Academic Rants

Right on Time? Counterpoint On January 1, 2017 countless New Yorkers celebrated the opening of the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway. The mile long project, from 72nd to 96th Streets, is a significant achievement. It connects with 63rd Street making several transit lines improve services to a critical number of riders. However, the other three phases consisting of roughly seven more miles are still in the planning stages. Given that phase one took $4.4 billion to build and roughly 14 years from planning to completion can the city afford to finish the project in a timely and affordable manner? For years in fact, almost 100, New Yorkers have dreamed of a Second Avenue Subway. It was initially introduced by the Public Service Commission in 1920 as part of a “Proposed Comprehensive Rapid Transit System” and nine years later a formal proposal called for a line going from Houston Street to the Harlem River. The projected cost was $86 million dollars.  The Stock M...

The Train Is Right On Time! On January first countless New Yorkers from politicians, city and state officials, and the general public celebrated the opening of the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway. The mile long project, from 72nd to 96th Streets, is a symbol of pride for America’s most populated city, and its creation will serve thousands of New Yorkers daily. The idea of creating a rapid transit system in New York has been an important part of the its history and growth.  In the 19th century, years before the Great Consolidation that would unify the five boroughs into the largest metropolis in the nation, city fathers dreamed of a series of vehicles that would move businessmen from homes in northern Manhattan to offices downtown. And as more people followed the wealthy further uptown, spurring massive urban development, the growing need for rapid transit was paramount for the city’s survival. Elevated train networks emerged running north and south throu...

The recent crisis in the NFL highlighted by a domestic violence act by Ray Rice and accusations of child abuse by Adrian Peterson has encouraged a national debate on violent sports and the abilities of athletes to control their rage in their personal and very public lives.   And in the process, the conversations have forced a return to the national discussion on race relations, the differences between whites and non-whites, and social economic divides. I think that there are two things to consider 1) is the written description of an event and 2) is the visual image of an event. Both have played specific roles in framing our national conversations, and further divides the views of whites and blacks on virtually every topic. Since Rodney King’s beating was televised to a national audience, the American public has reacted with a different ferocity to visual images as opposed to images created by word of mouth narratives.   Clearly our imaginations of events are not enough –w...