At the tender age of 76, Brooklyn resident Sam Lafata has dealt with more than 3 major health battles including hairy cell leukemia, a heart attack, bladder and prostate cancer, but manages to find within him, the excitement to attend the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation 10K run.
The 10K run gathers runners and walkers of all ages and fitness abilities to the tristate area, exposing them to the rich culture and energy of Bedford-Stuyvesant.
“Running is vital in helping me cope,” he said. “It’s my outlet and I’m excited to be able, in some cases, raise [awareness] for cancer research.”
The 35-year-old race is one of the oldest in Brooklyn and holds great popularity in New York City’s marathons. The top male and female winners of the race are awarded the Robert E. Thomas Memorial Reward amounting in $150, $250 and $500.
Lafata claims he was never the athletic type, but started running while living in Boston a few decades ago. Sunday will mark his second time running the race in the last two years.
“Since then, I’ve been running 35-45 races a year,” he said. “As I’ve faced health challenges, running has been even more important to me in staying focused on my goals and continuing to move forward.”
Besides Lafata, there are many other repeat running enthusiasts along with first-timers.
Former Bed-Stuy resident Katherine Yang, 34, is excited about participating in this year’s race. Yang, who spent most of her childhood days running, picked up the hobby again in 2009. Yang explained that she doesn’t train vigorously before running the marathon. She incorporates 4-5 runs in her weekly routine, loosely following online posts from her running group, the Dashing Whippets.
Yang claims that her preparation for long races such as the 10K include spaghetti and a glass of wine the evening before. She uses capoeira exercises to help her develop upper body strength and her bottom half. “A runner can have really weak glute muscles. Weaknesses in that area often lead to injuries that runners are prone to while training”, she said.
Yang isn’t the only one amped about the 10K run.
Fired up, the exercise class of more than 75 people, both young and old, jogged in place and joined fitness instructor Nakisha Ross in high-energy routines, sweating and burning through fitness limits at the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Plaza on Fulton Street in Brooklyn. The class, which meets every Monday and Wednesday, is a part of the free fitness program offered by Restoration and sponsored by EmblemHealth. Many of the class’ participants are preparing this week for the 10K run scheduled to be held on October 11th at 10 a.m.
As they stretched and jolted intense aerobic moves for 30 minutes (nonstop) to the spiritual R&B classics, they displayed great emotion of excitement and diligence.
Yolunda Silva-Frett
43-year-old Corrections Officer Yolunda Silva-Frett, is also planning to race. The vegetarian gym-goer who took advantage of the free aerobic workout session, says that aerobic skating, daily biking of 3.5 miles, power walking and jogging keep her ready for the race.
“I attend an exercise class at Brooklyn Bridge Park every Tuesday,” she said. “And only 2 other people show up.”
The highly anticipated community event also features a 5K Walk, 5K bike ride and a Kid’s Run engaging the whole family and promoting health and wellness to all ends of the spectrum.
For more information about the race, visit www.nycruns.com.
There is time to register; there will be on-site registrations the morning of the race starting at 8 am. Otherwise, come out and cheer others and be inspired.
(Writer Richard Estime is a Senior at Medgar Evers College, CUNY)
By Bernice Elizabeth Green
From September 21-28, New York will be home to folks from around the world in business, government and society talking about the earth, global warming and climate change at numerous venues, from the United Nations to churches and schools.
And, yes, this Seventh Annual Climate Week NYC does have something to do with you, your child’s future and, for that matter, all the tea in China.
Among other events and activities, a United Nations Summit to adopt a post-2015 agenda centered on establishing a low-carbon economy will happen on September 25 – 27. It is being convened as a high-level plenary of the General Assembly. During which world leaders will commit to 17 Global Goals “to achieve three extraordinary things in the next 15 years.” Ending extreme poverty. Fighting inequality and injustice and fixing climate change.
There’s a great push to get the word of this effort to everyone. Climate Week officials admit that “If the goals are going to work, everyone needs to know about them. You can’t fight for your rights if you don’t know what they are. You can’t convince world leaders to do what needs to be done if you don’t know what you’re convincing them to do. If the goals are famous, they won’t be forgotten”.
