The Mayor Wants to Prove He Can Take the Heat

With the mercury rising to high for the city's liking, Mayor Bloomberg held a press conference at the Office of Emergency Operations in Brooklyn to emphasize what the city is doing during the heat wave. We suspect he's trying to be extra visible and genially authoritative (check out the plaid shirt!) in order to salvage public opinion after the Queens blackout, but his words are important:

“The heat wave affects New Yorkers in all five boroughs, and that’s why the City is aggressively moving to protect New Yorkers from Tottenville to Co-Op City from this week’s oppressive heat and promote energy conservation. Hundreds of people have already tragically passed away due to the heat wave in other parts of the country, and I urge New Yorkers – especially seniors – to take the danger of high temperatures and humidity seriously. You can beat the heat by drinking plenty of water, staying out of the sun, avoiding strenuous activity, and taking advantage of City cooling centers and public pools. The City is also actively taking large energy users such as wastewater treatment plants off the grid and conserving energy at City buildings across the five boroughs to help cope with the increased demands on the electrical grid.”

Of course, he reiterated all the things you should do to stay healthy during the heat. When asked about Con Ed handling public information better during the next (let's hope not) blackout, NY Times reports that the Mayor says he's "confident we will ask a lot more questions.” Yes - joined by all the Queens politiicans and residents who have experience asking basic questions like "what the hell is going on.

Other interesting ways the organizations are conserving energy:

The Parks Department today will turn off the decorative lights at the Coney Island Parachute Jump, Keyspan Stadium, and Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn. In the Bronx, 75 percent of all lights and air conditioning has been turned off at Yankee Stadium, and lighting at Henry Hudson Monument and the Victory Monument has also extinguished. In Manhattan, all decorative lighting at Washington Square Arch, Columbus Circle Monument & Fountain, and Randall’s Island Icahn Stadium has been turned off. In Staten Island, the stadium lights at McArthur Park have been extinguished. In Queens, all decorative and stadium lights have been turned off at Shea Stadium, as have the lights at the Unisphere.

...The Rockrose Development Corporation and Pepsi have turned the Long Island City “Pepsi-Cola” sign off. The Empire State and Chrysler Buildings will extinguish their iconic spire lights tonight and tomorrow.

Which brings up a good point from reader Annalisa: What about all the advertising in Times Square? She tried calling 311 and the Times Square Alliance to see who to contact to get Times Square to shut off the lights. If you want ask the Times Square dim its lights (the outdoor companies will probably have to call all the advertisers), the numbers will appear fter the jump.

Gotham Gazette has a fantastic look at how old the city's energy infrastructure is. Well, fantastic in that it's informative - it's actually quite depressing. And more good reading: Last Sunday, the NY Times had some op-eds about Con Ed and how to fix the issues in Queens.

To see if advertisements and marquees and go dim in Times Square, contact:

- Community Board 5 (Times Square): 212-465-0907
- Times Square Alliance: 212-768-1560 (x. 5200 gets the head of the Alliance)
- Con Ed: 1-800-75-CON-ED
- 311 for NYC info

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on August 1, 2006 3:36 PM

Comments [rss]

bill brasky

Hey Sizzling in Bushwick, that is exactly what they tried to do in Astoria and failed. They tried to limit the power, but due to the 50 year old feeder cables manholes started exploding and power lines melted when they tried to come back. The brownout was very planned, the subsequent blackout for ten days, was not. Con Ed (sorry Phil) is just another huge corporation willing to steal and harm its customers because it can.

sizzling

Just want to report that at least half of Bushwick in Brooklyn had no power last night. Whether intentional or not, ConEd was not providing power. When you see in the press today that only a thousand people or so (total) in all 5 boroughs had outages, that is not true. There are two hundred people in my building alone, and from the roof, we could see thousands of buildings with no lights. I've been calling ConEd, media, etc. to make sure this is known. As far as I can tell, it's business as usual. This happened a few years back: ConEd cut power to poor neighboods, while neighborhoods like UES and Battery Park City sailed through the heat with no problems.

Barry Popik

The "Great White Way" did indeed become the "Great Black Way" several times, notably during World Wars.

phil

A note to TD: as an actual ConEd contractor, I can assure you that your theory is completely wrong. ConEd buys its electricity hours in advance, not months, and the problems in Queens were definitely caused by failing equipment. You thought the exploding manholes and melting cables were special effects?

