New York

5,000 Miles, 8 Countries: The Path to the U.S. Through One Family’s Eyes

Published

5 months ago

July 8, 2024

5,000 Miles, 8 Countries: The Path to the U.S. Through One Family’s Eyes

The three children had not bathed in four days.

They had been sleeping in a makeshift tent on a dirty street outside a bus terminal in Mexico City, and Hayli, only 6, was developing a rash between her legs. But the parents could not spare the 20 pesos, or roughly $1, for a bucket shower.

After a 55-day trek through Latin America, the five members of the Aguilar Ortega family were stranded more than 3,000 miles from their Venezuelan homeland, and almost as many miles from their intended destination: New York City.

It had been a week since they had arrived in Mexico City, and they had no money to proceed north. The children — Hayli, Samuel, 10, and Josué, 11 — were in good spirits, imagining aloud what it would be like to live in New York. But for the parents, Henry Aguilar, 34, and his partner, Leivy Ortega, 29, the lull demanded a reassessment of what still lay ahead.

While Mayor Eric Adams of New York spoke at a nearby conference in Mexico City, the Aguilar Ortega family slept in tents.

Millions of Venezuelans like the Aguilar Ortega family have fled economic misery and political repression in their homeland as it descended into turmoil. The exodus has led to a sharp increase in crossings at the U.S. border, reigniting immigration as one of the most polarizing issues ahead of the presidential election.

Indeed, the Biden administration recently took executive action to limit the number of migrants crossing the southern border. The decision angered critics who contend that it contradicts America’s image as a safe harbor for the vulnerable. But others welcomed the move amid concerns that migrants were being let in with few checks.

Mr. Aguilar embodied that paradox. He set off for the United States with a turbulent past as a soldier, police officer and bodyguard in Venezuela, and after a prison stint that could derail his chances of securing asylum.

But Mr. Aguilar was hoping to start anew.

Ms. Ortega dreamed of maybe one day opening a restaurant. Both were chasing a vague promise of a better future in the United States while casting aside the real possibility that his criminal history could render the family’s hardship for naught.

The New York Times documented the family’s one-year odyssey, first meeting them in Mexico City, and then rejoining them at the U.S.-Mexican border. The ordeal would test their mental and physical fortitude, strain the parents’ relationship, and challenge their commitment and ability to build a new life in the United States.

The family’s dog, Donna, was with the family every step of the journey.

The journey took them through a jungle of dead bodies and was filled with dangers that terrified the parents, including an obstacle course of dirty police officers, smugglers and immigration checkpoints they traversed on foot and by bus. They had to panhandle, sell lollipops and hustle up odd jobs along the way.

But for the children, the journey was framed as a daring family experience. They took pictures and recorded video that they shared with The Times. They even brought their coffee-colored Labrador mix, Donna. In their eyes, it was all part of a big adventure that would end in a place they had seen only in movies.

“The kids want to go to New York,” Mr. Aguilar said in Spanish as he stood by his tent in Mexico City. “They want to see Times Square.”

But his American dream was even simpler: “All I want is to take my kids to play ball in a park,” he said.

MAY – AUGUST 2023 COLOMBIA

Samuel, Hayli and Josué pose for a photo in Colombia, where along the way they slept in a town plaza for two weeks.

The Decision to Go to New York

Mr. Aguilar left Venezuela about six years ago, part of a flight of more than seven million people who have escaped a once-wealthy country where the economy collapsed and crime skyrocketed under President Nicolás Maduro.

Three years later, Mr. Aguilar found himself in Chile, where he sparked a romance with Ms. Ortega, who is also Venezuelan, and they blended their families. Ms. Ortega left behind a 13-year-old daughter in Ecuador because she was too sick to travel.

Besides Ecuador, the family also spent time in Peru before setting their sights on the United States at the children’s prodding. So they headed to Colombia but with no money, no plan and no place to sleep — a frequent plight during their voyage.

They slept in a town plaza there for two weeks before Mr. Aguilar and Ms. Ortega gathered enough money to rent a home. Colombia, Mr. Aguilar thought, was where he would prepare the children for the menacing rainforest between Colombia and Panama known as the Darién Gap.

“It’s going to be a grand adventure,” Mr. Aguilar recalled telling them. “But with real-life obstacles.”

So Mr. Aguilar put them through an at-home boot camp with a summer camp feel, letting them ride bicycles to boost their stamina.

He woke them up before 7 a.m., but their breakfast portions were small to brace for the coming hunger.

Crossing the Darién Gap

At first, the journey into “la selva,” or the jungle, had the trappings of an organized tour.

The family was given pink wristbands after paying $300 to the armed men who control access to the Darién Gap. And surrounded by hundreds of Venezuelans, they even had a sense of anticipation as they smiled for selfies, their clothes still clean.

That excitement would fade as they waded into the jungle’s depths.

Their feet were rubbed raw as they trudged through mud. Hayli lost two toenails and cried as dirt seeped into the exposed skin. Torrents of rain made rivers roar, forcing Mr. Aguilar to ferry each family member across, one by one — with Donna the Labrador’s stubbornness nearly drowning him.

