Author Archives: Gilberto Vazquez
Writer Profile – Eddie L. Bolden Jr.
Eddie L. Bolden Jr. – Writer. Composer. Songwriter. Arranger. Engineer. Producer. Journalist.
New York – Eddie L. Bolden Jr., 23 from The Bronx, has a passion for sports, music, writing, and news. As a senior at Baruch College, he is pursuing his Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and Creative Writing after receiving his Associates Degree from the Bronx Community College in 2013.
Eddie Bolden became immersed in writing during his junior year in high school, where he received one of the highest grades in the English regents in the Bronx. He attributes his development in his writing proficiency to his high school teacher.
“Mr. Q pushed me to enhance my writing skills. He said I had a gift for it,” he stated.
He used to tell us “What the media doesn’t tell you can hurt you.”
Bolden has interned at The Brooklyn Game, a website focusing on the Brooklyn Nets, where he acquired some experience in publishing stories and although he loves writing about sports, he did not want to limit himself to one genre.
“I think I want to be able to do a little bit of everything,” he said about his future as a writer.
“It’s good to be multifaceted. I’m a creative at heart.”
Bolden recently published an article on the Baruch College’s award winning Journalism magazine Dollars and Sense, Where Typewriters Get a New Lease on Life.
“I’m so glad I was able to get that published,” said Bolden.
Bolden was awarded the Chris Brown Institutional Investor Journalism Scholarship for next semester and wishes to continue his writing career in hopes that he can better the world.
When not writing stories on sports, news or publishing articles, he is writing and editing his own music.
“I want to make sure I set myself apart.”
Williamsburg: Graham Avenue – A Tale of Two Streets
For decades, Graham Avenue in the East Williamsburg section of Brooklyn has been divided in two. The south end of Graham Avenue which reads “Avenue of Puerto Rico” has been the center of a Puerto Rican-American neighborhood since the 1920s, while the north end of Graham Avenue reads “Via Vespucci” and was mostly an Italian-American influenced neighborhood since the 1800s.
Rumors have it that there is a push to remove the “Avenue of Puerto Rico” from the street signs along the southern end of the avenue while “Via Vespucci” will remain on the north side of the street. This has local residents with mixed emotions.
Local deli runner Mahamad (Poppy), whose father owns Farmer’s Deli, located on the corner of Graham Avenue and Grand street for over thirty years, says that he has always seen the signs that way and never noticed the need to label them.
“Everyone coming in here is white or Spanish but more white than years ago,” he said. “But how do I know who is Italian and who is Puerto Rican? To me it’s all the same.”
Grand Street is the “border” or “division” or the two streets. You cross Grand Street and you are on the side of Puerto Rico, cross back and you are on the side of Via Vespucci.
The Italian influence on Graham Avenue has been there since the 1880s when many Italians migrated to New York City. Puerto Ricans started immigrating to New York City in the 1920s when the 1924 Immigration Act allowed Puerto Ricans to enter the United States with ease and legal status. The new wave of latino and asian immigrants that came into New York City, brewed tension between Italians of Williamsburg and many latinos coming into the neighborhood.
But unlike the ethnic rivalries seen in the 1957 movie West Side Story Italians and Puerto Ricans for the most part managed to live together and share East Williamsburg.
For the last two decades, because of gentrification, both the north and south sides of Graham Avenue are losing their Puerto Rican and Italian community and culture.
The Puerto Rican side had many murals of Puerto Rican flags, Spanish owned shops and Salsa music huts, wall paintings on the sides of buildings depicting the Coqui, a frog native to the island of Puerto Rico and people hanging out on corners playing music, dominoes, and bringing the culture to the streets.
On the Italian side were mostly Italian owned businesses and diners, Italian flags flying proudly hanging from almost all the private houses down the blocks, and men in crisp suits smoking cigars
and having a good time.
Increasing rent prices have forced old residents and their families out of their houses and apartments to more affordable locations and even out of state.
“Us Ricans keep selling out and leaving and the neighborhood gets more expensive each year,” says Jose Carillo, 32 of Williamsburg, who is planning on moving back to Puerto Rico because he can no longer afford his apartment a few blocks from Graham Avenue. “It’s gonna be nothing but whites soon.”
As hipsters and artists move into Williamsburg, local families are also selling their businesses. Many restaurants and stores that used to be owned by Puerto Rican families have been long gone and replaced by new high-rent,taller buildings which would house higher income tenants at triple the price of two or three decades ago or a new bar for the hipsters to mingle in at 1 am on any given night.
