Community activism and organizers are no strangers to the Bronx – after all, it was this group that rescued the borough from near oblivion when we were abandoned by our government, landlords and business leaders. So it should come to no surprise that after working in the trenches for over 40 years that one of our own officially joins the race for city council.
Julio Pabón, born in the coastal Puerto Rican town of Guayama and raised in the South Bronx, is officially running for the 17th council district in the Bronx – a district who’s incumbent has gone unchallenged for too long.
That Mr Pabón has tirelessly worked to improve the lives of the members of his community is an understatement to say the least. He is someone who just can’t seem to stand still as long as there is inequality or suffering around him. His resume of accomplishments is a testament of his leadership skills through the various organizations that he’s founded making him a unifier.
Julio Pabón is not only that natural born leader the people know they can rely upon but they also know he’s listener that transcends the generational gap since he’s never just focused on one group. Whether it’s engaging our youth in their schools or through various social programs he’s founded or the South Bronx Homeowners Association where homeowners are united in improving their neighborhood, he’s always there to truly hear the heartbeat of the community and listen to what we need.
It’s been a long time since we’ve had one of our own people walking the streets listening to us and working with us so it is with great pride and honor that we announce Julio Pabón’s candidacy for the 17th council district in the Bronx.
Stay tuned for more news as it unfolds.
#vote4julio
Stop and Frisk is the unfortunate way of life for many of our youth in the Bronx. Considering that the vast majority who are victimized by such tactics are people of color, you can easily see that it is racial profiling at its best. How demoralizing is it to be walking around the neighborhood or just sitting on your stoop with friends shooting the breeze and all of a sudden you’re bumrushed by cops because you “match the description” of a suspect?
Julio Pabón, longtime Bronxite and community leader speaks out on this very issue in a thought provoking piece where he said something that rang so true:
As a father of three who have grown up in the South Bronx I remember many times that we as parents would be as worried of our kids being detained and harassed by police as being mugged. This might sound crazy, but true. The experiences that we have had with the police in our neighborhoods have not been as pleasant as what many of the police cars would have inscribed on their sides as “Neighborhood Police Teams.” They should go back and inscribe what they had on the cars when I was a teenager, “Tactical Patrol Force.” At least then they were more honest because it was a “Patrol Force” making us feel as if we were living in an occupied territory.
Growing up in the South Bronx (and even to this day) my parents always told me to be careful out but the one thing mom and dad would stress the most is to be careful if the cops pulled me over. To not give them an attitude and be obedient and follow directions because they feared if I attempted to defend myself verbally that a bullet through my head wasn’t all that improbable. Given the violent history of the NYPD with our community (as well as my own personal experiences), they had reason to fear for my life. They knew that I didn’t hang in dangerous circles but to them, the men in blue were equally dangerous.
Read the rest of Julio Pabón’s article on this issue which affects our citizens deeply.
For all the ills that still plague our beloved borough, the one issue that deserves to get the spotlight, rarely does so. The Bronx political machine and establishment is perhaps the single most problematic entity we have yet to give our full attention. It is a system that is rife with corruption, nepotism and plain old apathy.
But change is on the horizon.
Bronxites are slowly making noise and voting out these career politicians who are in the business of being poverty pimps. We got rid of disgraced Pedro Espada (actually his dirty deeds finally caught up with him) and Naomi Rivera who was ousted by newcomer Mark Gjonaj.
We still have to rally against the Arroyo clan who continue to be run unopposed (and when they are challenged, they resort to alleged dirty tactics such as haunting the polling stations on election day and influencing the outcome of the vote such as Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo is accused of doing. ) Her daughter, Maria del Carmen Arroyo who is a city councilwoman is another who is no stranger to scandals.
What about the Diaz clan who is another political dynasty in the Bronx that simply runs on name recognition and unopposed? The despicable State Senator Ruben Diaz (father of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr) is another charlatan that needs to boot from Bronx politics. Thankfully, he is the last of a crew of four poor excuse for politicians that remain. His cronies in the State Senate, Espada, Monserrate and Kruger have either been convicted and serving jail time or facing jail time.
