Podcasts about nassau street

A long, long time ago in New York — in the 1730s, back when the city was a holding of the British, with a little over 10,000 inhabitants — a German printer named John Peter Zenger decided to print a four-page newspaper called the New York Weekly Journal. This is pretty remarkable in itself, as there was only one other newspaper in town called the New York Gazette, an organ of the British crown and the governor of the colony.But Zenger's paper would call to question the actions of that governor, a virtual despot named William Cosby, and in so doing, set in motion an historic trial that marked a triumph for liberty and modern democratic rights, including freedom of the press and the power of jury nullification.This entire story takes place in lower Manhattan, and most of it on a couple floors of old New York City Hall at Wall Street and Nassau Street. Many years later, this spot would see the first American government and the inauguration of George Washington.Many could argue that the trial that occurs here on August 4, 1735, is equally important to the causes of democracy and a free press.We're marking the 290th anniversary of this landmark trial with a newly re-edited, remastered version of our show from 2013.

RED-FLAG LAWS – Extreme-Risk Protection October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, host Libby Edwards explores how red-flag laws can help protect individuals who are under immediate threat of gun violence. Our guest, Tom Verni, a retired NYPD detective with over 27 years in law enforcement and former city-wide LGBTQ+ liaison in NYC, will discuss the red-flag law and how extreme-risk protection orders can be used to stop firearms deaths in cases of domestic violence. We will also review Manuel Oliver's one-man show, "GUAC", now playing at the Public Theater, and "Trickled Down Decadence: Screams for Hope,” an exhibition where the artists address gun violence at the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning in Jamaica, Queens, NYC. In Remembrance of Ellie Claire Young, 22 years old, 10/19/24, Memphis, Tennessee. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, please call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is 800-799-7233. Other resources: --New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence Hotline NYS: 1 (800) 942-6906 Hotline NYC: 1 (800) 621-4673 --The National Domestic Violence Hotline. 800/799-SAFE (7233). Their site is full of information that helps people understand and recognize domestic abuse. Also, through their website, thehotline.org, you can connect by untraceable internet, chat and text, as well as locate resources available in your state. --Additional resources are available from everytownsupportfund.org. --In NYC, the organization W.A.R.M. (weallreallymatter.org) provides support and shelter. Their crisis hotlines are: 917-736-1046, 917-736-0680 and 917-736-1621. --NYC Anti-Violence Project: --AVP.org/get-help Hotline: 212-714-1141. AVP also has walk-in appointments from 1-4 pm, Monday through Thursday at 116 Nassau Street, 3rd Fl. --Additional sites with that provide excellent articles to further the understand the subject of domestic/intimate-partner violence. https://vawnet.org/ https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/domestic-violence/ https://www.thehotline.org/resources/get-help-50-obstacles-to-leaving/ https://www.safehorizon.org/

WPRB News and Culture: The Pidgin dives into a local building controversy this week. Natalia Maidique goes on a tour of Princeton's historic Jugtown neighborhood and learns about the affordable housing development proposal at 344 Nassau Street. Hosted and produced by Natalia Maidique. Reported, recorded, and produced by Natalia Maidique. All music used under Creative Commons license. Theme music: "Montanita," by Ratatat. Music used in piece: "Glacier," by SalmonLikeTheFish.

Pat spoke with content creator Eadoin Fitzmaurice about The Spirit Circle in Belfast, a new pop-up for couples who love cocktails, Taste of Dublin, and a new Korean-style toastie pop-up on Nassau Street.

In this week's episode of The Retail Tea Break podcast, I'm joined by a guest who is a creative entrepreneur, having spent most of her career as a leading Irish fashion designer. Aideen Bodkin is founder of StylAi . Throughout her successful career Aideen has been an advisor, trainer and mentor to many SME's and creative individuals. Her expertise includes Fashion Design, Design Thinking, Sustainability for Creative Businesses, Digital Entrepreneurship and Product Development.In this episode, Aideen describes how she wanted to use her knowledge and expertise to influence change in the fashion industry. She started to look at the problem of returns, from a shopper and a retailer's perspective. From all of her research, Aideen was able to pinpoint three key issues with shopping online for clothing. This episode gives you a great insight into the fashion retail industry, so grab your cup of tea, sit back and listen in!Topics: Does fashion really work online? The issues with buying fashion online; sizing, suitability, representationReturns, fast fashion and sustainabilityCombining retail and digitalStylAIFor more information and for details of Aideen's appearance in Kilkenny Design in Nassau Street on 30th March, check out Aideen's social media pages including: https://ie.linkedin.com/in/aideen-bodkin-35185822Transcription and show notes available at: https://theretailadvisor.ie/

Eric and Erin Warner's grandfather lived to the admirable age of 103. And in that time, the Jewish immigrant to Canada saw Toronto change in innumerable ways, from the migration of Jews out of the Ward and Kensington Market to mass communication shifting from the radio to the internet. It's a life's story that Eric, who's worked in music promotion and production since he was a teenager, wanted to tap into—in part to help his own young children understand where their family came from. He roped in his sister, Erin, to sing on the album, and his longtime friend Jason Craig to help write the songs. The result is a concept album, A Song for Ira, released in February 2024, which debuted with a live show at the Miles Nadal JCC on Family Day. The concept is that two grandparents, Harold and Ruth, are gifted songwriting classes, which they use to write eight folksy tracks about growing up in a bygone Jewish Toronto. Writing about mid-20th century family vacations and longstanding Jewish institutions, the album paints a picture of the past for the benefit of the future. The Warner siblings and Jason Craig join Culturally Jewish to describe the songwriting process and why they believe writing music is an ideal way to speak to younger audiences. Credits Culturally Jewish is hosted by Ilana Zackon and David Sklar. Our producer is Michael Fraiman, and our theme music is by Sarah Segal-Lazar. We're a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To support The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt, please consider a monthly donation by clicking here.

On March 5, 1750, Shakespeare finally arrived in the US.  A semi-professional group of colonists staged an "altered" performance of Richard III in a playhouse on Nassau Street in New York City.  In honor of this historic event, the captains wanted to talk about some of their favorite adapted works of Shakespeare on film.Warm Bodies (2013)10 Things I Hate About You (1999)Hamlet (1996)Romeo+Juliet (1996)Honorable MentionsWebsite: https://amoviepodcast.com/Twitter: @ItsaFilmPodcastInstagram: @toomanycaptainsproductions

 Today, we cover a shakeup in the Humanities sequence, a recent fire on Nassau Street, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's exit from Congress, and a former Peruvian president's release from prison. https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2023/12/princeton-news-stlife-humanities-sequence-syllabus-changes

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. For Domestic Violence - Part II, our first guest, Catherine Shugrue dos Santos of the NYC Anti-Violence Project, will address the many unique factors in LGBTQ+ domestic violence that result in barriers to safety, and where to find assistance. And a survivor of domestic/intimate-partner violence tells us how she recognized her situation and sought help. In the United States, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner. In one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men who suffer physical abuse in some form. Partner abuse can take the form of emotional coercion, threats, and stalking, up to physical violence and murder. When guns are involved, a woman's risk of being killed increases by 1000 percent. If you or someone you know are in a relationship that has become violent, these organizations can help individuals escape and recover from a dangerous relationship. NYC Anti-Violence Project: avp.org/get-help Hotline: 212-714-1141. AVP also has walk-in appointments from 1-4 pm, Monday through Thursday at 116 Nassau Street, 3rd Fl. New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence Hotline NYS: 1 (800) 942-6906 Hotline NYC: 1 (800) 621-4673 The National Domestic Violence Hotline. 800/799-SAFE (7233). Their site is full of information that helps people understand and recognize domestic abuse. Also, through their website, thehotline.org, you can connect by untraceable internet, chat and text, as well as locate resources available in your state. Additional sites with articles that provide excellent articles to further the understand the subject of domestic/intimate-partner violence. https://vawnet.org/ Search “Good Housekeeping on domestic violence”—there many topics/links. These were quite good: https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/domestic-violence/ https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/relationships/a37005/statistics-about-domestic-violence/ https://www.thehotline.org/resources/get-help-50-obstacles-to-leaving/ Want to get involved in stopping gun violence? Contact your congressional representatives about gun regulations and go to the Federal Agency of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms or ATF to make a comment on their ruling that will regulate gun sales online and at gun shows. Here's the link to make a comment. https://www.regulations.gov/document/ATF-2023-0002-0001 Gays Against Guns would love to have you join us at our next meeting, contact us at gagsignup@gmail.com and ask for meeting info. We gratefully accept donations at gaysagainstguns.net.

Today, we cover the displacement of six Princeton businesses as the new Graduate Hotel prepares to open on Nassau Street, Mercer County Clerk Paula Sollami Covello's potential run for Congress, a surge in asylum-seekers at the southern US border, and the withdrawal of French troops following the coup in Niger.Graduate Hotel piece: https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2023/09/princeton-news-broadfocus-nassau-graduate-hotel-construction-closure

New bike lanes for Dublin city will remove bus lanes and car parking in some busy parts of the city. Bus lanes in Ranelagh and car parking at Merrion Square will go for the new Dublin City Council “active travel” plans. One of the routes goes from Clonskeagh to the city centre route, through Milltown and Ranelagh Village. The other goes from Trinity College to Ballsbridge, through Nassau Street. There are concerns from commuters that this could cause chaos. While others say it's a much needed update. Andrea was joined by listeners on the show to discuss...

