Featured Projects

DOJ inserts statement of interest in lawsuit over NYPD response to mental health responses

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest toward Baerga v. City of New York, a lawsuit accusing the deployment of NYPD officers in mental health crises as discrimination against people with disabilities.“Congress enacted the ADA in 1990 ‘to provide a clear and comprehensive national mandate for the elimination of discrimination against individuals with disabilities,’” the filing reads. “It found that ‘discrimination against individuals with disabilities continue[s] to be...

Abe Stark Steel Pan Band competes in Department of Aging talent show

Every Tuesday and Friday, seniors from the Abe Stark Steel Pan Band gather to practice — a gathering for health, companionship and competition. Most recently, they performed in the NYC Department of Aging’s Talent is Timeless grand finale, a talent show for New Yorkers ages 65 and better at the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights last Thursday, Oct. 10.They ultimately did not take home the gold, but they still showcased their musical chops and represented their home borough of Brooklyn....

Iyana Titus’s journey toward making NYC Parks more inclusive

The NYC Parks & Recreation assistant commissioner of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, arrived in the Big Apple with nothing but a thousand-dollar loan from her grandmother. An internship in Harlem introduced Iyana Titus, then a Detroit-born, Texas-reared law student, to New York City.“One of the pieces of advice that an attorney gave me was to take the bar [exam] in a place where you see yourself living, and I saw myself in New York City,” Titus recalled. “To be sort of like a Southe...

Biden’s executive clemency record is ‘anemic’ in age of capital punishment

President Joe Biden could not spare Marcellus Williams from being executed by the state of Missouri last month despite potentially exonerating evidence. Nor can he halt the upcoming execution of Robert Roberson in Texas on Oct. 17, stemming from a now-debunked criminal science, because non-federal sentences like those of Williams and Roberson remain in the hands of governors.But Biden can grant clemency to the likes of Rejon Taylor, who is on federal death row in Terre Haute, Ind., for the 2003...

Daniel Penny’s defense fails to block potentially unfavorable evidence in Jordan Neely killing trial

Footage of Daniel Penny’s statements to NYPD officers will remain as evidence in his upcoming manslaughter and negligent homicide trial over the alleged killing of unhoused Black New Yorker Jordan Neely on May 1, 2023, after Judge Maxwell Wiley denied Penny’s lawyers’ motion to suppress such information to a jury.Jury selection kicks off later this month for the high-profile incident where Neely, a prominent Michael Jackson impersonator who struggled with mental health and homelessness, entered...

Criminal justice advocate Jon-Adrian Velazquez cleared of wrongful homicide conviction

Puerto Rican flags were in abundance as Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez emerged from the Manhattan courts this past Monday, Sept. 30, newly recognized by the law as an innocent man. In a packed hearing that lasted a New York minute, he was cleared of a 1998 murder conviction that landed him in prison for 23 years, seven months, and eight days.While Velazquez was released in 2021 through executive clemency granted by the departing ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, he remained on parole for almost three years in wh...

Eric Adams pleads not guilty; prosecutors suggest more charges coming

Prosecutors suggested that they might add further charges to those currently facing the embattled mayor of New York City, who made his second court appearance Wednesday, Oct. 2, after pleading not guilty to a five-count felony indictment the previous week.Mayor Eric Adams became the first sitting NYC mayor to face a criminal trial when he was arraigned during a 20-minute appearance before a judge on the morning of September 27. Adams had arrived at the courthouse by 8:45 a.m in response to his s...

Congress bill historically enshrining Rucker Park passes the House

Congress got the ball rolling on H.R.6852 — a bill to designate Harlem’s Holcombe Rucker Park as a national commemorative site — as the legislation passed through the House this past Tuesday, September 24. If made into law, the bill would federally enshrine what is arguably the world’s most famous public basketball court.“That legislation is more than just a symbolic gesture,” said sponsoring Rep. Adriano Espaillat over the phone. “It’s really a commitment to recognizing the historical and cultu...

