The Kingsbridge Armory awaits a developer. Photo by Karsten Moran/The Riverdale Press

The battle to require businesses that receive city subsidies to pay their workers a living wage began with a bang when Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. led a fight to reject the creation of a shopping mall at the Kingsbridge Armory if retail workers weren’t paid enough to make ends meet in this most expensive of cities.

The battle has ended with a whimper.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn has gutted the bill sponsored by Bronx Council members Oliver Koppell and Annabel Palma. Developers to whom taxpayers give $1 million or more will be required to pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour. Their tenants, however, can continue to pay $7.25.

So when the Kingsbridge Armory is redeveloped, those who work there will be stuck with the same low wage as before. And citywide, according to Quinn, no more than 500 workers will be helped by the new law.

In the time-honored manner of politicians, Quinn and the proponents of the measure that would have extended a decent wage to retail workers are hailing this travesty as a compromise.

Borough President Diaz’s statements saluting the deal and the revival of talks to develop the armory expose him as an empty suit.

And Speaker Quinn’s measure re-emphasizes how powerless rank-and-file members of the body she heads are. Like Diaz, all they can do is fall into line and issue face-saving press releases.

Hard-working New Yorkers can’t make ends meet. They need food stamps and the help of food pantries.

Small wonder that those who are seriously concerned with the growing inequality in our city stand aloof from conventional politics, and would rather occupy Wall Street than support the occupants of City Hall.

This editorial reflects the opinion of The Hunts Point Express, Mott Haven Herald, Norwood News and The Riverdale Press, and appears in all four publications.

Residents are eager to know how their decisions will impact the spending of $1 million in tax revenue this winter in Mott Haven and Melrose.

Last fall, City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito announced her constituents would be able to decide how the money should be spent, as part of a new initiative known as participatory budgeting. Residents of Mark-Viverito’s district, which includes Mott Haven and Harlem, have met several times since the fall to consider what local projects to finance. 

Proposals can call for capital funding for infrastructure-related projects only, not for expense requests, which would require the city to hire new workers.

About 70 budget delegates have started to sift through the projects residents proposed in October and November public meetings.

“Everybody who’s involved seems very enthusiastic about it and they’re happy to be part a process like this,” said John Johnson, a member of Community Board 1 who was elected by his peers to serve as a Mott Haven budget delegate.

Johnson said he would like to see the money go to an increase of closed circuit cameras in the Millbrook public housing projects to help reduce crime.

Carmen Aquino, a resident who attended the first meeting, said she would be disappointed if the more populous Harlem segment of Mark-Viverito’s district ends up overshadowing Mott Haven initiatives.

“This is a needy community.  We need a lot of services here,” she said.

Aquino said public lighting, increased security and housing for seniors are issues that should be addressed with the new funding.

In all, residents submitted more than 550 proposals, at the meetings and online.

Budget delegates were split into seven different committees at the fall meetings, including parks, education and housing. Since then, committee members have had to consult city agencies to learn which of the proposed projects are eligible for capital funding.

Budget delegates have until early February to finalize the wish list. More neighborhood assemblies will follow, at which the delegates will present their findings, before residents get to cast a final vote on the projects of their choice in early March.

Anyone who lives or works in the area can still apply to be a budget delegate by contacting Mark-Viverito’s office to arrange to attend an orientation session.

Mark-Viverito said her constituents’ proposals don’t differ greatly from projects she considered supporting during last year’s traditional budgeting process. Nevertheless, she said, direct community participation is what makes the new initiative special.

“Seeing people want to be more involved in their community is really rewarding and illustrates why this process is important,” she said.

She said her office is getting to hear from people who wouldn’t have otherwise gone to community board meetings, and that residents will be heard at a time when the public has little faith in government.

“This is a way of saying ‘What you have to say matters. This is your money. You should have a more direct say and involvement in that process,’” she said.

Photo by Alex Robinson Mott Havenites are considering ways to spend $1 million on local projects, such as fixing recreation areas like the basketball courts at St. Mary's Park.

Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito slapped an imaginary $1 million on the table and asked her constituents what it should be spent on.

“Restoring the parks that are here, basketball courts, and sidewalks in the street need to be fixed,” responded Alice Cerezo, 45, a Mott Haven resident.