There is no holiday today, at least not officially. For the most part, there’s nothing special about today at all, unless you have a lot of love… for local and regional government! If so, this and every other installment of Charlottesville Community Engagement will take aim at your heart, mind, or wherever in your metaphorical sense of self where new information is supposed to go. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs, trying to look whatever the opposite of cherubic is. On today’s program:Governor Glenn Youngkin issues a PSA asking people to get vaccinated but stops well short of a mandateCharlottesville City Council transfers some federal money for a sidewalk to fire prevention measuresA General Assembly wrap-up before Crossover DayA survey is now available seeking input on two options for a pedestrian bridge across the Rivanna River A very brief update on Charlottesville’s zoning updateShout-out to Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards In today’s subscriber-supported Public Service Announcement, the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards continues to offer classes winter and spring to increase your awareness of our wooden neighbors and to prepare for the future. The next event is February 22 at 7 p.m. when tree steward Emily Ferguson will help you look beyond the monotonous winter forest by focusing on the finer details that will help you differentiate between species of trees. Learn more at charlottesvilleareatreestewards.org. (register for the February 22 session) Governor Youngkin asks Virginians to get vaccinatedThis morning, the Virginia Department of Health reports an average of 3,783 new COVID cases and the seven-day percent positivity has dropped to 11.1 percent. That’s down from 19.7 percent a week ago. In the Blue Ridge Health District today there were 46 new cases and the percent positivity is at 14.6 percent. The Virginia Healthcare and Hospital Association reports 1,676 patients in hospital with a positive COVID test.  That’s down from 3,845 a month ago. As of today, 70.9 percent of Virginia’s total population is considered fully vaccinated, but a smaller portion of that number has received a booster or third dose. That figure is 2,754,159. Today Governor Glenn Youngkin launched a public service announcement encouraging people to get a vaccine, but that he will do nothing to require that anyone get one. “In Virginia, there’s a better day right around the corner,” Youngkin said. “I won’t mandate it but the vaccine is the best way to protect our loved ones, our lives, and our livelihoods.” Youngkin said he and his family decided to get the vaccine.“While the vaccine won’t completely prevent you from contracting COVID-19, it makes it far less likely that you will be hospitalized or die from the virus,” Youngkin said. Last week, the CDC released a study indicating that those who have only have had two doses likely have their immunity fade after four months, but more study is needed to determine the efficacy of the booster or third dose. This morning the University of Virginia Health System announced that additional visitation will be once again allowed at various facilities. A press releases this is due to decreasing COVID cases. Visitors must wear a mask at all times and and cannot have any symptoms or contagious diseases. Public spaces including cafeterias and lobbies remain closed. Visit the UVA Health website for more details.Route 151 / U.S. 250 roundabout constructionConstruction of a roundabout at the intersection of U.S. 250 and Route 151 in Albemarle County is moving ahead. This week, a section of  Route 151 in northwest Nelson County will be closed overnight to allow installation of pipes for three waterways to be temporarily diverted during the project’s construction. According to a release, traffic will be detoured using Goodloe Lane and Old Turnpike Road from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. each night.The project is one of several funded in the second round of the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Smart Scale process. Smart Scale is a system that funds projects based on a series of criteria including decreasing congestion and improving public safety. The application lists the reasoning for the project. “US 250 is not able to handle overflow when incidents occur on I-64 resulting in significant delays,” reads the application. Other Smart Scale projects funded that year include changes to I-64’s exit 118, conversion of exit 124 to a diverging diamond, and a roundabout at the intersection of Proffit Road and Route 20. Applications for Round 5 are currently being prepared. For more information on what the candidate projects are, visit the Smart Scale site on the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. Rivanna pedestrian bridge survey openOne of those 5th round candidates is a pedestrian bridge across the Rivanna River to connect Woolen Mills and Pantops. Two choices are being reviewed by a stakeholder committee who will make a recommendation to the Charlottesville-Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization. A survey is now open through March 4 to gauge public feedback. Visit the TJPDC’s website for more information. See also: Rivanna bridge options narrowed to two, January 12, 2022Decision point looming for Rivanna bike and pedestrian bridge, February 2, 2022Charlottesville zoning updateCharlottesville has begun the process of updating the city’s zoning code to reflect both an affordable housing plan and a Comprehensive Plan that seeks to increase the number of places to live within city limits. An internal review by city staff took place on Thursday, according to Neighborhood Development Services Director Jim Freas. ‘We’re slowly building up,” Freas said. “The first product is a diagnostic and approach report. Things will really ramp up once that’s released. We are targeting a mid-April date for the release of that report.” Mark your calendar. Meanwhile, Albemarle County’s Comprehensive Plan review kicks off this week with three pop-up events and a virtual meeting on Thursday. Read the Week Ahead newsletter for more information. See also: Charlottesville zoning rewrite to begin this year, January 12, 2022A portion of Franklin Street sidewalk funding going to pay for fire prevention kitsLater this week, a task force appointed by City Council to make recommendations for how federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds are spent will meet. Earlier this month, Council agreed to reallocate money a previous task force had opted to spend on a sidewalk on Franklin Street in Belmont, but less than staff had suggested. (staff report)Erin Atak is the city’s grants coordinator. “On January 14, 2021, Charlottesville was found to be noncompliant for the second consecutive year with CDBG requirements,” Atak said. “The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] noted that Charlottesville’s lack of spending performance was an issue.” Atak said the city receives about $400,000 a year in CDBG funding from HUD and they want it to be be spent within a certain time. Based on the recommendation of a task force, Council selected the sidewalk project and its scope was much bigger than originally anticipated.  The goal right now is to address the timeliness issue. “By May, the city is required to spend approximately $227,973,” Atak said. Atak said the money can be used to address the COVID-19 pandemic. When she sent around an internal request to city departments to see if they had any projects that would fit the bill, the Charlottesville Fire Department had a project to spend $217,200. “The Fire Department listed several housing maintenance activities which included smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms, stove top fire-stop installation and CPR-assist devices, all of which are HUD-eligible, could meet City Council priorities to provide homeowner rehab, and entitlement funding in the Ridge Street and Belmont priority neighborhoods,” Atak said. Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook asked if the balance could be given to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville for their projects on Nassau Street. Atak said that projects that receive federal funding are subject to much more scrutiny, and the money would not be spent in time. Snook pushed. “I mean, is that something where it’s ‘come on, if someone just pushed the pedal to the metal we can make this happen’, or is it  ‘come on, this is the federal government you’re talking about.’ In other words, how serious is the risk this doesn’t get done if we suggest the money should go to that cause?”Two members of city staff responded in unison. “It’s very serious,” Atak sad “It’s very serious,” said Alexander Ikefuna, the city’ interim director of the Office of Community Solutions.” Councilor Sena Magill said she supported this use of funding, especially for carbon monoxide detectors which she said the Fire Department often can’t provide.“It’s one of those things that keeps getting kicked off down the road and whenever the Fire Department has a little extra somewhere, they try to put it into this,” Magill said. “And keeping houses from burning down is a way to keep them affordable, too.” Councilor Michael Payne expressed concern about how this information was presented to the elected body. “I don’t think the process was adequate enough to feel like I was presented with options to choose from,” Payne said. “I feel a little boxed in in terms of being presented only one option and given this point in this process. That boxing in to make one decision. I do feel like this was a wasted opportunity to at least evaluate and look as a policy option for Council at possible expenditures on vitally needed affordable housing needs.”To that end, Council opted to spend less money than staff had suggested with $140,585.49 to the Fire Department rather than a higher amount recommended. Councilor Payne still voted no. Shout out to the League of Women Voters Natural Resources CommitteeIn today’s second subscriber supported public service announcement, the Natural Resources Committee of the League of Women Voters of the Charlottesville Area wants you to know a webinar coming up on Tuesday, February 15, at noon. They’ll talk about Renewable Sources of Electrical Power: Challenges and Promises. How can we develop renewable sources without endangering our ecological systems? The seminar will feature Dan Holmes from the Piedmont Environmental Council and Jeff Hammond with Apex Clean Energy. They’ll address some of the complexities in switching utility scale electric power from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Register for the Zoom and get ready to learn!General Assembly updateWe are one day from Crossover Day in the General Assembly, so let’s check the statistics before the action begins today! This was up to date as of 7 a.m. this morning.  A total of 2,501 bills and resolutions have been introduced, and 351 of them have been killed through various actions. Another 143 will come back in 2023. The Senate’s passed 592 pieces of legislation and the House of Delegates has passed 572. The Senate has passed four bills from the House of Delegates that have already crossed over, but the House of Delegates has yet to do the same. Those bills include a non-controversial bill that would require the State Registrar of Vital Records to update the Board of Elections once a week of people who have died so they can be removed from the voter rolls. (HB55)Other bills that have passed the Senate and require House passage include:A bill to require absentee ballots to be sorted in the precinct where the voter lives as opposed to a central district passed the Senate unanimously, (SB3)Localities would be required to provide data to the state once a year on emergency sheltering capabilities if SB60 passes. The Senate passed it unanimously. Martinsville voters will decide whether to revert to town status in a bill that passed the Senate 32 to 8. (SB85) A similar bill (HB173) passed the House on a 82 to 18 vote and is before the Senate Local Government Committee. The Town of St. Charles in Lee County would be terminated under SB589 which passed unanimously. (SB589)Sports betting establishments and casinos won’t be able to use the phrase “Virginia is for Bettors” under SB96, which passed the Senate unanimously. A bill to create the Virginia Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Historic Preservation fund passed the Senate on a 30 to 10 vote. (SB158)A bill to require those who display a Farm Use tag on their vehicle to get it from the Department of Motor Vehicles passed the Senate unanimously. (SB186) Similar legislation has passed the House of Delegates. (HB179)Currently several localities in the James River watershed have combined sewer and stormwater systems which results in effluent to be released into waterways. The Senate passed a bill on a 36 to 4 to speed up the deadline to change that from 2035 to 2030. (SB354)In 2020, the General Assembly passed legislation requiring the creation of a Marcus Alert system that would alert public safety responders of a person’s mental state so that a non-violent response could be made by trained mental health specialists. The Senate passed a blll unanimously to clarify that participation by localities would be optional. (SB361)Hazing that leads to someone’s death would be a class 5 felony under SB440, which passed the Senate on a 30 to 10 vote. The Department of Corrections would need to convene a work group to review fees charges to inmates for various services such as telephone use, meals, and medical records if this bill also passes the House. The Senate approved it on a 31 to 9 vote. (SB441)Under SB491, the Virginia African Diaspora Advisory Board would be established to advise the Governor on ways to increase trade and cultural exchange between Virginia and African nations. The passed the Senate unanimously. A bill to allow for recall elections for certain officers passed the Senate on a 21 to 18 vote. (SB495)A bill to create a grant program to help localities develop wildlife corridor plans and implement them passed on a 29 to 10 vote. (SB707)Now let’s go to the House of Delegates.Virginia law currently states that elementary and secondary students cannot be considered to be engaged in disorderly conduct if they’re on school property. HB89 would change that to refer to kindergarten through 8th grade, paving the way for high school students to be potentially be arrested for “public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof.” That passed the House of Delegates on a 52 to 48 vote. Virginia has a shortage of mental health beds. HB105 would study the transformation of Catawba Hospital into a facility for substance abuse treatment and recovery services. This passed the House on a 99 to 0 vote. Currently, invasive plant species can be sold in Virginia. Under HB314, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services would need to develop signage to be given to retailers to point out the benefits of native plants and the hazrds of invasive ones. This passed the House 99 to 0. A bill to allow parks authorities the ability to install electric vehicle chargers passed the House on a 94 to 6 vote. (HB443)A bill to allow home-schooled children the ability to play in public school sports passed the House 50 to 49. (HB551)Stealing catalytic converters would be a Class 6 felony under HB740 which passed the House on a 69 to 30 vote.A bill to require voters to present a photo ID before casting a ballot passed 52 to 48. (HB1090)A bill to require School Boards to hold a public hearing before adopting cultural competency requirements passed 51 to 48. (HB1093)Seventh and eighth graders in public school would have to undergo at least one hour of personal safety training in physical education class if HB1215 makes it through. The House adopted it 99 to 0. Support the program!Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. 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With each passing day, there’s a little more light at the beginning and end of the period in which the sun illuminates our portion of the world. There are 36 days until the time when light and dark is more or less equal. What will happen between now and then? Charlottesville Community Engagement aims to tell you as much as possible. I’m your host, Sean Tubbs. It’s free to sign up and get all of the content! On today’s program:Legislation to make mask mandates meaningless in schools is poised to pass the Virginia General AssemblyAlbemarle County is briefed on the potential threat of the Spotted LanternflyCharlottesville City Council is briefed on how floodplains are classified, and then votes to approve a rezoning on Nassau Street to allow more residential density And Charlottesville Economic Development continues tracking retail vacancies across the city Shout-out to Camp AlbemarleToday’s first subscriber-supported public service announcement goes out to Camp Albemarle, which has for sixty years been a “wholesome rural, rustic and restful site for youth activities, church groups, civic events and occasional private programs.”Located on 14 acres on the banks of the Moorman’s River near Free Union, Camp Albemarle continues as a legacy of being a Civilian Conservation Corps project that sought to promote the importance of rural activities. Camp Albemarle seeks support for a plan to winterize the Hamner Lodge, a structure built in 1941 by the CCC and used by every 4th and 5th grade student in Charlottesville and Albemarle for the study of ecology for over 20 years. If this campaign is successful, Camp Albemarle could operate year-round. Consider your support by visiting http://campalbemarleva.org/donate.Pandemic update As the weekend begins, the waning continues. Yesterday the Virginia Department of Health reported a percent positivity of 13.7 percent, down from 23.2 percent eight days earlier. On January 11, that figure was 36 percent. “We are now in a period of time where we are seeing the highest cases of COVID beginning to come down,” said Dr. Kyle Enfield of the University of Virginia Health System. “And these are the highest cases we’ve ever seen, including among our children. And unfortunately some of these children have had long term outcomes that have been related to COVID as well as deaths.” In Virginia, there have been eight deaths in people under the age of 10, and 10 deaths of people under the age of 20. There have been 131,327 reported COVID cases in people under the age of 10, and 204,234 under the age of 20. “And we do know that masking and vaccines have been our best defense at preventing more spread of COVID during all of the pandemic,” Dr. Enfield said. This week, the Virginia Senate passed a bill on a 21-17 vote that would prohibit localities from requiring students to wear a mask in school. The same bill (SB739) was reported out of the House Education Committee on Friday on a 12 to 10 vote. Here’s what it says:“The parent of any child enrolled in a public elementary or secondary school, or in any school-based early childhood care and education program, may elect for such child to not wear a mask while on school property,” reads the bill.Dr. Enfield said that may be premature from a public health perspective. “While I’m very hopeful for a future where we can stop wearing masks as part of our daily lives, I don’t think the time is there yet,” Dr. Enfield said.People who are not vaccinated contract COVID at a rate 4.6 percent more than those who have had their shots, according to the latest data from the Virginia Department of Health. Partially vaccinated people contract at a rate two times higher. Those trends show up close to home, too. “The most salient thing I think people should take away is that the people that we see in the [intensive care unit] right now, which is about a third of our cases, only one of them was vaccinated and boosted and that person is immunocompromised,” Dr. Enfield said. “I think that speaks to the importance of vaccinations ongoing in preventing serious illness.”Visit the Blue Ridge Health District’s website for information about getting vaccinated.Charlottesville  vacancy studyThe city of Charlottesville has completed its latest analysis of commercial property and has found a vacancy rate of 5.23 percent. That’s up slightly from July when the last report from the Charlottesville Office of Economic Development was compiled. “The retail property in the City of Charlottesville is showing slight signs of rebounding from the negative impacts felt since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, “ reads the report. Barracks Road Shopping Center has a vacancy rate of 9.3 percent and the Downtown Mall has increased to 3.7 percent since July. The Corner is at 3.28 percent, Seminole Square is at 12.96 percent. Both Preston Plaza and McIntire Place are both full. The peak vacancy of 9 percent on the Downtown Mall was recorded in July 2009 and January 2010 at the height of the last recession. Notable vacancies include the spaces that formerly housed Bashir’s Taverna and Fellini’s. Since the last study last summer, new stores on the way include a new location for Bebedero in the former Downtown Grille space. A restaurant called Botanical Fare will occupy the former Java Java space. Read the report for more details. Nassau Street rezoning yields four additional unitsCharlottesville City Council has taken action on a rezoning on the eastern edge of Belmont, six weeks after asking for more information. The previous Council had held a public hearing for a request to increase the zoning from R2 to R3 on property that some claimed was unsafe for development. They wanted more information about the property’s relationship with the floodplain. (See also: Council seeks floodplain info before Nassau Street rezoning, December 22, 2021)On February 7, City Engineer Jack Dawson prepared a briefing for the five elected officials, including two members who just joined. “There was a fair bit of community members who expressed concern over the flood risk associated with the rezoning including some varying information about floodplain mapping and some other resources about water surface elevation for the one percent annual exceedance event,” Dawson said. One percent annual exceedance is another way of saying 100-year flood, a term that can be somewhat misleading because such heavy volumes do in fact happen more frequently.  Properties that are prone to flooding can still receive insurance through a program monitored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA] “The city agreed to partner with FEMA as floodplain managers when we signed on to the National Flood Insurance Program,” Dawson said. “City property owners get access to insurance through the NFIP exchange and in return we agreed to create a floodplain development ordinance with a series of minimum standards.” The property on Nassau Street is within the one percent exceedance zone, colored light blue on the city’s GIS viewer. That’s different from the floodway which is marked with red and blue stripes. FEMA officials determine where those boundaries lie and make periodic reviews, but property owners can appeal based on evidence. This is a process known as the Letter of Map Revision, or LOMR. “The city is the gatekeeper for determining LOMR validity,” Dawson said. “A LOMR should improve or correct the existing model or improved methods. It’s our job in engineering as the floodplain administrators to make sure it is technically sound.” An application for this property was made to FEMA in October 2014 and sent it on for the city for their comments. However, Dawson said in this case, the technical comments from engineering were not captured in the revision. “The 2017 LOMR. whether or not engineering agreed with it at the time, is the model that informs the flood plain,” Dawson said. He also said that engineering doesn’t usually get involved during a rezoning. “But when a site plan is submitted, we look to make sure it meets all codes and they can be in the flood plain as long as they’re built one foot above the flood elevation,” Dawson said. Dawson said there is a risk in building in the floodplain, and many have done so. There are 266 lots that have structures are in the floodplain. “It’s a high risk area,” Dawson said. “Living there, there’s some implicit risk with that and more people living in the flood plain means there’s more risk taken on as a city.” Charlottesville Mayor Lloyd Snook said he had had concerns about the process after they were brought up. But, he said he arrived at a conclusion after many conversations. “The decision that we are being asked by some folks to make here is not a proper decision for us to make at the rezoning phase,” Snook said. “That does not mean that that if we grant the rezoning that it’s necessarily going to pass the site plan review.” Developer Nicole Scro said that by-right, they would build three duplexes on the property. The rezoning would allow more units to be built, which would bring down the cost of each to the people who will live there. “The composition of the units is smaller units and we’re doing that to save on construction costs so we can hit lower rents,” Scro said. “That’s the purpose of this rezoning.” Scro said she understood the concerns, but said she felt confident about the flood risk. The structures will be built at 327 feet above sea level. “And then we’re going to have three feet of crawl-space and another foot of subflooring so the finished floor elevation will be at 331 approximately,” Scro said. Council voted 5-0 to agree to the rezoning.This isn’t the end of the story with flood modeling. Charlottesville is beginning to develop a new flood model for the Moores Creek watershed to better understand hydrological processes. This is being paid for by the state government with proceeds from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. See also: Charlottesville awarded $153K for flood study from RGGI funds, October 6, 2021Shout-out for an upcoming talk on birdsIn today’s subscriber-fueled shout-out, if you’re interested in learning more about the birds around us, the National Sporting Library and Museum has a virtual event for you coming up on February 24. Jennifer Ackerman, the author of the Genius of Birds, will explore the brilliance of birds and delve into the mysteries of the avian brain. Ackerman as she shares her global adventures into the genius of birds. Learn how birds make and use tools, teach each other skills, count, navigate, create art, perform astonishing feats of memory, communicate, and even pass along cultural traditions.  The author will be joined by two top officials from the Wildlife Center of Virginia, an organization that has helped nearly 90,000 wild animals from every corner of Virginia. Center President Ed Clark and Senior Vice President Amanda Nicholson will bring along Ambassador Animals. The program is free and available via Zoom or Facebook like. Drop a line to info@nationalsporting.org for a link, or visit the National Sporting Library and Museum on Facebook. Albemarle briefed on spotted lanternfly As program manager for Plant Industry Services at the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, David Gianino leads the state’s efforts to fight threats to native plants that could harm whole industries if left unchecked. “And we have many different pest programs where we work with invasive species to mitigate either their spread or their impact here in Virginia, and in 2021 unfortunately Spotted Lanternfly has made its way to Albemarle County,” Gianino said. That was in July 2021 when a plant inspector found multiple life-stages along the Rivanna River near a railroad. Gianino told the Albemarle Board of Supervisors on February 2 that the Spotted Lanternfly can severely damage apples and grapes. “It is a piercing, sucking, mouth-part insect and it sucks phloem and sap from the stems of these trees which can negatively impact yield and can impact the quality of a fruit that relies on lots of sugar content,” Gianino said. “They swarm and feed very intensely in the fall and that can also impact how nice the grapes are, how good a wine it makes.” The spread of Spotted Lanternfly is due to it being a hitchhiking bug that jumps onto modes of transportation. Originally from China, the bug arrived in Pennsylvania in 2014. “It doesn’t traditionally fly but it will glide and it jumps on to cars, trucks, gravel, buses, anything that moves it will jump onto and that’s the primary way it gets around,’ Gianino said. Gianino said the swarms can also affect other property owners because it is unpleasant to be around. He said if not addressed, this can affect agribusiness and especially agritourism. “The sheer number of insects that pest can create in an environment is astounding,” Gianino said. The spread of the spotted lanternfly is compounded by another invasive species known either as alanthus or Tree of Heaven. So far, populations in Albemarle County are not as high as they are in the Winchester area, where a quarantine was established in 2019 and expanded to Clark and Warren counties last summer.“The quarantine requires business owners to obtain a permit and inspect all materials that are stored outside as well as trucks, trailers and vehicles that travel outside of the quarantine area,” reads a site set up to provide information for Winchester area residents. “I believe we have opportunities here to prevent this from happening [in Albemarle] because we do now have better tools,” Gianino said. Gianino said the site in Albemarle was treated with pesticides. Trees were injected with substances to prevent further infestation. “We’ve placed traps, we’ve scraped egg masses, and we plan to do a thorough survey there next year and continue treatment to try and mitigate this population,” Gianino said. There are no natural predators here and Gianino said they do not taste very good to other species. Gianino said early detection is key to addressing any invasive species and people who make a sighting are asked to report it to local extension offices so the extent of the spread is known across the Commonwealth. They also want people to seek out resources:Best Management Practices for Spotted Lanternfly in Yards and Landscapes Homeowner Tips and Inspection Checksheet More on the Plant Industry Services page for more resourcesAlso, kill it. “We tell people to stomp, scrape, squish the spotted lanternfly and then report it,” Gianino said. More on this as we move toward spring. Support the program!Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

