It was like the surface of the Red Planet around here yesterday, as smoke from Canada wildfires turned the NYC skyline to a red-orange hue. The Air Quality Index hit an unprecedented 484 yesterday, giving NYC the most hazardous rating of any city on the planet. Things should improve over the next few days, but the dramatic difference between yesterday’s skyline view and the day before was caught by Earthcam …
No better time to proclaim it than now!
This presentation was edited, in chronological order, from a collection of videos taken by Frank R. Harrison on May 6, 2023 in the auditorium of Brooklyn Technical High School for “A Celebration of Life“, a tribute to my sister, Elizabeth Ann Sciabarra (aka “Ski”). I’ve also added the full slate of on-screen tributes from that celebration, featuring: Pamela Taylor Hurst, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Deirdre DeAngelis D’Alessio, Karen DiTolla, Congresswoman Nicole Maliotakis, Rose De Pinto, Joel Klein, Ernie Logan, the Brooklyn Tech Chorus, and Valmira Popinara.
This isn’t a perfect transfer by any means, but I’m happy that it is now being made available to all those who were unable to attend.
In his heartfelt remarks, Charles Pomaro pointed out that my sister was sometimes referred to as “Queen Elizabeth.” In truth, because she was born in 1952, the year in which Queen Elizabeth II ascended the British throne, some of her own relatives had taken to calling her “Queenie” when she was a child. So, it was rather ironic that this celebration was held on May 6, 2023, the date of the coronation of the Queen’s son, Charles III.
In keeping with that spirit, all I can say is: Long live Ski! And long may her love reign.
I know in my heart that she would have been so moved by this outpouring of admiration, respect, and affection—and even by its Michael Jackson touches, since MJ was one of her favorite artists.
Thanks again to everyone who made this event possible, for providing us with a glimpse into the depth of my sister’s love and the breadth of her impact. Check it out on YouTube.
Also, see this tribute posted by the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation …
Song of the Day: What’s Love Got to Do With It, words and music by Graham Lyle and Terry Britton, was the biggest selling single ever released by Tina Turner, who took it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984. The song was also the title of a 1993 biopic, starring the Oscar-nominated Angela Bassett as Turner. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legend died today at the age of 83. From the album “Private Dancer“, check out the video [YouTube link]. RIP, Tina.
As we move closer to the 2024 election, it is only natural that we are entering the Period of Hyperbole. That’s a polite way of saying the Period of Hypocrisy, Twisted Logic, and Outright Lies.
The Right-Wing Attack on New York
I’m one of those born and bred New Yorkers who finds it maddening to read the litany of familiar right-wing attacks on my hometown, which typically intensify during election cycles. It’s so predictable that I can practically check off all the right-wing talking points in my sleep. Anytime I hear the phrase “New York values”, for example, I know that it’s a code word. No, not for “rude”, “brash”, or “loud”. It’s hurled as an epithet and it’s meant to disparage New Yorker’s tolerance — nay, embrace — of difference. Most Gotham dwellers have a cosmopolitan ‘live and let live’ perspective on the world and for this, they are routinely excoriated.
But since the pandemic and the protests and riots that followed in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, right-wingers have been harping on New York’s ‘lawlessness’. Just turn on Fox News and you’ll hear that crime in NYC is “worse than the 90s”! This meme — an exercise in gallows humor that has been circulating on social media platforms — is not too far from the vision that Fox News presents to the world … even more hilarious because Fox is based in New York City!
The clear pattern is: Don’t just denigrate New York City. Make sure you blame the Democrats for the city’s collapse into “a hellscape of unchecked violence and chaos”. Donald Trump rails against the city of his birth as “one of the most dangerous and violent cities in the United States … where killings are taking place at a number like nobody’s ever seen.” Missouri Republican Josh Hawley asserts that “you can’t go out on the streets without being shot.” And GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley tweets: “Gov. Kathy Hochul has sat on the sidelines while liberal district attorneys like Alvin Bragg turn New York City into a war zone where innocent people are scared to take the subway and criminals get a free pass. Governors are supposed to protect their people. She can send a message to criminals by announcing her intent to pardon Daniel Penny. She can remove Alvin Bragg for endangering Manhattan residents. One thing is clear: doing nothing only continues the crime wave in New York.”
