Unlike large gatherings in New York that I’ve been to—especially after Sept. 11—this rally was more sanguine than sanguinary; the police gently prodded the crowd, deftly stopping car traffic at one intersection to let the energized mob through, and using a stream of vehicles at another intersection to block the way. There were no portable metal fences penning the participants in, no line of bullying officers arbitrarily blocking no-go areas. After Mr. López Obrador emerged from the S.U.V., he addressed the crowd full of confidence; the polls gave him a slight lead in the election to be held in four days. “We are going to win!” he bellowed into the microphone, his voice booming over the now hundreds of thousands of cheering people.

Victory, it seemed to the crowd, was assured. After all, this was Mexico City, the largest city in the country—one of the largest on earth! If Mr. López Obrador could overwhelmingly carry all these people, how couldn’t he win the election?

I caught the Mexico bug several years ago, when I visited the country during a college break. One trip south led to another, and by the time I moved east to New York from California, I had logged many months south of the border, traveling from the desert north of Baja California, Sonora and Chihuahua states down to the jungles and beaches of Oaxaca and Veracruz.

But what had really excited me was the sprawling capital megalopolis—the Aztecs’ ceremonial pyramid, which juts out of the ground just north of the Zócalo in the city’s geographical, historical and political center; the art galleries of the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods, where stone mansions damaged in the mid-80’s from powerful earthquakes were consequently abandoned by their rich owners and taken over by artists in need of cheap housing; and Coyoacán, an upscale neighborhood that was formerly a small village, subsequently swallowed up by urban sprawl, where Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo once cavorted and where Leon Trotsky, in exile, fell victim to his Stalinist assassin’s ice pick.

Mexico’s history is etched on the stone street corners downtown; avenues and neighborhoods are named after Aztec warriors and revolutionary heroes and martyrs; you can still walk into cantinas where, legend has it, Pancho Villa shot up the ceiling during a drunken fiesta, or an upscale restaurant where Emiliano Zapata and his campesino followers incongruously sat and ate dinner at the counter. The city is a palimpsest—scratch the surface next to an Art Deco office tower and you’ll see the Spanish colonial era; scratch it elsewhere and the plumed head of Quetzalcoatl stares out from between cobblestones. As a bartender told me later that week, with the weight of history hanging heavy on every street corner, “The central district is surreal.”

It’s sometimes said that Mexico is in a state of permanent revolution, and the last couple of Presidential elections have supported that view. After the 1910-20 revolution, power was consolidated by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or P.R.I., which reigned nearly unopposed for 71 years. But in 1988, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas just nearly attained the Presidency after splitting off from the ruling party and creating his own. The P.R.I. was weakened, and two elections and 12 years later, the ironically named center-right P.A.N. (the National Action Party; pan means “bread” in Spanish—a populist, left-wing symbol, if any at all) ascended to power with Vicente Fox.

Now, people whom I talked to around town were guardedly confident that Mr. López Obrador (of another party, the P.R.D.) would be elected. The Friday night before the election, in a second-story club in the bohemian Roma Norte neighborhood, I spoke with a photographer, Rubén, and his computer-programmer girlfriend, Rebecca.

“We want López Obrador to win, of course,” Rubén told me as a three-piece tango band played in the smoky room. Cigarette smoke filled the air, and couples sat languorously at tables piled with empty wine bottles and heaping ashtrays. “But sometimes he plays up class differences a little too much, and that scares people off.”

Indeed, Mr. López Obrador’s opponent, Felipe Calderón of the P.A.N., had accused him of being a politician in the same vein as leftist anti-American firebrand Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. But Mr. López Obrador employed more conciliatory rhetoric. At his pre-election rally, he emphasized the need to help Mexico’s poor but said that he would not increase spending dramatically.

Other Chilangos weren’t interested in the election at all. At the Café el Centro, not far from the Zócalo, I spoke to an advertising businessman named Manuel briefly about it. “I do not care for politics at all,” Manuel told me as he puffed cigarette after cigarette. “Sports, yes. Do you like football?”

On Election Night, the Federal Election Institute had guaranteed that a winner would be declared by 11 p.m. I had been struck down by food poisoning the night before, when, ironically enough, I had gone to a restaurant in the upscale Polanco neighborhood—two overpriced tacos from a glorified taco shop next to a Fendi and Hermès store incapacitated me for the next 12 hours. It was like eating from Chinatown street vendors all week, but getting stricken after a burger at Balthazar. Perhaps it was the lack of beer; federal law had decreed that there would be no alcohol sales the day before the election. Sober voters apparently make sober decisions.

But I managed to drag myself down to the Zócalo around 10:30 p.m. to read the crowd, and from the look of it, Mr. López Obrador was coasting to victory. The yellow flags, which days before had read “Smile! We Are Going to Win!”, now read “Smile! We Won!” A salsa band played on the giant stage, and people were hugging and laughing, assured of victory.

By the appointed hour, a large video screen was filled with the studious profile of the president of the Federal Election Institute. After a rambling, self-congratulatory 10-minute rundown of the mechanics and safeguards of the electoral process, he said the results of the election were too close to call. The crowd, nevertheless, continued to grow and kept chanting Mr. López Obrador’s name. It was becoming a victory party, although no victory was evident. Clutching my stomach, I made my way back to my hotel and climbed into bed. All night, I could hear people chanting, cars honking and fireworks exploding as the party raged outside my window.

For the next three days, the city returned back to normal. The polls showed Mr. Calderón as having a slight lead, and he quickly proclaimed victory over Mr. López Obrador. But a certain matter of three million missing votes became an embarrassment for the Federal Election Institute after Mr. López Obrador called attention to them. The margin of victory narrowed, but I, unfortunately, was due to fly home.

On my last night in the city, I went to a mescal bar in Condesa, a neighborhood not unlike Chelsea: full of galleries, cafés, artists and fashionistas—and their hangers-on—but minus the large discotheques. My bartender, Hector, was skeptical about the results of the election. “You know those three million votes they ‘found’?” he asked. I nodded. “Doesn’t that seem a little suspicious?” Yeah, I agreed, about as suspicious as Florida in 2000. He filled my glass with another large pour of mescal and clinked it with his glass of water. “ Salud.”

The next day, posters for Mr. López Obrador still hung in store and taxi windows. Store workers scrubbed the stone sidewalks, Indian women sat next to the street with hands outstretched to passersby, and businessmen hurried by. A street-vendor woman blew into the coal chamber of her taco stand, heating the grill for her first customer. A man in a yellow shirt stopped at a lamppost and hung a poster for an upcoming pro–López Obrador rally.

I flew home and scoured the papers for news of that rally. While the one I was in was peaceful and optimistic, I wonder how the mood has now changed. Reports are trickling in of more fraud than originally thought: discarded ballot boxes found in the dump, videotapes of P.A.N. workers stuffing votes. The official election results are tight—a difference of only 244,000 votes. That’s about the same number of people surrounding Mr. López Obrador when I stood there, slack-jawed and amazed, as the populist politico stood confident in his impending victory and waved at us all.