“I put in for exercise equipment for senior citizens, and movies. I definitely want senior citizens to have somewhere they can come to watch old movies and enjoy themselves,” said 73-year-old retiree Kenneth Moore, who has lived in the neighborhood for 35 years.

Mark-Viverito is one of four City Council members who have turned to the public to decide how the district’s discretionary budget should be distributed this year. The process, known as participatory budgeting, is new to New York City politics.

About 40 local residents split into groups at the Millbrook Community Center in October to exchange ideas about how $1 million in discretionary funding should be spent. Park renovations, new sports equipment for youth programs, and a community space for barbecuing were among the ideas raised.

Funding the entire wish-list would cost far more than the councilwoman has at her disposal, and Mott Haven occupies only a small part of her district, most of which is in East Harlem. Constituents from her East Harlem catchment have held six budget-brainstorming meetings of their own.

Anyone who lives or works in the district can volunteer to serve as a budget delegate, to select from the ideas presented at the brainstorming sessions and put them to a final pubic vote in March.

Mott Haven resident Carmen Aquino said she is worried so many of the budget delegates are from Manhattan.

“How is it going to be fair for us to propose projects? How many of those projects that we are going to propose are really going to get funding?” Aquino said.

Mark-Viverito said uneven distribution of funds is a concern, but she is confident Mott Haven will get its fair share.

“All aspects of the district are kept in mind,” Mark-Viverito said, adding “it’s reflected in what the projects are.”

Last year, Mark-Viverito had $4 million in discretionary funds to disperse. She says she won’t know how much she has at her disposal this year until the city budget process begins, but she has promised $1 million of that amount for the participatory initiative. She declined to say how much of last year’s discretionary budget was spent in her Mott Haven district.

Donna Kerchheimer, a political science professor at Lehman College, said community boards already fulfill a participatory budgeting role in the existing system, through public hearings and by providing funding requests for their districts.

“Wouldn’t you call that participatory budgeting of a certain type?” she asked.

Mark-Viverito said the advantage of participatory budgeting over the traditional process is that anyone can be directly involved.

“The process is very engaging. I really love it because I think it is going to give people a real sense of hope that they can be agents of change in their community,” she said.

Chicago is the only other major city in the country that has implemented participatory budgeting, although more than 1,200 cities worldwide have experimented with the process, according to the Participatory Budgeting Process’ website.

A Chicago alderman last year recounted to New York City Council members how the process has worked in the windy city so far, but only four of the 51 members have chosen to implement it.

Mark-Viverito said the initiative has been a hard sell among Council members because the process chews up time and resources. She added that she and the others who are experimenting with it will create a template by next year to make it less complicated to use.

She hopes that will be enough to encourage more council members to bring it to their own constituents.

Photo by Gwen McClure Local residents have united to oppose development of this site on E. 144th St. into a mental health and social service facility.

A group of Mott Haven residents has organized to protest a proposed housing development for the mentally ill, saying the neighborhood already has far more than its fair share of social service agencies.

The group, called Voices of the People, is frustrated with the influx of social service programs, and adds they were given no advance notice that plans for still another were underway.

“We have so many shelters and programs and they are all crowded. We are hyper-saturated,”said resident Marcelino Sanchez. “I think it is a crime.”

The publicly funded 60-unit doorman facility on E. 144^th Street between Brook and Willis Ave. will include 18 units dedicated to general low-income housing. Another 42 will be for adults and young adults with mental illness. The low-income housing will include studios and one- and two-bedrooms for tenants and will have a minimum income requirement. For those living with mental illness, there will be on-site support including case management and mental-health counselors.

At a community board meeting in October, residents expressed concern that the development would bring back problems their community faced in previous decades.

Dr. Marian Rivas, whose family has owned a home on 144^th St. since 1949, recalled neighborhood safety problems of the 1960s and ’70s. Since then she has seen the area steadily improve, until several years ago when she started to notice increased drug use and loitering, some of which she and other frustrated residents say stems from unsupervised clients from the area’s many social service facilities.

“It looked like Berlin after the war,” Rivas recalled. “We are survivors through the worst. Why should we have to go through it again?”

According to Carlos Garcia, director of residential programs for The Association for Rehabilitative Case Management and Housing, the non-profit that plans to open the site, this isn’t the first time his organization has received resistance from a community based on concerns about the impact.

He said applicants are screened thoroughly for histories of violence and sex offenses and that only graduates of ACMH programs will be housed.

