The Bronx Documentary Center (BDC) is a non-profit gallery and educational space. Through exhibitions, screenings, and public programming, we show the work of internationally-renowned and emerging photographers and filmmakers who are dealing with the themes that guide the BDC: justice, education, community-building, and positive social change. We also provide free education programs for middle and high school students as well as professional education workshops for historically underrepresented adult Bronx-based photographers that provide opportunities for professional development and skills training in photojournalism, filmmaking and documentary photography. Learn more at bronxdoc.org.
The Bronx Junior Photo League (BJPL) is a documentary photography, video, and college success program serving middle through high school students.
Editors-in-Chief: RICARDO J. PARTIDA + PAMELA ROZON
Copy Editors: MIKE KAMBER + TERRY SHTOB + EVAN SOLIS + PAUL STREMPLE + CYNTHIA RIVERA
Writers: P.M. CAMPBELL + PAMELA Y. ROZON
NYCHA Story; Writing Team: ITZEL ROBLES + AMINATA CAMARA + CARA-STAR TYNER + ARWEN POLANCO
Research Team: JOSHUA CAPOTE + CHRISTOPHER VIDALS + BRANDON CARRILLO LEON + DANIEL LUCERO + MORGAN MASSEY + ADANNA TAYLOR
Photo Team: CESAR FLORENCIO + ALEXA PACHECO
Photographers: BDC + BJPL + P.M. CAMPBELL + CHLOE RODRIGUEZ + PAMELA Y. ROZON + MICHAEL YOUNG
Printers: CYNTHIA RIVERA + SEAN SIROTA • Designer: KATIE KHOURI • Cover Image: ALEXA PACHECO
The Bronx Junior Photo League is made possible, in part, by the Chris Hondros Fund; the Clif Family Foundation; the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation; Fujifilm; the Hyde & Watson Foundation; the Henry Nias Foundation; Joy of Giving Something; the New Yankee Stadium Community Benefits Fund; by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, and by City Council member Rafael Salamanca; the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the State Legislature; the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation; and the William Talbott Hillman Foundation.
All digital photos taken on DSLR cameras were taken with equipment generously provided by Fujfilm.
Ana is thirty-seven years old, and with a PHD in Neuroscience & Social Sciences, she is a research assistant professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine as well as an adjunct associate professor at Yeshiva University teaching a graduate psychology course. “I came to work in the Bronx…” she said, and while most would have ended the sentence there, she continued “[and] I was looking for a place to volunteer”, this was six years ago. Today, Ana spends her free time gallery and library sitting, doing home management for events, and attending workshops whenever possible. This is not new for her however, “volunteering has always been important to me” she says. She assisted at food pantries while studying in the Netherlands and has spent time providing psychological support to the houseless community in her home
country of Portugal. Though she has been practicing neuroscience for about thirteen years, she has always enjoyed photography, and coming to the BDC allowed her to take that passion seriously. While taking a photojournalism class with Mike Kamber and Ash Gilbertson, Ana’s project came to focus on her work with people living with schizophrenia.
Pairing her photos with art, writing, and testimonies by those people, she says “I’m trying the best I can to tell their story to make people understand that we’re all human beings with different struggles”. It was during that class that Ana came to wrestle with her “frustration as a scientist” and recognize that photography “was really what [she] wanted to do”. Now, Ana has plans to not only return to the Netherlands to
pursue a Masters Degree in photography, but to start a documentary center in Portugal. “I prefer to do it in my country” she says, describing her community in Lisbon as “similar to the South Bronx” in terms of access to resources. Though she first considered the life change a year ago, this last year has made many factors “less abstract”. Mentioning names like Mike Kamber and Maria Galindo, she maintains that they gave her the courage to do what she loves and “risk it, try it, and see what happens”. Though she thanks the BDC for this shift, saying “I don’t know how so many amazingly generous people come together in one place”, for the last six years she has been among the most giving. The BDC can only function because of people like Ana, who put their community first, and in doing so find what they love.
When Ana Francisco moved to the US after studying in the Netherlands, she almost immediately found her way to the Bronx Documentary Center.Image of Anna Francisco taken in the Bronx Documentary Center gallery. Francisco has been a part of the Bronx Documentary Center for six years and has recently decided to leave in order to pursue a master’s in photography in the Netherlands. © Pamela Rozon/ BDC
Melrose Houses, Bronx New York—On a recent sunny November afternoon, dozens of LED floodlights burned brightly outside the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) complex known as the Melrose Houses. From sunrise to sunset the massive lights glared down on the residents passing by, burning precious electricity and warming the earth. The lights have been on so long that residents seem unsure when they were first turned on, or why they are not turned off during the day.
