Post-election Prompts Post-it Feed on New York Subway

                         Lynnette Booker 

A Subway Therapy station has been set up by Matthew Chavez-Levee in 14 Street Union Square Station in New York City. The Subway Therapy station is to provide a place for subway riders, who are outraged by president-elect Donald J. Trump, to express themselves on post-it notes. 

Levee’s Subway Therapy project has transformed into a brilliant art installation. Similar to a Twitter feed, a myriad of post-it notes utilizes space on the Mezzanine wall. The post-it notes include messages of love and unity such as “HUMAN RIGHTS ARE WOMEN’S RIGHTS” and “LOVE TRUMPS HATE.”

Unlike Twitter, the art installation is a personable and singular experience, and like Twitter the irresistibility to participate is infectious. It is a unique method to protest Trump’s divisive rhetoric.

Union Square is a convenient location to encourage hundreds of people to participate. It receives plenty of foot traffic without the hurriedness of Times Square.

 

Housing the homeless solves nothing, Ticker

A new study claims giving homes to the homeless is more cost-effective than leaving people on the street.

Conducted by the Central Florida Commission Regional on Homelessness, a new study shows it is three times cheaper to give housing to the homeless than to keep them on the street. The study claims that Florida residents pay $31,065 per chronically homeless person every year they live on the streets. A maturing body of academic research now confirms that long-term housing assistance not only successfully reduces homelessness but also is highly cost effective.

Coincidentally, providing permanent housing is the future for New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration plans to dedicate 750 apartments a year in public housing to homeless families, which will reduce the number of people in homeless shelters. Until then, however, this plan far from helps the growing number of homeless refugees and impact on the taxpayer’s dollars. Currently, the Department of Homeland Security is forecast to spend $1.04 billion towards preventing homelessness in New York City through June 30. The forecast spending for the homeless initiative is more than each of the city’s budgets for transportation, parks, libraries, cultural affairs and affordable housing.

Homelessness in the New York City shelter system has risen by 73 percent since 2002. In January 2014, the Coalition for Homeless, an advocacy group that tracks the shelter population, recorded 53,615 homeless people in the New York City shelter system. Two months later in March, the number of homeless people each night in the New York City shelter system was recorded to be 54,386, a 2 percent increase since January.

The idea of inducing the development of affordable housing and providing housing for the homeless is utopian. Yes, the homelessness assistance system has decreased the number of people living in the streets. But this temporary solution does not decrease the number of people who become homeless.

Economic fairness, or more formally known as income inequality, is the defining problem for homelessness. The government wants to prate on how they combat homelessness by decreasing and increasing enough homelessness is solve. But the fact is that the government is not decreasing the number of people who become homeless every year.

The New York residents who breach the poverty threshold and fall below the poverty line experience the most housing-cost burden, paying more than 50 percent of their income towards housing. The number of people at risk of homelessness, those in poverty, those living with friends and family and spending half their income on rent, has remained high despite improvements in unemployment and the overall economy.

The U.S. economy has improved since 2007, but wages are still at an all-time low. The middle class, who ensure the stability for the economy, are at the heart of spending. The low wages have shrunk the middle class and pushed them into the poverty threshold.

The 2012 average unemployment rate for workers in the city’s middle class was 6.2 percent, according to NYCC Finance Division Calculation from ASEC-CPS for New York City middle class and March Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) for New York City unemployment rate.

New York and any other state with a vicious cycling of unemployment will experience higher budgets for homeless initiatives and an increase in efforts in pulling grants together to build more housing with no string attach.

With the decrease in number of homeless people staying in shelters, the public should be concerned with the number of people being transitioned into permanent housing. One of New York’s many housing programs, DHS has placed more than 3,000 chronically homeless individuals into transitional and permanent housing since 2007.