“Muerto! Muerto!” those toward the front would call back as they passed the bodies of migrants. “Dead! Dead!”

Ms. Ortega generously, but perhaps naïvely, shared the family’s food with other migrants, leaving the family to subsist on nothing but river water on the last two days of the six-day hike through the jungle.

It was hard to hide the brutality of the journey from the children.

“No puedo,” Ms. Ortega would say. “I can’t.”

AUGUST – OCTOBER PANAMA TO MEXICO CITY

The parents presented the journey as a grand adventure to the children.

The family used currency to keep track of places they went through in Guatemala and Mexico.

Getting to Mexico City

Once out of the jungle, the children were committed to the adventure as they crisscrossed dirt roads and slipped from one country into the next.

Josué, ever talkative, told anyone within earshot that they were headed to New York to see Times Square, or las pantallas: the screens.

Samuel, the most reserved of the three, assumed the role of navigator. He quietly tracked their trek on a wrinkled map of Central America as Donna meandered without a leash.

Hayli was always the first to smile for pictures, flashing her tooth gap. Her small legs carried her for hours, as the family circumvented border checkpoints in Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.

But for the parents, the burden of not having money was inescapable.

There was transportation to arrange and immigration officers to grease. Bus companies would charge them double or refuse to sell them tickets because they were migrants, a taste of the prejudice that awaited them further north.

They often slept in tents on the street, and going to sleep without eating became normal.

In Guatemala, police officers patted down migrants to steal their money. They groped Ms. Ortega’s breast, leaving her feeling violated, she said. Mr. Aguilar created hiding places for their cash, using toenail clippers to cut small openings into Hayli’s jacket and Josué’s pants. The ruse worked.

They mostly came to rely on the charity of strangers and sporadic money transfers from friends and relatives: more than $8,000 in total, the parents acknowledged with a trace of shame.

OCTOBER – NOVEMBER MEXICO CITY TO CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico

Hopping Freight Trains

The family rode a succession of freight trains to the U.S. border.

The wait for a train could last for hours, especially in the dead of night. When one stopped, they would all emerge from hiding near the tracks and clamber onto a car’s metal roof.

They fastened themselves as best they could, wrapped loosely in rope and blankets, the wind blowing against their faces as they left behind Mexico City.

They were riding “la bestia,” or the beast, the frightening nickname for the cargo trains that many migrants hop illegally, hoping to evade checkpoints and cartels. Countless people have died or lost limbs riding the trains.

Ms. Ortega wrapped her legs around Hayli and prayed that the boys would not fall off. Bundled in quilts, the boys squinted their eyes against the cold breeze, taking in the arid shrub land.

The nights were the hardest. They battled falling asleep, fearful with each jerk of the train that they would fall off.

NOV. 9-10 CIUDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO

A family selfie along the border in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, before they crossed into Texas.

Ms. Ortega looks at a family ring, the only heirloom she brought from Venezuela.

On their last night in Juárez, the family left for the border patrol checkpoint at 3 a.m.

Approaching the Border

The Times reconnected with the family in Ciudad Juárez, a Mexican border city where migrants are regularly smuggled and kidnapped for ransom, and sometimes murdered. The Aguilar Ortegas were visibly disheveled, emerging from the last train with little but the clothes on their back, closer than ever to the United States.

“Time is going by slowly now,” Mr. Aguilar said after taking the children to glance at the Rio Grande. Texas was just a few yards away, behind a towering fence.

Using a mobile app that the Biden administration has relied on to curb illegal crossings, the family had secured a coveted appointment to enter the United States legally the next day — the first step for many migrants seeking asylum.

But with no money left for food that night, they decided to pawn Ms. Ortega’s white gold ring, her last family heirloom.

A pawnshop offered her 400 pesos, or $23 — a lowball price, she thought, perhaps because she was Venezuelan. She found a Mexican man to sell the ring for her.

The shop offered him more than double, about $70. She took the money, feeling sad but clever, and slightly empowered.

Entering the United States

As dawn crept across the Rio Grande, migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela with immigration appointments braced the frigid desert air on a bridge connecting Ciudad Juárez to El Paso, Texas.

After entering so many countries illegally, the family’s final border crossing was to be entirely lawful. But that did little to ease their nerves as federal officers began to check their passports, take fingerprints and photographs, and swab their cheeks for DNA.

It is not clear what immigration officials knew of Mr. Aguilar.

He had a tumultuous upbringing in Venezuela: He said he was kicked out of the house as a teenager, and was in a motorcycle accident that resulted in permanent memory loss that blurs his childhood.

Still, he recalled dreaming of becoming a detective, and after a stop in the military, he joined Venezuela’s largest national police agency, which is heavily politicized and has a history of corruption.

Mr. Aguilar was part of a SWAT-like unit that specialized in taking down organized crime when, as a 21-year-old police officer, he was arrested and charged in 2010 with abusing his authority.

