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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. The Adams administration missed a court deadline Monday for clearing a waitlist of migrants seeking shelter beds. That's according to Legal Aid Society attorney Josh Goldfein. A settlement reached last month allows the city to limit shelter stays for migrants. A term of the settlement required the city to clear a waitlist for migrants seeking shelter beds. Goldfein says single adult migrants waited overnight without getting a shelter bed on Monday evening. How many, is unclear. A city hall spokesperson says the city is working to make more beds available for migrants as quickly as possible.

A transit union officer says a group of Muslim bus drivers were denied the day off to observe Eid al-Fitr. WNYC's Ramsey Khalifeh has more.

Ramsey Khalifeh: The holiday celebrates the end of Ramadan and is observed by Muslims around the world, including the more than 750,000 who live in New York City. The MTA denied a request from eight Muslim drivers to take the day off. The agency says they gave only two days' notice. Transport Workers Union Local 100 Rep, JP Patafio, says he told the drivers to not show up to work.

JP Patafio: This is New York City, and like every other holiday and every other high religious event, we got to make accommodations, period.

Ramsey Khalifeh: The MTA says Local 100 is violating state law by directing drivers not to clock in. They say it constitutes an illegal labor strike.

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Janae Pierre: The NYPD will arrest a Bronx mother in the deaths of her five-year-old twins. The city medical examiner ruled their deaths as homicides last month. WNYC's Catalina Gonella has the details.

Catalina Gonella: The warrant comes almost a month after the city's medical examiner's office ruled the siblings' deaths as homicides. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny says police didn't initially suspect any foul play after Gloria Asamoah called 911 in December to report her children weren't breathing. Criminality wasn't suspected based on several factors, including police interviews with neighbors and school personnel. Police say the 42-year-old is currently in a psychiatric ward, but will be placed in NYPD custody and charged with murder when she's cleared by doctors.

Janae Pierre: Attorney information for Asamoah was not immediately available.

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Janae Pierre: Spring has sprung in New York City. With temperatures on the rise, you may be inclined to open your windows for some fresh air. Have you checked your window guards? We'll discuss the importance of doing so after the break. Stick around.

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Jane Pierre: It's getting warmer outside these days, and you may even be cracking open your apartment windows. Well, before you do that, check your window guards. New York City officials are reminding everyone to do just that to prevent children from falling out of windows. For more, WNYC's Sean Carlson talked with Yma Andries. She is the city's director of enforcement for the Healthy Homes Program.

Sean Carlson: Yma, can you tell us more about the law in New York City about window guards?

Yma Andries: Sure, Sean. The weather's getting warmer and we just want to remind all New Yorkers, now's the time to think about whether you have window guards in your windows. The New York City law requires that buildings that have three or more units where there is an apartment that has a child, 10 years old or younger, must have window guards installed.

Sean Carlson: Why is this public awareness campaign important?

Yma Andries: It's really important because this is one of the preventative measures that New York City uses to protect children. We used to have a very large problem. We would have falls in the hundreds. Any fall is one fall too many. We really want to remind New Yorkers as it gets warmer, as they open up their windows, you want to make sure your children are safe and that you have window guards installed properly.

Sean Carlson: Yes, so like you mentioned, before New York City had a window guard policy, you'd see a lot of kids falling out windows. Why did that happen so often?

Yma Andries: Well, there was nothing in place. New York City is very proud of being the first jurisdiction in the country to have a window guard rule that was put in place in 1976. Since then, we've seen the falls drop from hundreds, as I mentioned, to really tens now. It still does happen. It frequently happens in this season when it's spring or summer. We want to remind people that even if they are, for example, putting in an air conditioner, leaving that window unguarded for any amount of time is a time when maybe something can happen. If you step out of the room, unfortunately for a second, something can happen if you don't have a window guard installed.

Sean Carlson: What if you do have an air conditioner in a window? It's not like you can put a guard on that, can you?

Yma Andries: Well, no, but what you can do is make sure that the air conditioner is securely installed in the window. Those accordion side panels that frequently come with the air conditioner when they're sold, actually, instead of putting those in, there should be a rigid panel at either side of the air conditioner. It's also very important to make sure that there's no space, even from the top of the window that can open more than four and a half inches.

Sean Carlson: Yma, this might sound like a silly question, but what exactly counts as a window guard? Like, if you're out here getting one of these things, how do you know that it's legit?

Yma Andries: Every window guard in New York City is supposed to actually have an approved code on it. At the side of the window guard, you'll see something called HDWG. That's the approved number that should be etched within the window guard. That lets you know that the window guards you're buying has been approved by New York City. In addition, you should make sure that every year the window guard is still sturdy. Carefully check it to make sure that it's in place properly. Window guards should be installed with one-way screws.

Window guards are usually what we talk about when we're talking about the regular double-hung window, which is that window that opens up from the bottom and you can pull it up. Now with newer buildings, we have different types of windows in New York City and we use limiting devices for those. Those limiting devices also will have a number on it so that you know they were approved. In that case, it would be an HDLD number. This will be for a hopper window.

Sean Carlson: Does it affect any communities in particular, say like folks who live in housing authority buildings, is that kind of information even kept?

Yma Andries: We do keep track, but it really is an issue throughout the five boroughs. It doesn't happen more, let's say, in public housing than it does in private housing. Once you have windows and you have children 10 or under, this is something that can happen to you. Regardless of the type of housing you live in, window guards can save your kids' life.

Sean Carlson: What are the consequences for landlords who refuse to install window guards, and how fast should they be doing that if someone does request a guard?

Yma Andries: When a tenant asks a landlord for window guards, they should really be installed right away within the next 24 to 48 hours. If an owner doesn't install, tenants are able to call 311, and the city will follow up. Eventually, if an owner doesn't install, HPD, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development, will actually send in people to install window guards.

Janae Pierre: That's Yma Andries with New York City's Healthy Homes Program, talking with WNYC's Sean Carlson.

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Janae Pierre: April is Poetry Month and WNYC is celebrating by sharing listeners poems around the theme of local. Poems about the places near and dear to New Yorkers. What are they and what's happening there? Listener Zalika Maria Malcolm sent us this poem entitled Harlem Renaissance at the Met.

Zalika Maria Malcolm: At the Transatlantic Modernism Exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I forget myself. A dime for a ticket. I lie to myself. These moments belong to us, just you and I. Farther than the esquites in Sunset Park. Farther than the chicas on Roosevelt Avenue. Farther than our fathers who are long gone. Here we are, circling words, circling one another. Sway with me until I pause. Aaron Douglas, a self-portrait in shades of blues. I'm as the tsare, stares back at me vexed. He says it's all bourgeois as if I could listen to the sound of his voice above my beating heart. I forget myself as I stroll marble halls. Mi Moreno Lindo and I see him on those walls. Beauty piles on beauty. I can never have enough. While I stare at him, Betsy Smith is holding feathers, I lose myself.

We can pretend this coffee rhapsody is here for you and I. We can pretend that this was always the Met. We can pretend the riots ended in August 1943. We can pretend to live forever in these paintings. We can pretend to exist in these eternal mirrors that never quite held our reflections. No, this art was never supposed to be for us, was it? And yet, art works that way. Bizarrely, he says, electric. Longing lasts lifetimes. As I hear the guards jingle their keys, and my God, life really is short when I think of our time together.

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Janae Pierre: Zalika Maria Malcolm lives in Jackson Heights. Thanks for listening to NYC NOW from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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