Just because you provide someone with a home does not make him or her well-off. Poverty and homelessness are interconnected. Individuals who judge the homeless do not realize that people in shelters continue to obtain and maintain jobs. In 2013, the city’s Human Resources Administration (HRA) made 7,000 employment placements for New Yorkers in shelters. Wages stagnating against rising costs, such as for rent homes and health care, take into consideration that these elements of living weigh down people already living in poverty. Therefore, putting them in increased risk of becoming homeless.

The point is not to discourage permanent housing but to raise awareness that it is not the solution to the homelessness epidemic and should not serve as a campaign plank for politicians.

Americans need a government that will be the voice for the voiceless who are economically vulnerable in society.

Build A Wall Around Your Hypocrisy Because It Ain’t Happening

By Lynnette M. Booker

“Mexico will pay for the wall,” presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Wednesday in Phoenix, Arizona. “100 percent! They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for the wall.” He offered an unsupported asseveration to a boisterous crowd hours after his meeting with Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto. The topic of the wall wasn’t up for discussion according to Peña Nieto, which he affirmed two hours later on Twitter.

The immigration speech disconcerted and disappointed many Trump critics while consoling Trump supporters. Ann Coulter tweeted: Wow. This doesn’t sound like “softening.” GO, TRUMP!!! After being accused of softening his position on immigration, Trump triumphantly reiterated his stance on immigration; it was vague and redundant to many speeches he has delivered since he announced his presidential candidacy: The Immigration Reform That Will Make America Great Again.

The three principles of Trump’s immigration plan are 1) A nation without borders is not a nation: there must be a wall across the southern border; 2) A nation without law is not a nation: laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must enforced; and 3) A nation that does not serve its own citizen is not a nation: Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans. Trump reframed his immigration plan to a ten-point plan.

1. Build the wall
2. End “catch and release”
3. Zero tolerance for criminal aliens
4. Defund sanctuary cities
5. 5. Cancel President Obama’s executive actions
6. Extreme vetting. Block immigration from some nations
7. Force other countries to take back those whom the U.S. wants to deport
8. Get biometric visa tracking system fully in place
9. Strengthen E-verify, block jobs for the undocumented
10. Limit legal immigration, lower it to “historic norms,” and set new caps

The ten-point plan is not exactly a plan but an outline of factors that compose Trump’s immigration reform. A measured plan should include businesses that outsource legal and illegal immigrants for jobs that could be filled by qualified (or even unqualified) Americans. He wants to protect the border and protect American businesses (Trump’s businesses). He is a ten-step to bullshit.

1. Hire foreign workers to save cost
2. Hire foreign workers because they have better work experience
3. Hire foreign workers for a season and return them back to their country after season
4. Hire foreign factories to manufacture American products
5. Hire foreign workers to compete with other American businesses
6. Hire foreign workers because everyone else is doing it
7. Hire foreign factories because everyone else is doing it
8. Invest in companies that hire foreign workers
9. Invest in companies that outsource to foreign countries
10. Invest and expand businesses in foreign countries

Trump’s contradictory and hypocrisy will make America Great Again!

Which Trump Card Is Trump Pulling, And On Who?

Which Trump Card Is Trump Pulling, And On Who?

Lynnette M. Booker

              Donald Trump accuses the media and White House of election-rigging when everything he does conspires to exacerbate his own campaign. To echo President Barack Obama, Donald Trump is not fit to be president, and Trump knows this. He is not fit to become president because of his casual and hyperbolic statements and divisive language to corral a crowd, but mostly because he doesn’t have a clue about domestic and foreign policy. Trump is incapable of comprehending the responsibility to perform and delegate as the leader of the Free World. Yes, the election is rigged; you and, yes, Hillary Clinton are doing the rigging.

