Winner of Vol. 72, No. 3
What’s inside?
Thursday, February 25, 2021
n Council candidate backs redirecting some NYPD funding toward mental health mhinman@riverdalepress.com
A priceless donation highlights local connection to America’s first saint, Elizabeth Ann Seton. Page A6
Citizen teen Town hall was no pushover for council candidates as they face some of community’s savviest highschoolers. Page A9
Graceful aging Getting older doesn’t mean life is ending. In fact, it’s just getting started. Webinar shows how anyone can live life to the fullest. Page A8
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Lora says she’s evolved from ‘abolish police’ By MICHAEL HINMAN
Mother’s relics
the Pulitzer Prize
Mino Lora was angry. And last summer, she was hardly alone. On May 25, George Floyd lost his life under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, and pandemic or no pandemic, the nation’s streets exploded with protests, returning the Black Lives Matter movement and its calls to end what it described as systemic racism inside law enforcement. Many cities, including New York, were under curfew lockdown because of violence and looting that erupted near some of the protests. Even two months later, much
of that anger had yet to subside, shared not just on the streets, but in social media. Lora, a non-profit theatre executive director pondering a run for city council, turned to Twitter on Aug. 4, and just started typing. “Abolish the police now,” she said, putting the last word in all-caps. “Black lives matter. Black children matter.” Lora would close the tweet sharing how “over and over, police show us how Black people are treated without the respect or dignity they deserve.” But it would be a sentence right before that from regular citizen Mino Lora that would haunt future city council candidate Mino Lora: “f-(expletive) the police.” “This summer, I was hurt,” Lora told The Riverdale Press, after deleting the tweet from her feed. “We were seeing the injustices over and over, and videos of people being killed in front of our eyes. Of chil-
‘This summer, I was hurt. We were seeing the injustices over and over, and videos of people being killed in front of our eyes. Of children being handcuffed to hot pavements. Twitter was me lashing in that anger.’
— Mino Lora
dren being handcuffed to hot pavements. Twitter was me lashing in that anger, but my stand has been the same.” That stand, she says, is not to abolish the police as she cries in that tweet, but instead to “defund” police — a term Lora believes has been misinterpreted by those unwilling to make wholesale changes to how law enforcement works in the United States. “It’s to make sure they can focus on
preventing and solving violent crime,” Lora said. “And right now, they have too much responsibility. When it comes to mental health, when it comes to school safety, when it comes to homeless outreach, we need health care workers and social workers and educators to be handling these instances, because enough. Enough with that.” On her campaign website, Lora claims CANDIDATE TWEET, page A4
HELP IS ON THE WAY?
Businesses just trying to survive
Can add pro abo pol
n COVID-19 not too kind to anyone, but some proprietors — especially of Black-owned shops — are hit extra hard By ETHAN STARK-MILLER estarkmiller@riverdalepress.com
I
t would be a gross understatement to say this past year has been tough for small businesses. Retail stores, restaurants, bars and cafes all have struggled to survive since the coronavirus pandemic hit a year ago. Many have received the attention they deserve, but others, more often than not, are overlooked. Many, unfortunately, have one thing in common: they’re Blackowned businesses. Even when they do get attention, like Buunni Coffee on Riverdale Avenue did last month, odds have not been good in saving what already are a limited number of Black-owned businesses in this part of the Bronx. Buunni became quickly ingrained in the community after it opened in early 2018, offering a hangout spot for kids after school as well as a meeting place for advocacy and political groups. Buunni, however, isn’t the end of RACqUEL Black-owned businesses in the commuJOHNSON nity. Instead, it’s a continuation. Still, the effects of COVID-19 are hard to avoid, something Racquel Johnson has experienced for herself. She opened KMJ Love Wear at a former Subway restaurant location on Riverdale Avenue late last year. There, Johnson sells adaptive clothing for young children with disabilities. In particular, clothes are designed for kids who require the use of a gastronomy tube, a device that is inserted into the abdomen, delivering nutrition directly to the stomach. Johnson is from Jamaica, but grew up in the Bronx. She named her store using the initials of her late daughter, Kaidence Mara Johnson. Its mission was inspired by her story. SURVIVING, page A4
HIRAM ALEJANDRO DURÁN
Cheick Conde has owned African Masidi and Co., a pan-African art store in Kingsbridge, for more than 25 years. Things haven’t been easy during the coronavirus pandemic, however. The store closed for five months, and now foot traffic is down significantly from more normal times.