The New York City Housing Authority is a public development corporation that provides public housing in New York City. NYCHA was created in 1935 to provide decent, affordable housing for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers. Since then, it has become the largest public housing authority in North America.
Residents of the housing authority say that the money being used to keep the lights on throughout the day should be used for a better cause, such as the backlog of repairs inside residents apartments. Nadine, 39, a neighborhood resident, believes NYCHA is wasting energy and money. “If you think about it, all that energy is being used during the day and everybody is in school or at work,” she said.
A two-month-long Bronx Documentary Center student investigation has revealed that NYCHA, home to more than 350,000 New Yorkers, is violating the agency’s own guidelines, leaving on more than 200 high-wattage lights during the day at Melrose, Patterson and Jackson Houses, three South Bronx developments that are home to more than 8,800 residents.
“all that energy is being used during the day and everybody is in school or at work”Image of entrance into the Melrose houses. © Itzel Robles/ BDC
“The lighting at Jackson Houses are not on 24 hours a day and function as designed,” said Rochel Leah Goldblatt, a NYCHA spokesperson. BDC students, however, have witnessed and photographed the Jackson Houses lights left on during the day in October and November of 2022, contradicting NYCHA’s claims.
NYCHA acknowledges that lights are on during the day at other housing projects. “Development staff are working to resolve an issue that causes some of the lights to be on during both night and day at Melrose and Patterson Houses,” Godblatt wrote in a recent email.
Leaving unnecessary lights on causes environmental problems, says Karen Argenti, a board member at Bronx Council for Environmental Quality. “It’s a matter of the impact of increasing the amount of unneeded electricity in the [city’s] grid and causing pollution to go into the air in the South Bronx,” says Argenti.
Many residents are quick to give NYCHA credit for installing the lights, saying they have improved security at night. “Back in the day these areas were pitch black and crime rates were super high,” said Melrose Houses resident Nelson Ramirez, Other residents echoed Mr. Ramirez’s opinion and said the lights were needed after dark.
The BDC’s investigation found that approximately 84 lights manufactured by RAB Lighting Inc. were left on daily at Patterson Houses, as many as 86 lights at Jackson Houses, and more than 67 lights at the Melrose Houses. Based on an estimated average of 300 watts per light, our student journalists have calculated that NYCHA is wasting approximately 350,000 kilowatt hours per year at the three developments. At current commercial Con Edison rates,
this amounts to $82,804 in wasted tax dollars. A representative of RAB Lighting Inc. said that for $25 per light, the RAB outdoor lights purchased by NYCHA could be equipped with a photocell, model #RPCT-480, automatically turning the lights off during daylight hours.
The wasted electricity violates the NYCHA design standards issued by NYCHA Capital Projects, which state that electric photocells be utilized to turn off all lights during daylight hours. NYCHA’s Office of Design-Standard Notice, dated January 2016, states: “All exterior site lighting shall utilize shut off controls consisting of a photocell mounted on the northernmost façade of the building in addition to photocells mounted on each post-type fixture (pedestrian, cobraheads and floodlights) as well as a timer adjacent to the source electrical panel in the building.”
NYCHA’s practice of leaving these lights on also violates the housing authority’s own sustainability agenda which focuses on saving energy and making homes comfortable for residents. NYCHA’s sustainability agenda promises to “Ensure environmental and social sustainability is integrated into all aspects of NYCHA’s work.”
The Bronx has some of the highest climate hazard rankings in the country. The increase in light usage can only negatively affect these dangerous conditions, says Anne Rabe, Environmental Policy Director at New York Public Interest Research Group. “You know, we’re all going to have to make changes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in seven years from now, or we will not have a livable planet, according to the United Nations,” says Rabe. “So we have seven years.”
At current commercial Con Edison rates, this amounts to $82,804 in wasted tax dollars.Image of Lights on in the Patterson houses. © Cesar Florencio/ BDC
Michael Young is the Adult Education Coordinator at the Bronx Documentary Center (BDC). As a freelance, street, and portrait photographer, he has done assignments for The New York Times, as well as for Jill Jones’s South Bronx Rising, which uses one of his photos as its cover. He was also a musical theater major, street dancer, and a finance worker. None of his experience or influence is independent however, as it all ties into the core of what makes him an artist. Similarly the support he has received throughout his journey, from counselors, friends, and family has been indispensable. Young, among eight other
BDC artists, is the recipient of an Artist Employment Grant from Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY). As a creator who takes everything into account when making art, his past projects have shaped his present and his future projects will be informed by his past.
