Northattan

In the basement of a New York City Council District office in East Harlem one recent Tuesday evening, three women sat at a large oval table poring over a nine-page listing of 105 citizen proposals for local parks and recreation projects.

Some were modest and very specific: Repave paths in St. Mary’s Park in the south Bronx. Others sought grander goals: Build a park reserved exclusively for the newly popular extreme urban sport of parkour. And several were maddeningly vague, for a process that is supposed to come up with concrete plans for particular sites: “Jogging tracks,” read one proposal, while another suggested “Play grounds renovations.” Neither specified where those projects should be carried out.

“There’s not enough information on some of them to vote yes or no,” said a frustrated Kioka Jackson.

Jackson, 37, and her colleagues in this venture, Susan Rodriguez and Frances Mastrota, hold no elected office. But an innovative experiment in democracy, called participatory budgeting, has given the trio of East Harlemites the power to sift through proposals and help determine which might get implemented in Council District 8, which also includes Manhattan Valley and Mott Haven in the Bronx.

They are just three of dozens of volunteers on nine different committees –- from Housing to Education to Parks and Recreation -– who are currently slogging through 557 of their neighbors’ ideas collected at community meetings this fall.

Melissa Mark-Viverito is one of four City Council members trying out participatory budgeting. Whereas Mark-Viverito and other elected officials normally speak for their residents when allocating public funds, they are now encouraging those residents to speak for themselves.

So, instead of shouting from the sidelines, Jackson, Rodriguez, Mastrota and the other volunteers have to draw up a citizens’ game plan and put it into action. In each district, at least $1 million will be spent next year on infrastructure improvements chosen directly by constituents.

Mark-Viverito’s community outreach started with local nonprofit groups. When Rodriguez, who runs an organization dedicated to AIDS/HIV research and treatment for women, learned about the new program, she quickly jumped on board. “I think what Melissa has done is really ambitious,” said Rodriguez. “Once you build that foundation of people participating in their community, good things can happen out of it.”

Rodriguez, Jackson and Mastrota are part of an eight-volunteer team of “budget delegates,” tasked with whittling down the parks and recreation idea list into a handful of specific proposals.

The ideas were gathered in October and early November, when the entire council district was invited to suggest an idea -– any idea -– whether at one of several neighborhood assemblies or through an online form. Hundreds of suggestions later, small committees of untrained volunteers must find a way to assess all those potential projects and submit just a few for a final community-wide vote in March.

The first parks and recreation budget delegate meeting had a disappointing turnout. Five of the eight volunteer committee members didn’t show, and Mastrota immediately pointed out, “We don’t even have a quorum.”

The delegates were joined by two facilitators. Also volunteers, facilitators are members of the council district office, the local community board or major community-based organizations, people generally more knowledgeable about governmental processes who help guide the committees in their decision-making.

One of them, Will Engelhardt, taped two oversized sheets of paper to the wall — one labeled Priority, the other Non-Priority — and recommended that each delegate come up with five projects for each list. But that exercise wasn’t as simple as it sounded.

After Rodriguez described Thomas Jefferson Park, on 112^th Street between First Avenue and the FDR Drive, as a “ghetto park” and a “dump,” Mastrota bristled, responding that it had received a “high rating.”

And somehow “Redevelopment of Blake Hobbs Park” made its way onto both hanging sheets of paper.

“I thought that there was some tension between the delegates, and that at times people weren’t listening to each others’ ideas,” said Engelhardt. “But I think that is to be expected, as most budget delegates will probably have strong opinions about certain issues.”

The delegates themselves expressed exasperation at the early lack of progress. “It’s a little discouraging when meetings drag on and you don’t get to the meat and potatoes of what you need to do,” said Rodriguez.

However, Mark-Viverito said she was pleased with the vigorous debate. She briefly visited the parks and recreation committee session, engaged in small talk with the budget delegates, reminded them that “we want to go by what’s on the list, as far as projects people have identified,” and then left them to their work. She later issued a statement saying she was “thrilled to see a strong level of participation and engagement from the delegates.”

More than 1,000 cities around the world use some form of participatory budgeting, but Chicago is the only other U.S. city to try it. The experiment that began there in 2009 “shows clear signs of promise, growth, and rapid extension,” according to a report issued earlier this year by the Harvard Political Review.