Alas, as James Peron points out: “These false perceptions about ‘out-of-control’ crime are used by Republicans routinely to terrify voters. Like politicians in general they are prone to use fear to rally the terrified.” Yes, all politicians, left and right, use fear as part of their arsenal of Machiavellian manipulation. And in this case, it’s the right wingers who need a history lesson. Any simple fact check would prove how debased their hyperbolic claims are.
History Lessons
Nothing compares to the crime rates of the late 1980s and early 1990s. There were over 2000+ murders per year between 1987 and 1994, reaching a peak of 2,262 murders in 1990. Despite an uptick in crime in the year after the pandemic, 2022 murders numbered 438. That’s about as far from Fox’s Grimm Fairytales as one can get. NYC remains the most densely populated city in the United States; with an estimated population of around 8 million, it is home to more people than the populations of 38 individual states. And if one counts the NYC metropolitan area, we’re talking nearly 19 million people — certainly the most populated metro area in the country and still among the most populated metro areas in the world. But “the NYPD’s historical CompStat figures show that the Five Boroughs [of NYC] are still far safer now than they were back in 2000.” Murders are down, shootings are down. And even though there has been an increase in robberies, burglaries, and grand larcenies, they don’t even remotely compare to the city’s historic heights in 1990.
How about a little dialectical context-keeping? Here’s the historical data:
Overall, crime in 2022 was 76% lower (and lower in every major category) than it was in the peak year of 1990. And, except for a few outliers, it is lower than it was in 1990, 1993, 1998, and 2001.
The city’s declining crime rates were part of a national trend. As Radley Balko explains, even though U.S. murder rates increased in 2020–2021, “they were still well below the rates of the early 1990s.” NPR reports that, currently, New York is experiencing “a downward trend … According to NYPD, in March 2023, New York City saw a 26.1% drop in shooting incidents compared to this time last year. And homicides fell by 11.4%.”
Why Target NYC?
So, the question remains: Why do right-wing politicians target NYC?
As my dear friend Ryan Neugebauer points out with characteristic bluntness:
There are so many cities to choose from in this country. And actually, for the largest city in the country, [New York City’s] crime is massively low, even compared to many U.S. cities pre-pandemic. Little Rock, Arkansas has been shit for a while, way worse than NYC. But no, we won’t talk about that. Houston, my neck of the woods (4th largest city), is also worse than NYC, and has been for a long time. No focus on that. You have to ask WHY a location is being uniquely focused on.
The right-wing focuses on its rise since the pandemic, while neglecting its performance in comparison to so many other cities in the country also dealing with a rise since the pandemic.
The whole issue speaks to right-wing disingenuousness and hypocrisy, as Ryan observes. Indeed, in claiming that the city’s crime rate is uniquely bad today, Nikki Haley, in her tweet above, focuses specifically on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — who, it just so happens, recently announced an indictment of her former boss, Donald Trump. It’s convenient to focus on the Demonic Democrats, whom Republicans blame for turning NYC into a “warzone” — and yet, they never look at the “warzone” in their own backyards. For example, if we compare Columbia, a city in Haley’s state (which isn’t even the most violent city in South Carolina) to the five boroughs that constitute New York City, here’s what we find:
As Ryan observes: “It’s potent to deconstruct a false narrative with facts, but it’s even more potent to show how that false narrative ignores facts about areas that go counter to your simplistic (in the right-wing case, ‘Democrat-run cities are bad’) narrative.” Current statistics show that red states have higher murder rates than blue states. Eight of the Top Ten “Murder” states are led by Republicans — Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. But these states also have higher poverty rates and greater economic decay, factors that have more nuanced relationships with crime than, say, the party affiliations of city and state politicians. And I’d say the same thing about New York City, which has seen dramatic declines in its crime rates under Republican, Independent, and Democratic mayoralties.
Still, Ryan adds:
If you are going to make the point that NYC is a warzone, you have to delineate what criteria counts for being a warzone. And comparison is not an unfair thing to use in that discussion. If South Carolina has worse stats in some of its cities, it’s fair to ask “what makes these places NOT warzones?” Why do they have worse statistics and aren’t the focus? What’s so unique about NYC that it has your attention?
I think most New Yorkers know the answer to that question. Save for the singular event of 9/11, New York City has always been the focal point of right-wing hostility. “Anti-New York sentiment is a longtime conservative shibboleth,” explains David Birdsell, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Kean University. “It’s very popular and easy to demonize New York as fundamentally alien.”