Discussing his creative experiences, Young maintains that “music is the one thing that ties all of those different pieces together and kind of informs even what [he does] photographically”. Likewise, every human hand which has touched him has left an indelible print on his life. He is fifty-five years old, and has a well documented childhood from his aunt who would caption her own photos. Discussing his meeting with a guidance counselor after twenty years working in finance, he said “based on the questions that she asked me and the answers that I gave. She was like you’re an artist”. She would not be the last person to recognize this however. In 1995, the woman who would become his mother in law gave him one of his first cameras, and while he “loved what [he] was seeing compositionally… especially like the blur of background” he would get “so frustrated [he would]
just put it down”. While he has lived in the Bronx for twenty-two years, he moved to Melrose in 2008. It was not until 2009, when the wife of one of Young’s late friends sold him her husband’s camera that he started to take photography seriously. By that point he reflected “I started shooting and I haven’t stopped since”. In 2011, his wife told him about coming across the BDC on a walk, and when he walked over he met founder Michael Kamber. Young started to attend Friday night classes, and exhibitions, as well as occasionally volunteering. “It was nice just to be around other people...” he said “ I think one of my biggest memories is the camaraderie and the community, and kind of the encouragement that I got from the Friday night group”.
In August 2022, he officially started working at the BDC as the Adult Education Coordinator. He describes it as coming full circle to a moment he has long prayed for: getting “to a place where photography could take care of my family”. Michael Young’s community extended far beyond his Friday night group; it included his wife, mother in law, Michael Kamber, and everyone who recognized him as an artist, going back to his guidance counselor.
Michael Young is one of 300 artists chosen for The Artist Employment Program (AEP) by CRNY, which allocated $49.9 million to fund creatives. He was recognized by the BDC for his work on the Claremont Project, documenting the five NYCHA housing projects which comprise what is known as Claremont Village, and subsequently selected for the AEP. As a fellow in the photographer’s cohort, he took pictures of a basketball camp as well as doing projects like his Generations and Corridors. “I always wondered what makes a person want to leave and what makes a person want to stay” he said, discussing Generations “So my project was to … do some oral histories or or portraits or a combination of the two to document people who had been in the projects [all their lives].” As someone who grew up in Brooklyn projects, hating the vertical proximity of living, yet loving the people, he continued: “I came back with more artistic eyes now. I was looking at the things that I hated. So I would take pictures of the building, but I will also take pictures of the textures and the walls and the broken glass. And I call that part of my project Corridors”.
Young has several ongoing and upcoming projects, personal and public. He has a long
term project documenting his ninety year old father in law, centering the significance of becoming a caregiver for a parent. The Sum of Her Parts is a series of images following his wife, who is instrumental in his journey to being an artist. Sometimes I See Michael is an attempt to transgress the ways photographers interact with the houseless community, and analyze the factors that lead to their position.
“The street is the real runway to me” he says, and as a product and producer of New York culture, Michael Young is the definition of a community photographer. His street photography excels because he was once dancing on the same sidewalks. He grew up in housing projects similar to the ones he photographed in the Claremont Project. The songs he once sang in a church circuit can still be heard in his photos of the people of New York. From the Bronx Documentary Center to Claremont Village and beyond, no matter where Michael Young goes, his camera is anchored in his community in New York.
IG: @ mgyoungphotography
“I think one of my biggest memories is the camaraderie and the community, and kind of the encouragement that I got from the Friday night group.”All images © Michael Young
The Bronx has a long history of lacking opportunities for its residents, such as education. Students suffer from the lack of resources in the borough’s lower-income communities, resulting in reduced rates of high school and college graduates. High school graduation rates in the Bronx are 8% lower compared to other boroughs in NYC. College rates are also lower compared to other boroughs, with only one out of five
opportunities. Parents that didn’t attend college may disregard their children’s thoughts about the college process, or underestimate its complexity, leaving students to figure out the process on their own.
“I think that it’s really difficult to ask someone to focus on education when the world around them is potentially in a state of disarray,” said Kalada Halliday, the College Success Counselor
Percent with an Associate's degree
6.80% College Graduation Rate
18.10%
Percent with a graduate or professional degree
6.40% High School Graduation Rate
77%
Percent who did not finish the 9th grade
students graduating. The Bronx Documentary Center prides itself on offering resources to children in order to find a path to higher education. However, the change starts at home, encouraging and aiding students in their future successes. The main reason these numbers are low is due to the many challenges students face compared to those in higher-income neighborhoods.
