Michelle Cruz, owner of the East Harlem Cafe and Sharon Sinaswee, owner of Armada Building Services, Inc., both based in El Barrio/East Harlem, were profiled in two New York Daily News articles today, after being selected for an entrepreneurship program run by Goldman Sachs. Ms. Cruz and Ms. Sinaswee were two of 23 local businesses who received training and assistance through the “10,000 Small Businesses” program.
Below are excerpts from the articles. We congratulate these inspiring women for their participation in this program.
At age 9, Michelle Cruz decided that she would one day run her own business. The moment came while watching a TV program that showed some of the city’s blighted areas. An image flashed on the screen of her East Harlem neighborhood.
“I realized I was poor,” Cruz said. But she was determined to do better.
She studied accounting and pursued a career in banking while nurturing a dream to open her own restaurant.
Two and a half years ago, she opened the East Harlem Cafe at E. 104th St. and Lexington Ave. It’s become a community hub to see local musicians, artists and authors. A second cafe will be in the Caribbean Cultural Center when it relocates next year.
Sharon Sinaswee, the Trinidad-born owner of a small janitorial company in East Harlem, didn’t know what to expect last summer when she rode the elevator to the 43rd floor of the new headquarters of Goldman Sachs.
Then one of the most powerful execs in the world, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, sat next to her.
Sinaswee, the 42-year-old founder of Armada Building Services, was a member of the first class of an entrepreneurship program sponsored by Goldman called 10,000 Small Businesses. It was time for execs from the investment bank to read participants’ business plans. She’d been paired with Blankfein.
They spent an hour together as the Wall Street titan grilled her about her business. Among his tips: Sinaswee should cultivate a large pool of freelance handymen to tap at peak times.
“He said I was on the right track,” said Sinaswee, who recently added two employees to her four-person staff and scored a contract from the city’s Department of Education. “I was flattered that someone in that position was so interested in me.”
Melissa has sent a letter to Schools Chancellor Cathie Black regarding the impact of school co-locations in all parts of our district. In El Barrio/East Harlem, these co-location arrangements, whereby new schools (often charters) are placed within existing school buildings, are already common, and we have seen increasing proposals to establish similar arrangements on the West Side and in the South Bronx.
Melissa opposes co-locations, since they force schools, some of which are already struggling, to share limited space and resources, only further inhibiting their ability to succeed. You can read the full letter to the Chancellor below:
Melissa also submitted testimony opposing the co-location of the Upper West Success Academy at the Brandeis Educational Complex on West 84th Street. The Success Academy had previously been proposed to co-locate with PS 145 and PS 165 in our district. Her testimony is available below:
The East Harlem/El Barrio Youth Violence Task Force was formed during a rise in shootings last summer and has been meeting with kids at East Harlem housing projects, where gang feuds have many afraid of venturing beyond their immediate neighborhoods.
At James Weldon Johnson Houses, teenagers griped that a long-promised community center had yet to open. At Taft Houses, youths told the group that their last basketball court had been turned into a parking lot.
The task force, led by City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, doesn’t want to become another in a long list of well-meaning coalitions that outline problems and disappear. It wants solutions. Members are lobbying housing officials to expand recreational outlets at Johnson and Taft, and planning to do more of the same as they hear of problems in the rest of East Harlem’s public housing developments.
To read the full article, click here. You can keep up with the work of the Task Force by e-mailing Elsie Encarnacion (eencarnacion@council.nyc.gov) and requesting to be added to the e-mail list.
Please join us this coming Wednesday, February 2nd from 4 pm to 7 pm at La Marqueta’s Open House event! Come check out the newly renovated space, and try samples from the vendors. Hot Bread Kitchen will also be offering tours of the new commercial kitchen incubator.
The entrance to La Marqueta is located at Park Avenue and 115th Street. We hope to see you there!
Click here to see the flyer in English and Spanish for more info!
Mayor Bloomberg, surrounded by Martin Luther King III and 34 people affected by gun violence (Photo by Spencer T Tucker).
Melissa released the following statement in support of Mayor Bloomberg’s renewed efforts, along with mayors from across the country, to reform our gun control laws:
“Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg held an emotional press conference at City Hall to announce his renewed nationwide push for much-needed reforms to our gun control laws. He stood surrounded by individuals from across the U.S. who told stories of how they have been affected by gun violence. Three of these 34 courageous speakers came from El Barrio/East Harlem and the Bronx – including family members of Naiesha Pearson, Rory Forehand and Cheyenne Baez, who were senselessly killed on our streets. Sadly, we are seeing an alarming increase in gun violence in my district, with the homicide rate in East Harlem tripling last year, and shootings at public housing in East Harlem and Harlem increasing two-fold. This increased wave of violence has prompted my office to form the Youth Violence Task Force and to explore other means of addressing this growing problem.