Good news! Rosey’s shop is back n Barbershop withstands rent hike, but struggles through pandemic woes as Marble Hill fights way to recovery By ETHAN STARK-MILLER estarkmiller@riverdalepress.com
Roosevelt Spivey is a survivor. He’s cut hair in his Marble Hill barbershop on West 228th Street for nearly six decades. And so far, no challenge has stopped Spivey — known by his friends and customers as “Rosey” — from doing what he loves. It looked like things might be over for Marble Hill’s International Unisex Salon — or “Rosey’s Barber Shop,” as it’s informally called — last March when Spivey’s landlord threatened to double his monthly rent
to $2,900. “And I thought that was ridiculous because the shop couldn’t afford that type of an increase,” Spivey said. “That’s like a $1,500 increase in one shot.” Yet, this is where a little bit of good luck — and Spivey’s survival instincts — kicked in. Soon after Spivey’s landlord told him about the impending rent hike, ROOSEvELT the coronavirus pandemic hit the city — and has been raging for nearly a SpIvEy year. But once the coronavirus took over, the law prevented Spivey’s landlord from evicting him because of a statewide moratorium on such actions. This bought Rosey precious time, and he used ROSEY’S BACK, page A4
Neighbors may seek ‘roundabout’ solution to traffic n Some proposed changes to Independence move forward, but West 237th up in the air By ROSE BRENNAN rbrennan@riverdalepress.com
It’s been two months since a working group from Community Board 8’s traffic and transportation committee proposed some potential changes to Independence Avenue — a reckless driving hotspot in the neighborhood. But even with some of those ideas indefinitely tabled, the committee hasn’t given up on the point where Independence meets West 237th Street. With bicycle lanes along Independence seemingly out of the picture for now, the working group shined a spotlight on something much different: roundabouts. That’s a bit of a departure from the more traditional traffic lights the working group, headed by traffic committee vice chair Deb Travis, suggested. Many who attended recent meetings agreed something needed to be installed at the intersection to make it safer, but weren’t exactly sure if a red light was the way to go.
HIRAM ALEJANDRO DURÁN
While a working group originally proposed installing a traffic signal at West 237th Street and Independence Avenue to help address reckless driving, some neighbors instead proposed a roundabout might work better. Jessica Haller then introduced an idea from what she sees nearly every day in her Fieldston community: Maybe a roundabout could do the trick instead. “Not only is the roundabout going to
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help with speeding down Independence Avenue and donuts, it’s also more efficient in terms of emissions (because) cars don’t have to come to a complete stop,” Haller, a candidate in the March 23 city council spe-
cial election, said at last month’s meeting. “The roundabout is safer, better for emissions (and) will stop traffic.” Others at the same meeting supported the idea, but for reasons other than Haller’s. Mainly, a traffic circle could actually change the structure of the street. While a reckless driver could simply speed through a red light with seemingly no consequence, it presumably would be more difficult to speed through an intersection with a roundabout. Roundabouts might not be a traffic mainstay in the Bronx, but Haller likely is quite familiar with the existing circle at Fieldston Road and West 246th Street. And some might argue Bell Tower Park’s entrance to the Henry Hudson Parkway is a roundabout in all but name. But when the traffic committee revised the roundabout debate last week, there seemed to be far less community support for the idea. But then again, there were far fewer people attending the virtual gathering this time around. That opened the door for another committee vice chair, Ed Green, to voice his opposition. “I’m dead against it,” Green said. “My impression from the last meeting was that ROUNDABOUT, page A4