Public schools are severely underfunded and students are denied the resources that higher-income areas provide. Students whose parents immigrated to the country, or don’t speak English, carry the responsibility when seeking higher education
for the BDC’s Bronx Junior Photo League, a free photography and college prep program for middle and high school students. “You also have students who are actively dealing with home security concerns and are still asked or expected to come to school and deal with those circumstances.”
In his role at the BDC Halliday assists high school students on their journey toward higher education. He prides himself in assisting low-income students of the Bronx, guiding them through the challenges of college applications. Halliday noted that students have to battle through countless obstacles in their lives, making it difficult to focus on their school performance, he said.
15.20% Public schools in the Bronx
436 Private schools in the Bronx
86
According to Kalada, parents want the best for their kids, but don’t know what that’s supposed to look like. There is a cultural lack of expectation when it comes to seeking higher education. Many students want to get jobs as fast as possible after high school graduation to help their families financially and don’t understand the massive benefits that come with a college education. Halliday combats this by engaging his students with their interests, helping them find opportunities in life that align with them. He brings in BJPL alumni to show students that their dream jobs are possible with the right amount of hard work.
“We’re in one of the poorest neighborhoods in America,” said BDC founder Michael Kamber. “I think the number one thing that correlates to increased earning and moving into the middle class or the upper classes is really education.”
Kamber founded the BDC in 2011 as an exhibition and arts education center based on documentary photography. Once the BJPL was created, Kamber noticed that many of the high school participants students were not going to college. With the help of Bianca Farrow, the Education Coordinator and Rhynna Santos, the College Success Counselor at the time, the BDC focused on providing resources for those wanting to enter college. With workshops on financial aid, college essays, and applications, college acceptance rates spiked among the BDC students. Today 95% of graduating high school students from the BJPL are admitted to four-year colleges.
Kamber stresses the importance of having a college degree in today’s society. As a person who never attended college, he said that he missed many opportunities in life, including jobs that immediately turned him down due to his having only a high school degree.
The South Bronx is widely considered a dangerous area to live. Several schools in its neighborhoods work hard to ensure the safety of their students, like the Immaculate Conception School in the Melrose neighborhood. Jennifer Paige, director of school operations at Immaculate Conception School in the Melrose neighborhood, makes sure her students feel safe in and out of class. She ensures students are greeted and dismissed by staff; upon arrival, guests must ring into the building and meet a security guard with a valid form of identification. Ms. Paige also speaks about the importance of community. ICS is an important part of the
local community, a legacy school where many teachers and volunteers are alumni.
Above all, ICS prides itself on its rigorous education, with most of its student’s grades averaging between 80 to 89. They stress the importance of an early start with children, ensuring they keep education as a top priority.
“Early intervention is always going to be a great indicator on where students are going to want to go later on when they’re in high school and even in college,” said Ms. Paige. “As long as the conversation is happening early, then they’re getting exposed to it.” There are around 84 private high schools in the Bronx which require middle school students to take the Specialized High School’s
Admissions Test. Students who attend specialized high schools have a better chance of being accepted to good colleges.
Students in the Bronx deal with many more obstacles than their peers elsewhere in the city, having to confront issues related to safety, poverty, and generation gaps when it comes to higher education. By introducing the importance of education to children at a young age, it’s more likely that they’ll be inspired to succeed in their academic futures. All of us who are working in the field of youth education with students in the South Bronx have a responsibility to ensure that their futures are bright. Below we’ve suggested some ways that our readers can help with their children or their students.
Bianca Farrow worked for the BDC between 2013 and 2021 where she organized the Bronx Junior Photo League, an internationallyrenowned documentary photography, video, and college success program for middle and high school students.
Bianca Farrow, 32, spent most of her childhood on a small ranch in Northern California, 10 minutes away from the nearest town. Playing with the family horses, chickens, and cats, Bianca watched as her family’s grape vines bore fruit. The family sold the grapes to nearby wineries. She remembers watching a wild cat with a small litter of kittens who stayed under the deck of her house. Bianca would put a bowl of milk down and lay there for hours, waiting for one of the kittens to peer their little heads out. This was life on the ranch: long peaceful days filled with wonder about the world around her.
Finding ways to keep busy, she was given an old camera and spent her days capturing the life around her. She snapped shots of the cats she tamed, dressing them up in dog clothes. She enjoyed learning about people, their lives, and their interests but there weren’t many chances to meet new faces. Eager to explore outside of her surroundings, she left for New York City at 18 years old to attend New York University (NYU).
