That Structure on the Roof

Across the street from the hotel where I’m staying stands an old apartment building. From its looks, I am guessing that it’s probably at least 50 years old. It stands about 10 stories high and judging from its exterior, the building obviously suffers from lack of proper maintenance. The following picture shows the sight that greets me every time I open my hotel room window:

It shows the apartment building’s 10th floor and its rooftop. Please pay close attention to the structures on the rooftop. The concrete structures house the utility stairways that lead to the rooftop and, I’m assuming, the building’s water tanks. There are also non-concrete structures present, mostly built of wood, galvanized iron, and meshed wire. You will see that all of the non-concrete structures on the rooftop are used as storage sheds except for the one at the right. The one on the right looks like someone uses it as living quarters.

The rather thin layer of iron roofing ought to provide the structure’s resident with adequate shelter from the rain.  However, the roofing becomes more of a liability during very hot and humid days because its thinness hardly provides any buffer between the resident and the sun’s rays.  In fact, the thin metal sheet could even exacerbate the heat within that structure.  As a result, the temperature inside could be much higher than what it actually is outside. 

Unlike residents of the regular apartments on the lower floors, this structure does not have the benefit of any installed airconditioning unit and the absence could be due to a number of reasons.  One reason could be that its wooden walls are probably not strong enough to support the average window-type of airconditioner;  another reason could be either the lack or absence of appropriate wiring to support the power requirements of an AC unit in that particular section of the building; and lastly, it’s also possible that the resident simply decided not to have one installed. 

Let me switch gears now by saying that when I started writing this piece, my original intent was to simply write about that rooftop structure that caught my attention and piqued my curiosity.  I was almost done with organizing my geeky thoughts for this piece when the SO informed me that there are actually two or three Filipino women living in that structure.  She knows it for a fact because she actually saw them come out of that structure one morning to retrieve some clothes that they had hung out to dry. 

Thus, from wondering about an inanimate structure, I now started wondering about the people who have made it their home.  A different set of questions now came to mind.  How long have they lived in that structure?  How long have they been away from their families?  Are they related to each other or are they friends who decided to live together in one housing unit in order to save rent money?  Do their families back home know of where they live and how they live?  Do the folks back home know of the tremendous sacrifices these women are making in the hopes of a better future for their respective families?

I hope that they all eventually do well with their lives.  I hope that they don’t get to stay in such a structure for long.  I hope that when the day comes and it’s time for these women to come home, that a loving and grateful family will welcome them back with open arms and with gratitude and positive returns to show for their sacrifices.  Given all the hardship they’ve gone through for their families, it is only fair to say that these women certainly deserve no less.

Moving East

A couple of weeks ago, a cousin flew in from California to try his luck in finding a job here in the East Coast.  He’s 27 years old and has been looking for a job since he was laid off from his last one last March.  He grew up in the Los Angeles area and prior to losing his job, never contemplated moving to the Big Apple.

But the current recession and financial crisis is a different one.  Several states, California included, have unemployment rates that run in the double digits.  In fact, just last Saturday, the New York Times reported that California’s unemployment rate has shot up to 11.9%.  Given California’s population and the size of its economy, reportedly the 8th largest in the world, this is certainly a huge problem. 

My cousin told me that the job ads page of the Los Angeles Times is practically empty.   In all the months he had spent job searching there, not once had he been called in for an interview.  On the other hand, the few requests for job interviews that he had received had come from companies in New York.  A number of his friends, ones he grew up with in the Los Angeles area, have moved to New York  and into new jobs in the past few years.  My cousin came over here in June for a couple of interviews with a couple of companies and he flew back again a few weeks ago to go on three more job interviews with three other companies.  His second and current trip to New York finally bore fruit because he was able to land a job with a Madison Avenue ad agency.  He got his official job offer this past Saturday and he mailed back his acceptance early this week.

The latest report from the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics supports his experience.  The report said that for the month of July, New York registered an increase in employment of 62,100 jobs compared to California which lost 35,800 jobs.  Among all 50 states, New York registered the largest increase in level of employment while California was the exact opposite by registering the largest decrease in level of employment.

