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New York Times
19 hours ago
- Lifestyle
- New York Times
As Lives Changed, the House Came to the Rescue
For decades, Susan Herman loved her second home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., so much that whenever circumstances changed in her life, she preferred adjusting her living space over moving somewhere new. After buying the house for $74,000 with her husband in 1978, the 1860s structure, a former butcher's shop that had one bathroom and a few tiny bedrooms, provided a low-key escape from the couple's primary residence in Manhattan. 'In the late 1970s, Sag Harbor was just emerging from a depressed time,' said Ms. Herman, now 78, who retired from running a preschool program at the Y.M. & Y.W.H.A. of Washington Heights and Inwood last November. 'So I've watched the town evolve over the years,' she noted, as it attracted more affluent urbanites. Her home has also evolved. When Ms. Herman and her husband had two sons in the 1980s, they needed more space and added a two-story extension to accommodate the whole family, expanding the house to about 3,500 square feet. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Andrew Cuomo locks in another House endorsement in NYC mayoral race
US Rep. Adriano Espaillat is backing Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor — strengthening the embattled former governor's support among Latino communities in Washington Heights and the Bronx. The Democratic congressman made his spirited endorsement during a Mother's Day event in the Bronx Saturday night, encouraging female attendees to vote for the pol – who resigned in disgrace from the governor's office in 2021 over sexual misconduct claims leveled against him by a slew of women. 'He has the best intentions in his heart,' Espaillat, who reps Upper Manhattan and parts of the West Bronx, insisted during his lively bilingual declaration, according to a video shared on X. 'He needs you, he needs the mothers and the daughters and the granddaughters of the city so he can make it better.' In a subsequent statement – which also included an endorsement from Espaillat's Coalition for Community Concerns – the congressman described Cuomo as a strong and proven leader capable of tackling the Big Apple's most urgent issues, including affordability, public safety and federal overreach. Cuomo has now won the support of three House members — including Ritchie Torres and Greg Meeks. The Democratic candidate also earned an endorsement from Assemblyman George Alvarez, who hosted Saturday's function. Alvarez is a member of the coalition, which was formed ahead of the city's mayoral race and includes civic and business leaders, local activists and elected officials. 'His record proves that he is the best suited to tackle challenges facing our city,' said Alvarez, who serves New York's 78th District in the Bronx. 'From building more affordable housing to making like safer in the streets, the Bronx needs someone who can step up to the plate on Day One and start doing the job. We did it before, we can do it again, and we will when he is at City Hall.' Cuomo, during the vivacious gathering, said he looks forward to working with both pols when he's elected. 'No one will do more for the Bronx than we will together,' Cuomo told the crowd, the video showed. 'The Bronx has been left behind for too long and we're going to make it a priority. We're going to make it safer, more affordable, and more job opportunities than you have seen in years.'
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Washington Heights rallies to save 115-year-old church, community center
Washington Heights community members and elected officials rallied Thursday to save the financially strapped 115-year-old Fort Washington Collegiate Church after leadership announced its closure at the end of June. The closure — first reported by Crain's — was announced in April following a vote by the consistory of the larger Collegiate Church it belongs to that deemed the branch at 181st St. and Fort Washington Ave. 'no longer sustainable.' 'This community will be changed forever if this place does not exist,' said Annette Padilla, whose family has been part of the congregation for three generations. 'We will not give it up easily.' Rev. William Critzman, president of the Collegiate Church of New York, told the Daily News the pandemic underscored 'the need for financial sustainability' and that the decision came after three years of searching for viable alternatives. All worship and programming will end on June 30. 'We know how deeply painful and disappointing this news is,' the Fort Washington Church board said in a statement at the time. 'This church has been a place of love, healing, faith, and belonging for so many, and we understand the heartache this brings to our Fort Washington family and neighborhood.' The future of the land is unclear, though Critzman said the church 'has no intention of selling the property' and hopes to find a nonprofit tenant to take over. The lot is currently listed as available for lease. But speakers at Thursday's rain-soaked rally disputed Collegiate leadership's claims. 'We're here not because of self-inflicted financial mismanagement, but we're here because … Collegiate is acting a little bit more like a corporation,' said Johanna Garcia, a congregant and board member. Local councilmember Carmen De La Rosa said Collegiate 'is not interested in seeing us bring solutions.' 'Asking a working-class community to magically come up with a million dollars, that's inequity,' she said. The original church was constructed in 1909 and added a new wing as part of a $10 million renovation over a decade ago — but is not landmarked. That leaves the door open for a potentially lucrative redevelopment of the more than half-acre of land, which sits at a bustling subway intersection. It comes as many other houses of worship across the city — and country — are at a crossroads, faced with dwindling congregations and the lure of real estate opportunities to offset mounting costs. The inter-denominational Fort Washington congregation is celebrated for its inclusiveness and extensive community programming. Over the years the LGBTQ-friendly space has served as a polling site, hosted choirs, Cub Scouts and Christmas parties, substance abuse support meetings, drag performances and a local synagogue. It is perhaps best known locally for its public garden and free community fridge, which neighbors regularly lined up for. It's been removed as of Thursday. Emely Santiago is a 34-year-old social worker and regular congregant who started a petition opposing the closure that has over 1,300 signatures. She is also a member of the new 'Save Fort Washington Collegiate Church' coalition, which attributes the impending closure to mismanagement. 