Upon arriving at “the city that never sleeps,” the streets never ceased filtering people, each with a story to capture. The current of the bustling life that surrounded her, made her feel like a stone in a running river, but she would eventually find her place with the artists around her.
“It wasn’t so hard to adjust to being in a city, it was more just the social anxiety of being in a completely new situation with no one I knew,” said Bianca.
She studied at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study with a focus on documentary photography and the sociology of violence, which allowed her creativity to unleash itself. Bianca took a class on the education of photography during her junior year where she learned how to make lesson plans and engage students. Prompting her to discover a passion for teaching as she loved to support others, assisting
in the brainstorming and sequencing of her peer’s work.
“As much as I love to take photos, I enjoyed helping produce other people’s stories,” said Bianca.
Bianca has been following the development of the Bronx Documentary Center, known as the BDC, since its founding in 2011. She decided to volunteer, curious about how to find community in non-profit organizations. In 2013, after a year of her volunteering, founder of the BDC Micheal Kamber invited her to manage an educational program dedicated
to teaching kids documentary photography. Bianca became his assistant that summer and was later promoted to the Educational Program Coordinator. There she helped build what is now known as the Bronx Junior Photo League (BJPL).
“As we became more invested and every step of the process, that’s when more things became challenging,” said Bianca, “because you want to support the whole of a person, but you can’t do everything.”
In 2016, she decided to build a community within the BDC. She added a college counselor, hired teachers, and started implementing new classes and programs for the students who were joining the BJPL. She reveled in the success of her students and was overcome with a deep sense of pride for them. However, the program needed proper attention behind the scenes, so she switched her focus from teaching to begin working on organizing and directing the program.
During the first BJPL presentation in 2014, community members and families came to view the images captured by the students. Smiles, laughter, and the overwhelming feeling of love filled the gallery. She remembers going out with each of the students and delivering flowers to people they have photographed. A gesture that proved to strengthen the bond between the community and the BDC.
“If the BDC didn’t interact with the people and places around it, it wouldn’t be the BDC,” said Bianca.
After a while, she started to feel something was missing. She wanted to branch out, feeling tied down to the very program she helped create. Her work life became almost impossible to separate from her personal life. Though she gave an unusual eight-year notice of her departure, as the years passed by, her anxiety only worsened. Would the BDC be okay without her? Would she be okay without the BDC?
In the fall of 2011, Bianca stepped away. She was in a state of limbo: It would take two months of rest before she got the courage necessary to do whatever came next. The BDC was an integral part of her life, she grew up with it, and now she had to learn to grow without it.
“I think I needed to leave in order for the program to grow because I was really tired and it needed someone with new eyes and new ideas to come in,” said Bianca.
Her experience at the BDC has encouraged her new life as a full-time student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Currently, Bianca is pursuing an education in the arts, and while she is excited about what her career has to offer after graduation, she takes life one day at a time almost as if she were back on the ranch.
IG: @biancafarrow
15-year-old Cesar Florencio has been a part of the Bronx Junior Photo League since the summer of 2021. He started in the Intro to Documentary Storytelling class (HS1) and eventually entered our Advanced Documentary Storytelling class, which focuses on film photography. He is a sophomore high school student at Harvest Collegiate in Manhattan. Cesar describes himself as a teenager who loves taking photos and has a deep appreciation for film photography.
BY PAMELA Y. ROZONWhat inspired you to do film photography?
When I first wanted to do film photography
I was still in the digital High School class, but I would always stay late after class. I found out my teacher Sean Sirota did it and I was like “What is film photography? Isn’t it that stuff in movies?” That’s when he told me there was an advanced High School analog class.
I came in a few times on those days that they were teaching and I watched. I remember seeing them print in the darkroom. It was so cool. I told one of my teachers, Carlos Nunez, that I really wanted to do it and he lent me one of his film cameras.
In your opinion, do you prefer digital or film?
Film–because it requires more skill. It’s a completely different mentality when you do film photography. When you do digital, you have an SD card and you can take as many photos as you want, and when the card is full you just delete the ones you don’t like. But with film, it’s about budget, because I buy most of my own film. You try to think and be more conscious of what you’re shooting, why you’re shooting it, and how you’re shooting it.
How would you say the BDC has helped you go over the little bumps in the road when you’re learning film?
Whenever I had a question or something happened I asked my teachers. I really like
the teachers–they’re professional, but you can get personal with them and you don’t have to only ask them about photography. They’re like friends. A community of people who are there for you. They just taught me basically everything I know about photography and they continue to teach me.
Can you talk about the recent photo project you did in Mexico?