There are days in the past and days in the future, but there’s only one day at a time. This edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement is specifically tied to December 22, 2021, a particular 24-hour period filled with equal parts anticipation, dread, potential, and other pensive emotions as the holiday of Christmas approaches. Stay safe! Charlottesville Community Engagement is free to read or listen to and it’s my hope that you’ll sign-up. In today’s edition:Governor-elect Youngkin appoints a veteran banker to serve as his finance secretaryA trade publication names Virginia as having the best business climate in the nationA bridge in western Albemarle is shut down before repairs begin A study is underway on where to locate a train station in the New River ValleyCharlottesville City Council holds first reading on the use of a $5.5 million surplus, defers action on Lewis, Clark and Sacagewea statue and a rezoning on Nassau Street Today’s first Patreon-fueled shout-out: Code for Charlottesville is seeking volunteers with tech, data, design, and research skills to work on community service projects. Founded in September 2019, Code for Charlottesville has worked on projects with the Legal Aid Justice Center, the Charlottesville Fire Department, and the Charlottesville Office of Human Rights. Visit codeforcville.org to learn about those projects. COVID updateThe Virginia Department of Health reports another 5,972 new cases of COVID-19 today, and the percent positivity for PCR has risen to ten percent. Today’s case number is the highest it’s been since the last week of January. The highest one day total of the pandemic to date is 9,914 recorded on January 17. On this day a year ago, there were 3,591 cases reported. A hundred and nine of today’s cases are in the Blue Ridge Health District. Virginia reports another 50 COVID deaths today, with one of those in the Blue Ridge Health District. The University of Virginia will require students, faculty, and staff to receive booster shots in order to be on Grounds next semester. According to a page on the Human Resources website, faculty and staff must get the shot by February 1 if they are eligible. If not, they must demonstrate proof of a shot 30 days after eligibility. Students must upload their proof by February 1. Visit that website for more information. Bridge closureA small bridge in western Albemarle County that carries about 560 vehicles a day has been closed due to significant deterioration. Engineers with the Virginia Department of Transportation have been inspecting the bridge on Burch’s Creek Road across Stockton Creek due to known concerns and have decided to close the road until repairs are made. “VDOT bridge inspectors determined today that its condition was not safe for continued use,” reads the statement. “During the closure, traffic should detour around the bridge from U.S. 250 to Route 824 (Patterson Mill Lane) to Route 688 (Midway Road) and back to Route 689.” Repairs will take place between now and January 7 when the bridge is expected to reopen. Virginia business awardA trade publication that writes about economic development and site selection has named Virginia one of its states of the year. Business Facilities named Virginia, Tennessee, and Massachusetts in their annual contest. Specifically, Virginia was named the Overall Business Climate. Massachusetts was honored with Best Workforce / Educational System. Tennessee was given the Best Dealmaking award. A press release in advance of their next publication states that Virginia was selected “because of the steps many economic development councils in the commonwealth, both local and statewide, are taking to make the area more attractive.” The release cites the state’s low unemployment rate, successful workforce development programs such as the Virginia Talent Acquisition Program and Fast Forward Virginia. According to an article on Virginia Business, Virginia last won this award in 2018. New Finance SecretaryFor the third day in a row, Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin has named a member of his cabinet. Stephen Emery Cummings will be the next Secretary of Finance. Cummings is a veteran of several financial institutions, including a tenure as global head of corporate and investment banking at Wachovia. According to a release, he has recently served as the President and CEO of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. “Steve shares my vision of respecting Virginians’ hard-earned tax dollars and ensuring the Commonwealth’s budget is managed effectively and efficiently, and he has the skill set and leadership qualities that our team needs to make Virginia the best place to live, work, and raise a family,” said Youngkin said in a statement. Yesterday Youngkin announced Caren Merrick will serve as Secretary of Commerce and Trade. Several outlets report that Youngkin founded the nonprofit Virginia Ready Initiative that Merrick  has run since it was formed last summer during the pandemic. On Monday, data consultant Aimee Rogstad Guidera was named Education Secretary. Inauguration Day is January 15.NRV Train StationThe Virginia Passenger Rail Authority has launched a website for a feasibility study for where to locate a train station to serve the New River Valley. Earlier this year, outgoing Governor Ralph Northam announced an agreement with Norfolk Southern to extend passenger service from Roanoke to the valley for the first time since 1979. The state of Virginia will purchase 28.5 miles of track from Norfolk Southern. The feasibility study is examining four locations. A community meeting will be held sometime this winter and an initial survey is available. Go back and listen to the May 6, 2021 installment of this newsletter and podcast to hear a segment from when Northam signed legislation authorizing an authority to raise funds for the future station. (May 6, 2021: Green Business Alliance forms to advance emissions reductions; Northam signs legislation for New River Valley train station)There’s also another study underway to determine if Amtrak service should stop in Bedford. That town is between Roanoke and Lynchburg and on the route of the Northeast Regional service that will eventually be expanded to the New River Valley. You can go back and listen to that, too. (October 30, 2021: DRPT report states Bedford train stop won’t delay freight; a briefing on the hotel industry in Albemarle/Charlottesville)In today’s second Patreon-fueled shout-out: The Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Campaign  an initiative that wants you to grow native plants in yards, farms, public spaces and gardens in the northern Piedmont. Winter is here, but spring isn’t too far away. This is a great time to begin planning for the spring. Native plants provide habitat, food sources for wildlife, ecosystem resiliency in the face of climate change, and clean water.  Start at the Plant Northern Piedmont Natives Facebook page and tell them Lonnie Murray sent you!Public hearing held for FY21 surplus, transfers Council has held the first of two readings and a public hearing on a mandated review of the city’s budget for fiscal year for 2021, which ended on June 30 of this year. There’s a $5.5 million surplus as well as a $6.7 million reserve fund of cash set aside for COVID. The latter was not tapped. Christopher Cullinan is the city’s Finance Director. “The audit has been completed and to close out the city’s financial records for fiscal year 2021, several year-end adjustments require City Council action,” Cullinan said. “These adjustments are to carry over unspent funds from the last fiscal year to the current fiscal year.” Cullinan said one the two main recommendations are to put the COVID reserve into the city’s Capital Improvement Program contingency fund. The other is to put the $5.5 million toward employee compensation. That includes both a bonus and an across-the-board salary increase of six percent for all employees with benefits. “This is a market adjustment that recognizes the need for the city to retain and recruit qualified employees,” Cullinan said. This would happen before the results of a study on compensation is completed. Ashley Marshall is one of two deputy city managers currently running the city. “But what we do know is that the six percent is inadequate to raise us up to where we should be for equitable and appropriate pay,” Marshall said. “So we know that we’re not going to find out later on nine months from now that six percent was too much. That’s not going to be the answer.” Five people spoke at the public hearing.“I just want to say that I would like to see a lot of this money, a good portion of it, be used toward the affordable housing fund to shore that up and get that going toward the goal you indicated previously that you’d like to have ten million dollars [a year],” said Mark Kavit. Both Kimber Hawkey, Martha Smytha and Tanesha Hudson agreed with that position, and said the city should spend money for housing on more than just Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority. “I think that there’s things the city could also do with purchasing land space and building things themselves as well,” Hudson said. “That’s something that they need to work towards.” Hudson said the cost of living adjustment should also extend to hourly employees as well. Rosia Parker, a newly appointed member of the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, said more of the funding should go to affordable housing, especially for programs to address homeless. “There are a lot of homeless people that are out here,” Parker said. “You see them when you sit in front of City Hall. You see them as you walk up and down the mall. You see them as you drive up and down the different corridors of Charlottesville. Homelessness is a very threatening danger to people’s lives. Mentally, physically and emotionally.” Capital discussionAfter the hearing was closed, outgoing Charlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker said she wanted the $6.7 million to be used for a different purpose than putting it in the CIP contingency fund. The next Council will decide how that funding would be used, but Walker will not get a vote. “If we just simply transfer it to the CIP and then we have those asks that are just presented to Council randomly based on whatever’s on the funded or what makes it from the unfunded to the funded list, I don’t think that serves us,” Walker said. Vice Mayor Sena Magill supported the transfer to the CIP due to a long list of capital needs. “Because if we don’t work on some of the basic infrastructure needs of our city as well,” Magill said “That’s where we pay for a lot of the affordable grants is through the CIP and we’re looking at $75 million for just one school.” Cullinan said the idea of a contingency fund is to be ready for unforeseen events or cost over-runs.“I think the the critical thing is that it gives you choices and its cash which is easily accessible and you can make fairly quick decisions as opposed to a bond issue which takes time and effort,” Cullinan said. Council would have to approve any use funds from the CIP contingency. The second reading will be held at the next City Council meeting on January 3. Nassau Street rezoningA proposal to rezone land on the eastern half of Nassau Street in the Belmont neighborhood did not move forward on Monday. Developer Nicole Scro and engineer Justin Shimp are seeking a rezoning from R-2 to R-3 on about a half acre of land. Several members of the public asked Council to deny the request due to the property being located within a floodplain as governed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Magill said she wanted more information from staff about the issue. “I am concerned about the floodplain issue and I am concerned about the design that is being submitted in a flood plain,” Magill said Several other buildings have been constructed on that side of the street in recent years including structures built by the Piedmont Community Land Trust. That project received $240,000 in funding from the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund. City Councilor Lloyd Snook also said he wanted more information about the floodplain. “We’re not required to act on this tonight,” Snook said. “I would like to defer it and ask the staff to give us real feedback on what the flood danger is. The one thing I don’t want to do is end up saying we’re going to put in affordable housing but we’re going to put it in the floodplain.”In recent years, Shimp successfully petitioned FEMA to lower the elevations shown in the floodplain map by four feet. Tony Edwards is a development services manager in the city’s public works department. The foundation must be above the where FEMA establishes the 100-year floodplain. “This is the basis that we need to use because we follow the same methodology that FEMA provides and this is what’s been approved through FEMA,” Edwards said. James Freas, the city’s director of neighborhood development services, also weighed in.“We know the flood plain legally has been defined where it is now based on the amended flood maps in the process that Mr. Edwards described,” Freas said. “So that’s legally the location of the floodplain and defines the elevation at which the building has to be built. In terms of what can happen in an actual flood? We can be less clear about that. That’s less predictable.” Freas said the question before Council was the appropriate density at the location. By-right structures could be built. One in the 900 block constructed in 2018 is built on stilts to raise it out of the floodplain. Snook wanted more information.“I’d like to have more expertise than I can bring to bear and take a look at it and tell me whether I’m all wet,” Snook said. “Pardon the expression.” Shimp said any further review would prove his assertion that building in the location would be safe. The item will be deferred until the second council meeting in January. Outgoing Mayor Nikuyah Walker said she would have voted against the request. Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea statue decision deferredCouncil spent nearly an hour and a half discussing the terms on how a statue removed from West Main Street will be treated in the future. Several parties agree that the Lewis and Clark Exploratory Center should receive the statue for its continued display at their location in Darden Towe Park. However, details about how the story of Sacagawea’s involvement were not resolved during the conversation. Center officials and descendants of Sacagawea will continue negotiations. “We are definitely willing to do that,” said Alexandria Searls, the center’s director. “We are invested and no matter what, even without the statue, we want relationships with them. The relationships are more important than the statue. We’re willing to walk from the statue if we have to.” The hiring of the Robert Bobb Group to run the cityAs mentioned at the top of yesterday’s newsletter, Council has hired the Robert Bobb Group to perform the functions of the city manager. Council spent their closed session negotiating with the two firms that responded. Lisa Robertson is the city attorney. “The fact that using an outside firm on a contract basis to provide these types of services, while it’s not the normal manner in which the services are delivered, it’s not unheard of,” Robertson said. “This type of contract has been used on occasion in other places including other places in Virginia.” The contract still has to be finalized after being written up. There was no little discussion of the merits of either proposal. In the resolution, Councilor Hill said “the firm made the best proposal and offer” with regards to price and quality. Walker abstained based on a sense that Council should not vote to award the contract until it is written. Update!According to City Council Clerk Kyna Thomas, Council will not need to vote on the contract as it can be signed by the Mayor. However, Council will interview specific individuals that will be suggested by the firm. There is no public knowledge yet about how much the Robert Bobb Group will be paid. Here are some other news articles about other work the firm has done:Robert Bobb back in business with new venture, Washington Business Journal, December 9, 2011Robert Bobb Group outlines goals for Petersburg, WRIC, October 26, 2016Cash-strapped Petersburg spent about $1 million on turnaround services from Bobb Group, forensic audit, Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 4, 2017 Durham leader calls criticism of consultant a lynching, a charge with political history, Raleigh News and Observer, North Carolina, March 10, 2021Black community questions motives behind some Durham commissioners rejection of minority-owned firm proposal, ABC 11, March 25, 2021Firm being paid $16K a month to provide city with financial services, Rocky Mount Telegram, North Carolina, August 13, 2021Charlottesville hires firm to perform interim city manager duties, Walker and Hill bid farewell, Daily Progress, December 21, 2021Support the program!Special announcement of a continuing promo with Ting! Are you interested in fast internet? Visit this site and enter your address to see if you can get service through Ting. If you decide to proceed to make the switch, you’ll get:Free installationSecond month of Ting service for freeA $75 gift card to the Downtown MallAdditionally, Ting will match your Substack subscription to support Town Crier Productions, the company that produces this newsletter and other community offerings. So, your $5 a month subscription yields $5 for TCP. Your $50 a year subscription yields $50 for TCP! The same goes for a $200 a year subscription! All goes to cover the costs of getting this newsletter out as often as possible. Learn more here! This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

