The NY State Summer Stage in Harlem returns this year every Thursday through August 25 at the NYS Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building, located at the 163 West 125th Street Plaza. Its August calendar: August 4–the African Culture Night, August 11–R&B Night, August 18–African Cuban Night, August 25–Gospel Night with Hezekiah Walker and other notables like Juda Camp, Rev. Kenney and Sheena Lee. [Visit summerstageinharlem.org]
Harlem is Hot in August – Saluting HARLEM WEEK and Harlem/Havana
By Lloyd Williams – President, The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce
As the great poet Langston Hughes once said, “As goes Harlem, so goes Black America”. With that in mind, it is important that we play close attention to the fact that the venerable Charles Rangel will, at the end of this year, be leaving office after 46 years of historic service to his congressional district.
Rangel, amongst other things, is the creator of the Empowerment Zone legislation, was one of the strongest voices calling for the abolishment of apartheid in South Africa, and author of the U.S. Caribbean Basin Development bill.
He has been a strong advocate for bridging the “digital divide” between mainstream America and urban communities of color, and the lead voice advocating for the relaxing of restrictions in travel to and business development in Cuba.
Rangel was also one of the original founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which has now grown to include 1 U.S. Senator, 43 Congress members and 2 nonvoting congressional delegates.
Following Rangel’s announcement of his retirement at the end of 2016, there was a congressional primary in the 13th Congressional District on June 28th of this year. Rangel’s announced, preferred and chosen successor, state Assemblyman Keith L.T. Wright, was narrowly defeated in the primary election by state Senator Adriano Espaillat. Therefore, it is inevitable that beginning in 2017, Harlem, for the first time in its history, will not have an African-American Congressman.
Harlem’s first Congressman, Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was elected in 1945 and he served through 1971 when he was replaced by Mr. Rangel, who has served as Harlem’s second Congressman ever since.
Now the 13th Congressional District must come together to work with Espaillat – who is virtually assured to be elected to replace Rangel in the November elections – to make sure that the traditional and historic unity of Harlem, between its Hispanic, Caribbean and African-American residents, as well as with the new and growing white and Asian electorate, come together to keep Harlem’s historic legacy of unity alive and well.
Harlem/Havana 2016-2017 is Congressman Rangel’s last major initiative. The first annual Harlem/Havana Music & Cultural Festival will kick off in August of this year. It is a visual, performing arts, fashion, education and culinary exchange celebrating the rich artistic connection between two iconic, world-renowned cities – Harlem, New York and Havana, Cuba.
Harlem/Havana Music & Cultural Festival will bring world-renowned Cuban musicians, visual artists, dancers and chefs to the U.S. this summer as part of HARLEM WEEK activities on August 15-21. In February 2017, during Black History Month, a Harlem, NY delegation of artistic, cultural, religious and educational leaders will travel to Havana and take part in a number of curated events.
Plans for this unprecedented cultural exchange have been in development for over two years, with efforts led by Congressman Rangel and The Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY 5), the Congressional Black Caucus and the Cuban Ministry of Culture.
We are pleased that this international initiative has now been embraced by President Barack Obama, NY State Gov. Andrew Cuomo, NY City Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYC & Company, and I Love NY. You will be hearing a lot more about Harlem/Havana in the upcoming weeks and months.
For information, please visit harlemhavana.nyc, or call (212) 862-7200 and ask for Ms. Ricketts, Vice President.
HARLEM WEEK – “A Great Day in Harlem”
An annual event celebrating Harlem’s community, its music and cultural legacy, honored R&B legend Eddie Levert of the O’Jays and gospel great Donnie McClurkin.
By Jennifer Cunningham
The rain didn’t stop thousands from attending “A Great Day in Harlem”, an afternoon of music, food and fun, July 31st at the U.S. Grant National Memorial Park on Harlem’s far west side. The annual event, which is the first big event of the HARLEM WEEK calendar, brought education and entertainment to the scores of attendees, like Harlem native Sheila Davis, who said the event was a highlight on her calendar. “I’m a Harlemite, and I come every year to celebrate my community,” the social worker said. “It’s good to see everyone and I love the culture experience.”
Singers, gospel choirs, dancers and DJs took to the stage throughout the all-day concert, while outside, vendors hawked plates of fried chicken and curry shrimp, Mount Sinai Hospital offered free blood pressure screenings in their mobile health van and NYC & Co. – New York’s tourism agency – handed out maps to passersby.
