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Self-Closing Door Law Failed to Save Bronx Fire Victims

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Self-Closing Door Law Failed to Save Bronx Fire Victims

“This story was originally published on January 10, 2022 by THE CITY.
In 2018, a year after a fire in a residential building killed 12 in his district, then-Bronx City Council member Ritchie Torres co-sponsored a bill mandating that all residential buildings must have self-closing doors by mid-2021.
Now a congressman, Torres announced on Monday a federal, state and local task force to examine residential building fire safety standards — including enforcement of the local law mandating self-closing doors he championed in the Council — after a deadly fire killed 17 people in the Twin Parks tower in Fordham Heights.
“We have to ensure that the housing stock is brought to the 21st century when it comes to fire safety — and The Bronx is no stranger to deadly fire,” said Torres, noting that the borough has seen New York City’s four deadliest blazes in the past 30 years.

We join other media in calling the deceased by their names, in order of age:

Ousmane Konteh, 2

Fatoumata Dukureh, 5

Haouwa Mahamadou, 5

Omar Jambang, 6

Mariam Dukureh, 11

Mustapha Dukureh, 12

Muhammed Drammeh, 12

Seydou Toure, 12

Nyumaaisha Drammeh, 19

Fatoumala Drammeh, 21

Sera Janneh, 27

Isatou Jabbie, 31

Haja Dukureh, 37

Fatoumata Tunkara, 43

Hagi Jawara, 47

Haki Dukureh, 49

Fatoumata Drammeh, 50


A Twin Parks tenant reported as recently as last month that their self-closing entry door did not shut: Tenants in unit 6K submitted a complaint to the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development about their door on Dec. 6.
And another tenant told THE CITY that her apartment had door trouble for years.
“That door has never closed by itself,” Twin Parks tenant Yamina Rodríguez, who lived in unit 12J, said in Spanish. “I’ve lived here since 2004 and I’ve always had to close that door myself.” A spokesperson for the property owner, Bronx Park Phase III Preservation LLC, said they had not received any reports of issues with that door.

Kelly Magee, the spokesperson on behalf of the joint venture that owns the building, said the problem reported Dec. 6 was fixed within 24 hours. The city housing code website reports that inspectors contacted the tenant, who told them the problem was fixed.
On Monday, city officials revised their figure for the number of deaths from 19 to 17, confirming some double-counting initially. But the scope of the catastrophe still made it the worst fire in New York City in three decades, whose victims include eight children dead and another 32 tenants hospitalized.
City fire commissioner Daniel Nigro asserted in a Monday press conference alongside Mayor Eric Adams that the front door in the third-floor apartment where the fire started “malfunctioned” and did not close.
“The door was not obstructed: The door, when it was fully open, stayed fully open because it malfunctioned,” he said, noting that severe smoke inhalation caused the majority of deaths and serious injuries.
Nigro added that another open door, from a stairwell into a corridor, spread the smoke: “the 15th floor became quite untenable.”

In New York City’s deadliest fire in three decades, seventeen people died Sunday – among them eight children – after a malfunctioning electric space heater sparked an inferno in a 19-story Bronx apartment building. All of the fatalities, ranging in age from 2 to 50, were due to smoke inhalation.


Stiffened Penalties
The 2018 city law requiring self-closing doors built on an existing state statute that had a lesser penalty for violations.
It amended the city housing code to require all owners of properties with three or more apartments to install and maintain self-closing doors or add devices to existing doors to accomplish that task for all doors providing access to interior corridors or stairs.
Councilmember Joseph Borelli (R-Staten Island) sponsored the legislation in 2018 following a series of Bronx fatal fires that resulted in 15 deaths and 29 injuries.
Borelli did not respond to several phone calls from THE CITY seeking comment.

Before the new law, a door that failed to close was a Class B “hazardous” violation with minor penalties. The new law ramped up the punishment: owners are now supposed to receive a Class C “immediately hazardous” violation — the most severe — and be required to get up to code within 21 days.
Under the old law, HPD issued 22,000 citations for this violation in the year that ended July 2021, with 18,000 closed as corrected. The department said Monday that following the new law, the checklist for housing inspectors now includes self-closing doors as an item that must be reviewed during inspections.
HPD said at Twin Parks, the most recent self-closing door violations were issued in 2017 and then another in 2019. Both citations were reinspected and observed to be corrected by August 2020, they said.
“Self-closing doors are essential to fire safety, which is why HPD proactively checks to ensure compliance at every apartment it inspects, regardless of the initial complaint,” HPD spokesperson Anthony Proia said.
“Yesterday’s fire was a devastating tragedy, and our hearts go out to all the families affected by the worst kind of loss. We urge residents to report malfunctioning doors to property owners or call 311 if issues are not corrected and HPD will respond.”