“With the recent events in Arizona, this may be our biggest opportunity in years to reduce the number of illegal guns on our streets, and to try to keep these weapons out of the hands of emotionally disturbed individuals. I would like to thank Mayor Bloomberg for his leadership at a national level to promote sensible reforms to our gun laws, such as fixing the broken background check system, closing all loopholes and requiring checks for every gun sale in the U.S. The Mayor has also shown support for banning high-capacity ammunition magazines, which have been behind recent massacres like the one in Tucson.
“While our approach to combating violence in our city will continue to be comprehensive and multi-pronged, gun control at the federal level is a critical part of the equation. I join many of my colleagues in the City Council and members of my community in expressing my gratitude and support for Mayor Bloomberg’s efforts to reform our gun control laws.”
To sign a petition calling upon Congress to fix the background check system, visit www.fixgunchecks.org.
Melissa introduced a resolution on Tuesday calling on the U.S. Congress to reinstate the voting rights of the Puerto Rican Resident Commissioner and other delegates. Previously, the Resident Commissioner and delegates from Washington D.C., American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the Virgin Islands had the ability to vote on amendments. Under the new Republican-controlled Congress, one of the first resolutions passed by the House of Represenatives removed those already limited voting rights, which they have held since 1993.
As El Diario/La Prensa recently wrote in an editorial, “The bogus argument that states and territories should not be on equal footing in the House is a thin mask for the partisan political agenda to further marginalize the territories. Nearly all of the delegates are Democrats. In playing politics, Republicans are ignoring a long, historical truth that they have had a part in: U.S. citizenship was cast on Puerto Ricans, who were denied the right to choose their status. So the island should not be penalized for a situation it did not hatch.”
The resolution is expected to have a hearing before the Council’s Cultural Affairs Committee in the coming weeks.
Caucus calls for living-wage jobs, more contracts for minority- and women-owned businesses, and a fair tax structure
Watch a video of the statement, read by Council Members Debi Rose, Brad Lander and Melissa Mark-Viverito below:
NEW YORK, NY – The tragic shooting in Arizona earlier this month has caused us all to reflect on the plague of gun violence in our society, and the need for greater civility in our political discourse. We laud the Mayor for his longstanding leadership and tireless efforts to get illegal guns off of our streets, and to reduce gun violence.
But we are disappointed that Mayor Bloomberg spoke about the need to “face reality” in his State of the City Speech today (Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011) without outlining a real plan of action to address the economic realities facing most New Yorkers at a time when our city remains in a severe economic crisis.
Residents of outer boroughs may appreciate the chance to hail a livery cab … but too many can’t even afford the ride. Especially when a recent report shows that income inequality is greater in New York than in any other large American city. The top 1% of New York households, just 90,000 people, earn the same amount in one day as the 900,000 New Yorkers in deep poverty earn in a whole year.
Most New York City workers and their families have experienced very little real income or wage growth over the past two decades and high unemployment continues to plague our city. Unemployment remains at an official rate of 9%, but nearly double that when you factor in discouraged people who have dropped out of the labor force, and the rate is much higher among African-Americans, Latinos and residents of low-income neighborhoods.
The Mayor spoke to the need to attract tourists, college graduates and white-collar entrepreneurs, but we heard nothing about how we can create living-wage jobs for New Yorkers who are struggling to make a living here. The jobs that are being created in our city tend to pay low wages, often without benefits or even the ability to take a day off when you’re sick. And homelessness remains near its all-time high. 37,363 people slept in City shelters last Thursday night, of which more than 16,000 were children.
On jobs – our city’s most pressing issue – the Mayor’s speech, like his recent performance, was disappointing.
The Bloomberg administration has not launched a single new major jobs initiative for low-income New Yorkers. Community service jobs and wage subsidy programs are scheduled for further cuts.
Despite giving his recent “jobs speech” at the Brooklyn Navy Yard – where innovation is thriving in new industrial niches – the mayor has dramatically reduced his policy commitment to the manufacturing sector, and presided over a steep decline in blue-collar jobs.
City contracting with minority- and women-owned businesses (M/WBEs) is embarrassingly below goals set in 2005. While the Mayor acknowledged a need to improve in this area, a recent report showed that only 1 out of 15 major City agencies met even half of the M/WBE goals.
The Mayor has opposed and stalled consideration of living-wage job creation requirements, even when the City is providing millions in subsidies to for-profit corporations and real estate developers.
