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Mayor Eric Adams and New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) announced the next phase in their plans to demo and reconstruct the Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses in lower Manhattan, set to begin in 2025.

NYCHA adopted a Master Development Agreement in October 2024 with terms and conditions agreed upon by the community and all entities involved with the demolition. It also details The Bridge Plan, which calls for repairs and quality-of-life improvements for residents while they wait for construction to start.

“All New Yorkers, especially our residents in public housing, deserve to live in safe, high-quality, and dignified housing — and for the first-time ever in city history, we are completely rebuilding existing NYCHA developments through PACT and ensuring that all existing residents will have brand new apartments on their home campuses,” said Adams in a statement. (PACT is the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together program.)

The 18 public housing buildings in Chelsea that collectively make up Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses were built in 1947, 1964, 1965, and 1968, respectively. There was a capital deficit and crumbling infrastructure for years after decades of disinvestment, similar to other developments across the city that were placed under an ongoing federal monitorship by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). This led to talks of razing​​ two 36-unit buildings and starting from scratch in 2019.

Under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, the city and NYCHA formally created a working group to discuss converting the two buildings into Section 8 PACT/Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) affordable housing. The intent was to craft a plan that would phase in construction so residents would not be displaced.

Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea resident surveys officially began in 2023. Over a 60-day period, resident association leaders, NYCHA, and the PACT Partner hosted town halls, knocked on doors, canvassed thousands of residents in both developments, and held meetings with residents. About 29% of the total eligible population participated in the surveys and of that, more than half opted for new construction, according to city numbers.

In one meeting last September, NYCHA Tenant Association (TA) Presidents said that it’s “unfortunate” that the demolition was happening and that more resident turnout might have prevented the decision to move forward with the demo. There were also concerns about the shift from Section 9 to Section 8 housing and whether this could lead to a demolition of more NYCHA buildings across the city.

“In regards to the demolition of any public housing that’s happening right now, it’s like a domino: If you do one, the next one comes around,” said Manuel Martinez, TA President at South Jamaica Houses. “And then, you got to remember that this is a private management company proposing this idea and if they’re proposing this idea, then there’s a profit function. When someone else is looking at a profit, promises tend to be broken and expectations are leveraged to them, not to us.”

In 2024, the plans for Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea went through an environmental review process, a round of drafts and revisions, and an additional series of public hearings. NYCHA and the PACT partners said that the first two buildings can be constructed within current zoning regulations. They anticipate construction starting next year.

The master development agreement states that all existing 2,056 apartments at Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea will be replaced with “high-amenity permanently affordable homes.” Other stipulations include in-unit repairs while the replacement buildings are being constructed, mixed-income and mixed-use communities, centering resident voices to guide the overall redevelopment, ensuring a collaborative process, and ensuring that all residents have rights to a new apartment and to return if temporarily relocated. The plan aims to have the vast majority of Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea residents stay in their existing apartments while NYCHA replacement buildings are constructed.

This method of tearing down NYCHA buildings to build new ones has been touted in the past as the more cost-effective approach to preserving affordable housing, but has had mixed results.

After NYCHA tore down 22 decaying tenement buildings on 114th Street in central Harlem in the early 2000s, tenants said they were happy with the results — but “many passed away before the completion.” In the case of the redevelopment of Prospect Plaza, a three-tower complex in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, 200,000 units of public housing were destroyed in 2002 and 300 families moved out before the whole project became too expensive to keep as “affordable” housing. Some residents were successfully relocated.

More details about construction timelines will be shared with residents as plans are finalized, NYCHA said.

The post NYCHA’s Fulton and Elliott-Chelsea Houses another step closer to demolition, city promises “dignified transition” for residents appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Midwives at the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx and the North Central Bronx community hospital say they have been fighting for a new contract for far too long.

Their last signed contract expired in June 2023, and since then, the union has been in negotiations for an agreement that grants the midwives salaries at parity with the private sector and a method of dealing with serious understaffing issues.

The midwives are represented by the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). Their union contracts at Jacobi and the North Central Bronx are managed by the nonprofit Physician Affiliate Group of New York (PAGNY).

