The Times they aren't a changing

Grave wave warnings

Stories about our impending demise may – it turns out -- not be greatly exaggerated, but they aren’t necessarily new either.

Today’s Times considers the risk that a tsunami could obliterate chunks of the eastern seaboard:

A Warning About East Coast Tsunamis

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

The risk is low. But the consequences could be high, with deadly waves striking the coastal communities of Long Island, Connecticut and New Jersey and killing thousands of people.

Today, the federal government is announcing that it has completed the mid-Atlantic region’s risk assessments for the killer mounds of water known as tsunamis, or tidal waves.

In an extremely long-winded article on March 13, 1878 under the headline, “THE COMING TIDAL WAVE," similar dire warnings were aired and dismissed:

A superstition exists among the people here that a tidal wave will inundate the coast and extend into the interior of the country.

Eleven years later those “superstitions" turned out to be warranted, at least according to this tsunami of melodrama.

September 9, 1889
WASHED BY A TIDAL WAVE
A STARTLING VISITATION AT SEASIDE RESORTS
Beaches submerged and strollers drenched and carried into the surd—Panic at Atlantic City

Yesterday was not a particularly inviting day for a trip to the seashore, but the weather has got to behave far worse than it did to prevent a crowd from gathering on the strand at Rockaway Beach of a Sunday afternoon in early September, The crowd from the cities clustered about New York Bay was not comparatively large yesterday, but those who composed it – some three thousand in number – were treated to an experience with the Atlantic Ocean they will not soon forget.

Thick weather has been prevailing out at sea for three or four days, the ragged edges of the storm making occasional appearances in rain-threatening clouds over this and neighboring cities. Yesterday the sea, which had been rolling high, began to increase, rolling in huge billow shoreward and breaking in thundering roars on the beach. The wonderful power and majesty of the ocean in such commotion was the most attractive feature of the resorts strung along the beach, and there were large crowds watching the sea at what they supposed was a safe distance, when, at 4:30 o’clock, a tidal wave rolled upon the beach seventy feet beyond the previous high-water mark.

It broke over at least two thousand men, women, and children who were sitting, walking, or standing on the strand. It came unperceived by the great majority, and although there was a general scramble to get beyond its reach, but few were successful in wholly escaping its grasp. The great majority of the crowd suffered a thorough drenching. Many are tumbled over in the rush of waters and several women and children were caught by the undertow and carried back toward the surf line. Their screams of terror were heard shrill above the roar of the waters, and for an instant it seemed as if some must have been swept away and drowned, but strong arms reached for them and all were rescued with no more serious injuries than the shock, the fright, and the drenching.

Second Avenue's Second Coming

To New Yorkers, it's easier to believe in Santa than the Second Avenue Subway.

But there may be some reason to have faith that the first new line in more than 50 years will finally be constructed:

WASHINGTON--The Federal Government has agreed to finance New York City's Second Avenue subway, according to officials here.

The decision on the East-Side line, which has been a goal of transit planners since the 1930's, is expected to insure completion of the system within a decade.

That story was written June 11th, 1972 under the headline: U.S. AGREES TO AID 2D AVENUE SUBWAY. An official who wisely asked not to be identified assured readers then: "It should be obvious that participation in a project like this one is done with the anticipation that it will be seen through to completion."

Compare that to William Neuman's story in today's Times:

U.S. APPROVES $1.3 BILLION FOR 2ND AVENUE SUBWAY

The long-dreamed-of Second Avenue subway will take another important step toward becoming a real thing of concrete and steel today, as the federal government plans to announce that it has formally approved $1.3 billion in financing for the project’s first phase.

Shots misfired

A mistake is not just a mistake when a gun is involved.  That's why most police officers try to err on the side of not firing their weapons.

But as long as there have been armed police officers, there have been questionable shootings.

In the heat of the moment in a dark alley, a harmless household object can appear to an officer to be a deadly weapon. In this week's tragic version of the story, police fired 20 shots at a man armed only with a hairbrush.

A TROUBLED MAN AND 20 POLICE BULLETS IN BROOKLYN

November 14, 2007

By AL BAKER

A troubled 18-year-old man. A furious family argument inside a first-floor Brooklyn apartment. A 911 call. Then, in the darkness, 20 bullets fired by five police officers. The 18-year-old is fatally wounded. The police say he was holding a hairbrush.

These incidents don't happen very often, but since the 1990s they seem to occur with greater frequency.

Ten years ago it was a candy bar in the role of the hairbrush.

AGENT MISTAKES CANDY BAR FOR GUN AND SHOOTS YOUTH

November 8, 1997

By DAVID  KOCIENIEWSKI

A 17-year-old high school student was shot and wounded on Thursday by an undercover Federal agent who mistook a foil-wrapped candy bar that the youth was holding for a handgun, officials said yesterday.

The student, Andre Burgess, said he was walking down 138th Street in Laurelton, Queens, about 7 P.M. on Thursday when he passed a car full of undercover law enforcement agents who were searching for a fugitive drug dealer.

According to law-enforcement officials, a Federal agent inside the car saw the silver wrapper of the Three Musketeers bar that Mr. Burgess was carrying and mistook it for the glint of a pistol.

Fining the coop

Councilman Simcha Felder fancies himself the pigeon Pied Piper. He proposes to lead New York's rats with wings out of town by fining the hands that feed them.

From an AP story in today's Times.

Noting that pigeons produce an average of 25 pounds of droppings each year, Councilman Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat, proposed that the city impose a $1,000 fine for feeding pigeons. “We have pigeons doing whatever they do all over the city without anyone trying to stop it,” he said.

While pigeons were beloved residents of the city for more than a century, as their population exploded, New Yorkers began to call for their extermination. Unfortunately, the law has proven incapable of curbing the feeding of pigeons and the streets are now paved with droppings.

Take this case from 1936, in which a woman who was feeding Midtown pigeons 100 pounds of cracked corn a day had the book thrown at her to no avail:

PIGEON BREAD LINE STOPPED BY COURT
Woman freed after agreeing to give up feeding 46t St. flock 3 times a day

June 27, 1936

A complaint of disorderly conduct against Cleo Long of 25 West Forty-sixth Street was dismissed in West Side Court yesterday after she had signed a promise on the back of the summons promising to discontinue the bread line for pigeons she has been conducting three times a day in Forty-sixth Street between Fifth and 6th Avenues.