These challenging economic times do require fiscal discipline, and the City Council – under the leadership of Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Finance Chair Domenic Recchia – has worked with the Mayor to make difficult decisions and choose painful spending cuts. But we need a fair approach that keeps our city strong and asks for shared sacrifice, rather than balancing the budget primarily on the backs of the poor and the middle class.
Mayor Bloomberg said no today to any new taxes – but our current tax structure is unfair and regressive. That’s why the Progressive Caucus has proposed a temporary income tax surcharge on household incomes over $250,000 – to recapture the windfall that Congressional Republicans won for the wealthiest 2% of households. Mayor Bloomberg has been the chief defender of these very households – he’s opposed regulatory reform of Wall Street despite the fact that it was Wall Street speculation that cost us millions of jobs in the first place.
The Mayor today asked nothing of Wall Street or the wealthiest New Yorkers, and for sacrifice only from public school teachers, police officers, librarians, and the working- and middle-class New Yorkers they serve.
While the Mayor has often said that the rich pay more than their share, the opposite is true. The wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers earned 45% of the city’s total income, but they only paid 34% of city taxes. Our plan would make our tax structure more fair, raise $8 billion dollars to address State and City deficits, help us save core services like education and public safety, and allow us to create the jobs we so desperately need.
In response to the Administration’s failures to address the recent blizzard, the City Council held hearings, led by Speaker Quinn and the Progressive Caucus’ own Letitia James and Jumaane Williams. At those hearings, the Bloomberg Administration acknowledged its mistakes, announced significant policy changes, and pledged to do better in the future.
We need the same kind of commitment to do better to create well-paying jobs and advance economic security for struggling low-income, working, and middle-class families in neighborhoods across the five boroughs. We also need policy changes to ensure affordable housing for our residents and policies that make sure our children get the kind of education they need and deserve.
The Progressive Caucus calls for a real plan of action to move New York City out of this economic crisis and appeals to Mayor Bloomberg to work with us in our shared vision of a better New York City.
Join Comptroller John Liu and Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito tomorrow for a celebration of Las Octavitas at Taino Towers in El Barrio/East Harlem. The event will be held from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm and will feature Puerto Rican food and a live musical performance. We hope to see you there! See below for details:
At a meeting with Lower Manhattan parents last night, Schools Chancellor Cathie Black said that “birth control” could be a solution for school overcrowding in New York City, saying “Could we just have some birth control for a while?” Black said Thursday night. “It would really help us.” See video below.
While Chancellor Black has said that this was a “joke,” Melissa released the following statement today, in response to these comments:
”The outrageous comments of Chancellor Black prove that our original concerns about her ability to connect with parents and local communities were valid. Overcrowding in our schools is a serious problem across the city that requires a serious look at the DOE’s own policies. Insinuating that birth control could solve these challenges is neither comical nor professional. With Cathie Black’s extensive background in management we would expect strategic solutions to the issues faced by our public schools, rather than ‘off the cuff’ remarks that are distasteful, demeaning and offensive.”
Here is a video from the meeting. The comments begin around 1:20.
The New York City Council held a hearing today on the Bloomberg administration’s response to the blizzard. The hearing began at 11:00 this morning and at the time of the publication of this blog post (seven half hours later), it still has not ended. We were live tweeting throughout the morning. You can read our Twitter feed for the minute-by-minute updates.
Photo by Richard Perry/The New York Times.
Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith and the Commissioners of the Department of Sanitation, the Office of Emergency Management and the Fire Department, who testified and answered Council Member’s questions, offered apologies and admitted openly that the response to the storm was unacceptable. They also shared some of the information regarding conversations happening behind the scenes in the days leading up to and following the storm.
Testimony and responses to the questions exposed a serious lack of coordination and communication between our city’s agencies, which severely limited their ability to respond effectively to the storm and deploy all the necessary resources.
Due to the length of today’s hearing, public sessions have been scheduled for each borough. We urge our constituents to attend these hearings just outside of our district in Manhattan and the Bronx:
Manhattan: Thursday, January 20th, 6:00 pm
Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building
163 W. 125th Street
The Bronx: Monday, January 24th, 6:00 pm
Hostos Community College, Savoy Building D
120 E. 149th Street (btwn Walton and Gerard Avenues)
Among the information revealed during questioning was that Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty and Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan were responsible for making the decision not to call a snow emergency, which among other things, would have required cars to be moved off of the city’s main streets. Deputy Mayor Goldsmith indicated that declaring a snow emergency could have facilitated a quicker response to the storm. The Commissioners, however, made this determination without consulting Mayor Bloomberg or the Deputy Mayor.