Although $1 million can’t change the whole district’s landscape, it is a significant portion of the annual $5 million or so that Mark-Viverito controls directly for these types of infrastructure projects. To put that into perspective, New York City’s budget has been estimated at $67 billion by the City Office of Management and Budget.

Despite the initial stumbling blocks, Jackson, Rodriguez and Mastrota remain optimistic as they discuss whether to create green streets in East Harlem or implement free WiFi throughout the entire district, two of the proposals on their long wish list.

“I really do love what’s going on here,” said Rodriguez. And when, after the first few frustrating hours, Mastrota was asked if she still believes participatory budgeting is worthwhile, her eyes narrowed with intensity as she emphatically proclaimed, “Yes!”

How to live the good life, the freegan way.

Word Up, a community-run pop-up bookstore that has served Washington Heights for nearly six months, has spent most of its short life running on borrowed time. The store’s most recent shutdown date was Nov. 30, but nearly a week after that deadline, it’s still open. For how long, though, is a question of great uncertainty.

Browsing the bookshelves at Word Up bookstore. Photo by Tania Rashid/Northattan.

Word Up opened last June 17 as a one-month novelty — a rare bookstore for the neighborhood and a venue for evening poetry slams and other performances. The building’s landlord, Vantage Residential, a New York realty company, initially renewed its agreement with community organizers to keep the store open, rent-free, through November. As that deadline approached and passed, organizers opened new negotiations, asking Vantage to let them keep operating through December, and into next year.

“So many people have asked for it to continue,” said Veronica Liu, an editor for Seven Stories Press and the driving force behind the bookshop deal. “We have a whole set of daily volunteers. Everyone has been happy to do something because they are just so happy that this place is bringing people together in a way that we haven’t been able to.”

The sign outside the store on 176th Street in Washington Heights reads “pharmacy,” but on the inside, wooden shelves are stacked to the ceiling with used books. Writings by local authors in both Spanish and English are displayed in the window.

While the store’s used books draw some shoppers, it’s the performances — ranging from spoken word poetry to live music -– that attract a broad audience of supporters, said Liu.

According to the Word Up website, about 300 events were organized since the store’s inception. Among the most popular events are the open mic nights every Wednesday and Friday, when dozens of local artists line up to share their poetry about politics, social issues, or even their love of Word Up.

But it’s not certain whether Vantage, the landlord for the building, will continue offering the space rent-free to the community. Some of the store’s volunteers speculate that current negotiations may center on a new agreement that involves paying rent for the storefront. But volunteers asked not to be quoted by name, and Vantage did not respond to requests to comment on the negotiations.

Others in the community believe that Vantage wants to sell the space. Katarina Rivera, a regular at the weekly open mic, said closing the store would be a loss for the neighborhood. “This space is bringing something nobody else is bringing, especially with the space for self expression, and inspiration, not just through books, but the performances, and events,” she said.

For now the store remains open daily. But its future remains in limbo.

Projected image for the 2013 Sugar Hill housing development. Photo by Broadway Housing Communities.

On the northern boundary of West Harlem’s Sugar Hill neighborhood, scaffolding envelops a old garage building covering the block between Edgecombe and St. Nicholas Avenue. The garage is set to give way by 2013 to a spanking new apartment house, providing homes for 124 families, many of them among New York City’s poorest.

As city developments go, this one sounds like a win-win project: An urban eyesore will be removed, a new structure will replace it, and homes will go to those most in need.

But where some see progress, others see a charcoal zigzag structure with asymmetrical windows, cutting a modernist, high-rise gash in a neighborhood of elegant and historic low-rise brownstones.

“The building design has absolutely nothing in line with the historic nature of most every building in the vicinity,” griped a letter addressed a year ago by the Sugar Hill Block Association, a coalition of the neighborhood’s homeowners and residents, to the City of New York Department of Housing Preservation & Development.

For more than a year, the association has complained about the design, to no avail. In fact, the first complaints came only after Community Board 9 unanimously approved the project -– avant-garde exterior and all –- in early 2010.

Walter South, head of the Community Board 9 landmark and preservation committee, said the board saw the high-rise primarily as a means to provide better living conditions to many people in West Harlem. And the modern design was accepted as a compromise because “preservationists should not be locked into having to reproduce everything, and should be open to new ideas,” he said.

But the Sugar Hill high-rise is still a topic of protest, often raised at community board meetings.