President Barack Obama sent the message through the media during his recent trip to Alaska. Photographs of the president on a boat treading waters at the top of North America – where no other chief executive has tread–revealed vanishing ecosystems. In renaming the highest mountain to its traditional Alaskan tribal given name, Denali, his action also signaled the importance of respecting vanishing cultures.
Some media denounced Obama and also, most recently, former California Governor Jerry Brown’s efforts as politics-influenced grandstanding. Some major oil companies feel threatened by the ongoing publicity around it.
However, the president’s three-day journey to Alaska and the Arctic Circle reached billions of people in a way that no other man-programmed action could. Massive advertising and lobbying campaigns failed to derail his attempts to expand the knowledge of sustainability beyond the acts of recycling and selecting fruit and vegetables labeled organic (although all of these efficiencies help sustain healthy life and healthy lifestyle).
His journey revealed how “climate-related vulnerabilities” effect food security, water quality and access, human habitats, infrastructure resiliency, heat extremes in summer and cold extremes in winter (and vice versa); human health risks and air pollution, i.e., allergies and more. It also spotlighted a troubling fact: due to global warming, temperatures have increased in the region over the last 50 years at twice the rate of the lower 28 states, and they are rising.
Though it may appear that none of it has anything to do with all the tea in China or trying to make a living or anything as remote as a Back to School “To Do” list, it really does.
Beyond the language of everybody participating in “building a strong, sustainable economy” centered around “green living”, comes some hard questions related to where the jobs of the future will be, who will develop the innovations for a sustainable society, who will power it and who will prosper from it.
We must be part of — and engaged in — the discussion of global warming and climate change science to implement solutions for this changing climate which brings intense heat waves, more pollutants in the air and more diseases. The success of public health efforts globally will depend directly on the action the world takes to combat climate change, according to a new report published in the medical journal The Lancet.
By the year 2100, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, “such action would avoid 12,000 annual deaths from extreme temperatures in 49 U.S. cities, and 57,000 fewer deaths from poor air quality”.
The EPA report estimates that by the end of the century these efforts would have saved billions in needed bridge repairs, adapting the nation’s roadways and avoided damage to coastal areas from sea level rise and storm surge.
This December, a meeting in Paris of international negotiators will try to work out an agreement to take action in limiting future warming.
Obama’s trip revealed that “taking global action” starts locally — and personally, beyond board rooms and gatherings but within ourselves: what we do at home, how and what we teach our children. So we have some thoughts and suggestions on this:
At every grade – and at home — our children should be talking, studying and/or reading about Earth Science. We can teach children how earth systems work, how they evolved and are evolving, and the impact of humans on this evolution and the environment by relating these subjects to what is happening in the world today. Reports of droughts, constant wildfires, rises in sea levels, beached whales and human migration patterns make “for real” – though admittedly scary — Reality TV.
Consider this: interest in the tragedy of a 14-year-old boy who passed away after coming into contact with a rare amoeba while swimming in a lake led to us taking a trip to the Science Museum. “Microbes” now are a curiosity to a six-year-old.
The backyard of a residence or the tree-filled front yard of a NYCHA building are learning centers in geoscience related to this planet Earth. Prospect Park, the Botanical Gardens, Brooklyn Bridge Park and the Brooklyn Bridge itself are laboratories for observing fauna and flora.
Historically, African-Americans stand at the crux of these teachings. Hattie Carthan was Brooklyn’s pioneer environmentalist; Garland Baltimore, the first Black graduate of Troy’s RPI, designed parks; and the works of scientist/botanist George Washington Carver are known throughout the world.
Scratch the surface of your ancestry and you may find what this writer was told: that my own grandfather nurtured one of the world’s largest Tung Trees in southwest Georgia, a perennial studied by scientists from afar.
Even the use of Earth Science words — atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere may foster interest in the tools earth scientists use: physics, chemistry, biology, chronology and mathematics.
