The city’s free summer meals for kids program is up and running
at over 1,000 sites around the five boroughs, operating weekdays through August 31.
The program provides a nutritious breakfast and lunch to every child without any paperwork requirements. All your kid needs to do is show up and they can receive a healthy meal. The only requirement is that they are 18 years old or younger.
Meal locations are spread throughout the city’s community centers, parks, pools and many public schools. We encourage parents to take advantage of this important opportunity and to help spread the word.
“These healthy summer meals are available in safe, child-friendly locations throughout our communities and there are no barriers to discourage participation,” said City Councilman Al Vann. “I hope every pastor, every camp counselor and every block association president will help spread the word so that not a single child spends a summer day hungry.”
A list of all the local places supplying the free meals is available by calling 311 or texting NYCMEALS to 877-877 or logging onto
www.newyorkcity.nokidhungry.org.
Ft. Greene Pk Literary Fest
The 8th annual Fort Greene Park Summer Literary Festival will present a free outdoor reading at 3 pm, August 18.
The event features young writers between the ages of 7-18 reading alongside of three very distinguished writers of rich cultural backgrounds: Jessica Hagedorn, Tayari Jones and Earl Lovelace.
The Master of Ceremonies will be Laurie Cumbo, director of the acclaimed Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA). The event is free.
City Councilwoman Letitia James, who came up through the ranks of Central Brooklyn politics, is showing she intends on being a serious contender in next year’s public advocate race.
That after the Fort Greene lawmaker reported raising a hefty $217,000 in the past six months according to her recent filing with the City’s Campaign Finance Board.
The figure also passed the benchmark of having 500 individual donors, which means she remains eligible for a six-to-one public financing match once citywide election season officially begins next year. In total, James had over 800 individual donors with the average contribution being about $200, according to Joy Williams, her campaign treasurer.
Williams said less than 20 of the donors contributed the maximum, $4,950 to still be eligible for public funds.
Perhaps more importantly, James raised the money while going around the entire city and introducing herself to new possible constituents.
“I’ve been from the Bronx to City Island where I worked with the city council member there to keep a fire house open,” said James. “I marched in the Veterans Parade in Douglaston, Queens and met with residents in Kew Gardens to discuss senior centers, and to the Lower East Side (Manhattan) where residents were concerned with access to healthy food, to the Upper East Side where residents are concerned about over development, to Staten Island where residents are concerned about reopening the Fresh Kills Landfill to my beloved Brooklyn.”
James said the commonality in all these neighborhoods is they all need a voice in government who will listen and be responsible and that’s what she will bring to the office of public advocate.
“As public advocate I will have the ability to correct government and stand as an independent voice for New Yorkers in conducting audits and investigations of abuse of government programs,” said James. “It’s the same thing I’ve been doing in the city council, but on a larger scale.”
While James, an attorney who started off in City Councilman Al Vann’s office when he was a state assemblyman, and who went on to work in the state attorney general’s office, is a rising voice in citywide politics, she will not be along running for public advocate.
Among those also considering a serious run are Senator Daniel Squadron, who reported net contributions of $308,000, and Reshma Saujani, a former top aide to current Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and who raised $276,000.
Mayoral candidates divvy up dollars
With the public financing deadline for the first six months of the year this last Tuesday, those expected to run for mayor all showed they will have large campaign war chests for the 2013 race to succeed Michael Bloomberg.
The biggest of these money raisers for the first six months of the year was current public advocate and Brooklyn’s own Bill de Blasio, who hauled in a $761,000 in contributions putting a total of $2.8 million toward his campaign for the city’s top political job.
While de Blasio raiosed the most for the past six months, his total still has a way to go to catch up to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who has raised $5.7 million towards the 2013 campaign, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who has $3.67 million in in war chest.
Quinn reported raising $655,000 over the last six months and Stringer reported raising $427,000.
Not to be counted out in the mayoral race is Comptroller John Liu, who hauled in $577,000 in the last six months and who has about $2.6 million in total for the race. Former Comptroller William Thompson, who lost to Bloomberg in 2009, raised about $500,000 and has about $1.5 million on hand.
While a lot can happen between now and the September 2013 Democratic Mayoral Primary, the thinking at KCP is no candidate will get the necessary votes to win outright, meaning the top two vote getters will have a runoff several weeks after the primary.