My mom went to Mexico to fix a family issue. My grandma has Alzheimer’s and she’s developing rapidly. My grandma lives in solitude and the only company that she has is her Chihuahuas. Nobody else comes to visit or take care of her. My mom, as soon as she got there, started cleaning. She hired
workers to start rebuilding her house and it cost her a lot of money.
I think the main reason we went to Mexico is because my mom tried to convince my grandma to come back with us to New York. My grandma has a few other sons and daughters but many of them came to New York or New Jersey. Only three of her sons live in Mexico but they’re all far away. My grandma told us that she fell three times within the last year and that it’s really difficult for her to build up the strength to go out and buy herself food.
So my mom tried to convince her to come back, but all my grandma knows is the house and her chihuahuas so she said no. That was
really heartbreaking for my mom, but she left. She did the best she could with the time she had, three weeks to create a better living situation for her.
So, I just wanted to express that. I’ve noticed since I was little, my mom would work hard, almost every day so that we could all have an education here, go to college, get a good job and have a happy life. I just wanted to use this project to express my gratitude because she’s done so much.
Do you have any comments to add for people who are starting to learn film or any new students to the BDC?
I mean, learning takes time. You’re not going
be amazing off the bat. I think one of the biggest challenges for me when I was starting out in photography was that I just liked taking pretty pictures. But I learned from my teachers that pretty pictures aren’t always good pictures. It was difficult transitioning from taking pretty pictures to meaningful pictures.
I just tried to photograph what was important to me and my life. Everybody leads different lives and everybody is interested in different things. Photograph your life. A lot of other people are going to find it interesting even though you don’t.
IG: @tfukonii
Stepping into the large hall covered in Thanksgiving decorations, its walls echoing with laughter and chatter from nearby residents, it’s hard not to feel at home. Guests are greeted with smiles and given a small sticker on which to write their names. Marty Rogers, 67, welcomes everyone with open arms to Thanksgiving dinner.
“It’s all about our community. Pride in the community. Joy in our community. Hope in our community. We often get stamped with despair and poverty and drugs and crime.
local community garden, Rogers is often seen on his “Hope Walks.” These walks offer food and support to the homeless community of Melrose during tough times. But Marty’s most popular event is the Thanksgiving community dinner, in which people of all ages and ethnicities come together to enjoy the holiday.
The Thanksgiving dinner is held at the Immaculate Conception Church’s Newman Hall in Melrose and features free home-cooked meals for the public. Rogers helped organize the first Thanksgiving dinner at the church in
Junelle Addei, 24, has been volunteering at the event since she was in the sixth grade. During her years as a student at Immaculate Conception, she heard her teachers talk about Rogers’ Thanksgiving dinner and decided to volunteer herself. Addei recalls the early mornings, the late nights spent decorating the halls, and the many meetings to discuss everyone’s role in ensuring the dinner’s success. It truly is a community effort. All the food is home-cooked, the drinks donated, and even neighborhood firefighters have brought in free-cooked turkeys.
Okay, those things exist,” said Rogers. “But what highlights us is this resilient spirit of love and brotherhood across races and colors and nationalities.”
Rogers is one of the many activists helping build a thriving community in the South Bronx. In an area with high poverty rates, high crime, and few resources, he has devoted himself to providing positivity to those around him. When he’s not tending to the
1977. With assistance from other community members, he decided to make it an annual event. It started off small, yet grew tremendously over the years.
“Over 40 turkeys with over 150 volunteers and all word of mouth. People are wonderful and people are generous. The need is there, and that’s why the dinner still happens,” said Rogers.
“It doesn’t feel like I’m coming to help out some strangers, it feels like I’m coming to serve my family,” said Addei.
For those who have no family to celebrate with, Thanksgiving can be a time of loneliness. The Bronx is one of the leading boroughs when it comes to poverty and homelessness rates. The Bronx has a median household income of about $41,895, and 24.4% of its population is living in poverty, according to
the U.S. Census Bureau. Overall, the city has around 60 thousand homeless people who sleep in shelters. The Melrose and Mott Haven areas have the highest citywide share of homeless living in shelters–3.3%. Homelessness has increased by 26% since 2012 in NYC. But Marty’s Thanksgiving dinner accepts all who desire to attend. It’s a safe place where homeless individuals can enjoy home-cooked meals surrounded by community members that treat them like family.
“A lot of these folks have a hard life. Some of our brothers and sisters are gonna sleep on the street tonight. They walk in the door and we tell them ‘We love you.’ Our hearts are open to them because some of them are in tough situations,” says Rogers.