“Typically we are faced with the ‘not-in-my-backyard’ kind of thing,” Garcia said.

He said that stories of people defecating in the streets and exposing themselves were not based in reality. “It’s just like in any neighborhood,” Garcia said. “If you see that kind of stuff, you call the police.”

But homeowners argue that rather than provide housing for deserving low-income residents from the neighborhood, the developments draw people from elsewhere looking for better access to services. Some residents expressed concerns about the safety of their children, fearing the development will draw a dangerous clientele to a neighborhood filled with schools. Others were concerned about decreasing property values.

“Much of their wealth is tied up in their homes,” Rivas said of her neighbors, adding they will urge elected officials to help stymy the project by cutting off the developers’ funding.

State Senator Jose M. Serrano attended the meeting to discuss other matters, but soon found himself fending off criticism from the group directed towards him and other elected officials for not defending residents’ rights.

“When you have an over-concentration of social services in one community, you have to ask why,” Serrano responded, admitting he knew nothing of the project before hearing the group complain at the October meeting.

“So why don’t we have these facilities on 72^nd and Park Avenue?” he said, adding, “these services can be spread out.”

Community Board 1 district manager Cedric Loftin said the number of units for low-income residents is too small to offset changes he believes will occur in the neighborhood such as an increased police presence and an increased feeling of insecurity. He said the community board will work with the governor’s office and other elected officials to try to get funding reallocated to a project elsewhere.

“The location is bad and it needs to be looked at from the perspective of the community that’s going to be impacted,” said Loftin.

The citizens group has met with elected officials who have vowed to help them fight the project, including Assemblywoman Carmen E. Arroyo.

Daniel Johansson, CEO of the site developer, cited a study done by the Furman Center at NYU in 2008, which found that property values actually increased when supportive housing was developed in the area. He said the area was chosen because of a partnership with Lincoln Hospital and a need for supportive and low-income housing in the area.

“There are so many folks that end up being re-hospitalized in the Bronx who have a mental health issue,” he said. “Once you have a roof over your head it’s so much easier to get your life together.”

]]> http://motthavenherald.com/2011/11/03/residents-rail-against-new-social-service-development/feed/ 2 http://motthavenherald.com/2011/08/21/from-the-editor-say-no-to-an-incinerator/ http://motthavenherald.com/2011/08/21/from-the-editor-say-no-to-an-incinerator/#comments Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:29:05 +0000 Bernard L. Stein http://motthavenherald.com/?p=3947 Twelve years ago, a huge crane pried the stacks off the South Bronx Medical Waste Incinerator on the eastern end of 138th Street where it meets the East River. Hundreds of Bronxites who had protested that it was poisoning the air they breathed cheered as the last incinerator in New York City was dismantled.

Now a multinational company owned by some of the wealthiest investment houses on Wall Street wants millions in taxpayer subsidies so it can build new incinerators. If the company succeeds, you can be certain that its smokestack will tower over a poor community, and the South Bronx will be in the bullseye.

Will an incinerator like this on in Hempstead rise in the South Bronx?

But an incinerator is not a solar panel. Burning at high temperatures concentrates toxic substances, including cancer-causing dioxins, lead, arsenic and mercury. Some of this rises in minute particles from the smokestack, and later lodges in the lungs.

Despite the claims of the industry that filtering systems minimize the impact of burning on air quality, sulfur from incinerators contributes to acid rain, and nitrogen oxides cause breathing problems and trigger asthma attacks.

The more efficient the filters, the more toxic the ash left after burning, which must be transported to landfills, where its poison may leach into the water supply.

Moreover, to be profitable, incinerators need a large and continuous supply of garbage, so they become competitors for the metal, glass, paper, wood and plastic targeted by recycling programs. Since recycling holds the promise of green jobs for residents of communities like ours, inflicting an incinerator on our neighborhoods would do double injury.

When millions of dollars in government subsidies and contracts are at stake, political payoffs are inevitable. The Hempstead incinerator that Covanta points to as a model of what it hopes to build in the city was born in cronyism, its path to approval greased by Senator Alfonse D’Amato and his Republican machine after the developer hired the senator’s brother Armand as a lobbyist.

So it’s important to let elected officials and regulatory agencies know that we’re watching them, and we expect them to safeguard us, not the profits of Sam Zell, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and the other big stockholders in Covanta.

