A Beacon of Hope on the Bronx River
Two teens from Temple Beth El paddle past the refuse dump and junkyard along to the Bronx River
May 23, 2008
by Elinor Allcott Griffith
A scrap metal junkyard towers over the riverbank. Dust swirls from a concrete plant.
From inky water, a shopping cart protrudes. Warehouses. Two white swans, an egret. Bridges spanning the Cross Bronx Expressway, the Bruckner. A lone black man sits on the dirt embankment under one of the bridges, waiting, but for what?
For us, perhaps? For anyone. As our parade of ten canoes paddle past him on the Bronx River, the man waves a tentative “hello.”
It is Saturday, May 17, and we have just launched our canoe flotilla from the recently opened Hunt’s Point Riverside Park in the South Bronx on a trip organized by the Chappaqua Interfaith Council. Sixteen teens and adults are teamed up with people from Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, a non-profit community development group connected with St. Joan of Arc Church. We are here for an outing and discussion about environmental justice … how the environmental health of an area can be impacted, in this case significantly, by the economics of the community.
“This may be the poorest Congressional District in the United States,” says Alexie Torres-Fleming, 43, the energetic founder and director of Youth Ministries, “but look what’s happening. We’re reclaiming the waterfront.” Those efforts are being noticed. The “New York Times” reported recently that Alexie is the 2008 winner of the prestigious Jane Jacobs Medal for New Ideas and Activism, awarded by the Rockefeller Foundation.
“When I grew up nearby on the ninth floor of the Bronx River Public Housing Projects, where my dad was a janitor,” Alexie continues, “you couldn’t get to the Bronx River. Practically nobody knew it was here. It was used for dumping industrial waste. That’s changing. Soon Starlight Park, which opens later this summer, will give us another access point. At first Con Edison, the previous owner of the land, wanted to fix it up by adding a little topsoil, nothing more. Our community group discovered toxic earth around the gas manufacturing plant and the top six feet of soil had to be removed, replaced. Within the next four years additional green space with bridges spanning the river, paths for bikers and joggers, families and children, will be completed.”
We round a bend and see an expansive park, Starlight Park, punctuated by several two-story-tall pieces of industrial equipment. Too costly to remove, the equipment is temporarily painted orange and awaits something dynamic and colorful by a local artist. A derelict train station stands out. “Ahhh,” says Alexie with a dreamy look. “We want to raise money to restore it. The architect was actually well-known, the man who designed the Woolworth Building.”
We can’t help but notice something else: as we head upstream toward the Bronx Zoo and Botanical Gardens, the banks of the river are cleaner, the river clearer. No concrete factories. Not so initially on the river. No wonder the prevalence of asthma – something that plagues Alexie and her six-year-old son Patrick – is four times the norm.
Another eye-opener: this highly polluted river, we realize, starts as a clean trickle only a few dozen miles north in our own backyard, near the Kensico Dam.
Youth Ministries, where we head next, is across several expressways on Stratford Avenue. Located in a renovated house, the decorative bars on the windows and main entrance insure security. This is how the lively area is described in “Hope Matters: The Untold Story of How Faith Works in America,” a recently published book that features Alexie as one of the country’s standout people of faith:
“Streets alive with pedestrians, mostly speaking Spanish. Beauty salons alternate with little barred-up eateries with storefronts proclaiming, ‘Checks Cashed Here.’ Stores cede to residences, some burned out. Not far ahead, massive high-rises—public housing—loom. The men on the street, most of them young, wear knotted head rags, two earrings and crotches hanging at mid-thigh that seem at least four sizes too big, with cuffs stacked atop expensive sneakers…. Her program serves roughly 200 young people per year. These youth enroll in art and literacy classes and discussion groups, and are trained to be agents of positive community change.”
“We want the same things for our children as your parents want for you,” says Alexie over pizza and ice tea. She tells the teens about a new initiative—60 units of “green,” affordable housing with gardens on the rooftops and rain barrels to capture water—that will be built on the adjoining street. But progress isn’t easy given the South Bronx’s legacy ….
Crack dealers.
Homelessness, joblessness, hopelessness.
Raging fires in the 1970s.
Bone-crushing poverty. Only 13 percent of the residents of South Bronx own cars.
In 1992, Alexie left her fast-track Madison Avenue job to return to the Bronx and heal her neighborhood; she helped organize a march to protest the drug dealers and violence. Retaliation came swiftly. The dealers burned her parish church and smashed statues. Undeterred, Alexie organized more marches, some with up to 1,500 people. This was also the year that police fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, an immigrant from Ghana, and killed him, an action that spurring activist minister Al Sharpton to call for protestors to close down the city. What did Alexie do? She took her youth, bravely, to the 43rd Police Precinct where she led a 41-minute service of reconciliation. A minute for each bullet fired at Diallo. Peace is her message.
“My God hanging on the cross is ugly, smelly and broken,” explains Alexie in “Hope Matters.” “This is my greatest lesson. In spite of everything God speaks to us through the poor.”
As we talk about the challenges facing Youth Ministries, one of the participants is Dr. Mazan Khalifeh, a neonatologist at Northern Westchester Hospital who canoed with two of his teenage daughters. “I’m from a third-world country,” he remarks, “but I’ve never seen such poverty.”
“What Youth Ministry for Peace and Justice is doing is absolutely amazing,” says Camilla Calhoun. “Very inspirational stories and the reclaimed park is really moving. Although the river is dirty and the industry is disturbing, these folks have created, along with other alliances, a beacon of hope for the youth and all ages in that area.”
Another participant, Horace Greeley High School student Haley Glazer, sums up her experience. “I had a really good time canoeing the Bronx River. It really surprised me how polluted it was and how many things were floating around in the water. However, it was really nice to see the progress being made along the riverfront.”
I see progress, connections, people of different faiths doing God’s work, Chappaqua and the South Bronx connected through canoes – and caring!
If you would like to know more about Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, or canoeing on the South Bronx, please visit http://www.ympj.org or call (718) 328-5622 and speak to Alexie Torres-Fleming or Stephen Oliveira, the environmental justice organizer. To see the streaming video of the Chappaqua Interfaith Council’s talk on Hope Matters, including Alexie Torres Fleming’s remarks (and the catalyst for the interfaith teen canoe trip), please click here to see the video on NCCTV.
http://www.ncctv.org/index.php?option=com_expose&Itemid=64&album=55.
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Elinor Griffith is a writer and editor who is a member of the Chappaqua Interfaith Council. She also organizes gourmet cooking trips to France.
Ready for the Bronx River? A group of teens and adults prepare for a canoe
trip organized by the Chappaqua Interfaith Council,
Alexie Torres-Fleming, director of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice,
stands before a carving of the Bronx River, with its nearby headwaters
The Bronx River is tidal as seen from the canoe entry point at Hunt’s Point
Riverside Park
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