Friday, May 7, 2010
PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED IN NYC
Something I would like to talk about today is the lack of real accessibility to people in a wheel chair, or even baby carriages and for most handicapped people trying to make their way around NYC.
A very dear friend of mine is visiting NYC now and nothing is easy because she is confined to a wheel chair. If she tries to use a subway, she can go to great lengths to get there, only to find out the elevator is not working. A tiny thing like a 1 inch high step on a crosswalk or sidewalk, or a step into a restaurant can become a huge problem.
Many restaurants have bathrooms on a different level so then that becomes an issue. A handicapped person visiting NYC or living in NYC cannot easily access most things that we at large take for granted.
It would be nice if we could all make a list of places that are truly easy for handicapped people. We could add to the list constantly, and then hopefully our taking note of this problem will lead to having these issues addressed.Perhaps managers and owners of hotels and restaurants and stores will become more aware.
My friend is staying in a hotel now that claimed to be giving her a handicapped room. She arrived only to find out the bathroom had no stall shower, only a tub with a safety bar.
Let's all be more cognizant of this truly upsetting issue and do the best we can to make NYC really easy for the physically challenged, so the too can enjoy NYC the most!
Perhaps The Mayor, or a tv station would like to go around The City all day, in a wheel chair, and see what the real challenges are. I would be glad to work with them on this.
As Always,
Ellen
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Very well stated.
ReplyDeleteEllen--My wife has used a wheelchair for the last 30 years (she has MS). She hates the terms "confined to a wheelchair" or "wheelchair-bound" which are used too frequently; she's not, after all, tied into it. She just uses it (like she has said to people when she used to give disability awareness workshops, getting into it in the morning is equivalent to putting on a pair of pants.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I'm surprised that so many places in New York are still not accessible. The Americans with Disabilities Act has been in effect since 1990, and it REQUIRES places pen to the general public to be accessible. When we visited New York from Alaska in 1982, we went to Radio City Music Hall, which had no accessible seating except in the back row (hopefully that's changed now with the ADA requring accessible seating in various spots), but had a nice dinner at Sardi's.
My wife used to do disability awareness workshops, and when we lived in Alaska she wrote a guide for people with disabilities We went around to businesses all over the state and described what we found--doorway widths, what restrooms were accessible, etc. etc. As for the idea of having able-bodied people going around in wheelchairs, our experience is that you won't get the reaction you might think. Rather than people saying "now I know what that's like and I understand the problem," it creates more fear, with people thinking "Thank God I'm not really like that."