Daily Archives: November 17, 2016

Swastikas scratched into door at Hoylman’s building

nov17-hoylman-swastika

Photo taken by State Senator Brad Hoylman of a swastika found at his building

 

By Sabina Mollot

Only days after dorm rooms at the New School were defaced with swastikas, the Nazi symbol was carved into a door at a West Village building where State Senator Brad Hoylman lives.

Two swastikas were discovered by one of Hoylman’s neighbors on the second floor of the building on Tuesday.

Hoylman is gay and has a Jewish husband and daughter. He also has plans to convert to Judaism. However, he doesn’t believe the swastikas were directed at him, since they were on the elevator door on a floor he doesn’t live on. They’ve since been sanded down and removed.

The building does have surveillance cameras, which Hoylman said he hopes will help catch the perpetrator. The incident is being investigated by police and Mayor Bill de Blasio has also taken notice. After seeing Hoylman post on Twitter about the incident, de Blasio responded to say the city had no tolerance for anti-Semitic acts.

“@bradhoylman, millions of New Yorkers stand with you tonight against anti-Semitism. Hate has no place in our city #notinourcity,” he tweeted.

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Subway therapy walls pop up on 14th St.

A wall of Post-it notes at the Union Square subway station followed a wall of Post-its put up at the14th Street station between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. (Photos by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

A wall of Post-it notes at the Union Square subway station followed a wall of Post-its put up at the14th Street station between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. (Photos by Maria Rocha-Buschel)

By Maria Rocha-Buschel

New Yorkers looking for an outlet to express their feelings need look no further than a local subway station.

Brooklyn-based artist Matthew “Levee” Chavez has been stationed in the underground tunnel along 14th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues almost every day since the election, armed with Post-its and pens for commuters passing through.

Union Square station has also become home to a wall covered in the sticky notes, but Chavez said that he wasn’t directly involved in starting that.

“I feel responsible for the project and all the other ones that have popped up but I think people thought the original one was at Union Square and just went with it, bringing their own Post-its and pens,” he said.

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Letters to the Editor, Nov. 17

Cartoon by Jim Meadows

Cartoon by Jim Meadows

Country’s debt level is risky business

Re: Letter, “Our country’s invisible problem (Part 2)”, T&V Oct. 20

To the Editor,

The number one issue in our country is the amount of our national debt, as candidate Robert Ardini has written in your paper. The current low interest rates have hidden this problem from the people.

Usually, when there is a major increase in the amount of the national debt, there is also a major increase in the total interest cost of that debt. This increased interest cost pushes other expenditures out the federal budget, which hurts our economy and our quality of life.

The latest data readily available (through 2014 on Wikipedia) shows how lower interest rates have enabled the Obama Administration to escape this usual penalty for issuing more debt. For fiscal 2007, our national debt was $9 trillion, and the interest cost of that debt was $430 billion. In the next seven years (through 2014), our national debt nearly doubled to $17.8 trillion. During this period of sharply rising debt, interest rates declined. The debt nearly doubled, but the interest cost only increased 0.2 percent (from $430 billion to $430.8 billion). This was possible, because the average interest cost of the national debt fell from 4.77 percent in 2007 to 2.42 percent in 2014.

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