The Problem With Community Boards

Are that many people actually concerned that the powder used in the Phagwah Parade could be anthrax? Ask the community board that “raised concerns” about it:

Anthrax fears have forced organizers of the Phagwah Parade in Queens to curtail the use of powder and water during the festive Hindu celebration in Richmond Hill.

The joyous tradition of parade participants and many spectators squirting colored water and dousing one another’s heads and faces with red or white powder has triggered complaints, according to officials of Community Board 10, which expressed those concerns to police and organizers of the March 19 event.

Betty Braton, chairwoman of Community Board 10, which covers part of Richmond Hill, said she has received “numerous” complaints about the use of powder. Among those complaining, Braton said, were sanitation workers and Parks Department employees concerned that someone could mix anthrax with the harmless powder or slip into the parade crowd, which numbered 10,000 last year, and throw anthrax itself.

Parade organizers encouraged participants to refrain from using powder during the 2002 parade in the wake of the post-Sept. 11 anthrax scare, but have not felt the need to issue such a warning since then. Organizers reluctantly agreed to the board’s request this year.

Pandit Chandrica Persaud, a Hindu priest with the Phagwah Parade & Festival Committee, said the request to halt the use of powder was misguided.

“That is absolutely out of order because they use the powder on the float, they don’t go and throw it on people who don’t want it [thrown on them]; but as usual, the community boards are making all the problems,” Persaud said. “But we have to carry out our religious activities.”

. . .

The use of powder and water are symbolic practices that date back thousands of years to religious observances in India.

Braton said she understands the symbolism, but cautioned that health and security comes first. She suggested the practice be moved indoors, where it would be easier to guarantee only celebrants would be present.

“Everyone has an absolute right to observe their religion, but no one has an absolute right to do it in a setting where someone else could have a problem from it,” Braton said. “For example, if there is an asthmatic standing on the street — no one’s religious observances has a right to put that person into harm.”

Terrorists Aren’t Drummers, Are They?

A West Village man has been hospitalized for a case of “accidental,” “naturally occurring” anthrax:

A New York City man has been hospitalized with a case of anthrax that a federal law enforcement official said may have been contracted from animal skins during a visit to Africa.

The infection appeared to be accidental, and authorities did not believe it was related to terrorism, the official said.

The man traveled recently to the west coast of Africa and became ill shortly after his return, said a federal law enforcement official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

It was not clear how the man came into contact with the deadly substance, but aides to Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was related to his job as a drummer and that federal and city officials traced the exposure to New York City after the man became ill in Pennsylvania.

Being Thrown Or Falling In Front Of An Oncoming Subway Train — And Surviving!

After the luckiest man in New York escaped death by rolling into the subway track trough, the Times investigates all manners in which one can protect themselves in the path of an oncoming subway train:

Short of “stand away from the platform edge,” there are no hard-and-fast official guidelines to survive an oncoming New York City subway train. “There really is no one thing we can tell people that would work in every situation,” said Paul Fleuranges, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Depending on the station, one can seek refuge from an oncoming train in a few ways. None are foolproof.

A police detective with experience in the transit bureau recalled his training in last-ditch methods for surviving an oncoming train.

“They told us, ‘Get to the cutouts or be able to roll underneath the platform,'” he said, referring to niches cut into the subway tunnels and the space under some platforms themselves, where homeless people have been known to sleep.

A quick-thinking person may also find safety beneath the train, in the so-called trough between the tracks, which offers up to two feet of space below a train.

In 2003, a researcher for an Internet brokerage firm, Brandon Crismon, was pushed into the path of an oncoming No. 5 train at the Union Square station. He scrambled into the trough and lay flat, in what his half brother described as “kung-fu mode.”

The train stopped after two cars had passed over Mr. Crismon. He suffered a broken leg, cuts and bruises. He was lucky: The depths of troughs vary, Mr. Fleuranges said.

Finally, and no less a long shot, a person could try outrunning the train to the end of the platform, where it would presumably stop. In this and all situations, falling on to the electrified third rail could be fatal.

Meanwhile, researchers are collecting data about 12-9s, as they’re known in subway parlance*:

It is a fleeting fear surely shared by many a New Yorker who has leaned over a station platform searching for the dim headlights of an approaching subway car. One slip of the foot or one well-timed push is all it would take to land in front of a moving train.

Now, a group of doctors has examined the fate of those who ended up on the tracks and made it to the hospital.

The findings of the study, which looked at more than 200 injuries suffered by people brought to Bellevue Hospital Center during a 13-year period, are at times grisly and sometimes macabre, and often tragic, but undeniably fascinating for those who travel beneath the city.

The study, to be published in the March issue of The American Journal of Public Health, is hardly conclusive: According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, there were 702 cases of people on the tracks between 1990 and 2003, the same period as the study. Roughly half of them resulted in death. But this is the first time a single hospital has tried to determine what can be gleaned from its cases.

Many of those taken to Bellevue were only slightly injured, with more than half of them leaving the hospital without requiring follow-up care. Only one of every 10 victims who made it to the hospital died, a credit to both the medical care they received and the response time of emergency workers.

*See here for “12-9” lingo.

Just Keep Telling Yourself It’s Only An Art-School Project, It’s Only An Art-School Project

Please tell me this was just some dippy art-school project (like this was!):

A suitcase found Thursday morning in Brooklyn — chock-full of photos of Big Apple landmarks and subway stations — provoked a massive mobilization of antiterror units when it was finally opened two days later, police said.

“The pictures had everything — from Police Plaza to 26 Federal Plaza. It was scary,” said Derwin McDuffie, 40, a security guard at Linden Plaza, where the bag was found.

“The weird thing is if a tourist took those pictures, there would be people in them. There was nobody in these.”

He said the black bag contained clothes and disposable cameras — along with color snapshots of City Hall, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge and A- and G-line subway stations.

The Joint Terrorist Task Force, the NYPD Bomb Squad and hazmat and other antiterrorism units responded to the call.

Security guards had found the suitcase Thursday morning on a staircase in a parking garage and stuck it in Lost and Found.

Three clear bottles were found to contain just soap, but the bag was seized for investigation, sources said.

Meanwhile, a man who went to pick it up Friday vanished when told it had been taken to Lost and Found, said McDuffie, who didn’t see the man.

That’s Got To Hurt

Forget terrorism, subway pushing or even hooliganism, because it’s the time of year again when the sidewalks start to resemble a torture chamber in some third-world prison:

At least a dozen dogs were jolted yesterday when they stepped on an electrically charged sidewalk on the upper East Side, witnesses said.

None of the animals or their owners was injured, but the incidents raised fears that the streets of New York are still dangerous in foul weather.

Con Ed stepped up repairs and inspections of underground cables two years ago after 30-year-old Jodie Lane was killed when she stepped onto an electrified cable cover on E. 11th St. while walking her dogs.

But Mike McNamara, 46, owner of an engineering firm, said his 20-pound papillon, Trevi, got shocked twice yesterday.

When the pooch walked in front of 321 E. 83rd St., “he just started yelping and jumping up and down like he was dying,” McNamara said.

At first McNamara thought Trevi had “stepped on some bad salt,” so he cleaned off his paws and continued on. “But the same thing happened at the same place on the way back,” he said.

Con Ed spokeswoman Joy Faber said utility workers found up to 50 volts of stray current in the pavement coming from a faulty cable. The cable was replaced.

Electrical leakage usually becomes a problem in the winter when melting snow and salt can damage underground cables.