ConEd is almost entirely composed of dyed-in-the-wool, fiercely proud New Yorkers. Some of the equipment is old, but it's still one of the most reliable electricity providers in the world, let alone the USA.

g

the "beacon" on the bloomberg building is still burning brightly.

Glenn

Forget alternate side, how about banning Single Occupancy vehicles during rush hour to reduce the ground pollution on hot smoggy days.

backwoods packer

Being off the grid is off da hook.

Would be a good time test backup generators. And, it would be funny if the backup power made things worse by overloading their ciruits. But I'm sure they got an electrician to do that work.

waste

I think they mean that the wastewater treatment plants are running on local backup generators so they don't take power from the main ConEd plants. That are not shut down alltogether. That is what "off the grid means"

alyssa

what's wholly reprehensible is that he's issued a heat alert, told those most in danger (elderly, babies) to keep hydrated and stay cool in the a/c... yet didn't bother to think about canceling alternate side parking.

this afternoon i saw plenty of senior citizens (and parents, with kids in tow) moving their cars and hunting for spots. walking around in the humidity, getting into hot cars.

the administration's a bunch of idiots.

Dave H.

Which one of these does not sound like the other?:

Coney Island Parachute Jump

Keyspan Park

Yankee Stadium

Grand Army Plaza

Washington Square Arch

Columbus Circle Monument

Various Other Public Monuments

The City's Wastewater Treatment Plants

I have no idea if certain facilities do or do not have to be running regularly or how much energy they burn, but if Bloomberg wants me to unplug my bedside lamp to keep wastewater out of the rivers or contaminating the water supply, I'll do it.

b

lures people walking out in the humidity/heat into your air-conditioned store

office lackey

My building is in Times Square and we were given requirements for raising the thermostat and otherwise conserving energy. But yeah, no dimming of the lights of the ads...capitalism at work.

Kevin Walsh

>>>>In the Bronx, 75 percent of all lights and air conditioning has been turned off at Yankee Stadium

Why is everyone being asked to conserve air conditioning at the _exact time of year that it is supposed to be used_?

www.forgotten-ny.com

confused

What is the point of a store keeping its doors open?

The Truffle

My employer gave us free ice cream today. So you see, there is a good side to 100-degree weather. Yaaaaaaay!

just calling in

Actually the Time Square Alliance sent an email blast to all TS advertisers/buildings etc to consider dimming them, alternating times, etc. to conserve power.

At least with the retail shops though, they should close around 6-9 so at least there can be some relief to the grid after that.

td

You know. This is all bullshit. ConEd is trying to pull a fast one here. I heard from someone at ConEd that the utility company buys it electricity 6 months ahead of the warm seasons. The reason why there are blackouts is not all due to old power equipment. It is due to the fact that ConEd did not purchase enough electricity 6 months ago and they are too cheap to buy more now. Some reporter type should get on this story.

peter

Zoning requirements like that can be overruled in a state (or city?) of emergency..

pugsley

I cannot endorse the plaid shirt.

MH

I work in Midtown near Rockefeller Center and there are so many shops (Sephora, Cingular Wireless, H&M just to name a few) that have their doors WIDE OPEN and you can feel their AC from the sidewalks. It's disgusting and should be illegal. Businesses will be the first to submit claims for reparations due to losses from a blackout, but this type of waste is part of the cause. Since Bloomberg doesn't seem to be addressing this kind of blatant abuse in his press conferences (and I did write him), the best we can do is contact those businesses to end this wasteful behavior and boycott those who continue this practice.

Papercutninja

Hey hey hey hey....GaryK....let's not be hasty now....it's the only way for us non-shopping pedestrians to get some AC in some areas...

Tim N.

I don't mind the plaid shirt (plaid's my favorite color) but Hizzoner still isn't walking around in those shorts and dark socks, is he?

James Frey

Guys -- the lights, neon signs etc. in Times Square stay on no matter what because it's a zoning requirement.

GaryK

I work on Broadway between Spring and Broome and half of the retail stores have their front doors wide open blowing cold air onto the street. If Mr. Mayor really wanted to save a gazillion kilowatts of energy who could easily ticket those guys.

Do the retailers in your neighborhood have their front doors open also?