Venezuelan prosecutors accused him of participating in an armed shakedown of someone who owed his friend money. The friend and Mr. Aguilar, said to be carrying another officer’s gun, were accused of holding several people at gunpoint and stealing money and bottles of whiskey. Mr. Aguilar was charged with aggravated robbery, extortion and embezzlement, according to the few court documents available online.

Mr. Aguilar says Venezuelan prosecutors distorted the charges and that he and his friend weren’t violent. In court documents, he portrayed himself as accompanying his friend for backup. He eventually served two years in prison, he said.

At the U.S. border, background checks did not appear to turn up Mr. Aguilar’s criminal past. The family was released on parole — a status that allows migrants without visas to live and work in the country as their asylum cases wind through the courts.

Mr. Aguilar’s first court appearance before an immigration judge is scheduled for April 2025. He doesn’t know how he intends to deal with his past: The government can bar asylum for people convicted of serious crimes, and Mr. Aguilar would have to disclose his record on his asylum application.

None of that was front of mind as the family walked into downtown El Paso, ushered in by an archway with a familiar greeting: Bienvenidos.

NOV. 10-24 EL PASO, TEXAS

The family shared tight quarters in a shelter with other migrants arriving daily to El Paso.

Mr. Aguilar slept outside the shelter in El Paso with Donna, because dogs weren’t allowed.

Tumult in Texas

By Day 3 in El Paso, the family was already in turmoil. Ms. Ortega had gotten in a fight at a shelter with three Venezuelan women after tempers flared in the dinner line. The family was forced to go to another shelter.

Ms. Ortega sat down on a stoop, her face scratched, and began to cry.

They were told they did not qualify for free migrant buses out of Texas. And while they had collected $120 — mostly thanks to Donna, who attracted generous passers-by — commercial bus transport to New York was up to $450 per person. They had survived a treacherous monthslong journey, only to be stranded again.

Ms. Ortega thought of the upcoming birthday of her daughter in Ecuador, and wondered if she would have money for a gift. She spoke wistfully about a friend who had made it to New York and already had an apartment and enough money to help his family in Venezuela.

“It’s not envy, but I want to be over there already,” she said through tears. “I feel stuck here. It hasn’t even been 72 hours and I’ve already been hit.”

Mr. Aguilar consoled her. “It’s always been like this,” he said. “But we always figure it out.”

The journey had taken its toll on the children. When Josué and Samuel played with toy cars on the sidewalk, they re-enacted scenes from their young lives: immigration police officers chasing migrants.

And tensions between the parents began to simmer as they deciphered what to do next. Was New York even the right place to go?

“Things are tough in New York with the 100,000 migrants who have arrived there,” Father Rafael García warned them gently at their first shelter, which is run by the Roman Catholic Church.

Taped to the shelter wall, a flier in Spanish paid for by New York City offered a more dire assessment: “It’s best if you go to a more affordable city.”

The flight the family took to New York was the first time Ms. Ortega had been on a plane.

After arriving, the family headed for a familiar migrant starting point, the Roosevelt Hotel.

Fasten Your Seatbelts

Hayli cried when her ears popped for the first time as the plane gained altitude, but once it glided into La Guardia Airport, her sense of wonder took over.

“Papi, the bathroom was magical!” she exclaimed, recounting how the hand dryers and toilets sprung to life via sensors.

Just a few weeks earlier, New York had seemed out of reach. But in El Paso, the family met a group of Christian missionaries from Michigan who, taken aback by their story, raised nearly $2,000 for Delta flights.

And so it was that the family landed in New York the day after Thanksgiving with 20 cents, their few belongings stuffed inside a donated suitcase and a pink sleeping bag that Mr. Aguilar hauled like Santa Claus.

The family had heard that if they went to a place called Manhattan, they could get free shelter at the Roosevelt Hotel, the welcoming center for the 200,000 migrants who have recently come to the city.

At a Queens subway station, they persuaded a Spanish-speaking police officer to let them in without paying the fare. They climbed a maze of stairs and almost boarded the wrong train until a passer-by offered them guidance.

The children stared out the 7 train in awe as the city skyline materialized against an orange sunset.

“Better than riding the top of a train,” Mr. Aguilar said.

NOV. 25 – DEC. 9 MANHATTAN AND BROOKLYN

For the children, Times Square was the goal. They stared in awe at the lit-up screens and the costumed superheroes.

The family celebrated Ms. Ortega’s 29th birthday at the Floyd Bennett Field shelter in Brooklyn.

Trying to Make It in New York

The children held hands in Times Square. They strolled around Central Park, posing for a picture by the statue of Simón Bolivar, the revered Venezuelan who fought Spain.

But the allure of sightseeing quickly gave way to challenges: finding jobs, permanent housing, a sense of stability.

They had been assigned to a far-flung Brooklyn shelter at Floyd Bennett Field, an old airfield on Jamaica Bay where the city is housing hundreds of families in a giant tent dormitory.

Upset by the tent environment and its distance from Manhattan, Mr. Aguilar, prone to making rash decisions, initially rejected the shelter’s free room and board before acknowledging it was the family’s only option.

