“As spiritual advisors and community leaders, we are called to speak to the holistic well-being of those we serve. The city’s future depends on continued investment in healthcare facilities that have faithfully served New Yorkers for generations.”

(Photo by Adi Talwar)

Faith leaders and community advocates in New York City witness countless moments of joy, sorrow, healing and hope within our communities. Many of us spend innumerable hours in hospital waiting rooms, at bedsides and in consultation with healthcare providers who have become not just partners in care but extensions of our community families.

In recent months, discussions about healthcare infrastructure in New York City have intensified. We have watched with growing concern as vital healthcare institutions like Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Lower Manhattan close down. At the same time, SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn hangs in the balance.

These closures represent more than the loss of buildings. They would sever sacred bonds between patients and the healthcare providers who have known them for years.

Consider the young mother who welcomes her first child and receives compassionate care from the same nurses who cared for her mother. These relationships span generations at Lenox Hill Hospital, which has been a pillar for communities across Manhattan, including countless families from Harlem and East Harlem. They’ve created a continuity of care that transcends the clinical to become deeply personal. These are not merely professional interactions; they are sacred bonds of trust formed during life’s most vulnerable moments.

Similarly, our older neighbors find comfort in receiving care from physicians who have known them for decades, doctors who understand not just their medical histories but their personal stories. For our aging population throughout the city, these relationships provide more than medical benefits; they offer dignity, respect and the comfort of familiarity during uncertain times.

As spiritual advisors and community leaders, we are called to speak to the holistic well-being of those we serve. The city’s future depends on continued investment in healthcare facilities that have faithfully served New Yorkers for generations. The institutions that anchor our neighborhoods, many over a century old, cannot serve 21st-century needs with facilities built for earlier eras, but the answer cannot be their elimination. Modernization is not merely advisable—it is essential.

Research shows that hospital closures devastate neighborhoods, disrupt critical provider-patient relationships and overwhelm nearby facilities. When hospitals reinvest in their facilities, they are reinvesting in the fabric of our communities. They are a covenant with future generations of New Yorkers, promising that the exceptional care we’ve come to rely upon will remain accessible for decades to come.

As our city’s population continues to age, projections suggest that nearly 20 percent of New Yorkers will be over 65 by 2030, so we must ensure our healthcare infrastructure meets their specialized needs. Simultaneously, young families establishing roots in our city deserve the best maternal and pediatric care. Both ends of life’s spectrum demand our attention and resources.

For institutions like Lenox Hill that have faithfully served communities across Manhattan and New York City for generations, modernization represents not expansion but continuation—a commitment to remain steadfast in their historic mission while adapting to contemporary healthcare challenges. We have seen the consequences when hospitals close their doors: disrupting care for expectant mothers and leaving  our seniors and neighborhoods left without accessible emergency care.

Faith traditions teach that how we care for the vulnerable reflects our deepest values. New York’s healthcare workers embody this principle daily through their dedication. Our responsibility is to ensure they have the facilities, technology and resources to fulfill their calling.

Our decisions today about healthcare infrastructure will shape our city for generations. Let us approach these choices with wisdom, foresight and an unwavering commitment to preserving the exceptional care and deep community connections that have distinguished New York’s healthcare system.

Our sacred duty extends beyond the walls of houses of worship to encompass the well-being of all New Yorkers. Supporting healthcare infrastructure investment honors this obligation and secures the promise of compassionate, community-centered care for generations to come.

Rev. Dr. Malcom Byrd is senior pastor for Mother AME Zion Church, the oldest African American church in the state of New York. Rev. Dr. Philip Craig, M. Div., MBA is senior pastor of The Greater Springfield Community Church. Rev. Patrick H. Young is senior pastor for the First Baptist Church of East Elmhurst.

The post Opinion: Investing in New York’s Healthcare Future is a Sacred Duty appeared first on City Limits.

By FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Liam and Olivia dominate. Still.

The two names have, for a sixth year together, topped the list of names for babies born in the U.S. in 2024.

The Social Security Administration annually tracks the names given to girls and boys in each state, with names dating back to 1880. In time for Mother’s Day, the agency on Friday released the most popular names from applications for Social Security cards.