Unlike large gatherings in New York that I’ve been to—especially after Sept. 11—this rally was more sanguine than sanguinary; the police gently prodded the crowd, deftly stopping car traffic at one intersection to let the energized mob through, and using a stream of vehicles at another intersection to block the way. There were no portable metal fences penning the participants in, no line of bullying officers arbitrarily blocking no-go areas. After Mr. López Obrador emerged from the S.U.V., he addressed the crowd full of confidence; the polls gave him a slight lead in the election to be held in four days. “We are going to win!” he bellowed into the microphone, his voice booming over the now hundreds of thousands of cheering people.

Victory, it seemed to the crowd, was assured. After all, this was Mexico City, the largest city in the country—one of the largest on earth! If Mr. López Obrador could overwhelmingly carry all these people, how couldn’t he win the election?

I caught the Mexico bug several years ago, when I visited the country during a college break. One trip south led to another, and by the time I moved east to New York from California, I had logged many months south of the border, traveling from the desert north of Baja California, Sonora and Chihuahua states down to the jungles and beaches of Oaxaca and Veracruz.

But what had really excited me was the sprawling capital megalopolis—the Aztecs’ ceremonial pyramid, which juts out of the ground just north of the Zócalo in the city’s geographical, historical and political center; the art galleries of the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods, where stone mansions damaged in the mid-80’s from powerful earthquakes were consequently abandoned by their rich owners and taken over by artists in need of cheap housing; and Coyoacán, an upscale neighborhood that was formerly a small village, subsequently swallowed up by urban sprawl, where Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo once cavorted and where Leon Trotsky, in exile, fell victim to his Stalinist assassin’s ice pick.

Mexico’s history is etched on the stone street corners downtown; avenues and neighborhoods are named after Aztec warriors and revolutionary heroes and martyrs; you can still walk into cantinas where, legend has it, Pancho Villa shot up the ceiling during a drunken fiesta, or an upscale restaurant where Emiliano Zapata and his campesino followers incongruously sat and ate dinner at the counter. The city is a palimpsest—scratch the surface next to an Art Deco office tower and you’ll see the Spanish colonial era; scratch it elsewhere and the plumed head of Quetzalcoatl stares out from between cobblestones. As a bartender told me later that week, with the weight of history hanging heavy on every street corner, “The central district is surreal.”

It’s sometimes said that Mexico is in a state of permanent revolution, and the last couple of Presidential elections have supported that view. After the 1910-20 revolution, power was consolidated by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or P.R.I., which reigned nearly unopposed for 71 years. But in 1988, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas just nearly attained the Presidency after splitting off from the ruling party and creating his own. The P.R.I. was weakened, and two elections and 12 years later, the ironically named center-right P.A.N. (the National Action Party; pan means “bread” in Spanish—a populist, left-wing symbol, if any at all) ascended to power with Vicente Fox.

Now, people whom I talked to around town were guardedly confident that Mr. López Obrador (of another party, the P.R.D.) would be elected. The Friday night before the election, in a second-story club in the bohemian Roma Norte neighborhood, I spoke with a photographer, Rubén, and his computer-programmer girlfriend, Rebecca.

“We want López Obrador to win, of course,” Rubén told me as a three-piece tango band played in the smoky room. Cigarette smoke filled the air, and couples sat languorously at tables piled with empty wine bottles and heaping ashtrays. “But sometimes he plays up class differences a little too much, and that scares people off.”

Indeed, Mr. López Obrador’s opponent, Felipe Calderón of the P.A.N., had accused him of being a politician in the same vein as leftist anti-American firebrand Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. But Mr. López Obrador employed more conciliatory rhetoric. At his pre-election rally, he emphasized the need to help Mexico’s poor but said that he would not increase spending dramatically.

Other Chilangos weren’t interested in the election at all. At the Café el Centro, not far from the Zócalo, I spoke to an advertising businessman named Manuel briefly about it. “I do not care for politics at all,” Manuel told me as he puffed cigarette after cigarette. “Sports, yes. Do you like football?”

On Election Night, the Federal Election Institute had guaranteed that a winner would be declared by 11 p.m. I had been struck down by food poisoning the night before, when, ironically enough, I had gone to a restaurant in the upscale Polanco neighborhood—two overpriced tacos from a glorified taco shop next to a Fendi and Hermès store incapacitated me for the next 12 hours. It was like eating from Chinatown street vendors all week, but getting stricken after a burger at Balthazar. Perhaps it was the lack of beer; federal law had decreed that there would be no alcohol sales the day before the election. Sober voters apparently make sober decisions.

But I managed to drag myself down to the Zócalo around 10:30 p.m. to read the crowd, and from the look of it, Mr. López Obrador was coasting to victory. The yellow flags, which days before had read “Smile! We Are Going to Win!”, now read “Smile! We Won!” A salsa band played on the giant stage, and people were hugging and laughing, assured of victory.

By the appointed hour, a large video screen was filled with the studious profile of the president of the Federal Election Institute. After a rambling, self-congratulatory 10-minute rundown of the mechanics and safeguards of the electoral process, he said the results of the election were too close to call. The crowd, nevertheless, continued to grow and kept chanting Mr. López Obrador’s name. It was becoming a victory party, although no victory was evident. Clutching my stomach, I made my way back to my hotel and climbed into bed. All night, I could hear people chanting, cars honking and fireworks exploding as the party raged outside my window.

For the next three days, the city returned back to normal. The polls showed Mr. Calderón as having a slight lead, and he quickly proclaimed victory over Mr. López Obrador. But a certain matter of three million missing votes became an embarrassment for the Federal Election Institute after Mr. López Obrador called attention to them. The margin of victory narrowed, but I, unfortunately, was due to fly home.

On my last night in the city, I went to a mescal bar in Condesa, a neighborhood not unlike Chelsea: full of galleries, cafés, artists and fashionistas—and their hangers-on—but minus the large discotheques. My bartender, Hector, was skeptical about the results of the election. “You know those three million votes they ‘found’?” he asked. I nodded. “Doesn’t that seem a little suspicious?” Yeah, I agreed, about as suspicious as Florida in 2000. He filled my glass with another large pour of mescal and clinked it with his glass of water. “Salud.”

The next day, posters for Mr. López Obrador still hung in store and taxi windows. Store workers scrubbed the stone sidewalks, Indian women sat next to the street with hands outstretched to passersby, and businessmen hurried by. A street-vendor woman blew into the coal chamber of her taco stand, heating the grill for her first customer. A man in a yellow shirt stopped at a lamppost and hung a poster for an upcoming pro–López Obrador rally.

I flew home and scoured the papers for news of that rally. While the one I was in was peaceful and optimistic, I wonder how the mood has now changed. Reports are trickling in of more fraud than originally thought: discarded ballot boxes found in the dump, videotapes of P.A.N. workers stuffing votes. The official election results are tight—a difference of only 244,000 votes. That’s about the same number of people surrounding Mr. López Obrador when I stood there, slack-jawed and amazed, as the populist politico stood confident in his impending victory and waved at us all.

