By Lil Nickelson On Sunday, November 10th, 2024, my friend and photographer Rudy Collins and I met around 12:00pm in Marcus Garvey Park entrance at 124th Street and 5th Avenue in Harlem. From there we boarded a golf cart together to take a ride up a steep hill on the side of the park right…
Uptown lost one of its most colorful characters recently. While his real name was known by only a handful of people, his self-chosen moniker was El General Palominio Paloma. I think most folks knew him as simply Paloma.
Paloma was an Uptown legend. For the last few decades he has been a fixture in Washington Heights, walking up and down the entirety of the neighborhood impeccably dressed. I mean sharp. You never saw Paloma without his suit and tie and his signature swagger. His clothes practically sparkled and were perfectly and perpetually pressed. It didn’t matter if it was a heat wave in the middle of August, Paloma always looked brand-new.
According to Paloma, he was born to a dirt-poor family in a small campo in the Dominican Republic and was raised drinking goat’s milk straight from the teat. He also believed that he had a mystical experience as a child where an otherworldly voice ordained the connection between him and birds.
El General Palominio Paloma was really about that Paloma life. Paloma is the Spanish word for dove and is an eternal symbol of peace. Well, Paloma believed that he had a spiritual connection with birds therefore his clothes forever bore the dove motif. He even signed his name by drawing a dove.
Did I mention that Paloma even had a YouTube channel? In the video below he calls a group of pigeons into his apartment to eat off of his table, while perico ripiao blares in the background. While I’ll admit that is pretty strange and gross, Paloma was a one of one; he danced to his own tune. He literally did because a small radio was his constant companion.
In one of the videos uploaded in June of 2014, he revealed that he has been diagnosed with cancer but refused Chemo because a “bird can’t fly without its wings”. He even stated that he felt that he would die soon.
Paloma was a proud Dominican, who stayed with the Dominican flag somewhere on his person. He also never seemed to miss the annual Dominican Day parade, serving as the unofficial representative of Washington Heights. With El Alto changing so rapidly, I can’t help but feel that his passing is sadly symbolic of the ending of Washington Heights as we know it.
The Southampton Inn hosted local business and community leaders for the first get-together of the Fall for a lively discussion. The discussion was created to ask how best to boost the year-round economy to help local businesses, nonprofits and cultural institutions. Bill Manger, Mayor of Southampton Village, joined community leaders including Kristen Reynolds, Discover Long Island, Wendy Pearson,…
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By Lil Nickelson On Sunday, November 3rd, 2024, the 2024 TCS NYC Marathon with its usual field of 50,000 began the 26.2-mile race in Staten Island and turns north through Brooklyn and Queens. Runners then head west across the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, up north into the Bronx and back to Manhattan to finish in…