Photo: The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. Here:  A bank run on the Fourth National Bank No. 20 Nassau Street, New York City, from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 4 October 1873. (Note: this is a Hyman Minsky moment—an economist—not Marvin Minsky, a leading AI scientist.) CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor CBS Audio Network @Batchelorshow Is Evergrande a 2008 Minsky Moment of global contagion?  @LizPeek @TheHill GLXXG https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/chinese-property-giant-s-implosion-unsettles-vulnerable-markets-20210921-p58th5.html

In today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out, supporter Lonnie Murray wants you to know about a series of seminars on spring and fall landscaping with native plants. Plant Virginia Natives has held four of these already, but the next one is coming up on April 20 with Beth Mizell of Blue Ridge Prism on how to identify and eradicate invasive plants in Virginia. On today’s show:Charlottesville’s registrar has resigned, effective immediately Virginia’s purchase of CSX rail lines in Virginia moves forwardA look at why the Franklin Street sidewalk project stalled and how it can get back on trackA quarter of Virginians are now fully vaccinated Today is only the second time this year that the number of new COVID-19 cases has dipped below 1,000 with 978 reported today by the Virginia Department of Health. The seven-day average is 1,464 a day and the percent positivity is at 6.1 percent. As of today, one-fourth of Virginians are fully vaccinated. Governor Ralph Northam appeared this afternoon at the opening of a new mass vaccination clinic in Fairfax County. “Over the past four months we have made tremendous progress vaccinating Virginians against the COVID-19 virus,” Northam said. “This has been a very tough year for everyone.”As of this weekend, everyone over the age of 16 is eligible to sign up for an appointment at vaccinate.virginia.gov. “Not everyone can get a shot today or even this week,” Northam said. “And while demand still outstrips supply, our supply is much larger than it used to be.” Northam did not have many changes to the current restrictions, but there were a few specific amendments.“Cross country will be allowed to have 68 runners at the starting lines, which is up from 50,” Northam said. “Performance events like drama and musicals are considered social gatherings. I’ve heard a lot of feedback from parents and students that these events should be treated the same as athletic events, and I agree. So we’ll increase the number of people to 100 indoors or thirty percent of that venue’s capacity. If it it’s outdoors it will be increased to 500 or 30 percent.”This past weekend, the Virginia Department of Health reported the presence of the P.1 variant in the Commonwealth. Northam said people in the state should remain vigilant. Last week, Pfizer announced it is likely a third shot will be required within 12 months. Dr. Costi Sifri is the director of hospital epidemiology at the University of Virginia, and he spoke at a media briefing on April 16. “I think that there is a very good chance that Moderna may need to have a booster if it appears that Pfizer does as well at 12 months but I think we’ll just have to follow the science and I know that Moderna will be doing those studies,” Dr. Sifri said. “I think we’ve always anticipated that a booster could be needed but not for durability of immunity but also for potentially to be able to address the rise of variants.” Dr. Sifri said that while the number of cases of clotting with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine is small, he supports the pause as a precaution. “The pause is a reasonable and important thing to do to understand the biology of it, but even if proves out to be caused by this vaccine, it’s going to be a rare, rare event and far outweighed  by COVID itself,” Dr. Sifri said. The Centers for Disease Control is expected to meet this Friday to discuss next steps for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which was withdrawn from the supply due to reported incidents of blood clotting. Railroad company CSX has closed the first transaction with the Commonwealth of Virginia for hundreds of miles of railway and right of way, according to a press release issued last week. The first of three phases in the $525 million exchange takes the form of a permanent land easement between Petersburg and Washington D.C. The other two phases are a line from Doswell to Clifton Forge, and another line from Petersburg to Ridgeway, North Carolina. *Charlottesville is looking for a new registrar. Last week, Melissa Morton notified the three-member Electoral Board of her resignation for personal reasons, according to the minutes of the Board’s April 12 meeting. The Board has approved Taylor Yowell to serve as acting registrar until a permanent replacement is found. Morton became the assistant registrar in 2014, and replaced Rosanna Bencoach who left the position in 2019 when the Board told her she would need to reapply for the position. Albemarle County is requesting $1 million in Community Development Block Grant funds to help cover the $8.5 million cost to build 20 owner-occupied housing units in the first phase of the Southwood. That’s according to a public notice in today’s Daily Progress which announces that Albemarle County has made a ruling of Finding Of No Significant Impact, or a FONSI, on the human environment. The county is taking public comments on this through May 3. (Daily Progress public notice)In this Substack-fueled public service announcement… are you of Scottish ancestry? The Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society and the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library will hold another of their Ask A Genealogist series at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 22. Special guest Deborah Harvey will demonstrate how she traced some of her ancestors from Fluvanna County to Scotland. Sign up at jmrl.org and email your questions to library@albemarlehistory.org before the virtual event. Earlier this year, City Council agreed to transfer federal funding that had been allocated to add a sidewalk on Franklin Street, which serves as part of its eastern border with Albemarle County. The project was within the jurisdiction of a task force that was put together to recommend projects eligible for Community Development Block Grant funding distributed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. Erin Atak is a grants coordinator with the city of Charlottesville.“This is funding that’s issued by HUD,” Atak said. “These are federal funds that the city receives each year as an entitlement community.” The city selects a neighborhood every three years to receive the money for infrastructure and a task force is put together to make recommendations to Council. One recent project funded through this process is a pocket park in the 10th and Neighborhood. The current neighborhood receiving funds is the Ridge Street neighborhood. The Belmont task force last met in February 12, 2019. “And in this case, the Belmont Priority Neighborhood [Task Force] recommended to City Council the Franklin Street sidewalk which was approved to create a new sidewalk on the west side between north Moores Creek Lane and Nassau Street, which was approximately 1,600 feet of new sidewalk.”This process is separate from the city’s sidewalk priority process. The Belmont neighborhood was allocated a total of $449,214 and the sidewalk made up a portion of that amount. Tim Motsch is a transportation project manager with the city, hired in the summer of 2017.“Myself and Kyle Kling were hired in order to manage transportation projects including the sidewalks which I have been involved in as well as Smart Scale projects that I’ve been involved in such as the East High Streetscape and the Emmet Streetscape.”More on those projects in a future newsletter. For now, Motsch explained that design for the Frankin Street sidewalk began in late 2018 when the engineering firm A. Morton Thomas was hired to do the work.  Complications happened. “It is a challenging plan from the point of the view of stormwater management depending on which map you look at and which datum you refer to, the sidewalk is either right next to the floodplain or in the floodplain,” Motsch said. That delayed the design for the project, which included the need to purchase easements from landowners on which mitigating features and drainafe could be built. The pandemic’s effect on the city’s budget also led to a delay. “Add to the fact that last year, for several months all sidewalk projects were on hold due to the possibility of having to use city funds,” Motsch said.Construction is now slated for next spring, but that’s if the right of way can be acquired from around a dozen property owners. However, Atak explained that HUD has time limits by which its money can be spent and this project did not make the deadline. “Normally funds are required to be spent within one year of receiving CDBG dollars,” Atak said. In February, Council transferred the funding to a rent relief initiative for public housing, but Atak said the funding will be restored on July 1, 2022. Everything has to be in place for the project to move forward. “It’s very important that we receive public support with the right of way moving forward so that we can secure this funding and there aren’t any delays moving forward,” Atak said. Atak said HUD has already issued a warning on the project. Motsch said a round of certified letters are being sent out to property owners this week for negotiations, and that the city wants to avoid taking properties by condemnation. One of the abutting landowners is Sunshine Court, which owns a six and a half acre mobile home park on Carlton Avenue. The property has a land value of $2.4 million. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

There are curious traces of Patrick - and his legacy - around Dublin today. A mural painted during the Irish cultural revival in City Hall positions him amidst nationalist struggle, while a well hidden below Trinity College claims strong connections. How much of Saint Patrick - and our idea of him - is imported from the United States?