The administration released its preliminary internal review of the snow response, which includes a 15-point reform plan to improve the City’s ability to handle major snow storms. You can download the report by clicking here.
These are only a few highlights from today’s hearing. Please visit our Twitter page for additional highlights. You can also click here to see many of the Twitter posts from Melissa’s Council colleagues, the press and members of the public about today’s snow hearing (those who used the #snowhearing tag).
The New York Times City Room Blog also was blogging live throughout the day. You can see that article here.
We will keep the blog updated on the Council’s continued efforts to get to the bottom of what went wrong in the last storm and ensure that it never happens again.
We thank you for visiting the blog and keeping up with our office’s work. If you are not yet subscribed to the blog, we encourage you to do so, by entering your e-mail address in the space provided at the top of the right-hand column. Be sure to check your e-mail to confirm your subscription. You can also subscribe to our monthly electronic newsletter by visiting www.tinyurl.com/mmvsubscribe. We appreciate your continued support!
The City Council has negotiated a deal with the Bloomberg administration to avoid mid-year budget cuts to core services, from case management for seniors to shelter beds for homeless youth, as well as to defer increases in recreation center fees and parking meter rates. This deal only applies to the current fiscal year, which ends in June.
Melissa questions the FDNY Commissioner at a Council budget hearing (Photo by William Alatriste).
By proposing alternative cuts, such as a reduction in the Department of Education’s private contracting budget, the Council was able to:
Defer proposed nighttime fire company closures
Restore funding for nearly 200 ACS staff positions in the areas of child welfare and child protective services
Fully restore case management services for seniors
Yesterday, Melissa joined Speaker Christine Quinn and others in celebrating the opening of the long-awaited commercial kitchen incubator. Hot Bread Kitchen‘s HBK Incubates program will rent out space in the brand new commercial kitchen at La Marqueta to culinary entrepreneurs while also providing paid training in commercial baking and English as a second language courses to immigrant women. La Marqueta has also welcomed a number of new vendors, selling everything from coffee and treats to fresh, locally-grown produce.
The incubator space includes two production kitchens, two prep kitchens, a chocolate kitchen, a specialty production space, and dough room, as well as dry and cold storage facilities. A demonstration kitchen for classes and other events is also available. The kitchens will be fully equipped and available on a part-time or full-time basis. Already, Hot Bread Kitchen has agreed to incubate 7 small businesses, with a second round of applications currently being accepted. Subsidized rates are available for low-income food entrepreneurs. More info on this space is available here.
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Staff at the kitchen will help entrepreneurs with: learning kitchen-use rules and regulations, product development, becoming certified food handlers, marketing products, completing a business plan and accessing capital. We hope that local culinary entrepreneurs and other interested residents will seek to take advantage of the opportunities available through the HBK Incubates Program. Click here for more information on membership and rental rates, and call 212-369-3331 to learn more.
“With today’s grand opening, we begin the long-awaited revitalization of La Marqueta, a historical and cultural landmark for the El Barrio/East Harlem community,” said Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito. “The newly built commercial kitchen incubator will make affordable workspace available to culinary entrepreneurs, as immigrant women receive training and workforce development from Hot Bread Kitchen. I strongly encourage my constituents to take advantage of these incredible resources. This innovative incubator space, along with the brand new retailers that have moved in, will help La Marqueta to once again become an engine for economic activity in El Barrio/East Harlem. I thank Speaker Christine Quinn for her leadership on this project, as well as the support of the Economic Development Corporation and all others who helped make this vision come to life.”
Please stop by the newly renovated La Marqueta to check out the commercial kitchen and all of the new vendors!
Here is some media coverage of yesterday’s grand opening:
Join tenants and advocates TONIGHT (Monday, January 3rd) at 6 pm on the steps of City Hall to call on Governor Cuomo and the State Legislature to strengthen and protect rent stabilization laws. Those state laws which provide for rent stabilization (for buildings built from 1974 on) and for rent control are set to expire in June 2011. The Legislature is expected to renew these laws, but they may do so with substantial givebacks to landlords. Tonight’s vigil will call for:
Full repeal of Vacancy Decontrol
The extending rent protections to all Mitchell-Lama and Section 8 buildings which leave govt program
Attendees will begin to gather at around 5:30 pm. Be sure to bundle up and bring signs! The Real Rent Reform Campaign will provide hot cider. For more information, please contact Anderson Fils-Aimé at (347)392-9851 or andersonfilsaime@yahoo.com.
Melissa Mark-Viverito 