Shakira Fontana, 26, has been volunteering at the dinner for more than 10 years. She has a deep appreciation for the community that surrounds her. She’s struggled to find a place to feel welcomed in life and has been in 42 foster homes. When she was 15 years old, her foster mom brought her to the Thanksgiving dinner event. Fontana was in awe of the community she found in those halls. People from all different walks of life joined together as a family, not caring where the other is from and offering nothing but support to each other. From that moment, she decided to volunteer every year.
“I haven’t stopped coming every year, all my friends and all my family know no matter where I’m at, I have to make it here,” says Fontana.
She brings her five-year-old son with her, and now that he’s old enough, he waits tables along with his mother, carrying trays of food and drinks. Attendees smile wide as he approaches, asking for their orders and acting as the ever-so-attentive waiter. His mother hopes to continue a tradition of community service with her son and will continue taking him to Thanksgiving dinner every year.
During the height of the pandemic, the indoor Thanksgiving event was canceled, so Marty decided to take the home-cooked meals to the streets. With the help of staff from the
Senior Center, he delivered free dinners to the homeless around the neighborhood, keeping the nearly 50-year tradition alive. Now, he’s happy the dinner is able to take place safely once again.
“It’s amazing, but people are doing it from the heart. People are doing it because they came from a background where they were immigrants. They came from a background where they were struggling on one level or another and they realized we must give back,” says Rogers. “We are joined together—we have to take care of each other.”
“It’s all about our community. Pride in the community. Joy in our community. Hope in our community.”
© Pamela Y. Rozon / BDC© Pamela Y. Rozon / BDC
Our middle school documentary storytelling class (MS2) has three amazing and talented teachers. Lead teacher Stephanie Espinoza is a visual artist who received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography from Pratt Institute, where she currently teaches. She also teaches photography at the Parsons School of Design, also known as The New School. Teaching Assistant Kayla Beltran comes from a family of artists who nurtured her passion for photography from a young age. When she’s not teaching at the BDC, she’s tending to her small crochet business. Our new assistant teacher Phill M. Campbell is a student at Hunter College studying media who resides in the Bronx. Campbell also works at the Co-op City times as a reporter and is the founder of the Paper-Cut Collective, which highlights many different types of artists. All of our teachers are hardworking individuals who work hard in the art education of the youth.
Chloe Rodriguez, 19, is one of the oldest students of the BDC, attending classes before the Bronx Junior Photo League (BJPL) was created. She started in 2011, the same year that the BDC opened when she was still an elementary student at Immaculate Conception School. Now she has grown into a talented photographer who studies photography and politics at New York University. One of the many jobs she works is at NYU’s photo lab, using the skills she harnessed at the BDC to continue on her professional journey. She carries a deep appreciation for documentary film and street photography.
BY PAMELA Y. ROZONWhat has the BDC given you in terms of professional skills?
They taught me everything I needed to know about being a photographer. They taught me how to compose an image, how to make an image, and how literally to be a professional in this field. I give a lot of credit to [the BDC] because I’ve gained a sense of how being a photographer isn’t just about making a fancy image. Anyone could take a photo but it takes real skill to make art. I remember it was an ongoing joke that Mike would say, “This photo doesn’t change my life.” It’s [always] stuck with me because a photo is supposed to change someone’s life. A photo is supposed to make you sit and think about your whole work.
Can you talk a little bit about your experience studying photography, especially at NYU? Being in a rigorous school like NYU is hard. It’s known as being a difficult school to get into and meeting their standards is incredibly hard. On top of that, you have so many other
classes that it gets stressful at times. I think the work I produce now is completely different than the work I produced at the BDC. I’m focused on making projects for school, but it’s also given me that technical skill of learning how to meet deadlines, learning how to create projects that [other] people are giving to me [while also keeping to my vision].
What are your current photography projects? I most recently did a self-portrait project about my body and how I view myself. I was bullied in high school for having the body I have. Photography gave me a way out of the frame. It gave me a chance to be behind the camera when all my life I’ve been bullied and in the spotlight. I’ve been very focused on documentary and street photography. I’m kind of just taking this time to play around with lighting and different materials to get a better sense of what I really want to do with my photography. I still love documentaries, but I’m kind of branching out now to see what other things I can do and learn.
© Chloe Rodriguez
I know that you still visit the BDC. What does this space mean to you?
It’s a community. It is where I grew up. If I was not at school I was here, and if I was not here I was at work. This is the space I spent most of my childhood and teenage years. I started when I was ten and stayed here all the way till I was 18. It’s my home. It’s where I come and reminisce on how good the BDC has treated me.
