TransWoman Genevieve Finds Home at Fort Washington Collegiate Church from Lorena O’Neil on Vimeo.

They are there to see Marjorie Eliot — a piano teacher, actress, playwright, musician and mother — who holds free jazz concerts every Sunday in her living room.

Starting around 3:30 on this Sunday, there was a new knock on her door every five minutes.

“Hi there! How are you?” Eliot said, greeting visitors with a hug and gesturing newcomers to come in.

Dressed in cerulean blue, her hair slicked back and pulled up, she opened the door to find a larger crowd, including a couple with a stroller. One guest complimented her ensemble.

“You know, it’s funny, because this is old,” Eliot said looking down at her blue dress.

Eliot paired her formal attire with a swirly-patterned scarf, matching a cerulean blue bracelet. Though she admits she loves fashion, she said all her money is saved for the concerts now.

Eliot said she dresses nicely out of respect for the event. “I treat this like Carnegie Hall. This is a concert on Sundays,” she said.

A string of tiny blue bulbs, matching her dress, dangled against the living room’s white wall, creating a moonlit ambiance and illuminating the upright piano. “It’s pretty,” Eliot said.

Marjorie Eliot playing the piano in her living room. Photo by: Luisa Navarro / Northattan.

Just behind the piano, a portrait of Eliot’s son Phillip hung on the wall. She started the free concerts 19 years ago in honor of him.

On Aug. 23, 1992, Phillip died from complications of surgery for a kidney infection. She chose to commemorate him every Sunday after that.

“You don’t ever know what you can handle until you’re in it,” Eliot said.

Inside, rows of chairs filled the living room. Though it was 50 degrees, dark and rainy outside, it was a full house in apartment 3F.
“For anyone standing, sorry,” Eliot said. “But I’m so glad you’re here.”

Joe Bachner, 60, said he’s already seen the show about 10 times and returns because there aren’t many places like Eliot’s left. “It’s something special that when it’s gone, that’ll be it,” Bachner said.

Before starting, Eliot told visitors she wanted to observe two specific events this Sunday. She dedicated the concert to pianist Dave Brubeck, who died Dec. 5. And, “It’s the first day of Hanukkah,” Eliot said, “and we want to celebrate.”

She began the concert with  “This Little Light of Mine.” Her son Rudel Drears, dressed in a pinstriped brown suit and red bowtie, sang, while the crowd clapped and sang along. Drears, who is Eliot’s fourth son, grew up as one of the five musician brothers, and with a musical father as well.

While Eliot said she will always tell people she is a mother of five, her biological sons are not the only ones she calls her children. That afternoon, a three-piece jazz band played Christmas carols, and she referred to the musicians as her sons throughout the evening.

She also played “Happy Birthday” as a surprise for trumpet player Koichi Yoshihara, who was turning 40.

Eliot’s living room walls are filled with family mementos, photos and handwritten notes and drawings from her younger piano students, whom she also calls her children.

At intermission, Eliot and her friends walked with trays stacked with granola bars and red cups filled with orange juice.

Though the Sunday concerts began after the devastating loss of Phillip, Eliot said, hosting people for a night of home-style jazz is what makes for a pretty story. “I grew up with music and art and it saved my life because I never stopped doing this,” she said, “I am very grateful that I can celebrate my children that way.”

Eliot, who refuses to reveal her age, has lost three of her six musicians. In 2006, she lost her son Michael and just last year she lost her 81-year-old husband, Al Drears, who played in Sunday’s concerts and also played with renowned musicians like John Coltrane.

Growing up in a family of five boys and musicians, Drears said,  “It was loud.” He remembers, “There was always somebody around.” And now there’s always somebody on Sundays.

“Some people come once a week, once a month, once a year, some never come back but we give them well wishes,” Drears said.

At the end of the concert Eliot told those who stepped into her home that evening that they are family, too.

“Happy holidays, blessings, love, and thank you,” Eliot said.

Sundays are a day she can share in merriment with everyone, she said.

“We celebrate each other and embrace the sadness,” she said.

Word Up Bookstore volunteers sell books and collect donations at a fundraiser event on Dec. 7. Photo by: Elizabeth Murray / Northattan.

“We’re here for community and creativity,” said Diane Keeney, an organizer for the event who volunteers with Word Up Bookstore, works at Darling Coffee and read her own protest poetry at the event.

The coffee shop’s two-hour fundraiser was a part of Word Up Bookstore’s larger campaign to find new store space in Northern Manhattan. The bookstore lost its building this past August when it couldn’t afford rent.