The Department of Environmental Protection, along with the Department of Design and Construction, is currently scoping out sites for the location of Shaft 33B, the latest infrastructure project for the long-awaited Water Tunnel No. 3, the 50-year, $6 billion project to update the city’s water system. But residents in the East 50’s are alarmed that the excavation, tentatively planned for the northwest corner of First Avenue and 59th Street, will disrupt their lives for the years it takes to complete the project.

Community Board 6, in response to these worries, passed a resolution last Wednesday that objected to the selection of any location for Shaft 33B by the D.E.P. “without a consolidated presentation of both the proposed location of 33B and the complete routing plans of the associated water mains … and full community participation in the decision of the routing of those mains.”

At a public hearing on Dec. 5 at the High School of Art and Design, nearly a thousand people packed the auditorium to oppose the D.E.P. plan, and the board’s resolution is another salvo in the ongoing contretemps that threatens to disrupt the project. At the heart of the matter isn’t so much the location of the shaft (although some people are opposed to that), but rather the location of the water mains that will connect the shaft to Water Tunnel No. 3 under Third Avenue.

The D.E.P. is responsible for the location, design and construction of both the water tunnel and Shaft 33B, but the D.D.C. is responsible for the water mains that will connect the two—and that’s where the problems begin. Once the D.E.P. makes a decision where the shaft will be excavated, then the D.D.C. will decide where the water mains should run. And in Manhattan, ripping up the streets to install those water mains will have an enormously detrimental impact on the neighborhood involved, project opponents say.

“We’re opposed to it because they will not tell us the water-main route,” said Linda Saputelli, the chair of the East 50’s Neighborhood Coalition. According to Ms. Saputelli, the site for the water shaft shouldn’t be finalized until the D.D.C. makes public exactly where the water mains will run, how long the construction will last and how the neighborhood will be affected. Ms. Saputelli said that if work on Shaft 33B is approved, the water-mains component of the project will be a fait accompli, without any public oversight of a project that could adversely affect the neighborhood for years to come.

State Assemblyman Jonathan Bing has been working with the East 50’s Neighborhood Coalition to demand answers from the D.E.P. and the D.D.C. “Right now, the big issue is trying to make sure the entire project—both the water shaft and the water main—are viewed as one project,” Mr. Bing told The Observer.

According to the D.E.P., excavation of Shaft 33B could begin as early as the spring of next year and would continue until 2010. Construction of the water mains would begin concurrently and continue after the shaft is completed, finishing up sometime in 2011.

The D.E.P. has released a draft version of the environmental-impact statement for Shaft 33B, and comments were accepted until Dec. 22. The department will now finalize the environmental-impact statement, and responses to comments will be incorporated into the final document.

Ms. Saputelli told The Observer that she is currently contacting elected officials with her group’s concerns to force the D.E.P. and the D.D.C. to open up their selection process for water-main routes. A lawsuit to stop the project is possible, Ms. Saputelli said, if the city continues with the project without community input.

And she has support. “If the D.E.P. does not adequately provide information to the community about why this site has been chosen and why other sites weren’t chosen—and, more specifically, how the water shaft is going to be connected to the main water tunnel—certainly I would support efforts to gather that information, up to and including a lawsuit,” Assemblyman Bing said.

Calls to the D.D.C. were referred to the D.E.P. Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the D.E.P., said: “We’ve been very open to the with the community and Community Board 6. We’re not concealing any information from them …. We’ve done more outreach on this site than any other shaft site related to Water Tunnel No. 3.”

Downtown Barhoppers Beware

In its ongoing battle to curb bar noise and the proliferation of nightclubs within its district, Community Board 3, on Dec. 20, passed a resolution supporting Assemblywoman Deborah Glick’s Dec. 12 letter to Governor George Pataki requesting that the recently vacated commissioner’s position in the State Liquor Authority be filled by a New York City resident.

In November 2005, S.L.A. chairman Edward F. Kelly announced his retirement after a decade with the authority, shortly after State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer began an investigation into pricing practices in the state liquor industry. A week before, Mr. Pataki had announced the creation of a chief executive post with the S.L.A. to run its day-to-day operations.

A spokesperson for the Governor wouldn’t comment on the selection of the new commissioner, saying only that “the Governor always looks for the most qualified and capable individuals when making appointments.” Joshua Toas, a former Assistant Secretary of State and Assistant Counsel to the Governor (and frequent contributor to Mr. Pataki’s campaign fund), was appointed to the chief executive position of the S.L.A. shortly after it was created.

Critics of the S.L.A. have long said that the authority ignores community input when granting new liquor licenses in New York City, especially in the bar-saturated neighborhoods of the East and West Village and Chelsea. The three neighborhoods have the greatest number of liquor licenses in the city (3,055, 1,866 and 944, respectively), according to a 2005 report prepared by the office of then–City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.

Because the commissioners of the S.L.A. all live outside the city, critics contend that the S.L.A. is unaware of the acute noise problems and disruption to the community that this proliferation of bars causes. Lately, Board 3 conducted a public hearing to discuss the feasibility of converting Avenue B into a one-way street. Proponents contend that the change would ameliorate traffic noise on the busy weekend nights, but others are concerned that it would irrevocably alter the character of the neighborhood. Other groups have called for a complete moratorium on new liquor licenses for certain neighborhoods in the city.

“We are looking for greater sensitivity from the S.L.A. regarding the impact of granting the large number of licenses in a concentrated area,” Ms. Glick told The Observer. “I think that commissioners that infrequently visit the city—who may not come into some of the downtown areas—they may not have a full understanding of how many people live in the area, and in what proximity to these establishments they live.”

The Department of Environmental Protection, along with the Department of Design and Construction, is currently scoping out sites for the location of Shaft 33B, the latest infrastructure project for the long-awaited Water Tunnel No. 3, the 50-year, $6 billion project to update the city’s water system. But residents in the East 50’s are alarmed that the excavation, tentatively planned for the northwest corner of First Avenue and 59th Street, will disrupt their lives for the years it takes to complete the project.

Community Board 6, in response to these worries, passed a resolution last Wednesday that objected to the selection of any location for Shaft 33B by the D.E.P. “without a consolidated presentation of both the proposed location of 33B and the complete routing plans of the associated water mains … and full community participation in the decision of the routing of those mains.”

At a public hearing on Dec. 5 at the High School of Art and Design, nearly a thousand people packed the auditorium to oppose the D.E.P. plan, and the board’s resolution is another salvo in the ongoing contretemps that threatens to disrupt the project. At the heart of the matter isn’t so much the location of the shaft (although some people are opposed to that), but rather the location of the water mains that will connect the shaft to Water Tunnel No. 3 under Third Avenue.

The D.E.P. is responsible for the location, design and construction of both the water tunnel and Shaft 33B, but the D.D.C. is responsible for the water mains that will connect the two—and that’s where the problems begin. Once the D.E.P. makes a decision where the shaft will be excavated, then the D.D.C. will decide where the water mains should run. And in Manhattan, ripping up the streets to install those water mains will have an enormously detrimental impact on the neighborhood involved, project opponents say.

