Mott Haven Herald

In new home, Per Scholas creates opportunity

Posted on 06. Feb, 2010 by Stephanie Rabins.

When Torrey Hopkins got out of jail in 1999, it was easy for him to find a job. Hopkins, who had done time for a non-violent offense he committed as a teenager, had done well in high school and had good references that landed him a job in information technology.

He worked in the financial sector, installing computer workstations for a big company that was acquiring smaller firms.
(more…)

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Grant promises unemployed 300 ‘green jobs’

Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by Bernard L. Stein.

The recipient of a $4 million federal grant is promising that 300 unemployed residents of Hunts Point, Longwood, Mott Haven, Melrose and Port Morris will find jobs under a new training program for “green” jobs.

The Consortium for Worker Education will use the money to establish a Center for Environmental Workforce Training to teach both job skills and offer general education.

The organization will partner with several non-profit organizations, including Mott Haven-based SoBro and Greenworker Cooperatives to train residents to build or retrofit energy-efficient buildings.

Most of the participants will “learn how to work with their hands—being able to fix things,” said Rebecca Lurie, director of development at the consortium.

Jobs will include window installation and building repair, installing insulation and repairing or installing boilers, she said Some participants in the program will also learn to conduct energy audits and market energy upgrades to building owners,

Lurie said the consortium hoped to launch the program, which will last for two years, within a month.

Sustainable South Bronx and The Point CDCthe Osborne Association, the Association for Energy Affordability, the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp. and Bronx Community College’s Project Hire will also serve as partners in the program, which was hailed by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. as “a big step toward becoming the ‘greenest’ borough in New York City.”

All told, the program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, aims to provide training and education services for 425 participants, while placing 297 of those who receive a degree or certificate in jobs.

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Mexican children find place to learn in Mott Haven

Posted on 07. Dec, 2009 by Christina Herrera.

Guadalupe Herrera breathed a sigh of relief as she looked at the walls filled with children’s paintings in the basement of St. Pius V Church on East 145th Street.

Finally, she can help her son Victor, a first-grader at P.S. 179 at 140th Street, with his schoolwork, she said in her native Spanish.

“I used to pay $25 dollars a week to have someone translate my kid’s homework from English to Spanish in order for me to help him,” she said.

Mexicans are the fastest-growing immigrant group in New York City, and many parents who speak only Spanish face the same dilemma of how to help their children succeed in English-speaking classrooms.

The Mott Haven church has become the headquarters for an organization that works to help these families. MASA, the Mexican-American Students Alliance, provides mentors who help children with homework and school work and helps parents build bridges to their children’s schools.

In the program, children get help with homework and take art classes. For older students, there are workshops to help them prepare for college. Parents have access to ESL classes.

Although MASA welcomes students from any ethnic background, its focus from the beginning has been helping children who are either immigrants from Mexico or the U.S.-born children of Mexican immigrants.

Mexicans have the highest high school drop-out rate in the city, according to Francisco Rivera Batiz, a professor at Columbia Teachers College. Close to 60 percent of Mexican New Yorkers aged 25 years or older had not completed high school in 2000, more than double the percentage of New Yorkers generally.

The school system itself is partly to blame, believes Angelo Cabrera, a founder of MASA. “Our guess is because they have a Spanish surname or because their parents don’t speak the language, they are put in schools with very limited resources,” he said.

“We cannot change their legal status or change their financial situation, but we change their education,” said Cabrera. “We are not looking for outstanding students; we are trying to help out those who are flunking out.”

Martha Castellanos’ 8-year-old son Rony was one of those children. Last year Castellanos got a call from Rony’s teacher telling her he was going to be left back. That spring, at the Cinco de Mayo Festival, she heard an announcement about MASA. She’s been bringing Rony and his 4-year-old brother David to St. Pius V ever since. Now Rony participates actively in spelling bees and has won many achievement awards, which are displayed on the walls of MASA.

All the classes and workshops are conducted by volunteers who serve as mentors.

The program looks for “college students or high school students who are college bound, interested in the well-being of the community” says Gregory Tull, 23, the coordinator of volunteers.

Margarita Verastegui teaches art. Originally from Spain, she has been a volunteer for a year and a half. Through art, she says, “Kids develop a different type of skill sets. They are more confident as well.” Mothers joined Verastegui in art class last Christmas to teach their children how to make piñatas.

Parents also work to help the program as a whole succeed. Last September 15, MASA parents celebrated Mexico’s Independence Day by putting together a sale of typical Mexican food to help raise funds for arts and crafts materials.