Word Up is leading its fundraising efforts through the online crowdfunding website Indiegogo.com.

“With the Indiegogo campaign specifically, we wanted to be able to raise a lot of capital quickly and within a concentrated period of time,” said Word Up Bookstore owner and founder Veronica Liu.

The bookstore is trying to raise $60,000 on the website before Dec. 23.; it crossed the $20,000 mark on Monday, Dec. 10.

“Sixty thousand is our public goal,” Liu said. “We actually have a much higher internal goal, but $60,000 is sort of what the ideal going-forward goal is.”

When Word Up opened on July 17, 2011, it was only a pop-up shop, intended to stay open for one month. Running entirely with volunteers, donated or discounted furniture and with a month-to-month lease, the store remained open for a year and a half.

But then Word Up’s landlord, Vantage Properties, sold the building on 176^th Street and Broadway to Alma Realty, and Word Up could not afford the new $9,000-a-month rent.

The bookstore closed its doors on Aug. 2, 2012.

“I helped them move their stuff into storage and close up the shop, but it was like a week or so after everything settled in; the realization that there was no more space,” said Keeney. “I realized how much I had taken it for granted, having a place to go seven days a week and knowing that your friends are going to be there.”

Today, the store operates online and at pop-up shops like the Bread and Yoga holiday fair in early December.

“We’re out there,” said Robin Glasser, a local author who volunteers at Word Up and had her books sold in the store. “Even though there’s not a physical space, we’re kind of a virtual bookstore now too.”

For the time being, most of the store’s furniture and books are in storage. Important papers, local authors and consignment books are arranged in neat piles around Liu’s apartment.

“It is a little overwhelming,” said Liu. “There is a lot of stuff there. And it’s not like I have this giant one-bedroom apartment or anything.”

But the bookstore is pushing to get back into a storefront soon after the new year.

“We’re so much better live than we are online,” said Liu. “We do a lot of stuff online, but I think that where it really took off is that we had this sort of ground-level public space in which we could talk about our books.”

And part of the appeal of having an actual space is that Word Up would once again be able to host the creative events the space became known for. In only a year and half of operation, the space was able to put on over 1,000 plays, music shows, poetry readings and other events.

“We did a lot of stuff with kids, we had theater, we had self-defense classes, we had calligraphy classes, we had open mics, we had comedy nights, storytelling, after-school projects” said Glasser. “You name is, we had it.”

And Word Up never charged the public for an event, except when Dominican-American author Junot Diaz did a reading in the bookstore.

The events and the fundraising will continue in part thanks to the dedication from Word Ups volunteer base.

“We’re a very different bunch of people,” said Keeney. “The age range is pretty wide, from high school students to people in their late 50s. But we have a common history and a common goal, which really brings us together.”

Liu said the volunteers rallied after Word Up closed. “A lot of us met each other through this,” she said. “It’s such a big part of our lives.”

“I guess that’s what makes all the people at Word Up come together too, is this passion,” said Glasser. “Really, all of us are so passionate about the bookstore it’s really amazing.”

And with only two weeks remaining in the Indiegogo campaign, Word Up Bookstore volunteers are rallying, selling books and fundraising for the holidays. But Liu said the emphasis is on raising the full funding needed.

“We have some money saved up but we really want to do it right because we want to be as permanent as possible,” Liu said.

What she didn’t know is that it was a part of a much larger problem.

“It’s funny because until you’re familiar with it, you don’t notice how many feral cats are out there,” said Laurence. “There are hundreds of thousands of them out there in New York City.”

These feral cats can carry life-threatening illnesses such as typhus and rabies. Not to mention that they are just plain unpleasant, leaving alleys smelling like urine.

A mother and two kittens were rescued by WaHi Cats. Photo by: Elizabeth Murray / Northattan.

But after some research, Laurence became involved in one method of controlling feral cat populations. In the process, called TNR, for trap, neuter and release, cats are captured, neutered or spayed, vaccinated, cleaned for fleas and returned to the wild. Volunteers in TNR programs also regularly visit colonies to make sure the cats are healthy and well fed.

Six years later, the colony of feral cats behind Laurence’s apartment is down to six. And in the process, she helped found the Washington Heights Cat Colony, or WaHi Cats, a nonprofit that works on trap, neuter and release in Northern Manhattan.

WaHi Cats became an official nonprofit in 2008. Today, it helps Washington Heights community members like Baptist pastor Joshua Blair, who found a colony of wild cats and a litter of kittens in his church garden.