Liam has reigned for eight years in a row for boys, while Olivia has topped the girls’ list for six. Also, for the sixth consecutive year, Emma took the second slot for girls, and Noah for boys.

The girls’ name Luna slipped out of the Top 10 and was replaced by Sofia, which enters at number 10 for the first time.

After Liam, the most common names for boys are, in order: Noah, Oliver, Theodore, James, Henry, Mateo, Elijah, Lucas and William.

After Olivia, the most common names for girls are Emma, Amelia, Charlotte, Mia, Sophia, Isabella, Evelyn, Ava and Sofia.

Olivia and Liam retained the top spots on the list of most popular U.S. baby names in 2024. (AP Digital Embed)

Sophie Kihm, editor-in-chief of nameberry, a baby naming website, said the latest data showcases how American parents are increasingly choosing names that have cross-cultural appeal. Kihm’s first name shows up in two variations on the annual list.

“A trend we’re tracking is that Americans are more likely to choose heritage choices,” Kihm said, including names that work “no matter where you are in the world.”

”More families in the U.S. come from mixed cultural backgrounds and I hear parents commonly request that they want their child to travel and have a relatively easy to understand name.”

The Social Security Administration’s latest data show that 3.61 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2024. That’s a slight increase from last year’s 3.59 million babies, representing an overall increase in the American birthrate.

Elizabeth Mahon, owner of the baby store Three Littles, prepared to install a new car seat for a customer who made the purchase ahead of tarriff-driven price increases, at the Union Market location in Washington, on Wednesday, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Nathan Howard)

Social media stars and popular television shows are having some impact on the rising popularity of certain names, Social Security says.

Among those rising in popularity for girls: Ailany, a Hawaiian name that means “chief,” topped the list. The boys’ name Truce, an Old English name meaning “peace,” rose 11,118 spots from last year’s position to rank 991.

The complete, searchable list of baby names is on the Social Security website.

By CHRISTINA LARSON

Chimpanzees drum with regular rhythm when they beat on tree trunks, a new study shows.

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Chimpanzees and humans last shared a common ancestor around 6 million years ago. Scientists suspect this ancient ancestor must have been a drummer — using beats to communicate.

“Our ability to produce rhythm — and to use it in our social worlds — that seems to be something that predates humans being human,” said study co-author Cat Hobaiter, a University of St Andrews primatologist.

Previous research has shown that chimps have their own signature drumming style. A new analysis of 371 bouts of chimpanzee drumming demonstrates that the chimps “clearly play their instruments — the tree trunks — with regular rhythms,” said University of Amsterdam music cognition researcher Henkjan Honing, who was not involved in the study.

When bounding through the jungle, chimps will often grab hold of the tall buttress roots of rainforest trees. Sometimes they pound them several times to create low-frequency sounds that can be heard for a kilometer or more through the forest.

Scientists believe that the drumming is a form of long-distance communication, perhaps to alert other chimps where one chimp is waiting or the direction it is traveling.

“It’s a way of socially checking in,” said Hobaiter, adding that each chimp has its own “individual signature — a pattern of beats that allows you to recognize who’s producing that drumming.”

The new work showed that chimps from different regions of Africa drum with distinctly different rhythms, with western chimps preferring a more even beat while eastern chimps used varied short and long intervals between beats. The research was published Friday in the journal Current Biology.

It’s well-known that chimps use tools such as rocks to crack open nuts and sticks to “fish” termites from their mounds. Tree roots can also be tools, the researchers say.

Chimps are selective about which roots they pound, said co-author Catherine Crockford, a primatologist at the CNRS Institute for Cognitive Sciences in France. Certain shapes and wood varieties create sounds that travel well through dense jungle.

The drummings are likely “a very important way to make contact,” she said.

At closer distances, chimps use a repertoire of vocal calls more complex than scientists once thought, according to a separate study in Science Advances.

Researchers analyzed how chimps combined sounds — such as a call associated with resting and one used to invite play — to create new meanings. In this example, the combined call was an invitation to nest together nearby at night.

“We have probably underestimated the flexibility and complexity of animal communication,” said Crockford, who was part of both research teams.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The public has until May 19 to submit feedback on a proposal to demolish and rebuild NYCHA’s Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses under the PACT program, which would also construct thousands of mixed-income—including market-rate—apartments at the Manhattan campuses.

