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On Cambridge Place …
A Block Party Reunites Families and Friends

Traditionally, June to September throughout New York City is the season for weekend block parties when neighborhood groups with the proper permits close streets to traffic and have a festive time.

For the second year in a row, long-time residents of Cambridge Place/ Gates & Greene, took the annual one-day/closed-street event idea to another level by integrating one resident’s concept for an extended family reunion block party.  The result, last Saturday, was nothing less than superb.

Cambridge anchors and longtime residents Lillian Brooks (who lives in a property occupied by her family since 1948), and her Atlanta-based daughter, Tracy Kenyatta, among many others, worked diligently throughout the winter and spring to inspire former residents to return on July 25.   And they did, some 150 of them.

Brooks credits the successful outreach to technology.  She said techies’ Face Book and You Tube outreach – technology unfamiliar to the elder facilitators – was the key to tracking down Cambridge Place alumna.

The block’s newer arrivals –poised to get started with making their own block history — supported the Cambridge Reunion with set-up, clean-up, donations and emails.

Warm embraces and laughter were the order of the day, as people who live next door or across the street from each other became acquainted.

Mothers of adult children jumped back to their childhoods, with girlish shrieks , during an impromptu, spirited double dutch competition.  And men evoked the past as they took part in games of their youth.

“The event had a life all its own, and became something more than our plans,” said Ms. Brooks, adding that the intention was to reconnect with memories of gentler, uncomplicated eras when a stick and a ball held as much impact as a handheld computer game. “And we wanted our children to keep their Cambridge Place history alive for their children.  It was just that simple.”

In the end, the reunion/block party rekindled relationships, sparked new ones, and revealed unseen stories and links.

At approximately 6:00pm, Ms. Brooks called for a moment of silence for a neighbor, a wonderful warm-hearted woman passed a few days before the block party.   Everyone gathered in the street in front of Shirley’s house, holding hands. Led by Ms. Kenyatta, the memorial was poignant and included a remembrance of those on Cambridge Place who had passed within the year.

Reverence was appropriately framed by the spirit of family celebration associated with block parties and reunion: children of all ages had fun, with the brownstone-lined street functioning as a canvass and ‘play’ ground; people sharing stories and board games, stick ball, jump roping, bicycling, fun-food bingeing and other festive happenings including dancing, listening to music and just observing from the stoop perch.

So shutting down the street to traffic, this year, opened up another world for all who attended Cambridge Place’s grand soiree.  People from as faraway as Atlanta and as near as Atlantic Avenue congregated to share where they are, where they have been, what they may still have to go.  And, naturally, what they will do next to keep the links.

The Cambridge events ended at around 8pm.  Break-off celebrations continued inside various homes on the block. Laughter was strong and rich, “good times” lingered well into the night.
A warm after-event at Ms. Brooks’s residence ended at around 5:00am, Sunday morning, as the last guest waved goodbye with a promise to return to Cambridge Place soon.

Very soon.

GREENPRINT for CHANGE
Green Works

Multi-Year New York City GreenWorks Project Launched
Public Conference Event with Exhibitors, Panels, Speakers, to Take Place, Sunday, July 26

The publishers of Our Time Press have engaged in a sustainable work life for many years; we’ve racked up thousands of hours in bike time and speed-walking to and from our offices.  Those basic efforts clearly save money and time, and reduce the carbon footprint.  We learned yesterday that utilizing subway travel to write stories like this saves and generates income – although we’re not exactly sure how that works.