“They used to tend to use a few different places for litter boxes so it was a bit of a mess,” said Blair. “We used to live across the street and as I recall sometimes you could hear the cats fighting each other.”

WaHi Cats, Blair said, helped control the population

Laurence, who is president of WaHi Cats, said:  “One cat over seven years can produce 340,000 cats. You have an average of six kittens per litter and then they have kittens and then they have kittens and they have kittens and over seven years, it’s hundreds of thousands of cats. So even spaying and neutering one cat makes a huge difference.”

The organization’s trap, neuter and return efforts are funded by community grants, such as from the Friends of Animal Rescue.

Volunteers with WaHi Cats spend their evenings after work strategically catching cats in Northern Manhattan. About once a month, they spend hours in parks and alleys baiting traps with chicken and cans of tuna.

Then they wait. Usually it takes 30 to 40 minutes to catch a cat.

“It’s really tense when you’re doing these things because everything is about timing,” said Erika Norton, a volunteer with WaHi who traps cats a few times a year. “Everything has to be as quiet as possible because cats hear so well. We want them to come thinking that we’re not here. You have to be invisible in a way.”

And once a feral cat is caught, it’s usually unhappy. Captured feral cats growl, hiss and try to get out of the cage until a sheet is draped over it. Norton says that when she started volunteering, she was concerned for the cats she caught.

“It’s upsetting to see an animal in that kind of physical and psychological distress,” Norton said. “But once they’re released and a week later you see them and they’re just happy, contented animals, you realize it’s OK. You’re not really harming them in the long run.”

An integral aspect of TNR is clipping off a bit of a neutered cat’s left ear so that when TNR volunteers revisit cat colonies, they can easily identify those cats that were already treated.

“Ear tipping’s a universal thing,” said Laurence. “I’ve been to Greece, I’ve been to Italy. I’ve been to tons of places and there are ear-tipped cats all over the world.”

The ear tipping and neutering takes place at local shelters, and all of the two-dozen WaHi Cats volunteers are trained in vaccinating the animals and cleaning them for fleas.

But not all cats who are rescued in the program are returned to the wild. Laurence says WaHi Cats is trapping an increasing amount of what they call friendly cats, meaning that they are social enough to become domesticated.

A feral cat caught in a bodega in Washington Heights. Photo by: Elizabeth Murray / Northattan.

This happens because more cats are abandoned by owners for either economic reasons or a lack of interest among owners.

Laurence said WaHi Cats sees the biggest increase in friendly cats at the end of the summer.

“The weather’s warm and the cats are out. It’s mating season and that’s why it gets worse now with the kittens,” said Laurence. “We’ve had to switch our focus from TNR and onto adoptions a couple of times because we were just drowning in friendly cats that needed fosters and homes.”

In the winter, WaHi cats is focused on building what they call winter shelters for the feral cats. Winter shelters are usually wooden boxes or Rubbermaid containers filled with straw designed to keep the cats warm at night. Without the shelters, some smaller cats might freeze.

Laurence said the feral cat problem is never finished. Because only one kitten can spawn so many kittens of its own, all it takes is two unneutered cat to launch another colony.

“It’s a never-ending thing; there are always going to be feral cats,” said Laurence. “You can only help manage and maintain.”

Leonisa Ardizzone plays with Nicholas Link, 3, and Dusty Leo, 2, during a recent weekday afternoon. Photo by: Lorena O’Neil / Northattan

On a recent Wednesday, 10-year old Allison Pasbgerg sat with six classmates in “Let There Be Light,” a class on electricity and energy. Ardizzone had just explained the principle of potential versus kinetic energy. Allison put five silver marbles next to each other in a row and knocked the end one with a sixth marble. She watched how the movement passed from one marble to the next.

“Holy marble racers, Batman!” yelled Ardizzone, as two boys with childhood energy took the marble-pushing a little far by scattering them around the room.

Allison’s mother, Jennifer, said she doesn’t feel like her daughter gets enough such hands-on experience in school.

“I think, when you come in here, you feel Leonisa’s passion, and I think that’s exciting,” she said. “The way our public schools are, we need to supplement on things that are important to us. They don’t get actual science.”

Storefront Science is one of the newest additions to a blossoming industry of supplemental education in the United States. Math and science are of particular interest to parents who worry whether their children will learn the knowledge to compete in a globalized world of high technology.