This view of the “alien” nature of New York has been bolstered more so ever since its designation as a “Sanctuary City” in a 1989 executive order, signed by Democratic Mayor Ed Koch. But that policy protecting undocumented immigrants from deportation and prosecution has been upheld by Republicans and Democrats alike. In 1994, upon becoming Mayor, even Republican Rudy Giuliani embraced the policy (as did his successor, Mike Bloomberg). This town has always been a city of sanctuary, a city of immigrants. It is estimated that about 40% of the U.S. population can trace its lineage to Ellis Island, “the gateway to America”. Till this day, NYC is consistently ranked as the most cosmopolitan city in the world. And that makes it a target especially for those who want to close the borders to those troublesome “invaders”—or who seek to overwhelm the city’s sanctuary status by using migrants as political pawns.
The Historic Drop in NYC Crime
Let’s give some credit where credit is due. Crime rates began their decline under Democratic Mayor David Dinkins, but it was during the moderate Republican administration of Rudy Giuliani that New York’s crime rates began to decline precipitously. There has been a huge debate over the causal factors behind this decline. Some argue that this was a national trend and not exclusive to New York City. Others argue that while violent crime declined 28% nationally in the 1990s, New York City’s violent crime declined 56% in that same period, thereby driving those nationwide trends. Some cite better economic conditions as key, while others cite a combination of community policing and “Broken Windows” policies and an increase in the prison population. A Brennan Center Study argues persuasively, however, that mass incarceration had zero effect on crime rates, but that CompStat was responsible for a 5 to 15 percent decrease in crime in those cities that adopted it. CompStat, used to track crime trends, was the brainchild of NYPD deputy police commissioner Jack Maple. In New York City, this innovative tool guided more police and other resources to high-crime areas that most needed them.
Ironically, it was during this period — far closer to the “warzone” metaphor than anything one might find today — that Donald Trump forged his New York real estate deals. One would think that at a time when crime had hit historic heights in this city, a savvy businessman would be less inclined to do business here. But that wasn’t the case. Despite his notorious feuds with Mayor Koch, Trump used his family’s political clout with former Democratic Mayor Abe Beame to bolster his real estate ventures. At the time, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York was Rudy Giuliani, who implicated Trump at the center of a “cesspool of corruption” entailing “the buying and selling of public office” and extravagant real estate deals that clobbered New York taxpayers. Trump had cashed-in on his crony capitalist connections big time. He renovated, built and/or acquired such properties as the Grand Hyatt Hotel (1980), Trump Tower (1980), the Plaza Hotel (1988, which subsequently filed for bankruptcy 2 years later), the Trump Building (1996, of which he’s still, apparently, the landlord), and the 76 acres that constituted the Lincoln Square neighborhood, which, due to his own struggles with debt, were sold off to investors based in Hong Kong in 1997.
The Real Problems in New York City
And this, perhaps, is just a glimpse into what have been the real problems in New York City. Republicans and Democrats alike have done enormous damage to this city’s economy and its social infrastructure. From the days of those epic struggles between big developers like Robert Moses and decentralists like Jane Jacobs, this city has seen enormous changes to its landscape that have led to prohibitively high costs of living and draconian regulatory policies. Rents and housing prices remain high, as do taxes. Those taxes are used to support robust systems of public welfare and public education. The poor and working classes suffer disproportionately as affordable housing has been war-“zoned” out of existence, while wealthier landowners exploit rent stabilization laws for their own benefit. NYC remains one of the most expensive cities in the world in which to live.
It has also been battered by a historic drop in its population. New York State saw its steepest population decline in the last year alone. Part of this can be attributed to the fact that this city was hit hardest by the pandemic. Its population declined not only due to nearly 40,000 recorded deaths — “one of the deadliest disasters by death toll in the history of New York City” — but also to an exodus of 300,000 people during the period from April 2020 to June 2021. An additional 123,000+ people left the city in the July 2021-July 2022 period. And as many began working remotely during the pandemic, fewer people have returned to their offices in Manhattan. Even with hybrid work schedules, workers who are commuting to the city’s epicenter “are spending $12.4 billion less per year than they were before the pandemic.”
Ever the New Yorker, I’d like to think that that statue in the harbor, which lifts its lamp to the “huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, is just as much a testament to this city’s resilience. But this is what makes the right-wing narrative on the New York City “warzone” so tragic. It shifts attention away from profoundly systemic problems and prevents us from tackling the much larger socioeconomic issues that need to be addressed fundamentally. That would require the kind of dialectical thinking that is anathema to ideological rigidity of any kind, right or left.