To all of these politicians I would like to say to you on behalf of your constituents who have voiced either publicly or privately their distrust and disgust of you:
We are watching you and your days as our “elected” officials are numbered. There is a tide of Bronxites fed up with the cycle of poverty which you are all guilty of perpetuating in our borough. You have all been charged with securing the future of our borough and what do we have to show for it? We are still the poorest county in the state, with the highest unemployment in the city. We are still home to the poorest congressional district in the NATION and suffer rates of asthma that are amongst the highest in the country. We have some of the hungriest citizens who are also the unhealthiest and among the most obese.
We have the least access to the waterfront and lowest ratio of residents to parkland in the South Bronx yet our Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr chooses to support a deal to not only take away almost 100 acres of our waterfront with the dirty FreshDirect deal but it is a plan that will clog up our roads which will contribute to more asthma inducing traffic pollution. Is this acceptable in Manhattan? Brooklyn? Queens or even Staten Island? The answer is NO so why would we allow our borough President to happily give away our land on the empty promises of jobs?
Fellow Bronxites, we must remain united and continue to put fresh blood into office and hold them accountable for their failures in office and to our citizens.
As always, we welcome you to share widely and comment below so that we can engage in a discussion of solutions to our problems. For those of you who don’t have a Facebook account, you can email me your comments at info@welcome2thebronx.com and we’ll be happy to post them on your behalf.
Make sure you read this excellent piece by Joe Hirsch on how residents are turning to local activists and shying away from politicians.
Southern Boulevard always played second fiddle to the HUB but for thousands of Longwood and Hunts Point residents, this bustling shopping district has been the go to place for goods and services for decades. Tonight, Gary Axelbank’s BronxTalk, along with local leaders, will discuss the current state of the shopping district and its future. It should be an interesting talk given how prominently Christine Quinn mentioned the South Bronx during her state of the City address today.
Be sure to tune in and remember, you can always email or call in your thoughts and opinions and join in on the discussion during the show.
Check out more from Gary Axelbank:
TONIGHT! – BronxTalk will feature the Southern Blvd. shopping district. The Executive Director of the BID and District Manager of Community Board 2 will join us to talk about improving business conditions for merchants, expanding shopping options for customers, planned new development, and the overall health of this important Bronx shopping strip. BronxTalk is Monday nights at 9:00pm on BronxNet’s channel 67 and Fios 33.
The Bronx has a wealth of murals throughout our neighborhoods. This one is in Melrose at Neighborhood Cycle.
Which one is your favorite? Tweet your pics to @welcome2thebx and let us know!
Tonight at 7pm, the X Collective launches their latest exhibit, New Word Order. Since the collective’s inception in the Spring of 2011, they have been producing impressive bodies of work of socially conscious pieces and have engaged the community-at-large in much needed conversations on local and global issues that in one way or another impact our daily lives. Check out Patrick Wall’s article on The X Collective.
Read more about their latest exhibit:
New Word OrderJanuary 25th-February 8th
Opening Reception, January 25, 2013, 7pm-11pm at The X Collective
New Word Order is the sixth exhibit presented by The X Collective (TXC). The exhibit is inspired by the mainstream belief that the world would end on December 21, 2012 and a new world would rise after. The artists at the Collective imagined a new world in which the alphabet would be replaced with visual ideas rather then letters and that a new form of communication would be necessary for people to survive.
This exhibit is an opportunity to highlight the Collective’s mission to bring awareness to issues that the Bronx is facing, one of the more pressing being the issue of literacy. “According to the National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Higher Education, 22 percent of New Yorkers lack basic literacy skills. That number is higher in poorer communities. The number is 37 percent in Brooklyn and 41 percent in the Bronx.” (People’s World- www.peoplesworld.org)
New Word Order will unveil the visual interpretations of literacy while celebrating and indulging the relationship between language and art. It promises to be a thought provoking, conversation inspiring event for all.