Ardizzone is a former science teacher who opened the Washington Heights store nine months ago after being disappointed with her own ten-year-old daughter’s science education. “It was a combination of wanting to do something that I’ve always wanted to do, being frustrated by the lack of science education in public schools and especially my daughter’s school, wanting to work for myself and wanting to do something in my community that I thought would be valuable,” said Ardizzone.

The 43-year-old has a doctoral degree in education from Teachers College at Columbia University and has taught in middle school, high school and college. She most recently worked at a not-for-profit called the Salvadori Center, which focused on improving the teaching of math and science. Ardizzone said Storefront Science is “her dream.”

A snake and rats are the pets of choice for Storefront Science. Photo by: Lorena O’Neil / Northattan

The center resembles a wondrous storybook classroom. A circular table in the front presents “Critters in a Jar” with small glass cylinders holding items labeled “Anolis Lizard” and “Sea Urchin.”

Hour-long weekly courses have names like “Darn Tootin’ Newton” and “Whose Genes Are You Wearing.” Each course costs $325 for three months of classes. The courses are divided by subject matter, and most are for children between kindergarten and the fifth grade. An Early Explorers club is for three to five year olds.

Even parents sometimes share in the fun. Eight of them joined their children on a Saturday for Open Exploration time. “I see a tail!” shouted three-year-old Rafael Chan, calling for his dad to look at the live rats in glass cases. The children can take out the rodents and play with them.

The charge of $10 an hour for these Saturday sessions is especially attractive to parents who cannot afford the course fees, Ardizzone said.

Cost may be a hurdle in Washington Heights, where many in the neighborhood’s large population of working class Hispanics do not have much extra money to pay for classes. But Ardizzone says she doesn’t think she’s “made inroads into the Hispanic community” and is not sure that money is the issue. Only about 10% of the students in the full courses are Hispanic, but the “Open Exploration” Saturdays attract a larger percentage of Latinos.

“Maybe it’s more the class idea than the science idea,” she said.

Nationally, weakness in science is a common problem, particularly with Latino students. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 2011, only 32% of US eighth graders showed they were at or above the proficient level in science. Proficiency, as defined by the NAEP, means students can “demonstrate relationships among closely related science principles.” The eighth graders should be able to use evidence from investigations in arguments based around scientific models.

Broken down by race and ethnicity, 16% of Hispanic eighth graders show proficiency compared to 43% of white students. A saving grace is that from 1990 to 2011, science and engineering graduate enrollments among Hispanics grew at a higher rate compared to that of whites.

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in 2010 released a report illustrating a need for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education outside of public school.

“Opportunities to learn STEM outside of school are especially important for members of groups underrepresented in science and engineering, including girls, African-Americans, and Hispanics,” stated the report. “Out-of-class activities can build interest and persistence in STEM subjects for girls and the members of minority groups. These activities can be more personalized than in-class instruction, which means that they can identify the point of connection between a STEM field and an individual student and build on that connection.”

Ardizzone said that it is important for her to keep Storefront Science open in Washington Heights, where she feels children especially need the after school activity. But she needs more funding to keep her center open, and said she’s scared she’ll have to move the store to another neighborhood.

“I am worried. I really am,” she said. “I’m not a negative person. If I believe in something, I think it’s going to work, right? So I want this to work, believe it will work. But, you know, sometimes numbers tell you different stories.”

Ardizzone opened the store with $75,000 of her own money and private loans. She would like to raise $100,000 to $150,000 more in order to bring on additional teaching staff, increase outreach and open a new store. She started a campaign to raise $30,000 on the website indiegogo, which solicits online donations for projects.

She has raised only $4,445 so far, but she is still thinking big. “I can see Storefront Science being in any community that has children who need science, which frankly is anywhere.”

Father Berto has been at Intercession since 2009. Photo by: Lorena O’Neil / Northattan

To the 180 parishioners at the Church of the Intercession in Washington Heights, Jose Gandara Perea is “Father Berto.” They describe the Puerto Rican-born priest as “dynamic” and “lively,” and many longtime members are vocal about how much they respect their Episcopalian leader. But a few of these same parishioners would like it if Father Berto would change one thing: They’d like him to go back in the closet.

Father Berto, 48, is not the first gay priest to lead the Church of the Intercession. In fact, the church has had a gay priest since 1972. But out of those three gay priests, Father Berto seems to be the most vocal about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights.

“This congregation, it’s a journey for them,” said Berto, describing how people have come to accept him and his husband, Hugh Grant, a fellow Episcopalian priest. “Many of them don’t accept it at all.”