“When you walk out of the subway, you don’t see gigantic 13-story buildings,” said Patricia Ju, resident of the area and chair of the Sugar Hill Block Association, in an interview with Northattan. “ The buildings are usually three-four story row houses or one-story commercial.”

Brownstones facing the upcoming project. Photo by Dalal Mawad/Northattan.

The architecture complaints are an unusual setback for Broadway Housing Communities, the nonprofit organization behind the new building. Over 25 years, Broadway Housing has built a reputation for providing innovative shelter for some of the neediest families in West Harlem and Washington Heights. In addition to low-income rentals, the projects house services such as medical and vocational training facilities.

Broadway Housing’s projects are usually restorations of older buildings. But at Sugar Hill,  “this is not what we had here. We had a garage; there was nothing to restore,” said Broadway Housing Communities’ executive director Ellen Baxter. Trying to build a new structure that replicates the century-old surroundings wouldn’t work, she said, because “it will look like a fake reproduction.” The modern high-rise design was pursued, she said,  “to reflect the history and show it in 21st century form.”

The Sugar Hill Project will be Broadway Housing Communities’ seventh project to offer even more innovations, including having tenants participate in the management of their own building.

Like its much-praised Dorothy Day Project in Hamilton Heights, the Sugar Hill building would provide rent-stabilized apartments, reserved for families and individuals currently living in “seriously substandard conditions” as well as homeless families from the city’s emergency shelters, according to Baxter. Families would also have access to educational programs a child-care center and a children’s museum for art and storytelling.

the scaffolded garage to be replaced by the housing project. Photo by Dalal Mawad/Northattan.

The neo-classical brownstones of Sugar Hill were built between 1905 and 1916.  With their detailed facades and ornate windows, most of the buildings provided wealthy African-American families with getaways from bustling Lower Manhattan. In addition to its architectural grandeur, the area was the epicenter of Harlem’s renaissance, roaring with music and art.

The Sugar Hill Block Association acknowledges that, despite its protests, the 13-story building will definitely be built. It’s still lobbying community leaders for one change, though: It wants to change the structure’s exterior color, from charcoal to terracotta, in keeping with the nearby brownstones.

This article was modified on 12/04/2011 to correct that the garage structure was not abandoned or empty; it was in use for parking until Broadway Housing Communities bought it.

Once a month, the East Harlem Taste Trolley titillates Northattan’s taste buds, taking 45 hungry diners on a tour of the area’s gourmet restaurants.

A sole protestor faces police at Zuccotti Park this morning. Photo by Isha Soni.

To occupiers at Zuccotti Park, Monday night seemed like any other during their two-month-old live-in protest; that is until they were awakened by bright lights and loud ruckus just after 1 a.m. Tuesday morning.

“A mass of police came in riot gear with big flood lights and ordered an eviction on the grounds of fire hazard, but I didn’t see any fire department there,” said 50 year-old C. J. Phillips, who has spent the past month camped out in a tent in Zuccotti Park.

About 200 protesters have been arrested in the crackdown, including New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who has been a vocal supporter of the Occupy Movement in recent weeks.

Many of those arrested were said to have chained themselves together as police closed in on the center of the camp, though such details, which were widely disseminated on the Internet and social media, were hard to confirm because police barricades prevented press and protesters alike from coming within two blocks of Zuccotti Park even into daylight hours earlier this morning.

The crackdown was ordered by Mayor Michael Bloomberg who expressed a shared concern with Brookfield Properties, the park’s owners, regarding the park’s sanitary and security conditions.

“Unfortunately, the park was becoming a place where people came not to protest, but rather to break laws, and in some cases, to harm others,” Bloomberg said in a statement released Tuesday morning. “There have been reports of businesses being threatened and complaints about noise and unsanitary conditions that have seriously impacted the quality of life for residents and businesses in this now-thriving neighborhood. The majority of protesters have been peaceful and responsible. But an unfortunate minority have not been – and as the number of protesters has grown, this has created an intolerable situation.”

Many of the protesters complained that they weren’t given fair warning to clear the park, and that many of them were forced to leave belongings behind, including tents and sleeping bags, which were hauled off in trucks shortly after the eviction.

By 2:15 a.m. most of the occupiers were scattered in groups of between 50 and 100 on all sides of the police barricades. One faction of about 50 people was motivated to march towards Foley Square around 3 a.m. following impromptu suggestions by organizers like Wes Drexler.