Can you talk about how it felt to win an award for the first time based on your skills as a photographer?
Okay, how many features did I have in The New York Times.. like four or five? I was in seventh grade. I was so excited. I remember Bianca telling me that I was gonna be in the New York Times. It wasn’t just that one time, every time felt like I’m doing it for the first time. I wasn’t like, “Oh been there, done that.” But I was genuinely excited. I was in a French magazine, and I still have that magazine in my dorm.
The most recent time I was in Photoville and it was with The New York Times. A self-portrait, I forget the title, but it wasn’t a self-portrait of me, it was my two grandmothers. My whole family went to Photoville to look at my work. I remember I took my grandmother, I have two great-grandmothers and they’re both sisters. And I took a picture of them. I remember bringing my grandmother I’m like,” hurry up, hurry up. Let’s go. Let’s go like you have to see it!”
In my childhood home, I’ve always complained that there were never any photos of me. It was just photos of my family members back home, my family is from Ecuador, and I was so jealous. And I was alive. Half of these people were either back home or dead. I used to get so mad. And then I did this work of art. When I took both of these photos, I was holding my grandmother’s hands like it was the last time. She was the one who took care of me my
whole life and I was holding her hand because she was really sick. She’s alive of course but I remember visiting her in the hospital bed during COVID and I would hold her hand as tight as it could.
How was it like taking that picture?
It was hard because you’re potentially mourning a loss. It was to remember the fact that I had both of them with me and that I had that moment with them. So people couldn’t say I didn’t spend enough [time with them]. It was validation that I did have those moments with them like a celebration of life.
What do you want to do in the future?
When I first started out I wanted to change people’s minds about the Bronx. I wanted to do more social justice and documentary work to show how people’s lives come to be in the Bronx. I think now that I’m getting older, I really want to capture people’s lives. I love
photography. I have a good eye for it, but in the long run, I would love to edit photos. I do want to do something in the editing world but that doesn’t mean that I won’t stop taking photos. This could change in a year or two.
What advice would you give to new photographers?
Don’t stop learning. Be humble. I think that is what kept me going. Humility is one of the most important things that a person can have, especially as a photographer, because you understand your worth and you realize how artistically powerful you can be. But you also acknowledge that you have room to grow and that you have room to learn. I haven’t stopped learning photography. There’s so much I still do not know and that I’m eager to learn.
“I started when I was ten and stayed here all the way till I was 18. It’s my home. It’s where I come and reminisce on how good the BDC has treated me.”
Thur, Dec 15, 2022, 7PM
Book Launch: Tiempo de Vals
Join the BDC for a book launch with author Carla Yovane, as she presents her photobook Tiempo de Vals. This event is held in partnership with Foto-Féminas, a platform promoting the works of Latin American and Caribbean women photographers. 614 Courtlandt Ave, Bronx, NY 10451
Sat, Dec 17, 2022, 2-4PM
Community Holiday Portraits
As part of the Bronx Documentary Center’s ongoing Holiday Portraits series, Bronx residents and families are invited to be photographed. Each Bronx resident receives a free 8x10 print. 614 Courtlandt Ave, Bronx, NY 10451
Fri, Feb 17, 2023, 7PM
Opening Reception: FotoEvidence’s Smita Sharma: We Cry in Silence
We Cry in Silence is the result of a six-year investigation by Smita Sharma where she documented cross-border trafficking of minor girls in India and Bangladesh for sex work and domestic servitude. 614 Courtlandt Ave, Bronx, NY 10451
2. How light or dark an image is.
3. Size of the opening in the lens.
5. The process of capturing light with a camera to create an image.
7. The first photographic camera developed for commercial manufacture.
9. Determines how sensitive the camera is to light.
1. How much of the image is in focus.
4. Common file format.
6. The hole you look through to take the picture.
7. A room with no light for developing light-sensitive photographic materials.
8. Little flecks in an image.
“I recommend it because it’s actually really different from every documentary because it’s animated. It tells the story of Amed as he tries to escape his home county. I would recommend it because it’s very well set and the story is very well written.”
“I recommend it because it is a big moment in history and many people don’t know about India’s partition. My grandfather was a part of it too, and had to escape it. It’s my family history.”
“The documentary leaves you feeling betrayed slightly when you realize that you’ve been listening to the interviews and testimonies of this man who is accused of being the killer the entire time without knowing.”
“It’s real. It’s about California’s homeless population and how they survived. Homelessness is everywhere, especially where we are, and it puts the problem into perspective.”
“I recommend it because of the suspense it builds as it shows you how something like killing a cat can result in killing a human being!”