Kinikia S. Reid, a midwife and union negotiating committee member, vented to the AmNews about the frustration of the ongoing negotiations. Although the union has been in bargaining talks with PAGNY, its representatives ultimately claim to be mere subcontractors to Jacobi and North Central Bronx; PAGNY claims they can only compensate the midwives based on the funds they are granted by the hospitals.

“That also is kind of a complexity to it,” Reid said, “because we also have been asking for Jacobi or [North Central Bronx] to come to the table, [since] this is one of the major aspects of our contract that still has yet to be settled. But they are saying, ‘Well, the fight is not with them, it’s with [PAGNY],’ but then [PAGNY tells] us ‘They’re not giving us anything to give you.’”

PAGNY did not reply to an AmNews request for a statement about the contract talks, but NYSNA claims the organization has already refused to address their safe staffing level concerns. The union also wants extra compensation for its members to cover the fact that midwives are on duty 24/7 –– they are on call for their patients, reachable and ready to respond if the labor of childbirth begins at any point during the day or night. NYSNA points to studies that show that nighttime workers often suffer adverse health factors. The midwives want extra compensation for their members who have to work these hours.

Despite having met five times over the course of the past year, NYSNA and PAGNY have yet to reach an agreement about a new contract. Reid said that at each of their meetings, PAGNY has been represented by a different negotiator, and each negotiator starts out their meetings seeking clarity on the role of the hospital’s midwives — a fresh learning curve each time.

“We are now [going to be] on our sixth person that is the representative or the talking person for PAGNY,” Reid said. “Every time we come back to the table, we are then describing once more to our employer what the midwives do, specifically, at our jobs, even though they’re our employer and we sign off on these [job descriptions] every two years when we’re re-credentialing. They still, for some reason, don’t understand the different tasks that we perform and the workload that we carry at our places of work. We describe over and over again what we do to this new individual, and then the things that we accomplish or the tasks that we agree upon at one meeting are not passed on to the next person.”

Reid said the union is currently waiting to hear back from PAGNY about when they will be able to schedule their next negotiation meeting. “We’re now going to see if this will hold, but we’re still waiting for this [next] meeting,” she said. “We already know the last person is no longer with us and this will be the sixth person we’ve been negotiating with, so it’s in bad faith; I feel like that’s the definition of negotiating in bad faith.”

The post Midwives want a fair contract at North Central Bronx, Jacobi appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

After 13 years of retail work, Tyeisha Odom felt called to do something new. She had enjoyed working directly with clients but felt she had outgrown the job and was ready to do something else she could be passionate about, something a little more entrepreneurial. 

This was during the COVID-19 pandemic, so Odom had time to think about what she really wanted to do. “I like to cook: I like the results,” Tye said, explaining that she often doesn’t feel like cooking is really work. Her grandmother first showed her how to cook; nowadays, she also turns to YouTube to pick up new food preparation ideas. 

It all aids her in her new job –– her self-created mobile food business –– Soul Tye LLC. “I like to do what I’m doing: engaging with people,” she told the AmNews. “I like the results people get when they taste my food. I like the satisfaction that comes from the stuff that I put out; I like when people taste my food and they’re happy.”

Odom sets up her mobile food stand at the nexus of Brooklyn’s DUMBO and Vinegar Hill neighborhoods, right at the intersection of Bridge and York Streets. It’s an ideal spot, down the street from the York Street stop on the F train, and in front of NYCHA’s Farragut Houses and the recently renovated Susan Smith McKinney Steward Park. Locals stop by to purchase plates of food from her stand, while tourists and international customers who’ve trekked across the Brooklyn Bridge to visit the neighborhood’s art galleries and waterfront park stumble upon her stand and get an authentic taste of the neighborhood.

Odom was born in Brooklyn and raised in the Farragut Houses, so once she got her Mobile Food Vending License, some of her first clients were from her neighborhood’s adjacent buildings. Soul Tye serves a mix of soul food: at various times she’ll serve African American, African, Latino, and Caribbean dishes. Now, she also has neighborhood tourists testing out her meals. Recently a group of 20 sightseers visited her food stand. They started out tentatively, ordering slices of her sweet potato cornbread to taste. They liked the cornbread so much that they also placed orders for plates of jerk chicken with sautéed green beans and mac and cheese. “Nearly everybody was ready to order something, then they found out there wasn’t that many [options still left],” noted David, one of Odom’s assistants.