'A lot of these decisions, we feel, were done behind closed doors with little transparency and almost no regard for the people who could really be affected,' she said. 'We should have a say in what happens in our community, in our backyard, especially when these decisions are being made by individuals who don't live in the neighborhood.' The larger Collegiate Church claims to be the oldest continuing church in the city, with a footprint dating back to the 17th century. But its four Manhattan branches have struggled in the years since the pandemic. Perhaps the biggest blow came in 2021, when a multimillion-dollar deal to build an office tower by the Marble Collegiate Church in NoMad fell through after its development partner went bankrupt — a debacle many congregants blamed for the institution's current financial issues. 'If Collegiate truly cares about justice, then its board must start acting like it: by communicating honestly, exercising care in decision-making, and engaging the voices of the community it claims to serve,' Santiago said. 'Let's call it what it is, three rich churches downtown extracting wealth and resources from the lower-income church uptown.' A second rally is planned for May 20.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What would Malcolm X say about Trump? New book argues his legacy is more important than ever
If you were around in the early '90s you saw a whole lot of baseball caps emblazoned with a simple capital 'X.' They marked an ingenious marketing stroke on the part of filmmaker Spike Lee, who would soon unveil one of his best movies, 1992's 'Malcolm X,' starring Denzel Washington as the fiery, prophetic and often misinterpreted Black nationalist leader. The film and the discussion and debate it inspired marked a new surge in Malcolm Fever that included but went far beyond fashionable headwear. But Malcolm X, who was assassinated in 1965 shortly after breaking with the Nation of Islam, never really went out of style. This is the argument that drives 'The Afterlife of Malcolm X,' Mark Whitaker's incisive survey of Malcolm's enduring place in American culture, and the slow-grinding process of discovering who really killed him (and who didn't). 'Afterlife' really tells two stories, running along parallel tracks: One is a work of cultural history that touches on Malcolm's appeal to people as disparate as Black Power firebrand Stokely Carmichael and conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who once groused, 'I don't see how the civil rights people of today can claim Malcolm X as their own.' The other is a legal thriller about the three men imprisoned for pumping Malcolm's body full of bullets that February day in 1965 at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. That the two strands manage to connect is a testament to Whitaker's clarity and organizational skills as a writer, and his experience as a journalist. The former editor of Newsweek — he was the first Black leader of a national news weekly — Whitaker has a gift for streamlining gobs of material, some of it quite contentious, into a smooth, readable narrative, or series of narratives that click together. He touches on how his subject influenced sports, the arts, political thought and activism. He tracks Malcolm's most important chroniclers, some of them well-known, others less so. You probably know of Alex Haley, author of the posthumously published (and selectively factual) 'Autobiography of Malcolm X.' You're likely less familiar with Peter Goldman (himself a former senior editor at Newsweek), the white reporter who gained Malcolm's trust, interviewed and wrote about him several times, and ended up penning the well-received 'The Death and Life of Malcolm X' in 1973. Read more: Malcolm X's full story will never be told. These biographies explain why One could argue that Whitaker spends a little too much time on relatively peripheral figures like Goldman, who did end up playing roles in both the cultural impact and jurisprudence strands of 'Afterlife.' And Whitaker sometimes burrows into subplots with a tenacity that can make the bigger picture recede. But 'Afterlife' never gets boring, or obtuse, or clinical. All those years of churning out newsweekly copy helped make Whitaker an instinctive crafter of miniature character arcs who chooses the right details and paints portraits with swift, economical strokes. Eventually you realize that all the smaller parts have served the larger whole and said something crucial about who Malcolm X was and continues to be. Whitaker is especially deft at refocusing familiar characters, images, moments and movements through a Malcolm X lens. The image of John Carlos and Tommie Smith on the medal stand at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, gloved fists in the air in a Black power salute, has been seared into the historical consciousness. In 'Afterlife,' we learn that a teenage Carlos used to follow Malcolm around Harlem like a puppy dog, frequently taking in his lectures and sermons. 'I was just in love with the man,' Carlos once recalled. When it came time to organize before the 1968 Olympics — Carlos and Smith were among the athletes considering a Black boycott of the games, in part to protest what they perceived as the racism of International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage — the two sprinters were already feeling Malcolm's spirit. The hip-hop chapter is also a standout, focusing on how Malcolm became a force in the burgeoning street culture first through his spoken word — Keith LeBlanc's 1983 cut 'No Sell Out' was among the first of what became countless songs to sample his voice — and, later, through the Afrocentric vision of artists including Public Enemy and KRS-One. Malcolm hadn't disappeared as hip-hop took flight in the '80s, but neither was he the household name he once was. Public Enemy leader Chuck D recalls the time when he and collaborator Hank Boxley (later Hank Shocklee) were putting up concert flyers bearing Malcolm's name and image. A young fan approached and asked who Malcolm the Tenth was. 'We looked at each other,' Chuck recalled, 'and said, 'Well, we've got to do something about that!'' Whitaker mounts a convincing argument that knowing the man's name is more important now than ever. 'Today,' he writes, 'amid a backlash against affirmative action, so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and other measures designed to rectify past racial injustice, Malcolm's calls for Black self-reliance have never seemed more urgent.' 'The Afterlife of Malcolm X' is an engaging reminder that the likes of Malcolm never really die. Sometimes, they even end up on hats. Vognar is a freelance culture writer. Get the latest book news, events and more in your inbox every Saturday. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