It certainly helps that for all its troubles, New York remains one of the anchors of the US economy.  There is a great diversity of business, industry, and people jammed into all of Manhattan’s 23 square miles of land area.  All American corporations of significance from any industry maintain an office in the island.  The borough of Manhattan is America’s most densely populated and one of its wealthiest.  As America’s business capital, it attracts a huge number of foreign companies to set up either their American headquarters or offices there.  By attracting all that wealth and investment, jobs will surely follow even in the hardest of times.  But aside from being a business center, Manhattan is also a cultural and academic center.  There are a host of theaters, art and historical museums, universities, art galleries, art districts, etc. to cater to everyone’s passions.  A highly developed and efficient mass transit system brings thousands of commuters from neighboring states of New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania to Manhattan each day either for work or entertainment.  All these combine to bring and support much needed employment into the city.

But going back to my cousin, I’m certainly very happy for him that he has found a job here.  In fact, the day after he got his job offer, I helped him and his mom do some apartment hunting on my side of the Hudson.  Even during our apartment search, the leasing agents we met with told us that there has been an influx of people from California.  Another sign of the financial crisis is that we didn’t have any trouble finding him a suitable apartment with very good amenities and at the price we wanted.  It’s a buyer’s market right now as far as buying or leasing properties is concerned.  Thus, his mom and I made sure that we got him the most advantageous deal we could get.

He’s a good, smart and frugal kid.  I wish him well in his new job and in his new life here.  Personally, I’m also happy with the fact that I now have another close relative nearby.  I’m rather close to his mother, my aunt who is my father’s youngest sibling.  She’s always been the “cool” aunt in the family.  She’s happy that her little boy has found job but I know that his moving to the East Coast will also sadden her and her husband as well.  Theirs is a tight and loving family.  Although they’ll be losing a son to the East Coast, I know they know that it is a good problem to have right now.

Downright Obscene

This brief article came out in today’s edition (August 7) of the New York Post criticizing the amount of money our dear President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) spent on a party for her entourage.  The party was held at the very upscale club called Le Cirque.  The report also said that several bottles of very expensive wine were ordered that pushed the evening’s dinner tab to around $20,000. 

This must be the President’s way of congratulating herself and her large entourage for a job very well done.  I don’t know how big her entourage was but it smacks of poor taste and judgment to host such a lavish party on a trip whose main purpose was to schmooze with a new American President in order to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars more in new economic and military aid. 

I have nothing against throwing a party for one’s staff or supporters.  Any leader is entitled to do that and a good leader should do that as a sign of his/her appreciation to his/her staff for a job well done.  It’s a morale booster.  However, the reason why GMA suffers from a serious and irreparable image problem is that she has seriously flawed political instincts.  Throwing a party at an upscale New York club shows a serious lack of sound judgment and/or gross insensitivity on her part.  In a city like New York, there are a lot of places where she could have thrown a nice party that would have cost the Filipino taxpayers a lot less.  

Even if somebody else had organized the party for her, she should have put her foot down and asked the organizers to select a more moderately priced venue instead.  She should have been extremely mindful of the negative message and image that will be sent when a leader from a poor Third World country hosts a party in a ritzy club where expensive wine was flowing like water.  This is a public relations disaster and she should have known better.   

The late Senator Jose Diokno used the word “obscene” to describe the lavish parties that the Marcoses used to throw in Malacanang back in the 1970s and early 1980s.  Such parties were held at a time when the country was up to its eyeballs in debt and millions were going hungry.  It is sad, disappointing and extremely frustrating that 30 years later, in spite of all the worsening poverty around them, our leaders still haven’t learned a damn thing. 

An Evening in Dallas

I have long wanted to visit Dallas, Texas.  Although our company has a few offices in Texas, all of them are situated well outside of the city.  Thus, in the few times I had been in the area, I was not able to drive into Dallas to visit a particular site that I have long wanted to see.  The site I’m referring to is Dealey Plaza where on November 22, 1963, US President John F. Kennedy (JFK) was assassinated by a lone gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald.

But this past Monday, an American friend at work who is a long-time Dallas resident, volunteered to give me a tour of the city.  Since summer days are quite long here, we decided to do the tour after the project team’s dinner.  He knew that I’ve long wanted to visit Dealey Plaza and that’s where he immediately took me.

It was around 7:30 p.m. when we got to the place.  There was still a fair amount of sunlight left.  The following  shows the picture I took as soon as I got off my friend’s car:

The red brick, seven-story building in the center of the picture above is called the Dallas County Administration Building.  However, back in 1963, this building was known as the Texas School Book Depository.  At the time, the building was named for a private business that used it as a multi-story warehouse for school textbooks.  For the purposes of this blog entry, I will refer to this building by its former name.  It was by this building’s sixth floor corner window where Lee Harvey Oswald took his position as he waited for the presidential motorcade to pass by.  The building is on Elm Street which intersects with Houston Street, the street I was on when I took the picture.

