Author Archives: Jenna Bagcal

The “Grand” Debate

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The facade of the controversial Pelham Grand Building

The facade of the controversial Pelham Grand Building Credit: therealdeal.com

BY JENNA BAGCAL

The Pelham Grand lives up to its name in stature, its daunting exterior covering the entire corner of Pelham Parkway South and Saint Paul Avenue. From the outside, it looks like an ordinary apartment complex that houses families who live in the neighborhood. But residents and community activists have quite a different story to tell about the building, one that is not so “grand.”

Since 2006, when Moujan Vadhat purchased the Pelham Grand, which was formerly Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, there have been many heated debates concerning how the building should be used. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of senior citizens in Pelham Bay, Co-Op City and Schuylerville from 2010 to 2012 reached 22,591 individuals. The general consensus is that the neighborhood has a great need for housing senior citizens and retired veterans. But despite vehement protest, plans for senior and veteran housing have not materialized.

“There are things the community wants, and there are things the community has no real say over,” says Annie Boller, a Pelham Bay resident and current member of Community Board 10 in the Bronx. “The building is not city owned, it’s privately owned and as such, the owner can do, to a certain extent, whatever he wants with it,” she adds.

But the bigger problem at hand is that lack of information between people within the Pelham Bay community and developers of the building has left residents feeling blindsided by the developments in their community.

According to a Daily News article, Vadhat signed a deal to create low-cost housing for adults with “chronic diseases.” This plan for “transitional housing” has angered the residents of Pelham Bay, who said that these plans were made without notifying them first. The Pelham Grand is now being leased by a nonprofit organization called AIDS Service Center NYC, more commonly known by its acronym, ASCNYC. According to their website, their mission statement is “helping many, one by one by building community, connection and stability for New Yorkers living with, and at risk for HIV/AIDS.” After leasing the Pelham Grand for three years, the ASCNYC opened their doors to residents in mid-July of this year, with about a dozen people currently in residence there.

The Pelham Grand has seen many proposals and transformations before its current state, many of which did not have the funding to back them up. Some of the proposed ideas left residents wary of the legitimacy of the developers wishing to buy the property. Egidio Sementilli, a Pelham Bay resident who has been outspoken against this issue, calls what is currently being done with the Pelham Grand “fraudulent.” Sementilli says that residents and elected community officials have never seen a legitimate contract from the ASCNYC and do not know from where they received their funding. “It’s all a scam,” Sementilli says angrily, “nothing but a tax write-off for the land lord of the building.”

Sementilli and a large amount of Pelham Bay residents, who are against the transitional housing development, have held numerous rallies to protest the ASCNYC occupancy of the building. During the summer, Sementelli lead a rally, along with residents Patrick Stranzl and Lou Rocco. Hundreds of residents marched in front of the Pelham Grand, holding placards and chanting “Save Pelham Bay.” Sementelli says that everyone in the community came together in protest. A public meeting was also held back in August at Saint Theresa’s Church, where community members filled the church pews and voiced their concerns in a more organized forum.

In an article by the Bronx Chronicle, an online news publication, readers got an inside look at an apartment in the Pelham Grand building. The editorial, written by Lewis H. Goldstein is entitled “The Pelham Grand: Just The Facts, Please” and includes pictures of a current resident’s home, which look very different from the pictures provided on the website for the Pelham Grand “luxury apartments.” The building’s website, thepelhamgrand.com, shows  pictures of apartment buildings that appear more lavish than the pictures from the Bronx Chronicle piece. “The entire website is a lie,” says Sementilli, “the pictures were either from another property, or just gathered from the web, because what’s in the pictures was never actually there.”

Local elected officials have also expressed empathy toward the residents of Pelham Bay who objected to the ASCNYC housing project. In a Bronx Times article, Senator James Vacca and Jeff Klein were advocating for senior housing to be built at the Pelham Grand. “This [senior housing] is what the neighborhood expected when the hospital closed,” Vacca said in the article. In the same article, the CEO of the ASCNYC, Sharen Duke said that she believed the housing was a “win-win” for everyone involved. “It is a win for the community, it is a win for local businesses, and it is a win for the recipients of services,” said Duke. Residents do not share the same sentiments.

The neighborhood debate over the Pelham Grand is one that is ongoing. Lack of communication has ignited massive tensions within the community, who cannot do more than protest for their cause. “The people have been getting frustrated because we were told we cannot do anything since it’s private property,” said Sementilli. “But when an organization gets involved, it becomes a public matter.”

 

A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds

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In her piece in The New York Times, Andrea Elliott masterfully writes and organizes this long-form piece about an imam who faces the challenges of tailoring his Muslim teachings to the people of a modern mosque in Brooklyn. One way that Elliott chose to organize this piece is by comparing and juxtaposing Sheik Reda Shata’s Muslim way of thinking with the westernized issues that are presented to him on a daily basis. This allows us to gain insight into the challenges that Shata faces on a daily basis as an imam. For example, Elliott cites that one of the challenges that Shata faced in America was whether or not to grant a Muslim woman a divorce from her husband. Divorce is usually prohibited in the Muslim religion, however, he granted the woman a divorce to balance his traditional teaching to his new western way of life. Also, as mentioned in class, Elliott uses chronology to organize her piece, sometimes flashing back to his early upbringing in Egypt, and then coming back to the present day in order to show how his past and present are intertwined.

