Bronx District 14 Streets Alive with City Council Campaigns

Posted on 02. Nov, 2009 by Shawna-Kaye Lester in Metro, Politics and Government

By Shawna-Kaye Lester

With just 72 hours before Tuesday’s hotly-contested primary election for City Council, three Bronx Democratic candidates, seeking to win last-minute support, took their campaigns to apartment complexes, neighborhood arts festivals and local streets.

In a battle for Council District 14, Yudelka Tápia, founder of the first Dominican political club in the Bronx, and Fernando Cabrera, founder and pastor of a local New Life International Outreach Church, are jostling to unseat incumbent Councilmember María Baez, who is seeking a third term to represent voters in Fordham, University Heights, Kingsbridge, West Bronx and the Morris Heights sections of the Bronx.

As Mr. Cabrera took his message to apartment building residents and Ms. Tápia’s campaign organized a motorcade through the district’s streets, Ms. Baez appeared with other local elected officials at the Fordham’s Renaissance Festival.

On Saturday afternoon, Yudelka Tápia departed in a motorcade of some twenty vehicles, spreading her message that “The Time is Now.” As speakers boomed “Tápia! Tápia! Táaaapia!” she rode for four hours in an open-air convertible, starting the journey outside her Grand Concourse office and making her way through the Kingsbridge, Jerome Avenue and Tremont Avenue areas. Surrounded by teenage and adult volunteers, she got out of the car on Grand Avenue and in several other places to shake hands, and encourage people to go to the polls and elect change by voting for her. Residents peered from apartment windows as Tápia smiled and waved to them. At traffic lights, her campaign staff popped out of their cars and plastered posters walls and handed out flyers.

María Baez received support from fellow elected officials as she fought back questions and criticism about her 52.5 percent 2008 attendance record as a City Council member. She was center stage at Sunday’s 2009 Fordham Renaissance Festival on Fordham Road. Assemblyman José Rivera, who co-hosted the event with his daughter, New York City State Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera, gave Baez and her supporters some 15 minutes to exhort from the crowd support for her campaign. Former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and Assemblyman Nelson Castro were also among those showing their support for Baez on stage.

“There’s a lot of individuals trying to trick us,” Baez told the crowd, referring to the negative comments about her attendance record from opponents and the media.

“Please, we are smart voters and on Tuesday we are going to show them just how smart we are. We’re going to go out there and we are gonna vote for María Baez!”

On Monday night, at the Roosevelt Gardens apartment complex on Grand Concourse, Fernando Cabrera, a political novice who has won the support of the Bronx Democratic Party, filled his back pocket and hands with flyers and went door-to-door in the 10 building complex, shaking hands and meeting people.

He was accompanied by Nilsa Medina, a resident of the complex and member of 1199 SEIU- one of several unions that officially support Cabrera’s candidacy, as he rang doorbells and spoke with whoever would listen. He also stuck flyers beneath the doors that were not opened. Dismounting a staircase he said, “You do this every day, you get tired, but it matters.”

“It’s victory,” Medina chimed in.

Cabrera asked several of the people he met about their ethnic heritage, and used the opportunity of the one-to-one meeting to plug his own mixed Puerto Rican and Dominican background and his commitment to providing youth more opportunities, which struck a chord with the residents.

“There is nothing like human contact,” said Cabrera, referring to his choice to walk door-to-door every night for the past six months.

“People want to know you are real; New Yorkers are good at telling what is real and what is phony.” He added: “Tomorrow you can expect total, total victory.”

Cynthia Colón, a 28-year-old resident of the complex used the opportunity to tell Cabrera that despite the bad economy, she is really saddened that there are no programs in place for youth. “I’m grateful that you came out. It means a lot” she said.