In so far as who these two candidates are, it’s still too early to tell.
Residents walking along Kosciuszko Street between Nostrand and Bedford Avenues may have done a second take when noticing a five-seat Cessna airplane in the yard about mid block.
The plane was put there by the owners of The Aviary, a five-story, 109-unit residential building at 41 Kosciuszko Street, which was converted from a commercial building in the past few years.
The owner, an orthodox Jew who identified himself only as Nathan, said he feels he develops communities and not just buildings. As such, the rental building has some strong amenities including a gym, a lounge, a library and a rooftop garden.
“No matter who you are or what you are or where you come from, we’re all one,” said Nathan. “Every race, religion and language lives in the building and everybody is identified as a human being and hopefully that’s how the world will be one day.”
Residents living in the building all say Nathan is a great landlord, and several residents and people working on the block said Nathan brought the airplane in to put it on the roof, but the city won’t allow it.
Nathan said the plane was recently stripped of its propeller and an artist is painting it as an installation.
Nathan and the team that bought and developed The Aviary have also recently purchased and are developing the building on the corner of Bedford Avenue and Jefferson Street.
“We’re calling it the Stable Houses because it used to be a stable,” Nathan said.
DA Charles Hynes prays with family and supporters of 3-year-old shot by stray bullet.
Summertime, and the living in many urban areas is hard, not easy. Violence is known to reach an all-time high once heat hits, and so does fear.
So as temperatures rose last week, tempers did too, especially at the Peace and Prayer Rally where Eleanor Roosevelt Housing residents, community activists and supporters expressed complete disdain for the violence gripping north Bedford-Stuyvesant as well as for those “innocents” who do not see fear of snitching as secured protection for violators and criminals.
“You can’t walk around (being) afraid in your own home, I’m lying in my bed two nights ago listening to gunshots,” said an angry resident during the rally facilitated by Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition peacekeepers. “We have to come together (and now), we have to put a stop to it, even down to our black men—because it’s either two things: live or die.”
And it came down to that for one breathtaking moment when a pregnant woman risked her life and that of her unborn baby racing to rescue her three-year-old from a spray of bullets directed at a popular children’s area by “punks.”
District Attorney Charles Hynes, who attended the rally, offered bittersweet statistics: for the first time since 1963, last year Brooklyn was under 200 murders. Last week, the official count was moving up by degrees: so far, there have been 14 more murders than last year at this time.
The mother and child are alive but the community refuses to let them stand as the unfortunate symbol for the spate of gun attacks in Bed-Stuy as of late. Two men have been arrested over the gun duel in the Pulaski Street play area; another is still at large.
“We have to get the community to work very aggressively with the police department,” Hynes said. “There’s no question that the tremendous drop in crime in the 23 years I have been DA has been enlarged by community involvement (and) people like Reverend Taharka Robinson {BSVAC President and Founder} and all of the other activists — those people are the key. We should energize (around them) and form a bond against those who want to accuse ‘snitches’ of being bad people.”
According to Hynes, during the shooting, about two dozen residents witnessed the attack and since then no one has come forward with any information. The meaning of “snitch” is one that has historic roots when the law did not necessarily protect the good guy. A “snitch” was shunned from the community not simply for telling the truth, but for revealing the secrets – linked to survival — hidden in the community.
But today, says Hynes, no child “should have to worry about being shot.”
“They should worry about what they want to be when they grow up, they should worry about their homework,” said Councilwoman Letitia James, an unannounced contender for the Public Advocate office come this fall. “I don’t want any child in this neighborhood or anywhere in this city to get accustomed to violence.”
“Snitching is a duty, it’s a responsibility, it’s an honor if you care about this community, if you love this community; it took a three-year-old to shine a spotlight on Eleanor Roosevelt. So, in the words of the late Councilman James Davis, ‘Love yourself, Stop the violence’.”
Brooklyn DA Hynes is asking anyone with information about the third suspect to come forward and anonymously call the Command Center hotline at (718)-250-2024, or tell an official they trust.
Chadwick Boseman films Jackie Robinson biopic on location at 526 McDonough Street.
A brownstone block in Brooklyn’s Bedford Stuyvesant is playing a pivotal role in the filming of “42”, the major feature currently in production about Brooklyn Dodgers great Jackie Robinson.