“We’re opposed to it because they will not tell us the water-main route,” said Linda Saputelli, the chair of the East 50’s Neighborhood Coalition. According to Ms. Saputelli, the site for the water shaft shouldn’t be finalized until the D.D.C. makes public exactly where the water mains will run, how long the construction will last and how the neighborhood will be affected. Ms. Saputelli said that if work on Shaft 33B is approved, the water-mains component of the project will be a fait accompli, without any public oversight of a project that could adversely affect the neighborhood for years to come.

State Assemblyman Jonathan Bing has been working with the East 50’s Neighborhood Coalition to demand answers from the D.E.P. and the D.D.C. “Right now, the big issue is trying to make sure the entire project—both the water shaft and the water main—are viewed as one project,” Mr. Bing told The Observer.

According to the D.E.P., excavation of Shaft 33B could begin as early as the spring of next year and would continue until 2010. Construction of the water mains would begin concurrently and continue after the shaft is completed, finishing up sometime in 2011.

The D.E.P. has released a draft version of the environmental-impact statement for Shaft 33B, and comments were accepted until Dec. 22. The department will now finalize the environmental-impact statement, and responses to comments will be incorporated into the final document.

Ms. Saputelli told The Observer that she is currently contacting elected officials with her group’s concerns to force the D.E.P. and the D.D.C. to open up their selection process for water-main routes. A lawsuit to stop the project is possible, Ms. Saputelli said, if the city continues with the project without community input.

And she has support. “If the D.E.P. does not adequately provide information to the community about why this site has been chosen and why other sites weren’t chosen—and, more specifically, how the water shaft is going to be connected to the main water tunnel—certainly I would support efforts to gather that information, up to and including a lawsuit,” Assemblyman Bing said.

Calls to the D.D.C. were referred to the D.E.P. Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the D.E.P., said: “We’ve been very open to the with the community and Community Board 6. We’re not concealing any information from them …. We’ve done more outreach on this site than any other shaft site related to Water Tunnel No. 3.”

Downtown Barhoppers Beware

In its ongoing battle to curb bar noise and the proliferation of nightclubs within its district, Community Board 3, on Dec. 20, passed a resolution supporting Assemblywoman Deborah Glick’s Dec. 12 letter to Governor George Pataki requesting that the recently vacated commissioner’s position in the State Liquor Authority be filled by a New York City resident.

In November 2005, S.L.A. chairman Edward F. Kelly announced his retirement after a decade with the authority, shortly after State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer began an investigation into pricing practices in the state liquor industry. A week before, Mr. Pataki had announced the creation of a chief executive post with the S.L.A. to run its day-to-day operations.

A spokesperson for the Governor wouldn’t comment on the selection of the new commissioner, saying only that “the Governor always looks for the most qualified and capable individuals when making appointments.” Joshua Toas, a former Assistant Secretary of State and Assistant Counsel to the Governor (and frequent contributor to Mr. Pataki’s campaign fund), was appointed to the chief executive position of the S.L.A. shortly after it was created.

Critics of the S.L.A. have long said that the authority ignores community input when granting new liquor licenses in New York City, especially in the bar-saturated neighborhoods of the East and West Village and Chelsea. The three neighborhoods have the greatest number of liquor licenses in the city (3,055, 1,866 and 944, respectively), according to a 2005 report prepared by the office of then–City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.

Because the commissioners of the S.L.A. all live outside the city, critics contend that the S.L.A. is unaware of the acute noise problems and disruption to the community that this proliferation of bars causes. Lately, Board 3 conducted a public hearing to discuss the feasibility of converting Avenue B into a one-way street. Proponents contend that the change would ameliorate traffic noise on the busy weekend nights, but others are concerned that it would irrevocably alter the character of the neighborhood. Other groups have called for a complete moratorium on new liquor licenses for certain neighborhoods in the city.

“We are looking for greater sensitivity from the S.L.A. regarding the impact of granting the large number of licenses in a concentrated area,” Ms. Glick told The Observer. “I think that commissioners that infrequently visit the city—who may not come into some of the downtown areas—they may not have a full understanding of how many people live in the area, and in what proximity to these establishments they live.”

The Department of Environmental Protection, along with the Department of Design and Construction, is currently scoping out sites for the location of Shaft 33B, the latest infrastructure project for the long-awaited Water Tunnel No. 3, the 50-year, $6 billion project to update the city’s water system. But residents in the East 50’s are alarmed that the excavation, tentatively planned for the northwest corner of First Avenue and 59th Street, will disrupt their lives for the years it takes to complete the project.

Community Board 6, in response to these worries, passed a resolution last Wednesday that objected to the selection of any location for Shaft 33B by the D.E.P. “without a consolidated presentation of both the proposed location of 33B and the complete routing plans of the associated water mains … and full community participation in the decision of the routing of those mains.”

At a public hearing on Dec. 5 at the High School of Art and Design, nearly a thousand people packed the auditorium to oppose the D.E.P. plan, and the board’s resolution is another salvo in the ongoing contretemps that threatens to disrupt the project. At the heart of the matter isn’t so much the location of the shaft (although some people are opposed to that), but rather the location of the water mains that will connect the shaft to Water Tunnel No. 3 under Third Avenue.

The D.E.P. is responsible for the location, design and construction of both the water tunnel and Shaft 33B, but the D.D.C. is responsible for the water mains that will connect the two—and that’s where the problems begin. Once the D.E.P. makes a decision where the shaft will be excavated, then the D.D.C. will decide where the water mains should run. And in Manhattan, ripping up the streets to install those water mains will have an enormously detrimental impact on the neighborhood involved, project opponents say.

“We’re opposed to it because they will not tell us the water-main route,” said Linda Saputelli, the chair of the East 50’s Neighborhood Coalition. According to Ms. Saputelli, the site for the water shaft shouldn’t be finalized until the D.D.C. makes public exactly where the water mains will run, how long the construction will last and how the neighborhood will be affected. Ms. Saputelli said that if work on Shaft 33B is approved, the water-mains component of the project will be a fait accompli, without any public oversight of a project that could adversely affect the neighborhood for years to come.

State Assemblyman Jonathan Bing has been working with the East 50’s Neighborhood Coalition to demand answers from the D.E.P. and the D.D.C. “Right now, the big issue is trying to make sure the entire project—both the water shaft and the water main—are viewed as one project,” Mr. Bing told The Observer.

According to the D.E.P., excavation of Shaft 33B could begin as early as the spring of next year and would continue until 2010. Construction of the water mains would begin concurrently and continue after the shaft is completed, finishing up sometime in 2011.

The D.E.P. has released a draft version of the environmental-impact statement for Shaft 33B, and comments were accepted until Dec. 22. The department will now finalize the environmental-impact statement, and responses to comments will be incorporated into the final document.

Ms. Saputelli told The Observer that she is currently contacting elected officials with her group’s concerns to force the D.E.P. and the D.D.C. to open up their selection process for water-main routes. A lawsuit to stop the project is possible, Ms. Saputelli said, if the city continues with the project without community input.

And she has support. “If the D.E.P. does not adequately provide information to the community about why this site has been chosen and why other sites weren’t chosen—and, more specifically, how the water shaft is going to be connected to the main water tunnel—certainly I would support efforts to gather that information, up to and including a lawsuit,” Assemblyman Bing said.