Battle in Black and White Response

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What techniques does Amy Fox use in narrating this conflict story? Who are her sources? What kind of research did she do? What is the arc of this conflict story and where is the nut graf?

In her piece “Battle in Black and White,” Amy Fox employs flashbacks when talking about the story of the Stuyvesant Town Housing. She uses details from the accounts of her grandparents, mother, and other residents who used to live in the housing, as well as the current residents. She had a lot of first person accounts during her research, as well as doing archival research about the history of the housing. The arc of the story happened when the white residents in Stuyvesant Town began to stand up for the rights of the black residents in the housing, in order to support integration. Also, the arc links the historical story of Stuyvesant Town with the modern sentiments of racial tensions that are happening in the neighborhood. The nut graf of the story is the third and fourth grafs

Pelham Bay Church Thrives in the Midst of Shutdowns

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In New York City, churches and religious institutions face the harsh reality of consolidating their resources with other churches, or worse, being shut down altogether. But in the midst of these shut downs, Saint Theresa’s Church in the Pelham Bay Section of the Bronx is staying afloat, as it has been for the past 85 years.

Saint Theresa’s Church began its longtime service to the community, beginning with former pastor Father Robert Grippo, who served as the head of the parish from 1991 to August of this year. Current pastor of the church, Father Thomas Derivan, credits Grippo with being the originator for many of the church programs and community service groups that Saint Theresa’s offers.

“A lot of these programs got started by him [Grippo] and he gave the impetus for them to continue. He was very interested that the church be involved in the community affairs,” said Derivan.

Under the guidance of Grippo in combination with an active church community, many programs and activities flourished within the church, even when other churches in the area and across the city were in danger of shutting down, or merging with other parishes. One of these churches in danger was Our Lady of the Assumption Church, a neighboring parish of Saint Theresa’s that was to undergo a possible merger with Saint Mary’s Star of the Sea Church in City Island. This merger was part of “the biggest reorganization [of churches] in the history of the archdiocese,” according to an article in The New York Times. Although both of these churches are within the same community, Derivan cites “financial issues” as the reason that OLA underwent a merger and Saint Theresa’s did not. “It’s a combination of an active community, masses that are well attended, and of course being able to pay your bills,” he says. The funding for the programs at the Saint Theresa’s Church comes from the Saint Theresa’s Elementary School that is connected to the church. As a “parish-based” or “parochial” school, some of the money that comes from student tuitions, alumni contributions, as well as financial contributions from parishioners goes directly to funding the programs.

Many of the people who are volunteers in this program are mothers, who are able to dedicate much of their time and effort to the community service efforts. “A good number of mothers in this area are stay-at-home mothers who have time to do things during the day,” says Derivan. “That is not true in other areas, where the emphasis is on working mothers.” These stay-at-home mothers help out with many of the successful programs in the church including the holiday food drive, the clothing drive, and a program that the parish calls the “Midnight Run” where every second Thursday of the month, parishioners bring food, clothes, toiletries and other supplies to people and institutions in need.

This month, Saint Theresa’s Church is working together with Saint Rose of Lima, a church in the Washington Heights area of Manhattan. The collections from the Midnight Run are going to Saint Rose of Lima in order to be distributed to the Washington Heights community. “The old word was ‘twinning’ which means attaching one parish who is better off with a parish that is less well off, and they can help one another out.”

The demographics of the neighborhood have shifted the popularity of some of the programs that the church offers. Traditionally, the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx was a predominantly White neighborhood, with most of the population consisting of Italian Americans. Currently, Derivan says that there has been an increase in the Hispanic, Black, and Albanian population in the neighborhood, a change that the church programs are trying to accommodate.

“Our main emphasis has to be outreach to the Hispanic people, and making them feel comfortable with coming to church here, and we’re going to do that,” Derivan said. One of the challenges that the church faces is better integrating the new wave of residents into the community. “The challenge is not to keep the neighborhood the same, it is to get people in the neighborhood to work together. To get the Hispanic people to work with the Italian people and the Albanian people, that’s the main challenge.”

Another challenge that Derivan cited was a need for more services for senior citizens and senior veterans who live in Pelham Bay. Many services and facilities are needed for these groups, and many in the neighborhood have suggested that the Pelham Grand, a former hospital in Pelham Bay, be used as facilities for these seniors and veterans. However, Derivan says that the city wishes to use the Pelham Grand building for facilities such as a homeless shelter or a drug clinic despite the neighborhood’s push for senior and veteran services, with elderly veterans especially being a very “underserved group” according to Derivan.

 

Spreading the Health Message One Juice at a Time

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BY JENNA BAGCAL

The businesses and buildings on Hobart Avenue are a sea of monochrome brick and awnings that would not capture the attention of passersby. But in this collection of lackluster storefronts, Laundromats and exercise studios is Juice Me, whose facade alone is a colorful and vivid departure from the oasis of drab stores lining the sidewalk.

