1. Other plans for repairs, including renovations to eight subway stations, were delayed due to another dispute between the State of New York and New York City over funding.

“New York City has an amazing subway system that has suffered from decades of underinvestment in new subway cars, failure to modernize the signal system, and the need to upgrade the stations and track,” said Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management. “The challenge NYC faces is that we cannot start all over. The city has 8.6 million people and most live in proximity to transportation systems.”

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