“I was being rebellious,” Mr. Aguilar said. “I’ve been wrong so many times before. I’m not perfect.”

But the parents began getting antsy. The shelter was getting crowded. They didn’t speak English or know how to apply for a legal work permit.

So after just three weeks, Mr. Aguilar uprooted his family again.

DECEMBER – MARCH MIDDLETOWN, CONN.

The family was placed into a two-bedroom home in Middletown, Conn., after leaving the shelter system in New York.

Hayli and the boys were enrolled in schools, where they quickly picked up English.

A New Home in Connecticut

A few days before Christmas, the family was sleeping in a car outside a gas station in Brooklyn.

The children snuggled tightly in the back seat, braving the cold in a beat-up Honda sedan Mr. Aguilar had found on Facebook for $800. Then good fortune intervened.

During a brief stay in Connecticut a few weeks earlier, the family had met Maria Cardona, who works at a social services provider there. She called Ms. Ortega to check in, and learned of the family’s setup. She immediately made some calls.

“Their situation impacted me deeply,” Ms. Cardona said.

She helped them move into a two-bedroom house on a leafy street in Middletown, Conn., operated by a local nonprofit that provides free emergency housing for homeless families. The family was allowed to stay on a month-by-month basis if they showed a case manager they were actively looking for employment and a permanent home.

More help arrived.

Amy Swan, the psychologist at the children’s elementary school, gathered donations of food and clothes, as well as money to pay the $410 fee for Mr. Aguilar to apply for a permit to work legally.

Her husband, Ray Swan, owns a wood workshop and was looking for a worker. So he hired Mr. Aguilar, who worked in carpentry after leaving Venezuela, and began paying him $20 an hour to build furniture and kitchen cabinets.

“He works hard and doesn’t complain,” Mr. Swan said at his workshop in March. “I can’t stop singing his praises.”

MARCH – JULY MIDDLETOWN, CONN. TO HOUSTON

After abruptly leaving Connecticut for Houston, the family faced new challenges.

The parents share news of her pregnancy with their three children.

More Turmoil and an Uncertain Future

In early March, the family received more welcome news: Ms. Ortega was pregnant.

She’s expected to give birth later this year. Having a child who is a U.S. citizen would not give the parents any special protections against deportation, leaving the family’s immigration status in flux.

Immigration lawyers said that Mr. Aguilar’s past will seriously complicate his bid for asylum, an uphill process that usually ends with judges saying no.

“If it’s God’s will that I’m not here in two years, then so be it,” Mr. Aguilar said in Connecticut in March. “I’m happy being with my family and making them happy.”

But the parents were still stressing about their future, and their relationship continued to fray. One night in mid-April, Ms. Ortega grabbed a baseball bat and swung at Mr. Aguilar, hitting his hands. She said it happened in the heat of the moment. Mr. Aguilar was not injured and did not hit back.

She was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, and a protective order was issued to keep Ms. Ortega away from Mr. Aguilar. He lost his carpentry job, and the family was forced from the house. Mr. Aguilar was placed in a shelter for domestic violence victims with his children, Samuel and Hayli; Ms. Ortega was set up elsewhere with Josué, her son.

The family was languishing again — apart, with a baby on the way and their immigration status still in question.

Desperate, they fell back on the same spur-of-the-moment manner that guided their travels. Ignoring the protective order and strapped for money, the parents reconciled and abandoned Connecticut, leaving Ms. Ortega’s court case unresolved. They hauled the children and Donna south in the old Honda, hoping it wouldn’t break down.

About 1,700 miles and five days later, they arrived in Houston, where the mother of Mr. Aguilar’s two children took the family in, cramming into a small apartment with mattresses on the floor.

Mr. Aguilar is applying for landscaping jobs while doing delivery gigs. Ms. Ortega has been satisfying her pregnancy cravings with mangos.

But, ever restless, the parents were already hatching next moves.

Denver seemed promising. Salt Lake City, perhaps.

In Houston, at least, Mr. Aguilar had fulfilled his wish: He found a park to play catch with the children.

New York

Dining Sheds Changed the N.Y.C. Food Scene. Now Watch Them Disappear.

Published

20 hours ago

November 23, 2024

Press Room

Dining Sheds Changed the N.Y.C. Food Scene. Now Watch Them Disappear.

On Halloween, Piccola Cucina Osteria Siciliana in SoHo served one last dinner in the little house that it built on Spring Street during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.

Lila Barth for The New York Times

The next morning, the owner, Philip Guardione, took everything he could save from the structure: 11 tables, chairs, live palms and ZZ plants, basket-shaped rattan chandeliers, space heaters. The rest — including white window shutters with adjustable louvers meant to give diners the feeling that they had arrived home at the end of the day — was hauled off by a trash-removal company.

Lila Barth for The New York Times

Once the scrap wood was gone, the site where Piccola Cucina had served wine from Mount Etna and Sicilian classics like bucatini with sardines and fennel reverted to what it had been before the pandemic: a street-parking space, one of almost three million in New York City.