But before I proceed any further with the other photos in this entry, let me first share with you the following video clip from the Discovery Channel that detailed the moments leading to JFK’s assassination.  It also shows the building above and its immediate surroundings.

The building below is called the Old Red Courthouse.  It is now a museum but back in 1963, the building served as the Dallas County Courthouse.  I took the picture from Dealey Plaza.  The street in the foreground is Houston Street while the street at the side of the Old Red Courthouse is called Main Street.

The building above is shown about 12 seconds into the video.  The video showed President Kennedy’s open limousine driving down Main Street and then making a right into Houston Street, or to my left from where I stood above.  The courthouse’s stone arches can be clearly seen on film as the presidential limousine made its way past them.  This building is only a block away from the Texas School Book Depository. 

I walked a block closer to the Depository and took the following shot: 

President Kennedy was in an open car and waving to supporters when his car passed in front of this building.  I was standing on Elm Street when I took the picture below of part of the building’s facade:

From the picture above, you will see a black plaque or marker and a green sign below it at the lower right corner of the building’s facade.  Also note the corner window on the sixth floor that is in a half-open position.  The following picture shows both marker and sign up close:

As mentioned earlier, the building now houses Dallas County’s administrative offices.  However, the building’s sixth floor is now a museum dedicated to the JFK Assassination.  The museum’s logo shows seven horizontal bars to signify the number of floors in the building.  Except for the white bar that is second from the top, the rest of the bars are in the same color as the building’s bricks. 

The following is a close up shot of the marker.  Note how one vandal carved a line under the word “ALLEGEDLY” in the last paragraph of the inscription:

The following is a picture I took of the Sixth Floor Window.  It was from this window where Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot that fatally wounded President Kennedy.  The window is in a simulated half-open position to show the way it looked on the day of the assassination.  There is actually a pane of glass within it to keep the entire window closed.

After taking the picture above, I turned to my left and took the following picture of a part of Elm Street on the left and the infamous Grassy Knoll on the right:

Another shot of the Grassy Knoll.  My friend told me that regardless of the time of day, there are always small groups of people present here, be they tourists or history buffs. 

The following is a shot of Elm Street and a triple underpass in the background.  President Kennedy’s limousine was on this stretch of Elm Street when he was fatally shot.  It is to be noted that at this particular point, Mr. Kennedy’s car was only two or three seconds away from entering the freeway that would have taken him to his next scheduled event for that day. 

Below was the last shot I took of both Elm Street and the Grassy Knoll.  Again, one can see from it how close JFK’s car was to the underpass and the freeway that could have saved his life. 

Just a few other things about this site. 

My photos failed to capture it but aside from the sad event that took place here many years ago, this part of Dallas’s West End District is also a rather lonely place to visit especially in the evenings.  There are quite a number of old warehouses and office buildings in the area; a number of them date back to the 19th Century; a number of them have  long been abandoned and unused; and a number are in a state of decay and/or disrepair. 

There are some nice government buildings like the Old Red Courthouse but a majority of the buildings in this area are all either for office or commercial use.  I didn’t see any condominium buildings or residential apartments in the immediate vicinity of the Depository.  In the evening hour that I was there, I saw very few people on the streets.  It is even a safe bet for me to say that  the ones I caught in my photos above made up the majority of the people who were present in the area during that time.  Thus, this section of Dallas literally becomes a ghost town after people leave their offices for home at the end of the workday.

The Philippines also figured briefly in Lee Harvey Oswald’s troubled personal history.  He joined the US Marines when he was 18 and was a trained sniper.  His Marine unit was stationed in the Philippines from late November 1957 to about March 1958.   He spent time in both Subic Bay in Olongapo and Corregidor during those months.   (Source:  “The Missing Chapter:  Lee Harvey Oswald in the Far East” by Jack R. Swike)

But even if I didn’t end up staying long, I’m glad that I was finally able to make this trip.  On a personal level, this is a place I had wanted to visit ever since I was child.  I learned about the JFK assassination from my parents and through a book they gave me as a gift.  Like many people of their generation, they spoke highly of JFK.  They admired his intelligence, charisma and idealism.  Thus, in a sentimental way, I also made this trip for them.  Aside from those, the history buff in me wanted to be there because it was a site where history was made.  It was a place where an assassination profoundly changed our world and maybe sadly, not for the better.