This article was also published on Medium.
Recently, I had a public Facebook dialogue with my friend, Ryan Neugebauer, on the growing hysteria surrounding Trans issues, especially among people in Randian and right-libertarian circles who dismiss any discussion of “gender identity” as yet another example of left-wing “woke” politics. It is so prolific in Facebook discussions that even a single post on the issue will generate hundreds of vitriolic responses that go on for weeks. As Ryan put it:
These people have lost their minds! Unfortunately, so many of these people, who like shouting about “liberty”, are more about “liberty for me, but not for thee”. They have a “get off my lawn” attitude on everything. “Don’t tax and regulate ME!” “Don’t tell ME what pronouns to call you by!” “Don’t tell ME to wear a mask!” “Don’t tell ME to respect gay marriages!” Nothing healthy about it. It’s like the state of being 2 years old became a political ideology!
Indeed, in all my 37 posts during the COVID pandemic, I observed how politicized the discussion was. I never wrote a single post endorsing draconian measures to deal with the pandemic, and yet, for having acknowledged that I’d taken the Moderna vaccine and its various boosters, I was excoriated as a “Total COVID Warrior”. We can debate for eons the effectiveness of “lockdowns” or the use of masks or the pros and cons of the vaccines. But everything became so politicized that you couldn’t have a decent conversation that didn’t devolve into an exercise in confirmation biases.
Just as people continue to debate the science and politics of COVID, so too, the Trans issue has been highly politicized. Ryan observed that it’s gotten to the point where “any defense of the legitimacy and dignity of people who identify as Trans or Nonbinary gets one labelled as ‘woke’”—a word that has become one of the most blatant “anti-concepts” in modern discourse. It’s an expansive, elastic, all-inclusive pejorative used to bludgeon anyone who has even a semblance of concern for social justice.
In my reply to Ryan, I wrote:
The issue cannot even be addressed with any sense of balance or proportion—or any remote sense of concern for those whose lives are affected by the toxicity of the discussions. What astounds me more than anything is that so much hysteria is being raised over 0.05% of the [U.S. adult] population [and 1.4% of youths between the ages of 13 and 17] that identifies as such. I had hoped that people who are concerned with the fragility of individual rights would pause, for just a single moment, to consider what it’s like for such a small minority to be targeted by a plethora of rhetorical, political, and legislative bullying. And it’s now taking on a life of its own as political forces are being mobilized in favor of censorship in libraries, classrooms, parades, and in theme parks.
For the record, I have long renounced illiberal authoritarian tendencies on both the right and the left. But ultimately, when a society recoils at the prospect of even attempting to understand those who are “different”, the battle for human dignity and personal autonomy is already being lost.
One of the bedrocks of a cosmopolitan society is toleration. Toleration of difference. You don’t have to “accept” anything you don’t value. But your lack of acceptance doesn’t give you the right to weaponize legislation that undermines the very basis upon which any society, aspiring to protect and defend individual liberties, depends.
And this is what makes the hysteria surrounding this issue even more infuriating. We are talking about individual human lives. Each person facing gender identity issues has their own highly specific and unique context, which requires some form of care. The rising tide of hysteria around this issue is impacting the lives of so many individuals who are grappling, ever so delicately, with crippling self-doubt and their own fears—of being cast out, bullied, demeaned, and destroyed. As one study puts it, “Data indicate that 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth.”
Ryan agrees that Trans Hysteria is not clarifying; it’s obfuscating the fact that people are being put at risk. And under such conditions, it makes it ever more difficult for anybody struggling with gender identity, or for their loved ones, to seek a way through.
Worse, the fears that are being tapped into by those seeking to make America a place where “woke goes to die”, are now being spread in such a way that they’re also seeking to push back against difference, per se. Don’t say Trans. Don’t say Gay. Don’t say Black. Heck, Don’t Say Anything that even hints at extending a modicum of sensitivity toward—or tolerance of—those who have fought and died for their very right to exist.