Fernanda Rico, a psychology student from Iberoamericana University in Mexico City who is currently doing a four-month internship with MASA, believes the parents’ involvement is a mark of success.

“They come here and you see them put up the tables, tidy up and clean. That is a testament of them wanting to be here,” she said.

“Something is working here. Part is the help with school work, part of it is a sense of belonging to MASA, and that’s something very valuable.”

A version of this story appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald.

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Alliance is an organization born in protest

Posted on 07. Dec, 2009 by Christina Herrera.

By Cristina Herrera Borquez
Cristina@motthavenherald.com

MASA was unofficially born in 2001, in response to the drastic changes in immigration policy after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11. When the City University of New York and the State University of New York declared that undocumented immigrant students would have to pay out-of state-tuition, even if they had lived in New York for years, students launched protests.

One of their leaders was Angelo Cabrera, an undocumented student who immigrated to the United States when he was 15 years old from Puebla, Mexico. After meetings, rallies and a hunger strike that lasted four days, in August 2002, Gov. George Pataki signed a law revoking the tuition provision.

From that protest grew MASA. Realizing that the number of Mexican students enrolling in college was disproportionately low, its founders decided to create a support system for struggling students.

A version of this story appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald.

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Veterans fight new battles at home

Posted on 14. Nov, 2009 by editor.

By Erin McCarthy
NYCity News Service

Omi Aguirre was studying for her associate degree from Hostos Community College in 2001. Then the Twin Towers fell. Six weeks later, she joined the Marines.

This fall, when Aguirre, 31, resumed her studies at Hostos, she felt like an outsider in a community of civilians. Like many veterans, she found herself struggling to get her government tuition benefits. She couldn’t focus on her studies.

But in late September, a student club changed everything. (more…)

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Mott Haven school building crumbles

Posted on 17. Oct, 2009 by Maria Clark.

By Maria Clark
maria.clark@motthavenherald.com

The passage of time has not been kind to the former school building nicknamed the “Castle on the Concourse.”

Entire sections of the roof have collapsed. Plastic tarps cover the holes. Rotted wooden planks shield the windows and cover gaping holes in the walls.

PS 31 was once one the top schools in the city and was housed in a building that was judged worthy to be a New York City landmark. Now it is a wreck.

Removing asbestos and modernizing its facilities wasn’t worth the price, the Board of Education decided 15 years ago. The “Castle on the Concourse” has steadily crumbled since the decision was made.

“We didn’t only lose a beautiful building. We lost a great school,” said Grizel Cabrera, a former school aide who worked at PS 31 from 1989 to 1997.

Despite plans to rezone the area to invite thousands of new residents, officials from the Department of Education have no plans to restore the treasured building that still stands on 144th street and the Grand Concourse.

“We are not currently doing any construction and there are no plans for reconstruction in the near future,” said Department of Education spokesman William Havemann.

The scaffolding and supportive beams wrapped around the building are in place to prevent it from collapsing, according to Wilhelm Ronda, the director of planning at the Bronx Borough President’s Office. When Ronda toured the building over a year ago, he noted extensive water damage and found that the facade on the North end of the building had crumbled.

“Clearly there is a need for funds to do more than just prevent it from collapsing,” he said. Emergency repairs would cost up to $30 million according to Ronda.

Ronda hopes the building can be adapted for a new public use, such as a performing art space or even a children’s art museum.

“I would like to use up as much of the building as possible. I hope at some point the administration will provide additional funding to do so,” Ronda said.

PS 31, named the William Llloyd Garrison School in honor of the great opponent of slavery, was designed and built over 100 years ago by architect Charles B.J. Snyder, the superintendent of school buildings who presided over the city’s Golden Age of school construction. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1986.

Under the careful watch of retired principal Carol Russo, PS 31 had blossomed into one of the top performing schools in the city. A New York Times article from 1987, headlined “Bronx School Excels Academically, Despite the Odds,” reported that 61 percent of students from kindergarten to sixth grade tested at or above their grade level in mathematics. Almost 88 percent tested at or above their grade level in reading.

“It was a wonderful school. They were given little in terms of resources, but Carol tapped into the enthusiasm of the teachers. She was a diamond of an educator,” said Irving Gikofsky, the television personality widely known as “Mr. G.”

A former teacher, “Mr. G” sent his daughter to PS 31 and took part in 28 consecutive graduations.

“When Carol retired, nobody could take her place. The giant left and nobody could fill her shoes,” he said.