Lila Barth for The New York Times

Four years after in-street dining gave desperate restaurants a way to hang on and New Yorkers a way to hang out, the very last of the Covid-era dining sheds are truly, finally, really disappearing.

The structures varied from simple lean-tos banged together out of a few hundred dollars’ worth of lumber to small, lovingly detailed odes to verdigris Beaux-Arts winter gardens, sleek Streamline Moderne luncheonettes and sunset-pink Old Havana arcades.

They came to have almost as many meanings as architectural styles. To some urbanists, they were a bold experiment in rethinking public space. To others, they were an eyesore. Restaurateurs saw them as an economic lifeline. Opponents saw a land grab.

Dining inside a popular spot, you could believe New York had embraced al fresco culture like Rome and Buenos Aires. Walking past an empty one at night, you might conclude that the city was throwing a permanent picnic for the rats.

It was never meant to last, at least not in the form it took during the depths of the pandemic. The city’s street-and-sidewalk dining program, called Open Restaurants, used an emergency executive order to allow restaurants to sidestep many existing laws and regulations about safety, parking, accessibility and fees.

Once the emergency ended, permanent rules were written after much wrangling between Mayor Eric Adams, the City Council, a herd of bureaucracies and the restaurant business. The guidelines are now far more stringent: Fully enclosed structures aren’t allowed, for instance, and many setups will have to be scaled back to a smaller footprint.

A dining shed that complies with the new rules in use at Dawa’s in Woodside, Queens.

Karsten Moran for The New York Times

There were so many noncompliant shacks still standing that hauling companies and contractors have had a backlog of several weeks. All street sheds, even the ones that meet the new requirements, are supposed to be removed by the end of the day on Nov. 29. According to the Department of Transportation, any structures still standing the next day will be subject to fines of up to $1,000.

The season reopens April 1, creating a storage challenge for restaurants, which are not known for having lots of extra space.

As of Thursday, the Department of Transportation, which oversees the new program, had received 1,412 applications for roadway dining permits next year — a dramatic drop from the 12,000 businesses that applied under Open Restaurants.

Some owners are bitter about giving up roadway seating for the winter, particularly in December, the busiest month. (There are new rules for sidewalk cafes, too, which are allowed year-round.)

Restaurants excel at conjuring whole moods out of next to nothing. The New York Times took a closer look at several restaurants that have already taken down their creative street setups, and a few that have been holding out.

Building for the Long Haul

Balthazar, SoHo, Manhattan

Jonah Rosenberg for The New York Times

The Open Restaurants program was originally scheduled to end after Labor Day in 2020. Few owners wanted to invest in such a short-term proposition, and many of the flimsier structures that were knocked together that summer were abandoned or falling down by the time winter came.

Balthazar took a longer view.

It waited a full year before coming back in March 2021, with three tented cabanas on Spring Street that were built to last. A peaked roof of red fabric matching the restaurant’s awnings was stretched over a sturdy metal frame. A wainscoted ledge next to the tables disguised heavy barriers that have withstood several run-ins with passing trucks. The floors were a water-resistant plywood that was dyed, not painted, so its deep blue wouldn’t be scuffed away.

The goal was not to make it look new. Ian McPheely of the firm Paisley Design worked to give the cabanas the soft, timeworn look that he helped bring to the restaurant’s interior when it was built in 1995. Keith McNally, the owner, obsessed over the lighting, finding antique table lamps and hanging globe lights that matched the ones inside.

“When you step into Balthazar, you feel like you’ve taken a train to Paris, and you needed to have that same sense outside,” said Erin Wendt, the director of operations for the Balthazar Restaurant Group.

When the cabanas were built, indoor dining was limited to 25 percent of capacity. The cabanas had space for about 40 seats and operated seven days a week, morning to night. The added revenue quickly covered their cost, which the chief executive of Balthazar’s restaurant group, Roberta Delice, placed at about $160,000. American Express and Resy picked up around $40,000 of the cost through a pandemic promotion.

Ms. Wendt said that after the structures were hauled off on Nov. 1, the restaurant had 72 fewer weekly shifts to offer its employees.

“We’re going to do everything we can not to lay people off, but everybody is going to take a hit,” Ms. Wendt said.

From Eyesores to Gardens

Cebu, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Marissa Alper for The New York Times

Michael Esposito estimates that he poured between $75,000 and $100,000 into the two decks he built in front of Cebu Bar & Bistro. Street dining at Cebu began in late 2020 with movable barricades separating diners from the traffic.

Eventually, with his partner and his contractor, he designed one structure that stretched for 65 feet along Third Avenue and a second one, about half as long, on 88th Street. The sheds were wired for lights, space heaters and speakers.

A floral-design company was hired to turn these big black boxes into urban arbors. Cascades of artificial wisteria swayed below the ceiling, supplemented by live palms and ferns.

“We definitely wanted to look our best for everybody,” said Mr. Esposito, the owner. “If you go by one of the sheds that’s falling apart and filthy, it’s not a good representation of what’s going on indoors.”