The only possible explanation for Donald Trump’s rants and unconscionable bigotry is that he is sabotaging his own campaign to bolster Hillary Clinton’s presidential election. Why else would he publicly extol Vladimir Putin’s tactics except excoriating them, or insult America’s allies. He proudly disregards words when words as a president matters to the people he will be sworn to serve and protect. Now, a man who has so much to lose (over the words that vomit out of his mouth) should filter and focus on election-winning objectives. He needs to focus on persuading the American people that he is fit to be president over Hillary. Apart from his divisive rhetoric, stoic facial expressions, conductor’s hands, pugnacious eyebrows, and his fan-over mane, his positions scream please don’t vote for me.

Trump’s true convictions are not aligned with what he actually spews at his rallies. I hope. However, a portion of Americans are easily manipulated by the billionaire scion whose interest lies in his reflection in the mirror. I strongly believe that Trump doesn’t agree with the things that come out his mouth, but he needs to sympathize with those Americans that are capable of voting for him—those hillbilly ideological nuts. And they see him as a champion for their cause, their convictions, and their pursuit to make America white, oops, I mean great again. But what he has exposed, to not only the portion of Americans who believe in equality but to the rest of the world, is the intolerance of race and religion. Trump will sell his soul for white vanity while buying a VIP ticket to Hillary Clinton’s presidential inauguration.

Why all off a sudden change of heart?

For a man who writhes and stutters in poisonous venom against Hillary: “She’s the devil; she’s a liar…” Yet, Trump has made money contributions to Hillary Clinton’s senate campaigns on four separate occasions and a donation to her 2008 presidential campaign. She must have not been that much of a devil to invite her to his wedding. In fact, Trump has had the upmost respect for Hillary and Bill Clinton. In 2012, Trump told Fox News that Hillary was a “Terrific woman…she really works hard and I think she does a good job.” He has been the Clintons’ advocator and crusader during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. A friend and supporter. In the end, Trump does and say things to get people to do things in return. The relationship with the Clintons could have been just another manipulated tactic from his play book, “The Art Of A Deal.” But what phony relationship is he building with American people to turn his back on them when his interest no longer suits him.

On the other hand, there is a chance that Trump will not forge his presidency if nominated. He will make America Great Again. But Trump is a businessman, a real-estate mogul, and profoundly smart when it comes to making deals, and he has not acquired such achievement without accessing every deal and whether the loss or risk is worth the cost. It is perceivable that he has assessed the risks of actually becoming president. The grueling task to govern, the loss of privacy, and constant vulnerability of public attacks and criticisms around the world, they all must have crossed his mind. And if he is a terrible president which this outcome is extremely high, he is risking the vanity of the Trump legacy.

The Prowess and Fortune of a Street Vendor

Alexander Parson, street vendor, organizes book inventory on the corner of 72nd Street and Broadway

 

By Lynnette M. Booker

One of the many advantages of being a street vendor is the tangible sense of free will: the freedom to set your own hours and change business locations indiscriminately. But Alexander Parson, a local street vendor, says he will never leave the Upper West Side where the money is easy and the commute is a few blocks down the street.

Parson wakes up every morning and leaves his apartment which he shares with his brother’s family. Before the sun rises, he walks four blocks to the intersection of 72^nd Street and Broadway where there are two tables covered with large tarps. Parson sits beside the tables on a black crate with a cup of coffee to keep his hands warm. He doesn’t remove the tarps. He just sits and reads and waits for the sun to break.

In a pair of blue jeans, a blue navy peacoat, and worn construction boots, Parson doesn’t meet one’s typical expectation of a businessman. Despite his appearance, Parson says he is in the book business, not the bookstore business where a startup costs over $3,000, financing is over $3,000, average monthly expenses are over $70,000, and average monthly sales are over $80,000, which leaves the owner with an average monthly profit of about $11,000. Parson makes a little over a quarter of that a month. He doesn’t pay rent or wages, and he doesn’t have a store—just two long tables to tend.

This is the day-to-day workings of an informal street vendor on 72^nd Street and Broadway.

As the sun rises over the Upper West Side, there are cinematic elements that one sees in films about New York. The streets teem with pedestrians. The sounds of impatient honks and the rattling trains beneath your feet. The well-known vendor, who everyone seems to know by name, engages in jovial conversation or stern inquires about his inventory that most often concludes with firm handshakes and less often with cash transactions.

