Biden comes to Chelsea, blasts Trump on Iran
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
Democratic presidential candidate
and former Vice President
Joe Biden spoke in Manhattan
Tuesday on current tensions with Iran —
and called on President Donald Trump
to rejoin the Iran deal amid increasing
tensions over the killing of Major General
Qassim Suleimani.
“The seeds of danger were planted by
Donald Trump himself on May 8, 2019 —
the day he tore up the Iran Nuclear Deal,
against the advice of his own top master
security adviser,” said Biden during his
speech at Chelsea Piers. “He turned his
back on our closest European allies and
decided that it was important to destroy
any progress that the Obama-Biden administration
did.”
Biden added that the deal was not only
accomplishing the “critical mission” it
was designed for and creating an environment
where diplomacy was possible.
Diplomacy, not one-off decisions, are the
only way out of the current crisis, Biden
said.
The speech came five days after Trump
ordered a drone attack near an airport in
Baghdad that killed Suleimani, head of
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-
Quds, pushing the nation “dangerously
close” to war, said Biden.
The Department of Defense called
the strike a preemptive measure to deter
Vice President Joe Biden running for President, trashed the foreign
policy of President Donald Trump as reckless and a provocation for
war with Iran. He spoke at Chelsea Pier in Manhattan.
future Iranian attacks such as the Dec.
27 incident at an Iraqi military base that
killed an American contractor.
Most Republicans have sided with the
president saying that the attack was justified.
But critics of Trump have called the
decision reckless.
Biden agreed, accusing the president
of “throwing a stick of dynamite in a
tinderbox.” He further criticized Trump’s
decision last May to withdraw the U.S.
from the Iran deal reached during the
Obama Administration. The pact limited
the country’s nuclear program for a
(PHOTO BY TODD MAISEL)
decade in return for lifting international
financial and oil sanctions.
“All that has materialized is an utterly
predictable cycle of escalating conflict,”
said Biden.
Biden admitted that he had “no illusions”
about Iran, which he said has long
“sponsored terrorism” and continues to
detain American citizens and should be
held accountable.
“But there is a smart way and a selfdefeating
way to counter Iran,” he said.
“Trump’s approach has been demonstrably
the later.”
NYC Ferry ridership surged in 2019: city
BY GABE HERMAN
The NYC Ferry saw
increased ridership
in 2019 from the
previous year, according
to figures released Jan.
2 by the NYC Economic
Development Corporation
(EDC), which oversees the
aquatic transport system.
In 2019, 6.3 million
people rode NYC Ferry, a
32% increase from 2018
and a 38% increase from
projections made back in 2015, according
NYC Ferry ridership increased in 2019.
to Seth Myers, NYC EDC Executive
Vice President and Director of Project
Implementation. That brings the system’s
total ridership number to 14 million since
NYC Ferry’s launch in May 2017.
The increase in ridership includes all
original routes and those new routes
launched in 2018.
Last summer alone saw 2.5 million
riders on the system, a 32% jump from
2018. Ridership on the four original
routes, East River, Rockaway, South
Brooklyn and Astoria, increased 15%
from the previous year.
The Lower East Side and Soundview
routes, which both launched in August
2018, had 23% ridership increases in fall
2019 over fall 2018.
Myers said he was pleased that the
ferry system had seen steady year over
year increases in ridership.
“We’re happy to see
it become part of the
transit fabric of the
city,” he said.
NYC Ferry is scheduled
to expand its
services in the coming
years. A St. George
route, complementing
the free Staten Island
Ferry, is set to launch
in 2020 and include
stops at Vesey Street in
Battery Park City and
(COURTESY NYC EDC)
at Midtown West at Pier 79 (West 39th
Street). There is no specific date for when
in 2020 the new route will launch, Myers
said.
Three months ago, the NYC EDC released
a report showing that NYC Ferry
disproportionately serves upper-middleclass
and white New Yorkers. And studies
by watchdog groups have shown the
system to rely on high subsidies. Myers
said the price of an NYC Ferry ride will
Six sought
for beating
man
BY ALEX MITCHELL
Police are asking for the public’s
help in identifying six men that
chased and beat a 25-year-old
man on a Chelsea street on New
Year’s Day.
Cops said the group chased a
25-year-old man down West 25th
Street near 6th Avenue at 4:15 a.m.
on Jan. 1. Once they caught up to
him, law enforcement sources said,
they threw him against doorway of a
shoe repair shop on West 25th Street,
then kicked and punched the victim’s
head repeatedly.
Following the attack, the group
took off in an unknown direction,
authorities said.
Officers from the 13th Precinct
responded to the incident. The victim
was treated at Bellevue Medical
Center.
On Jan. 3, the NYPD released security
camera images and later video
of the suspects involved in the attack.
Anyone with information in
regard to the identity of these
individuals is asked to call the
NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at
1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish,
1-888-57-PISTA (74782). All calls
are kept confidential.
remain at $2.75, the same as for subways
and buses.
In the wake of the report, Myers is
hopeful the new services coming over the
next two years will bring further diversity
in ridership.
“We set out for our ferry system to
go where there was demand, and target
social inequities of the past where there
were waterfront communities that were
not served by transit,” Myers said.
4 January 9, 2020 Schneps Media