He said he suspects his efforts to dress up the avenue may have smoothed the way with the local community board, which recently approved Cebu’s plan to come back in April with a street-dining area that meets the city’s new rules.

Mr. Esposito’s proposal has room for 75 seats, about three-quarters of what he used to have. When the old structures were taken down on Nov. 8, much of it went into storage in the hopes that it can be repurposed next year. The roofs had to go, though, and he will not have as many hours to offer his employees, especially over the winter.

“We’re still fortunate to be given the opportunity so I’m not going to complain at all,” he said.

Privacy on a Busy Street

Don Angie, West Village, Manhattan

Jonah Rosenberg for The New York Times

The public-health rationale for outdoor dining was that fresh summer breezes could help slow the spread of the coronavirus. But as the weather turned cold, restaurants faced a new challenge: keeping their customers safe and warm.

Don Angie came up with an innovative solution: two “cabins” with a total of nine private compartments. Designed by GRT Architects, each room had baseboard heating, insulated walls, velvet curtains at the entrance and space for up to six people. Clear plexiglass dividers let customers see other diners without having to share their air.

Scott Tacinelli and Angie Rito, the chefs, taped parallel rows of auto-detailing decals over the partitions to give them vertical pinstripes.

“It took a really long time to get them straight,” Ms. Rito said. “Scott and I took a whole day to put up those lines.”

“It was more than a day,” Mr. Tacinelli said. (The two are married.)

Diners, and celebrities in particular, appreciated the privacy they could get by drawing the curtains. Some cabin regulars have yet to set foot inside the restaurant, the chefs said.

The two cabins cost about $75,000. The larger one was demolished last year, and the remaining one was hauled away on Nov. 12. To make up for some of the business they will lose over the winter, the chefs are thinking of serving lunch on Fridays and staying open an extra half-hour each night, although people aren’t as willing to eat late as they were before the pandemic.

Although they have applied for permits for the new program, they said they aren’t sure yet what their new structures will look like.

Still Standing, For Now

Empire Diner, Chelsea, Manhattan

Lila Barth for The New York Times

As the Nov. 29 deadline approaches, many street structures are still in place around the city.

Empire Diner, the 1946 stainless steel dining car on 10th Avenue, is hoping to keep the slim, monochromatic building it calls the Pavilion right up to the last minute, said Stacy Pisone, one of the owners.

Designed by Caroline Brennan of the firm Silent Volume in 2021, and built at a cost of $150,000, the structure echoes the diner’s streamlined Art Deco contours. Portholes cut into white panels alternate with the vertical plexiglass windows that wrap around three sides of the structure. When a coalition of urban-planning groups that supported street dining gave awards to seven outstanding structures in 2021, the Pavilion was one of the honorees.

Ms. Brennan wanted to give people eating in the Pavilion’s 40 or so seats something to look at, and the Brazilian street artist Eduardo Kobra was commissioned to paint a wall above the diner. In a nod to West Chelsea’s galleries, the mural features portraits of Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Frida Kahlo.

“We call it Art Rushmore,” Ms. Pisone said.

Neighbors, including some of the local gallerists who often rented out the space for dinners, have suggested a big, celebratory send-off inside the Pavilion before it is torn down. Ms. Pisone, who hasn’t scheduled the demolition yet, doesn’t have the heart for it.

“I can’t even think about doing a party,” she said. “It’s just so sad.”

Ayza, NoMad, Manhattan

Lila Barth for The New York Times

East of Herald Square, Ayza Wine Bar is trying to hang on to its outdoor dining area through the end of the year. Partly, the owners hope to take advantage of the busy holiday season. Mostly, though, they are confused about how the new rules affect them, because the regulations were written for structures, and what Ayza has on East 31st Street isn’t a structure, exactly.

It’s a trolley car.

This struck Ayza’s owners as an ingenious solution during the pandemic. Purchased from a sightseeing-tour company in Boston and refurbished with 20 seats at a total cost of about $25,000, the trolley had large, unobstructed openings that allowed air circulation. Its dimensions were almost exactly what the city allowed. Because it was up on wheels, rain water ran right under it. And because it was more solidly built than the typical wooden shed, it was safer from minor collisions.

“I would feel bad for the person who hits the trolley,” said Zafer Sevimcok, one of the owners.

Mr. Sevimcok said he has applied for permission to operate in the street next year. He isn’t sure whether his application will be approved, though, because the new regulations do not have a trolley option.

In case the city cracks down, he has a backup plan: He will call a mechanic to charge the battery and then drive the trolley away

Restaurant Photography: Lila Barth for The New York Times (Piccola Cucina, Empire Diner and Ayza). Jonah Rosenberg for The New York Times (Balthazar, Don Angie, Oscar Wilde). Marissa Alper for The New York Times (Cebu). Karsten Moran for The New York Times (Dawa’s).

Produced by Eden Weingart and Andrew Hinderaker

New York

Map: 2.3-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Connecticut

Published

3 days ago

November 21, 2024

Press Room

Map: 2.3-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes Connecticut

Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 3 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “weak,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. The New York Times

A minor, 2.3-magnitude earthquake struck in Connecticut on Wednesday, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The temblor happened at 7:33 p.m. Eastern about 1 mile northwest of Moodus, Conn., data from the agency shows.