Background
The X Collective was created in the Spring of 2011 by founder and participating artist, Arismendy Feliz, to encourage the presence of art by local artists and to engage the Bronx community in a dialogue around art. Our goal is to highlight, with our talents, social and cultural issues that affect the Bronx and communities like it. Artists at the Collective discuss topics, issues, and trends that they observe around them and transform these ideas into unique and compelling displays of art, which are showcased at themed exhibits throughout the year.
The exhibits are open to the public at no cost.
Exhibits: 4 play – November 4, 2011
What’s Your Vice? – March 23, 2012
Meet and Greet – June 15, 2012O.M.G – July 13, 2012
Charly Dominguez Solo Exhibit – October 19, 2012
These exhibits addressed and explored a range of topic, from vices to multiple personalities told through the perspective of TXC’s core group of artists. The Core ArtistsTXC is currently comprised of five core artists from the Bronx and Yonkers. The artists’ specialities range from mixed media to photography. Each artist brings a unique visual style and perspective to the Collective. Click on the names below to find out more about each one.
Arismendy Feliz
Marcos Cruz
Irinel de Leon
Charly Joaquin Dominguez
Brittany “Miss Brit” Maldonado
For more information, please contact:Arismendy Feliz
Telephone: 347. 541.4804
Email: contact@thexcollective.org
Website: www.thexcollective.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thexcollective
Just days after a major exhibit opened at the Bronx Documentary Center this past Saturday in Melrose which depicts the humanity behind the most turbulent times in our history, 2012 murder statistics were posted revealing that The Bronx is safer than Boston. In fact, according to the data posted by the Gothamist, our borough is safer than a host of other cities such as Cleveland, Houston, Philadelphia, and Dallas to name a few.
The posting went on to say that numbers this low haven’t been seen since 1963 – which was long before the borough acquired the image of a broken Bronx that still burns in the world’s eyes. This is a moment that we as Bronxites should be proud but let’s not fall asleep on the wheel for we still have much work to do in this area.
There is, however, a number that has increased in the borough rather than decrease. We proudly paved the way for an explosion in the use of libraries which has left the other boroughs in the dust. Let’s keep up the good work, folks.
In the South Bronx don’t even have a dusting yet once you go above Fordham Road, you begin to see a whiter landscape.
Call him Dr Feel Good. Renee Hernandez, MD, a local Bronx doctor is operating the first distillery in our great borough, Tirado Distillery, since Prohibition. The Bronx isn’t a stranger to alcohol production as evidenced by the many German breweries that dotted Melrose and Morrisania but after almost a whopping 100 years, we can drink to the first legal distillery within our borders – toasting with rum that uses ingredients that are 80% from local New York farms.
Read the rest at NBCLatino.
Ok so I cheated a little and I took the picture on an overpass in Westchester but nevertheless it bears our namesake – The Bronx. Through the years, thanks in part to organizations like the The Bronx River Alliance, major efforts to clean up the waterway that bisects our borrow and Westchester have successfully turned it from a dumping ground to a destination. Fishes once more inhabit the waters and yes even beavers are back home building dams.
Yeah, you read that right – $15 bucks will get you enough fresh, wild and sustainably harvested fish to feed a family of 5! Click on savefarms.org for further details! Your orders can be picked up on Tuesdays between 6pm and 7pm over at The Point in Hunts Point.
Since 2009, Welcome2TheBronx has been a popular online platform dedicated to highlighting the vibrant culture, history, and ongoing developments within New York City’s northernmost borough. Founded by life-long resident and community advocate Ed García Conde, the site features local news, personal stories, and in-depth coverage of issues such as gentrification, community empowerment, art, and real estate. Through its engaging content and active social media presence, Welcome2TheBronx has become a trusted resource for residents and visitors alike, shining a spotlight on the unique identity and rich heritage of the Bronx.
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