Asked about the law he co-sponsored, Torres said Monday: “The law is only as good as its enforcement. No matter what law we have, we’re gonna have to ensure that we have enough building inspectors and fire inspectors and housing inspectors to hold landlords accountable. We need rigorous code enforcement.”
He added that the task force, which he announced alongside Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and city Councilmembers Oswald Feliz (D-The Bronx) and Pierina Sánchez (D-The Bronx), will also investigate manufacturing standards for electronic space heaters, as well as sprinklers and smoke alarm systems.


Heat Issues
Several longtime tenants who spoke with THE CITY on Sunday and Monday said Twin Parks had persistent heat and fire safety issues for years.
Rodríguez, 52, said she and her daughters often resorted to using space heaters, because the heat in the building was “inconsistent,” she said in Spanish.
And Miguel Henríquez, 67, told THE CITY on Sunday that “no one” at the building “paid attention” to the building’s fire alarms because they rang at all hours of the day.
The state’s Homes & Community Renewal agency has oversight of the building, monitoring whether it’s in compliance with health and safety regulations. On Monday, spokesperson Brian Butry responded by email to THE CITY:
“HCR is currently conducting an internal review of records related to this building. We will make any relevant information public as soon as it is determined to not interfere with the ongoing FDNY investigation. HCR’s immediate focus has been on the health and safety of the residents and helping them find stable housing while they have been displaced.”


On Monday the owners said there were no open violations for problems with self-closing doors, but they acknowledged that on July 27 maintenance staff had to repair the lock on one of the entry doors for the apartment where the fire started, and checked to make sure the self-closing mechanism functioned properly.
The building was built in 1972 under the state’s Mitchell-Lama affordable housing program and was purchased in January 2020 by a joint venture that includes Rick Gropper, a member of Adams’ transition committee, and Andrew Moelis, the son of for-profit affordable housing developer Ron Moelis.
Sprinklers are installed only in the basement compactor room and laundry room, circumstances that are allowed under city housing code because its ceilings and floors are poured concrete and it’s fire doors are sufficient to make the building qualify as “non-combustible,” a spokesperson for the owner said.
The scope of the destruction caused by the fire is extensive. Of the 120 units, HPD has issued vacate orders covering 27 apartments with five inspections pending, building records show.


Gambian and Dominican Communities Devastated
Repercussions from the fire devastated the area’s Gambian and Dominican communities, which many Twin Parks residents hailed from.
Dawda Docka Fadera, a Gambian ambassador in the U.S., said in a press conference alongside Adams on Monday that the majority of the 17 victims had roots in the west African country. A representative for the consulate general of the Dominican Republic was also in attendance.
“Our country is currently in a state of shock,” Fadera said.
A fundraiser set up by the Gambian Youth Organization, a 20-year-old community group headquartered just steps away from Twin Parks, had raised more than half a million dollars in direct aid for the fire victims just 24 hours after the disaster.
Momodou Sawaneh, the organization’s founder, said on Monday afternoon that “100%” of the funds would go directly to the victims: “cash payments, transportation, funeral expenses. The only thing we can guarantee is that the funds are going to go to the people who deserve this.”
Shawaneh added the organization is in contact with Adams and Gibson’s offices, who offered to help distribute the funds.
About 50 families were receiving services from the group, the majority of them from Latin America, he said. He said that only “about 10%” of families who had reached out to the group hailed from Gambia.
At GYO’s modest headquarters on East 181st Street, piles of coats, clothes, foods and water bottles grew faster than volunteers, some of them from the Bronx chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, could stock them. Cars unloading supplies often clogged traffic on the narrow street that afternoon.
“This is not limited to one community, but every community,” he said. “We serve everyone.”
“THE CITY (www.thecity.nyc) is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York,”

COVID Schools Crisis Tests Eric Adams in First Days as Mayor

Editor, Our Time Press
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COVID Schools Crisis Tests Eric Adams in First Days as Mayor

School attendance plunged to 67% on the first day back to classes, as unvaccinated children fill hospital intensive care units.

This story was originally
published by THE CITY

By Katie Honan, Josefa Velasquez and Farah Javed, THE CITY Jan 3, 2022, 8:44pm EST
Facing his first major test as mayor, Eric Adams vowed Monday to keep New York City public schools open despite record-busting city COVID case numbers, even as one-third of children stayed home as classes resumed following holiday break.