Berto was a Roman Catholic priest for 14 years in Puerto Rico, before he converted to Episcopalian in 2006. He began serving as a priest at Intercession in 2009. The church prides itself on its stance of being open and welcoming to anyone who wishes to come and worship, a policy many attribute to Father Fred Williams, who served as head priest from 1972 until his death in 2006.

In May, after President Barack Obama announced his support of same-sex marriage, Berto decided to push the envelope on just how welcoming Intercession was. The Sunday after Obama’s announcement, Berto took to the pulpit. “I said, ‘I know we are welcoming but we need to state exactly what we are welcoming about.’”

Berto asked church members if they’d agree to register as a “Believe Out Loud” church, and join a list of Christian organizations supporting LGBT rights. Over 70 of the 120 regular church members signed the agreement, and the church is on the registry.

“It’s a balancing act of being a little bit fearful of being more than welcoming than we really are welcoming,” said Father Berto. “Telling someone ‘Hey, we’re open’ and then having someone come and get a bad experience, that would be worse.”

Attendance at Intercession has gone up 8 percent since Berto joined the church and it now has nine LGBT members, up from four.

Still, there is some uneasiness. June Beckett has been coming to Intercession since 1959, and has seen the church change from a predominantly Caucasian congregation, to what is now a mainly African-American and Latino parish. “Everyone’s been welcome for many, many years,” she said. “I’m not against anyone coming to the church as long as you are dignified and respect this holy ground. I don’t care who you are. Your lifestyle is yours. Just don’t push it on me.”

Beckett said she doesn’t agree with in effect announcing that Intercession is open to the LGBT community. “I respect Father Berto highly,” she said. “I’ve talked to him about my feelings.” She added: “We did not grow up in an era that thinks that man marries man. If you look to the Bible, will you see it? No, no, no.”

But Elena Philip, who has spent 20 years at Intercession, said she does not agree that Adam and Eve are the model for marriage. “They weren’t even married,” she said. “God doesn’t look at people, he looks at hearts. Father Berto has changed us for the better. I am very proud to be a part of this church.”

On a recent Sunday, Rafael Griffin sat next to Philip for the weekly post-mass brunch. He’s been attending Intercession since 1970 and travels from Brooklyn every Sunday. “I think Father Berto is an excellent priest. I care about him a lot, I know his partner,” said Griffin. “But I’m personally not prepared to accept two men together. It bothers me to say we are open to this. Father Williams was more in the closet. That was better for me.”

Berto said he’s had a few people tell him they would prefer him to be more quiet about his sexual orientation. “I’m not going back in the closet, no,” he said. “I don’t think it’s healthy to hide. Hopefully one day it will become a non-issue, but until we get there we need to make it open and accessible.”

He said he tries not to be a “rainbow flag-waving priest,” but that he subtly brings up his husband in order to ease people into discussions about their comfort level with his being gay. He has shown two LGBT-related documentaries in the past two months, and held discussions after the screenings. He also invited Vivian Taylor, a trans-woman, to come and speak.

Isdola Griffith said that she preferred that LGBT members kept their private lives to themselves, but she also said she is learning a lot from Berto’s discussions. “When that transgender person came to speak, I almost started crying over how much they have struggled.”

Before the documentary screening in October, Berto flew the rainbow pride flag outside of Intercession for the first time. “I was thrilled to see it out there,” Liz Jacobs, a 23-year member of the church, said at the screening. “Nobody set it on fire, nobody stole it, nobody ripped it down. It’s been up there for five days. Even the drug dealers around the corner are respecting our right to have it up there. That’s unbelievable.”

The flag was stolen the following night. Father Berto said he planned to buy a new flag to fly on special occasions.

And every 10 years, that theme is played out in the arduous task of redrawing voting districts based on the federal census, to take into account the shifting of populations. The rationale is to sustain the spirit of democracy by making sure every voice is heard. The implications are immense — not just for Congress, but also for grass-root politics and perceptions people have of the system.

This process, called redistricting, occurs at the federal, state and local levels. It is most fraught in a racially and ethnically diverse city like New York, where redrawing lines while maintaining accurate representation can be tricky. Because politicians seek to protect their turf, but are also bound by legislative and federal requirements for balance in population and ethnic and racial representation, the process can be intricate, combative and very political.

In New York City, the task of redrawing City Council district lines falls to a 15-member body, the  Districting Commission. Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed seven of the commissioners, while five were appointed by the City Council’s Democratic Caucus, and the remaining three by the City Council’s Minority Caucus. While the commission is independent in theory, its members owe a certain allegiance to the factions that appointed them.

