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[Giuliani still has time between attending funerals of firemen who died
because of his ineptitude and taking bows as a "hero" to do what he does
best - have innocent people arrested. Good to know we are back to "normal"
in NYC http://baltech.org/lederman/ ]
NY Times
Subject: Trumping Charity
> December 20, 2001
>
> Trumping Charity
> By BOB HERBERT
>
>
> The Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church is on the northwest corner of Fifth
> Avenue and 55th Street, just north of Rockefeller Center. It's in the
heart
> of a neighborhood that is saturated with money.
>
> The St. Regis Hotel is on the southeast corner. On the ground floor of the
> St. Regis is a Godiva chocolatier and a Louis Vuitton showroom. If you're
> contemplating a cruise, you should drop by Louis Vuitton. You can pick up
an
> exquisite handmade Damier trunk for a shade over $10,000. Grab some
> chocolates at Godiva on the way back to your limousine.
>
> There are princesses and pink Christmas trees to delight the shoppers in
the
> Disney Store on the northeast corner. And on the southwest corner is the
> Peninsula Hotel, where you can kick back and blow $400 or $500 on room
> service in a suite that, since Sept. 11, can be had for the bargain rate
of
> $1,390 a night.
>
> It's a nice neighborhood. And everything would be swell if the Fifth
Avenue
> Presbyterian Church could only manage to take its Christian charity
mandates
> a little less seriously. You see, the church has been allowing homeless
> people to sleep on its property.
>
> They sleep on the steps and on the ground adjacent to the church — 20 or
30
> of them spending the night in cardboard boxes and other makeshift
shelters.
> The church makes bathrooms available to them and allows them to come in
and
> warm up in the morning, before they take off for the day.
>
> This may sound like just the sort of thing President Bush had in mind when
> he suggested that faith-based organizations fill some of society's social
> service needs. But the thing you have to remember about the homeless, if
you
> want to look at this from, say, the point of view of the Giuliani
> administration, is that they are unsightly. You can't have a couple of
dozen
> people in threadbare clothes sleeping right out there where rich people
can
> see them. Some of them were snoring away just a few yards from the
> double-parked limousines.
>
> So the city sicced the cops on them.
>
> At least three times this month the police have raided the area and forced
> the homeless, under threat of arrest, to go elsewhere. The most obnoxious
> raid came on the night of Dec. 11. Margaret Shafer, director of the
church's
> outreach program, said five police cars and three vans arrived at the
church
> about midnight and police officers chased away most of the sleepers,
leaving
> only those who had taken refuge on the church steps and under an archway.
>
> "Then," said Ms. Shafer, "about every hour for the rest of the night they
> came up to the people they had left in place and they beat on the boxes
with
> billy clubs and woke them up and asked them how their health was. It was
not
> the police's finest hour."
>
> In fairness to the individual police officers, they did not seem happy
with
> this duty. Ms. Shafer said the church generally has very good relations
with
> the police. And a couple of the cops I spoke with at the church this week
> made it clear that harassing the homeless was not their idea of
appropriate
> police work.
>
> "The orders came from on high," said one officer.
>
> When I asked another officer to explain the crackdown, he pointed toward
the
> Fifth Avenue street sign. "They think it's bad for the area's image," he
> said.
>
> The homeless have been sleeping outside the church, with the blessings of
> its congregation, for about two years. The police were generally tolerant.
> But Ms. Shafer noted that church officials had been asked to clear the
area
> a few nights in late November and early December because dignitaries were
> staying in nearby hotels. She said officers on the beat told her one of
the
> dignitaries was Vice President Dick Cheney.
>
> Church officials complied, asking the homeless to stay away on those
> particular nights. When the homeless returned, the crackdown came.
>
> Yesterday a federal judge issued a temporary ruling barring the police
from
> taking additional action against the homeless at the church. The matter
will
> be argued further in court.
>
> But the ultimate issue remains. Where is the city's heart? Why, in hard
> times, is the Giuliani administration pursuing this particularly
> mean-spirited case?
>
> Well, it's a tough time for business, too. Ten-thousand-dollar Damier
trunks
> are not exactly hopping off the shelves. And when the crunch comes,
commerce
> almost always trumps charity, Christian or otherwise.
>
> Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information
> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/20/opinion/20HERB.html
LAME-DUCK MAYOR LETS HIS COLD HEART RULE AGAIN
By DOUGLAS MONTERO
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
December 20, 2001 -- HAS the "dark side" of Mayor Giuliani, hidden since the
Sept. 11 terror attacks, re-emerged just as he's leaving office?
Leo Sacks, a parishioner at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, thinks so.
While he continues to admire Giuliani's leadership of the city's fight
against terror, he can't understand the city's new war on the homeless.
The first shot was fired by the NYPD three weeks ago, when it first told the
church to limit the hours homeless could sleep on the steps and along the
outside wall of its pricey real estate at 55th Street and Fifth Avenue. It
escalated into a demand to get rid of them altogether.
Yesterday, the city lost a round when federal Judge Lawrence McKenna granted
a temporary restraining order, sought by the church, barring cops from
rousting the sleepers.
"There is no reason to consider homeless people sleeping a public nuisance,"
the judge said.
Sacks agrees wholeheartedly.
"For all of his grace under fire since September, this is the darker side of
the Giuliani legacy," he said.
"There is something very noble and Christian about caring for another human
being and that's what people in this community are trying to do."
In court, the city accused the church of operating the "world's worst
homeless center."
"I'm not suggesting their heart is in the wrong place . . . but there are
rules and there are laws," said city lawyer Daniel Connolly, insisting
public-nuisance laws are being violated.
But McKenna said the round-ups would "impinge" on the church's First
Amendment rights and cause irreparable harm to its ministry.
Besides, said the judge, the city has allowed the homeless to sleep on the
steps for two years.
The trouble began when cops, "under pressure from City Hall," asked the
church to relocate the homeless for one night because Vice President Dick
Cheney was staying at the nearby St. Regis Hotel, said Margaret Shafer, who
runs the shelter.
The cops called back the next day, mentioned that Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon was in town, and said the church should toss the homeless for
three more nights, said Joe Vadella, another shelter worker.
Then the cops wanted the church to keep the homeless from setting up their
cardboard tents until 9 p.m., three hours later than they usually do.
The church, which has a permit to accommodate only 10 homeless people
indoors, complied with all the requests, but filed its lawsuit Monday after
cops began strong-arming the homeless off church property.
The homeless mess would be a non-issue if the church were located on another
Fifth Avenue - like the one in Brooklyn's Sunset Park.
But seeing the other side of life can provide a good lesson for the rich,
particularly at Christmas.
As Shafer put it: "We insist on providing this service because we have a
right and obligation to help the city remember that we have homeless
people."
Additional reporting by Dareh Gregorian
>
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