Attendees, including Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, sat out on the lawn at Grant’s Tomb for an afternoon of entertainment and education. MetroPlus – which is a third-year sponsor of HARLEM WEEK–was on hand to teach people about their eligibility for health insurance in New York, which is now mandatory. “Our push is to do as much community engagement as possible,” said Justin Allen, MetroPlus’s assistant director of marketing for northern Manhattan. “We make sure everybody has adequate insurance…it’s necessary, but a lot of people don’t know that there’s a penalty for not having health insurance.”
Concert-goers also stopped by the Family Technology Pavilion across the street in Sakura Park, where Central Park North Orthodontics – another HARLEM WEEK vendor – handed out toothbrushes and raffled a laptop computer as part of its back-to-school giveaway. “Every year, we always do a back-to-school raffle,” Sara Doyle, the office manager for Central Park North Orthodontics said. “We’re also letting people know about our services, which it braces for children and aligns with adults.”
The event honored iconic artists who have touched the lives of many in Harlem over the years.
J. Daughtry, from the cast of Broadway’s “The Color Purple”, sang a musical tribute to Donnie McClurkin, belting out the gospel singer’s songs: “I Call You Faithful”, “Holy” and “Nobody Like The Lord”. Ray Chew, who heads the Apollo Theater’s house band, later led a tribute to Levert as part of “A Concert Under The Stars”. Pat Stevenson, publisher of Harlem Community Newspapers, Inc. and president of New York Black Media, Inc. said, “We are here today handing out our publications (Harlem Community News, Brooklyn Community News, Bronx Community News and Queens Community News), as well as newspapers of fellow publishers of the NY Beacon, NY Carib News, Our Time Press and Westchester County Press. Attendees were happy to be able to get copies of all the black-owned papers. And on behalf of the publications included as part of New York Black Media, Inc., I want to say that we are proud to be covering all of the HARLEM WEEK events and we thank our partners, The City College, The Color Purple Musical, Manna’s Restaurant, NJPAC, Infrastructure Engineering, MTA, Emmis Broadcasting, the NYC Police Department, Applebee’s, Carver Bank, Central Park Orthodontics, NY Road Runners, 100 Black Men, Apple Bank, Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, Manhattan Borough President Gale A. Brewer, HCDC, MetroPlus, City National Bank, McDonald’s, the Apollo Theater, NYC & Co., and the Greater Harlem Chamber of Commerce”.
Photos by Michelle James
NYC Health Department’s Water Lead Testing in Progress
By Akosua K. Albritton
In the wake of the NYC Comptroller’s Office’s June 24, 2016 audit that uncovered the Health Department’s Bureau of Child Care (BCC) flouted the permit application requirement to submit water lead testing results, the Health Department assured the public in the same week of the audit’s release that all 2,279 center-based group day care (GDC) programs operating throughout the five boroughs would have true information about their water lead testing in the CCATS system for July 2016. The Our Time Press article, NYC Dept. of Health Flouting Its Own Lead Test Requirements, described the NYC Comptroller audit department’s procedure of selecting for review 119 permit applications from group day care centers in the five boroughs that were submitted between August 29, 2012 and August 29, 2014.
On July 20, 2016, the BCC’s Child Care Connect website was visited to review data for GDCs in “Bedford-Stuyvesant”. Without specifying zip codes, Child Care Connect provided 34 records located in the 11216 zip code which covers parts of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Northern Crown Heights. Data on 15 of 34 GDCs were studied.
Our Time Press readership can benefit from this data; therefore, the results are below:
Bambi Day Care Center, 138 Hancock Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-230-3487
Inspected 9/18/15, passed initial annual inspection. Water lead test completed; no elevated lead levels in water.
Bedford-Stuyvesant Early Childhood Development Center, 262 Lexington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-453-0760
Inspected 4/15/16, passed initial annual inspection. Water lead test completed; no elevated lead levels in water.
CAMBA Elite Summer Camp, 50 Jefferson Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 347-598-1448
Inspected 8/19/15, passed inspection with no violations. No statement about water lead test.
ConstructionKids, Inc. Summer Camp, 40 Brevoort Place, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-522-2902
No inspection date given, no statement about water lead test.
Dr. C.R. Johnson Christian Day Care, 600 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-732-1531
Inspected 7/6/16, passed initial annual inspection. Water lead test completed; no elevated lead levels in water.
Little Sun People, Inc., 1360 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-789-7330
Inspected 4/8/16, passed with no violations, monitoring inspection non-routine.
Water lead test completed; no elevated lead levels in water.
MOVE, Inc., 141 Macon Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 917-600-9632
Inspected 7/31/15, monitoring nonroutine, re-inspection is required. The violations requiring immediate correction were corrected. No statement on water lead test.
Reach for the Stars Academy, Inc., 1200 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718 773-4600
Inspected 7/8/16, reinspection required, fines pending. Water lead test completed; no elevated lead levels in water.