As seismologists review available data, they may revise the earthquake’s reported magnitude. Additional information collected about the earthquake may also prompt U.S.G.S. scientists to update the shake-severity map.

Aftershocks in the region

An aftershock is usually a smaller earthquake that follows a larger one in the same general area. Aftershocks are typically minor adjustments along the portion of a fault that slipped at the time of the initial earthquake.

Quakes and aftershocks within 100 miles

Aftershocks can occur days, weeks or even years after the first earthquake. These events can be of equal or larger magnitude to the initial earthquake, and they can continue to affect already damaged locations.

Source: United States Geological Survey | Notes: Shaking categories are based on the Modified Mercalli Intensity scale. When aftershock data is available, the corresponding maps and charts include earthquakes within 100 miles and seven days of the initial quake. All times above are Eastern. Shake data is as of Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 7:41 p.m. Eastern. Aftershocks data is as of Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 11:34 p.m. Eastern.

New York

Two Affordable Housing Buildings Were Planned. Only One Went Up. What Happened?

Published

4 days ago

November 19, 2024

Press Room

Two Affordable Housing Buildings Were Planned. Only One Went Up. What Happened?

It is an idea that many point to as a solution for New York City’s worst housing shortage in over 50 years: Build more homes.

More people keep deciding they want to live in the city — and the number of new homes hasn’t kept pace. Residents compete over the limited number of apartments, which pushes rents up to stratospheric levels. Many people then choose to leave instead of pay those prices.

So why is it so hard to build more housing?

The answer involves a tangled set of financial challenges and bitter political fights.

We looked at two developments that provided a unique window into the crisis across the city, and the United States, where there aren’t enough homes people can actually afford.

Both developments — 962 Pacific Street in Crown Heights in Brooklyn, and 145 West 108th Street on the Upper West Side in Manhattan — might have appeared similar. Both were more than eight stories, with plans for dozens of units of affordable housing. And each had a viable chance of being built.

But only one was.

Here’s how their fates diverged, from the zoning to the money and the politics.

The Neighborhood

The lack of housing options across the region makes high-demand areas particularly expensive.

Homes are built in Westchester County and the Long Island suburbs, for example, at some of the slowest rates in the country. In New York City, only 1.4 percent of apartments were available to rent in 2023, according to a key city survey.

And median rent in the city has risen significantly over the past few decades.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

That leaves neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Crown Heights sought after by people of all income levels. Both neighborhoods have good access to parks, subways and job centers in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The pressures are immense, even as each neighborhood has added some new housing to try to match the demand, though at different rates.

Crown Heights has become one of the most striking emblems of gentrification in the city, with new residents, who tend to be white and wealthy, pushing out people who can no longer afford to live there. Low-rise rowhouses line many streets, just blocks from Prospect Park. But there are also shiny new high-rises.

There were more than 50,000 housing units in the Crown Heights area, according to a 2022 U.S. Census Bureau estimate, a roughly 13 percent jump over the past decade.

The Upper West Side has long been one of the city’s more exclusive enclaves with many brownstone homes. Next to Central Park and Riverside Park, with easy access to downtown, the neighborhood is home to many of the city’s affluent residents.

There were 129,000 housing units on the Upper West Side according to the 2022 Census Bureau data, an increase of roughly 5 percent over the same time period.

The Lot

There isn’t as much empty land left in New York City compared with places like Phoenix or Atlanta, which can expand outward. City developers have to look hard to find properties with potential, and then they have to acquire the money to buy them.

The empty lot in May 2021.

Google Street View

Between the two proposals, the Crown Heights site seemed to be more promising at first glance. Until 2018, it was just vacant land that local businesses sometimes used as a parking lot. The developer, Nadine Oelsner, already owned it, removing a potential roadblock that can often tie up projects or make them financially unworkable.

One of three aging parking garages in September 2015.

Google Street View

On the Upper West Side, though, the site was already occupied by three aging parking garages with a shelter and a playground in between. The garages would need to be demolished if the developer, a nonprofit known as the West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing that operated the shelter, succeeded in its plan to build apartments on either side of the playground.

The new development, which was floated to the community in 2015, would also include a renovated and expanded shelter. And the nonprofit did not own the garages or the land — the city did.

One thing working in the group’s favor, though, was that the city had wanted to build housing on the site since at least the mid-2000s, according to planning documents.

Source: West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing

The Zoning

But something invisible can matter more than a plot’s physical characteristics: zoning.

That governs how every piece of land in New York City can be used. Zoning determines, for example, whether homes or warehouses are allowed in a particular area, how much parking is needed and how tall a building can be.

It also aims to prevent growth in haphazard ways, with schools next to factories next to office buildings.

The city’s modern zoning code does not leave much room for growth, which means that a bigger building often requires a zoning change. One 2020 study by the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission found that only about one residentially zoned plot in five would allow for that kind of additional housing. A zoning change triggers a lengthy, unpredictable bureaucratic process.