The commission’s task is to redraw district boundaries in consultation with the public and groups representing their interests, be they economic, racial or religious. And because district lines determine who represents that area in the council, politicians seek to influence the process as well, to try to assure their own re-election or the election of someone who shares their party or interests.

The process has been particularly important for Northattan, whose racial, economic and ethnic natures, always multifaceted, are changing, creating new voting blocs seeking a voice.

The process is made even more delicate because New York will elect a new mayor in 2013, and the City Council districts will have an impact on who will be in the next tier of power.

The commission has revised and released the map twice and opened the floor for public debate on two occasions. Other groups have proposed alternative maps representing their interests, and the commission revisions took some of those into account, particularly in Northattan, where cries to unify Inwood into one district were heard.

Disputes over the map raged in the city long before the second revision. As soon as the first version of the map was released, an assessment of its impact began, particularly on ethnic groups. Debates ensued in the media among watchdog groups, politicians, other leaders and residents. Even conspiracy theories emerged, claiming that leaders and political groups had influenced the process guided more by their political motivations than by the needs of the people.

The latest version of the map was released to the public on Nov. 15, delayed by Hurricane Sandy, and now sits in the hands of the City Council for a final decision by Dec. 7. If the council gives a nod, the map will be sent to the Department of Justice for approval under the federal Voting Rights Act. The council’s rejection of this map would mean another revision and round of public hearings in January. The new map must be in place for the 2013 election.

The aim of Northattan’s special edition on redistricting is to acquaint you with the people, process, history and politics that govern this process in New York City, especially in Northattan. On one hand, Hispanic residents expressed concern about their diluting voices, while on the other, several current council members and their political ambitions hang in the balance. And even if most people remain unaware of the process, or uninterested, the new map will help determine the face of Northattan, and New York City, for at least the next 10 years.

Several community groups submitted alternative maps to the redistricting commission for consideration in the final mapping of community district lines.  By the Oct. 15 deadline, at least 17 entities submitted what they thought would be the best way to redraw the districts. They had varying levels of success.

Alternative maps are submitted for various reasons. A cluster of civil rights groups banded together to create the Unity Map, among them LatinoJustice (formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund), the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Institute for Latino Policy and the Center for Law and Social Justice of Medgar Evers College, drafted this map because they said it was more in line with the New York City charter and the Voting Rights Act.

The creators of the Unity Map described it as “the product of listening and working with our communities to ensure fairness in the redistricting process,” said Juan Cartagena, president and general counsel of LatinoJustice.

Although the Unity Map covered all five boroughs, its biggest impact was in northern Manhattan. It proposed that Inwood and Washington Heights be combined into one community district.  The new map submitted to the City Council reflects this suggestion.

Councilwoman Inez Dickens submitted the UMED (Upper Manhattan Empowerment District) Map because the proposed map mixed minority groups in her District 8 and Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito’s District 9.

Dickens’ map pushed Spanish Harlem back into Mark-Viverito’s district and Mark-Viverito’s map did the same thing. So did the commission’s revised map.

April Tyler, a former Democratic district leader and resident of West Harlem, also submitted an alternative map.  In testimony before the commission, she said the preliminary lines drawn were “just plain wrong.”  She proposed changes to the District 7 map because she said the current map creates “unnatural boundaries.” Her boundaries are not followed by the revised maps.

Agudath Israel of America, a leadership and policy organization for Haredi Jews, submitted its own map. Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community is currently represented in nine community districts. The proposed map, they said, would have reduced the number of districts splitting their community to four. When the new map was released, the Orthodox Jewish Community was still split up.

It’s unknown how much the submitted maps were taken into consideration in the drawing of the new lines. However, it is clear that, for Northattan at least, some of the suggestions are reflected in the revised plan.

A review of the concerns that are likely to be before the council over the next decade finds that the council’s composition will be critical for Northattan. The council will be facing tough choices related to unemployment, park management, police reform and after-school and preschool education, among other matters. Its decisions will have direct impact on the neighborhoods and people of Upper Manhattan.

“It’s going to be rough,” an aide to District 10 Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez said of the policy changes that will result from redistricting. “But I think that we will come out of it and we will look into all of these things and find solutions.”

