Author: tourist_yp6g7u

Brig. General Enoch Woody Woodhouse, Jr., 96, one of the last members of the all-Black World War II fighter pilot unit known as the Tuskegee Airmen, was honored with an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Norwich University during their 2023 Commencement Ceremony. The ceremony was held on April 29 in Northfield, Vt.

Norwich University is the oldest private military university in the U.S., is the birthplace of the ROTC, and is the Alma Mater of Harold “Doc” Martin – the founder of the Tuskegee Institute and Tuskegee Airman.

The post 96-year-old Tuskegee Airman receives honorary doctorate degree appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

This article was originally published on Apr 26 8:42pm EDT by THE CITY

Just three days after angering local politicians, activists, and residents by giving the green light to demolish the Manhattan Detention Complex in lower Manhattan as a first step toward erecting a new jail on its footprint, the Adams administration has quietly tapped the brakes, THE CITY has learned. 

The shift came after administration officials sprung the news, at an online meeting of Community Board 1’s Quality of Life Committee meeting last week, that it would proceed with a full demolition. 

Local activists and elected officials had been pushing instead for an “adaptive reuse” of the existing 15-story jail building.

Assemblywoman Grace Lee, state Senator Brian Kavanagh, and City Councilmember Christopher Marte, who all represent the area where the old jail is being taken down, joined the CB1 meeting on April 19 over Zoom to express their anger about what they said was a surprise decision by City Hall. 

The city Department of Design and Construction [DDC] “had promised that we would be receiving documentation to justify their decision,” said Lee. “We are incredibly disappointed that we are hearing that this demolition is going to move forward without another meeting with our community, without the documentation to support moving forward with the plan as is” to fully demolish the existing buildings.

But soon enough, administration officials conceded they’d made a mistake in moving ahead with the full demolition before consulting with local residents and elected officials.

On Friday afternoon, April 21, Marte, Lee, Kavanagh, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine and CB1 officials held a hastily arranged sit-down meeting with Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, officials from the DDC and the Department of Correction, and a representative from one of the firms contracted with managing the construction of four new jails, including the one planned for Manhattan, that are supposed to replace Rikers Island jails by 2027. That meeting lasted for a little more than an hour, according to Caitlin Kelmar, chief of staff for Councilmember Marte.

On Friday night, Kelmar said Joshi called Kavanagh to say the city had committed to a two-week pause on any action that could conflict with the adaptive reuse of the existing structure at 124 White Street ahead of another meeting at City Hall tentatively scheduled for this Friday. Kavanaugh shared that news with Lee and Marte, and all three then relayed it to their constituents.

This week, City Hall spokesperson Charles Lutvak declined to comment on the administration’s conversation with the elected officials. He also stressed the administration did not intend to change course, even with this pause. 

“As we have repeatedly said, attempting to create this jail within the existing structure could put the building at risk of collapse and irresponsibly risk the safety of community members and workers in the building,” Lutvak said in an email, noting that the administration had experts and engineers review renovation proposals and inspect the building itself. 

“While some people may be willing to accept these impediments, we will never be willing to compromise safety or throw away taxpayer funds. We have engaged with the community every step of the way, and we are committed to continuing to work with them to limit the disruption of this project and build a more humane facility,” Lutvak said.

Community Consternation

The plan for a new jail in lower Manhattan on the site of the current complex dates back to the $8.3 billion plan then-Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in 2018 to close Rikers and build a smaller jail in each borough (except Staten Island) by 2027. According to the Adams administration, the price tag for that plan has now increased to an estimated $10 billion. 

In the meantime, Manhattan activists and residents protested and sued to halt the demolition of the Manhattan Detention Complex and construction of a new jail in its place, noting that the area is already home to the Juvenile Justice center as well.

Howard Huie, 68, a resident and member of the board of directors at the nearby Chatham Towers co-op buildings, said that a two-week pause meant little to neighboring seniors like himself, noting that 25% of the population of Chinatown and the Lower East Side is over age 60, and that 29% of people there who are 65 and over live in poverty.

“For seniors like me throughout the neighborhood and residing at the Chung Pak Center, which is directly adjacent to the Manhattan Detention Complex, the last four years have been an emotional roller coaster,” Huie told THE CITY.