The site Ms. Oelsner owned was zoned for industrial, not residential use, a throwback to a time when that part of Brooklyn was dominated by businesses supported by the nearby railroad line.

Community leaders were frustrated by one-off changes to individual lots — there had been at least five zoning changes within a two-block radius of Ms. Oelsner’s site in recent years. To counter the trend, the community decided to come up with a bigger rezoning plan for the area. Ms. Oelsner saw an opportunity for her lot in that idea.

But she would need a zoning change, too.

Sources: OpenStreetMap, New York City Department of City Planning

The site on the Upper West Side had a slight edge: It was zoned for residential use.

As the project began to move forward, the city also sought a slight zoning change to allow for a bigger structure with more homes.

Sources: OpenStreetMap, New York City Department of City Planning

The Proposal

U.S. housing is mostly built and run by the private sector. If developers and owners can’t cover their costs with income from rents and sales — and make a profit — they most likely won’t build.

This can make it hard to keep rents affordable to potential tenants without big subsidies from the government, such as money a developer receives directly or tax breaks in exchange for making some units affordable for people at specified income levels.

Here are more details of what the two developers planned.

The proposal for the Crown Heights lot was by Ms. Oelsner and her company, HSN Realty, who were private developers working without city support.

Ms. Oelsner also made the case that her family had been part of the community for years, operating a Pontiac dealership.

Most of the apartments she proposed would rent at market rates, meaning the rents could be set as high as the landlord thought tenants could pay. This was similar to other new buildings in the area.

In Ms. Oelsner’s case, a government subsidy would likely come in the form of a decades-long property tax exemption.

In exchange, several apartments would be made “affordable” — in this case, rents would be capped at a certain percentage of gross household income for particular groups.

Under one plan, for example, 38 units would be restricted in this way. Of those, 15 might rent for around $1,165 for a one-bedroom apartment, or $1,398 for a two-bedroom.

Source: West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing

The proposal from the West Side Federation had a much stronger case because of the city’s support. The group wanted to construct a building where all the apartments would rent below market rates and be targeted to some of the city’s poorest residents.

Most units would rent to people who were formerly homeless, often referred from shelters and typically relying on government-funded voucher programs to pay almost all of their rent. The remaining apartments would rent for between $865 and $1,321.

The West Side Federation said it had slowly built trust in the community over decades, in part because of the shelter it already operated on the street and was now expanding, as well as two dozen other area buildings it ran.

Because of that track record, and the need for affordable housing, the city decided to do several things. It essentially gave the developer the land — appraised at about $55 million — for free, a typical government practice in such a scenario.

It also chipped in $9 million to help pay for construction and another $33 million through a federal tax credit program. The West Side Federation would not have to pay property taxes on the development.

The Politics

Both projects met immediate opposition as they began to wade through a bureaucratic city process in which housing proposals often run into challenges from community members and politicians. It’s not unusual for this process to be costly and time-consuming, often taking more than two years.

In fact, this is where Ms. Oelsner’s project in Crown Heights met its end.

In Crown Heights, neighbors wanted more apartments to be available at lower rents and were concerned about parking. Ms. Oelsner worried the bigger rezoning plan of the area would take too long and, if she waited, would run up the costs of her project, which she said she had designed to be consistent with the broader efforts.

In the end, Crystal Hudson, who held the power to approve or reject the development as the local council member, voted against Ms. Oelsner’s proposal last year, effectively killing the project. Ms. Hudson said she would not back individual developments until the bigger neighborhood rezoning was finished.

On the Upper West Side, a vocal resident group had several complaints: that the loss of the parking garages could lead to an uptick in traffic, greenhouse gas emissions and accidents; that the development could disturb students at a nearby middle school; and that it could reduce the amount of sunlight in nearby parks.

The councilman who represented the neighborhood at the time, Mark Levine, initially said he would hold off on supporting the plan until he better understood the effects of more cars on the street.

Eventually, though, the project gave the community enough of what it wanted, the group behind the project said, and government officials came around. The project was split into two phases, keeping one garage running for a few years after the first two were demolished.

The Results

One key to successful development is buy-in from the government and local politicians. The Upper West Side plan had that, despite the opposition it faced, while the Crown Heights project did not.

That’s in part because the Upper West Side lots were owned by the city, which was ready and willing to chip in lots of money to create a deeply needed housing project in the area that would most likely not have been built otherwise. The Crown Heights lot, on the other hand, is privately owned and mostly out of the city’s control — which made the project potentially very lucrative for the owners, even if it added some benefit to the community.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

The dirt lot in Crown Heights remains a dirt lot. The broader plan Ms. Hudson pushed is underway, set to be completed next year.

Ms. Oelsner, however, has said that she’s not sure whether it still makes financial sense to build her project, so its fate remains uncertain.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

The Upper West Side building has been open for about two years. It is full and has a long waiting list.

And the amount tenants pay in rent remains low. That’s because the government sends the West Side Federation about $1 million annually to help cover the rent.