The History of the New York Initiative
Oct. 3rd, 2009
The Beginning - Z (Pennsylvania), Zimmer (Texas), TSAF (Michigan), and Lucid (Pennsylvania) moved to NYC from their respective home states in order to form the New York Initiative.
They trained, organized, and solidified the core ideals of the team. They took part in numerous patrols, using their collective skills to create new violence prevention tactics, as well as providing protest “secret security”. They worked with many “Real Life Superheroes” in the area, and took part in charity events.
2011
The NYI were featured in Michael Barnett’s “Superheroes” documentary. They began to receive numerous calls and recruitment ramped up considerably. Their focus shifted from patrolling to undergoing specific missions to stop patterns of violent crime.
By this time, Zimmer, Lucid, and TSAF had all left the team either to return to their home states or to begin careers. Only Z was left.
The NYI recruited multiple new members; among them, the group’s most active and constant members at the time: Short Cut, Snipe, and Blitz. They took part in numerous mini-missions, focused patrols, and charity events.
Within that year the NYI also handled four major missions:
- The West Village Mugging Gang
- The Park Slope Rapist
- Occupy Wall Street
- The Long Island Serial Killer
2012
Hurricane Sandy hit New York, destroying many homes and knocking out power to a massive portion of NYC.
The organization Occupy Wall Street stepped forward when they saw FEMA and the Red Cross making a minimal effort to help NYC citizens.
With the cash donations they had received and saved from the previous year, Occupy Wall Street became Occupy Sandy, and immediately began a grassroots organization of volunteers and hubs spread all across the city.
The NYI met with the founders of Occupy through member “Doctor Adventure”, and began working with them.
Members coordinated with OWS volunteers to go into destroyed areas and darkened high rises, delivering food, water, and sometimes medications to the elderly or disabled people trapped on the upper floors.
NYI members also took donations from followers of the Facebook page, not only delivering supplies but also providing receipts to the donors for maximum transparency.
One week after Hurricane Sandy hit, a blizzard ravaged what was left of NYC and the outlying areas.
Bad went to worse and NYI members were called upon to deliver six kerosene heaters to the only functioning medical clinic in Rockaway Park, a small building with no heat.
They drove into the blizzard while hundreds of cars evacuated the area in the opposite direction. They had to be let through a blockade of military vehicles to access the area, but safely delivered the heaters.
They continued to assist OWS for months to come, until NYC local government finally scaled up their efforts to rebuild and assist the city.
2013
There was one major mission that year - The Mark Carson Shooting and Anti-Gay attacks.
The team received reports of multiple anti-gay hate crimes, culminating in the shooting of Mark Carson as he defended himself during a hate attack.
The team, along with Staten Island Real Life Superhero “Dark Guardian”, patrolled the area and offered free training to anyone who felt they were at risk of hate crimes in the area.
Dark Guardian assisted the team with the first training session, and afterward the NYI partnered with a group called “Fags Fight Back”, a self-described coalition of members of the LGBT+ community, who made it their goal to defend themselves and others from hate crimes.
The NYI marched with the group in the 2013 Pride Parade, and remains friends with them to this day.
Sometime after this, Z departed the team, and Spectre assumed command with Dark Guardian. The team became primarily homeless outreach, working frequently with the charity group: https://roomtogrow.org
2015
Dark Guardian departed the team.
<=2019
The NYI continued to do multiple charity events until around 2019, when Spectre left the team to focus on his career.
2020
The New York Initiative returned under the guidance of previous members with a new roster, revamped in order to focus on solving modern-day issues with modern-day solutions.