“We want to be extremely clear: the safest place for our children is in a school building,” the mayor said at a press conference after visiting Concourse Village elementary school in The Bronx. “And we are going to keep our schools open and ensure that our children are safe in a safe environment.”
While nearly a million children were scheduled to return to public school classrooms, children with COVID infections — almost all of them unvaccinated — are filling up hospital intensive care units, say those who treat them.
The city’s teachers union called for temporary remote learning as New York City fights the latest COVID wave, as the share of positive COVID tests across the five boroughs reached 22% on Monday.
Some parents and teachers called for a “sick out” to protest the lack of a remote school option. Student attendance at city schools on Monday was 67.38%, according to the Department of Education —in contrast to rates that approached 90% this fall.
Data on absences from teachers, administrators, and staff at city schools was not immediately available, according to the DOE.


Students who did show up expressed anxiety.
“I am constantly in fear of getting COVID because of the people around me that aren’t willing to follow the safety precautions correctly,” said Katherine Jiang, 16, and a student at Fort Hamilton HIgh School in Bay Ridge.
She thinks schools should resume remote learning — the online education all students experienced for some or all of last year — as cases continue to rise.
“People are still missing [in-person] learning because they are scared of getting COVID,” she added. “They would rather stay home.”


Test for Teachers
School staff are also facing their own attendance crisis.
On Sunday evening, the principal at P.S. 58 in Carroll Gardens alerted parents that the elementary school would remain closed because of staffing shortages. On Monday evening, they reversed course.
But a similar fate could await other schools, like a Brooklyn elementary where roughly a third of staff called out on Monday, third grade teacher Andrea Castellano told THE CITY.
“My school was almost at that point. We had 20 absences today,” Castellano said, speaking of her school’s teaching and support staff. “There are no subs. On a normal day you might be able to get an [Absent Teacher Reserve] or somebody who could cover the class, but with 20 people out, there’s nobody to do it.”
Teachers combined classes as needed, she said.
As the pandemic enters its third year, “the less the policies have any coherence,” Castellano added. “It’s mind boggling that the decisions are being made by people who are not in the classrooms, who are not in the schools without actual knowledge of how it plays out in reality.”


But Adams, facing the daunting COVID recovery in his first week in office and a surge of record-level infections, said students will remain in school — and pointed to vaccination and the distribution of 1.5 million take-home COVID tests as one way the buildings will remain safe.
Adams appears to have an ally in Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is pledging to keep schools open even as some schools across the state are switching to remote learning because of staff shortages.
In Rochester Monday, Hochul cautioned against remote learning, citing accessibility issues for communities of color that may lack access to high-speed internet and other resources.
“The teachers did the best they could. The parents did the best they could. But we ask too much to try and manage children learning remotely and the disparities among communities across the state,” Hochul said.


‘We’ve Seen 50 Kids’
Vaccination rates among children lag, even following Food and Drug Administration approval of vaccines for children as young as age 5. Just 43% of children 5 to 17 are fully vaccinated in the five boroughs, with 13% partially vaccinated — while nearly 44% of eligible kids remain unvaccinated, according to the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Hospitalizations among unvaccinated school-aged children are rapidly rising, said Dr. James Schneider, the chief of the pediatric critical care unit at the Cohen Children’s Medical Center on the Queens/Nassau County border.
“I’m the chief of the ICU, and I can tell you right now we have the most number of kids that we’ve ever seen in this entire pandemic admitted to the ICU and the hospital, frankly. We’ve seen 50 kids, for example, in the hospital today who have COVID and more than half of my ICU is positive for COVID right now, which is just unheard of,” Schneider told THE CITY.


While some of those kids come in for other reasons and happen to test positive for COVID in the hospital, for many other young patients the virus itself “is contributing to their illness,” he said.
The rates are a “dramatic change” from mid-November when maybe one or two kids with COVID would be treated at the hospital, Schneider added. The vast majority of the hospitalized children — some as young as a few weeks old — are unvaccinated and have illnesses that span from fevers and respiratory issues like pneumonia, to neurological conditions, Schneider said.
“If your child is vaccinated, the risk of a severe infection is exceptionally low. The vaccine is especially safe and, now we know, effective. And not being vaccinated still puts your child at a higher risk of developing a severe infection — and we’re seeing it every day,” he added.
‘Safe by Design’
David Banks, the new schools chancellor, outlined health and safety protocols in an email sent out to schools across the city.
Any student who shows COVID symptoms or may have been exposed will receive at-home tests. Anyone who may have been exposed to a positive case can continue to attend school if they don’t have any symptoms and test negative, according to the Department of Education.