Poised to tell us explain the what, why, where and how every business in the Big Apple can be green is Manhattan District One Councilman Alan J. Gerson, and environmental activists and industry leaders.  They are betting their GreenWorks NYC, a new and innovative multi-year green economy project, will not only explain how green works in New York’s own economy, but it also will connect all the disparate entities to make for green connections and collective consciousness.
“The Green Marketplace is exploding,” said Councilman Gerson at the launch, “but there’s a dynamic missing: information is sporadic and fragmented making it difficult for businesses and our community to be prepared for opportunities when they arise. Currently, information is disseminated through specialized sector-specific networks. No one has created a cross-sector collaborative platform for managing large-scale change and mobilizing actionable intelligence.”
Gerson stood with several leading environmental activists and industry leaders to announce what they consider to be the solution to the “disconnect” and to invite the public to day-long community sustainability strategy and information-sharing sessions to be held this Sunday, July 26 (12:00n – 5:30pm) at the New York Academy of Sciences Conference Center, 7 World Trade Center, 250 Greenwich St., 40th Floor in Manhattan. Tickets: $15. Advance Registration Required for Building Admission.  (Visit: www.GreenWorks NYC.net, or email: GW-RSVP@WeTheWorld.org.  Your advance ticket payment registers you for the event.  Go to www.WeTheWorld.org/greenworkspayments.)
The July 26 event kicks off the multi-year effort to inspire “results-driven collaborations” with respect to designing “new models” from disparate disciplines and different voices.  Event speakers and/or panelists include:  Rick Ulfik of We, the World (Building local-to-global networks of collaboration), George Gosieski of Corenet Global Business Ecosystems (Built Environment), Debra Italiano of GreenWorks NYC (Sustainable Food Systems), Deborah Stern of the 2020 Fund (Sustainable Earth by 2020); Mike Gordon, C-Power (Smart Energy); Whitney Smith (Social Innovation); Mathew Ahrens (Environmental Law and Policy); Scott Beall of Integrated Vision Learning (Education & Green Workforce Development); Ariane Burgess, Regenerative Culture (Regenerative Leadership & Community Systems) and Douglas Cohen of the U.S. Partnership/Education for Sustainability (Leadership & Community Engagement), who made the case eloquently for GreenWorks NYC early yesterday morning on WBAI-FM radio.
Proactive supporters and partners in this GreenWorks effort include: Battery Park City Authority, the Communications Coordination Committee for the United Nations , the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA), Earthventure Capital, LLC and Green Map System.
Year One of the GreenWorks NYC Forums will focus on the following sectors: Green Buildings & Smart, Renewable Energy; Sustainable Food Systems; Capital Markets; Urban Planning & Transportation; Social Innovation; Health & Wellness.  The Sunday event’s overarching objectives include: Convening Solutions Roundtables, Creating a Social Network Map for the emerging Green Business landscape and providing strategies for Education and Green Jobs Development pathways bridging K-12, Higher Education, Industry and Government.
To illustrate and chronicle the development and growth of New York City as a global green marketplace, results from the GreenWorks forums, panels and roundtables will be published on the web and various media, including Our Time Press.   For more information, visit: www.GreenWorksNYC.net.

Shem Walker Funeral is “The Shame of the City” and a Call For Justice
7/23/09

The funeral for Shem Joseph Walker was an emotionally-charged service, as the family was in shock not only from his death, but in the way he died: Shot in front of his home by an undercover police officer who was sitting on Walker’s stoop and whom Walker mistook for a drug dealer and told to leave.
“If he had been sick, I would understand,” said his wife Valory, “But not this.  Not like this, I don’t believe it was time for Shem to go.  I’ve know Shem half my life and we will get justice.” 
Councilwoman Letitia James told the family that in the aftermath of this ongoing tragedy, the funeral “was just a comma, not the end.”  And that she, “Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery and Congressman Ed Towns will continue to pres for justice in this case.”
Assemblyman Jeffries  noted that “A lot of things have been said about what has happened and a lot will be said in the weeks to come.   But one fact should be clear to anyone, even those whose vision may be blurred.  And that’s if the NYPD had not trespassed on the stoop of 370 Lafayette Avenue, Shem Walker would be alive today.”

In his eulogy, Reverend Al Sharpton of the National Action Network spoke movingly about the pain of a parent burying a child and about the familiar responses of the city authorities.   “Every time they have one of these situations, they try to make the victim the victimizer.  And try to dig up some mess. Well they can’t dispute the fact that he came on his front stoop and saw someone who had no business there, and he ended up being killed by someone we’re told was undercover police.”
Sharpton said that if the job of the undercover officer was to remove drug dealers and criminals and he was confronted by a man telling him to get off the stoop because he didn’t tolerate that activity, “then how can you be in conflict with somebody there to enforce what you’re supposed to be undercover for?”
Sharpton said that the police claim there was an argument, but again he asks, “How could they get into an argument?   If you’re there to stop drug dealers and he’s telling you he doesn’t allow drug dealers on his property, why is there an argument?  What could you argue with him about?”
Sharpton noted that the issue of whether or not there were witnesses or if the undercover officer said “police” would only be relevant if the policeman had been harmed.  “Nobody harmed him, he did the harming.  The issue is why did he hurt someone who was on their own property, protecting their mother.”
“The arrogance that we keep hearing as they justify themselves whenever we lose a life,” is not a good enough response any more says Sharpton.  “This is not about black or white.  This was a black cop.  This is about what’s right.  You cannot hide behind your badge or your blackness.  We will not be treated like this in his city.”