Author: tourist_yp6g7u

People living in Downtown Brooklyn’s Farragut Houses have been burned before. They say they’re not so eager to trust any supposed good news coming from outside their housing complex.

And recent reports that Taj Gibson, the 6-foot-9, 15-year NBA veteran, wants to play a part in the reconstruction of the neighboring Navy Yard Boys & Girls Clubhouse, where so many generations of their kids have for decades attended afterschool programs, don’t move them.

“They want to put up more housing, but parents really just need a place for their children.” 

“We’ve got so many new buildings down here already!” 

“Why?!? We got so many new buildings around here; why would we need another one?”

“It’s going to be so expensive in there forever. Forever!”

“We can’t get in it; it’s just going to be sold to white people.”

“We never knew anything was going on with the Boys & Girls club until all this happened.”

The Navy Yard Boys & Girls Clubhouse, located at 240 Nassau Street, was purchased for $15 million by Alloy Development, a real estate development firm, in November 2023. The Clubhouse had serviced families who live directly across the street––at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Farragut Houses––and other kids in the Downtown Brooklyn, Navy Yard, Fort Greene, and DUMBO neighborhoods, for decades before it was abruptly shuttered in June of 2023. 

It was one of six Madison Square Boys & Girls Club Foundation clubhouses to offer daily enrichment programming for 6- through 18-year-olds across the city. The Clubhouse was forced to file for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 because it faced hundreds of child sexual abuse lawsuits filed under the New York State Child Victims Act (CVA) against a former Foundation volunteer. 

Claims were that the volunteer abused children beginning in the year 1948 and that he continued doing so up until 1984. The Foundation filed for Chapter 11 restructuring in June of 2022 to save itself and said it found it could get the most money to pay claims against it by selling its Navy Yard Clubhouse.

Once Alloy purchased the property, they heard about the anger and distrust so many neighboring 

NYCHA families felt towards anyone taking over the building. Alloy re-opened the Clubhouse and brought the Madison Square Boys & Girls Club Foundation back to manage it for the next few years. Alloy also began making efforts to meet with Farragut and nearby Ingersoll Houses tenants: it has held meetings with community representatives and contacted local Council Member Crystal Hudson, it even held an open house on June 1 to introduce itself to the community.

Now, Alloy is also bringing on Taj Gibson and his recently formed community-driven development firm GFB Development (GFB) to serve as co-developers of the Clubhouse. Gibson, who earlier this month signed a 1-year, $3.3 million contract with the Charlotte Hornets, is known to be serious about giving back to the community he came from. Raised in Ingersoll Houses, Gibson recalls playing basketball with his friends at the Navy Yard Clubhouse.

Back in 2020, the millionaire athlete used his non-profit Taj Gibson Foundation to partner with Scotch Painter’s Tape and Project Backboard for the refurbishing of deteriorating blacktops at the Ingersoll Houses’ playground. Now he has created GFB as a vehicle so that he and his childhood friends, Tameek Floyd and Malik Brown, can have an impact on development projects like the transformation of the Navy Yard Clubhouse.

“GFB and Alloy have committed to providing a permanent community space, continuing the longstanding tradition of neighborhood programming on site,” a press release about the new partnership announced. “That space will be run by a to-be-determined operator based on local resident feedback and include tailored programming for neighborhood children, seniors, and families.”

Plans are for Alloy and GFB to begin holding a series of meetings with tenants from the nearby NYCHA communities of Farragut, Ingersoll, and Walt Whitman. The developers say they want to listen to what locals think about rezoning the site, upgrading the community center, and building more affordable housing. 

Farragut residents who spoke to the AmNews outside of the building at 202 Sands Street already had a lot to say about the prospects for the redeveloped Clubhouse and any added affordable housing units. Five women and one man—a few of whom gave their names as Tracy, James, and Priscilla––spoke adamantly against the encroachment of luxury housing developments near their long-term, low-income apartment homes.

“This development is so that white people can come in here and take over. Or so the Chinese can come in here.”

“When they said affordable, it starts at $70,000 a year, so it’s not affordable. What’s affordable? Affordable is not $100G’s because we don’t have that, Mr. Taj. Affordable is not even 20G’s because we’re on welfare Mr. Taj.”

“All the affordable buildings out here, we can’t go in there. We can’t even afford them. And when they do allow you in, you got a low income––a different entrance than regular paying motherf–ers. All them buildings they’re doing downtown and they let low income in there? Low income coming through the back. Oh no, you don’t know? That’s a whole other world.”

“We don’t need no new apartments down here. We need community-based programs out here that’s what we need; we need something for the youth.”

“They ain’t had sh– in there for the kids to do back in the day: y’all don’t have no swimming pools, y’all don’t have no activities in that building for the kids. Y’all just want them to come after school and they don’t even get homework help. It’s like they’re in daycare.”

“We don’t want them here. We don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t want them here. No. And they’re here. You’re not bringing up programs here for us. How many apartments are going to be for Section 8 and people with regular incomes?”

“There’s a lot of things we need down here that they’re not investing in. But then they’re building all these high-rise buildings and it’s hard for us to get in those. You can’t even live down here no more. People want to relocate down south, which, that’s probably their plan to make it hard for us to live here because this is like a prime area, and they didn’t start building these coops and condos for nothing.”