This is why the news is spreading about removing the “Avenue of Puerto Rico” from all the street signs down this stretch of the historically Puerto Rican neighborhood. The area is no longer Puerto Rican. However, its history is.
“Well if they remove ‘Avenue of Puerto Rico’ they better remove ‘Via Vespucci’ too,” stated Tony, a veteran of the first Gulf War who lives in a rent stabilized apartment in the Italian section of Graham Avenue who currently got an eviction notice from the Marshals.
Community Board No. 1 in Brooklyn declined to comment. The Department of Transportation said they would get in contact with me via telephone but have not as of yet.
found a new conflict story on dnainfo.com
Recycling sewage and garbage into clean water and energy
Every single year millions of tons of food scraps and foul-smelling and hazardous sewage waste are properly disposed of and recycled. This sewage, trash and sludge is converted into drinking water for millions of New York City residents, as well as provides an energy source for parts of the city.
The treatment plant has had its fair share of love and hate from both the locals as well as from passengers who drive nearby to and from work or home every day.
“People hate the smell but don’t really know what goes on in here. They think it’s just a giant sewer,” said Kristen of Williamsburg.
“The area smells like a dump 300 days out of the year, and that’s because it literally is,” she added, about the foul smell that penetrates through your closed car windows as you drive by.
“It’s so strong that you sometimes think you smell it even when you’re not around it.”
She stated that some days the smell is not as bad as other days.
Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, located in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn is the largest of New York City’s 14 waste-water treatment plants. It was originally constructed in 1967, and went under a massive renovation which spanned from 1998 to 2014.
The way this system works is that billions or even trillions of microorgamisms and bacteria are introduced into the toxic sludge in order to break down the components via anaerobic digestion, a natural biological process, and “eat up” all of the organic stuff in the digestion chambers. The bacteria then release methane gas, which is collected, stored and used as an energy source to produce electricity, heat, or power vehicles. Other left overs are then made into compost or peat moss which is used for gardening and farming.
The facility was expanded and redesigned and now includes a quarter-mile Newtown Creek Waterfront Nature Walk, which provides a tour around the treatment plant.
According to an article on nyc.gov, “NYC delivers 1.3 billion gallons
of safe drinking water to over 8 million city residents and
another 1 million consumers who live in Westchester,
Putnam, Ulster County and Orange County north of the City, every single day.
(Source:) http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wwsystem.pdf
The tour visitors at the facility were mostly amazed at how all this garbage was being recycled so efficiently.
“This thing turns crap into tap water and power,” said Josep Moralez, a local nearby resident who was taking a tour of the facility as part of the “Nature Walk”, as he cracked a half smile.
The city plans to continue to expand its organic composting services in New York City which was started under former Mayor Micheal Bloomberg. This would help bring more organic material into Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant to be recycled and broken down instead of it ending up in landfills.
How biogas is produced
Sharing a piece from The New York Times we may all find interesting.
Real Estate
Life After Brooklyn
Moving Out of Brooklyn Because of High Prices
By MICHELLE HIGGINS
AUG. 22, 2014
Protected: Community Service Pitch: Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant
Williamsburg Animal Clinic: A clinic amongst bars
On a busy, crowded street in Brooklyn, where businesses come and go and are often being converted into bars, lounges or torn down and rebuilt into pricey condominiums, a local business is staying ahead of the curve due to positive growth in this re-developing community. It is a service that the local community lacked for quite some time.
If you are native to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, you are aware that the demographics as well as the real estate, and local business scenes have changed dramatically and along with the increasing demand for housing, there also seems to be an increasing demand for pet medical services and anything pet-related.
Serving the local community of East Williamsburg, Williamsburg Animal Clinic offers medical veterinary services at a competitive and affordable price. Located on 760 Grand Street in Brooklyn, the clinic has been open since October of 2007 and the owner, Dr. Orlando R. Diaz, DVM, says that he decided to open his clinic here because noticed the need for veterinary services.
Dr. Diaz, who previously worked at Howard Beach Animal Clinic with Dr. Steven Weinstein, noted that “there weren’t a lot of Spanish speaking veterinarians in Williamsburg,” and said that the diverse and changing community “brings culture,” and was a motivation for relocating there.