Students who test positive for COVID must isolate for 10 days following the first positive result.
In The Bronx Monday morning, Adams and Banks also discussed a new “command center” for principals and district leaders to address any issues, although it’s unclear how this differs from the current “situation room” which tracks positive cases in schools.


Banks said that “schools are safe by design” based on mandatory health screenings and testing.
“They have to pass a health screening, that building has fully functioning ventilation, universal mask usage, and every adult is vaccinated,” he said Monday. “These measures make schools the safest environments for young people to be in.”
In an interview on NY1 Monday night, Banks said that “over 98%” of students previously ordered to quarantine never got sick or tested positive.
But some students said the mandatory health screenings didn’t do much to make them feel safe.
“It’s useless and I feel my safety is in danger,” said Yin Yan Lui, another 16-year-old student at Fort Hamilton High School. “I don’t know how to protect myself from other people who got it. I would want school to close down because it’s really dangerous and scary.”


Antonio Zuccardi, a 17-year-old senior at James Madison High School in Midwood, Brooklyn, said he’s trying to make it out of the latest COVID wave without getting sick.
“I feel safe about it even though it’s rising but I haven’t gotten positive yet,” he said. “I hope to stay that way, but if there are cases I will take precaution and keep my distance.”

Unvaccinated, in Class
In lower-income neighborhoods like the one Castellano teaches in, a shortage of testing sites, underlying health conditions, low vaccination rates and racial demographics means students and their families are at increased risk of getting sick.
“People in power should be thinking about those dynamics [and] how equitable they are across the city,” she said. “This is an equity issue. It’s not the same for everybody.”
“It’s a giant experiment with children being the main pawns for this. They’re mostly unvaccinated and most vulnerable and they’re doing the least to protect them,” Castellano said.
Teachers at Castellano’s school have also had to largely pause their planned lessons for the past few weeks due to poor student attendance spurred by the influx of new cases.
While fewer than half of her students showed up to school Monday, in other classrooms you “could count some of the class numbers on one hand,” forcing teachers to press pause on their instruction until more students show up.
“It’s a huge disruption.”
Adams pushed back firmly on such concerns.
“I know there’s questions about staffing, I know there’s questions about testing,” Adams said. “There’s a lot of questions. But we’re going to turn those question marks into an exclamation point — we’re staying open.”


“THE CITY (www.thecity.nyc) is an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York,”

TV & Film Producer, Lloyd Weaver Passes, 83

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TV & Film Producer, Lloyd Weaver Passes, 83

Breaking the sad news of the demise of MD, The Serengeti Network Limited, one of his colleagues, Remi Ogunpitan, had this to say: “Olalekan Babalola just sent the information that Baba Lloyd Weaver has passed on to return his ancestors. The news was a sad one. I learnt so much from this creative loving and gentle soul who gave so much to the Nigerian creative Industry. He arrived in Nigeria as part of the Jakaranda American team to train producers at NTA. Thereafter, himself, Tony Cunningham and Earnest Dunkley formed an independent TV and Film production company CDW who went on to produce some of the most iconic Nigerian TV commercials for some of Nigerias top advertising agencies in the 80′ and 90’s.
“They later formed Swift Studios, where I was the Executive Producer, working with other Nigerians such as Patrick Afun , Pat Nebo , Olumide Ofere and many others. I learnt so much from him and he remained a mentor until his death.
“Lloyd loved Nigeria and its people. He emersed himself in our culture and his African roots, and was unashamedly proud of his Africaness and blackness. He was a great educator and shared all his knowledge with everyone he came into contact with.
“He has left behind a great legacy and example for many of us who knew him. He will be missed.
“Rest in peace Papi! You were a giant and will ever remain so.”
Writing about himself on LinkedIn, he said, “Lloyd Weaver is an African American TV and film producer, director and journalist whose career includes 15 years in the United States followed by 32 years in Nigeria. Lloyd is the Managing Director of The Serengeti Network Limited, a full service film and television production company in Lagos.