“We’re going to march to Foley Square with our brothers and sisters. If you would like stay here,” shouted Drexler, referring to the police barricade on Broadway two blocks north of Zuccotti Park, “feel free to do so, but stay peaceful.” His message was echoed by the 50 or so around him.

As the crowd marched toward Foley Square, several dozen new arrivals blended in with the rest of the group, including Chris Cimi, a 20-year-old Pace student who heard about the eviction via social media.

“I haven’t stayed in the park overnight, but I’ve been down here a few times before,” Cimi said. “I thought it was important to come here tonight though and witness what was going on with my own eyes.”

By 3:45 a.m., the group had grown to roughly 200 people and began to settle in at Foley Square. Police helicopters circled overhead, while on the ground some 50 officers encircled the protesters as they began organizing an impromptu meeting to decide on their next course of action.

Around 5 a.m., several crates of bottled water appeared with newly arriving protesters and were distributed to the crowd. People began to make appeals for everyone present to tweet, text and email everyone they knew to come down and support the protesters.

By 5:30 a.m. the crowd had at least doubled in size, to roughly 400 people, many of whom had just arrived from other boroughs, New Jersey and Connecticut. Many said they had rushed to the area after hearing the pleas for support from the Occupy Wall Street’s live Web feed, posts on Facebook and Twitter and via text message alerts.

At one point there was a motion to move back toward the police barricades to confront police there, but after much debating, the crowd came to a consensus that it would be more productive to stay put in Foley Square until a more cohesive decision could be made.

“I think they just want to build a base here, which is good because everyone is just getting arrested” at the barricades surrounding Zuccotti Park. said Kaitlin Phillips, an English major at Columbia University. “I’d rather stay here because I can’t get arrested. I’ve got papers due.”

Altagracia Guzman Vargas is 81 years old, and on Monday she took part in an 11-mile march in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement. “ I am going to walk,” said Vargas, her small eyes sparkling behind circular glasses. “I am going to try my best for the future of the United States.” She brandished a pink and green “Health not Profit$ — Salud no Riqueza$” sign that she drew herself.

Vargas was one of the many Washington Heights residents who gathered this morning on 181^st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, the start of the march, billed as “End to End for 99%,” and ending at Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, the base of the Occupy Wall Street protests. If enthusiasm was present from the very start — with people playing drums and blowing whistles — it made up for the size of the crowd,  at most 60 people. Indeed, before the march began, journalists probably outnumbered protesters, a reminder that the Occupy Wall Street movement has also become a huge media attraction.

But Dimitri Bakhroushin, one Washington Heights resident, was confident that the protest was “going to be like a snowball. We are going downhill and we are gonna grow and grow.”

The front line of the march with State Sen. Adriano Espaillat (far right holding banner), Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (left of Espaillat) and 81-year old Altagracia Guzman Vargas. Photo by Céleste Owen-Jones/Northattan.

By the time the march reached 125^th and Broadway, around 300 people were chanting “We are the 99 percent” in a joyful party-like atmosphere.

Monday’s protest was the first organized demonstration from Northattan since the Occupy Wall Street movement started two months ago. State Sen. Adriano Espaillat, who walked the whole 11 miles with the crowd, said the mission was “to give this movement a new face.” Later, he said that “this is not just a Wall Street thing, this is a Washington Heights thing, this is a Harlem thing, this is an East Harlem thing. This is about communities that have been left behind for decades.”

Occupy Wall Street protesters have often been criticized for a lack of diversity, a perception that northern Manhattan residents were trying to change.  The crowd, in sex, in skin color and in age, was very different than the occupiers of Zuccotti Park, who tend to be white and under 30 years old.

“There is not enough representation of blacks, Latinos and Asians in this movement and we need to show our support,” said Councilman Robert Jackson, who joined the march in Times Square. Marisol Alcantara, the West Harlem Democratic leader, said: “We are all part of the 99 percent, especially communities of color, immigrants, and what is happening in West Harlem is happening to the rest of the city.”

Other politicians, from Northattan and beyond, joined the march, too, including State Sen. Gustavo Rivera of the Bronx, Councilmen Ydanis Rodriguez and Robert Jackson from Northattan. They repeatedly asked for the restoration of “the millionaires’ tax” and for social and economical justice: “We bailed out Wall Street, we bailed out the banks,” declared Espaillat when still on 181^st Street, “but these stores right here, they are shut down, haven’t been bailed out.”