Today’s Patreon-fueled shout-out comes from an anonymous supporter who wants to say again - "We keep each other safe. Wear a mask, wash your hands, and keep your distance."*There are another 1,435 new cases of COVID-19 in Virginia today, and the seven-day daily average for new cases is 1,437. The seven-day average for positive tests has increased to 6.2 percent, up from 6.1 percent yesterday. There are another 31 new cases in the Blue Ridge Health District with 12 from Albemarle, nine from Charlottesville, and three each in Fluvanna, Greene and Louisa counties. There’s one new case in Nelson. A person from Greene County has died of COVID, the fourth fatality in that locality. That brings the death count to 78 in the district. No new fatalities had been reported since October 23. The University of Virginia’s COVID dashboard lists 41 active cases, with 24 of them students. Since August 17, there have been 1,148 COVID cases associated with UVA. *Virginia Governor Ralph Northam made several announcements yesterday about how some of the state’s remaining CARES Act funding will be spent. Seven million will go to the Federation of Virginia Food Banks for the purchase of food, $60 million will go to a municipal energy relief program to help people who have not been able to pay their bills, $22 million for private higher education institutions, and $25 million in Medicaid for day support programs for adults with developmental disabilities. However, the House of Delegates in the Virginia General Assembly declined to vote yesterday on a suggested budget amendment from Northam that would have provided more money to the energy relief program. Northam also suggested dozens of changes to how other portions of the CARES Act should be used. Delegate Mark Sickles of Fairfax made a motion to “pass by” on the amendment for the day. “This amendment from the Governor strikes a lot of language that the committee introduced to better direct in our view the coronavirus relief funds,” Sickles said. “When we came into session on August 18 there was $1.3 billion dollar of CRF funding that had not been spent and it needs to be spent by December 30.”Sickles said the House version of the bill directed more money to frontline medical workers and hospitals, but Northam’s amendment would have taken that away. “The governor eliminated our language and we like our language and we think that it’s our role as the legislative branch to direct these funds,” Sickles said. (read the budget amendments)For more on this, read Kate Masters article today in the Virginia Mercury.  The House also “passed by” on an amendment that would have altered the fee structure related to nutrient credits which are used to help improve water quality in Virginia. Delegate David Bulova represents Fairfax.“Whether you know about nutrient credit banks or not, they actually play a really critical role in our ability to meet stormwater management requirements as well as Chesapeake Bay restoration targets,” Bulova said. “They do that by leveraging capital from the private sector and in fact we can take a little bit of a point of pride here in that Virginia’s program was recognized several years as a national model for how to achieve water quality standards and do that in a cost effective way.”Bulova said the Department of Environmental Quality’s stormwater management program is underfunded, but there was concern that the Governor’s approach was not ready. Other amendments include $1 million to fund a third-party investigation into racism at the Virginia Military Institute. That item passed 52 to 46.  Governor Northam will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. to give an update on Virginia’s COVID-19 response. *There are many meetings today, and for a full review check out the Week Ahead newsletter. One of the most anticipated meetings is the Charlottesville’s City Council and Planning Commission joint session this evening. They’ll consider a rezoning on Nassau Street and get an update on the draft affordable housing plan that’s been put together by the consultant hired to complete the city’s Comprehensive Plan. This week there will be many opportunities to participate in virtual meetings about the initiatives, but tonight’s discussion between Council and the Commission might give a brief glimpse into what decision-makers are thinking. (meeting page) (draft affordable housing plan page)A subcommittee of the city’s Housing Advisory Committee discussed the draft affordable housing plan at their meeting on November 4 and have sent their thoughts to City Council and the Planning Commission. The letter from the policy subcommittee  expresses support for the plan but also asks that the document include strategies for wealth creation and economic mobility.“The plan should explicitly acknowledge that housing affordability for many households is an income problem,” reads the letter which also said the plan should better address the high cost of land and how that can be mitigated. They also made suggestions on policies for how the $10 million in annual funding for affordable housing called for in the plan.  (read the recommendations)The Nelson County Board of Supervisors meets at 6 p.m. and one item includes a decision for a rezoning to allow Wild Man Dan Bed and Breakfast to expand its brewery operations  (meeting packet)The Charlottesville Economic Development Authority meets at 4 p.m. and will get an update on the city’s COVID response.  There will also be an update on the performance agreement between CEDA and Piedmont Housing for tax increment financing for the first phase of Friendship Court. For those details, take a look or listen to a longer story and podcast I produced from the October 19, 2020 City Council meeting where the agreement was approved by elected officials.The Albemarle Planning Commission meets at 6 p.m. They’ll have public hearings on reviews to two conservation areas known as Agricultural-Forest Districts as well as a public hearing on a change to zoning involving recycling centers. (meeting info)*While not a government meeting, here’s another event that might be interesting. The Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society will have another installment of their Ask a Genealogist series with Dr. Shelley Murphy. She’s the Descendant Project Researcher at the University of Virginia. Visit the Jefferson Madison Regional Library’s website to register and learn more. (JMRL page) This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

If you stood on Henry Street with a big smile and asked a hundred Dubliners who it was named after, it’s unlikely you’d get a single correct answer. If you walked into a history tutorial in one of the city’s finest universities and asked the students who Westmoreland was, you’d definitely get a few blank stares. And what’s the significance of Nassau Street - does Dublin have a Caribbean connection to celebrate? Is it unusual that Dubliners are so ambivalent about the origins of these street names and, in light of the recent passing of John Hume (surely a candidate to have a boulevard or a town square named in his honour) is it time to consider renaming some of them?  In this week’s episode, Darach and Peadar look behind the true meaning of some of Dublin’s well-known streets, the red tape associated with renaming and consider if the positive civic engagement that led to the Rosie Hackett and Mary Elmes bridges can be built upon and turned into a way of engaging citizens with history. --- Support Motherfocloir on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/darach  Get Kirsten Shiel art prints here: https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/kirstenshiel/  --- Contact the show: twitter - @motherfocloir and @theirishfor email - motherfocloir@headstuff.org (mailto:motherfocloir@headstuff.org) --- Want to record your own podcast? Check out our studios at https://thepodcaststudios.ie

Click here to buy: https://adbl.co/2YMLK23 It was June 10th, Barnacle Day. He saw her in Nassau Street and they stopped to talk. She thought his blue eyes were those of a Norseman. He was twenty-two, and she, Nora Barnacle, was twenty and employed as a chambermaid in Finn's Hotel. They agreed to meet on June 14th, outside No. 1 Merrion Square, the home of Sir William Wilde, but Nora did not turn up. After a dejected letter from Joyce they met on June 16th, a date which came to be immortalized in literature as Bloomsday. Edna O'Brien paints a miniature portrait of an artist, idealist, insurgent and filled with a secret loneliness. In Nora, he was to find accomplice, collaborator and muse. For all their sexual escalations, Joyce considered their relationship 'a kind of sacrament'. Their life was one of wandering, emotional upheaval and poverty. It was also one that was binding and mysterious, and defied all the mores of intimacy. In prose brimming with life and energy, Edna O'Brien resurrects a relationship of magnificent intensity on the page, and in doing so shows herself to be touched by the genius of the writer she loves above all others.