The post Community wants to see promises fulfilled in new Navy Yard Clubhouse appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Workers at Amazon’s only unionized warehouse in the U.S. elected new union leaders, according to a vote count completed Tuesday, marking the first major change for the labor group since it established an alliance with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

A slate of candidates headed up by a former Amazon worker named Connor Spence received the most votes cast by employees from the warehouse located in Staten Island. Although turnout was very low, Spence received enough support to lead the Amazon Labor Union as it aims to secure a contract with a company that has resisted those efforts for years.

Spence, a prominent organizer with the union, more recently led a dissident group that sued the union last year to force a new leadership election amid internal strife. He was fired by Amazon last year for violating a company policy that forbids workers from accessing company buildings or outdoor work areas when they’re off the clock, a policy critics say is designed to hinder organizing.

Only 5% of the 5,312 workers employed in the warehouse voted by mail-in ballot, said Arthur Schwartz, an attorney who represents the dissident group. Spence received 137 out of 247 votes cast, Schwartz said, defeating a current ALU officer named Claudia Ashterman and Michelle Valentin, another prominent organizer.

“After more than two years of fighting to reform our union to make it more democratic, transparent, and militant, we are relieved to finally be able to turn our attention toward bringing Amazon to the table and winning an incredible contract,” Spence said in a statement.

Workers at the same warehouse voted overwhelmingly last month to affiliate with the Teamsters union, which agreed to provide the Amazon Labor Union, or ALU, with funding and other types of support until it negotiates a contract with Amazon and begins collecting member dues.

The affiliation agreement, a copy of which was reviewed by the Associated Press, says the ALU will be chartered as an “autonomous” local Teamsters union with the right to organize Amazon warehouse workers across New York City. The union branch, known as ALU-International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 1, also is expected to help with organizing Amazon warehouse workers elsewhere and to participate in strategy sessions.

“The question is whether the outcome of the election, plus the Teamster affiliation, can create that kind of momentum needed among the rank-and-file,” said Ruth Milkman, a sociologist of labor and labor movements at the City University of New York. “But even if it does, Amazon is going to fight it tooth-and-nail.”
Spence will take over the leadership role from Chris Smalls, a former Amazon worker. He spearheaded the first successful U.S. union organizing effort in the retail giant’s history in 2022, when workers at the Staten Island warehouse voted in favor of ALU representation.

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* This article was originally published here

If the spate of reports is true, Trump and his allies are planning to dig up Kamala Harris’s left-leaning tendencies, and her positions on various liberal issues and use them against her. For the hundreds of Black women who rallied on Sunday in Harlem for her, to do so would not be a bad thing, particularly her stance on women’s reproductive rights, banning of assault weapons, calling for term limits and ethics guidelines for Supreme Court Justices—a proposal announced by President Biden on Monday during a recent visit to Texas.

The Black women of Harlem firmly backed Harris for president and expressed no qualms about her progressive agenda, one that stands in direct contrast to many of Trump’s reactionary, anti-democratic plans. 

Trump, as expected, will try to dig up every negative thing he can find, no matter its veracity, to tar Harris, citing her as unpatriotic, and a supporter of liberal ideas. The Harris team should not run from this but instead use it as part of their forward-looking outlook as they paint Trump as a troglodyte and creature imbued with racist and misogynistic attitudes and behavior.

In other words, the Harris team can flip every charge leveled at their candidate as just the opposite of theirs. As Councilmember Yusef Salaam said at Sunday’s rally, she has a strong prosecutorial background, and Trump is a “felon who according to current American laws cannot vote.”   

Harris should not take one step back from her progressive credentials, not move an iota from her commitment to upholding the virtues of democracy. She should make it plain that she is better prepared to take this country into the promises and high-sounding rhetoric we have heard again and again from a bevy of elected officials. 

Finally, Harris should proudly own the liberal notions that Trump will be attacking her on for the next 100 days, remember all the lies that Trump the denier has fostered on the American public, and push forward whether he chooses to debate or not.  And there is a good chance he will refuse the challenge, take a powder, and place the blame on Biden for leaving the race. Anything but facing reality, facing a well-informed prosecutor who knows the Trump type and all of its failings. 

Yes, as the Black women of Harlem noted, “Democracy is on the ballot” and Trump is on the run. But he can’t hide!

The post EDITORIAL: We Stand with the Black Women of Harlem appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

National Action Network (NAN) member Korey Wise, one of five teenagers wrongly convicted in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, was exonerated after 14 years of incarceration. The Rev. Al Sharpton, other NAN members, and friends all gathered to celebrate Wise’s birthday at NAN’s Saturday rally.

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* This article was originally published here

Black women in Harlem  joined the growing wave of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris’ bid for the presidency at a rally which assembled at the Harriet Tubman Memorial in Harlem on Sunday afternoon. Among those gathered were New York State Sen. Cordell Cleare, the Rev. Sandra Baker of Mt. Nebo Baptist Church, Assemblymember-Elect Jordan Wright, Councilmember Yusef Salaam, and Jackie Rowe-Adams and Iesha Sekou of Harlem Street Corner Resources.

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* This article was originally published here