The science and sociology of gender identity is a developing area of study, which is still assessing the various “nature vs. nurture” factors—those genetic, biological, developmental, and environmental causal forces at work in gender incongruence. That this area is not fully understood lends even more support to the battle for protecting those who are struggling with gender identity issues. Instead, we are faced with the hysterical assertions of authoritarian Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—who claims that “they are literally chopping off the private parts of young kids” as the medical community bows to “woke” activism. That is simply not happening. Reasonable concerns have been raised about some of the practices surrounding gender-affirming care. But “decades of data support the use and safety of puberty-pausing medications, which give transgender adolescents and their families time to weigh important medical decisions.” Such decisions are not made without teams of medical doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, endocrinologists, and other professionals working closely in concert, weighing the pros and cons of various treatment options. As one concerned mother of a Trans youth said to me, a hyper-focus on the uncertainties and risks of any kind of medical intervention muddies our understanding of the uncertainties and risks involved with not intervening at all. One would think that Randians and libertarians who have a genuine distrust of state planning of any sort would be just as “laissez-faire” in their attitudes toward government dictating the difficult choices faced by such individuals and their families under these circumstances.
Alas, state interference is not restricted to curbing gender-affirming care. It is shaping up into a grotesque all-out assault on a tiny minority of people. Even some self-identified “radical feminist” groups have aligned themselves with reactionary GOP politicians—who have typically shown no respect for any woman’s right to make basic choices about her own body—in an attempt to bar Trans athletes from competition in women’s sports. While I certainly don’t have all the answers to these challenging problems, the statistics don’t line-up with the hysteria. Because the answers are not clear, because our knowledge is limited, reliance on the state to chart a course through such politically charged cultural issues is no solution at all. It’s probably going to take a lot of trial-and-error policies proposed by alphabet-soup sports associations to figure out fairer, more equitable and more inclusive policies over time. Let’s keep the state out of it!
But the culture warriors don’t stop there. They view Trans women especially as villainous perverts. They spin nightmarish scenarios in which Trans women are exposing themselves en masse in women’s bathrooms and committing sexual assaults against “real” women and “real” young girls. Well, in NYC, we’ve had liberal bathroom policies in place for over a decade and the statistics don’t even hint at an uptick in “Trans” assaults. If anything, violence against transgender people has increased dramatically, as they are being targeted and assaulted—the “collateral damage” of a growingly toxic culture war.
As Ryan has pointed out again and again, too many Randians and culturally conservative right-libertarians have turned a blind eye toward state regulation of social mores. (It should be noted that among Randians, there are exceptions.) Indeed, in the case of the “Free State of Florida”, lower taxes and a rollback on regulation has led even the Cato Institute to proclaim it the second “freest” state in the U.S. (the more socially liberal New Hampshire ranks #1). But that just illustrates how low cultural and social freedoms are regarded in the grand scheme of things. Florida’s interventionists are using government power to forge a new, reactionary ‘politically correct’ curriculum that is hellbent on sanitizing any mention of the civil rights struggles of blacks, LGBTQ people, and others. They have also enacted into law, “Protections of Medical Conscience”, which grants healthcare providers and insurance companies the right to deny care to anyone on the basis of “religious, moral, or ethical belief”. That law, apparently, was designed to pushback against vaccine mandates, but since it allows for discrimination on the basis of sexuality or gender identity, it can be used broadly to deny care to LGBTQ people. Any doctor or healthcare provider who morally objects to medical treatments for transgender people or even the use antiretroviral drugs in the treatment of HIV/AIDS can deny care—and no medical board has the right to discipline anyone who denies such care. And this is precisely why Ryan has warned about the dangers inherent in healthcare nationalization, since “the politicization of Trans issues” could very well “destroy the ability of people to obtain transitioning care services and the like. Do you really want more of your life’s important decisions and necessities being up to partisan political meddling?”
Defenders of “capitalism” though they claim to be, the Florida Anti-Woke Crusaders are even attacking capitalist companies like Disney because it refuses to fall in line with their political agenda. Disney World has had “Gay Days” since the early 1990s! But now, even Drag Shows have become the target of Florida’s legislative initiatives because they too are apparently harmful to minors.
I’m tempted to conclude with a none-too-subtle variation on Martin Niemöller’s adage: First they came for the Drag Queens, and I did not speak out because I was not a Drag Queen. Then they came for Trans people, and I did not speak out because I was not Trans. Well, in truth, I’m neither Drag Queen nor Trans. But I am speaking out. I am a gay man of Greek and Sicilian descent, and it wasn’t too long ago in this country that even my rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were being marginalized. It is not unusual that as privileged groups of people sense that they are beginning to lose a grip on their “traditions”, they fight like hell—passing laws and regulations—to keep them in place. But the very dynamics of the market society they claim to value are such that traditions are among the practices that are often brought into question. That’s one of the reasons that Friedrich Hayek himself proclaimed he wasn’t a conservative.
