Online Portfolio
This story first ran in the Mott Haven Herald on Jan. 8. Nailed to the side of a dilapidated brick building on East 140th Street is a pair of bullhorns. At any point during the day they might go off, blaring ear-splitting noise that can be heard blocks away. Tyko and Andrea Kihlstedt hear them in […]
Read More NEIGHBORS RALLY AGAINST SIREN-BLASTING LANDLORDphoto by Niamh McDonnell A 24 hour drop-in center that will accommodate mental and physical health non-emergencies is under discussion to open in The Hub. This spring the city’s health department proposed centers in the Bronx and Brooklyn, but some community members in The Hub demanded more input in the planning process. Now the center […]
Read More BID PUSHES FOR 24-HOUR MENTAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH CENTER IN THE HUBAn old Port Morris motorcycle repair shop will soon become the only gay bar in a borough with few spaces for the LGBTQ community. Audrey de Jesus said she is hoping to open the three-story club and restaurant, which will feature drag and burlesque shows, in August. With exposed pipes and yellow walls, the stucco-fronted space […]
Read More FOURTH TIME’S THE CHARM: SOUTH BRONX WOMAN TO OPEN BOROUGH’S ONLY GAY BAR IN PORT MORRISBy Rachel Rippetoe / March 29, 2019 Marco Shalma had once hoped there would be a music festival Saturday, March 23, inside the still-unfinished Union Crossing on 141st Street. What happened there instead haunts him. Nearly 70 people protested on the steps of the future commercial development, chanting “Fire to the gentrifiers,” and waving signs of Shalma’s face […]
Read More HOW A POWERFULLY-BACKED FESTIVAL CRUMBLEDMiguel Mondesi has been a garbage worker in New York City for 22 years. He’s only 46, but he says everything hurts — his knees, his ankles, his hips. The father of three starts his shift at 3 a.m. and works for the next 10 to 15 hours. In that time, he’ll make up to […]
Read More Uprooting a Dangerous Industry: New York City’s Garbage Reform ExplainedIn their ongoing battle with City Hall, tenant leaders from New York City public housing have become bedfellows with an unlikely partner: the federal government. Following a year-long legal battle with the Housing Authority that resulted in the appointment of a federal monitor to oversee the agency, those NYCHA leaders and other tenants are hopeful […]
Read More NYCHA tenant reps challenge HUD official over housing policyProminent local LGBTQ leaders are putting a positive spin on a Bronx councilman’s homophobic statements. It’s no secret that Bronx Councilman Ruben Diaz Sr., who in the past has compared homosexuality to beastiality, harbors controversial views, but the former state senator and pentecostal reverend’s homophobic comments on a Spanish radio station on Feb. 8, have […]
Read More Mott Haven LGBTQ leaders unfazed by Bronx lawmaker’s homophobic commentsOn Martin Luther King Day morning, as the temperatures dropped below 6 degrees Fahrenheit, Kenneth Hernandez was bundled in a black puffer coat outside of the Manida Street headquarters of Sanitation Salvage, the controversial Hunts Point trash hauler that shuttered in November. Hernandez, 27, is a former driver for Salvage. His face fell as he recalled years […]
Read More Garbage workers demand back pay from Sanitation Salvage on MLK dayDetectives from the 40th Precinct arrested 10 suspected drug dealers last week, capping a year-long investigation. Deputy Inspector Brian Hennessy made the sting and subsequent busts public at a community briefing Friday evening. The takedown took place at Perry’s Diner on Third Avenue on Jan. 8. Detectives charged 10 dealers loosely associated with the Latin […]
Read More NYPD sting puts 10 alleged drug dealers behind barsMayor Bill de Blasio came to Melrose on Wednesday to tout what he said was a record breaking year for the creation of affordable housing in the city. At a press conference at Borinquen Court, a complex built last year on 138th Street with 145 fixed-income apartments for elderly and/or physically handicapped people, de Blasio boasted that […]
Read More Mayor comes to Mott Haven to celebrate housing policiesThe co-owner of La Morada Mexican restaurant on Willis Avenue and her lawyer say she was unlawfully detained by undercover NYPD detectives last Friday evening after they saw her videotaping an alleged sting operation next door. Yajaira Saveedra, who has co-run the restaurant with her mother, sister, and brother since 2009, has earned a reputation […]
Read More NYPD’s arrest of activist shrouded in mysteryEmbattled trash hauler’s truck killed two in six months Environmental and labor activists hope that the surprise closing of a controversial, private trash collecting company based in Hunts Point, is a first step to reining in the city’s private trash haulers. Once Sanitation Salvage’s trucks stop rumbling through the South Bronx’s streets, they say, those […]
Read More Workers, advocates rejoice as Sanitation Salvage announces it will closeSoon after reporting a leak in the sink in her apartment at 386 E 139th St., Blonnie Rodgers, 63, said she heard an aggressive knock at her door. When she opened the door the building’s managing agent, Sam Rosen, was standing outside. “He told me, ‘You better watch whose toes you’re stepping on,’” she recalled […]
Read More Tenants fight protracted legal battle with landlordsThe Betances Houses in Mott Haven as of Friday are no longer Section 9 public housing, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced at a press conference at the complex on Monday. The 40 buildings stretching from from 136th Street to 145th Street were converted to the federal Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, which means they will […]
Read More NYCHA no more: Betances Houses officially converted to RAD housingBy Rachel Rippetoe and Charlie May on September 25, 2018 at 9:19 am Prominent local businesswoman’s push for “self-gentrification” fuels neighborhood rift Shouting protestors drowned out the advice of bank representatives and developers at a public meeting on Sept. 6, as homeowners in Hunts Point gathered to learn about profiting off their homes amid a swath of […]
Read More Public discussion over community land trusts sparks protestBy Rachel Rippetoe on October 1, 2018 at 10:33 am A nonprofit in Longwood is rallying residents to fight displacement amid the city’s impending rezoning. About 30 people discussed the rezoning of a 130-block area from Longwood north to Crotona Park, on either side of Southern Boulevard, at the Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association on Prospect Avenue […]
Read More Banana Kelly pushes for a land trust ahead of Southern Boulevard rezoningSEPTEMBER 27, 2018 BY RACHEL RIPPETOE Some housing complexes have had no pickup for weeks The suspension of garbage hauler Sanitation Salvage last month has created a trash problem for public housing developments across the South Bronx. Bronx Property Management department head Dennis Ovalle confirmed at a meeting of tenant presidents from NYCHA complexes across the area […]
Read More Trash piles up after NYCHA loses contractorOCTOBER 5, 2018 BY RACHEL RIPPETOE A month later, tenants deal with mold and bureaucratic delays A burst pipe on the floor above hers sent water dripping from the crevices of Beatrice Dickerson’s ceiling in August, flooding her Morrisania Air Rights apartment with more than two inches of water. A month later, Dickerson, 76, said the […]
Read More NYCHA tenants cope with aftermath of flooding