Northattan

At the heart of Spanish Harlem, artists and activists recently repainted a 12-year-old portrait of Che Guevara and Don Pedro Albizu Campos, the father of Puerto Rico’s independence movement.

A police emergency services unit responds to a double shooting in East Harlem. Photo by David Karp/AP Photo

A teenager was killed Thursday afternoon in an East Harlem shooting that also left another man wounded.

Police arrested a 36-year-old in connection with the shooting but have not yet charged him or released his name.

Bronx resident Jaquan Wilson, 18, was found with multiple gunshot wounds when officers arrived at 2383 2nd Avenue, near 122nd Street, around 12:30 p.m., police said. Wilson was taken to Harlem Hospital where he was pronounced dead, said police.

The other victim was a 26-year-old, who was shot in the buttocks and was in stable condition at Harlem Hospital.

A report on dnainfo.com quoted a source saying that the suspect told investigators he was being robbed by the two men that he eventually shot. The report said he was “able to wrestle the gun away from one of the men before turning it on both of them.” Police did not confirm any of that information.

A gun was found at the scene, police said.

This is the second killing in East Harlem this week. On Tuesday, 73-year-old Julia Hernandez was killed in her Wagner Houses apartment. Gregory Velez, 35, was arrested Thursday and charged with murder and robbery.

Gregory Velez, 35, was arrested in the murder of East Harlem resident Julia Hernandez, 73. Photo courtesy of the New York Police Department.

Police on Thursday arrested Gregory Velez, 35, in connection with the homicide of an East Harlem resident, Julia Hernandez, 73. Police say Velez was charged with murder and robbery.

Hernandez was found unconscious and unresponsive Tuesday night by her daughter Jeanette, according to police.  The Associated Press reported that Hernandez had a bag around her head and that her feet were bound with a scarf.

The police department released a photo of Velez Wednesday morning, asking for the public’s help in finding him. According to the police description, Velez is 6 feet tall and weighs 180 pounds.

According to reports, Velez fathered a child with the victim’s granddaughter, Jasminda Otero Hernandez. WABC reported today that police believe Velez may have killed Hernandez for her flat-screen television. It was not immediately clear if the apartment, at 445 E. 120^th St., had been broken into, but WABC also reports that the victim’s TV, cash and some jewelry were missing.

“Everyone knew her. Everyone loved her,” said her granddaughter, Jasminda Otero, to reporters. “Why would they do this awful thing to her? I hope you enjoy your flat-screen TV. I really do. I hope you enjoy it.”

This article was updated on Thursday, Oct. 27, to reflect the arrest of Velez.

Youthbuild Program Director Wendell Moore speaks to a group of students. Photo by Ben Teitelbaum/Northattan.

Youthbuild is a nonprofit organization that helps low-income high school dropouts succeed. It gives 16- to 24-year-olds construction training, and a second-chance at an education. Three-quarters of its funding comes from the federal government, and recent cuts mean three New York-area Youthbuilds have closed. East Harlem is where the organization started more than 30 years ago, and now that chapter’s future isn’t clear either.

Ben Teitelbaum reports.

Photo by Alessandra Tarantino/AP Photo.

In February 2007, the Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in East Harlem was closed against the protests of many parishioners. Back then, six women were arrested for staging a sit-in. But that didn’t stop them: Now, nearly five years later, a hardcore group continues to hold weekly Mass on the sidewalk – come rain or shine. Frederick Bernas reports.

“When I had no money, he would give me food and I’d pay him back,” Cunningham said.

The East Harlem deli owned by homicide victim, Fernando Suriel. Martin Markovits/Northattan

But last Sunday, Suriel was shot and killed in his truck on the corner of East 131th Street and Park Avenue. The New York Police Department reports no suspects in the crime.

Suriel’s killing was the latest in Precinct 25, an area east of Fifth Avenue from East 115th Street to 142th Street. While Manhattan’s homicides have dropped 88 percent since 1990, homicides in the 25 Precinct  have skyrocketed 300 percent this year. According to NYPD’s CompStat figures, there have been 12 homicides so far this year, compared with three in 2009.

Community Board 11 chairman Mathew Washington said he was surprised by Precinct 25’s homicide figures.