Residents protesting the demolition/rebuild plan outside the Fulton Community Center in September 2023. (Photo by Adi Talwar)

The public is getting additional time to weigh in on NYCHA’s controversial plan to demolish and rebuild the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses in Manhattan.

NYCHA and the city’s Department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD) will now accept written and online feedback on the proposal through May 19, part of a required 45-day comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the plan, which officials released at the end of March. Public comments will be incorporated into a final Environmental Impact Statement, according to NYCHA, which examines “both short-term and long-term effects of a proposed project and considers possible measures to reduce or mitigate those effects.”

The massive DEIS document is the latest step in a years-long and divisive debate over plans for NYCHA’s Fulton, Elliott, Chelsea, and Chelsea Addition Houses in lower Manhattan. The campuses were selected for overhauls as part of NYCHA’s Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) initiative, which transfers public housing sites from the cash-strapped federal Section 9 program to the more lucrative Section 8, and brings in private developers to carry out repairs and take over daily management.

While most PACT projects focus on repairing properties, NYCHA is seeking to demolish all 2,056 existing apartments at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea and replace them “brand-new, enhanced homes.” The construction, to be carried out by real estate companies Essence Development and Related, would take place in phases, with the majority of public housing tenants remaining in their current apartments as the new towers go up.

The proposal would also build 3,454 new mixed-income units on the campuses, approximately 875 of which would be affordable apartments. The remaining market rate units “would financially support the PACT and affordable housing components,” according to the DEIS.

NYCHA held a series of recent public hearings as part of the environmental review for the plan, which drew protests from those opposed to demolition as well as testimony from those in favor.

Those in the former camp have cited concerns about the involvement of private developers in public housing and the creation of market-rate units at the sites, as well as the disruption that ongoing construction could have on the community. NYCHA tenants are expected to begin moving into the first set of new buildings at the end of 2028, according to the proposal, while the mixed-income apartments—to be built after the new NYCHA towers are done—are expected to wrap around 2040.

NYCHA has said the majority of tenants, 94 percent, will stay in their current homes until their new building is complete. But residents in two buildings will need to relocate temporarily while construction is underway, and will sign a “Right to Return Agreement” that guarantees them the right to return to their campus once the replacement properties are built.

Still, fears of displacement persist.

“If you insist on catering to the private developers and the real estate department in NYCHA, it would be demolition against our will,” Celines Miranda, an Elliott Houses tenant, testified during a virtual hearing Thursday night. “I surely do not want to live in ground zero of a construction zone, and let’s keep it real—many of us will not be here when this demolition ends.”

She and others say the existing properties should be rehabbed rather than torn down and rebuilt. But NYCHA says the current buildings have been assessed as having “extensive, advanced deterioration that would increase the cost of a renovation project.” Officials also point to a 2023 resident survey in which the majority of respondents opted for a complete rebuild (though a number of tenants have criticized that survey as misleading).

The Fulton Houses’ Senior Center at 119 9th Ave. (Photo by Adi Talwar)

Those who support the demolition plan said they’re excited by the prospect of brand-new apartments. Government funding for Section 9 is extremely limited, meaning NYCHA has few resources to address its ailing housing stock and make repairs to issues tenants are dealing with now.

“We’re in a place where our buildings are crumbling. We’re actually a spectacle to the tourists that come by. They walk by our buildings and stare,” Irene O’Connell testified at Thursday’s hearing, identifying herself as a longtime Fulton Houses resident.

Another Fulton Houses tenant who spoke during the hearing described living in an apartment with her children “that has been overrun by mice since 2021” and where she had no electricity in her son’s bedroom for over a year.

“Just two days ago I was woken up when three mice were fighting and pounced on the top of my head in the middle of the night. I’m living in deplorable conditions, and I would invite any of these people that are so opposed to the rebuild and so opposed to seeing our family’s side, to just come to my apartment,” the woman said.

“I look forward to having a washing machine and a dryer, a dishwasher, and safer living conditions,” she continued. “If you needed a heart transplant, would you sit there and accept a very old pacemaker instead? No, you would want a full, brand new heart so that you could thrive.”

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

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