The New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, an umbrella organization that includes Nos Quedamos, The Point Community Development Corp., and Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, has already spoken out. Its efforts deserve widespread support.

The lesson of the South Bronx incinerator is that when ordinary residents come together and stick together, they can change things. But the work is hard and long. So it would be best to start now.

Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr.

“In matters involving intimacy and human sexuality, parents have the right and the responsibility to be the primary educators,” the senator, who is also a Pentecostal minister, said in a statement. “Many parents teach their children that these are private topics not to be discussed casually or in group settings.”

His position puts him at odds with his son Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., who told the staff of The Hunts Point Express that he was a strong supporter of sex education in the schools, said he wished his parents had been more open about sexual issues and said he had made a point of teaching his two sons about safe sex and birth control.

The elder Diaz criticized the Department of Education for reinstating required sex education classes in all middle schools and high schools. “There is no formal arena for formal parental input. There is no opportunity for public hearings. There are no requirements that these regulations be open to public review and comment,” he said. “No accountability to the public, to the parents, and certainly not the children.”

Evelina Antonetty raises hell at a Bronx school board meeting in the 1970s.

It was 1974, and a group of South Bronx residents were looking for someone to fill a vacant seat on the state Assembly. The pick from the community was nearly unanimous: It would be Evelina Antonetty, surely.

But public office was of no interest to the forty-something activist. Instead, she told her supporters to get behind a young man named José Serrano.

Serrano, now the representative of New York’s 16^th Congressional District, went on to win that Assembly seat, was later elected to Congress and—influenced by the woman who had helped him years earlier—funneled millions of federal dollars toward rebuilding the South Bronx. He has never forgotten the way Antonetty changed his life.

“When she said it, it was a done deal,” Serrano said. “She was always interested in promoting younger people. She saw something in me.”

An activist, community organizer, and a mother, Evelina Antonetty was, above all, a driving force behind some of the changes that have reshaped the South Bronx.

On July 6^th, almost 30 years after a heart attack cut her life short, the woman everyone called ‘Titi’, or ‘Auntie,’ was honored by the community she fought for, with the renaming of Prospect Avenue and 156^th Street as “Dra. Evelina Antonetty Way.”

“Everybody called her that, because whenever she saw a need for anything, she tried to help,” said her daughter, Anita. “I’ve had people tell me if it wasn’t for her, they wouldn’t have gotten their start in this country.”

Antonetty, born Evelina Cruz, grew up in the small city of Salinas in the south of Puerto Rico, in the 1920s. She was the oldest of three children, born to a single mother. She came to the U.S. around the age of 10, alone, on a boat trip that took weeks. She arrived at South Street Seaport, where her aunt Vincenta came to meet her.

“The desperation there must have been, to send your child alone on a boat,” Anita Antonetty said. “This was during the depression.”

Growing up in East Harlem during the Depression, Evelina saw firsthand how the tough economic times affected New Yorkers. She worked for Congressman Vito Marcantonio and labor leader Jesús Colón while in her teens, getting her first taste of community activism.

In the early 1940s, Evelina moved to the South Bronx, where she went to work for District 65 of the United Auto Workers, helping prepare people without jobs for the workforce.

“She was a conduit in that position, helping people to get started in the United States,” Anita Antonetty said.

When she settled down with her second husband Donato Antonetty in 1955 on Jackson Ave, she chose to stay home to raise her three children. But she was still Titi to people from the neighborhood who stopped by regularly for help and advice.

When Anita started school in 1962, Evelina joined PS 5’s parents association, where she began the work that later led her to form United Bronx Parents.

Antonetty fought for school issues big and small for her new organization, from the quality of lunches to decentralization, pushing always for increased community involvement.

Perhaps her biggest impact came from her fight for bilingual education. Dr. Vicky Gholson, a former United Bronx Parents board member, says the scale of Antonetty’s work was massive.

“To just say she was a community organizer in the South Bronx is erroneous,” Gholson said. “She was the spirit and the force behind bilingual education in the United States, to put it simply. It would not have happened in the quick form and fashion that it did if it were not for her energy and her organizing.”

Gholson is also Harlem’s first Ph.D. in Communications, an honor she says is due in no small part to Evelina.