Later at 9 a.m. Parson begins to unwrap his tables which lie at the head of a succession of tables down Broadway, teeming with New York’s most precious commodity: books. Hundreds of books are stacked, one on top of another, on Parson’s tables. From a distance, they look haphazard and informal but every book is categorized by themes—classic, modern, history, theatre and art, autobiography and biography, and, American and British novels.

The question is how does Melville and Hemingway, RuPaul and Lauren Conrad, and even Oprah Winfrey ends up on his tables?

“I don’t buy books; it’s not like I have a store,” says Parson. “Everything is donations.”

Parson’s movements are fast and brisk as he sorts through new inventory. Suddenly a pedestrian walks up behind Parson and scans the books. He picks a few up, flips through their pages, and then smiles at Parson before he walks away.

At 52, Parson, stands as an exemplar of perseverance in America. He started six years ago as an apprentice for two street vendors. For one year, Parson worked under their management, transporting and selling books, and completing other menial responsibilities. That same year, when the men decided to retire, they handed down their tables, business contacts, and inventory to Parson. In a year, he gained expertise in street vending and a chance to change his circumstances at the age of 46.

Late into the afternoon, he sits, stands, and socializes with other vendors through the chilly, overcast day. With satisfied sells, Parson disappears for an hour. Massy White, another street vendor who works beside Parson, tends to Parson’s tables while he is gone. The street vendors on the Upper West Side have a brotherhood: a code to look after each other’s tables when one is gone.

Parson returns with more books.

Parson is very scrupulous about the quality of the books he sells even though they are donated. He doesn’t accept books that have been written in, highlighted, have bent and loose pages, and that are crinkled and torn.

“The better condition of the books, the better price you can get,” he says, which an average book on his table sells for $5. A much better deal that one would get at Barnes & Noble.

As Parson packs up his wares, there is a stillness on the street as if there is an invisibility between him and the pedestrians. The civility is gone and soon will he, but the books will stay.

When the street vendors close business for the night, there are no carts and no van or trucks and no storage barrels. The same books that are donated for sell are the same books left on the street—unguarded and unprotected.

“There is a respect in the neighborhood,” Parson says.

Later at 8 p.m., Parson covers his tables with the same tarps and ties their corners securely around the tables’ legs; then, he walks away.

Putting Non-Profit Directors Forward: Deborah Kaplan

By Lynnette M. Booker

On the corner of 88th Street and Columbus Avenue, lies a 638-sqaure-foot rustic office with no more than four employees. A wooden bench is perched outside against the bone-white, weathered panels that are incongruent to the neighborhood’s stone buildings. Inside this humble office desks are aligned tightly, buried under mountains of documents, and a small staff with a strong rapport works together to operate TOP Opportunities and GreenKeepers under Goddard Riverside Community Center.

As director of TOP Opportunities and GreenKeepers, Deborah Kaplan and her staff work busily five days a week to ensure job opportunities for their participants in the New York Metropolitan area. The last nine years, Kaplan has physically and emotionally dedicated her life to changing the way people with mental illness feel about themselves. “I like helping people move on with their lives,” she says, “offering hope to people and helping them see their dreams.” A personal mission that reminds Kaplan why she gets up seven days a week for over eight hours a day to render service  to those  who seek it. A strong mission that she shares with Goddard Riverside Community Center.

In 1959, two historic settlement houses merged to create something bigger than either one alone: the Riverside Community House, which was founded in 1887, and Goddard Neighborhood Center, which was founded in 1862, both evolved in to Goddard Riverside Community Center, a non-profit organization in New York City. With 26 programs to meet the needs of thousands of senior citizens, adults, and children, Kaplan manages the supportive employment program at TOP Opportunities and GreenKeepers. At 64, Kaplan works hard to reach the organization’s goals of providing intensive supportive employment and job retention services to formerly homeless people who have severe and persistent mental illness.