The Department of Education closed the school soon after Russo retired in the mid- 1990s. PS 31 and its students were transferred to a new building on E. 156th Street near Morris Avenue.

Students and teachers still refer to the school’s former home building as the “Castle on the Concourse” because of its size and design.

“I loved everything about that school. I remember on rainy days when we couldn’t go outside, we got to watch cartoons or educational movies in the auditorium,” said E’Toyi Lucas, 29, a former student.

Lucas, like many of his fellow alumni fondly remembers the sheer size of the building, its winding stairs and long hallways.

“I always thought that it was so big and scary at times. It really saddens me that they allowed such a historic place to deteriorate. I pray that they would rebuild so that other children can experience the beauty of PS 31,” wrote Shemeka Gibbs in an email about her time as a student at PS 31 in 1983.

Herman Francis, a member of Community Board 1’s Municipal Services Committee, said that in light of city plans to rezone the Grand Concourse, the area needs a new school.

“We don’t have enough schools as it is, and what we have there is a beautiful empty building that should be a school again,” Francis said.

The “Castle on the Concourse” remains under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education and will not be opening its doors to greet eager students next fall or anytime soon. Shingles will crumble and water damage will continue its destructive march through the once stately walls.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is responsible for promoting economic growth throughout New York City, has promised to “evaluate the feasibility of an adaptive reuse of PS 31” as part of the lower Grand Concourse zoning plan. It offered no timetable.

“I think we all have a connection and a passion for PS 31 and we would all hate for that school to disappear,” said E’Toyi Lucas.

A version of this article appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of the Mott Haven Herald.

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East Side House celebrates three graduations

Posted on 19. Jul, 2009 by Maria Clark.

By Maria Clark
maria.clark@motthavenherald.com

Prior to signing up for the GED certification course with the Youth and Adult Education Services at East Side House on Alexander Avenue, Jose Rivera, 18, had a hard time believing he would ever graduate from high school, let alone graduate at the top of his class.

“I wasn’t taking school seriously,” he said.

When he arrived at East House he had read only one book in his lifetime. He is now reading Homer’s Greek epic “The Odyssey,” and his favorite reading includes Norman Mailer’s 700-page novel “Naked and the Dead.” He hopes to become an English teacher.

Many of the students who graduated in June from Bronx Haven High School, Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School, and the Young Adult Education Services program at East Side House Settlement, spent years struggling to remain in school.

Now diploma in hand, they’re looking forward to college.

Rivera credits the faculty. “The teachers have passion here. It feels like family,” he said.

Eric Thomas, 40, a beloved teacher at the YAES program, says that to work with students who are in danger of dropping out he needs to address the unique situation each student is in.

“Some of them get lost in the transition from middle school to high school. They don’t have the coping skills,” said Thomas. “You have to be in tune with what the students needs are.”

East Side House provides funding for Bronx Haven, Mott Haven Prep and the YAES program. The high schools are administered by the city’s Department of Education, but have East Side House staff assigned to their offices as well.

“In all three of these programs, the needs of the students come first,” said John Sanchez, the executive director at East Side House. “Poverty can crush ambition and hope, but not potential. “

The schools expect a 90 percent graduation rate, a vast difference from what once was a 70 percent drop out rate in the area.

Because the risk of dropping out is high for many of their students, the schools monitor them closely and act quickly.

“We will call their parents and we are going to come after them,” said Sanchez.

Each school caters to the particular needs of their students. Approximately 17 percent of the kids at Mott Haven Village Prep on St. Anne’s Avenue are Special Ed students, and 12 percent are English language learners. Many of the students at Bronx Haven High School on Eagle Avenue are over 18.

“When they came to these programs they were judged unlikely to succeed. They have proved they always had the potential to succeed,” said Sanchez. “It was the adults in the school system that failed them.”

Christine Bruno, 17, is the valedictorian of Mott Haven Village Prep’s 2009 graduation class. She arrived at the school four years earlier unable to speak fluent English.

“I didn’t speak well the English language. Thank God for the support of the teachers here,” she said. “If students need help they will stay with you until you get your work done.”

Maribel Palafox, 18, the class salutatorian, is eager to move on to Marist College in Poughkeepsie, this summer.

Mott Haven Village Prep is structured on the idea of preparing students from 9th grade onwards for a college education. Field trips involve visits to college. Close to 100 percent of the graduating students will be heading off to college this year.

“They never told us ‘You might go to college’; it was always ‘You are going,’” Palafox said.

