Just how “new” is New York anymore? It brings to mind that popular They Might Be Giants song where they tell us that “Old” New York was once New Amsterdam.

If we depended on all things to be linear, we would be shocked and possibly even horrified that the progress in New York hasn’t always lead to crossing T’s and dotting I’s.

In all cases, whether there is a dilapidated building or a person left out of the system, there is a certain point where even in the transfer of power, the same lack of attention is handed over and even depended on. Here, we can look at a few current issues, people, ideas, and places that are being abandoned either for bad or for worst.

Forgetting People Like George Bell

The New York Times has published a very riveting and yet sad story about a deceased New York resident named George Bell, who was forgotten by his community and eventually, those who were once close to him.

When they found his body in his home, it was clear he was a hoarder and typically, no one could find a next of kin or someone who would claim the body. But the most interesting part of the story is about the problems with the county public administrators who handle these kinds of obscure deaths.

It mentions that there is a tendency for them to steal money from the dead and other things as well and it refers to some cases where some administrators have been jailed for it. So, it’s clear that not only do many of New York’s dead go unclaimed, but their legacies are also left to corrupt public administrators. We can say that their abandonment is definite.

Abandoning New York’s Historic Subway System

There is an endless list of movies that have been filmed in New York City, specifically noir movies such as A Cry Of The City or Fourteen Hours where the subway system has been the backdrop for many seedy sequences.

It’s rather unfortunate that most of the subway’s platforms you go to in the New York area are actually newer than the ones in those films, leaving behind only traces of what they were like printed on film. Currently, these platforms are sealed off and left abandoned by the city, because new trains are too large for those tunnels. They could make an effort to do something about that, but usually the case is that no one has been willing to think outside the box to make it happen.

Clearly, no one really cares.

Neglecting New York’s Indoctrinated Peoples

Recently, news has hit the beltway about a New York congregation that’s being investigated for the beating of members who were were looking to deflect from the group.

Deatiled in a post written for the Inquisitr, the effort made by two teens to leave the group was reason enough for why the counselors and parents retaliated, beating the teens for many hours, killing one and leaving the other to recover.

Religious freedom is often touted as one of the many liberties we have as a nation and a case such as this one isn’t just a problem in New York, but worldwide. Unfortunately, these incidents are not reason enough to look into the possibility that with religious freedom comes indoctrination.

Is it therefore the standard to leave these groups to themselves and not enforce any laws on them because of the authority’s fear of legal retaliation by indoctrinated peoples? Do they simply not want the noise that comes with it, very much like that of Kim Davis in another state?

A solution here would be to keep watch over these groups to see just what their agendas might be other than getting by tax laws and traditional ritualistic mutilation. Yes, this too is almost willful negligence.

Abandoning The Tipping Mindset?

The prices in New York only fluctuate in one direction, and that’s up. That could serve as an additional entry on the list as New York abandoning common sense, but very recently, a very influential group of businesses decided to take the complicated step in doing away with tipping.

As a matter of fact, as an experiment and according to this post by The Guardian, they are enforcing a ban on it. But tipping happens all over the United States, so if the no tipping mindset is going to take, those minds would effectively have to take hold.

The effort to do this is a pretty bold one.

Forgetting The Original Origin Of The Tomato Pie

New York is the first in just about everything. It has a harbor which has always invited people from all over the world.

The month of October is the National Pizza Month in which everyone looks towards New York to acknowledge Lombardi’s, which made and sold the first pizza in the United States in 1905.

Well, they were close to holding onto being the originators when they were in the original spot, but had to drop out of the running when they closed down for a decade, giving the nod to another pizza spot which had been going non-stop since 1915.

When Lombardi’s finally opened up again, they had to open in a new space and building, breaking up the rhythm. So, the generational hand-me-down of the business is certainly there, but the original spot and the adjustment for who should get the credit for America’s first pizza is easy to forget if there’s no one around to keep that fact alive.

Is there a plaque somewhere that acknowledges the original location? Let’s hope no one forgets.

“Abandoned Streets of New York” via Flickr by Yiannis Theologos Michellis is under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) License