Economics and Unemployment

Council districts 7 and 10 in Northattan have an average of 14 percent unemployment, compared to the citywide rate of 10.1 percent. And the new redistricting proposals could impact the way that job creation projects are funded. Given the new City Council district lines, which would combine most of Washington Heights and all of Inwood into one district, there is the possibility of a more focused business diversification and unemployment policy in the area.

But more important, there is a risk of tighter resources and fewer voices for any one issue.

Under the proposed redistricting guidelines, funding and advocacy for employment issues are at stake because two areas with strong potential for economic growth, Dyckman Street and the new George Washington Bridge Port Authority Bus Terminal, would be consolidated into District 10, now represented by Councilman Rodriguez.

This means there would be only one City Council member to fund projects and voice for them in City Council.

Frances Escano, communication specialist with District 7 Councilman Robert Jackson’s office, said there was concern that only one council member would push for Washington Heights and Inwood issues, including business development above 181^st Street.

“The more people advocating for your resources, the better chance you have of people listening to you and making sure that those resources are funded in the community,” she said.

For the past eight months, Councilmen Rodriguez and Jackson worked together to fund business development along Dyckman Street. The goal: to promote investment and encourage economic development, which would in turn improve the unemployment rate. For example, the new $180 million bus terminal, which started construction in November, is expected to bring in 746 jobs and a 10,000-square-foot retail space, with the potential to bring in even more local jobs.

But if the current redistricting map takes effect in November 2013, the entire Dyckman Business Improvement District and the new bus terminal would be in Rodriguez’s district, meaning the development efforts could be more focused, but also strained given that the entire area will receive funding through only one district, where it used to receive balanced funding from two different districts.

“There is a concern that there will be less representation for Northern Manhattan,” Rodriguez’s press secretary, Russell Murphy, said. “Just the fact that there are two council members there, it is something that provides more push on certain issues.”

Parks

With Central Park in District 8 and Fort Tryon Park and Inwood Hill Park both in District 10, Northern Manhattan is host to the majority of Manhattan’s park system.

But under the new redistricting lines, responsibility for both Fort Tryon Park and Inwood Hill Park would move from District 7 to District 10, meaning that for the first time, one council member would represent the 264 acres that comprise Fort Tryon Park and Inwood Hill Park for the City Council.

And those parks will face possible budget strains once redistricting takes effect in November 2013.

While Councilman Jackson traditionally funded park nonprofit development efforts, it was unclear how Rodriguez might support park legislation and budgeting within the City Council.

“If it does happen and the parks move to District 10, then District 10 has to encompass the parks and re-evaluate the district as a whole to allocate different money,” said Murphy. “So we don’t know how much money is going to be given to certain things.”

Park legislation in the proposed District 10 is further challenged because Rodriguez is a financial sponsor of the Dyckman business development and the George Washington Bridge bus terminal project. Having to support funding for both substantial projects within one district could mean diminished comprehensive funding for bo­th issues.

“There will have to be some changes in our budgeting structure,” said Murphy. “There will be less money available for programs that council member Jackson used to fund that we will have to pick up on.”

Police Reform

The Community Safety Act, a reaction to controversial stop-and-frisk policies that would prohibit bias-based profiling and strengthen search standards, was one of the most publicized acts the City Council proposed in 2012.

District 8 Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito has been particularly supportive of the Community Safety Act, especially for concerns over police accountability. As a co-chair of the left-leaning Progressive Caucus within the City Council, and a representative of the South Bronx and East Harlem, areas with particularly high stop-and-frisk rates, Mark-Viverito has been a strong leader on the issue.

But if more of the South Bronx were moved to District 8 as planned, grouping one of the most heavily stopped-and-frisked areas of the Bronx with an already vocal City Council member on the issue leaves just one voice for the region in City Council rather than two.

Even if all four components of the Community Safety Act were passed, as is likely, issues of police accountability and reform would remain an issue, as some City Council members support an independent inspector general to oversee police activity.

However, after redistricting, Mark-Viverito might not represent District 8. With significant changes in her voter base, as redistricting would make District 8 a majority-Bronx district, Mark-Viverito is at risk for losing her seat on the City Council. If she lost, a strong voice for the Community Safety Act and police reform could be lost.

After-School and Preschool Education

Education in New York City is controlled by the Department of Education, meaning that redistricting will have minimal impact on official public education policy. However, redistricting will affect after-school and preschool education programs that are funded by City Council through legislation and budgeting.

Education is one of the most diverse issues in Northattan’s community boards. In Community District 12, which encompasses Washington Heights and Inwood, day care and early childhood education is the highest priority, according to the district’s financial needs report for 2013.