Just as it did in 1947 when the baseball legend became the first Black player to join the Major Leagues in the 20th century.
This week, Ebbets Productions filmed exterior scenes in front of 526 McDonough Street, between Patchen and Ralph, where Robinson (starring Chad Boseman) resided, just at the cusp of his heyday years.
During July 9 pre-production week, slight changes returned 526 to its young 1940’s self. Nearby towering streetlights, large planters and other signs of the contemporary were vanished. Costumes and props, from perambulators to milk crates, scooters, Studebakers, Hudsons, Olds, metal fold-out tables, wooden crates, telephones and even replicas of old New York Times newspapers with the exact dates and news took observers and block residents back to another time.
Boseman’s portrayal of the young Robinson embracing his wife Rachel (Nicole Beharie), holding hands, running, walking, swinging an imaginary bat in the air and on the verge of something great drove home the importance of his brief stay on McDonough Street. It was a haven, a break from the whirlwind of forces – good and bad, sweet and bitter – that came at him like a hard ball that groundbreaking year.
Prior to the McDonough Street shoot, other locales in the U.S., from Alabama to Georgia, doubled for Brooklyn sites, including the memorable Ebbets field where Robinson deftly stole bases. But no other place can steal the Jackie Robinson presence on McDonough Street. He and Rachel still live thee – in the stories and memories of people who played stickball with him and walked to the park with her.
“You want to know about Jackie?” advised a chorus of McDonough Street resident solo voices, among them Sarah Brinson and Valerie Durrah. “Talk to Ray Robinson – no relation!” “Talk to Henrietta Toliver!”
The legacy of Mr. Robinson, who rests in Cypress Cemetery, very near Central Brooklyn, is alive and safe and sound on the block where he once lived, and people knew him as a man, not an icon. Here are just some of them followed by more from a reprint of a 1997 Our Time Press story.
Raymond “Ray” Robinson
Mr. Robinson (no relation) lived with his parents, in the apartment just below the Robinson’s at 526. But he’s quick to remind that the couple lived in one-room of Mrs. Brown’s apartment on the second floor. “They didn’t have a whole apartment.”
And there were a couple of reasons he really liked the Robinsons being there.
“I earned some change minding Rachel Robinson’s baby in the carriage in the front yard when she had to go to the store. Kids were different, then. Anybody could tighten you up. I did what I was told. And back in those days you made pennies anyway you could.”
“I don’t recall people around here really knew how famous he was. He came on the block during the Big Blizzard of the winter of 46-47, “where all you could see was the heads of people. That’s how I remember when the Robinson’s lived upstairs. They also had family, the Quentins, on Macon Street right around the corner.”
Mr. Robinson says he and his friends played stickball with Jackie Robinson. “He would throw balls to us and bring us gloves and balls and other things. Homeplate was the sewer cover right in front of 526. The first dent in the Cadillac they gave him was put there by a football thrown in the air, but I don’t remember who did it.”
Henrietta Toliver
At the moment, Henrietta Toliver lives next door to 526.
Back in 1947, she and her family lived with her parents Victoria and Allen Lawrence’s at 522 – a property which is still in the family and has been in the family since 1943.
“There were few black people on McDonough Street, so it was natural that Rachel and I would get together.
“We strolled our Victory carriages made of framed wood over to Saratoga Park. It wasn’t an everyday thing. Just something to do together with our children.When she moved away, I don’t recall seeing her until a couple of years ago when she came back to the block looking for the building where she and Jackie lived. She didn’t remember where the house was, but we showed it to her.”
Jabali Sawicki
Jabali Sawicki, the founding principal of Excellence Boys Charter School of Bedford Stuyvesant, lives with his wife and child on the block.
He also told us that one day a little girl was caught playing stickball back in 1947 and Jackie Robinson came out and played with her. “After that the story goes, kids were allowed to play stickball.”
He also shared the story of a very important connection of the Robinson family to his life. Jackie and Rachel Robinson’s daughter, Sharon Robinson, the author and professional midwife, delivered Mr. Sawicki as a baby.
