He’s Springing Forward to Move City Clocks to Daylight Time

Good morning. It’s Friday. We’ll have a look at how New York Metropolis’s clock grasp handles the change to sunlight saving time. We’ll additionally examine on a phone quantity made well-known by a tune within the large band period.

Over the weekend, the remainder of us will in all probability do what Marvin Schneider has already performed — spring ahead, and complain.

We’ve got our alarm clocks and microwave ovens. He has the clock within the tower at Metropolis Corridor, nonetheless working with its century-old gears. He has the clock in Brooklyn Borough Corridor that he as soon as thought of his worst enemy. He has the clock on the nook of 280 Broadway, a relic from when it was the headquarters of the previous New York Solar, not residence to metropolis companies just like the Division of Buildings.

He’s the New York Metropolis clock grasp. And he’s not completely happy about daylight saving time.

“It’s an inconvenience,” he mentioned. “And getting used to the change is an inconvenience.” It at all times takes him a few days to regulate, he mentioned.

He isn’t alone. “It’s a weekend that makes a whole lot of us sad,” Consultant Frank Pallone Jr., a Democrat from New Jersey and the chairman of the Home Vitality and Commerce Committee, mentioned at a listening to on Wednesday.

Pallone’s resolution? Select one or the opposite — daylight saving time or normal time — and keep it up yr spherical. He mentioned he had not determined which he favored making everlasting.

“I imagine that any justifications for springing ahead and falling again are both outdated or are outweighed by the intense well being and financial impacts we now know are related to the time modifications,” he mentioned.

He talked about “unwanted effects” which have financial penalties. “Individuals are merely not as productive at work” within the days after the time change, he mentioned, including that they spend extra time on their computer systems “on nonwork-related actions.” He additionally mentioned there are extra office accidents within the days after the time change.

There are additionally extra car accidents and missed medical appointments, in response to the American Academy of Sleep Drugs, and coronary heart assaults and strokes additionally improve within the days after the time change. “Disturbingly,” Pallone mentioned, “these stroke charges are even increased for a few of our most weak populations — most cancers sufferers’ stroke charges improve by 25 %, and other people over the age of 65 are 20 % extra more likely to have a stroke within the days following the time change.”

Within the digital age, there are fewer old style clocks like those Schneider tends. A six-person group as soon as went to subway stations, resetting each clock. However by 2018, there was just one analog clock left, a spokesman mentioned, and it has since been retired, leaving solely digital clocks that should not have arms that must be turned again by, properly, hand.

Schneider, 82, a per-diem municipal worker who’s paid about $40 an hour, as soon as mentioned that he favored his clocks to be correct however set them “to the closest 10 seconds” utilizing an Omega wristwatch.

He nonetheless checks the Omega. However now he has additionally a cellphone that he makes use of to “get it very, very shut.”

“Not a Luddite,” he mentioned.

Climate

It’s a principally sunny day within the low 50s. Anticipate an opportunity of rain late at evening, with temps dropping to the low 40s.

alternate-side parking

In impact till March 17 (Purim).

Off to the entrance line in Ukraine

Some Ukrainians in New York are answering President Volodymyr Zelensky’s name to affix the battle in opposition to Russia. Ana Bogdanova, 37, an information scientist, is buying and selling within the espresso outlets and boutiques of Manhattan’s East Village for weapons coaching in her hometown, Ternopil.

“I can’t stand to harm one other being that’s alive,” mentioned Bogdanova, who requested to be recognized by the equal of a center title as a result of her mother and father in Ukraine aren’t conscious of her choice. “However on this case, they’re destroying, bombing each single day. I’ll do what I’m imagined to do. I’ll take up arms — I cannot hesitate.”

Yuriy Blazhkevych, 63, a taxi driver from Brighton Seaside, Brooklyn, has spent greater than $3,000 shopping for army gear, together with fatigues, a helmet and evening goggles.

“I’ll do no matter they ask me to do,” he mentioned, when requested about his plans as soon as he has signed up in his hometown, Lviv. “I can drive vehicles for them,” he mentioned. “However I’d ask to shoot.”

Unemployment in N.Y.C. climbed in January

New York Metropolis’s unemployment fee was 7.6 % in January, up from 7.4 % in December, the state Division of Labor mentioned. The January determine mirrored the Omicron surge, which peaked on Jan. 10 with simply over 40,000 new instances reported, about 87 occasions the 460 instances reported on March 7.

The division had initially reported the December determine as 8.8 %. My colleague Patrick McGeehan, who covers the New York financial system for the Metro desk, advised me that change went hand in hand with a revision of employment statistics that added about 100,000 jobs within the metropolis.

That was a sign that the financial system and the restoration in New York had been stronger in late 2021 than had been thought, however each had been nonetheless weaker than in the remainder of the nation.

The newest Metro information

PEnnsylvania 6-5000 received’t be disconnected

It was made well-known by a tune from the massive band period: “PEnnsylvania 6-5000.” It was a phone quantity — the quantity for the Resort Pennsylvania throughout from Madison Sq. Backyard. “The Encyclopedia of New York Metropolis” says it was the most important lodge on the earth when it opened in 1919.

It closed two years in the past — Steven Roth, the chairman of Vornado, mentioned final yr that it was “a long time previous its glory and sell-by date.” Latest experiences of plans to interchange it with a supertall constructing to be referred to as Penn15 prompted large band followers to marvel: What is going to occur to the phone quantity?

The tune was a signature quantity for the bandleader Glenn Miller, who together with his orchestra was a mainstay on the Café Rouge within the lodge. “PEnnsylvania 6-5000” got here out within the days when the primary two digits in a phone quantity stood for the title of a phone alternate — PL for Plaza, RE for Regent, TR for Trafalgar.

“We are going to retain PEnnsylvania 6-5000,” Roth mentioned in a footnote in Vornado’s 2021 annual report, including that it was “the oldest repeatedly in-service phone quantity in New York.” He didn’t say whom callers would attain.

What we’re studying

METROPOLITAN diary

Uncommon companion

Expensive Diary:

I used to be strolling alongside Central Park close to 59th Road. It was raining closely, after which it began to hail.

The sidewalk was empty. Chilly rain seeped by means of my pants, and hailstones clinked throughout me. I attempted to choose up my tempo, hunching ahead into the wind.

All of the sudden a movement to my proper made me flip my head. What I noticed almost halted me: A chicken was strolling parallel to me in the identical course a couple of ft away.

It was no odd metropolis chicken. It was a turkey, and it was strolling beside me on Central Park West.

I regarded over at my companion, nevertheless it paid me no heed and stored striding alongside. The poor chicken was soaked. Rivulets of water ran off its wattle. Hailstones bounced off its physique with a muted patter.

A wild thought occurred to me, and I approached the chicken with my umbrella prolonged. The turkey swiftly modified course to stroll behind the benches.

I righted my umbrella and shook my head. Foolish chicken, I assumed. I solely needed to share my meager shelter. I burst out laughing on the picture.

The sound startled the chicken and prompted it to maneuver even additional away. We continued strolling facet by facet, the benches between us, till I needed to cross at Columbus Circle.

— Julia Heifets