Trans Hysteria must stop or the tragedies in its wake will continue down a nightmare path on which no “libertarian” should ever feel comfortable treading.
I want to wish all the mothers out there a very Happy Mother’s Day.
In honor of the day, here’s a pic of my mom and my sister—who, though she had no children of her own, was a mother to thousands. I miss them both so very much. But my wonderful memories of them are eternal—as is my love.
“What you leave behind is not engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” – Pericles
On Saturday, May 6, 2023, Brooklyn Technical High School and the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation hosted a wonderful tribute to my sister, Elizabeth Sciabarra (aka “Ski”). It was attended by a few hundred people and streamed to thousands.
Below is a video montage celebrating Ski’s professional life in pictures. I’m especially delighted by the use of the R&B dance track, “A Night to Remember“, as its musical backdrop. I remind folks that, back on October 17, 2021, when my sister was near death and nonresponsive for 12+ hours, I played this song for her, knowing it was one of her favorites. Within a few moments, I saw her gradually emerging from the darkness as she began to sing along, a tear slowly making its way down the side of her sweet face. I’d later joke that while Lazarus may have had Jesus, Liz had Shalamar. She’d go on to live another 13 months, fighting gallantly, as she always did, against all odds.
My sister’s fight ended on the evening of November 26, 2022. But her impact on the lives of countless others has lived on—and the May 6th tribute provided a fitting glimpse of that impact. (I will provide a link to the streaming video of the ceremony as soon as it becomes available.)
For an audience perspective on the event, check out this compendium of clips from Frank R. Harrison in 9 parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, and Part 9.
On behalf of my family, I’d like to extend my deepest appreciation to the many people who planned and coordinated this project. A special shout-out to those who appeared in various capacities, including emcee Marc Williams, Mathew M. Mandery, Jim DiBenedetto, Pamela Taylor Hurst, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Joe Kaelin, Charles Pomaro, Deirdre DeAngelis D’Alessio, Karen DiTolla, Congresswoman Nicole Maliotakis, Rose De Pinto, Joel Klein, Randy Asher, Ernie Logan, David Newman, Valmira Popinara, Alumni Foundation President Denice Clarke Ware, Alumni Foundation Executive Director Courtney J. Ulrich, Lisa Trollback, and Carol Cunningham, who led a concluding “Legacy Cheer”. And for their wonderful contributions in dance and song, our cheers to the Lady Dragons, the Jazz Band, and the Chorus, which performed the Tech Alma Mater, the lyrics of which were always dear to my sister’s heart.
My love and thanks to everybody who made this unforgettable Celebration of Life possible.
Jack Wilkins, virtuoso jazz musician, died on May 5, 2023, after a long illness. As Wikipedia tells us, Jack was a native of New York City, who started playing guitar when he was thirteen. He had a wide array of influences, including Charlie Christian, Tal Farlow, Django Reinhardt, and Johnny Smith, as well as Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, and Tal Farlow. Over the years, he worked with drummer and big band leader Buddy Rich, and such jazz greats as Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Zoot Sims, Phil Woods, and the Brecker Brothers.
I met Jack over 50 years ago. I enjoyed his first album, “Windows“, in 1973 [YouTube link], and have enjoyed his many other recordings. He was a dear friend of my brother, guitarist Carl Barry and my sister-in-law, singer Joanne Barry. Jack and Carl often performed together and I was fortunate enough to see their deep musical bond at many jazz clubs over the decades. Jack was also the guest soloist on “Alone in the World” [link], a track from my brother and sister-in-law’s album “Embraceable You“.
My deepest condolences to all his family and friends; he will be missed. RIP, Jack.
Jack Wilkins (1944-2023)
So many wonderful tributes have been posted about my sister, Elizabeth Sciabarra (aka “Ski”), not only throughout her life and illness, but in the aftermath of her death on November 26, 2022. A lifelong educator, she had an immeasurable impact on countless numbers of people, be they students, colleagues, friends, or family. She has been praised as a gifted teacher and leader, a strong, yet caring coach, a humane and empathetic advisor. Every testimony provides yet another vantage point on the truly organic whole that comprised every aspect of my sister’s remarkable life.