Going Home
In May 1997, Our Time Press drew from personal relationships to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson achievement as the first Black player to sign with the Major Leagues in the 20th century. At the time we wrote about how Jackie’s achievements began shaping long before he barnstormed in the Negro Leagues. The foundations on which he stands are rooted, we wrote “in the red clay of Grady County in Cairo, GA, and in the strength and courage of down-home people from another place and time.” We offered quotes from various people who knew him. Following is an excerpt of that story. Here, Ken Weatherspoon Sr., then of Brooklyn, N.Y., now Harleyville, S.C., recalls a 1949 parade in his cousin Jackie Robinson’s honor.
Kenneth Weatherspoon, Sr. ,Brooklyn, N.Y. Being in the Boy Scouts of America in Cairo, Ga.was a very big deal back in 1949. Among other things, the Scouts were in charge of the parades for large social events. Funerals, included. Playing stickball in the Grady County fields, where flour bags filled with Georgia clay soil served fine as bases, was also a big thing to school-age boys on hot Saturday afternoons. So it was probably the biggest thing that ever happened in the lives of every manchild in the southwest region of Georgia when it was announced that Jackie Robinson, along with Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe and other baseball legends would stop through Cairo.
“They were barnstorming with the Eagles through the South,” says Weatherspoon, “and it was decided to make a detour from Columbus, Ga. en route to Florida, to visit Jackie’s birthplace. They played in nearby Thomasville, and arrived in Cairo on the Eagle baseball bus. It was a red-letter day. And people came from miles around forming the longest stretch of a parade Grady County had ever seen. It was at least four miles of people from Fourth Avenue, across Broad Street, down to First Avenue, over to the Legion Home, a one-room ball for social events. The Legion Home was the only deal in town. So the event took place right outside of it.
“Since we were the parade coordinators, the Boy Scouts had the best seats in the house,” says Weatherspoon. “We got to see the Cairo legend in the flesh.” That was young Ken Weatherspoon’s first face- to-face meeting with his mother Grace’s cousin Mallie’s son. “The white folks simply watched from a distance.”
“Back home, people were generous, giving,” continues Weatherspoon. “Extended family had meaning. It was not just two words. Extended family had life and legacy. It was real. My mother was related to Mallie through my grandmother Susie King Smith, and she sometimes told me how she would take care of Miss Mallie’s children, including her baby Jackie, who was about age three when Miss Mallie left Cairo. Mama and Miss Mallie were very close even in later years,after my mother and father took the family North to Brooklyn.
“They tell me Miss Mallie always kept in touch with her roots, and visited Cairo as often as she could. In fact, before we left Cairo, I remember Miss Mallie coming to visit us. That was a couple of years after the big turnout. She brought a Jackie Robinson – comic book with her, and gave it to us as a gift. Mama put it in the piano stool with the music sheets, and it was left behind when we moved to Brooklyn. We left the piano because it was too heavy, and forgot the comic book was still in there.”
But that warm day in 1949 was Jackie’s day. The townspeople – some of them family he never knew – offered him gifts of money. “That was the way it was back then. Jackie was a hero, and he was an extension of those people: They wanted to show their appreciation by offering money. He refused it,” says Ken. “So they brought him a dump truck-full of food they had grown or smoked themselves.”
“Tom Cornell’s wife was Mallie Robinson’s sister. She met Jackie at the door of the Legion Home. When she ran to hug him, she surprised him.” And he surprised her by reaching out and lifting her up. “I’ll never forget that scene: I was standing right there next to him. I had heard so many stories about him, knew his mother through my mother. We were cousins, but he didn’t know who I was. It didn’t matter to me. I was sharp in my Boy Scout’s uniform, and just wanted to do my job. That experience really had an impact.” So much so that Ken began improving his game on Cairo’s makeshift baseball lots.
Years later, Ken played in the minor leagues—Triple A ball in Jersey City for the “Jerseys,” a farm club for the Cincinnati Reds. He also played pickup games on Saturdays in Charleston, S.C. for the Chicago White Sox. In the Air Force, he was attached to the All-Air Force teams in the Far East. Ken was a second baseman. After his discharge, he says, “The Yankees were at my door.” Ken stayed with the minors, playing ball with such famous fellow barnstormers as Don Newcombe, Joe Black and Larry Doby against such teams as the Kansas City Monarchs and the Minneapolis Clowns in the East Orange Oval Stadium.I have no regrets. I have banked a lot of good memories.”