A quick note on what is undoubtedly the top story of this week: The September 11th attacks. It's a uniquely difficult subject to cover, and one that has a unique interpretation within the city, whether you witnessed it first-hand or have come to understand it by living in the city and walking the same streets. I won't be playing excerpts from eyewitness video of people's final moments. I won't be reinterpreting the attack as a patriotic celebration. I will ask that you look around you and treat your fellow New Yorkers with kindness and compassion to honor those we lost, who were also regular, everyday New Yorkers, walking these same streets. Kindness is stronger than hate. — 18 years ago: The September 11th attacks destroy three buildings in the World Trade Center complex, killing 2,606 people in and around the buildings and 147 aboard the two planes ☮️. Also 18 years ago, just one week after the September 11th attacks, A benefit concert and telethon is simulcast across 35 major television channels and raises over $200 million for the September 11th Fund — 'America: A Tribute to Heroes' featured musical performances from New York, London, and Los Angeles, and a variety of celebrities both hosting the event and answering calls. The money raised went toward cash assistance, counseling, and other services for individuals and businesses impacted by the September 11th attacks, and the Fund would distribute $528 million by 2004. Although 'Tribute to Heroes' was the first fundraiser held, by October 2001, the 'Concert for New York City' would be held at Madison Square Garden with another all-star line-up and raise $35 million for first responders, and on October 21st 'United We Stand: What More Can I Give' concert was headlined by Michael Jackson from Washington D.C. that unfortunately was haunted by technical problems and scheduling issues with performers. Recently I mentioned that 4 years ago, the MTA was facing a string of assaults on workers, and this week the same news appears again. The Transit Workers Union Local 100 reports that assaults on bus and subway workers are up 39% year-over-year, with 85 workers suffering various attacks in the first eight months of 2019. While the MTA and the state have been increasing the law enforcement presence in the subways, transit union president Tony Utano accused the MTA of concealing the increasing assault numbers and not making the statistics public. Earlier this year, the union had also called for greater police enforcement in the subway due to incidents where MTA workers were spit upon. This news of an increase in assaults comes as the transit union is in contract negotiations with the MTA, and workers have been without a contract since May 2019. The MTA is simultaneously trying to address increases in the homeless population within the subway system and a push from Governor Cuomo and MTA head Andy Byford to prosecute fare evasion. This week brought the final sentencing of the student who stabbed two classmates at a Bronx school in 2017. Abel Cedeno was 18 years old at the time and stabbed two younger students with a spring-loaded knife he had purchased from Amazon. One victim survived by was in a coma for several days and of the victims was killed, making the attack the first killing inside a city school in over 20 years. This week, Cedeno received a 14 year prison sentence for manslaughter, 8 years for assault, and 90 days for criminal possession of a weapon, all of which will be served simultaneously. Although the attack was initially explained as an on-going bullying incident, the court documents described the incident that precipitated the attack as a typical school interaction, where one of the victims threw something that hit Cedeno, then claimed that he didn't intend to hit him, but Cedeno challenged the victim to a fight and drew a knife. Further complicating the theory of on-going bullying was testimony given during the trial that the two victims had not had much prior interaction with Cedeno. In an interview with ABC7, Cedeno claimed that he took the knife to school because he felt threatened and that when the attack occurred, he 'just snapped'. In a stunning detail, Cedeno's mother had contacted the school two and a half years before the attack to tell them that he had been taking a knife to school, but administrators failed to take proper action to log the event, instead simply searching his belongings one time and not notifying the school's principal of the mother's concerns. Another terror attack also took place in the city 99 years ago on September 16, 1920 — A horse-drawn wagon bomb explodes outside 23 Wall Street, killing 38 and injuring hundreds — It was an unorthodox way of delivering a bomb, and no one knew the danger that was carried on a horse-drawn wagon as it was pulled along busy Wall Street. In the wagon was 100 pounds of dynamite surrounded by 500 pounds of sash weights, which are heavy cast-iron weights used to counter-balance windows that slide open. The dynamite exploded at noon and sent the heavy shrapnel flying into the lunchtime crowd outside the financial buildings along Wall Street. The attack is still unsolved, but historians believe it was carried out by an Italian anarchist group. The sheer cruelty of the bombing, which seemed to have no intended target and killed a random assortment of innocent people who were nearby, made it difficult to even theorize what the intent of the bombers had been. The federal Bureau of Investigation did find flyers with vague threats stuffed in nearby mailboxes, but they did not directly reference the bombing. It became the worst single loss of life in the city since the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire from nine years earlier in 1911. Today, you can still see damage from the blast at 23 Wall Street, where part of the stone wall has been preserved showing the chips in the stone from the projectiles in the explosion. Just around the corner from the 23 Wall Street bombing, 8 years ago on September 17, 2011 — The Occupy Wall Street movement gathers in the Financial District, eventually settling in a camp at Zuccotti Park — The Occupy Wall Street movement gathers in the Financial District, eventually settling in a camp at Zuccotti Park After planning to camp in either Chase Manhattan Plaza or Bowling Green Plaza, the group lucked out and selected Zuccotti Park, which is designated as a privately-owned public space. The park's status put the protest in kind of a limbo between rules the city could enforce, with police being able to monitor the camp from the sidewalk surrounding it, but otherwise needing to be invited onto the property by Brookfield, the property's owner. The protest camp would last two months until the early morning hours of November 15, when the group was evicted from Zuccotti Park by the city after courts ruled that the protesters did not have a First Amendment right to camp in the park. 168 years ago on September 18, 1851 — The first edition of the New-York Daily Times is published. Six years later, the paper would shorten its name to the New York Times — The paper published six days a week with morning and evening editions and charged one penny for the day's news. A larger, weekly version was printed to be distributed outside the city. Times Square would not be renamed after the paper for another 53 years, so the first offices were downtown at 113 Nassau Street near City Hall Park, then 138 Nassau Street, then 41 Park Row. By 1904, the paper would move to the Times Tower in what was then known as Longacre Square before it was renamed Times Square in honor of the paper. After establishing the Times Square New Year's Eve ball drop from atop their building, the paper would again outgrow the location, expanding and moving some offices westward until completely relocating to their current building on Eighth Avenue. For a bit of local news, that first edition of the New-York Daily Times contained a front page story on the ongoing construction of the fountain in Washington Square Park, which would be completed one year later in 1852. In another attack against the city that gets forgotten in the shadow of 9/11: 18 years ago on September 18, 2001 — One week after the September 11th attacks, letters containing anthrax poison are mailed to four NYC-area newsrooms — The letters appeared to have been mailed from Princeton, NJ and a public mailbox near the Princeton University campus was found to be contaminated with anthrax spores. Letters mailed to Democratic Senators in October 2001 contained a similar threatening note referencing the September 11th attacks. In all, 17 people were sickened and five were killed due to anthrax exposure. Victims included assistants who opened or handled the letters, postal workers who sorted the letters, and a woman from the Bronx whose exposure could never be determined. Although the letters were written to appear as if they were from Muslim extremists, an FBI investigation identified the perpetrator as an American microbiologist, vaccinologist, and senior biodefense researcher at a government facility in Maryland. Bruce Edwards Ivins, a 62-year-old white male, became the focus of the investigation seven years after the incidents, after which he started to show signs of strain and was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital where he went on to suggestively discuss the anthrax letters during therapy sessions. Ivins died by suicide on July 29, 2008 after learning that he had been identified, and the FBI formally closed the case in 2010, identifying Ivins as the sole perpetrator of the letters and detailing how he falsified evidence and attempted to frame co-workers at the governmental research lab to throw investigators off the case. It was back in July when we discussed mosquitoes first testing positive for West Nile virus within the city, and this week, the first human West Nile infections were documented within the city, with one confirmed infection in Brooklyn, two in Queens, and one in Staten Island, although mosquitoes testing positive for the disease have been found in every borough. Now is the time to be prepared and protect yourself from mosquitoes if you will be outside. Wear clothing that covers your skin, use a mosquito repellent containing the chemical repellents DEET or Picaridin, or use a natural repellent containing oil of lemon eucalyptus. Be sure to seal around your window air conditioners so that mosquitoes won't have an easy entrance into your home, and use window screens if you'll be leaving windows open. If you'll be traveling overseas, take special precaution to avoid mosquito bites, and research which vaccinations you'll need to avoid diseases that are common in the areas where you will be traveling. If you're staying in the city, you can even do your part by calling 311 to report standing water, defined as a place on public or private property where water gathers and remains for more than five days, creating a habitat where mosquitoes may breed. The city may have escaped the effects of the most recent Hurricane Dorian, but 81 years ago on September 21, 1938 — A Category 3 hurricane made landfall on Long Island, becoming one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded to hit New England — A Category 3 hurricane makes landfall on Long Island, becoming one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded to hit New England It became known as the 1938 New England Hurricane and heavily impacted Long Island, although winds were only 60 to 70mph in NYC, with eastern Long Island taking the worst damage. An estimated 682 people were killed, with damages equivalent to $4.7 billion. A Great Big City has been running a 24-hour newsfeed since 2010, but the AGBC News podcast is just getting started, and we need your support. A Great Big City is built on a dedication to explaining what is happening and how it fits into the larger history of New York, which means thoroughly researching every topic and avoiding clickbait headlines to provide a straightforward, honest, and factual explanation of the news. Individuals can make a monthly or one-time contribution at agreatbigcity.com/support and local businesses can have a lasting impact by supporting local news while promoting products or services directly to interested customers listening to this podcast. Visit agreatbigcity.com/advertising to learn more. AGBC is more than just a news website: It also automatically checks MTA data before morning rush hour and sends out notifications if there are delays on any subway lines, LIRR or MetroNorth trains, and bridges and tunnels. Follow @agreatbigcity on social media to receive the alerts. Park of the day Galileo Playground — 75 WEST 175 STREET, the Bronx — Previously named Macombs Park, Galileo Playground is located in Morris Heights in the west central Bronx. A former vacant lot, the land for the playground was assigned to City of New York / Parks & Recreation on December 30, 1993. Construction of the new playground was completed during the Fall of 1999 and features jungle gyms and spray showers. Parks Events Check out some birds of prey up close at the Central Park Raptor Fest — Saturday, September 14 — The Urban Park Rangers will bring a selection of eagles, falcons, owls, and hawks to this family-friendly event on the East Lawn in Central Park, just inside the park parallel at 99th Street. The event is free and starts at noon. Call (212) 360-2774 for more info. And on Sunday, there will be the 39th Annual Antique Motorcycle Show in Queens at the Queens County Farm Museum — Sunday, September 15, 2019 — Over 100 antique motorcycles will be part of the show, and live music and food will be available. Tickets will cost $11 at the door to benefit the Queens County Farm Museum. The event runs from 11am to 4pm at Queens Farm Park on the border of Glen Oaks and Floral Park in Queens And now let's check in with our robot friend for the concert calendar: Concert Calendar Here's the AGBC Concert Calendar for the upcoming week: GRAVITY and DAY6 are playing Playstation Theater on Friday, September 13th. Two Door Cinema Club and Overcoats are playing Manhattan Center Hammerstein Ballroom on Friday, September 13th. Joanna Newsom is playing El Teatro of El Museo del Barrio on Friday, September 13th. AmaduConcert Music Albums and Amadu are playing Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday, September 14th. Kamelot, Battle Beast, and Sonata Arctica are playing Playstation Theater on Saturday, September 14th. The Growlers, The Lemonheads, and The Nude Party are playing SummerStage NYC on Saturday, September 14th. Japanese Breakfast is playing NeueHouse on Saturday, September 14th. Low and Christopher Tignor are playing Murmrr Theatre on Saturday, September 14th. Joanna Newsom is playing El Teatro of El Museo del Barrio on Saturday, September 14th. Jethro Tull is playing Forest Hills Stadium in Forest Hills on Saturday, September 14th at 7pm. Brandi Carlile with Mavis Staples are playing Madison Square Garden in Midtown West / Chelsea / Hudson Yards on Saturday, September 14th at 8pm. Gipsy Kings is playing Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side on Saturday, September 14th at 8pm. Salt-N-Pepa with Loni Love is playing Kings Theatre in Ditmas Park / Flatbush on Saturday, September 14th at 8pm. Shakey Graves and Dr. Dog, Shakey Graves, and Dr. Dog are playing The Rooftop at Pier 17 on Sunday, September 15th. The Body and Assembly Of Light are playing The Bell House on Sunday, September 15th. Joanna Newsom is playing El Teatro of El Museo del Barrio on Sunday, September 15th. Backstreet Boys is playing Prudential Center on Sunday, September 15th at 8pm. Marina with Daya is playing Rumsey Playfield, Central Park in Midtown East on Monday, September 16th at 7pm. Angels and Airwaves are playing Playstation Theater on Tuesday, September 17th. Cold, Awake For Days, and University Drive are playing Brooklyn Bazaar on Tuesday, September 17th. Phantom Planet is playing Elsewhere on Wednesday, September 18th. Malcolm Mooney and The Eleventh Planet and Malcolm Mooney are playing Union Pool on Wednesday, September 18th. Mac DeMarco is playing Brooklyn Steel in Greenpoint on Thursday, September 19th at 8pm. Madonna is playing BAM Howard Gilman Opera House in Boerum Hill on Thursday, September 19th at 8pm. Blink-182 with Lil Wayne and Neck Deep are playing Barclays Center in Boerum Hill on Friday, September 20th at 7pm. Find more fun things to do at agreatbigcity.com/events. New York Fact Here's something you may not have known about New York: If you see a damaged, broken, or dying tree in the city, you can submit a tree service request notifying the Department of Parks Forestry Division of the location Weather The extreme highs and lows for this week in weather history: Record High: 94°F on September 13, 1952 Record Low: 44°F on September 15, 1873 Weather for the week ahead: Possible light rain tomorrow and Sunday, with high temperatures peaking at 84°F on Monday. Intro and outro music: 'Start the Day' by Lee Rosevere — Concert Calendar music from Jukedeck.com

The battle wages on to save the South’s first recording studio, and the hallowed ground where country music’s first commercial recordings were made. Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville is slated to swing the wrecking ball on 152 Nassau Street, clearing the way for a deluxe new outpost for its chain restaurant and hotel. In June of 1923, New York-based Okeh Records executive Ralph Peer set up a pop-up studio in the building which facilitated recordings by various regional jazz, blues, and country music artists including Fiddlin’ John Carson, Warner’s Seven Aces, Charlie Fulcher, the Morehouse College Quartet, Lucille Bogan, Fannie Mae Goosby, Eddie Heywood, and more. Photo is courtesy of Kyle Kessler / www.nassaustreetsessions.com/action/

The newest Ken Burns series premiering in September follows the vast and varied evolution of country music over the 20th century. The eight-part series begins not in Nashville, nor Bristol, but Atlanta. That's because, in 1923, OKeh Records music pioneer Ralph Peer came from New York to the South and set up a temporary recording studio smack dab in downtown Atlanta at 152 Nassau Street. That's where he recorded early country, blues, jazz and gospel artists, including what is known as country music's first hit, "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" by Fiddlin' John Carson.

On Second Thought discusses the history of 152 Nassau Street, the site of some of county and blues music's earliest recordings, and why the building is at risk of demolition. The round table discussion is joined by Kyle Kessler, Atlanta architect and preservationist; Lance Ledbetter, co-director of Dust to Digital; Nedra Deadwyler, founder and CEO of Civil Bikes; and Steve Goodson, professor of history at University of West Georgia.

In 1923, OKeh Records’ recording sessions at 152 Nassau Street highlighted an array of Southern jazz numbers from Warner’s Seven Aces and Charlie Fulcher, spirituals from the Morehouse College Quartet, and blues tracks from Lucille Bogan, Eddie Heywood, and Fannie Mae Goosby. What also makes these sessions noteworthy is that it’s where famed Cabbagetown resident Fiddlin’ John Carson cut to wax his tunes “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane” and “The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster’s Going to Crow,” stamping in time the beginning of commercially recorded country music. Host Chad Radford speaks to Kyle Kessler about how this important historical site could soon fall prey to the wrecking ball, making way for a massive Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville location. Photo by Bill Torpy.

Tom Meyer is Managing Partner at Nassau Street Ventures, which enables alums of Princeton University to access top-tier, diversified venture portfolios. Meyer details his close connection to Princeton, what excites him about the Ivy institution's entrepreneurial ecosystem, and how Nassau Street is able to co-invest alongside the world's top VCs.