Another now-regular customer, a recent transplant to the neighborhood, has discovered a new love for fish sandwiches thanks to Soul Tye. The woman had stopped by the stand but proclaimed she did not like flounder and would only eat whiting. After she tried the flounder seasoned by Odom, she changed her mind. “She ended up loving it; she told us to put it on some bread for her, and it turned into an order. 

“So I’m out here making nonbelievers, believers,” Odom laughs. “That’s what we’re doing out here, and we’re loving it too.”

Soul Tye, which started as an entrepreneurial dream in 2021, has grown to the point that Odom can now employ herself and a few assistants. She’s hired from within the neighborhood: David and Jayshawn are her two assistants while Niguel Miranda is in training. They all have a good work ethic, Odom said: “They’re good with customers and their customer service skills are impeccable. 

“They follow my lead. I trained them, and I just told them what my standards are. So, they don’t cook –– because I basically cook everything –– but they will monitor the grilled food and stuff.” 

From in front of the Farragut Houses, Odom says she’s watched her neighborhood evolve and noticed that Soul Tye is steadily bringing in customers of all nationalities and races. Ultimately, Odom wants to establish Soul Tye with its own food truck. 

“The goal is to be in different locations,” she says. “The goal is to be where — you see these young men that hold me down? I want to make a difference in not only my life but others, so they can take care of their families and where they come from. That’s my goal. I want to be able to not just give good food back; I want to help my community because I love my community and I love my people. 

“I want to continue being my own boss. That’s my goal. And I want to continue creating a menu that is unique from anybody else’s. And I want to continue just showing love and just making sure I put an imprint on anybody that comes in contact with me. That’s my goal.” 

Soul Tye is open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and can be reached by phone at 718-415-0129 or by email at Soultyellc@gmail.com.

The post Soul Tye, the corner food stand changing taste buds and lives appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

“Black Vote, Black Power,” a collaboration between Keith Boykin and Word In Black, 
examines the issues, the candidates, and what’s at stake for Black America in the 2024 presidential election.

The Monday morning quarterbacks have spoken. Here are five bad takes on the 2024 election.

1. Kamala Harris Ran a Bad Campaign

Nah. We’re still crunching the numbers, but the latest estimate shows Harris will end up with about 76 million votes. That’s more votes than Obama got in either of his two elections. More votes than Hillary Clinton got in 2016. And more votes than Trump got in 2016 or 2020. Understandably, we’re judging her based on Joe Biden’s extraordinary turnout of 81 million votes in 2020, but those numbers shattered all existing records because it was a referendum on Trump’s failed presidency after four years of crisis, controversy, COVID-19, and economic collapse.

RELATED: Yes, Trump Won. Here’s What Happens Next

As for the Electoral College, Trump will end up with 312 electoral votes this year, about the same as Biden in 2020, who got 306.

But let’s not forget what Harris accomplished here. In only 107 days, she set up her own campaign operation, locked down the delegates for the nomination, picked a running mate, staged a successful convention, beat Trump in the debate, raised $1 billion, rolled out her policy positions, crisscrossed the country, picked up major endorsements, generated more enthusiasm than any Democratic nominee since Barack Obama in 2008, and will end up with 2 million more votes than Trump got when he ran as an incumbent president four years ago.

In fact, in the swing states of Wisconsin and North Carolina, Harris got more votes than Biden did four years ago. And in Michigan and Georgia, she got more votes than Trump got in 2020. Her numbers should have been enough to win in an ordinary election. What she may not have anticipated, and perhaps should have in America, is that a racist, twice-impeached, convicted felon would get more votes in 2024 than when he lost in 2020.

Did Harris run a perfect campaign? No. But to do what she did in just over three months, while taking on the burden of the Biden administration’s handling of Gaza and inflation, is nothing short of astounding.

2. Democrats Should Have Held an Open Primary 

First of all, there was no closed primary. As commentator Reecie Colbert noted, any Democrat could have run when Biden dropped out of the race in July, but nobody wanted to step up because they knew it was a tough political environment for the incumbent party.

