This Sunday from 2PM to 5PM, the 3rd Annual Bronx Gentrification Conference will be held, this time, at New Settlement Community Center at 1501 Jerome Avenue—PLEASE RSVP.
Since The Bronx Documentary began this series in December of 2012, speculation and gentrification have crept into our borough at a rapid rate despite our Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr denying that gentrification is happening.
2015 became the year that The Bronx was put up for sale and is being sold to the highest bidders not to mention the Piano District party and fiasco which has angered a borough.
That being said, the following is what you can expect for this Sunday’s conference:
The goal of the 3rd annual Gentrification Conference is to educate, strategize and plan community resistance to gentrification.
Hosted by Bronx Documentary Center, New Settlement Apartments Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA) and City Limits.
Food, childcare and interpretation provided.
Free and open to all. Please contact Susanna at CASA with any questions: 718-716-8000
PANELISTS (More to come)
VIVIAN VAZQUEZ
Co-Producer of Decade Of Fire
Vivian Vazquez is Nuyorican and grew up in the Longwood district of the South Bronx during the time of the fires. She left in 1980. After returning to the Bronx, she led projects for children, youth and senior center programs at Bronxworks for nine years. Vivian managed the development of educational youth development models in GED completion and college access programs throughout the city. Currently, she is the Director of Community-School Partnerships at the New Settlement Community Campus, a new K to 12 public school in the Bronx. She is a proud member of 52 People for Progress and Decade of Fire is her first film project.
VICKI BEEN
Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner
Vicki Been is responsible for leading the nation’s largest municipal housing agency and is charged with creating and implementing Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Five-Borough, Ten-Year Plan, a bold initiative to create or preserve 200,000 affordable homes and apartments over 10 years. Prior to her appointment as HPD Commissioner, Ms. Been was Director for NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, a nationally renowned academic research center devoted to the public policy aspects of land use, real estate, and housing development. She also served as the Boxer Family Professor of Law at NYU School of Law and Affiliated Professor of Public Policy of the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
RHYNNA M. SANTOS
Photographer & Everyday Bronx Curator
Rhynna M. Santos is a photographer born in Hato Rey, Puerto Rico and currently residing in Bronx, New York. Ms. Santos graduated from UCLA in 2007. Since then she has worked with a number of Bronx based organizations including Mind-Builders
Creative Arts Center, Bronx Documentary Center and Bronx Art Space. In 2014 Ms.Santos had her first solo exhibition in Madrid, Spain entitled Window to the Bronx. The exhibition expanded a global dialogue about urban, Latino immigration.
Ms. Santos depicts the everyday life, geographies, emotions and realities of people of color in Bronx, New York. She has exhibited work as featured artist in Curate NYC 2013, Bronx Art Space: Access to Art 2014, Bronx X Bronx 2014 and the Jerome
Avenue Workers Project 2015. Santos is currently a member of the Bronx Photo League at the Bronx Documentary Center and curator for the Instagram feed Everyday Bronx.
FITZROY CHRISTIAN
Tenant Leader at CASA
Fitzroy Christian is a tenant leader at CASA (Community Action for Safe Apartments) and Bronx Borough Coordinator for Housing Court Answers. He has been a resident of the southwest Bronx for the past 40 years and is a tenant member on the Board of Directors of Legal Services-NYC. Fitzroy is a graduate of the City College of the City University of New York and spent 30 years of his working life as a technology professional, first as a computer technician at the now defunct Digital Equipment Corp., and later as Supervisor of Instructional Technology and Academic Computing at Fordham University’s Graduate Center at Lincoln Center. He has been involved in most of CASA’s campaigns and is currently a member of the Bronx Coalition for Community Vision, which is developing its community-led vision for the rezoning and development of Jerome Avenue. Fitzroy also maintains an information and help desk at the Bronx Housing Court for Housing Court Answers, from where he assists pro se litigants in navigating the complex and confusing labyrinth that is New York City’s Housing Court system.
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