City Comptroller’s new employment violations dashboard shames city’s biggest labor law violators

Through a new dashboard on employer labor violations, the New York City Comptroller’s Office called out the city’s worst workers’ rights offenders through an inaugural “wall of shame.” Eleven companies were listed, including fast food chains Chipotle and Panda Express, rideshare services Uber and Lyft, and e-commerce giant Amazon.Beyond massive corporations, Comptroller Brad Lander also pointed to a litany of local home healthcare companies on the blacklist as some of the worst wage-theft offend...

New York Proud photo campaign showcases local immigrant stories throughout city

Harlem-based artist Mayowa Nwadike normally captures the immigrant experience through his own brushstrokes, but he immediately agreed to be the subject matter himself when asked to participate in the New York Proud Campaign. The campaign tells the story of more than 25 first-generation New Yorkers through portrait photos placed throughout public spaces. The Nigerian-born painter calls the project an extension of his own artistic vision. “To get to a new country and all the changes that come with...

More than a $2.90 subway fare led to disastrous Brownsville police subway shooting

This week, the NYPD released camera footage of a police officer in a subway car shooting 37-year-old Derrell Mickles, a shooting which also injured two bystanders and another cop on Sept. 15.Fierce debates on fare-evasion enforcement sprung from the incident as transit patrol officers Edmund Mays and Alex Wong followed Mickles into the station after he allegedly hopped a turnstile at Brownsville’s Sutter Avenue Subway Station, which services the L Train. As the cops turn him away, CCTV footage s...

Rehabilitation Through the Arts remains multi-act story following ‘Sing Sing’ fame

Throughout the film “Sing Sing,” characters “trust the process,” whether putting together a comedy production or challenging a wrongful conviction. Doubts are met with patience, even if the system gives Black and Brown men incarcerated in New York State little reason for faith.“It’s just trusting that if we do everything as it aligns itself, it’s going to turn out right,” said Sean Dino Johnson, who plays himself in the film. “Working in the theater, we tend to want to just catch it when we catc...

Dr. Jatali Bellanton tackles youth financial literacy by addressing mental health

Money doesn’t grow on trees. But money can grow like trees, so Dr. Jatali Bellaton helps others tackle financial literacy at an early age.Originally from Manchester, Bellaton splits her time between New York City and the United Kingdom, an arrangement stemming from her mother figure (she doesn’t use the term “stepmother”) living in Brooklyn. As she was growing up, she witnessed an adult in her life struggling with financial literacy. “I just knew what I didn’t want to do when it came to money, I...

NYC Council OKs reparations study, racial injustice bill package

The New York City Council voted to pass a package of reparations bills last week that would study the city’s role in the enslavement of Africans, indigenous Americans, and their descendants in U.S. history and address continuing racial injustices — a movement that’s been met with resistance in some cities.New York State took the historic step of creating a nine-member Community Commission on Reparations Remedies last December. The state commission is tasked with producing a written report examin...

Failure to Comply: NYPD falls short in stop-and-frisk reforms a decade into monitorship

A federal monitor determined the NYPD remains “not in compliance” with decade-old court orders to reform stop-and-frisk practices in a report published Sept. 6. Back in 2013, a judge found the department’s racial profiling of Black and Brown New Yorkers unconstitutional in the landmark class action lawsuit Floyd et. al v. City of New York. Lead plaintiff David Floyd, a Black Bronx resident, was stopped and frisked by police twice including while assisting his neighbor with reentering his unit. H...

NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban steps down

NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban resigned following the FBI’s recent seizure of his phone. He assumed the role just over a year ago after his predecessor Keechant Sewell resigned. Both were appointed by Mayor Eric Adams and initially celebrated as landmark hires.Edward Caban broke a barrier as the NYPD’s first Latino police commissioner last year. But now the precinct house is on fire—following the recent FBI raid and seizure of his phone, he stepped down today.Caban grew up in the Bronx and is of...