“People come to TOP Opportunities because one, they have a mental illness and two, perhaps have a history of homelessness,” says Kaplan. “They come because they want to go to wok.” Kaplan and her staff are achieving and exceeding their program goals to help sustain Goddard Riverside as an exemplary non-profit organization in New York City. Charity Navigator rated Goddard Riverside Community Center four stars, as one of New York City;s leading human services organization.

“We’re very proud to be recognized as an organization that exceeds industry standards,” says Christina McSwain, the public Relations and Communications manager for Goddard Riverside. “We have strong infrastructure and operations practices that allow us to operate with a sustainable model of program delivery and service offerings.”

Every year, about 42.5 million American adults suffers from some mental illness, enduring  conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. According to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Approximately 9.3 million adults, ages 18 and up, experience serious mental illness that sometime impedes day-to-day activities, such as going to work.

“Just think about if you are the employer and you wanted to hire somebody and somebody said ‘yeah I really love to work with you but I take medication, and I can’t get up early, and I have mental illness’ and how would you respond to that, would you still want to hire them?,” Kaplan says with an emphatic no.

This is where Kaplan’s job comes in, by seeking and maintain partnerships with supportive employers to work with TOPOP participants to have a strong rapport. “We don’t want people to ire people because of charity but we do want them to be a little bit understand sometimes and allow us to coach somebody.”

The United States, it is estimated that 75 to 85 percent of people with severe mental illness are unemployed. Yet despite the high unemployment rates, surveys consistently show that most people with severe mental illness want to work. Employment may lead to improvements in outcome through  increasing self-esteem, alleviating psychiatric symptoms, and reducing dependency. According to Kaplan, vocational training and supported employment are different ways of helping persons with mental illness return to work and diminish self-stigmatization. The stigma of metal illness, although more related to context than a person’s appearance , remains a powerful negative attribute in all social relations. The reality of discriminatory practices supplies a very real incentive to keep mental health problems a secret.

“There is this huge stigma against people with mental illness and that stigma becomes self-stigma. People have incorporated societal stigma onto themselves. A lot of it is lack of knowledge about what mental illness is. A lot of it is the headline in the newspaper making people afraid to work with people who have mental illness because they don’t understand that most people do not have violent tendencies. Those are the few sensationalized cases,” Kaplan explains.

Kaplan’s main focus is to find resources for her participants through TOPOP, which is also known as The Other Program that started in 2001, as a supported employment program. As participants became more stable in the community and were permanently housed, they desired more meaningful work opportunities and competitive wage employment, as means to further their own independence and reintegration into society at large. Today, TOPOP not only places individuals in competitive wage jobs it continues to support  people so that job retention and wellness can be maintained throughout all the ups and downs of everyday life while coping with their mental illness. Sixty percent of participants have co-occurring chemical abuse diagnoses. The vast majority of TOPOP’s clients have been outside of the workforce for as many as five to 10 years due to their homelessness and untreated  mental illness. Others come to TOPOP in collaboration with Goddard’s continuum of service to provide comprehensive rehabilitation and recovery service.

Even though these programs started before Kaplan’s arrival to Goddard Riverside, her experience at Fountain House prepared her t drive TOPOP and GreenKeepers forward. Graduating from Boston University with a bachelor’s in education, Kaplan never saw herself n social work. Now with a master’s in social work from Fordham University, she “still enjoys the work and really enjoys knowing where someone came in and seeing where they are today.” Working for Goddard over nine years as the director of TOPOPs and GreenKeepers, she also does something that is most vital for her two programs: she helps that development  department know what her programs do so that they can write grants. Having to find funding, and then new funding for her programs is quite demanding, especially with a precarious economy. Wit ongoing economic changes, it  is unclear how long or how many people Kaplan will be able to help when funding short. “Up until recently we were able to have people stay with us for very, very  long periods of time, but as funding becomes more difficult to get and as government agencies are trying to watch their bottom-line, they prefer that we don’t keep people,” she says.