Even as thousands of Spanish speaking residents have been moving out due to gentrification, the business continues to accommodate both older residents as well as newer residents and has not skipped a beat.
Williamsburg Animal Clinic has a total of five medical veterinary doctors, including Dr. Diaz, all dealing with different specialties.
The doctors treat mainly cats, dogs and some birds but Dr. Diaz says that the clinic also gets a lot of “pocket pets” which are smaller animals such as rabbits, rats, ferrets, turtles, and reptiles such as bearded dragons and much more.
The clinic offers check-ups, vaccinations, de-worming, orthopedic surgeries, digital x-rays, ultrasounds (by appointment), micro-chipping, emergency care, dental procedures and other services. They also sell veterinary diet pet food. A standard check-up is 35 to 45 dollars and is affordable, when compared to other similar businesses offering the same services.
Christina, a local Brooklyn resident, said “this place is much cheaper than other clinics and I don’t have to go as far.” She brought in her sick brown toy dog who was vomiting. She thought her dog might have worms but wasn’t sure what was wrong.
When it comes to any local competition, Dr. Diaz said that it is hard to compete because there is a lot of demand for veterinarians and their veterinary specialties. Diaz continues by saying that there is enough of a demand for everyone to thrive here. “I think the biggest challenge in the next year or two is just keeping up with the demand,” said Dr. Diaz. “How can we accommodate all the services?”
Dave Weis’ brown and white, male, Jack Russel Terrier was to undergo a dental cleaning. Weis said that his dog is an old dog and has been there twice for cleanings.
The clinic’s website includes a link to places where you can adopt pets as well as a page called “missing pets” in which online fliers can be posted for missing animals along with photos and contact information of the owner.
Dr. Diaz mentioned a nearby animal shelter called Barc Shelter which is a non-kill shelter that focuses on adoptions of animals that were lost and unclaimed or thrown out onto the streets. Barc Shelter is located at 253 Wythe Street in Brooklyn, NY. Their website is barcshelter.org.
For more information on Williamsburg Animal Clinic contact 718-302-2420 or visit http://www.williamsburgvetny.com.
Art as a Savior
Gilberto Vazquez
Sporting his military camouflage jacket and Che Guevara hat, David Cutrone mingles on the corner of Graham Avenue and Grand Street in Williamsburg as the locals, hipsters and bar hoppers pace the streets to their next destinations. In one hand is his cherry-flavored Black-n-Mild cigar and in his other, a large cup of black coffee with two sugars and a hint of whole milk.
David Cutrone is an artist who was born and raised in and about Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Born in the 1950s, he is now sixty one years old. His parents are Italian and Sicilian and were both born here in America. His grandparents came to America in the 1890s. He is the father of two sons and two daughters with several grand kids. He barely talks to his mother who is still alive at eighty six and lives a mere seven blocks away and his father is long deceased.
David grew up in Brooklyn and has lived here his whole life. He was raised in Marcy next to the projects and was often in the mix with the neighborhood teens getting into trouble and living life the way a lot of kids at the Marcy Projects do. He rolled with gangs, got into street fights, and experimented with drugs while drinking alcohol. He also did a lot of art work and was very talented at it. “I grew up in the Marcy Projects. I was one of the only white kids in an all-black neighborhood. I ran the streets! And when I wasn’t outside, I did a lot of artwork. Everyone used to ask me for a portrait.”
David attributes his time spent drawing, painting and making portraits as sort of his savior from being on the streets because sometimes he just wanted to stay inside and work on art while his crew would call him to come outside.
Today, David still lives in Williamsburg and spends most of his talking politics and working on art. When he is not outside he can be seen out his fourth floor public housing apartment window taking photographs and drawing as his black cat stares at the birds and bystanders in the distance. He steadily continues to work on his art and produces a few pieces of art per week, some smaller projects and some that take weeks to finish, most of them centered on Williamsburg, New York City and city life, famous people, or have some political meaning behind them.
David is now working on writing his book titled “My Death Wish” in which he talks about his trials and tribulations growing up in the ghetto and throughout his sixty odd years on this planet. The book focuses in on memories and experiences from his childhood,life, family, his love of art, and even reserves several chapters on his struggles with drugs, suicide and his near death experiences.
As he smokes his cigar and we sit by his kitchen window talking politics, he says, “People come and people go. You grow older and all your friends and family start to die around you and the only thing I ask God is why am I still here?”