Religion & Spirituality

Ernesta Procope, an insurance trailblazer who was the first African American woman to open a company on Wall Street, died peacefully in her sleep on Tuesday, Nov. 30, at her home in Queens, N.Y.

During Procope’s youth, she was a piano prodigy who performed at Carnegie Hall at age 13. As a young woman, she transferred her interests to real estate and insurance.

In 1953, she founded her company, E.G. Bowman Company, Inc. as a storefront insurance agency in Bedford Stuyvesant, and for the next six decades, built it into the largest minority-owned insurance brokerage in the country. Procope’s influence extended throughout the insurance industry, culminating in her recognition by PropertyCasualty360.com as one of its “Top 25 Living Legends of Insurance.”

Procope also was the architect of the historic NY Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) Plan. The FAIR Plan ensured that marginalized communities would have equal access to homeowners’ insurance. In 1968, Procope encouraged New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to combat redlining in Bedford Stuyvesant and the resulting cancellation of many of her client’s insurance policies. Her efforts spurred FAIR Plan legislation in 26 states.

In 1979, Procope moved E.G. Bowman to Wall Street, making it the first Black-owned and woman-owned business to be located in the world’s financial capital. Through creativity and determination, Procope built E.G. Bowman’s insurance brokerage and loss management client list to include many Fortune 500 companies, as well as countless small- to mid-sized businesses, government agencies and not-for-profits.

Procope’s business acumen also made her one of the most sought-after board members of her generation. She served on the boards of Avon Products, Columbia Gas System, and the Chubb Corporation as well as Cornell University, the Bronx Zoo and New York Urban League not-for-profit boards.

In recognition of Procope’s accomplishments, Howard University, Adelphi University, Morgan State University, and Marymount Manhattan College each awarded her honorary doctorates. She also received a multitude of business awards throughout her lifetime, including the Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal Entrepreneurial Excellence Award, Ernst & Young’s “Entrepreneur of the Year,” and the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Small Businessperson of the Year. Procope was featured on the cover of numerous national magazines and was the subject of articles in countless others, including Fortune, Black Enterprise and Business Insurance.

Ernesta was the widow of John L. Procope, the former publisher of the New York Amsterdam News, and the only daughter of the late Clarence and Elvira Forster and sister to the departed Clarence, Cecil and Charles Forster. She is survived by a host of nieces, nephews and great-nieces and nephews and extended family members.

Ernesta Procope

energy-efficient, natural gas-powered boilers.” The boilers have been operational since August 2021 in a raised structure to prevent flooding damage from future storm surge or heavy rain, said a NYCHA spokesperson.

Lauretta Brumfield, Coney Island Houses Tenant Association president, said the heat and hot water had been off for about three weeks. She said that there were about 16 other people who had contacted her with ticket complaint numbers they had already filed with NYCHA before she started calling NYCHA’s heating department directly for answers. There are 543 units in the development in total. Brumfield confirmed that by Friday, Dec 3, the day after the press conference, that the heat was on and the hot water was working again.

“These are brand new boilers. This is the first year with these boilers so it can’t be—Sandy ruined the last boilers and these million dollar boilers don’t work? I don’t understand,” said Brumfield.

The boilers are also supposed to be sized to provide full capacity even if one is down for service. Since Oct. 1, Coney Island Houses have experienced four heat outages and one hot water outage. The four heat outages were all related to the same incident on Nov. 15, affecting four separate apartment lines, said a NYCHA spokesperson.

According to NYCHA, the outages were “related to distribution issues and not equipment failure” while the “hot water outage was due to a malfunctioning mixing valve.” NYCHA said that there are currently no more issues with the boilers and hot water systems at Coney Island Houses.

As of Monday, Dec. 6, NYCHA heat and hot water outages website said there are four unplanned outages affecting 1,685 apartments in 17 buildings. That adds up to 3,554 people in various parts of the boroughs. The site also notes 47 gas outages in parts of Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens, as well as four buildings in Manhattan and the Bronx experiencing electric outages.

“This heat season, Coney Island Houses has a newly installed regulated system, WEMS (Wireless Energy Module System), which controls apartment comfort levels based on indoor apartment temperatures, as opposed to a valve bypass unregulated system that often overheated apartments,” said a NYCHA spokesperson in a statement. “This means that residents will have cooler temperatures than they are used to, but those temperatures are still within the appropriate range for the heat season.”

From Oct. 1 through May 31, building owners must maintain an indoor temperature of at least 68 degrees between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. when it’s below 55 degrees outside. From 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., indoor temperature must be at least 62 degrees regardless of the temperature outside, said NYCHA.

Brumfield explained that NYCHA has a subcontractor through National Grid that turns the heat on and off now. When tenants complain, she said, they first send a NYCHA person to check the temperature of the apartments then a National Grid person and then finally a NYCHA person comes again. “We get lost in this whole system because sometimes if housing comes to check the temperature, sometimes residents we have our stoves on, our [electric] heaters on because we’re cold,” said Brumfield.

Due to chronic underfunding over the course of decades, various NYCHA housing developments citywide usually experience a degree of outages in the colder months, leaving tenants scrambling to heat their apartments in increasingly dangerous ways which includes using open ovens. Coney Island residents said collectively that they were extremely cold at night in the last month when the heat was off. Some were forced to have their children sleep in winter coats.