She isn’t the only one Antonetty helped inspire to lofty goals. Federico Perez, the director of special projects and events in Rep. Serrano’s office, met Antonetty when he was 27. He was applying to Bronx Community College, but says he was being denied because of discrimination.

So Antonetty stepped in: She pushed him to persist, and pressured the administration to let him in. He was eventually accepted, went on to earn a Masters Degree in Education, taught for 23 years and became a member of the City Council.

“She was my mentor and teacher,” Perez said.

Toward the end of her life, the struggle continued. In 1984, the year of her death, Ronald Reagan was running for his second term. She organized voter registration, inspired people to vote, and worked on Reverend Jesse Jackson’s campaign.

Twenty-seven years after her death, Antonetty’s legacy lives on, through the United Bronx Parents and other community organizations that use her work as a model.

Now it also lives on on a South Bronx street corner, where children looking up at the street sign can ask their parents who she is, and maybe learn a little about the woman called Titi.

“My constituents will not benefit in the slightest from this package—and in fact will suffer from its effects,” Serrano said in a statement. “They work hard, and pay their taxes, and should not see the social safety net that they rely on slashed solely to preserve low tax rates for billionaires. On their behalf I voted ‘no’ on this senseless package, which will do nothing to create jobs or help the economy grow.”

Serrano was one of 95 liberal Democrats who joined 66 Republicans in voting to reject the deal, passed on Aug. 1, as the national debt teetered on the brink of default.

He blamed Republicans for the crisis, and said, “I appreciate the difficult situation that President Obama and other negotiators were put in ,” but said he was “very disappointed by the whole process and the legislative product that has resulted. Our nation was made great by our investments in our people and country, not by preserving wealth for the very few.”

The measure that the White House, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, and the House Republican leadership devised in 11th hour negotiations passed the House 269 to 161, with the backing of 174 Republicans and 95 Democrats.

The New York delegation was evenly split on the issue. The other two Bronx members of Congress who represent parts of the Bronx, Eliot Engel and Joseph Crowley, joined Serrano in voting against the measure.

Residents and firefighters celebrate the saving of Engine 60 (Photo by Matthew J. Perlman)

Cowbells rang in the sunlit square in front of the firehouse on 143rd Street and 3rd Avenue on June 29, as chanting residents rejoiced, celebrating the escape of their engine company from fiscal cuts.

The city budget had put Bronx fire companies at risk of closure again this year, sparking weeks of protest from worried residents.

Protesters gathered at the Mott Haven firehouse every Wednesday for five straight weeks, showing support for their beleaguered Engine 60.

“We rescued them for a change,” said Carmen Santiago of the South Bronx Community Congress. “It was our turn to save them.”

The mayor’s proposed budget called for the shuttering of 20 fire companies citywide, according to a report issued by the city council. The fire department responded with a list of companies it would select to close based on firefighter workloads and affected response times. The list included three Bronx engine companies.

“The Bronx is first when it comes to cuts,” said Wallace Hassan, president of the Patterson Houses tenant’s association as he addressed the protestors on June 1.

This firehouse, like most in the city, is home to both an engine company and a ladder company. The two work together, with the engine company supplying water and controlling the fire, while the ladder company rescues trapped citizens and provides ventilation by punching through the floors of burning buildings.

Neither can get the job done on its own.

The fire department as a whole works in much the same way. When one house responds to a call, neighboring units cover the area until they return. Losing an engine in one district would mean less coverage for the surrounding areas.

“The fire department is like a fabric,” said Alexander Hagan, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association. Cuts like these, “are lowering the thread count.”

“By the time the fire department got to us we’d be dead,” said Richard Robinson, 49, who lives in Mott Haven Houses.

Schools and senior services were also spared from layoffs and cutbacks, as result of the new budget agreement.

“New Yorkers can rest easy tonight,” said city council speaker Christine Quinn in a press release. “Knowing that our children will still have great teachers, our seniors will still have great centers to visit, and our neighborhoods will still have great firehouses to keep them safe.”

Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo was present for all but one of the Wednesday evening rallies. She also fought against fire department cuts in last year’s budget.

“Next year’s going to be just as difficult,” said Arroyo to the June 29 crowd. “But we live to fight another year.”

The budget gap was filled by cuts to some social services, like adult literacy programs, and a dip into the rainy day fund, said Arroyo. “But something’s got to give.”

The firefighters themselves would not have lost their jobs, but instead would have been reassigned to other companies around the city.