Calls to the D.D.C. were referred to the D.E.P. Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the D.E.P., said: “We’ve been very open to the with the community and Community Board 6. We’re not concealing any information from them …. We’ve done more outreach on this site than any other shaft site related to Water Tunnel No. 3.”

Downtown Barhoppers Beware

In its ongoing battle to curb bar noise and the proliferation of nightclubs within its district, Community Board 3, on Dec. 20, passed a resolution supporting Assemblywoman Deborah Glick’s Dec. 12 letter to Governor George Pataki requesting that the recently vacated commissioner’s position in the State Liquor Authority be filled by a New York City resident.

In November 2005, S.L.A. chairman Edward F. Kelly announced his retirement after a decade with the authority, shortly after State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer began an investigation into pricing practices in the state liquor industry. A week before, Mr. Pataki had announced the creation of a chief executive post with the S.L.A. to run its day-to-day operations.

A spokesperson for the Governor wouldn’t comment on the selection of the new commissioner, saying only that “the Governor always looks for the most qualified and capable individuals when making appointments.” Joshua Toas, a former Assistant Secretary of State and Assistant Counsel to the Governor (and frequent contributor to Mr. Pataki’s campaign fund), was appointed to the chief executive position of the S.L.A. shortly after it was created.

Critics of the S.L.A. have long said that the authority ignores community input when granting new liquor licenses in New York City, especially in the bar-saturated neighborhoods of the East and West Village and Chelsea. The three neighborhoods have the greatest number of liquor licenses in the city (3,055, 1,866 and 944, respectively), according to a 2005 report prepared by the office of then–City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.

Because the commissioners of the S.L.A. all live outside the city, critics contend that the S.L.A. is unaware of the acute noise problems and disruption to the community that this proliferation of bars causes. Lately, Board 3 conducted a public hearing to discuss the feasibility of converting Avenue B into a one-way street. Proponents contend that the change would ameliorate traffic noise on the busy weekend nights, but others are concerned that it would irrevocably alter the character of the neighborhood. Other groups have called for a complete moratorium on new liquor licenses for certain neighborhoods in the city.

“We are looking for greater sensitivity from the S.L.A. regarding the impact of granting the large number of licenses in a concentrated area,” Ms. Glick told The Observer. “I think that commissioners that infrequently visit the city—who may not come into some of the downtown areas—they may not have a full understanding of how many people live in the area, and in what proximity to these establishments they live.”

The Department of Environmental Protection, along with the Department of Design and Construction, is currently scoping out sites for the location of Shaft 33B, the latest infrastructure project for the long-awaited Water Tunnel No. 3, the 50-year, $6 billion project to update the city’s water system. But residents in the East 50’s are alarmed that the excavation, tentatively planned for the northwest corner of First Avenue and 59th Street, will disrupt their lives for the years it takes to complete the project.

Community Board 6, in response to these worries, passed a resolution last Wednesday that objected to the selection of any location for Shaft 33B by the D.E.P. “without a consolidated presentation of both the proposed location of 33B and the complete routing plans of the associated water mains … and full community participation in the decision of the routing of those mains.”

At a public hearing on Dec. 5 at the High School of Art and Design, nearly a thousand people packed the auditorium to oppose the D.E.P. plan, and the board’s resolution is another salvo in the ongoing contretemps that threatens to disrupt the project. At the heart of the matter isn’t so much the location of the shaft (although some people are opposed to that), but rather the location of the water mains that will connect the shaft to Water Tunnel No. 3 under Third Avenue.

The D.E.P. is responsible for the location, design and construction of both the water tunnel and Shaft 33B, but the D.D.C. is responsible for the water mains that will connect the two—and that’s where the problems begin. Once the D.E.P. makes a decision where the shaft will be excavated, then the D.D.C. will decide where the water mains should run. And in Manhattan, ripping up the streets to install those water mains will have an enormously detrimental impact on the neighborhood involved, project opponents say.

“We’re opposed to it because they will not tell us the water-main route,” said Linda Saputelli, the chair of the East 50’s Neighborhood Coalition. According to Ms. Saputelli, the site for the water shaft shouldn’t be finalized until the D.D.C. makes public exactly where the water mains will run, how long the construction will last and how the neighborhood will be affected. Ms. Saputelli said that if work on Shaft 33B is approved, the water-mains component of the project will be a fait accompli, without any public oversight of a project that could adversely affect the neighborhood for years to come.

State Assemblyman Jonathan Bing has been working with the East 50’s Neighborhood Coalition to demand answers from the D.E.P. and the D.D.C. “Right now, the big issue is trying to make sure the entire project—both the water shaft and the water main—are viewed as one project,” Mr. Bing told The Observer.

According to the D.E.P., excavation of Shaft 33B could begin as early as the spring of next year and would continue until 2010. Construction of the water mains would begin concurrently and continue after the shaft is completed, finishing up sometime in 2011.

The D.E.P. has released a draft version of the environmental-impact statement for Shaft 33B, and comments were accepted until Dec. 22. The department will now finalize the environmental-impact statement, and responses to comments will be incorporated into the final document.

Ms. Saputelli told The Observer that she is currently contacting elected officials with her group’s concerns to force the D.E.P. and the D.D.C. to open up their selection process for water-main routes. A lawsuit to stop the project is possible, Ms. Saputelli said, if the city continues with the project without community input.

And she has support. “If the D.E.P. does not adequately provide information to the community about why this site has been chosen and why other sites weren’t chosen—and, more specifically, how the water shaft is going to be connected to the main water tunnel—certainly I would support efforts to gather that information, up to and including a lawsuit,” Assemblyman Bing said.

Calls to the D.D.C. were referred to the D.E.P. Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the D.E.P., said: “We’ve been very open to the with the community and Community Board 6. We’re not concealing any information from them …. We’ve done more outreach on this site than any other shaft site related to Water Tunnel No. 3.”

Downtown Barhoppers Beware

In its ongoing battle to curb bar noise and the proliferation of nightclubs within its district, Community Board 3, on Dec. 20, passed a resolution supporting Assemblywoman Deborah Glick’s Dec. 12 letter to Governor George Pataki requesting that the recently vacated commissioner’s position in the State Liquor Authority be filled by a New York City resident.

In November 2005, S.L.A. chairman Edward F. Kelly announced his retirement after a decade with the authority, shortly after State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer began an investigation into pricing practices in the state liquor industry. A week before, Mr. Pataki had announced the creation of a chief executive post with the S.L.A. to run its day-to-day operations.

A spokesperson for the Governor wouldn’t comment on the selection of the new commissioner, saying only that “the Governor always looks for the most qualified and capable individuals when making appointments.” Joshua Toas, a former Assistant Secretary of State and Assistant Counsel to the Governor (and frequent contributor to Mr. Pataki’s campaign fund), was appointed to the chief executive position of the S.L.A. shortly after it was created.

Critics of the S.L.A. have long said that the authority ignores community input when granting new liquor licenses in New York City, especially in the bar-saturated neighborhoods of the East and West Village and Chelsea. The three neighborhoods have the greatest number of liquor licenses in the city (3,055, 1,866 and 944, respectively), according to a 2005 report prepared by the office of then–City Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz.

