Asthma Prevalence – Adults

How Calculated: Estimated number of adults aged 18 years and older who reported medically diagnosed asthma with symptoms in the last 12 months, divided by all adults and adjusted for age; expressed as percent.

Source: New York City Community Health Survey (CHS)

Asthma Prevalence – Children ever diagnosed with asthma (ages 0-13 years)

How Calculated: 

Estimated number of children ages 0-13 years who were ever diagnosed with asthma, divided by all children of the same ages, expressed as a percent. 

Source: NYC KIDS Survey

En Foco: Deep Roots

En Foco has a wonderful exhibition of a powerful collection of work from Harlem artists. The exhibit runs until August 19th:

Deep Roots, curated by Lisa Dubois, featuring photographers Samantha Box, Burroughs Lamar, Carmen Lizardo, Richard Louissaint, and Joana Toro, includes visual narratives that poignantly connect the artists with their beloved heritage, past and present. The photo essays explore themes of history, survival, and tradition; depicting the various ways each photographer has retained the customs and culture of their birthplace in their adopted land.

See: https://enfoco.org/deeproots/

Violence

An assault, a shooting, a homicide, or any use of force affects people in many deep ways.

Violence causes physical and emotional harm. It can inflict fear, a constant sense of unease. It can cause short- and long-term trauma. Violence can affect people throughout their lives – including their health. It can lead to poor birth outcomes, compromised childhood development, negative health behaviors, physical and mental illness, and premature deaths.

And violence doesn’t just affect the immediate people harmed. It ripples throughout a community, affecting family members, loved ones, friends, and neighbors.

Violence is a pressing public health threat

Violence is a real and pressing public health threat, and it doesn’t affect New Yorkers equally.

We can look at violence by looking at data on non-fatal assault hospitalizations – violence that results in somebody going to the hospital, but not dying. While the hospitalization data capture where the person injured in the assault lives – and not where the assault occurred – they can be interpreted as indicators of violence in the neighborhood.

Violence is highest in NYC neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty.

Any adverse health outcome that affects one population more than another – a health inequity – deserves special scrutiny. New York City’s high-poverty neighborhoods, which also have a higher percentage of residents of color, were created and maintained by systemic racism and historical disinvestment. The resulting higher rates of violence that exist in these communities create an unjust health disparity experienced by their residents.

Theodore Roosevelt, in Harlem?

Okay, it’s a Fine Fare.

But what is Theodore Roosevelt doing in the pediment above?

?

Ballroom Basix

My name is Rikki Ziegelman and I am the Media Manager for an education-based arts-initiative non-profit organization called BALLROOM BASIX. Our organization provides school children physical, social, emotional and cultural engagement through the etiquette and education of non-competitive Ballroom, Latin & Line dancing. Our headquarters are also, conveniently, in East Harlem!

Next Monday (August 2nd), we are beginning our “Sizzling Summer Salsa & Swing Series” which is happening in 3 different East Harlem Parks: Jackie Robinson Park, Harlem Art Park, and Thomas Jefferson Park. This free series is open to all ages and is completely FREE! Please feel free to reach out to me at [email protected] or (917)-831-7521 for more information.

I Am Not Your Negro in The Harlem Rose Garden

In celebration the birthtday of the literary icon and national/neighborhood treasure, James Baldwin, we will be screening “I Am Not Your Negro” on this Monday, August 2nd in the Harlem Rose Garden.
About Raoul Peck’s documentary:
In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, “Remember This House.” The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin’s death in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of this manuscript. Filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished.
We will open the gates at 8PM with readings of favorite excerpts of his work (if you wish to read something brief, please reach out and we will save a slot for you) we will screen the film at 8:30PM

Look forward to seeing you on Monday!

Black Man Magic Art Exhibit

The Underground Gallery and Studio at 2508 ACP is currently showing Black Man Magic.

Mulching Tree Pits in East Harlem

If you can, pick up a bag or two of mulch sometime and spread it on a nearby tree pit (after removing any trash) to help the tree with nutrients, and water retention.

Not only does it help the tree, it also shows your neighborhood that this tree is cared for.

(It looks great too)

Long Gallery Harlem

Make the time to visit the Long Gallery Harlem (2073 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr Blvd.) before the current (fantastic) show closes on August 14th

(Make sure to check hours and call ahead):

https://www.long.gallery/

INTERIOR DIALOGUE is an exhibition about social perspectives through the lens of the artist’s personal life experience.  The works are engaged in the active centering of the artists’ intersectional identities through the critical lens of decoration and ornament. This work explores how aesthetics often buttress systems of appropriation, oppression, and erasure. Norsworthy asserts that aesthetics are often used as a vehicle to justify the commodification of cultures and, by proxy, communities.