Washington Heights and Inwood have strained early education systems, with crowded and financially insecure day care centers. In addition 15 percent of those 19 to 25 lack a high-school degree. In contrast, the higher-income areas of Morningside Heights and Manhattanville generally have higher school retention and reading rates.

This becomes of particular concern in District 7, because rather than representing a higher- educated section of Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights and Inwood, District 7 would encompass the section of Washington Heights east of Broadway, which has lower education rates, as well as the well-educated sections of Morningside Heights and Manhattanville west of Broadway.

Frances Escano, communication and media specialist with Councilman Jackson’s office, said there was concern in part because, under the proposed maps, District 7 would run all the way down to 96^th Street.

“It could be a disadvantage because you can lose potential resources from the City Council because you advocate for certain funding for different things,” she said.

Escano said that funding issues would not be identified with certainty until the fiscal year 2014 budget is developed next March, after the redistricting maps need to be approved.

“You can’t know about budgeting until the City Council gives you the allocations,” she said. “Every council member gets different allocations of money.”

And Councilman Rodriguez’s office said it anticipated working outside of the district to make sure that everything is budgeted and accounted for.

“We work closely with all of Northern Manhattan,” Murphy said. “We see it as a whole entity and the fact that there will be another council member in parts of Washington Heights, we will still have that opportunity to have two voices.”

“It’d be better if the council member here spoke Spanish because the majority of us here do,” said Jose Rivera, a Dominican who lives in Inwood.

Rivera, 24, who said he was applying to become a citizen, said he believed that uniting these two parts of Upper Manhattan would be better for the area because it’s predominantly Latino.

“I think it’s a good idea that all of Inwood is in the same district and that it’s represented by the same people,” Rivera said. “We’ll understand him better as Hispanics.”

Previously, the proposed maps presented Inwood under a single council member, dividing Washington Heights into two separate districts and raising concern among residents in Upper Manhattan, who thought it would be imperative to have Spanish-speaking council members in both largely Hispanic districts.

Under the current district lines the Hispanic voting age population in District 10 is 79.6 percent. Under the new proposed plan this population would decrease to 68.4 percent.

Democrat Ydanis Rodriguez, who speaks Spanish, currently serves as councilman for District 10, which now covers the eastern half of Broadway through Inwood, down to 161st Street in Washington Heights.

Rodriguez is well known for his main issues, immigration reform, higher education for children and affordable housing, He plans to run for re-election. At the redistricting meeting on Nov. 15, he said that regardless of the new boundaries, he would continue to fight for those issues.

Democrat Robert Jackson, who does not speak Spanish, is well known for his involvement in improving education and ensuring the rights and benefits of union members. For 10 years he has represented District 7, which currently includes Morningside Heights, Hamilton Heights, West Harlem, part of Washington Heights and part of  Inwood. He is not eligible to run for re-election under term limits, and it is unclear who might seek to take his place in District 7.

If the proposed plan goes into place, District 7 would include only the lower portion of Washington Heights — 155th Street to 165th Street — and extend down to Manhattan Valley, excluding all of Inwood.

The Hispanic voting-age population in District 7 is now about 46.3 percent. If the proposed map goes through, that would decrease to 44.4 percent.

Michael Diaz, a member of Community Board 12, which covers Washington Heights and Inwood, said it’s important to have council members and leaders like Rodriguez who can relate to the community in order to overcome language barriers.

“Ydanis goes into a neighborhood and speaks Spanish fluently to individuals in the community, which makes individuals more comfortable than an English speaker like Robert Jackson,” Diaz said. “Especially for people who have been speaking Spanish a long time and only speak Spanish.”

Joseph DaSilva, 46, has been living in Washington Heights for four years. He said that while he’s not Hispanic, he thinks it is crucial for council members of both Inwood and Washington Heights to speak Spanish.

“They have to speak Spanish,” he said. “I speak Spanish, and I’m not Spanish.”

Other residents disagree.

“A good representative isn’t about the language they speak, it’s about how well they represent the constituents,” said 62-year-old Gibson Glass, who has been living in Inwood for two years.

Juan Marte, 57, has lived in Washington Heights for 25 years. Selling fruit with his nephew at 169th Street and Broadway, he said the district lines don’t matter that much.

“It doesn’t make a difference to me, but it does matter to politicians,” he said.

He said that regardless of the political boundaries, Inwood and Washington Heights would always be two separate communities.

“Inwood for me has always been Inwood and Washington Heights, Washington Heights,” he said.