Because the commissioners of the S.L.A. all live outside the city, critics contend that the S.L.A. is unaware of the acute noise problems and disruption to the community that this proliferation of bars causes. Lately, Board 3 conducted a public hearing to discuss the feasibility of converting Avenue B into a one-way street. Proponents contend that the change would ameliorate traffic noise on the busy weekend nights, but others are concerned that it would irrevocably alter the character of the neighborhood. Other groups have called for a complete moratorium on new liquor licenses for certain neighborhoods in the city.

“We are looking for greater sensitivity from the S.L.A. regarding the impact of granting the large number of licenses in a concentrated area,” Ms. Glick told The Observer. “I think that commissioners that infrequently visit the city—who may not come into some of the downtown areas—they may not have a full understanding of how many people live in the area, and in what proximity to these establishments they live.”

To that end, last Thursday, Nov. 17, at Community Board 2’s monthly meeting, organizers from the United Auto Workers, which represented the N.Y.U. grad students until earlier this year, pleaded with the board for support in their continuing walkout.

Graduate Student Organizing Committee organizer Joel Brooks, among others, called on Board 2 to pass a resolution, written by board member Arthur Schwartz, that affirms the GSOC/U.A.W. Local 2110’s “right to exist.” The resolution also calls on N.Y.U. to immediately begin negotiating with the union, and requires Board 2 to honor the union’s picket line and hold all meetings off the N.Y.U. campus for the duration of the strike. (Board 2’s district encompasses the N.Y.U. campus, and the board regularly holds its meetings on N.Y.U. property.)

The board’s resolution, said Mr. Brooks, “is very important for the labor movement, workers’ rights, students’ rights …. The right to organize is an internationally recognized human right.”

But some board members objected to the pro-union language in Mr. Schwartz’s resolution. “I don’t think the community board should involve itself in labor disputes,” said board member Bob Rinaolo. He added that asking N.Y.U. to bargain with the union is tantamount to putting pressure on the university to give in to some of the union’s demands.

So instead of Mr. Schwartz’s resolution, the board voted on, and passed, another resolution with toned-down language that, while instructing the board to honor the union’s picket lines and hold its meetings off-campus, supports neither side in the ongoing dispute.

Reached by The Observer, Mr. Schwartz expressed disappointment that Board 5 hadn’t taken a stronger stand on behalf of the grad students. “It would have been nice [to pass the original resolution], but I’m happy that at least we will respect the picket line.”

Board member Wilbur Weder, who questioned the intent of the original resolution, said, “I was reluctant to support a resolution that would involve us taking on one side or the other.” He added that he personally wouldn’t cross a picket line, and that a vote of some sort on the issue was necessary because, without it, “the board would not be able to get a quorum.”

The 1,000-member grad-student strike began on Nov. 9, after N.Y.U. decided that it would no longer recognize the GSOC/U.A.W. Local 2110. In 2002, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate students who taught classes were workers under the National Labor Relations Act. But two years later, the NLRB overturned that decision in a 3-2 ruling involving Brown University. (Individual states determine whether graduate-student unions at public institutions can be recognized; SUNY’s grad-student union was awarded its first contract in 1993.)

And in August 2005, when the union’s contract ran out, N.Y.U.—the first private university to be directed to recognize a graduate-student union—refused to negotiate anymore. According to N.Y.U. press releases, the university was ready to renew the contract if the union pledged to not involve itself in academic disputes. When the union refused, N.Y.U. pulled out.

Calls by The Observer to N.Y.U.’s office of public affairs were unreturned by press time.

Washington Square Redo

It was back to the drawing board for Community Board 2 that same night for another contentious and as-yet-unresolved issue: the redesign and renovation of Washington Square Park.

The board has held several meetings to discuss the Parks Department’s plan, which—assuming it’s ever approved by the various departments, agencies and parties involved—will cost $16 million and close portions of the park for two years beginning in spring 2006.

The latest wrinkle in the park’s design drama came after last month’s full board meeting, in which board member Shirley Secunda pitched a substitute resolution that basically approved the Parks Department’s plans in their entirety, effectively reaffirming the board’s earlier position on the park.

At that October meeting, Arthur Schwartz, the waterfront and parks committee chair, effectively had the rug pulled out from under him: He had wanted to present a resolution taking issue with key elements of the redesign, including the proposal to move the fountain in line with the famed Washington Square Arch, and the elevation of the plaza surrounding it to grade level. But Ms. Secunda’s resolution, to the consternation of dozens of park preservationists who had gathered to support Mr. Schwartz’s resolution, carried the vote.

Mr. Schwartz had plans to reintroduce a similar resolution at last week’s board meeting, in an effort to wrest control of the park’s redesign from the Secunda faction. But Maria Derr, the new board chair, ruled it out of order before Mr. Schwartz could present it, at the board’s executive committee meeting on Nov. 9. According to Ms. Derr, Mr. Schwartz’s new resolution contained “inappropriate language” and contradicted the Secunda resolution from last month.

But that didn’t stop board member Rosemary McGrath from trying to overturn the chair’s ruling. At the start of the full board meeting on Nov. 17, she made a motion to overturn it—a motion that failed when no other board member would second it.

District manager Arthur Strickler had also provided an alternate resolution for the park’s redesign, but it was not adopted at the meeting.

“I was disappointed,” Mr. Schwartz said regarding the fate of his resolution. “There’s nothing in the rules that says that a committee can’t ask for reconsideration of an issue.”

City Council member Alan Gerson, whose district includes the park, addressed the board and asked for a resolution in the near future that endorses his agreement with the Parks Department. It guarantees, among other things, that the play “mounds” near the southern edge of the park would be kept. It also calls for the expansion of a children’s play area and the creation of another; the construction of a permanent elevated concert area and an expanded chess area; and a revision of the dog-run redesigns—an issue that dog owners have been barking loudly about. Mr. Gerson’s agreement leaves the issue of the fountain realignment and plaza grading up to the city’s Art Commission.

Mr. Schwartz said that his committee would likely have a resolution in January that supports the Gerson agreement.

And Mr. Strickler, the district manager, said: “The people that want to continue the argument can now argue with either the Art Commission or the Landmarks Commission.”

To that end, last Thursday, Nov. 17, at Community Board 2’s monthly meeting, organizers from the United Auto Workers, which represented the N.Y.U. grad students until earlier this year, pleaded with the board for support in their continuing walkout.

Graduate Student Organizing Committee organizer Joel Brooks, among others, called on Board 2 to pass a resolution, written by board member Arthur Schwartz, that affirms the GSOC/U.A.W. Local 2110’s “right to exist.” The resolution also calls on N.Y.U. to immediately begin negotiating with the union, and requires Board 2 to honor the union’s picket line and hold all meetings off the N.Y.U. campus for the duration of the strike. (Board 2’s district encompasses the N.Y.U. campus, and the board regularly holds its meetings on N.Y.U. property.)