“I have not had a conversation with the 25 Precinct, but I certainly will now,” Washington said.

Calls to the New York Police Department were not returned.

Peggy Morales, another member of Community Board 11 thinks East Harlem’s’ 16 percent unemployment rate and cutbacks in social services because of the recession are connected to the rise in violence.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the economy had a lot to do with it; it makes people more desperate,” Morales said. “Things have become harder. There are no resources so we can give programs to get these kids to get off the street.”

The New York Police Department has been dogged by increasing budget constrains and fewer officers on the streets.  Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly warned the New York City Council in March that the city’s budget would lower the number of cops on the street to the lowest levels since 1990.

But some, like Maria Cruz, are trying to fight the crime on the ground. Cruz is the executive property manager of Taino Towers, a 656-unit low-income residential housing complex on E 122th Street and 3th Avenue. After a 23 year-old man was fatally shot a block away on 122th  Street and Lexington Avenue in June, she hired  four private anti-crime officers to patrol the building after 10 pm.

“All these people were fighting and nobody was doing anything because it was really bad, not only bad for them but bad for the residency of the area, and anybody on the street who could get hurt,“ Cruz said.

Cruz says that gang activity and lax parental supervision are responsible for the recent wave of violence.

“In my area some of the parents are letting the people go outside at 3 o’clock morning,” said Cruz.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has taken steps to combat this rise in violence. In May of this year, District Attorney Cy Vance launched a new crime task force that would use a new computer system to enable his office and the police to directly share crime data.

Community Board 11 chairman Mathew Washington said that the board would work closely with this new crime task force in 2011.

The tower sits on top of the Acropolis, a fake plateau, at the highest point of Marcus Garvey Park. Photo by Alex Luchsinger/Northattan

Towering at 47 feet, at the highest point in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park, is the Mount Morris Fire Watchtower. Standing sentry over Harlem for more than 150 years and visible from the surrounding streets, it’s a onetime, fully-functional lookout for fire watchmen, who would climb the stairs of the tower, spending long days as volunteer bell ringers in the event of a fire.

But today, the tower, landmarked since 1967 and the last of its kind in the U.S., is abandoned, fenced off because of its dilapidated condition. While the park has gotten $12 million in funding since 2005, most has gone to the reconstruction of an amphitheater, leaving the fire tower on the lower rung of the restoration ladder.

Leslie Valez has lived across from Marcus Garvey Park for a decade. She says the fire tower is a staple in the Mount Morris community.

“I’ve been taking my son here since he was born in 2005,” Valez said. “It’s a shame that the fence is up, but I understand if repairs need to be made to make sure it’s safe,” she said.

During the early 1990’s, the city completed a project to stabilize the tower,which included painting the structure and installing a steel superstructure to support the tower, according to the NYC Park Department. But that was only a temporary stabilization project. No other renovations have been made since 1994.

A group of people received $100,000 in funding to create a plan of action to salvage the tower in 2006, but were left hanging because there weren’t enough funds to actually restore the tower. “These designs are complete and we are currently seeking funds to implement the restorations,” said Philip Abramson, a spokesman for the New York City Parks Department.

“I hope they know that there would be outrage in the community,” if the tower deteriorated beyond repair, said Angel Ayon, an architect and preservationist who has been advocating to repair the tower for a decade. “I’m always concerned about it,” he said.

Ayon completed his master’s project about the Mount Morris Fire Watchtower at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture in 2005. Since then, he’s created firewatchtower.com, a website dedicated to the history and preservation of the tower. A project at the Guggenheim Museum consumed the majority of Ayon’s time after graduate school, and he says he didn’t have the time to keep pushing for the funding needed to repair the tower.

“You get the funding when you make a lot of noise, but I don’t think we’re making enough noise,” said Ayon.

Ayon says the tower is an important artifact, not only because it’s the sole survivor of its type, but because it was one of the world’s first cast-iron fire watchtowers. This style of cast-iron structure subsequently became the inspiration for steel cages built to support skyscrapers in the 1880’s.

After a devastating fire in 1835, the New York Fire Department built fire towers across the city to spot fires and direct firefighters to the locations. City Hall and Spring Street were the first areas with these towers in New York City. After a few years of petitioning by Harlem residents, the Mount Morris Watchtower became the third in 1857. Its 10,000-pound bell was rung when a watchman spotted a fire.