Who is this imaginary Democratic candidate who would have jumped in the race in July, leapfrogged over the sitting vice president without causing a fracture, united the party, navigated the Gaza issue, separated from Biden’s policies on inflation, overcome Trump’s advantage with racism and bigotry, and led us all to victory? I’ll wait.

3. Identity Politics Failed

Wrong again. Kamala Harris made a conscious decision not to emphasize her race or gender and barely spoke about either one. It was Trump who talked about her turning Black, lied about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats, and held a racist hate rally at Madison Square Garden two weeks before the election.

As Eddie Glaude noted, Trumpism is identity politics, and that worked for him. White identity politics helped him turn out millions of angry Americans to vote. But when white people lean into their identity, as they have for the past six decades by voting exclusively for Republican presidential candidates, they don’t call it identity politics. They just call it politics.

4. It Was All About the Economy 

Not exactly. As I explained in a previous post, Kamala Harris’s proposals were more popular than Trump’s. Trump had no plan to fix inflation. His proposed tariffs would make inflation worse. His rambling speeches and alarming campaign ads focused on scaring voters about transgender issues and illegal immigration, not on fixing the economy. And Black voters, who are disproportionately impacted by the economy, still voted for Harris. Democracy, not the economy, was the biggest concern for all voters.

Yes, one-third of voters ranked the economy as their top issue, but that also underscores my point. The willingness to trust a white failed businessman and convicted criminal with no plan to address inflation and only “concepts of a plan” for health care over a competent Black woman with specific plans is itself a form of racism.

RELATED: Reproductive Rights Advocates Tell What Trump 2.0 Means for Black Women 

The fact that we have to work twice as hard to get Americans to listen to an accomplished Black woman instead of a mediocre white man is white supremacy. The fact that people excused Trump’s 3 million job losses during his administration, but penalized Harris for not being perfect is white supremacy. And the fact that we’re even susceptible to Trump’s misinformation is a result of hundreds of years of racist white supremacist programming that has taught us to believe white men and discredit Black voices.

There’s a reason why white men are only 30% of the population but 98% of all US presidents. It’s not because they’re the only ones qualified. It’s because we’ve been conditioned to believe the white man’s ice is colder.

5. Democrats Ignored Working-Class Voters 

Wrong. Most Black voters are working class, and we voted overwhelmingly for Kamala Harris. Harris offered $6,000 tax credits for new parents, $25,000 for new homeowners, $50,000 to start a business, an Opportunity Agenda for Black Men, an increase in the minimum wage, penalties for corporate price gougers, and support for labor unions. Trump did none of that.

He and the Republicans fought against paid sick leave, paid family and medical leave, universal childcare, universal pre-K, an expanded child tax credit, and student loan debt relief, all of which Harris and the Democrats support.

RELATED: Trump’s Coming for Our Schools. Educators Are Ready to Fight

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which party and which candidate is on the side of the working class. Is it the middle-class Black woman who worked at McDonald’s to pay her way through an HBCU or the rich white guy who spent his childhood being chauffeured around in his daddy’s Cadillac, got his campaign bankrolled by Elon Musk, and put on a McDonald’s apron to pretend to work for an hour but refused to answer a basic question about the minimum wage?

If Democrats really did abandon the working class, why did Harris win voters who earn less than $30,000 a year? That’s the group most affected by the price of groceries, and they still voted for her.

So, those are the five bad takes. Are there lessons to be learned for 2028? Absolutely. Is this the end of the Democratic Party? No. Democrats lost to Trump in 2016 and came back four years later and beat him decisively. Does Trump have a mandate to do whatever he wants for the next four years? Hell no. Not any more than Joe Biden did, and Republicans tried to block him every step of the way.

While we analyze the data, Trump is busy trying to ram through recess appointments for his cabinet, intimidate federal civil service workers, and implement Project 2025. We’ve only got two months until Inauguration Day. Let’s use this time not to fight each other but to fight the threat that looms ahead.

Keith Boykin is a New York Times–bestselling author, TV and film producer, and former CNN political commentator. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Keith served in the White House, cofounded the National Black Justice Coalition, cohosted the BET talk show My Two Cents, and taught at the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University in New York. He’s a Lambda Literary Award-winning author and editor of seven books. He lives in Los Angeles.

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* This article was originally published here