“The anxiety over what will become of our community if they end up demolishing the current jail is being felt by all of us, especially since the early work began in December. At our age, we are not able to pick up and move. I just don’t understand all the deliberation when there is a better solution ready and waiting that spares us from all the impacts demolition would bring.”

Jan Lee of the group Neighbors United Below Canal seconded those objections. 

“We’re in a unique position as a community to observe the building of jails that has always been preceded by smaller jails, that are successively built with larger jails every single time,” Lee told THE CITY on Monday. ”And that’s a commentary on incarceration itself. Other neighborhoods think about jails as a concept. We actually see them all around us.”

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article misstated the setting for the meeting between City Hall officials and local elected officials last Friday. That took place over Zoom, not as an in-person sit-down.

THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.

The post City hits pause on demolition of Manhattan Detention Center after outcry from locals appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

NEW YORK (AP) — When Smokey Robinson started dating his-now wife more than 20 years ago, she didn’t want people to know about it.

Robinson and Frances Glandney, who married in 2002, were part of a group of longtime pals and she knew they’d start gossipping about her and the legendary singer-songwriter.

“When we first started started seeing each other, she wanted to keep it on the down-low. She didn’t want anybody to know because we were friends. And then all our friends were going to be talking about us,” Robinson said.

Naturally, that became fodder for a song — “I Keep Calling.” Robinson has been holding onto it for years — complete with the lyrics “Simple things like touching in public/Private touches goin’ unseen” — until this month when it appears on his “Gasms” album, his first collection in almost a decade.

“Gasms” finds the 83-year-old in a frisky mood, with the Motown icon writing a collection for the bedroom, with yearning across its nine tracks. Just a few titles alone hint at that: “Beside You,” “I Wanna Know Your Body” and “How You Make Me Feel.”

“My thoughts on it is that you can put it on and be with the person that you want to be with and just kick back and enjoy each other,” he says. “It’s more of the idea of love.”

The album has a bit of old and new, with songs like “I Keep Calling You” and “Roll Around” written years ago melded with newer tunes. “They were all songs that fit that particular mood that I wanted to set,” he says.

He admits it’s his most blatantly sexy collection, and that jumps out with the title track, in which he tells his lover “You give me gasms” — eyegasms and eargasm. Another song, “I Fit in There,” has the lyrics, “If you’ve got an inner vacancy/Baby then make it a place for me.”

“I consider all the songs to be food for thought. You can take them wherever you want to take them,” he says. “Whatever your thought pattern is for any of those titles that’s really what I want them to be. I want them to be food for thought.”

Producer, engineer and mixer J.J. Blair, who has worked with June Carter Cash, Rod Stewart and P. Diddy, mixed half of Robinson’s new album and says a perfectionist streak came through.

“I’d make a mix for him and he’d drive around listening to it for two weeks, and he’d call me up and want to come to change two words,” says Blair. “It’s just so encouraging to see somebody of that stature and in that pantheon of greats really care still.”

Blair says the new material isn’t that far from what Robinson is known for, maybe just a little more R-rated. “I think we’re just not used to octogenarians throwing that at us, but Nicki Minaj can come out and say whatever she’s going to say — we don’t think twice about it? I don’t know.”

Robinson, whose catalogue of hits includes “My Girl,” “The Tracks of My Tears” and “I Second That Emotion,” says he doesn’t write hoping for chart success.

“There’s no formula. There’s no process, man. It’s just you write what you feel. You have given it your best,” he says. “You do it until you feel as though you’ve given it your best shot.”

The former vice president of Motown Records released his last collaborative album nine years ago, “Smokey & Friends,” which featured musicians like Elton John, John Legend, Steven Tyler and Mary J. Blige.

Robinson is seemingly always writing. He has a bunch of song fragments waiting to record and laughs that he might be the only person in the world who keeps a cassette recorder by his bed in case he dreams a song lyric or melody.

“If I’m out and about and an idea comes to me, a melody or some words or something, I call my voicemail. That’s a good idea,” he says. “Call your voicemail. Put them down. You don’t want to lose them.”

___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

The post Smokey Robinson turns seductive with new album ‘Gasms’ appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here