It’s Peak Asthma Season in Bushwick
Asthma hospitalization rates for children ages 0-14. Bushwick proper in red, EW Industrial (Morgan) Area just to the north.
Elena Gaudino, 23, moved to Bushwick early last summer for its modest cost of living and proximity to Manhattan. Though excited to be living in the city, Elena’s celebration was cut short as her health started slipping and she began developing symptoms of asthma –- the respiratory condition where airways occasionally constrict and become inflamed.
“Every time I get sick now it’s a lot more concentrated in my respiratory system,” she said. “I didn’t used to be this way, but there are times when I feel my throat start closing and I don’t even see it coming.”
Asthma attacks have an array of triggers, ranging from common allergens to air pollution, and Bushwick has some of the poorest air quality in New York City. The combination of local industry and commercial truck traffic takes a toll on residents’ health throughout the year, but asthma-related hospitalizations spike in late September, according to Lorna Davis-Robinson, director of the Asthma Initiative for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Due to weather changes and a consequential rise of respiratory infections, hospitalization rates for asthma can more than triple between August and September.
“Asthma tends to affect poorer neighborhoods more than others and the Williamsburg-Bushwick area has asthma rates that are relatively high compared to the rest of Brooklyn,” Davis-Robinson said.
The best way to deal with asthma is to stay away from cigarettes and cigarette smokers, keep your windows closed, get rid of household pests like rats or cockroaches and keep your living quarters clean.
Overall, the area’s health outlook is getting better as asthma-related hospitalizations have fallen from 558 in 1995 to 168 in 2005 for Williamsburg and Bushwick residents 15-34 years old.
Progress aside, Bushwick’s air might clear up faster if the 5-minute idling law were enforced on the commercial trucks that constantly spew out diesel exhaust in the East Williamsburg industrial area.
Out of curiosity, I asked a cop (who’d like to remain anonymous) on night patrol at the Morgan Ave. stop why they never ticket commercial trucks for idling and he responded:
“When you’re a cop the big D-word rules a lot of your decisions: Discretion. You can give out tickets for just about any reason -– people riding their bikes on the sidewalk or using the emergency exit door in the subway stations — it’s a judgment call most of the time,” he said.
An interesting point of view considering the Williamsburg-Bushwick area had the third highest asthma-related hospitalization rate in New York City in 2005 — the Hunts Point-Mott Haven and Highbridge-Morrisania areas of the Bronx took first and second place.
When compared to the rest of Brooklyn, Bushwick’s asthma rates seem even higher, just about any other neighborhood in the borough would be better for people with respiratory problems. For example, only 11 out of every 1,000 people ages 15-34 in the Bay Ridge-Bensonhurst area were hospitalized for asthma in 2005 compared to the 168 out of every 1,000 people that were hospitalized in the Williamsburg-Bushwick area that same year.
“One time I went to Bay Ridge and I felt like I was in the woods compared to where I live,” Elena said. “The air’s so fresh down there.”
September 26th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
So we’re all gonna die.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I have seasonal allergies (pollens, grass, etc.) and when I moved to Bushwick I improved. I may be the only person who ever moved to an industrial area for the clean air.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Funny, my nose is stuffy and my eyes are gooked up in the winter — with the windows closed. It’s the heating, I hate it. When I have the windows open I’m fresh and clear.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
“When you’re a cop the big D-word rules a lot of your decisions: Discretion. You can give out tickets for just about any reason -– people riding their bikes on the sidewalk or using the emergency exit door in the subway stations — it’s a judgment call most of the time,” he said.
………like when a cop runs into a naked mental patient - time to get out the taser.
September 26th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
this hood needs more trees
http://forestry.about.com/od/treephysiology/tp/tree_value.htm
September 26th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Of the last 16 plants I bought, to clean the air and look pretty, 12 have died.
Any suggestion for my window box planter?
September 26th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Man,
Water. With a tray so the plants can actually suck the water upward. I know that sounds funny.
d.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Fyi, anyone wonder why the asthma is so high in Harlem?
Cockroaches. They produce a dander (dust) which provokes asthma in children.
Fo’ real.
September 26th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Dresden, you fucking racist iowa hippie hipster yuppie, cockroaches are FLAVOR. Stop the displacement!
September 26th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I’m originally born in New Zealand because my father was dodging the draft, but I was raised outside Philly. I’ve been to Iowa, once.
September 26th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
The rest is pretty spot on.
September 27th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Thanks Dresden that explains why the only survivors are several cacti and one sanseviera plant. I thought it was the pollution.
September 27th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Thank you for this, a factually based and informative piece on the connection between asthma and living in Bushwick. We cannot depend on the enforcement of the laws that exist to reduce the asthma causing pollution in our area.
New York is known to have comparatively higher levels of air pollution and this article demonstrate that Bushwick ranks among the highest in asthma-suffering residents. Thousands in the area live with asthma or emphysema and many will eventually be diagnosed with other cardiovascular diseases or even lung cancer.
Unfortunately, it took many years of wheezing before I learned to control my asthma. I recall waking up coughing for endless periods in the middle of the night, and that day I think I could have died after shoveling just a few feet of snow. I didn’t know about the causes of asthma or how to relieve it, so I always figured that I suffered as a result of smoking for a few years until quitting in ’89 and that there was little or anything I could do but live with it. After many uninformed years, I spoke with my doctor who set me straight and provided me with the inhalers I need to live virtually asthma-free.
We don’t have any local power plants to hold responsible for our shallow breath, and we are not victims of higher-than-usual overhead air traffic, so we cannot blame the airline industry. We also don’t have a lot of highways in Bushwick. So, I think that the brunt of our local pollution stems from, believe it our not, running tailpipes. The pollutants from idly-running cars and trucks irritate and decrease the ability of our lungs to function normally. The solution for all this is right under our noses (pardon the pun)… enforcement of the laws that protect us from the effects of air pollution… but as you’ve evidenced here, little can be expected.
September 27th, 2008 at 11:27 am
The EPA under the DOS states that it is illegal to idle for more than 5 minutes.
This law is the biggest anachronism from the biggest anachronistic department our state has.
In other words - it’s all a bunch of bullshit.
September 27th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The reason for the high pollution is because NYC gets all the pollution from all of America due to the jet stream and spin of the Earth.
Add the heat-island affect that traps pollution. This was known before cars were even invented. To clean the air either we ban all of America from make any type of smoke or we add forests to the rooftops.
September 27th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
The Jet Stream and the spin of the earth toss all of America’s pollution into Bushwick and the Bronx? Yeah, okay.
I do like the rooftop forests idea. I want to put a green roof on the house — it’s great insulation.
September 27th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
It does Jeremy to all NYC but people in Bushwick and my old neighborhood of the South Bronx don’t go on vacations, work/home/schools lack air conditioning, or have proper medical interventions.
As for your green roof if you use native plants(hemp is not native to Brooklyn) and add a drain to collect the rain water you can collect it in the basement and use it as toilet water.