With the sun shining and the temperatures unseasonably high, the march quickly turned into what looked like a celebration: As the crowd passed Columbia University and later Times Square, people danced in circles, played musical instruments and chanted slogans, to the delight of tourists and passers-by who took pictures from their phones and cameras.

Washington Heights resident at the meeting point on 181st and St Nicholas Avenue. Photo by Céleste Owen-Jones/Northattan.

While police were ever-present, they seemed relaxed and confident that the protest would remain under control. “We are working closely with the police to make sure that traffic doesn’t disrupt the march,” explained David Segal, one of the march’s organizers. For most of the time, protesters remained on the sidewalk and even respectfully stopped and got silent when an elderly woman was taken away in an ambulance, blocking the street they were about to cross.

Many protesters had taken a day off work in order to take part in the march. Lourdes Ernandez Coltera, a teacher in Washington Heights, was one of them: “Today I’m taking a day off, or I should say a community day off to be with my neighbors.” Coltera said she was particularly worried by the price of health care, which many couldn’t afford. “Inequality makes us sick,” read the colorful sign she was holding proudly. Three hours later, Coltera was still marching with energy and a smile, showing no sign of giving up.

As the protesters approached Zuccotti Park, their enthusiasm grew as drums rolled a welcome. It was 4:30 p.m. and getting dark when the protesters finally reached their destination, six hours after they left Washington Heights.

“We walked 11 miles,” Guillermo Linares, a New York State Assemblyman, told the crowd. “We walked as immigrants, as working class, as New Yorkers, and we are going to keep supporting the takeover of Wall Street,” he added.

If the crowd had decreased somewhat, with no more than 200 people entering the geographical heart of the movement, they still believed they had opened a new chapter of Occupy Wall Street, in which people from Northern Manhattan are to play a bigger role.

Additional reporting was provided by Frederick Bernas, Tomos Lewis, Dalal Mawad, Isha Soni and Benjamin Teitlebaum.

A coalition of community organizations, elected officials and labor unions plans to lead hundreds of Uptown residents from Washington Heights to Zuccotti Park on Monday.

This is the first time communities of color from Northern Manhattan have organized to join the Occupy Wall Street movement. The march is expected to include elected officials, community activists and members from the black and Hispanic community, and is intended to show solidarity from diverse communities around New York with the Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park.

David Segal, press secretary for City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, who is backing the march, said it’s inaccurate to portray the Occupy Wall Street movement to be predominantly white. “It’s important to let the rest of the city to know that people of color are in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement,” he said.

Organizers from the Occupy Wall Street protest attended a press conference announcing the march on Thursday morning in front of an abandoned building on 182nd Street and St. Nicholas. Tyler Combelic, a spokesman for Occupy Wall Street, said it was important to recognize the needs and concerns of the New York City neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by the recession. “I’m marching all 11 miles,” he said.

United New York, a nonprofit that helps the working class find jobs, is one sponsor of the demonstration. “The march is a way for people of color to lend their voices to the movement and express their dissatisfaction with the lack of jobs,” said Cara Noel, who works with United New York. “It’s an opportunity for them to take care of their families.” Noel said her team has been tweeting, passing out fliers and working with partner organizations to spread the word on the walk. “I’m expecting it to be very organized and to make a statement,” she said.

Among the groups participating and expecting to march are the Transport Workers Union, Alianza Dominicana, the Service Employees International Union, and The Northern Manhattan Improvement Coalition. New York State Senator Adriano Espaillat and Councilman Member Rodriguez plan to lead the walk.

The march, called “End to End for 99%,” is scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. Monday at 181^st Street and St. Nicholas, work its way South through Harlem, and end at Zuccotti Park about 3 hours later. Segal said it is one of the few times that Harlem and Washington Heights has united in a movement.

Because there is no permit for the march, staff from different community organizations will work as marshals to help guide demonstrators.

Emmanuel Abreu, a resident of Inwood who expects to participate, said he thought the march would start small. “Two people will know, more and more people will join in and by the time we reach Harlem there should be more people.”

The march will end with a final rally in solidarity with Uptown residents and members of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

This article was updated on 11/04/2010  to correct that David Segal said that it was an inaccurate portrayal of the Occupy Wall Street movement as mostly white, not that it was a betrayal.