Episode Transcript: My name is Tanya Marsh and you’re listening to Death, et seq. We’ve been talking about funerals a lot on this podcast so far, and I wanted to switch gears this week and talk about one of my favorite topics – cemeteries. I love cemeteries. As my friends and family will attest, I am a semi-professional cemetery tourist. When I visit a new place, I want to check out the historic cemeteries. When I visit a place that I’ve been dozens of times, I still want to check out the cemeteries. So in a new series that I’m going to call “Cemetery Tourism,” I’ll be looking at different clusters of cemeteries that share similar characteristics or a similar history. I’m going to start the series in the Northeastern United States, in two of our earliest urban centers — New York City and Boston. Both of these cities were founded in the mid-1600s, and their early cemeteries share some common characteristics, but they also differed in important ways because of the people who founded those two cities. American cemeteries are different from cemeteries anywhere else in the world, for a couple of reasons. In the colonial era, we were obviously heavily influenced by the law of England and the social norms that had been established there and carried here. The England of the 17th century had an established church – the Church of England. The theology of the Church of England placed great importance on burial in consecrated ground. So the law of England reflected the assumption that all people in good standing with the church and entitled to burial within the church would be buried in their local parish churchyard. There were people that weren’t in good standing, or members of other religions, so allowances had to be made for them too, but the vast majority of people were buried in the local parish churchyard owned by the Church of England. That’s just how it was set up. But colonial America was a fairly diverse place. For example, Puritan colonists from England of course settled Massachusetts Bay Colony, while a more diverse group of English, Dutch, and German immigrants settled the former New Amsterdam, there were all kinds of ethnic groups and faiths on William Penn’s land, and the English Virginia Company established settlements focused on economics rather than religious liberty. Each of the colonies was different from the English system, but they were also each different from each other. These realities forced Americans to innovate. Massachusetts established (and still retains) a law that each town must create a burying ground for the use of residents and strangers. Unlike the English system, these are secular cemeteries, owned and managed by the government. In the densely populated cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, cemeteries were established downtown and despite practices designed to maximize the capacity of cemeteries, soon became overcrowded. In the Chesapeake, where the population was more widely dispersed, family burying grounds were established in addition to more traditional churchyards. Although the location of American burials differed from the uniform English precedent, other aspects of the process were the same during colonial times. Remains were wrapped in a shroud or encased in a wood coffin, then placed in the earth, a family tomb, or a mausoleum. Americans originally followed other European Christian customs—most graves were not individually memorialized and many contained the remains of more than one person. American disposition practices shifted after the Civil War. Embalming was rarely practiced before the war. During the war, a crude method of embalming was used to stabilize the remains of wealthier men, primarily on the Union side, so they could be sent home for burial. After the Civil War, undertakers trained in embalming evolved into funeral directors. Into the twentieth century, death moved from the home to the hospital; and the ceremonies surrounding death moved from the parlor to the funeral parlor. Undertaking had once been a complementary profession for carpenters—they could build the coffin and transport the remains to the cemetery. But the Industrial Revolution moved casket production from small workshops to factories, particularly after World War II. “Modern business principles” were applied to create modern cemeteries, owned by for-profit companies in many states, larger in scale and designed to minimize the costs of maintenance. These companies benefited from laws that gave great deference to cemetery owners—traditionally families, religious organizations and municipalities—to establish their own rules and regulations. Modern cemeteries adopted rules that required concrete and/or steel vaults or grave liners that would encase the coffin and prevent the uneven terrain that follows grave collapse. These companies also adopted rules that limited graves to a single interment. The cumulative effect is a very different set of practices than existed before the Civil War. Nearly all modern graves in the United States are dedicated in perpetuity to the remains of a single individual, memorialized with a tombstone. On today’s episode, I’ll talk about the history and development of cemeteries in New York City and Boston. If you’re interested in photographs and maps, be sure to check out the show notes at the podcast’s website – www.deathetseq.com. The Dutch first settled New Amsterdam, then just the southern tip of Manhattan, in 1624. A detailed city map called the Castello Plan was created in 1660 – it shows virtually every structure that existed in New Amsterdam at that time. In 1664, four English frigates sailed into New Amsterdam’s harbor and demanded the surrender of New Netherlands. Articles of Capitulation were signed that September and in 1665, New Amsterdam was reincorporated under English law as New York City. The settlement was named for the Duke of York, the brother of the English King Charles II who later became King James II. During most of the 17th century, even after the English took over, the Reformed Dutch Church was the dominant religious authority in New Amsterdam/New York. There were scattered Congregational, Presbyterian and Lutheran churches in the region, as well as Quakers, Catholics, and a few Jews. With the English in 1665, however, also came the established Church of England. One of the first significant cemeteries in New York City was established in the 1630s on the west side of Broadway, a little north of Morris Street. It was referred to as the “Old Graveyard” In 1656, there was a petition to “divide the Old Graveyard which is wholly in ruins, into lots to be built upon, and to make another Graveyard south of the Fort.” Apparently it persisted until at least 1665, when a collection was made to repair the graveyard because it was “very open and unfenced, so that the hogs root in the same.” By 1677, however, the graveyard had been cut up into four building lots and sold at auction to the highest bidder. There is no record regarding where the graves from this “Old Graveyard” were moved, but construction on the site more than a century later uncovered “a great many skulls and other relics of humanity,” so it sounds like perhaps they weren’t moved at all. Some things in Poltergeist are real, people. In 1662, the Dutch established a new burial ground on Broadway, on a parcel that was then located outside the city’s gates. That burial ground became a part of the Trinity churchyard when Trinity Church was established in thirty years later. In 1693, the New York Assembly passed an act to build several Episcopal churches in New York City and “all the inhabitants were compelled to support the Church of England, whatever might be their religious opinion.” In 1696, a plot of land stretching 310 feet from Rector Street to the Dutch burial ground that had been established on Broadway in 1662 was acquired by the Episcopalians and the Charter of Trinity Church was issued on May 6, 1697. The charter declared: “[Trinity Church] situate in and near the street called the Broadway, within our said city of New York, and the ground thereunto adjoining, enclosed and used for a cemetery or church-yard, shall be the parish church, and church-yard of the parish of Trinity Church … and the same is hereby declared to be forever separated and dedicated to the service of God, and to be applied thereunto for the use and behalf of the inhabitants … within our said city of New York, in communion with our said Protestant Church of England.” By the time of the Revolution, the churchyard at Trinity, including the old portion that had been the Dutch burial ground, was said to contain 160,000 graves. In 1847 a proposal to extend Albany Street to connect it with Pine Street would have disturbed the northern portion of the Trinity Church churchyard, part of the 1662 Dutch burial ground. A government report advocated against the extension: “[The burial ground] was established by the Dutch on their first settlement... It is nearly a century older than the other sections of the yard. It was originally a valley, about thirty feet lower at its extreme depth than the present surface, and has undergone successive fillings, as the density of interments rendered it necessary, to raise the land until it reached the present surface: so that the earth now, to a depth of several feet below the original, and thence to the present time of interment, is in truth filled with human remains, or rather composed of human ashes. The bodies buried there were [approximately 30,000 to 40,000] persons of several generations, and of all ages, sects and conditions, including a large number of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary War, who died whilst in British captivity; and almost every old family that is or ever was in this city, has friends or connections lying there.” In an 1892 guidebook to New York City, Moses King wrote: "Only the established and powerful corporations of Trinity and a few other churches have been able to resist the demands of modern life and business for the ground once sacred to the dead. Hundreds of acres [in Manhattan], now covered by huge buildings or converted into public thoroughfares, were at some time burial-places; over ninety of which have been thus existed, and passed away. Of most of them even the location has been forgotten…” Trinity Churchyard still resides on Broadway at Rector Street, in lower Manhattan, two blocks from Federal Hall, the building where George Washington was sworn in, the “room where it happened” in the very early days of the Republic, and the New York Stock Exchange. The Anglican St. Paul’s Chapel, established on Broadway between Fulton and Vesey Streets around 1766, and its surrounding churchyard still remains in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Many of the other cemeteries that once resided in lower Manhattan are relics of memory. For example: • The Middle Dutch Church, on the east side of Nassau Street between Cedar and Liberty Streets, was surrounded by a burial ground beginning in 1729. The bodies were removed sometime after 1844. The North Dutch Church on William Street between Fulton and Ann Streets had an adjacent burial ground from 1769 to 1875. • The French burial ground on the northeast corner of Nassau and Pine Streets, extending north to Cedar Street (1704-1830); • The Presbyterian churchyard on the north side of Wall Street opposite the end of New Street (1717-1844); • The Old Brick Presbyterian Church graveyard on Beekman Street between Chatham and Nassau Streets (1768-1856); • The cemetery located at Pearl, Duane, and Rose Streets which was leased from the city as early as 1765 but not used as a cemetery until after the Revolution; and • A Lutheran Church and adjacent burial ground on south Pearl Street, a site which had become a vegetable market by 1706. A cemetery on the south side of Houston Street between Eldridge and Stanton Street was used from 1796 to 1851 as the Reformed Dutch Church Cemetery, to provide excess capacity for the crowded churchyards. The bodies were disinterred and removed around 1874. Meanwhile, Puritan colonists from England founded Boston in 1630. Unlike the religious and ethnic diversity that could be found in New Amsterdam/New York City during this time period, the Puritan leaders of Boston punished religious dissenters. Baptist minister Obadiah Holmes was publicly whipped in 1651 and Mary Dyer was hanged in Boston Common in 1660 for repeatedly defying a law banning Quaker from being in Massachusetts Bay Colony. However, prosperity in Boston led to the development of a more diverse community that included Catholics and Quakers and other groups that were initially persecuted by the Puritans. Eventually the Puritans began to accept that they could not have a unified church and state. Puritan burying grounds were often located adjacent to the town’s meeting house. Headstones were expensive and many of the earliest were imported from England. Most often, early burials were marked with wood markers or primitive stones, if they were marked at all. The Puritan burying ground was a utilitarian space simply used to bury the dead. Puritans did not visit graves or maintain them. They were often very disorganized. Graves were tightly clustered and gravestones were often broken or buried as the cemetery became more populated. In many cases, graves were dug deep enough to accommodate 12 or more coffins placed on top of each other to within five feet of the surface. Recall that in the 1650s, there was a petition to remove the Old Graveyard in New Amsterdam because hogs were rooting around. In Boston, the early burying grounds were used as communal space to graze cattle. The oldest burying ground in Boston is King’s Chapel which is not, as the name suggests, the churchyard for the adjacent King’s Chapel. What was originally simply known as the “Burying Ground” was established in 1630 and was Boston’s only cemetery for 30 years. King’s Chapel is quite small, less than half an acre. It was used as a burial ground for 200 years, but estimates are that there are only about 1,500 burials. There are only 615 gravestones and 29 tabletop tomb markers remaining. Most graves include about four burials on top of one another. Excess remains were excavated and the bones were deposited in the charnel house that can still be seen on the edge of the burying ground. A charnel house would be a very familiar idea for the English colonists because English churchyards were similarly overcrowded. When the cemetery authorities ran out of ground for fresh burials, older burials were simply dug up and the bones were placed in a communal pit in the consecrated ground, or catacombs beneath the church. If you’ve visited any European churches, you’re probably familiar with this idea. Although the idea of the charnel house was a feature of English churchyards, King’s Chapel Burying Ground was not a churchyard. It was a community burial ground and included people of all faiths, not just Puritans. It was more like a municipal, secular cemetery than a churchyard. In all of the Boston burying grounds, it was common to have a headstone, highly decorated with the name and sometimes the biography of the deceased, and a footstone with only the name of the deceased. Graves were placed so that the feet of the deceased faced east. This was believed to have been done so that when Christ returns, the dead can simply stand up and walk to Jerusalem. King’s Chapel also includes 29 underground tombs which consist of a burial room made of brick and covered with earth and grass. These are marked with box structures, but the boxes are just markers, not the tombs themselves. When the tombs needed to be opened, the box was removed and the entrance dug up. In the early 1700s, 24 tombs were built along the back fence and in 1738, 23 tombs were built along Tremont Street. These are actually underneath the present-day sidewalk of Tremont Street and their markets and entrances are inside the fence. King’s Chapel Burying Ground also includes a curious structure that looks like the top of a tomb or pit. That’s actually a subway fresh air ventilator shaft that was constructed in 1896. Human remains in that portion of the burying ground were relocated during the construction. It is called King’s Chapel Burying Ground today because in 1686, Governor Edmund Andros wanted to build an Anglican church in Puritan Boston. This was an unpopular idea, so no one would sell him any land. So Andros built his church in part of the existing Burying Ground, right over existing graves. As you can imagine, this didn’t make Andros any more popular with the Puritans of Boston. After King’s Chapel was consecrated, people began referring to the adjacent cemetery as King’s Chapel Burying Ground, which also couldn’t have made the Puritans very happy. In 1660, King’s Chapel was ordered closed “for some convenient season” and new burials directed to the second burying ground. Of course tombs were installed decades later and grave burials in King’s Chapel Burying Ground weren’t outlawed until 1826, although they continued until 1896. The second burial ground in Boston was established in 1659 when the Selectment of Boston purchased ½ acre in the northern end of town. Originally called the North Burying Place or the North Burying Ground, the parcel was expanded in 1711 and 1809. It is now known as Copp’s Hill Burying Ground and is located just down the street from the Old North Church. The City of Boston has counted 2,230 grave markers and 228 tombs in Copp’s Hill but the exact number of burials is unknown. Estimates range from 8,000 to 10,000. This includes an estimate of over 1,000 unmarked graves of African and African American slaves. The third burying ground in Boston is located just down Tremont Street from King’s Chapel. Also established in 1660, the Old Granary Burying Ground is the final resting place of many important figures from the Revolutionary War including Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and the men killed in the Boston Massacre. Benjamin Franklin’s parents are also buried here. Granary is located on 2 acres and contains 2,345 gravestones. In 1922, it was estimated that there were 8,030 burials over its 260 year history. Originally, Granary Burying Ground was part of the Boston Common, which then extended up Tremont Street. It was originally called the South Burying Ground, then renamed the Middle Burying Ground when one was established further south. It was finally renamed Granary Burying Ground because of the 12,000 bushel grain storage building built in 1737 to provide food for the poor and called the granary. The granary was moved to Dorchester in 1809 to make room for Park Street Church. The final colonial burial ground that I’ll mention is the Central Burying Ground, which was established in 1754 on 1.4 acres at the corner of Boston Common on Boylston Street between Charles and Tremont Streets. There are only about 487 markers remaining, but records indicate that approximately 5,000 people are buried in Central Burying Ground, including many unmarked graves of paupers from the Alms House and inmates from the House of Industry. There are some unique tombs visible in Central Burying Ground because they are surrounded by a “moat” on both sides. The first tomb is thought to have been built in 1771. 149 tombs were built on the four sides of the burying ground and nearly half of the burials were in the tombs. But in 1836, Boylston Street was widened and 69 tombs were destroyed – the owners moved the remains either to the 60 tombs in the Dell or to the then-new Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. In 1895, the subway was being constructed along Boylston Street disturbing the remains of approximately 2,000 people. They were reburied in a mass grave in the northeast corner of Central Burying Ground. The last grave burial took placed in 1856, but tomb burials continued until the 1950s. Until 1810, Central Burying Ground was called South Burying Ground, which is when Granary was renamed. Identifying burying grounds by their relative location to one another is clearly a bad strategy, as the constant re-naming of cemeteries in Boston demonstrates. So I’ve described the first four cemeteries in Boston and the most famous cemetery in colonial New York – Trinity. The four colonial cemeteries in Boston were all owned by the government and non-sectarian, even though their practices resembled those of churchyards in England. New York, on the other hand, was dominated by churchyards in colonial days and the early days of the Republic. The challenges that these cemeteries faced in the beginning of the 1800s was similar in both cities, but the way that the cemeteries were changed as a result was very different. All four cemeteries I described are still in the heart of downtown Boston. In lower Manhattan, only Trinity and St. Paul’s Chapel remain. The backlash against the colonial cemeteries was triggered by their overuse and their general lack of organization and maintenance. In 1807, an Englishman named John Lambert visited New York. In his diary, he referred to Trinity Church and St. Paul’s Chapel as “handsome structures” but added: "The adjoining churchyards, which occupy a large space of ground railed in from the street and crowded with tombstones, are far from being agreeable spectacles in such a populous city. … One would think there was a scarcity of land in America to see such large pieces of ground in one of the finest streets of New York occupied by the dead. The continual view of such a crowd of white and brown tombstones and monuments as is exhibited in the Broadway must tend very much to depress the spirits." Some burial places had been closed and relocated in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. But the Nineteenth Century significantly accelerated that process. Overcrowded church yards and vaults (referred to as “intra-mural” burial grounds) were criticized by public health officials as “injurious to health, offensive to the senses, [and] repulsive to the taste of a refined age.” In New York City, the precipitating event to efforts to halt intra-mural burial was the Yellow Fever epidemic that began in late July 1822 on Rector Street. Reported cases spread quickly and when the first cases on Broadway were reported, public health officials feared that if the disease was not contained, it would quickly engulf City Hall and force the government into exile. On August 7th, the Board of Health ordered that an area around Rector Street be quarantined by the erection of fences. The quarantine area had to be expanded quickly. Searching for a cause of the epidemic and an effective way to halt the spread of the disease, the Board of Health began to panic. Prevailing medical thought of the day blamed epidemics on “miasma” and “infected air.” In early August, concerned about the cluster of cases in the area around Trinity Church, the Board of Health appointed a committee to “inquire into the expediency of regulating or preventing the interment of the dead in Trinity Church Yard during the continuance of the present epidemic.” The committee concluded that “the yard of that Church is at times, offensive to persons in its vicinity, and that, in the evening especially, the exhalations are such as perhaps are dangerous to the health of the citizens in its immediate neighborhood.” It was therefore recommended that “no grave be permitted to be opened or dug in Trinity Church Yard, until the further order of the Board of Health, under the penalty of one hundred dollars.” The proposed resolution was adopted by the Common Council on August 22nd. Around the same time, a report from Dr. Samuel Ackerly to the Board of Health recommended that the ban on interments at Trinity be made permanent. Dr. Ackerly related the story of the Cathedral of Dijon, “which [recently] produced a malignant disease in the congregation from the putrid bodies of the persons buried in the vaults of the Church. The disease ceased after the Church was ventilated and fumigated.” This case was presented to the Board of Health as “proof that noxious exhalations may arise from dead bodies.” Accordingly, Dr. Ackerly suggested that the source of the Yellow Fever epidemic may be Trinity Church Yard, where “the ground has been one hundred and twenty-four years receiving the dead, and the evil day has at length arrived. To strike at the root of the evil,” Dr. Ackerly advised, “no further interments should be allowed there. The graves might be leveled and covered with a body of clay, upon which a layer of lime, ashes and charcoal should be placed, and the grave stones laid flat, that the rain may run off and not penetrate the soil to hasten putrefaction and increase the exhalations.” On September 15th, the Board of Health “respectfully request[ed]” that churches with adjacent burial grounds in lower Manhattan cover their graves “thickly with lime, or charcoal, or both.” On September 23rd, Trinity Church Yard was covered with 52 casks of lime. The next day, 192 bushels of slacked lime were spread in St. Paul’s church yard, a few blocks north of Trinity Church. On September 28th, 172 bushels of slacked lime were spread “upon the grave-yard and about the vaults of the North Dutch church corner of William and Fulton-streets. The grounds about this church were not extensive and principally occupied by vaults, which nevertheless emitted very offensive effluvia.” Thirty additional casks of lime were slacked and spread at Trinity Church on October 1st. On October 8th, the vaults of the Middle Dutch Church at the corner of Liberty and Nassau were covered with 40 casks of lime. “These vaults were exceedingly offensive,” the Board of Health reported. It was also reported that “the vaults of the French church in Pine-street in the vicinity of the former church also emitted disagreeable smells.” By late November 1822, the Yellow Fever epidemic had subsided. With an eye towards preventing the next outbreak, the Common Council passed a resolution to consider the future of intra-mural burial. "It appears to be the opinion of Medical Men that the great number of the dead interred in the several cemeteries within the bounds of this City, is attended with injurious consequences to the health of the inhabitants. This subject is therefore worthy of consideration and if the effects are in reality such as some of the faculty declare them to be, ought not future interments be prohibited at least during a part of the year. …" A law forbidding interments south of Canal Street was proposed in early 1823. At the time, there were at least 23 separate burial grounds south of Canal Street, many adjacent to churches. The leaders of the Reformed Dutch Church, the First Presbyterian Church, Grace Church, St. George’s Church, Christ’s Church, and Vestry of Zion Church all presented remonstrances to the Common Council in February 1823 objecting to the proposed law. Over those objections, a Law Respecting the Interment of the Dead was enacted by the Common Council on March 31, 1823. "Be it ordained by the Mayor Aldermen & Commonalty of the City of New York in Common Council Convened. That if any Person or Persons shall after the first day of June next dig up or open any grave or cause or procure any grave to be opened in any burying ground cemetery or church yard or in any other part or place in this City which lies to the Southward of a line commencing at the centre of Canal Street on the North River and running through the centre of Canal Street to Sullivan Street thence through Sullivan st. to Grand Street thence through Grand St. to the East river or shall inter or deposit or cause or procure to be interred or deposited in any such grave any dead body every such person shall forfeit and pay for every such offence the sum of Two hundred and fifty dollars." "And be it further Ordained that no dead body shall after the first day of June aforesaid be interred or deposited in any vault or tomb south of the aforesaid line under the penalty of Two hundred and fifty dollars for each and every offence." Churches south of Canal Street continued to fight the law. On April 21, 1823, the leaders of St. George Church, the Brick Presbyterian Church, the First Presbyterian Church of Wall Street, and Trinity Church requested revisions to permit some burials and entombments in private vaults. But the die had been cast. As the population of Manhattan grew, the Common Council moved the line prohibiting new burials northward, first to 14th Street, then to 86th Street. Without the income generated by burials, many churches closed their doors and relocated their dead to the new rural cemeteries in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Similar complaints in Boston prompted the creation of Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the most important and earliest rural cemeteries. Justice Joseph Story gave the address at the dedication of Mount Auburn cemetery in 1831. Story, then an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court and a professor at Harvard Law School, emphasized “the duty of the living” to “provide for the dead.” He explained that although the obligation to provide “grounds … for the repose of the dead” is a Christian duty, our “tender regard for the dead” is universal and “deeply founded in human affection.” Justice Story explained that Mount Auburn had been founded to cure the problem with the Boston colonial cemeteries. "It is painful to reflect, that the Cemeteries in our cities, crowded on all sides by the overhanging habitations of the living, are walled in only to preserve them from violation. And that in our country towns they are left in a sad, neglected state, exposed to every sort of intrusion, with scarcely a tree to shelter their barrenness, or a shrub to spread a grateful shade over the new-made hillock." Story argued that “there are higher moral purposes” that lead us to establish and care for cemeteries—"[i]t should not be for the poor purpose of gratifying our vanity or pride, that we should erect columns, and obelisks, and monuments to the dead; but that we may read thereon much of our own destiny and duty.” "[T]he repositories of the dead bring home thoughts full of admonition, of instruction, and slowly but surely, of consolation also. They admonish us, but their very silence, of our own frail and transitory being. They instruct us in the true value of life, and in its noble purposes, its duties, and its destinations. … We return to the world, and we feel ourselves purer, and better, and wiser, from this communion with the dead. I hope you’ve enjoyed this first episode in my series on Cemetery Tourism, and I hope that next time you’re in New York or Boston, you take the time to check out not only these colonial cemeteries located in the heart of the old cities, but the beautiful rural cemeteries that were later constructed – Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Green-wood in Brooklyn and Woodlawn in the Bronx. I’ll perhaps talk about the rural cemetery movement in a future episode. If you are interested in having me focus on particular cemeteries, please let me know by visiting www.deathetseq.com or dropping me a comment or a direct message on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you for joining me today on Death, et seq.