Lloyd majored in Journalism and theatre at Kent State University from 1963 until 1966 when he left school to become active in the civil rights/Black empowerment movement. He later became Managing Editor of The New York Voice and Contributing Editor to New York Magazine before joining CBS News in 1968 to produce news and documentaries, including a 105 part series on African and African American history for WCBS-TV. In In 1973-74 He spent one year on a Graduate Fellowship at Columbia University studying Filmmaking and African Affairs. At various times Lloyd worked on The CBS Evening News, 60 Minutes, Sunday Morning, The Morning News, and CBS News Special Events, etc. At a point Lloyd became a part time instructor in TV journalism and filmmaking at the New York Institute of Technology.
In 1982-84 Lloyd traveled to Nigeria to train the staff at Nigeria’s television network.
In 1987 Lloyd founded Swift Studios and produced/directed/wrote over 400 TV commercials and dozens of corporate and news documentaries and feature films. A committed “media activist” promoting film and television for social change Lloyd’s work includes the UNFPA and CIDA sponsored intended outcomes TV drama series I Need To Know, MNET sponsored dramatic films Twins of The Rain Forest and A Place Called Home and other independent theatrical feature films Including The Omen of Love. He was also the Managing Director of The Serengeti Network Limited, a full-service film and television production company in Lagos.
As its major project Serengeti hopes to produce a motion picture which will dramatize Nigeria’s 150 years struggle for independence.

Long time Bed-Stuy Pastor dead at 91

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Long time Bed-Stuy Pastor dead at 91

The December 25, 2021 passing of longtime Bedford Stuyvesant’s Catholic priest–Father Martin Carter, a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement, at age 91 shocked many.


Born in 1930 in rural North Carolina during the Great Depression and starting in 1950 he spent twenty five years traveling thru out the United States in search of a Catholic Diocese who would ordain him as a Catholic Priest. He was finally ordained a Priest in 1975 and served in various posts. In 1995 he was assigned to Our Lady of Victory (OLV) Catholic Parish in 1995 becoming the first Black Catholic Priest in Bed-Stuy. In the beginning it wasn’t easy; Our Lady of Victory Parish was then (and now) an overwhelming congregation of Caribbean people who openly assailed Rev Carter’s open calls for Church Members to be Black and Catholic. Many were in open revolt to Rev Carter’s decision to take brown paint to the statute of the Virgin Mary’s white face.


Rev Carter told Members that just because OLV has a Black congregation didn’t make it a Black Church, an issue that remains true even today.  Many were shocked when he openly sermonized racial issues occurring in Brooklyn and beyond. Then and now the Catholic Church had no demonstrable history of openly confronting racial issues affecting Black people; Rev Carter pushed the Catholic Church Leadership to give more Blacks positions of leadership in the Church. Today, the Brooklyn Catholic Diocese includes Brooklyn and Queens and has 218 local Parishes and about 90 of them are predominantly Black yet fewer than a dozen parishes have Black pastors. Rev. Carter was a leader among leaders. He is survived by his twin brother Gilbert who still resides in High Point North Carolina.


The WAKE and FUNERAL information is as follows: the Wake is scheduled for Friday January 7, 2022 from 10am to noon and the Funeral is set for noon and will be presided over by Brooklyn Catholic Diocese Bishop Robert Brennan. Both will be at Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church located at 583 Throop Avenue in Brooklyn NY.

What’s Going On 1/6

Victoria Horsford
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HAPPY 2022: HOPES AND WOES
It’s a new year with lots of residue from the 2020-2021 pandemic era. A new year always augurs hope and the best of all human potential and possibilities. New Year’s always arrives in winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Already, there is extreme cold weather in most states. Perhaps, BUILD BACK BETTER, will see the light of day with congressional nods in both chambers. Perhaps, a voting rights bill will get consensus. It is the one hope for a sustainable democracy. Perhaps, the runaway variant will force more people to get vaccinated. Perhaps, Democrats coming up with counter offensives to forever ban Democratic victories in Republican dominated states. Perhaps, people will get the message about climate change and planetary survival. New Yorkers are in a good place with its new energetic mayor Eric Adams.

Omicron, the latest coronavirus variant is a monster and scarily contagious. Its impact on society is mutating. It affects the economy and the national health in ways large and small. Schools, airlines, first responders are all vulnerable to Omicron. It is a perilous evil when it inhabits anti vaxxers. The coronavirus is incomprehensible. We must re-examine old protocols, social distancing and masks plus the full vaccine, the booster and the annual flu jabs. Extreme cold weather with heavy snow blanketing a large swath of the country now signals that winter 2022 is not going to be easy.