We are a little bit more than two weeks away from a Ski Celebration that will take place at Brooklyn Technical High School on May 6 (3-5 pm). Those who are interested in attending the event either in-person or virtually, should register here.
Don’t hold anyone at Tech accountable for this post; I take full responsibility for it. Today, I’d like to share some stories of which few people are aware. These stories come with a PG-13 rating: Though I’ve been careful to substitute a “&” for every questionable “u”, there’s no doubt that the language here may not be suitable for all audiences. But I don’t want to sanitize the fierce quality that was my sister’s wrath. If you pissed her off, threatened the people she cared about, or stepped over any of her definable boundaries, look out! She was a Warrior—in defense of her bodily autonomy, family, home, and social justice.
The Bar Incident
One night, she was out with friends at a bar and was having a nice time. As she leaned over the bar stool, some guy behind her apparently touched her, uh, behind. She turned around and asked, “What’s up buddy?” The guy apologized and said, “Oh, I’m sorry.” She gave him The Look.
A minute later, that same guy brushed up against her yet one more time. “Hey,” she shouted, “watch your hands!”
The guy just ignored her. But my sister was steaming.
A few moments passed … and the guy grabbed my sister’s butt. She turned around, full fisted, and clocked him so hard in the face, he went down with a broken, bloody nose. Bedlam ensued and she was escorted from the bar.
The guy declined to press charges.
Score: Ski, Warrior in Defense of Bodily Autonomy, 1; Sexual Harasser: 0
The New Year’s Eve Incident
Some years ago, I was DJ’ing a New Year’s Eve party at a local catering hall. Some drunk guy came stumbling in with his girlfriend two hours after the Times Square Ball Drop and had missed the promised “champagne toast” at midnight. He demanded his champagne, but I told him it was too late. He grabbed me by the throat, threatening to “hurt” me. I kind of backed off, and let it go. Moments later, when I told my sister of the incident, she bolted after the guy and cornered him on a stairwell, screaming: “You threatened my brother! I’ll kill you!” When his girlfriend started to laugh, she turned to her and yelled: “And you—you f&cking bimbo! Shut the f&ck up!” She called security and had the two of them removed from the premises.
Score: Ski, Warrior in Defense of Family: 1; Drunk Jerk and Girlfriend: 0
The Apartment Incident
A few years later, something rather odd happened at our apartment. No matter where we’ve lived in this neighborhood, it was always a rental on the second floor of a two-family house. This story takes place in our current apartment, where I have been living since 1986. It was the late 1990s, and our trusted dog, Blondie, a Chihuahua-mix with a Napoleon complex, often barked menacingly at strangers near and far. But she was very loving to all those she trusted.
One afternoon, my brother Carl called us—he only lived a few doors down—and told us that he’d be coming over for a cup of coffee. My sister was in her bedroom, straightening up, and I went downstairs and unlocked the door so I could return to working on my computer. The entrance door to our apartment was to my back, and I expected my brother to enter at any moment. Not a minute later, I heard the door open downstairs and I heard someone walking up the steps to our place.
Blondie suddenly became maniacal. She was barking as if the apartment were under siege. “Blondie! Blondie! Stop! It’s Brother!!!”, I hollered. “Come on in, Bro!” And I returned to my computer screen.
The door opened behind my back, and the dog simply lost it! She started lunging. I turned around and it was not my brother. It was some strange man, whom I’d never seen on our block or in our neighborhood, mumbling to himself. Blondie started nipping at his heels. Being ever the diplomat, I looked up at him and exclaimed: “Sir, can I help you? Who are you? I think you’re in the wrong apartment, sir.”
The dog’s barks were now deafening, as the guy walked into our bathroom and started cleaning his hairbrush in our sink. And I’m still trying to be gentle: “Sir! Sir! I think you must be lost. Who are you looking for? I don’t think you’re in the right place.”
Well.
My sister came out of the bedroom and started screaming: “What the hell is going on out there?” The dog had gotten positively violent by this point, as my sister moved toward the bathroom. She was shocked to see this strange man over our bathroom sink. Diplomatic negotiations had broken down. “Who the hell are you?” She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, opened the apartment door, and forcefully pushed him down the stairs: “You need to get the f&ck out of here!!!” As he departed, my sister locked the door behind him and marched back up the stairs. When she entered the apartment, she gave me The Look.