The board’s resolution, said Mr. Brooks, “is very important for the labor movement, workers’ rights, students’ rights …. The right to organize is an internationally recognized human right.”

But some board members objected to the pro-union language in Mr. Schwartz’s resolution. “I don’t think the community board should involve itself in labor disputes,” said board member Bob Rinaolo. He added that asking N.Y.U. to bargain with the union is tantamount to putting pressure on the university to give in to some of the union’s demands.

So instead of Mr. Schwartz’s resolution, the board voted on, and passed, another resolution with toned-down language that, while instructing the board to honor the union’s picket lines and hold its meetings off-campus, supports neither side in the ongoing dispute.

Reached by The Observer, Mr. Schwartz expressed disappointment that Board 5 hadn’t taken a stronger stand on behalf of the grad students. “It would have been nice [to pass the original resolution], but I’m happy that at least we will respect the picket line.”

Board member Wilbur Weder, who questioned the intent of the original resolution, said, “I was reluctant to support a resolution that would involve us taking on one side or the other.” He added that he personally wouldn’t cross a picket line, and that a vote of some sort on the issue was necessary because, without it, “the board would not be able to get a quorum.”

The 1,000-member grad-student strike began on Nov. 9, after N.Y.U. decided that it would no longer recognize the GSOC/U.A.W. Local 2110. In 2002, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that graduate students who taught classes were workers under the National Labor Relations Act. But two years later, the NLRB overturned that decision in a 3-2 ruling involving Brown University. (Individual states determine whether graduate-student unions at public institutions can be recognized; SUNY’s grad-student union was awarded its first contract in 1993.)

And in August 2005, when the union’s contract ran out, N.Y.U.—the first private university to be directed to recognize a graduate-student union—refused to negotiate anymore. According to N.Y.U. press releases, the university was ready to renew the contract if the union pledged to not involve itself in academic disputes. When the union refused, N.Y.U. pulled out.

Calls by The Observer to N.Y.U.’s office of public affairs were unreturned by press time.

Washington Square Redo

It was back to the drawing board for Community Board 2 that same night for another contentious and as-yet-unresolved issue: the redesign and renovation of Washington Square Park.

The board has held several meetings to discuss the Parks Department’s plan, which—assuming it’s ever approved by the various departments, agencies and parties involved—will cost $16 million and close portions of the park for two years beginning in spring 2006.

The latest wrinkle in the park’s design drama came after last month’s full board meeting, in which board member Shirley Secunda pitched a substitute resolution that basically approved the Parks Department’s plans in their entirety, effectively reaffirming the board’s earlier position on the park.

At that October meeting, Arthur Schwartz, the waterfront and parks committee chair, effectively had the rug pulled out from under him: He had wanted to present a resolution taking issue with key elements of the redesign, including the proposal to move the fountain in line with the famed Washington Square Arch, and the elevation of the plaza surrounding it to grade level. But Ms. Secunda’s resolution, to the consternation of dozens of park preservationists who had gathered to support Mr. Schwartz’s resolution, carried the vote.

Mr. Schwartz had plans to reintroduce a similar resolution at last week’s board meeting, in an effort to wrest control of the park’s redesign from the Secunda faction. But Maria Derr, the new board chair, ruled it out of order before Mr. Schwartz could present it, at the board’s executive committee meeting on Nov. 9. According to Ms. Derr, Mr. Schwartz’s new resolution contained “inappropriate language” and contradicted the Secunda resolution from last month.

But that didn’t stop board member Rosemary McGrath from trying to overturn the chair’s ruling. At the start of the full board meeting on Nov. 17, she made a motion to overturn it—a motion that failed when no other board member would second it.

District manager Arthur Strickler had also provided an alternate resolution for the park’s redesign, but it was not adopted at the meeting.

“I was disappointed,” Mr. Schwartz said regarding the fate of his resolution. “There’s nothing in the rules that says that a committee can’t ask for reconsideration of an issue.”

City Council member Alan Gerson, whose district includes the park, addressed the board and asked for a resolution in the near future that endorses his agreement with the Parks Department. It guarantees, among other things, that the play “mounds” near the southern edge of the park would be kept. It also calls for the expansion of a children’s play area and the creation of another; the construction of a permanent elevated concert area and an expanded chess area; and a revision of the dog-run redesigns—an issue that dog owners have been barking loudly about. Mr. Gerson’s agreement leaves the issue of the fountain realignment and plaza grading up to the city’s Art Commission.

Mr. Schwartz said that his committee would likely have a resolution in January that supports the Gerson agreement.

And Mr. Strickler, the district manager, said: “The people that want to continue the argument can now argue with either the Art Commission or the Landmarks Commission.”

Recently, the city’s Department of Transportation completed a study of the traffic situation around Union Square. The study hasn’t been released to the public, but The Observer obtained a summary. In it, the D.O.T. makes suggestions for improving the flow of traffic that fall well short of the measures suggested by the Community Board 5 and Transportation Alternatives, a biking and pedestrian advocacy group.

The D.O.T. recommendations call for prohibiting some curbside parking on East 19th Street between Fifth and Park avenues, shifting the timing of the traffic lights at Broadway and 19th Street, and prohibiting parking on the south side of East 13th Street, between Fourth and Fifth avenues.

Last Wednesday, Board 5’s transportation committee drafted a resolution in response to the D.O.T. proposals. Among the suggestions: additional signage for both pedestrians and vehicles; longer light signals and the introduction of “Barnes dances,” where signals at intersections periodically give pedestrians the right of way in all directions (so named after a traffic commissioner who championed their use; pedestrians were said to dance with joy when they were first introduced); better traffic enforcement on Union Square West; and a more comprehensive traffic study for the larger Union Square Park area.

But Transportation Alternatives wants to go even further. The group recommended banning certain turns at select intersections around the park; adding more bicycle parking; narrowing 17th Street and normalizing its intersections at Broadway and Park Avenue South; and transforming Union Square West into an “all-access street,” where the delineation between pedestrian and auto space is removed, forcing drivers to yield space and control to pedestrians (a widely acclaimed traffic-calming method used principally in Europe).

The group also wants the addition of a mid-block crosswalk on 17th Street on the north side of the park, a provision that was nearly included in the transportation committee’s resolution. But there were concerns about backing up traffic to Broadway, as well as a question of whether federal regulations prohibit crosswalks on such short blocks, according to John Mills, the committee’s chair.

But Tresa Horney, a campaign coordinator with Transportation Alternatives, pointed to the imminent redesign and removal of the police-barricade fence that currently runs along the park’s northern perimeter. “I think that this is an important place where improvements need to be implemented,” Ms. Horney said. “And with the installation of an added playground space at the north end of the park ... it’s another motivation to make the area safer and focus more on pedestrian needs and less on autos.”

Karen Shaw, the executive director of the Union Square Partnership, the local business-improvement district, said that she welcomed the D.O.T.’s study as “a great first step. I don’t think there are quick fixes,” she continued, “but I do think there are a series of changes that can be discussed, and the D.O.T. is willing to discuss, to ensure that this community’s needs are being met.”

Board 5 will vote on the transportation committee’s recommendations on Thursday, Nov. 10.