“Small schools are a better model,” said Dan Abramovski, 29, who teaches Government and Economics at the school. “It decreases the chance of students falling through the cracks.”

Sherrissa Williams, 18, and Kyme McCray, 18, both graduated June 26 from Bronx Haven High School, which celebrated its first graduation this year. Williams will be studying nursing at Hostos Community College in the fall.

“I would have dropped out. My friends and I wouldn’t have come to school,” she said

Damaris Estrada, 43, hugged her daughter Emilyann Montez, 20, who received her GED almost a year ago, but walked on June 12 at the Young Adult Education Services graduation.

“I’m so proud of her. She has worked so hard,” said Estrada.

Michael Mc Duffie, 47, cried as his son Christopher, 19, accepted his GED diploma.

“This really paid off,” he said.

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Mott Haven community center is reborn

Posted on 24. Mar, 2009 by Lindsay Lazarski.

By Lindsay Lazarski

Lindsay.lazarski@motthavenherald.com

For years the thumping of fists pounding punching bags, the scuffle of sneakers and the grunts of athletes were the sounds a visitor heard at the Betances Community Center and Boxing Gym.

Now, the scratch of pencils and flip of workbook pages fill the newly renovated center.  Betances has dropped “Boxing Gym” from its name and has a new mission under new operators.

The last four years have been rocky for the community center.  It was considered a home to many boxers and residents who grew up in and around the New York City Housing Authority’s 13-building complex in Mott Haven.  In 2005 the center closed for a gut renovation and the center’s programs were moved to nearby schools or across the street to St. Mary’s Park and center. 

Rebuilt at the cost of $10 million and designed to remain a boxing gym, the community center was praised by architects as one of the best construction projects of 2008.  But the Housing Authority’s fiscal problems forced the center to close its doors after a few months. 

The handsome airy space, which includes features like central air conditioning and heating, a brand new kitchen loaded with stainless steel appliances, and orange bleachers that retract at the push of a button, appeared untouched, until late February.

Through a one-year city contract, ASPIRA, a national Hispanic organization, reopened the doors of Betances.      

Dr. Luis Osorio, the new program director, has high hopes. ASPIRA plans eventually to serve 1,000 children.  Currently close to 100 children are fully enrolled. 

ASPIRA aims for Betances to become a “mecca, ” said Osorio—“a place where children feel they are safe, they are heard, and can develop their minds and bodies.”

Rather than focus on boxing, under ASPIRA the center emphasizes academics and the arts.  Now, after a snack of donuts and grape juice, the participants in its after-school program break into study groups for tutorial sessions in reading, math and spelling. 

Only after their school-work is complete do the kids participate in an organized game of two-hand touch football, practice salsa dance steps or face off across the ping pong table.       

The changes do not sit well with those who ran the program in years past. 

“It pains me–it pains all of us who know the community.  We became a family,” said Edwin Guzman, who served as the Housing Authority’s Community Director for nine years. He had hoped to expand the boxing program, which has produced many Golden Glove fighters. 

Guzman and other former staff members of the center have been reassigned to other locations throughout the Bronx.

Luis Olmo, a former trainer and coach at Betances, said the boxing program was about more than just fighting.  “If there is no boxing program you are pushing kids out on the street,” said Olmo.

“The name ‘boxer’ gives you respect–your attitude changes, you walk differently, you talk differently, you dress differently and you have a dream.  It’s an Olympian sport,” Olmo said.

The permanent boxing ring purchased by Guzman now sits in storage.  In its place will be a portable ring, said Osorio, to leave space for other activities.  

With the emphasis on academics first, Osorio said, the former boxing program will be replaced with “Physical Fitness through the Art of Boxing.”  Kids will exercise through lightweight training, jumping rope and practicing other forms of aerobics, boxing and martial arts.

After 5 p.m. and on weekends, Osorio envisions offering services for adults, such as GED and job readiness classes and financial literacy training. He plans to start groups for young men who want to become better fathers and gain custodial rights of their children. 

Amanda Perez, 21, started going to Betances when she was 6 years old. She recalled its impact on her and worries about the changes coming.

“A lot of talented boxers and dancers came out of Betances,” Perez said. “Kids wanted to go there.” Like Olmo, she said the center was “about taking kids off the street. Hopefully they get the same attention and amount of kids as in years past.”

Osorio said he understands the concern about change. “ASPIRA is not here for the short term.  As long as the city can provide funding, we are here to provide services,” he said. 

He has hired new staff members who are familiar with the community and has tried to reach out to meet with parents and principals at nearby schools. 

