6 Year Old Child Rides Roosevelt Island Tram "Alone"

It was bound to happen my six year old son who lately has been zoooming everywhere ahead of his mother did so into the Roosevelt Island Tram two days ago and found out the hard way that rush hour on the Tram begins before 5:00 pm when the doors closed and he was unattended during the Tram's flight from Manhattan to Roosevelt Island. Obviously he was not exactly alone as the Tram was full.

He was fine and after my wife realized what had happened, she had been walking our other child up the Manhattan Tram stairs, she notified the booth attendant that he was on board by himself. He certainly is the not the first child that this happened too and we can assume he will not be the last.

Over the course of several emails with the Director of Tram Operations (Armando Cordova), the Public Safety Director (Keith Guerra) and RIOC's President (Stephen Shane) I have learned what the protocol is for handling this type of event. Simply put once aware of the situation the Tram's operator or the booth attendant is supposed to contact PSD and an officer is dispatched to the Tram station to wait with the child until the parent makes the next trip to the station where the child is located.

As I stated at the top of this post it was bound to happen as my son, like most of the younger kids, zooms into the tram every time to claim the prize of the step stool seat behind the tram operator. He learned his lesson and so did we that this one needs to be held a little closer when approaching the Tram. Good thing it was not the subway that is all I have to say.

If this happens to your kid, stay calm as the child is safe and simply let the Tram staff know what has occured and your child will be waiting for you, perhaps chastened by the presence of the PSD officer, when you arrive on the next tram.

Photographing All the World's Children In NYC

Last weekend I was hanging out with my kids behind the Church of the Good Shepherd and we stumbled upon a photographer taking shots of a little girl named Isadora. It turns out Isadora, at age 2 1/2 and a Roosevelt Island resident, will now be representing her home country of Chad in a wonderful project to photograph all the world's children right here in New York City.

The photographer, Danny Goldfried, has been involved with the project from its beginning and has been featured on various news programs and print media spreads. The project can be followed on its website http://www.nychildren.org/.

The criteria are simply that the child (1) must be living here in New York City, (2) must be less than 12 years old and (3) either been themselves born in their home country or whose parents are both from that home country and the child was born here.

According to the website there are many countries still to be represented in the project and with the large international population, here on Roosevelt Island, it is estimated that a number of these countries could be represented by children living here. Certainly Mr. Goldfried expects to be on our island many times before the project is complete. To date, Mr. Goldfried indicated that he tries not to involve the official embassies from any country in trying to locate a child to photograph and based on our conversation I believe he relies more on word of mouth and introductions.

North Korea is one country he expected to never be able to photograph a child from. I informed Mr. Goldfried that we actually have members of the North Korean United Nations delegaton living here on Roosevelt Island and I am trying to help put him in touch with that small community. we shall see how that work's out.

So if you see a guy in a baseball hat photographing our kids don't be so fast to call Public Safety as he may just be trying to prove the world is a smaller place than you thought a few moments before you met him.

Roosevelt Island Halloween Parades 2002-2006

Roosevelt Island has a great tradition of shutting down Main Street, our only street, each year for the annual Halloween parade. This year's parade is set for October 27, 2007. The above slide show is a compilation of photo spreads taken from the Main Street Wire during each of the last 5 years. My understanding is that this year the festivities will be even bigger than last year.