A long, long time ago in New York -- in the 1730s, back when the city was a holding of the British, with a little over 10,000 inhabitants -- a German printer named John Peter Zenger decided to print a four-page newspaper called the New York Weekly Journal.  This is pretty remarkable in itself, as there was only one other newspaper in town called the New York Gazette, an organ of the British crown and the governor of the colony. (Equally remarkable: Benjamin Franklin almost worked there!)  But Zenger's paper would call to question the actions of that governor, a virtual despot named William Cosby, and in so doing, set in motion an historic trial that marked a triumph for liberty and modern democratic rights, including freedom of the press and the power of jury nullification. This entire story takes place in lower Manhattan, and most of it on a couple floors of old New York City Hall at Wall Street and Nassau Street. Many years later, this spot would see the first American government and the inauguration of George Washington. But many could argue that the trial that occurs here on August 4, 1735, is equally important to the causes of democracy and a free press. And somehow, we manage to fit Kim Kardashian into this. www.boweryboyspodcast.com Support the show.

Music from Round the House, Vicki Swan and Jonny Dyer, Gerard Smith, Blackwater, David Nigel Lloyd, Wicked Tinkers, Liam Griffin, Spriggan, Poitin, Bill Grogan’s Goat, Deep Green Light, The Blarney Rebel Band, The Sandcarvers, Merry Wives Of Windsor. www.celticmusicpodcast.com Sponsor: My Irish Jeweler Forty years of Irish Jewelry Specializing in Celtic Wedding Rings and Celtic Engagement Rings MyIrishJeweler.com is owned and operated by Peter Gavin of College House Jewellers. Situated on Nassau Street, right in the heart of Dublin City. For four decades, they have seen the family-run company grow to be one of the most respected jewellers in the city. The jewelers benifits from a prime location, adjacent to Trinity College in an area famed for its large selection of quality craft shops. www.myirishjeweler.com Notes: Vote in The Celtic Top Five Cast your vote for your favorite song in this show. Are you subscribed to the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine? Become a Member of the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast I want to thank all the new and current Members of the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. Your donations and support are always appreciated. If you would like to become a member, for just $20 a year, you will get free access to Song Henge, my exclusive archive of free Celtic music. Visit songhenge.com for details. Irish and Celtic Music Podcast T-Shirts and Swag Buncrana Music & Arts Festival Marc Gunn, Celtic Music, the Traditional and the Twisted DragonCon Science Fiction Convention Get Marc Gunn or another band booked near with these tips:  First, make a demand at Eventful.com. Second, contact your local Celtic festival or organization and suggest my name for their events. Third, email booking@marcgunn.com and tell me venues that you think would be good match for my music. Get your free kilt sticker that reads “Kilted For Her Pleasure named after Marc Gunn's 10th studio album. Celtic CD Summer Blowout Sale! CDs on sale for just $9 Banners to promote the podcast Download this week's podcast. This Week “Mando Thing/Golden Stud/Evit Gabriel/Morning Dew” by Round the House from At This Stage “Bandit” by Vicki Swan and Jonny Dyer from Scatter Pipes “An Unforseen Event” by Gerard Smith from Idylls of the King of the Road “Good Morning, Are You Ready Yet?” by Blackwater from Live at 10 “Cuchulainn in Bakersfield” by David Nigel Lloyd from Rivers, Kings and Curses “Hornpipes/Mazurka” by Wicked Tinkers from Hammered “Myra’s Lament for Lamlash Bay” by Liam Griffin from Celtic Invasion Vacations of Scotland “Highland Farewell” by Spriggan from Mind the Gap “Step It Out” by Poitin from HOT Days “Horn Pipeline/Harvest Home & Boys of Blue Hill” by Bill Grogan's Goat from Bill Grogan's Goat “Foggy Dew” by Deep Green Light from L'uomo del caffè “Banshee” by The Blarney Rebel Band from Buy My Soul “Trampoline” by The Sandcarvers from Dealin' Craic Find out more about the artists in this show at www.celticmusicpodcast.com. While you're there, subscribe to our Celtic MP3s Music Magazine and visit the link for our Celtic Music CD Store. Please support the artists who support this podcast: buy their CDs, see their shows, and drop them an email to let them know you heard them on the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. PROMO – Dragon's Bard by Tracy & Laura Hickman CELTIC TOP 5 In every episode of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast, I ask you to vote for your favorite song in that podcast. The most-popular song is then featured at the end of the next podcast. Here are the most-popular songs from the last show. 5. “Sailor's Prayer” by Rambling Sailors 4. “Seal Set (Live)” by Wicked Tinkers 3. “Yellow Jack” by Brigand’s Folie 2. “The Mermaid's Tears' by Anne Roos 1. “Mad Jenny” by Merry Wives Of Windsor from Tales From Windsor's Tavern