For Yudelka Tápia, it was dark when her caravan returned to its starting point, where she thanked her supporters and encouraged them to join her at 9 a.m. the next day to visit the district’s seven churches: “We are going to fill the churches with Yudelka Tápia tomorrow!” she proclaimed through a loudspeaker, to a chorus of cheers. “The fight continues! This is a train that is not going to stop until Tuesday. Tuesday we are stopping when we celebrate the victory!”

Fernando Cabrera emerged victor from the September 15 primary election and will contest the general election on November 3, 2009.

Left Without Mosque During Eid, Muslims Make Do in the Bronx

Posted on 20. Oct, 2009 by Lim Wui Liang in Religion

STREET PRAYERS: A passerby walks by the temporary site of the Islamic Cultural Center during a prayer session. The Center, which is also a mosque, was burnt down on Sept. 17, 2009. Photo: Lim Wui Liang

By Lim Wui Liang

As dusk arrives, some 30 men huddle barefoot inside an empty shop at the corner of East 166th Street and College Avenue in the Bronx. Blue tarpaulin covers the concrete floor. At the door, shoes and slippers spill out onto the sidewalk.

A group of six Hispanic youths are gathered outside, watching. Suddenly, a teenage girl shouts. “Hey you guys should take your s**t one block down!”

Another youth suggests that they steal their shoes.

The men ignore the threats. One of them begins to pray and everyone kneels. Dressed in different colored salwar kameez, the traditional garb for Muslim men and women, they bow and press their heads to the floor in unison.

It is time to break their fast for today.

For the West African members of the Islamic Cultural Center, praying in full view of passers-by on the street is unusual. But they have no choice. On Sept. 17, the center, which is also a mosque, burned down and left its 300 members without a house of worship. Police said the fire was started with an electrical spark in the basement.

The increased visibility of the members of the Islamic Cultural Center coincides with the recent heightened scrutiny of the Muslim community in New York. On Sept. 14, FBI agents raided several apartments of Afghan immigrants in Queens who had come into contact with a suspected terrorist, Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested in Denver on Sept. 19.

The fire occurred just three days before Eid, which marks the end of the Islamic month of fasting. On the same day, city officials handed the keys of three vacant lots, two blocks away from the Islamic center, to members of the mosque. Immediately, the community cleaned up the units and, in less than a day, their new mosque was ready – albeit a spartan one.

The night of the fire, Bakary Camara, 45, a committee member of the mosque, was having dinner with the borough president when he received a call from a friend. He rushed down to the mosque, which was three blocks away, and watched helplessly with other Muslims who had gathered while firemen worked to put out the flames. Fire shot through the top of the single story building, but no one was killed.

“The roof came down and all the prayer mats were covered in dirt,” recalled Camara.

The grocery store beside it was not spared either. Firemen had to stop its owner, Hamidou Gumaneh, 56, from entering the store to salvage his belongings.

“I’ve got nothing with me now,” he said.

For many, the fire triggered memories of a tragedy two years ago in Highbridge, the southwestern neighborhood of the Bronx, when 10 Malian immigrants, including eight children, were killed in a fire that started from the basement and spread to the entire building in minutes.

Pablo Chevere Jr., 52, who volunteers at the mosque, remembers a time when a nightclub used to stand in its place.

“There were all kinds of vice, prostitution and shootings,” he said. “The cops would come here many times and they would have to scoop somebody off from the ground.”

The club got closed down and the mosque was built.

“There was a problem at first with the residents,” said Chevere. “But when they saw that we were about peace, they left us alone.”

“We got people converted to Islam too.”

On the morning of Sept. 20, the members of Islamic Cultural Center held their Eid prayers on the street for the first time. An estimated 1,500 worshippers -dressed in orange, red, green, yellow and blue- occupied East 166th Street, which was closed to traffic for two blocks. They lined the asphalt with tarpaulin sheets, and when the call for prayers began, transformed the street into a multi-colored spectacle.

After the prayers, Essa Touray, 37, went around with a cardboard box asking for donations to rebuild the mosque.