NEW YORK, NY
Looking at the NYC/NYS Black political power elite, it is more the exception than the rule in America. The list is long and the titles are impressive like NYS Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin, NYS Attorney General Letitia James, NYS Senate Leader Andrea Cousins-Stewart, NYS Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. Downstate elites include NYC Mayor Eric Adams, NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams; Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg; NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams; and Boro Prexies, Donovan Richards, Queens; Vanessa Gibson, Bronx. List would be incomplete without a reference to Attorney Damian Williams, who heads the U.S. Southern District of NY, a storied office which has never had a Black at the helm in its 232-year history.

Eric Adams was sworn in as the 110th Mayor of NYC at Times Square on January 1. A sea change in NYC officialdom is imminent. Mayor Adams, got off to a challenging first day, riding to work on the NY train, witnessing an act of violence from the elevated platform, visiting a NYPD officer who was shot in the head while sleeping between a second shift.

While writing an open critical letter to Hizzoner for WGO on January 4, he calls a press conference to announce his SMALL BUSINESS FORWARD executive order to reform existing business regulations to ease the burden of needless fines and penalties for local businesses. It is a godsend! Order pertains to fines issued by NYC Department of Buildings, Department of Environmental Protection, Department of Sanitation, and the Fire Department. Hizzoner has astute managers. Yes, already the sea is undergoing a welcome change!

There are vacancies at other mega NYC agencies worthy of executive search attention like the NYC Finance Commissioner, the HPD Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner, and the Chair of NYCHA, the NYC Housing Authority. Other Deputy Mayors are still to be named such as Public Safety. NYS Governor Kathy Hochul named a Public Safety Commissioner on January 4.

BUSINESS OPS
The New York Urban League’s Small Business Solutions Center is the recipient of a $250,000 grant from Valor Equity Partners to serve the critical needs of NYC Black entrepreneurs who have been negatively impacted by the protracted effects of COVID19. Grant is targeted to 25 Black-owned businesses and will provide support in Marketing, Finance, Technology, Human Resources and Business Management. NYUL will partner with the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation and the Harlem Community Development Corporation in this endeavor. Visit nyul.org/post/small-business-solutions.

Harlem Business Alliance alert. The CITIZENSNYC is offering grants up to $10,000 to fill gaps in funding by prioritizing businesses-owned by people of color, immigrants, and women during the COVID recovery period. This is a business continuity fund. Proposals that focus on physical and human infrastructure will be prioritized (tech system upgrades, location alterations, hiring support, marketing, training). Grants are available for barbershops, restaurants, food carts, ecommerce and other small businesses. Do you qualify? Visit citizensnyc.org.

CULTURE TALK
HAITI HISTORY: On January 1, 2022 the people of Haiti celebrated their 218th declaration of independence from France CONCURRENT WITH their emancipation from slavery, the aftermath of the Haitian revolution which began in 1791. Revolution was the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the New World.

THEATER: The Bond Arts Center presents a revival of the Laurence Holder play, SUGAR RAY, about middleweight and welterweight division boxing legend Sugar Ray Robinson, starring Reginald Wilson at the Gene Frankel Theatre from January 6 to 23. Theater is located at 24 Bond Street, in the East Village, Manhattan. Call 917.844.7567. SUGAR RAY opened to rave reviews at a Harlem supper club in 2016, at same venue where Sugar Ray had his businesses in the 50s/60s.

NEWSMAKERS
RIP: Max Julien, 88 died in Los Angeles, California, on his birthday January 1. Producer, actor, screenwriter, Julien was a film industry denizen. He starred in 1973 Black film classic THE MACK. He produced and costarred in THOMASINE & BUSHROD. He wrote the screenplay for CLEOPATRA JONES about a Black woman with a dual life, as a model as a special government agent in the war on drugs, domestically and internationally.

RIP: Entrepreneur Ernesta Procope, 98, died on November 30, at her home in Queens, NY. Procope founded E.G. Bowman insurance agency in 1953. After the 60s riots and protests, insurers were reluctant to provide coverage in minority neighborhoods. Procope got Governor Rockefeller to cancel redlining so that her clients could avoid insurance cancellations. The outcome was the NY Fair Plan, which was duplicated in 26 states. E.G. Bowman has morphed into the largest Black owned insurance brokerage in the nation. She earned her First Lady of Wall Street bona fides as the first Black woman to relocate her business to Wall Street, the Boulevard of American finance. Ernesta Foster was born in 1923, the only daughter of parents from Barbados. Ernesta was married to E.G Bowman, then to John Procope, former NY Amsterdam Publisher.

A Harlem-based management consultant, Victoria can be reached at victoria.horsford@gmail.com

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