Expanding the conversation with children to include Climate Change, geoliteracy and the environment can be done in a number of ways. The effects of hot and cold air on the flight of a basketball to a hoop are of interest to an 11-year-old, whose only career interest formerly was in becoming “a major basketball star”.
During the fall, Our Time Press will continue informing our readers of local S.T.E.M. programs that are developing other stars.
Read More About It
In relation to teaching Geoliteracy and to President Obama’s trip to Alaska and The Arctic Circle, you may want to introduce your child to Lee & Low’s “Vanishing Cultures” book series by Jan Reynolds. Lee & Low Books is the largest multicultural children’s book publisher in the United States. www.leeandlow.com
Also visit: http://blog.leeandlow.com/2014/04/15/where-in-the-world-how-one-class-used-google-maps-to-explore-the-vanishing-cultures-series/
A hotel “room” at $25 per night sounds like a great deal, but not if you’re sharing space with about 30 people. And that’s exactly what the Buildings Department and New York City law officials determined after a follow-up to a complaint about a rogue hostelry at 446 Kosciuszko Street in Brooklyn.
Our Time Press received the call as the closure was happening on Friday morning from concerned residents in the area. They reported on “tourists from Europe” folding out of the three-story brick residence, a legal two-family converted to a “bed-and-breakfast”. The situation at 446 was not your typical B&B, however. “How anyone could bed there, no less eat breakfast or anything at all there, is beyond me,” said homeowner B. Paul, who lives nearby.
According to the Preemptory Vacate order signed on August 28 and affixed to the door, the illegal conversion of the two-family dwelling to an 8-unit hostel with multiple residents threatened the safety of the public and the lives of the occupants. Cited in the violations were no means of egress and no sprinkler system or fire alarms. The tenants were given time to clear out their belongings as the vacate order was explained to them by local law enforcement.
“Frankly, HPD did the right thing,” said Paul. “We don’t need this kind of thing happening in the community. It used to be that hostels were for overnighters, and they were considered safe places. A lot of people are coming in from abroad or outside of the city just to see and experience Brooklyn and New York.
The folks across the street were looking for an inexpensive place to stay while they visited the city. Because of this landlord, they had no place to go.” (Bernice Elizabeth Green)
Gentrification by Design: Quardean Lewis-Allen, founder of Made in Brownsville, is redesigning who will shape the future of — and create new models for — quality of sustainable life in his neighborhood.
Brownsville has Brooklyn’s highest neighborhood rate of unemployment with 29.6% of disconnected youth ages 16-24 who are not working or going to school, according to a report from the social science research council, Measure of America.
Longtime resident Quardean Lewis-Allen, founder and director of Made in Brownsville (madeinbrownsville.org), wants to diminish those numbers and flip the script.
“Brownsville has 20,000 youth within [this] area,” Lewis-Allen said, “they’re not all as jaded about life as most people, and we can’t let them get to the point where they’re not hopeful about their futures.”
He believes young people can be at the forefront of “designing” change in their communities – as artists and architects, creating designs that will change the ongoing narrative of chronic disease and violence.
The Made in Brownsville organization is modeled as a creative agency at the intersection of community development and design; it trains at-risk youth creative design skills with the goals of providing access to careers that young people would normally not be able to obtain. Part of its mission (also) is to create Brownsville’s next entrepreneurs.
Made in Brownsville offers creative design workshops and 6-12 weeks of paid studio training in developing commissioned projects for clients. Youth are taught photography, 3D design, printmaking, architecture, Web design, entrepreneurship and video.
It also offers studio training in urban planning where youth design new spaces for the neighborhood.
One group had presented a proposal for a full basketball court in a vacant lot in Marcus Garvey Village to the public housing’s architect, Kenneth Frampton, a professor at Columbia University. Even though property developers wouldn’t allow them to use that particular space, they were given another space to build a half-court instead.
Made in Brownsville also is part of the citywide “Asset Mapping” project, which allows products of the neighborhood to be found through an online search.
Alan Waxman, the director of Learning and Community Advocacy, helps youth involved in the project lead discussions about “zones of loyalty” related to power, the police and snitching, and/or “gang beefs.”