The Salvation Army Bedford Day Care Center, 110 Kosciuszko Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-552-2690
Inspected 7/12/16, previously cited violations were corrected. Water lead test completed; no elevated lead levels in water.
Stuyvesant Heights Christian Church, 69 MacDonough Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-783-5383
Inspected 2/4/16, reinspection required, violations corrected. Water lead test completed; elevated levels of lead found in water.
St. George Day Camp, 800 Marcy Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-789-6036
Inspected 7/15/16, passed initial annual inspection. No statement on water lead testing.
Woodwind Your Family Camp, 344 Monroe Street, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-783-0842
Inspected 8/12/15, previously cited violations corrected. No statement on water lead testing.
Wynn Center Day Camp, 495 Gates Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 718-230-8477
Inspected 6/10/16, no comment on inspection results. No statement on water lead testing.
YMCA Bedford Academy, 1119 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11216; 212-912-2284
No inspection found. No statement on water lead testing.
This small sample of 15 GDCs reveals six have not tested the drinking water for lead. Two GDCs had not been inspected by BCC, two others require re-inspection and one GDC has no comment on the inspection results. In zip code 11207, which covers parts of East New York, for one GDC no inspection is noted and for another one, neither an inspection date or permit number is given. These findings support NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer’s statement: “It should not take an audit to ensure that a city agency is doing its job to protect our kids.”
Parents and guardians of preschool-age children are urged to visit the Child Care Connect web page within the NYC DOH website to know whether the GDCs their children attend have permits, the drinking water has been tested for lead and the other nine points required for permit issuance are in order.
56th Assembly District Race: Wright, Cherry Weigh In On Education Issues
By Kings County News Service
Democrats Tremaine Wright and Karen Cherry are both fighting to win the seat left vacant by retiring Assemblywoman Annette Robinson in the 56th District covering Bedford-Stuyvesant and Northern Crown Heights. They will face off in the Democratic Primary on September 13.
Wright, who has the endorsement of both Robinson and the powerful Vanguard Independent Democratic Association (VIDA) political club, for which she serves as its vice president, is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Chicago Law School. She is also a former business owner of the coffee shop Common Grounds on Tompkins Avenue, and the current chair of Community Board 3.
Cherry has a long and distinguished career as a public servant working for former Congressman Ed Towns and currently for Assemblyman Erik Dilan. A product of public housing, Cherry is popular in the northern end of the district and connects well with the working-class and low-income residents in the district.
KCNS put the following question to both candidates:
Bedford-Stuyvesant has some of the most at-risk schools such as Boys & Girls High School, and some of the better public schools such as Bedford Academy in the city. It also has both excellent charter schools and regular public schools, as well as several underperforming public schools. As state lawmakers, you will constantly be thrown into the tug-of-war between funding for the state versus regular public schools, including such issues as co-locations and sighting of additional charter schools.
Where do you stand on this issue of charter school funding, co-locations and parental choice for where parents send their kids to school and why?
Cherry: As a state lawmaker, my stance on charter school funding, co-locations and parental choice are as follows:
Parents should have the choice of where they would like to send their children. I have a personal relationship/experience with this issue. My son suffered with dyslexia and I was able to send him to a school that was specific to his needs. He excelled at this school and was able to transition back into the public school system. The public school system was able to facilitate and shadow him through this transition with special programs.
I am totally against the current structure of funding charter schools and co-locations and this is based on administration assessments. The assessments show that one school in the same location could have high technology to provide their students; however, the second school in the same building does not have this technology. How do we explain that to the friends living on the same block going to the same school building each day but one has this educational advantage and the other does not?
The state needs to step in and close this divide and provide adequate funding for shared school locations. Low-performing schools should not be shut down. State funds should be administered to assist in increasing performance in failing schools.
Wright: I support quality education for all students. I am a firm supporter of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. I commit to fighting for the full and complete funding of all of our public schools, charter and traditional district schools. To that end, I believe we must create a school funding system that addresses and acknowledges all streams of money provided to schools and adjust accordingly. Schools must be provided with equitable funding and resources must be distributed fairly and evenly for all children.
Our experience with co-locations, especially in one of our school districts, has generally been contentious. And as a result, those co-locations have failed to provide healthy learning environments. Of course, there are outliers, where the co-located institutions have successfully coexisted, but it unfortunately has not been the norm. Therefore, if the city decides to continue to utilize our schools in this manner, they must commit to setting and enforcing standards for how shared resources are administered for each building.
Our children deserve access to an outstanding education and we should create a fully funded school system which provides options for families and is capable of meeting the needs of our diverse student body.