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Councilmemker Abe Gerges Tours The Brooklyn Arms Hotel:i i f - i r ____ u ^ i j l a o i . ____ a : j i W u i a i c i t u ic i id n u c i i u u 5 n t u u c i u tv a iia ilg 1 G H a p p e nBY LIZ KOCHResidents of the Brooklyn Arms Hotel, scene of a recent fire that took the lives of four children and an elevator accident that killed two young men, peered out of their rooms and stared wide-eyed in the hallway last week as a 30-person entourage trouped into the building and straggled up the dimlylit stairs of the Ft. Greene welfare hotel.City Councilmember Abe Gerges, joined by his Council colleague Sam Horowitz and representatives of the South Brooklyn Legal Services, toured the hotel on Aug. 12 and met with case workers and residents to discuss living conditions and possible solutions for problems that range from rodents to inadequate child care to heating and hot water shortages. Gerges, chairman of the City Council Select Committee on the Homeless, announced after the tour that he was calling on the Mayor and the Governor to join him in requesting the hotel industry to make additional hotel rooms available for the homeless families.%u201cConditions at the hotels now used to house families are atrocious,%u2019%u2019 Gerges said after the tour. %u201cIf every hotel in the city agrees to house a certain number of homeless families, it will supply more decent accommodations and will give the City more leverage in negotiating with those hotels now used,%u201d he added. Gerges announced the opening of negotiations with the New York Trades Council and Hotels Association to have more of the 110 hotels in the association provide rooms for the homeless.The group%u2019s first stop on the Aug. 12 tour of the Brooklyn Arms was the Nat Turner Center where he met with residents and social workers to discuss both conditions at the hotel and the problems of finding permanent housing for hotel residents.Marguerite Campbell, a mother of five children who range from seven months to seven years, told Gerges that she had never been chosen to ride on the Housing Preservation Department (HPD) van. The City van picks up residents from the hotel to show them City housing available for their permanent use. %u201cI have been out constantly looking for an apartment on my own, but most people don%u2019t want welfare people or they don%u2019t want children,%u201d she explained. %u201cThe City has not shown me any apartments. I have been down to my case worker many times to try and get on the van.%u201dBarbara Young, president of Parents on the Move, a newly-formed group of welfare hotel parents seeking to improve conditions at the Brooklyn Arms, outlined policies in place for getting to participate in the tour of available apartments given by the van service. %u201cIt is now the rule that you have to have lived in the hotel at least 18 months to be allowed to go on the van,%u201d die said. %u201cIf you are pregnant you are allowed to go but you have to be in the last trimester or have a baby younger than 6 months,%u201d she explained.One mother said that a Human Resource Administration (HRA) worker had told her to get pregnant if she wanted to find housing through the City channels. But, she said, %u201cI don%u2019t want to be pregnant again.%u201dCAN%u2019T BRING CHILDRENThe discussion also focused on complications arising from a policy which does notEvelyn Ford (top), them o th er of a young m an killed in a hotel elevator accident, sits outside the hotel,flanked by friends. At theN at Turner D ay C are C en teron W arren S treet, daycarefacilities are available forsom e of the ho tel's children,but parents w ant an o n -sitecenter. Billy C linkscales, afather of four, hopes toleave the hotel soon, fearingfor the safety of his c h ildren.allow parents to bring their children on the van while they visit sites. %u201cThere is no on-site nursery here and if you do get a spot on the van, then you have to find a place to put your baby,%u201d one parent said. Campbell said she would take her two youngest children on her forays out into the City to find housing, but that her older children stayed with friends.Gerges asked the residents what improvement in the hotel took the highest priority for them and the need for a nursery facility in the hotel topped the list, followed by improved health care. A measles outbreak afflicted hotel residents last winter and a recent virus outbreak had many mothers taking their children to the hospital for ice baths to bring down high fevers. A City nurse is available on the premises during working hours.Residents also pointed out to the visiting group safety and health deficiencies in the hotel that ranged from the rat problem, to inadequate security in the 19-story building where police recently broke a crack ring, to fire concerns. %u201cThere are a lot of alarms, but there is no evacuation procedure here,%u201d Young said. %u201cI went to the Fire Department to request that fire drills be held at the hotel but they said it was not feasible. Only employees are drilled,%u201d she said.FEAR OF SLEEPINGResidents expressed their fear of sleeping in the building where numerous fires have occurred in recent years and the staircases offer a narrow escape route for a hotel where the City estimates 300 parents and over 900 children reside. Residents and social workers put the figure much higher, taking into account friends who move into the hotel when they have nowhere to live. They put the number at over 2,000 residents. There is no mandate that requires the hotels to have fire drills.Security concerns were also raised. Currently three guards are stationed in the lobby of the hotel and for a short period of time, after the major crack bust there last month, police posted two officers on duty, but they have since been removed. HRA workers on the premises are no longer allowed to visit residents on the floor as the situation has been deemed dangerous for them. Residents felt added protection was needed on the upper floors.Testimony from the residents was not the sole source of information that day. Gerges could witness first hand some of the problems residents confront in the hotel. Standing in the narrow, freshly-painted hallway where the City officials squeezed against one another to avoid leaning against the still-wet walls, the entourage waited for the elevator to arrive.JUST KICK THE DOORAs a number of residents kicked the door as they waited for the elevator to arrive and called out the floor number, Gerges strode over to participate in the action. Scanning the wall for the elevator button that wasn%u2019t there, he finally asked the obvious question. For his answer, he received a laugh from the social workers. %u201cThere is no button. This is what you have to do,%u201d she said, giving the door a resounding kick and yelled out %u201cEighth Floor!%u201d The elevator door opened.Councilman Gerges also last week touredContinued on Page 4University Picks Up The Pieces In Aftermath Of ShootingBY LIZ KOCHTragic crimes are not an uncommon occurrence in New York City and perhaps for that reason residents of the City are remarkably resilient when confronted by violent crime. For students and employees of the New York City Technical College, the scene of a bloody shooting spree two weeks ago, it is this sentiment of resilience that now prevails just days after the event, and leaves students speaking of the shock and horror, but enables them to dismiss feelings of uncertainty or fear of returning to the school.lines were long last week at New York City Technical College as students queued up in front of the registration and financial aid offices with thoughts of the upcoming fall semester toremost in uicir minds.Yet, in the aftermath of the tragic shooting spree at the campus on August 12, when a student of the college shot and killed a lab technician and critically wounded four others, students and employees at the school are slowly recovering from the shock. For some,notice o tn ee rs keep th e streets c le a r of pedestrians near C ity University of N ew YorkTechnical C ollege w hile o th e r o ffice rs try to convince the gunm an to surrender. (Phoenix/K och Photo)the randomness of the incident affords them a sense of security in returning to the school. %u201cIt%u2019s as safe as you can be anywhere in New York,%u201d a young woman explains. %u201cIn New York, life goes on after something like this happens. You read about it in the papers and then one day it happens where you are.%u201d NOT SO SIMPLEFor others, though, the transition and reasoning are not so simple. It is with some apprehension that they return to 300 Jay Street where 29-year-old Van A. Hull shot and wounded the school%u2019s financial aid director. Lamont Pittman, 43, and two other financial aid employees, 41-year-old Elaine Harper and 31-year-old Elena Vasquez. Minutes31, an opthamologist lab technician. His shooting spree finally ended after he fired at and wounded a security guard in the school%u2019s Klitgord Auditorium at 285 Jay Street and Sergeant Richard Ruberto from the 84th Precinct convinced Hull to surrender. PoliceContinued on Page 4A ugust 2 1,19 86 , T H E P H O E N IX , Page 3