Corrections, MCI Draw Fire for State Prison Phone Rates

Prisoners in New York State correctional facilities depend upon telephone service to remain in contact with family members—in fact, according to a Department of Correctional Services press release, the maintenance of family ties actually reduces recidivism.

But activists say that the Department of Correctional Services and the telecommunications company MCI have both been profiting unfairly from that service.

MCI has been under contract since 1996 to supply telephone service for New York State inmates. Unlike federal prisoners, state inmates can only place collect calls. According to the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice, a prisoner advocacy group, MCI charges approximately 630 percent more than other calling plans available to the public. (MCI charges a $3 surcharge for each call, in addition to a rate of 16 cents per minute.) And because the DOCS receives 57.5 percent of MCI’s revenues, the department has made a whopping $175 million since the contract began.

“It really is as if there’s a campaign against New York City in this,” said Ken Brambill, co-chair of Community Board 4’s housing, health and human-services committee. Mr. Brambill said that many prisoners held upstate are from New York City, some with families too poor to accept collect calls. The board approved a resolution on Thursday, Nov. 2, calling for the State Senate to pass a bill requiring competitive pricing and alternative calling plans for inmates, and forbidding the DOCS to receive revenues from the contract in excess of reasonable operating costs. (Two other community boards in the city have passed similar resolutions.)

“It’s about families—keeping families together, family values—and about rehabilitation and public safety,” said a spokesperson for the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Because all of the studies show that if someone’s incarcerated, the key to their success on getting out is maintaining solid ties to the community and family, so they’re less likely to get in trouble and end up in prison again.”

Because of two pending lawsuits filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is working in tandem with the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice, the DOCS wouldn’t comment. A report available on the department’s Web site asserts that special security features on the phone lines necessitate the higher prices.

“That’s fine,” the C.C.R. spokesperson countered, “but the federal prisons charge a fraction of the rates, and you have to assume they have the same concerns as state prisons. It just doesn’t wash at all.”

Indeed. And Bernard Ebbers, the former chief of WorldCom (now MCI, Inc.)—who was sentenced to 25 years for his role in orchestrating the biggest corporate fraud in the nation’s history—should be relieved to hear that calls placed from federal prisons cost only seven cents per minute.

MCI also refused to comment, referring all inquiries to the DOCS.

Recently, the city’s Department of Transportation completed a study of the traffic situation around Union Square. The study hasn’t been released to the public, but The Observer obtained a summary. In it, the D.O.T. makes suggestions for improving the flow of traffic that fall well short of the measures suggested by the Community Board 5 and Transportation Alternatives, a biking and pedestrian advocacy group.

The D.O.T. recommendations call for prohibiting some curbside parking on East 19th Street between Fifth and Park avenues, shifting the timing of the traffic lights at Broadway and 19th Street, and prohibiting parking on the south side of East 13th Street, between Fourth and Fifth avenues.

Last Wednesday, Board 5’s transportation committee drafted a resolution in response to the D.O.T. proposals. Among the suggestions: additional signage for both pedestrians and vehicles; longer light signals and the introduction of “Barnes dances,” where signals at intersections periodically give pedestrians the right of way in all directions (so named after a traffic commissioner who championed their use; pedestrians were said to dance with joy when they were first introduced); better traffic enforcement on Union Square West; and a more comprehensive traffic study for the larger Union Square Park area.

But Transportation Alternatives wants to go even further. The group recommended banning certain turns at select intersections around the park; adding more bicycle parking; narrowing 17th Street and normalizing its intersections at Broadway and Park Avenue South; and transforming Union Square West into an “all-access street,” where the delineation between pedestrian and auto space is removed, forcing drivers to yield space and control to pedestrians (a widely acclaimed traffic-calming method used principally in Europe).

The group also wants the addition of a mid-block crosswalk on 17th Street on the north side of the park, a provision that was nearly included in the transportation committee’s resolution. But there were concerns about backing up traffic to Broadway, as well as a question of whether federal regulations prohibit crosswalks on such short blocks, according to John Mills, the committee’s chair.

But Tresa Horney, a campaign coordinator with Transportation Alternatives, pointed to the imminent redesign and removal of the police-barricade fence that currently runs along the park’s northern perimeter. “I think that this is an important place where improvements need to be implemented,” Ms. Horney said. “And with the installation of an added playground space at the north end of the park ... it’s another motivation to make the area safer and focus more on pedestrian needs and less on autos.”

Karen Shaw, the executive director of the Union Square Partnership, the local business-improvement district, said that she welcomed the D.O.T.’s study as “a great first step. I don’t think there are quick fixes,” she continued, “but I do think there are a series of changes that can be discussed, and the D.O.T. is willing to discuss, to ensure that this community’s needs are being met.”

Board 5 will vote on the transportation committee’s recommendations on Thursday, Nov. 10.

Corrections, MCI Draw Fire for State Prison Phone Rates

Prisoners in New York State correctional facilities depend upon telephone service to remain in contact with family members—in fact, according to a Department of Correctional Services press release, the maintenance of family ties actually reduces recidivism.

But activists say that the Department of Correctional Services and the telecommunications company MCI have both been profiting unfairly from that service.

MCI has been under contract since 1996 to supply telephone service for New York State inmates. Unlike federal prisoners, state inmates can only place collect calls. According to the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice, a prisoner advocacy group, MCI charges approximately 630 percent more than other calling plans available to the public. (MCI charges a $3 surcharge for each call, in addition to a rate of 16 cents per minute.) And because the DOCS receives 57.5 percent of MCI’s revenues, the department has made a whopping $175 million since the contract began.

“It really is as if there’s a campaign against New York City in this,” said Ken Brambill, co-chair of Community Board 4’s housing, health and human-services committee. Mr. Brambill said that many prisoners held upstate are from New York City, some with families too poor to accept collect calls. The board approved a resolution on Thursday, Nov. 2, calling for the State Senate to pass a bill requiring competitive pricing and alternative calling plans for inmates, and forbidding the DOCS to receive revenues from the contract in excess of reasonable operating costs. (Two other community boards in the city have passed similar resolutions.)

“It’s about families—keeping families together, family values—and about rehabilitation and public safety,” said a spokesperson for the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Because all of the studies show that if someone’s incarcerated, the key to their success on getting out is maintaining solid ties to the community and family, so they’re less likely to get in trouble and end up in prison again.”

Because of two pending lawsuits filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is working in tandem with the New York Campaign for Telephone Justice, the DOCS wouldn’t comment. A report available on the department’s Web site asserts that special security features on the phone lines necessitate the higher prices.

“That’s fine,” the C.C.R. spokesperson countered, “but the federal prisons charge a fraction of the rates, and you have to assume they have the same concerns as state prisons. It just doesn’t wash at all.”

Indeed. And Bernard Ebbers, the former chief of WorldCom (now MCI, Inc.)—who was sentenced to 25 years for his role in orchestrating the biggest corporate fraud in the nation’s history—should be relieved to hear that calls placed from federal prisons cost only seven cents per minute.

MCI also refused to comment, referring all inquiries to the DOCS.