In order to gain commissions and clients, Made in Brownsville has partnered with local organizations such as Brownsville Community Justice Center, Community Solutions, Brownsville Partnership, Ocean Hill Neighborhood Improvement Association and city agencies.
There’s been mural painting along Pitkin Avenue, creation of local magazines and flyers, silk-screening, Web site design for the Dream Big Foundation, and the joint venture project MGB Pops, which serves as a retailer-incubator for Brownsville’s upcoming MiB entrepreneurs.
Lewis-Allen grew up pretty much “sheltered”. He was told to ride his bike “from that pole to that fire hydrant”.
“The public housing across the street felt communal; it piqued my interest in the use of space in the neighborhood and how that use impacts the community and individual lives.” After college and a stint at an architectural firm, the Brownsville native eventually returned to his neighborhood to focus on developing spaces and reimagining uses for existing ones.
Lewis-Allen received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from SUNY and a Master of Architecture from Harvard School of Design, where he gained the opportunity to study abroad in Paris. In 2011, the Chife Foundation granted Lewis-Allen a fellowship to do some eco-sustainable affordable housing in Nigeria. He came across an individual from a tribe who was given a local scholarship to go to school and studied economics at the London School of Economics and worked at Enron and Apple. He came back to Nigeria to start his own software company.
Lewis-Allen also worked at Brownsville Partnership in 2012 and Perkins Eastman, among the top design and architectural firms in the world where he learned about every scale of the built environment. For more information: 646-671-3549. General Inquiries: contact@madeinbrownsville.org or quardean@madeinbrownsville.org.
(Note to readers: (This article was written by Tramane Harris with Bernice Green.)
Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Assemblywoman Annette Robinson.
By Bernice Elizabeth Green
“When Brooklyn ‘greens’ it, it means it!” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams at the announcement of the winners of the 2015 Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest yesterday at a press conference on the champion residential block, Bainbridge Street between Malcolm X Boulevard and Stuyvesant Avenue.
Now in its 21st year, the Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest has become an anticipated annual opportunity for Brooklynites to work together to create a greener Brooklyn.
Presented by GreenBridge, the community environmental horticulture program of Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG), in partnership with Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams, the contest encourages members of block and merchants’ associations to vie for the coveted title of Greenest Block in Brooklyn.
“The Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest is a great legacy that I am proud to continue in our borough alongside Brooklyn Botanic Garden in getting Brooklynites closer with their neighbors and beautifying our communities along the way. Our winning blocks inspire residential and commercial property owners alike to show that more than a tree grows in Brooklyn; great gardens and healthy neighborhoods thrive here as well.”
As the borough’s legacy leader, Adams drew comparisons between Brooklyn and the mighty towering trees on the block, on which Brooklyn state Assemblywoman Annette Robinson and her family are long-time residents. The assemblywoman acknowledged the block’s local gardeners, past and present, and also applauded their work as a gift for the children and their futures. “I’m excited as a member of the Bainbridge Homeowners and Tenants Association. I am very proud of the block and association for winning the Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest presented by Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It is a most prestigious award that signifies that the residents take pride in their homes and community.”
In speaking of “the block leadership and the residents” who worked “diligently to achieve this recognition”, Robinson, also a legacy leader, credited past “gardeners” who grew “Bedford-Stuyvesant”, including the great Herbert Von King, whose name is attached to the neighborhood’s largest and arguably the most beloved public green space; and Gary Shuford, a longtime block association president who passed two years ago.
It appeared as though the entire Bainbridge (MXB & Stuyvesant block) family was present, including longtime residents Ms. Cecile Clarke and her friend Edith Williams, the Atwells of the real estate dynasty, Block Association President Sheldon Wright and dozens more. “We are thrilled!” said the Bainbridge Street Homeowners and Tenants Block Association. “But the real credit goes to Gary, who inspired us all with his vision and led by example with his ever-present overalls and the watering wagon. The rest of us have just been doing our best to pick up where he left off. Without Gary, Bainbridge Street would not be as strong or as beautiful as it is today.”