“I’ve never had to go through what we’re dealing with now. NYCHA just doesn’t seem to care about us. I’ve been here since 1968 and have never seen it like this,” said Coney Island Houses resident Margaret Williams. “I remember when you just had to make a phone call and they would actually come and fix it. Why do we pay rent just to have a cold apartment? Why is it that NYCHA doesn’t care? We are fed up.”

Frontus said that living without heat and hot water during winter is a violation of people’s civil rights and if necessary she’d help tenants in her district go to court. “It’s really inhumane. I think it’s actually criminal to do this to people,” said Frontus.

The remaining developments on Coney Island are under construction and will have new, raised heat and hot water systems operational in 2022 and 2023, said NYCHA.

NYCHA said that FEMA-funded improvements are not “the entire universe” of infrastructure work that needs to be done to address heat and hot water since other issues are unrelated to damage from Superstorm Sandy. There are additional piping and distribution investments NYCHA will continue to make as funds become available.

Beginning December 1, 2021, Israel Senior Citizen I & II is accepting applications for placement on the waiting list for studio and one-bedroom apartments.

This is a HUD subsidized property, Section 8. Tenant rent is based on 30% of the tenant’s adjusted gross monthly income.

24-hour security guard, elevator, service coordinator, community room, laundry facilities, and parking. Walking distance to Rockaway Beach Boardwalk.

One or two-person household. Applicant must be at least 62 years of age at the time of submission in order to be placed on the waiting list. Household must meet the income and household size requirement. 1 person – maximum income $41,800 and 2 persons – maximum income $47,750.

Complete applications must be postmarked by regular mail to the address listed on the application by December 1, 2021. The lottery closing on December 31, 2021, any application received after this date will be returned back to sender. We will select applications by a lotterybased random selection process, the site will only select 1,500 applications.

Applications are available by writing to Israel Senior Citizens HDFC, 155 Beach 19th Street, Rental Office, Far Rockaway, NY 11691, or pick one in person weekdays from 9AM to 4PM at the management office located at 155 Beach 19th Street, Rental Office, Far Rockaway, NY 11691, or download an application at jasa.org/housing. If you have a disability and need assistance with the application process, please call (212) 273-5359 or via email at IsraelSeniorCitizens@jasa.org.

Ariama C. Long is a Report for America corps member and writes about culture and politics in New York City for The Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting: https://tinyurl.com/fcszwj8w

By CYRIL JOSH BARKER

Amsterdam News Staff

Staten Island City Council Member-elect Kamillah Hanks is upholding the legacy of her predecessor, Council Member Debi Rose, by keeping the city’s 49th Council District seat in the hands of Black women.

Hanks defeated eight candidates during the primary, taking nearly 57% of the vote becoming the Democratic candidate. She defeated two challengers in the general election taking the same number of votes. Hanks is the second Black woman, after Rose, to hold any political office in Staten Island.

The borough is known for being heavily Republican with GOP candidate Curtis Sliwa taking the majority of the vote during the general election. The 49th Council District, which is in Staten Island’s North Shore, is home to many Black and Latino residents.

This was Hanks second time running for the seat. A lifelong resident of the North Shore, she’s a mother of four and got into politics after being active in the community for nearly 20 years. Hanks founded the Historic Tappen Park Community Partnership in 2012 where she works with civic leaders, community groups, and local schools to expand cultural and economic development in Stapleton and surrounding neighborhoods.

She pioneered Staten Island’s first YouthBuild program, which provides a pathway for out of school, out of work young adults with advanced vocational education, leadership development, job training and life skills. Hanks also served as executive director of the Downtown Staten Island Council.

In an interview with the AmNews, Hanks said she got into politics after leaving the corporate world in 2006 with her own public relations firm. She appeared in the Oscar-nominated short documentary “Ferry Tales,” about women commuting on the Staten Island Ferry. She would later be on the ground floor to launch Staten Island’s first film festival and eventually worked for the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation.

“I remember getting the idea that I love Staten Island,” she said. “I knew then that this place is so unique, very quirky, but unique. From being a publicist, and going on to working in economic development, which really is a person who’s marketing and promoting a district, it ducktailed really well and that’s when I got the bug.”

Someone asked Hanks if she was interested in politics and suggested she should run for City Council. While working at SIEDC, she learned about the inner workings of the community and the disparities. While working at the Historic Tappen Park Community Partnership, things started to gel even more.

“We would address challenges through programming and initiatives,” Hanks said. “And that’s when I started to understand you can write legislation, it’s the same thing. You see a problem, you write a piece of legislation, and that solves the issue. I’m not like a lot of folks who are coming into the city council. I come from a corporate background primarily. I come from a business background. I have a different perspective.”

Hanks first ran in 2017 against Rose and lost. However, the experience afforded her the opportunity for exposure, for voters to know she had the best interest of the community at heart and that she understood the issues.

During her recent campaign, Hanks ran on a master plan that integrates a solid infrastructure and encourages sensible development, while respecting and preserving rich historic districts and neighborhoods. She also wants to create educational initiatives that build career pathways through union apprentice programs.

“The master plan is connecting all of the dots. There’s so many great institutions and a lot of great people and now we want to connect them and dig into that brain trust and figure out what is the best transportation and what is the best way to build neighborhood development. Let’s figure out what’s the best way so people know what the issues are, so I can then best represent them in City Hall,” she said.

As the borough’s second Black woman to hold public office, Hanks said she won the seat by speaking on issues that impact all Staten Islanders such as education, public safety and clean streets.

“We kept it very simple,” she said.