Bike Repair, Maintenance and WorkshopsSaturdays, July 30 / 11AM – 3PMJoin us for an outdoor Bike Repair and Maintenance led with Frank from Bronx Messenger and Uptown & Boogie Bicycle Advocacy.Bring your own bike [BYOB] – ask local bike mechanics and enthusiasts from Upper Manhattan and The Bronx, questions about commuting in the city, discuss biking with kids, bike touring, biking while menstruating and more.Participants are welcome to work on their bicycle during the event.Volunteer: Are you a bike mechanic or enthusiast and want to volunteer? Email [email protected]Suggested Donation: Your donation supports the growth of community programming and events at the garden. To donate, click here to Select Citizen Action Group – St. Nicholas Miracle Garden. It’s supporters like you that help us change the world every day.Event Information:Time: 11:00AM – 3:00PMLocation: Saint Nicholas Miracle Garden 330 Saint Nicholas Avenue, New York, NY 10027Bikers MUST ride their own bicyclePlease note, this DOES NOT include a bike share and rain cancels event.
The ever-amazing Kioka Jackson is asking for help with this year’s National Night Out on Tuesday, August 2nd:
I hope everyone has had an amazing start to summer. I know a lot has been going on around the country and within our own backyards but It is my hope that as a community we can share as much love as we can to overpower the negative things that we are experiencing.
As many of you are aware, National Night Out is quickly approaching. National Night Out is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community relationships/partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie with effort to make our neighborhoods safer. The goal is for the community to engage with the law enforcement in our community in a more light-hearted; fun way to build relationships outside of emergency purposes. Every Precinct around the Nation does this on the same night. We use fun festive activities, food and music to come together as one community. This year National Night Out is on August 2nd. We are hosting it right in front of the Precinct on East 119th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues.
We are asking our Community Based Organizations, Businesses, Retail stores, and Elected Officials to assist us in putting on a great party for that evening. Because of the Pandemic we have not done any fundraising activities so we really need everyone to partner with us.
If your organization wants to table please contact us. We welcome you to come bring information about your org but we are asking that you put together a fun activity to be done at your table too. A game, arts and crafts, etc….
If you are willing to donate either something in-kind or monetary to help us produce this event – please contact us.
If you are coming to be a guest to just shake a leg with us – we need you too. You can also help us by sharing the flyer and telling your neighbors to come out and hang with us.
I will be reaching out to many individually as well so don’t block me. LOL! We need you. We appreciate you and we look forward to working with you to make National Night Out a blast.
I have attached the flyer for your perusal. Sponsorship logos will be updated.
The National Black Theater’s redevelopment has been a tale of false starts, missed deadlines, and likely financing/development drama.
There seems to be some life in the building site, again. We’ll have to wait and see, whether or not construction will begin. And, as we all know, it isn’t over until the building is occupied.
In the early/mid 20th century Harlem became the destination for African Americans escaping racial terror in the south, and hoping for a better life in New York City. In addition to southern migrants, other Black, Hispanic, and Asian diasporas found homes in Harlem – frequently after being denied the ability to rent in white neighborhoods.
In addition to these groups, Bengali seafarers moved from Manhattan’s waterfronts to live in the Lower East Side and also in Harlem. These diverse communities provided cover for undocumented immigrants who could blend into communities of color and remain undetected by white authorities.
In his 2013 book, Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America, Vivek Bald explains how Bengali migration to Harlem it had roots in colonialism.
In 19th-century India, British policies gutted the handicraft industry and its local markets—but in America, “Oriental goods” (such as embroidered cotton and silk, perfumes, spices, rugs, and handbags) were symbols of sophistication in middle-class homes. So Bengali men from villages north of Calcutta came to America as traders and peddlers, and some of them settled in New Orleans and across the American South, where they lived in segregated communities and tended to marry Black women while selling their wares in white neighborhoods.
Life aboard British steamships was “worse than working in hell” according to a 1920 news report quoted in Bald’s book—and by the 20th century, Bengali seamen like Habib were deserting their posts and seeking work in the Northeast and industrial Midwest. Between 1910 to the 1940s, Bald estimates, thousands of primarily Bengali Muslim men jumped ship. The majority of them returned to the subcontinent, but “somewhere in the high hundreds ended up settling in the New York/New Jersey area, Detroit, and elsewhere in the East and Midwest,” says Bald, now an associate professor of comparative media studies at MIT. In New York, they opened restaurants or set up small businesses selling herbs and spices.
The 25th Precinct Community Council is looking for organizations to staff a table at National Night Out on August 3rd. If you would be interested in staffing a table for HNBA, let us know:
Here is the letter from the 25th Precinct Community Council:
Good Evening, As you know National Night Out is an annual event that happens on the 1st Tuesday of August. We, unfortunately, were not able to host it last year because of the pandemic. However, we are looking forward to a fun-filled night this year. I’m hoping that you and your organization will participate with us on the evening of August 3rd. We are asking all organizations and partners to contribute by tabling and possibly supplying a fun activity or game. Your activity can be for children or adults. I.E. If you are an organization that specializes in art then you might want to have the kids color/paint National Night Out Logos (This is just an example) or you might want to host a carnival game of some sort or you can support by making an in-kind donation such as Snacks, Hot Dogs for the grill, Hamburgers for the grill, condiments, water, ice, possibly even a bouncy rental for kids, or some other inflatable rental (WE REALLY DO NEED A BOUNCY HOUSE) —(You get my drift) – But It is totally up to you. Look, bottom line is- we just want you to hang out with us and help make the day fun. If you do plan on participating and have an activity or plan on donating something please email me or text me so that I can put it on our spreadsheet. We totally appreciate anything that you can do to help support this night. Best Regards,Kioka Jackson and the 25th Precinct Community Council