The exhibition is couched within a created environment that interrogates ‘Whiteness.’ The white-box space is defined by Norsworthy’s latest wallpaper work, Blackity (2021), and a series of objects that traverse function, decoration, and art object. The exhibition is held together with six tondos, each depicting an antique European vessel. Images of these ceramic artifacts were sourced from online and estate auctions. The vases are centered in the round space, and each sit atop a surface situated against a highly decorative backdrop.  Although the vases appear to be depictions of beauty and decoration, they function on another level as symbolic representations of the artist. 

The three planes in each tondo (the vase, the surface, and the background) conceptually evoke ways of understanding foregrounding identity within larger conversations of intersectionality. The hierarchy of these planes, vis-a-vis weight and importance, shift between the six tondos; with each acting as a different visual strategy that describes the interplay of object and background. The objecthood of the central object holds power, but is also at the whim of the space within which it is placed. 

For Norsworthy, the process of creating these circular works was an exercise in identity-centered space-making, an idea that pivots the idea of ‘ownership’ from other to self. The titles of the works speak to this contemplation:  The parenthetical titles, Lot #1, Lot #2, etc. play with the idea of commodification, creating a double entendre of the contemporary auction market while also evoking the violent history of the ‘auction block’ and the repercussions from Antebellum America that still reverberate today. 

Governor Cuomo Gives $11,000,000 to Build Supportive Housing for Formerly Incarcerated or Mentally Challenged Homeless Men and Women

Bishop’s House on West 128th Street (east of Lenox) will be demolished and a 9 story building for supportive housing will be built.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that the state would provide nearly $11 million in funding toward two new supportive housing developments in Upper Manhattan.

Through the state’s Homeless Housing and Assistance Program, the funding will help provide 71 supportive housing units at Bishop House Apartments in Central Harlem, operated by the nonprofit The Bridge, as well as 56 additional units at the Jericho House in Harlem.

Unlike standard homeless shelter units, supportive housing units primarily serve homeless residents with other issues, from recent incarceration to mental health conditions — offering an array of services designed to provide residents with the necessities to lead stable lives off the streets.

See: https://www.amny.com/news/cuomo-providing-11-million-toward-nyc-supportive-housing-homeless/

And:

Art At Collyer Brothers’ Park

Make sure to walk by 128th Street and 5th Avenue to check out the artwork on the fence of the Collyer Brothers’ Park:

Artist Julio Valdez’s work (collectively titled: I Can’t Breathe) is a response to the murder of Black Americans at the hands of the police.

Julio Valdez is a former artist in residence at The Studio Museum of Harlem.

To learn more about the park and its creation, see:

https://www.nycgovparks.org/about/history/historical-signs/listings?id=7845

The Firetower

Seize the King

Run, don’t walk to the best theater in New York happening right now in Marcus Garvey Park.

Seize the King is a witty, moving adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard the Third that will thrill and challenge you.

Get there immediately as the performances end on July 29th!

https://www.cthnyc.org/seize-the-king/

How Long Does It Take To Build In NYC?

Between 2016 and this year, it took an average of 545 business days, or roughly two calendar years, for a developer to go from initially filing a project proposal with the DOB to receiving the first certificate of occupancy, the department said. The process took the longest time in Manhattan, about three years, and the shortest time on Staten Island, about a year and a half.

Crains has an article on this building in East Harlem:

https://www.crainsnewyork.com/news/case-study-what-it-took-get-affordable-apartment-project-built-east-harlem

July 31st – Tour East Harlem Parks

Join Manhattan’s Community Board 11 Environment, Open Space & Parks Committee in a fantastic tour of 14 parks in upper East Harlem.

The tour starts at Marcus Garvey Park – where 5th Avenue and 120th Street meet, on Saturday, July 31st, at 10:00 AM.

It’s Not My Trash, But It’s My Planet

If you are around this week, on Saturday we are caring for our street trees on 103rd St (near the subway station on Lexington Ave) and supporting a new local business. Our friends from Mojo Desserts are opening a Brazilian-Belgian bar right next to Mojo! We’ll head to Bar Goyana after our clean up. For the grand opening they are making Brazilian Feijoada (beans and pork stew, but they have a vegetarian option too), Caipirinhas (Brazilian drink made with cachaça rum) and live music on Saturday and Sunday.  Follow their Instagram to make your reservations  @bargoyana 
Cheers!Simone @greenandblueecocare 

Reading Circle in Marcus Garvey Park

Please join The Marcus Garvey Park Alliance [MGPA]

for great read-aloud and fun literacy activities for school-aged children!

*Every Wednesday Throughout the Summer

   11:00am – 12:00pm

  • July 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th
  • August 4th, 11th

Marcus Garvey Park, Northwest Lawn (123rd & Mount Morris Park West)

Tour The Storefront Academy Today

OPEN HOUSE Happening at Storefront Academy Charter School Harlem!

Please join the Storefront Academy (now a charter school) in July or August on Thursdays from 9am-12pm to take a tour of their school!

We want to share information about our amazing school with you and our Harlem Community! Now Enrolling Grades K-3!

Corn? In East Harlem?

Yes, community gardeners are growing corn in East Harlem. The plants you see below are well over 6′ tall already.