Broccoli, cucumber, bell peppers, collard greens. Strawberries, blueberries, grapes and tomatoes; runner beans and basil, four big beds of jalapeno peppers. Worms and compost. Hip hop and capoiera. A cheeseburger cookout with all the trimmings: “We have enough food for everyone to eat here, and more,” says Nando Rodriguez as kids grab burgers, sliced pineapple and macaroni.
Pedro Espada, the Bronx senator at the center of last year’s leadership battle in Albany, has been sued for allegedly looting a nonprofit he helped run. Read the attorney general’s complaint here.
In the lobby of STRIVE, an employment-training program in East Harlem, the messages are clear, stated in a bold, black font on posters that greet the overwhelmingly black and Latino clients as they get off the elevator and enter the lobby: “Please Remove Your Hats.” “Please Do Not Wear Pants Below the Waist.” “Please Do Not Wear Headphones.”Inside the classroom, says STRIVE’s chief operating officer, Angelo Rivera, attitudes are a primary target. “You have to inflict some kind of discomfort and pain so they can own up to what their issues are,” he says. “That whole attitudinal piece will make you or break you in the world of work.”But in a month of instruction, STRIVE students also get two days on civics.
The day that Barack Obama became President, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Plaza outside the state office building on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue was alive with expectant joy. The crowd packed the cold concrete space between the dark bronze statue of Powell, striding perpetually forward on the corner, and the multicolor mural honoring black women at the plaza’s east end. Black men in crisp suits watched the jumbo TV screen with grave pride, the mumbling of the news anchors inaudible and unnecessary; it was all about the visual. Black women lifted their chins and wiped tears away. Hawkers peddled T-shirts and buttons both tasteful and tacky: The best was Obama as Muhammad Ali standing triumphant over John McCain as a flat-on-the-canvas Sonny Liston.
As Harlem’s older generation of leaders fades, black officials define new paths toward prominence.
One low-income HCZ parent describes how the program has changed her family.
Life is tough in the projects and on the streets, but leavened with music and friendship in this crop of new city books.
From a little office in Brooklyn, a new magazine reaches around the world to explore the lives and lifestyles of Muslim cosmopolites.
Darryl Penrice has been needy himself. Now that he’s stumbled across a potential way to reduce want for everyone, he’s determined to make it work.
Citing high rates of euthanasia for the breed, anti-cruelty activists are making it easier for lower-income pit bull owners to get their friends fixed.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