“What are you, crazy?! Why were you trying to reason with the guy? You don’t know this guy! You don’t know what he was capable of! What the hell is wrong with you?”
I meekly returned to my seat. A few moments later, my brother rang the bell, and I went down and let him in. Blondie was calm. A re-telling of the story, however, elicited such uproarious laughter that we could hardly catch our breaths.
Score: Ski, Warrior in Defense of Home, 1; Intruder: 0
The Car Incident
Many of my sister’s students have celebrated the fact that she gave a voice to the young women at Brooklyn Tech, an all-male school up until 1970. Having started teaching at that school in 1972, she would go on to coach its cheering squads and took its dance teams all the way to national championships.
She was also known to accompany kids from the school to the subway stations when the high-crime Fort Greene area of Brooklyn had more in common with the “Fort” than the greenspaces of its famous park.
Early in her tenure as principal of New Dorp High School on Staten Island, while she was on stage speaking during an assembly presentation, some kid opened the back door to the auditorium and announced: “She’s a bitch!” She raised her fist in the air and owned it: “Yes I am!”—to applause.
She also went out of her way to ride the buses on various occasions with African American kids all the way to their Stapleton and St. George neighborhoods, to send a message to anyone who might want to target students for taunting or bullying.
Racial problems were certainly not endemic to Staten Island, however. In the early-to-mid-1980s, our Gravesend section of Brooklyn was far less integrated than it is now, populated predominantly by whites of Italian and Southern European descent. As Wikipedia reports, back in 1982, African-American “transit worker Willie Turks was beaten to death in Gravesend by a group of white teenagers.” On Christmas Day 1987, “white youths beat two black men in the neighborhood in an apparent ‘unprovoked attack’,” which led to protests in January 1988 by the Reverend Al Sharpton, who “led 450 marchers between Marlboro Houses and a police station, and were met with chants of ‘go back to Africa’ and various racial epithets from a predominantly white crowd.” In 1989, in the wake of the murder of Yusef Hawkins, black protestors were welcomed to the neighborhood by whites who held up watermelons, while hurling obscenities and bricks at the demonstrators.
It was in this lovely atmosphere of cosmopolitan tolerance and racial harmony that my sister decided to invite a group of mostly African American cheering squad members to our apartment on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The mood was festive, and everyone had a great time. But we saw some young white punks across the street from us who were not very pleased. Under her breath, Elizabeth said to me, “These sc&mbags better not make any trouble with my girls here.” At the end of the day, she made sure that all of them got home safely.
The next morning, I walked out to get the Sunday papers. As I passed our car, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Every window had been bashed in, the glass splattered both inside and outside the car. I walked upstairs and calmly informed my sister what had happened. She was uncontrollably enraged. We both knew who had perpetrated the deed. Looking out the front window, she saw one of the obvious culprits who was visibly irate the day before at the sight of black kids entering our apartment. Nothing could hold her back. She flew down the stairs and stomped across the street, fuming, as a crowd began to form. She went straight for their ‘leader’.
“You! You!” – going full throttle right up to the guy’s face. “You bashed my windows in! You motherf&cker!”
“Ay, ay,” the guy said, clearly shaken. “Watch it, lady. I know people!”
“I know people too!” she shouted. “And they’re gonna break your f&cking legs if you touch my car again!”
The crowd went completely silent. I was right behind her. And we both turned around and went back upstairs.
The black kids would return to our home many times thereafter. And nobody ever touched our car again.
Score: Ski, Warrior in Defense of Social Justice: 1; Bigots: 0
Four incidents. Four victories. One TKO. My sister was a champ in the boxing ring of life!
Postscript (21 April 2023): See Facebook for comments. On Facebook, I added this point:
I just wanted to thank everyone who has reacted, posted, or dropped me a note. I added a postscript to this thread, which I repeat here to highlight it:
It is not without some irony that 28 years ago on this date [April 21, 2023], my mother—Ann Sciabarra—passed away after a five-year battle with lung cancer. She was an incredibly strong woman. The apple(s) didn’t fall far from the tree. We all inherited some of her toughness and loads of her empathy. My sister was definitely my mother’s daughter. For a hilarious vignette in memory of my mom, which illustrates the point, check out this post from Mother’s Day 2021 [also on Facebook].
Chris Sciabarra, April 2022 Coney Island Parachute Jump, Brooklyn, New York