“Some Guy’s Idea”: MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow Creates Existential Crisis—Resolves with Cronyism by Brian J. Carreira The humiliation begins at eight o’clock. It is catered. Bagels, coffee and juice, passed out along with “Jobs, Housing, and Hoops” pins. The union workers have already lined up, sporting the buttons and drinking coffee outside the MTA’s Madison Avenue headquarters, for the September 14 meeting to decide the fate of the Vanderbilt Rail Yards. Inside the Hackworld: How A Do-Nothing Became a Lame Duck by Theodore Hamm It’s Primary Day, Tuesday, September 13th, and we’re feeling pretty good. Outside polling places in the Upper West Side, West Village and Park Slope, most everyone is happy to see Norman. People of all backgrounds give him high fives, smiles, thumbs up. It’s not often that voters get to pull the lever for a candidate who’s not driven by money or machines, but instead by principles. Still, we’re not starry-eyed: we’re up against an incumbent who’s got the machine, big bucks, and the city elite behind her. In addition to support, we encounter some mild hostility. A middle-aged woman on the Upper West Side looks at our pro-Norman sign and says, “Yuck!” A 40-something guy in an expensive suit walking down 7th Avenue in Park Slope sees Norman and grimaces. Norman’s politics, to be sure, are not for everyone. Immigration Mess by Eleanor J. Bader Shawn was 28 when he left Guyana on a Visitor’s Visa in 1997. A college graduate, he took an off-the-books job when his Visa expired; he also found an apartment in Flatbush. He was HIV positive, and believed that he was making a decent life for himself; he did not worry about his lack of documentation. Then, in November 2003, he had an altercation with his landlady.