A Harlem Youth Center Still Thrives in an Uncertain Moment

New York Times

17-04-2025

A few years ago, Brotherhood Sister Sol, the West Harlem youth development organization, opened a $22 million headquarters that became a pilgrimage stop for New York design buffs. Its jagged glass facade, along a block of old tenements, resembled an upraised hand, leaning over the sidewalk.
'An architectural showpiece,' is how I described it back in 2022.
I worried then whether the layout was functional. With 700 children romping through the quirky rooms and narrow halls, BroSis, as it's also known, was fated to endure a daily stress test that seemed to merit a second look.
So I hopped a 1 train the other day to see how the place was holding up.
It looked remarkably well-loved and spotless, a clear sign of pride. The building still comes as a visual jolt on West 143rd Street. Designed by Urban Architectural Initiatives, its message remains clear: this is not your tasteful corporate building. It speaks to a different audience and different goal.
The afternoon I arrived, teens were making art in one of the classrooms and unloading piles of twigs and leaves into large wooden boxes of steaming compost in the community garden that BroSis oversees next door. Among other things, the building has allowed BroSis to add staff and beef up its environmental programs, installing new composting boxes, hundreds of them eventually, all across the city.
Mental health services have also been expanded now that BroSis has room for more clinicians and social workers. So have art, dance and other after-school classes. The organization offers pro bono legal advice. In its old building, staff cooked for kids in a small home kitchen, and occasionally resorted to ordering pizza. The new building includes a professional kitchen that turns out 40,000 meals a year.
And the results are encouraging.
Across New York City high school graduation rates for Black and Latino students average 80 percent. At BroSis, according to Khary Lazarre-White, the organization's executive director and co-founder, the rate is 100 percent.
Roughly one-third of Black and Latino high school graduates across the country enroll in college. At BroSis it's 94 percent. Nationwide, just 18 percent of first-generation Black and Latino college students end up earning bachelor's degrees within six years. At BroSis, which enrolls children as young as eight years old and continues to mentor graduates through college, that number hovers around 90 percent.
fBut Lazarre-White says he wonders what's next. It's a question leaders of similar organizations are asking. BroSis's annual operating budget is $12 million. Various federal and local funding streams on which the organization depends are now in limbo or have vanished as President Trump seeks to cut and reshape the government.
Corporate sponsors that proudly advertised their support for BroSis have declined to renew grants, telling Lazarre-White that they are reconsidering programs associated with diversity, equity and inclusion. Some companies are pulling back because they are fearful of the effect of tariffs — and some philanthropists may yet reduce their contributions as the stock market gyrates.
It's a double whammy, Lazarre-White said: 'When the Trump administration cuts back on benefits, we have to provide more food. When they attack immigrants, we need to provide more legal support.'
Fortunately, he added, private donors, other corporations and local foundations are so far stepping in and bridging the gap.
So how does all this relate to architecture?
Because architecture lives in the world. Its functions and fate shift with the changing fortunes and circumstances of those who interact with it. BroSis's home has become even more of a haven for the young people it serves. These days the suggestion of an upraised hand can bring to mind fortitude, a fist and a beacon.
I wondered back in 2022 if all those rooms, which avoid straight angles, would be impractical. I realize now they speak to the values of imagination and play and thinking outside the box.
It's a useful message at an uncertain moment.