Mr. Gary Shuford
Our Time Press was privileged to speak to Mrs. Gary Shuford’s widow, Patricia H. Shuford, who returned to the block from her native home in Baltimore for the special homage to her late husband. She offered us an important historical postscript about her husband’s family and Brooklyn brownstone history: Mr. Shuford’s grandfather purchased the brownstone on the block in the late 1800’s. Mrs. Shuford sold the property earlier this year to the Matthews. She considers them extended family as the couple is keeping the building’s history alive.
Honorees in other categories included NYCHA’s Raymond V. Ingersoll Houses’ Garden of Eden in Fort Greene, winner of the National Grid Leadership in Sustainable Practices Award; and the top-winning commercial block, Fulton Street between South Portland Avenue and South Oxford Street.
For these annual awards, community members work together to cultivate window boxes, container plantings, front gardens, storefront greenery, street tree beds and more. Major sponsorship support for GreenBridge is provided by National Grid; Brooklyn Community Foundation provides leadership support to GreenBridge.
“At its heart, this contest is about the idea that neighborhood greening can strengthen communities and create committed environmental stewards,” said Scot Medbury, BBG President. “We continue to see a rise in the use of native plants, sustainable gardening techniques and green infrastructure, which go beyond beautification in benefitting neighborhoods.”
Bainbridge Street between Stuyvesant Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard has entered the Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest every year since 2004, and this is the first year it has won top place in the residential category. In the past 11 years, the block has earned many other accolades in the contest, including second-place nods in both the Greenest Residential Block category and the Best Street Tree Beds category in 2014.
“By planting, weeding, cleaning and connecting, the members of the Bainbridge Street Homeowners and Tenants Block Association have made their love for this community and for one another visible to residents and visitors alike,” said Council member Robert E. Cornegy, Jr. (D-36).
This year, the contest welcomed nearly 200 Brooklyn blocks, encompassing 25 neighborhoods and an estimated 40,000 citizens. Said Nina Browne, GreenBridge programs manager, “The contest drew an increased number of commercial block entries and an outstanding array of storefronts, showing how business owners are seeing the benefits of greening their spaces. We’ve also seen a continual increase in awareness of sustainable gardening, including the proper use of compost and mulch in street tree beds, increased use of captured rainwater to water gardens, and an explosion in the use of native plants.”
Ken Daly, president of National Grid New York said, “National Grid has a long-standing partnership with BBG to provide environmental education for children and to encourage sustainability in our local communities. The National Grid Leadership in Sustainable Practices Award supports our commitment to stewardship and making a difference in the communities we serve. We are pleased to present this year’s award to Ingersoll Garden of Eden in Fort Greene for their work in integrating well-balanced sustainable practices, improving access to healthy fruits and vegetables, and engaging young people to help make a greener community”.
Since its inception in 1994, the Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest has encouraged greening activities on more than 1,600 Brooklyn blocks. Community involvement has grown steadily from 50 blocks in the first year to well over 200 blocks in recent years. It is estimated that more than 600,000 Brooklynites have participated in this borough-wide beautification and greening effort over the past 20 years.
Blocks are judged on a variety of criteria, including color and total visual effect, citizen participation, variety and suitability of plants, soil condition and use of mulch, street tree bed care and all-around best horticultural practices. A panel of nearly 20 judges, including journalists and professional horticulturists from Brooklyn Botanic Garden, visits and judges each contestant’s block from mid-June throughout July.
First prize is a $300 check each for the top residential and commercial block winners. All other finalists receive cash prizes ranging from $100 to $200. Best Window Box, Greenest Storefront, Best Street Tree Beds and Best Community Garden Streetscape winners receive cash prizes or gift certificates.
At the event, Borough President Adams said, “It’s a great block, great people, great gardeners, great trees”. And in the fall, Adams will host another great day for the Bainbridge block and other Greenest Block winners. A recognition ceremony will be held at Brooklyn Borough Hall where competition participants will receive a gift bag of fall bulbs and a certificate of recognition.