Some parents like Wanda Lopez are encouraged by the new direction of Betances.  She has enrolled her 12-year-old daughter in the program and says friends and family members have asked her where they can apply.

“Parents can be put at ease that their children are not in the streets.  As a mother I love it,” said Lopez.

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Education Dept. vetoes school for green jobs

Posted on 01. Mar, 2009 by Bernard L. Stein.

By Prakirti Nangia
news@motthavenherald.com

The city Department of Education has rejected a proposal to create a high school based on the ideas of the founder of Sustainable South Bronx and devoted to training students for jobs that can improve the environment.

The Majora Carter Achievement Academy was the brainchild of its namesake, the former executive director of the environmental justice organization. More than two years in the making, the proposal was developed by Stephen Ritz, an award-winning teacher and coordinator of student affairs at the Millennium Art Academy in the East Bronx.

It had won letters of support from Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr., Baruch College, Mothers on the Move, the Bronx River Alliance and even former President Bill Clinton, among others, but in December, the education department dropped it from the list of 100 applicants whose ideas for new schools it was considering.

Plans called for the academy to be located in the South Bronx and be open to all New York City students. Ritz said sites in and near Hunts Point were among those under consideration.

Curriculum choices for students included classes in installing green roofs, restoring wetlands and identifying plants, as well as classes emphasizing hazardous waste cleanup, auto shop safety and engine performance. Students would graduate with training certificates in the specialty of their choice.

The South Bronx would serve as a real-life classroom, according to the proposal. Majora Carter Academy students would be paired with community organizations to provide both work experience and engagement with urban and environmental issues.

The students were to have access to Sustainable South Bronx’s FabLab, the facility housed next door to Hunts Point Riverside Park designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Techonology to enable users to translate digital designs into physical reality.

They were also to be able to take part in Pratt Institute’s Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation, a program that provides support and guidance to designers, artists and architects.

Ritz said Fortune 100 and 500 publishing and technology companies had pledged to provide internships and jobs for graduates.

Melody Meyer, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, said the Majora Carter Achievement Academy “will not open in September because it failed to meet our criteria,” which included “the academic merits of the proposal, and the ability of the people in the proposing team to lead a school that will successfully educate students.”

“The entire MCAA team is sad that, at this time, this great city is not interested in our ability to turn people previously thought of as ‘problems’ into heroes of green infrastructure,” Carter said in a statement.

Ritz said he was “appalled” at the city’s decision.

The education department invited about three-quarters of applicants to interviews about their proposals. The Majora Carter Achievement Academy was one of the few that was not, said Ritz.

He speculated that budget concerns, lack of space, or simply a “threatening” grassroots movement may have informed the city’s decision.

“The fact that we named it after Majora, while important to us, probably was a problem for DOE. We were told off the record that a different more palatable name would have gotten us in the door!” he said in an email.

“Sadly DOE and city politics have always had more to do with what happens than the best interests of children.”

Carter and Sustainable South Bronx have frequently clashed with the city over its decisions to build unwelcome facilities in poor neighborhoods. The organization was born from a battle to keep a waste transfer station out of Hunts Point; more recently Sustainable South Bronx has been outspoken in its opposition to building a jail.

But the city and the organization have also cooperated on such projects as the South Bronx Greenway, an idea first advanced by Carter.

Ritz said his team abandoned a similar proposal in its early stages two years ago because the Department of Education wanted the school to be built in Brooklyn. He and Carter insisted on the Bronx.

Damian Griffin, the education director at the Bronx River Alliance, said students in the South Bronx feel the “schools aren’t there for them. They are just some place to keep them.”

In its recommendation letter to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, the Bronx River Alliance supported the Majora Carter Achievement Academy because it felt there was a great need for “providing academic venues for those who do not fit into the traditional academic confines of the present.”

Kellie Terry-Sepulveda, executive managing director of The Point CDC, praised the grassroots nature of the school, saying, “Oftentimes we have millions of schools coming into our neighborhood and they’re not from our neighborhood. I’m all for community-based solutions.”
The proposal was in fact “an outgrowth of many years of community organizing,” said Ritz.

The idea for the school emerged from a belief that “privilege or zip code should not entitle you to a better education or limit your access,” Ritz said. It was all about “finding a sustainable opportunity indigenous to the community.”

Team MCAA is not yet giving up, said Ritz. It plans to reapply to the department next year and meanwhile is considering proposals from other South-Bronx based high schools that have invited the Academy to start a program on their campuses.

“I firmly believe that not now does not mean not ever,” said Ritz.

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