New school year for Columbia, same story for Harlem say anti-displacement advocates

As Columbia University kicks off another school year this week, the campus remains divided from the surrounding community, both literally and figuratively.That community includes Harlem, where locals are pushing back against the institution’s planned development between 125th and 133rd Streets from Broadway to 12th Avenue. Meanwhile, recent pro-Palestinian protests led to restricted access on campus, further divorcing the university from its surrounding uptown neighborhoods. “The relationship be...

For International Overdose Awareness day, advocates take fight to Gov. Kathy Hochul

Advocates for safe drug use laid 19 body bags outside Gov. Kathy Hochul’s Manhattan offices on Aug. 26, calling it a display illustrating daily overdose deaths statewide.The action also included a symbolic funeral march for those lives lost across Third Avenue as International Overdose Awareness Day loomed on Aug. 31. Participants from organizations like Drug Policy Alliance, Housing Works and VOCAL-New York demanded for more harm reduction policies like overdose prevention sites and less crimin...

On 9/11, Clarence Singleton was retired from the FDNY. But he ran towards the fires

These days, Clarence Singleton spends life after the New York Fire Department (FDNY) taking scenic strolls, maintaining his garden and attending church services virtually. Such leisure wasn’t always the case.A former fire lieutenant, Singleton retired from Bushwick’s Engine 218 in August 2000. Both his sons were in college and he was working part-time as a mortgage inspector. But on his way to the job on a September day that next year, he heard over his car radio that a plane had crashed into th...

24 Hours of Peace block party marks Newark’s strides in violence prevention

It’s all in a day’s work in Newark, as New Jersey’s largest city celebrated another 24 Hours of Peace from Aug. 23 to Aug. 24. First started in 2012, the annual hip-hop culture block party promotes anti-violence leading up to every Labor Day weekend. R&B legend Mýa headlined an all-female lineup for this year’s women empowerment theme. The event traces its roots to Mayor Ras Baraka’s time as a Newark council member in the city’s South Ward. Boogie Down Productions rapper Hakim Green – of Channel...

Neighborhood Navigators pave in-roads in Harlem

A moral compass guides the Neighborhood Navigators’ expedition across Harlem. Lenny Ortiz and Alex Brass spend the workday between Lenox and Lexington from 116th to 125th Street, building relationships with New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, addiction and mental health disorders with the ultimate goal of connecting them with housing and social services.“It’s really about meeting people where they’re at [and] working at their pace,” Brass said. “I try not to be pushy at all. At the same time,...

Arva Rice bows out as CCRB Interim Chair as NYPD continues to dismiss disciplinary measures

New York Urban League (NYUL) president Arva Rice chaired her last Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) meeting on Aug. 15, marking her last day with the NYPD oversight agency after two and a half years. She submitted her letter of resignation on July 22 and pointed to needing to prioritize NYUL’s work empowering Black Americans during this upcoming “monumental” presidential election. “My tenure has shown that the Civilian Complaint Review Board is a vital resource for our city,” Rice said duri...

Smooth talk: Opulence Waxing Spa owner Tenika Foster-Jones mentors future estheticians

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but also a multi-billion dollar industry. So Tenika Foster-Jones hopes to usher in the next generation of estheticians as she develops her own business empire, Harlem’s Opulence Waxing Spa.Originally from Mount Vernon, Foster-Jones began her journey in high school, where multiple trade courses were offered. But New York State’s 1,000-hour cosmetology education largely focuses on doing hair, not removing it. And her passion was in waxing. “Of our 1,000 hours,...

Largest street vendor protest in decades calls for more permits, less enforcement

More than 500 protesters marched on City Hall advocating for a bill package to strengthen protections, access and opportunity for street vendors. Organizers say it was the largest demonstration in decades over the long-standing issue. Most participants at the Aug. 15 event were street vendors themselves, like the Street Vendor Project’s Calvin Baker. Baker sells general merchandise on Harlem’s 125th Street, an age-old corridor for Black street vendors in New York City. “We have a 9-to-5 just the...
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