Most of Goddard’s funding is from government . They are funded by the department of health and mental hygiene, state office of mental health, New York state education department, which serves people with vocational or educational goals, and people with disabilities. They also receive money through the Greenacres Foundation.

In the last year, TOPOP has made profound achievements without difficulty. They exceeded their anticipated enrollment by 27, placing 75 percent of active members in a Level 1 or internship job within three to nine months, achieving a 69 percent employment  rate among their participants throughout the year set to maintain at 65 percent. they were able to achieve this through strong partnerships with area  employers, increased internship opportunities at Goddard Riverside, and new contracts and partnerships available through their social purpose business, GreenKeepers. “Just this year alone, staff from our Home-Delivered Meals, GreenKeepers, 140th Street residence and Options Center have received awards from various organizations at the local and national levels.” says McSwain, who is 30, and has been employed with Goddard Riverside for two years working on a development team to raise the visibility of Goddard Riverside.

GreenKeepers is most unique feature of the TOP Opportunities Program. Begun I 1995 as a landscaping business that employs over 30 part-time TOPOP workers and five crew leaders, GreenKeepers currently manages over 165 contracts for horticulture and street sanitation services. Its social enterprise business that allows the opportunity to offer on-the-job training and competitive wage employment to participants who choose this type of work. Though the work is seasonal, it offers an opportunity to build both  soft and hard job skills within a highly supervised group setting. Typically TOPOP participants have difficulty getting jobs they interview for because of low self-esteem and poor social skills, and a lack of paid work experiences, educational qualifications, or recent job references. GreenKeepers has given many members their first actual paid work experience and has acted as a stepping stone to the world of work.

Kaplan and her team assist many GreenKeepers with their resume writing and interview skills, goal setting and life skills coaching, budgeting and benefits planning to crew members who were ready to transition to new employment opportunities. As a result, several GreenKeepers and former GreenKeepers each year reap the benefits of the transformational nature of this work and make great leaps in personal and professional achievement. She will be overseeing future plans for TOPOP, which include several gardening projects at Goddard Riverside and within the community. They will work on a large landscape installation for one  of Goddard Riverside’s residence hall that includes plantings, construction of a privacy wall, building benches, and renovating tree pits in the front of buildings.

“I am satisfied by the work and enjoy the work. It has become harder and harder in the tough economic environment that we live in. The technology has taken away a lot of the kinds of jobs that people we work with use to do well at, those very routine jobs. Now everybody has to multitask and learn five different jobs and people with mental illness in general have a harder time with that level of flexibility and it takes them a while to learn something,” says Kaplan.

“Our primary goal is to continue to meet the needs of those who need us most. We work hand in hand with people, no matter what their life circumstances, background or age, to achieve the kind of life they want for themselves and their families,” says McSwain.

To Kaplan, “the best part is seeing how work changes people lives, how they change how they think about themselves, changes how they live and what they aspire to do, how it gives them a sense of belonging in society because what is the first thing that everybody says when you meet them is where do your work? A sense of identity, coming out of being that mentally ill person to a person who works and contribute and often wants to do more and more after, that is most satisfying part.”

Gentrification: The Misconception in Harlem

Carlos Swepson, Chef and Owner of BLVD Bistro

By Lynnette M. Booker

When Carlos Swepson launched Boulevard Bistro in late March, he aimed to distinguish himself from the homogeneous food scene in Central Harlem by improving the quality of life for Harlem residents by serving comfort food prepared with the best organic ingredients.

BLVD Bistro is not your traditional soul food restaurant in Central Harlem with crowded tabletops and cluttered décor, instead, tucked away in a historic brownstone on the corner of 121^st Street and Lenox Ave, it resembles a lofty boutique with minimalist atmosphere decked with dark wood furnishing featuring a cobblestone patio with verdant charm.