At the end of 2012, Bernice Marsical, the owner and brains behind Juice Me, established her small business in the Pelham Bay section of the Bronx. Diagnosed with lupus, a collection of autoimmune diseases that targets various organs in the body, Mariscal opened her store, both as a way to pay her medical bills and as a holistic approach to her own health and well-being.

“When I was released from the hospital, they [doctors] sent me home on about 14 pills a day. I was tired of taking all the medications, and every medicine had a different reaction on another part of my body,” Mariscal said.

Following her diagnosis, Mariscal began doing research on juicing as a healthier alternative to the medications that she was given for her condition. “Your body reacts to what you put into your body, so I decided to stop my medication. I started juicing, and I started doing wheatgrass, and I started taking a more natural approach to my health.”

Mariscal’s “natural approach” changed her health for the better, and she was able to reduce her pill intake from 14 pills a day to one pill a day, a change that she accredits to the health benefits that juicing provides. Following her discovery, Mariscal made it her mission to spread her message of juicing to the Pelham Bay community. So she opened Juice Me on Hobart Avenue across the street from the Planet Fitness, in hopes that people in the neighborhood would take healthy living more seriously. Her main clientele are members of the gym and people who attend the Zumba class next door at the New York City GoJu Ryu Karate school. On average, Marsical says she serves about 30 people a day, six days a week.

When you step inside this healthy locale, a barrage of colors immediately greets you from every angle: from the circular, orange, cushion-like adornments hanging on either side of the wall, to the funky matching couches next to silver tables and stools lining the glass window, the atmosphere of Juice Me creates an aura warmth and welcome to its customers. To the right of the doorway are newspaper clippings with articles written about local business and a poem that neighborhood children have addressed to “Ms. Bernice.” Juice Me is unique to other “health food stores” in that the combination of vivid colors, fresh food and drink selections and a friendly staff radiates throughout the store.

Teresa Imperati, a long time customer of Juice Me, says that from the moment she walked into the store, she immediately felt at home. “Everyone who works in the store works really well together,” she says, “It shows in the way that they interact with customers by starting conversations with us. It’s a really friendly vibe.” This “friendly vibe” is what Mariscal strives for throughout her daily interactions with customers, making suggestions to customers about what products are beneficial for their specific needs and training her staff to do the same.

But owning a small business has proved to be difficult at times for Mariscal. One of the main conflicts is the ongoing construction on the Buhre Avenue line of the 6 Train, which started in July of 2014 and will last until February of this upcoming year. This long-term train renovation has resulted in a substantial loss of customers for Mariscal.

“With the train being shut down, we’ve taken a big hit in business, a very big hit. We lost our breakfast crowd and we lost our dinner crowd,” says Mariscal. “When there’s work being done in your neighborhood, you’re the last person to be considered.”

Yet despite this setback, Mariscal still has big plans for the future of Juice Me, with the hopes of becoming a franchise and increasing the social media presence of her business. She also has a piece of advice for other small business owners who are trying to run their businesses. “You can’t depend on other people to run your business for you because it just doesn’t work like that. You have to always be at your business, you have to oversee it, you have to take pride in what you do.”

Liebling: City Block

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In “City Block” by A.J. Liebling, he profiles “the most populous city block in the United State, and probably in the world.” The city block to which Liebling is referring is in Harlem between Seventh and Lenox Avenues and 142nd and 143rd Streets. He begins by saying that this block in Harlem is the most populous, with Knickerbocker Avenue coming in second and London Terrace in Chelsea in third place. Liebling says that although the block in Harlem is the most populous, its buildings have less stories than the buildings on Knickerbocker Avenue and in Chelsea. He then proceeds to describe how every free space on this block is filled with square buildings that house the numerous residents that live there. Most of the space on this Harlem block is taken up by apartment buildings and Liebling writes that there are a few shops and only one saloon in the whole area. An interesting line in this paragraph is when Liebling says that the housing was built before African Americans lived there “but they seem to have been designed with a certain prescience as if the architects knew that this would be the most congested district in the city.”

Liebling then goes on to profile the specific avenues and streets that comprise this populous block, separating them into the different African Americans that live in the area. For the most part, the residents of the area are too poor for this area as evidenced by the line “rents are high in relation to the means of the residents.” Liebling mentions that the rents are “$60 for five rooms” and “$80 for eight rooms” which most of the residents cannot afford. As a result, many people lodge together in order to be able to afford rents. But Harlem was not always in the state that it was in during the time this article was written. A longtime resident of Harlem, Mrs. Hankinson, said that there where more white people who lived in Harlem, saying it was “like Park Avenue” with doctors living there and six houses that allowed African Americans to live there.

I do not think that Liebling does a good job at being completely objective because he does not interview any of the poorer residents of the area in order to gain their insight about the Harlem city block. Instead he asks a shop owner and a longtime resident who does not seem to have a problem affording the rent in the area. This does not give the full picture of the quality of life that people live with on this block, and is not a very objective point of view. Had Lieblng sought answers from residents who had less income, of different genders and with different sized families, the profile of this city block would not seem so one sided.