The tower is protected from being torn down because it was named a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Commission in 1967; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The Parks Department erected a fence over the summer to keep would-be vandals from causing any further damage to the worn, flaking cast-iron tower, according to Laurent Delly, vice president of the Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association.

He says that funding efforts are ongoing, but slow, and did not specify the amount needed to restore the tower. He did say that if money was raised, the tower would be disassembled and taken to Maryland to be refurbished.

At Manhattan's only Target, shoppers got an early start on Christmas shopping, as well as black Friday deals.

At a quarter to 4 of the morning after Thanksgiving, the line snaked around the second floor stairwell of East Harlem’s big box shopping center.  About a hundred people gathered here late Thanksgiving night to engage in a ritual taking place in parking lots and shopping malls across the country: the dawning of black Friday.

Manhattan’s only Target store is located just a few blocks from the No. 6 train on the banks of the East River and it is marking its first black Friday since the store opened in July. On this November night, Manhattanites braved the damp and cold to join in a tradition that has long been the province of the suburbs.

Jean Maracruz stayed up all night so she could be one of the first in line for the store’s 4 a.m. opening. ”I’m going to go in, get what’s on my list. Then I‘m going home and passing out.” Staking out black Friday sales is something of a holiday habit for Harlem resident Maracruz: “Last year I was at the Target in Queens, but I’m glad there is one here. It’s a lot closer.”

For other city dwellers, this was the first time they had ever engaged in the rite. “I never saw the point before” said Edwin Gutierrez, “but then I heard it was like, $500 dollars for a flat-screen television, and I thought, I’d lose sleep for that.” It helps that the Target is only a few blocks from where Gutierrez lives.

Apex Televisions were a popular pick for black Friday shoppers at East Harlem's Target.

At a 75 percent markdown, Apex televisions like the one Gutierrez wanted were practically flying off the shelves. “There is one sticking out of every other shopping cart,” said NYPD Officer Eddie Arroyo, one of a handful of police deployed to make sure things stayed calm both before and after the stores opening. “People were real chill, they waited, and then they walked in. There wasn’t running or pushing,” Arroyo said, adding, “this isn’t the burbs.”

Arroyo was referring to past incidents, like the trampling death of a Wal-Mart employee in 2008 in Nassau County. Since then, big box stores have gone to lengths to keep things running smoothly and securely.

Target even cordoned off its electronics section with a red velvet rope, adding a touch of class to the scramble for deals. But even behind the rope, people were for the most part calm.

While they don’t miss the mayhem, some Target employees were missing the crowds. “It wasn’t anything like we were expecting,” said cashier Inez Perez. By 7 a.m. there was no one in Perez’s checkout line.

That is a bit different than the picture across the country. Stores reported a much-hoped for uptick in the number of people thronging to black Friday sales. But even though the crowds may not have been as big as expected for this big box, announcements kept booming over the loudspeaker about the latest item to have sold out. The Apex televisions? One of the first to go.

When Target opened here last July, it was a cause for both consternation and celebration. Some local activists worried that it might be another nail in Harlem’s gentrification coffin, while others lauded the store for carrying ethnic products geared to the neighborhood and for hiring within the community.

John Griffith, executive vice president of property development for Target Corp, told the Associated Press that he expected 80 to 90 percent of the stores customers to be local. From a rough polling of the stalwart standing in line, that figure seemed to hold true on Friday.

Griffith also talked about the economic power of an urban big box, saying that the company projected this Target to make $90 million in its first year, as compared to the average $25 million a suburban store would generate.

Target used red velvet ropes to keep the early birds in order before the store opened at 4 a.m. on Friday morning.

But today, the urban Target may have been a bit barer than its smaller town sisters. Customer Fred Anderson said that while he got an Xbox for his son, he probably wouldn’t be back next year. “I’m still too full from all that turkey to be out in public.” In addition, Anderson is pretty sure he could have gotten the same deal somewhere else. “The guy down my block, he sells some of this stuff too. I mean his stuff might be stolen, but it’s better than waking up at 3 a.m.”