Mott Haven residents are the ones who would have felt the sting. With large complexes such as  Mott Haven Houses, Jackson Houses and Patterson Houses, looming above the neighborhood, the proposed closure would have impacted thousands.

“We’ll lay down in front of the fire truck if they try and take it away,” said activist Marty Rogers, who has lived on 151st Street all his life.

He remembers the decades of abandonment and arson, the ravaged blocks burnt out by fire, and he doesn’t want to go back.

“Bloomberg thinks he gave us this firehouse,” said Rogers during the June 1 rally. “But it’s been here since 1895 – God gave us this firehouse.”

Weeks later Rogers touted the efforts of community residents at the June 29 celebration. “You wrote the story of how to save a firehouse,” he said to the crowd. “Thank you.”

Engine 60 Returns from a call, as protestors stand aside. (Photo by Matthew J. Perlman)

Losing Engine 60 would imperil Mott Haven, critics say

Chanting residents gathered in front of the firehouse on 143rd Street in Mott Haven on June 1, playing drums, hoisting protest signs, and marching against city budget cuts they say could endanger lives.

One proposed cut would eliminate Engine 60 from the 143rd Street firehouse, near 3rd Avenue, and would reduce the number of firefighters at the station from 50 to 28.  Community groups, local schools, churches, and tenant associations, have come together to protest the closing.

“You say cut back – we say fight back,” shouted the crowd in unison.

The firehouse, like most in the city, is home to both an engine company and a ladder company.  The two work together, with the engine company supplying water and controlling the fire, while the ladder company rescues trapped citizens and provides ventilation by punching through the floors of burning buildings.

Neither can get the job done on its own.

The fire department as a whole works in much the same way.  When one house responds to a call, neighboring units cover the area until they return.  Losing an engine in one district will mean less coverage for the surrounding areas.

“The fire department is like a fabric,” said Alexander Hagan, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association. “These cuts are lowering the thread count.”

The mayor’s proposed budget calls for the shuttering of 20 fire companies citywide, according to a report issued by the city council. The fire department has responded with a list of companies it would select to close based on firefighter workloads and affected response times.  The list includes three Bronx engine companies.

“The Bronx is first when it comes to cuts,” said Wallace Hassan, president of the Patterson Houses tenant’s association as he addressed the protestors.

The firefighters themselves would not lose their jobs, but instead would be reassigned to other companies around the city.

Protestors gather in front the firehouse on 143rd Street in Mott Haven, hoping to save Engine 60. (Photo by Matthew J. Perlman)

But Mott Haven residents are the ones who could feel the sting.  With large complexes such as East Side Settlement House, Mott Haven Houses, and Patterson Houses, looming above the neighborhood, the proposed closure could impact thousands.

“It’s a psychological thing,” said Tom Martin, Battalion Commander. “They won’t close the whole house, only a single company, so people still see a presence and think nothing has been affected.” But those closest to this firehouse, he added, will now have to wait for a different unit to respond, “Which will take longer.”

Local activists organized the rally, which drew about 60 residents, who were forced to move twice during the hour-and-a-half-long rally, so Engine 60 could respond to calls.

Misa Velasquez, 55, has lived in Mott Haven  for 20 years.  “I love those guys,” she said.  They open the hydrants for kids in the summer, and fill flat-tires on their bikes.  “We’re all like a family.”

Another local resident, Anetta Leonard, 71, is collecting signatures from area businesses  to try to keep the station open.  “I get the managers to sign first,” she said.  Then they let her ask the customers.

A plan to cut firehouses  was defeated by the city council last year, Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo said, but added that, unlike then,  there’s no clear way to plug the gap this time.

The group of organizers on 143rd Street vowed to come back to the firehouse every Wednesday until the city reaches a decision.

“I’m not here just for my guys,” said Alexander Hagan.  “They’re not going to lose their jobs, I’m here for the people.” Shutting down the fire companies would require 45 days notice, he said.

“We’ll lay down in front of the fire truck if they try and take it away,” said activist Marty Rogers, who has lived on 151st Street all his life.

He remembers the decades of abandonment and arson, the ravaged blocks burnt out by fire, and he doesn’t want to go back.

“Bloomberg thinks he gave us this firehouse,” said Rogers during the rally. “But it’s been here since 1895 – God gave us this firehouse.”