“This is something I built for the community, I had the community in mind when I opened it,” said Swepson, “You’re getting the service that you are in a comfort food place but it’s almost  like polished but not yet stuffy like fine dining, that’s one thing that separate me.”

Central Harlem, which runs from 96^th Street to 142^nd Street, is currently experiencing gentrification. According to State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods 2013 Report, black occupancy dropped below 60 percent in year 2012.

“Gentrification you can’t stop and that is one of the biggest misconceptions that people think you can stop it,” said Swepson, “This was bound to happen and it is a hard pill for people to swallow.”

“There is no problem with the Machine, says Swepson, “just a problem with misconception of gentrification.”

He refers to collective of economic engines entailing large-scale developers, city capital investments, and state and corporate members as the Machine. The integral components of what he refers as the Machine plays an important role in advancing gentrification, a word that most developers find inappropriately used, like Curtis Archer, president of Harlem Community Development Corporation (HCDC).

“I will not use the word gentrification, I am for redevelopment,” he said, “economics is clear and simple that is what’s driving this.”

These engines require a demand by a neighborhood’s potential stores and restaurant entrepreneurs like Swepson, to secure stability in their investments to attract a higher class income of people to live nearby.

With an array of new black owned dining options circulating on Lenox Ave, they are the drivers of social change. Despite this perception, Swepson does not see it this way, “it is a process that cannot be stopped and why would anyone want to, when it is improving the neighborhood,” he said.

With a continuum of achievements, Swepson, 44, has been in the restaurant industry for 25 years, receiving a Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management degree from Art Institute of New York. Then onto a prestigious internship under Jean-Georges Vongerichten, a renowned French chef. Now achieving to develop a name for himself in Harlem as a savvy businessman and restaurateur by making an impact on the community by supporting the local businesses.

Carlos Swepson, Chef and Owner of BLVD Bistro

Cultivating a business relationship in Harlem is very important to Swepson. He cares for the welfare of the residents and businesses in the neighborhood. He cares what residents eat. By working with local businesses to sustain his convictions, Swepson subscribes to a locavore philosophy: he is interested in providing food that is locally produced within the vicinity of Harlem.

The farm-to-table concept is a new way to preparing soul food, “with organic produce and in-house fresh ingredients.” For instance, Swepson orders his meat from Harlem Shambles, a local neighborhood boutique butcher shop, and he orders his produce from Corbin Hill, a farm share that provides communities direct access to produce.

After decades of disinvestment, the Machine is vitalizing the idea of what a great neighborhood should be in Harlem, “now Harlem commercial amenities that people wants,” said Archer.

Harlem Community Development Corporation is a private organization that attracts small businesses like BLVD Bistro to redevelop abandon neighborhoods. Not to gentrify the neighborhood.

Yet with great amenities comes great cost and due to the cost of amenities, it engenders fear in long-time residents of being displace.

“People were displaced a long time ago, the city owned 65 percent of buildings and land,” Archer said.

Both Archer and Swepson aim to improve the quality for all Harlem residents.

“I am for improving the quality for Harlem rights, not for new, not for old but for all,” Archer said.

For Swepson, choosing Harlem was easy, “Harlem is such a true Black city and I know it had to be in a place where people love you, it had to be in a location where people got it,” he said.

“The biggest misconception is that because you are at a low-income, you don’t deserve options,” Swepson says,“ a family that works hard and maybe on a low-income, he still wants to take his wife out to eat, he may not do it every week but he still wants to do it. So why can’t I provide that?”

Harlem patronage is a major them at BLVD Bistro. The Harlem restaurant inundated with open space includes  several artworks paying homage to Harlem, including one shape-cut wood of James Baldwin (a novelist) in the front area of the restaurant, two, of an oil canvas stroked with inspirational quotes hanging on the wall in the foyer of the restaurant.

“A lot of changes that I see aren’t changes I see as a business owner but changes I have seen has been patronizing Harlem.”