The Bronx Ink

At Majora Carter’s Boogie Down Grind Cafe in Hunts Point, customers can order coffee with oat milk, and drink it by a window bordered by music-themed wallpaper and newsprint, all while listening to the ‘00s R&B they grew up on. There are books and magazines for free on a shelf next to a mess of posters on the wall advertising dating apps and homeowner help. 

Carter may have created a space at her coffee shop for people to work, connect and learn, but the nonprofit advocate-turned-developer from Hunts Point wants other Bronx natives to stay and invest in their community too. 

For Carter, young people don’t see themselves as having any opportunities in the Bronx. Instead, they measure their success by how far away they get away from their neighborhoods, she said.

“That is really sad, that folks just don’t see themselves investing — not just financially but emotionally — in their own neighborhood. And that brings the brain drain,” Carter said.

Carter is a real estate developer and consultant who works to create opportunities in development that retain talent. Her coffee shop, for example, offers “the type of experience we used to have to leave the Bronx to experience,” according to the cafe’s website. 

Boogie Down Grind Cafe is Carter’s most illustrative example of her work to combat the brain drain — she said she took every single dollar after tax from her consulting work and brought it back to invest in her community. But Carter also said creating the Hunts Point Riverside Park and advocating for environmental justice as the executive director for Sustainable South Bronx had made Hunts Point a place worth staying.

“I believe in the promise of America, that everyone has a right to prosperity and happiness for him or herself,” Carter said. “The way that low-status communities are set up —  it absolutely deprives them of their right to do that.”

Carter doesn’t have the data to support her claim that people are leaving the Bronx — that’s according to her husband James Chase who is also vice president of marketing of the Majora Carter Group LLC.

“When Majora speaks at area high schools (as well as similar communities around America) and asks student groups “who intends to go to college?” nearly every hand goes up,” Chase said in an email. “Her standard follow up is, “If, after college, you’re recruited for a high paying job, will you return here?” and every time, almost zero hands go up.”

Carter said her theory of a brain drain comes from what she’s noticed, anecdotally.

“I’ve been all over this country and even in Europe and found people from the Bronx who left,” Carter said.

Carter wants young people in the Bronx to reinvest in their communities and make their homes a place worth staying. Her group is looking into investment strategies that have been proven to create more opportunity. But after all, she said this is still a capitalist country, so young people are going to need to have some money to do so.

But some Bronx residents just don’t have the capability to invest. 

The Bronx population is growing steadily at 26% since 1980 — faster than the citywide growth rate of 22%, according to a report from the New York Comptroller’s Office. Most of that growth has come from people making less than $50,000, according to a report from the Regional Plan Association. 

What’s more, 29% of residents earn salaries below the NYCgov Poverty Measure of $33,562,  according to the Bronx Community District 2 profile. That measure, compared to the official U.S. poverty measure, accounts for the higher cost of housing in New York City, according to the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity website.

Bronx residents are at the highest risk of housing displacement in New York City, according to the Regional Plan Association. The report said 71% of census areas in the Bronx are in danger of being displaced.

All of this adds up to a different picture  — not one of brain drain — but of displacement, said  Maria Torres, president and chief operating officer of The Point Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit dedicated to youth development and economic revitalization. 

Young people aren’t leaving the Bronx because they’re “too good to be here,” but because they just can’t afford to live in some parts of the Bronx anymore, Torres said.

“This shouldn’t just be a place you just want to run away from,” Torres said. “If we’ve done our jobs right, the kids have an affinity for where they live — they have a pride in this area.”

The Bronx is no different than any area that is struggling with school systems, unemployment and student debt, Torres said. But this doesn’t lead young people to leave — it keeps them close to a home that is far more affordable than any other part of the city.

Development may excite people who have lived through the worst of times in the Bronx, but Torres also said development speculation from outside investors will be the driving force behind people’s departures since affordability in the community will decrease. Strengthening the industry in Hunts Point to make sure people are getting quality jobs and keeping housing affordable keeps displacement at bay, she said.

Carter also said predatory speculators profit by pushing poor people out, but she still feels strongly that combatting the brain drain can create a stable, income-diverse community.

In terms of economic growth, Hunts Point saw 23% of private-sector job increases in the borough and had the most businesses of any neighborhood in the Bronx. Significant job increases were reported in wholesale and retail, trade, social assistance, business services and transportation, according to the Comptroller’s report.

The Point collaborates with community groups, young people and the city to determine what the community actually needs to not only retain talent — but avoid displacement and economic hardship.

“They’re just misguided,” Torres said about people labeling the issue a brain drain. “I hope it [development] plays out in such a way that the people don’t get hurt, the community doesn’t get hurt and lose really good people and things like that because of economics.”

Carter advocates for community ownership too, but she said strictly advocating for affordable housing is not going to cut it. She said academia, media, the government and philanthropy dictate one way to “be noble,” and that if you don’t adhere to their strategy you’re deemed inauthentic.

“We can all be right,” Carter said. “I’m not saying they’re wrong. And I think that lots of folks can try a lot of different strategies — this is the one that we’ve chosen.”

On a cool Tuesday evening in September, the empty lobby of Hunts Point’s community center filled with the whooshing sounds of colored balls flying through the air as instructor Jean-Tae Francis led a game of “100-ball juggling” with his group of aspiring circus performers.

Nineteen-year-old Francis stood in the middle, encircled by about 10 teenage circus students, began the game by juggling three red-colored balls. He called on his students one by one, to toss their juggling balls in his direction. The goal was to continue a three-ball juggling pattern amidst the flurry of incoming balls. Following Francis’ demonstration, each of the students took turns at the center, their high-pitched laughter echoing throughout the The Point Community Development Corporation.

In the auditorium next door, another dozen or so students practiced a series of rigorous cartwheels, somersaults and other potentially dangerous tumbling moves, a staple in professional circus acts. This circus program – the only one in the Bronx – is run for free two nights a week by Cirque du Monde, a social outreach program created by Cirque du Soleil. Each class has an average attendance of about 15 to 20 students, some of whom attend both sessions two nights a week throughout the academic year. According to Cirque du Monde’s website, the program combines “circus techniques together with educational social intervention to help young people.” But for some students, the circus is more than a temporary, after-school activity. It is a possible career choice.

Francis wandered into the Hunts Point circus class four years ago simply looking for something to occupy his time. “I came here to learn a few tricks, like how to do a flip or two, and continue with my life,” said Francis, as he looked around the lobby of The Point, which has now become almost like a second home to him. But, he said, he was slowly drawn into the world of circus not only as a social outlet, but also as a possible way of life.

The jovial teenager, with a small, permanent smile on his face, immigrated to the United States when he was 14 years old from Antigua and moved in with his aunt in New Jersey. “There weren’t many Caribbean people around so it was hard for me to make friends,” said Francis about his time in New Jersey. A year later, he moved to the Bronx, where the circus became his main social activity. “Most of my friends now are from the circus.” He settled in school and absorbed the culture shock as, he said, school life was very different back in the Caribbeans.

Francis has learned over the years that the world of the circus has more to offer beyond a sweaty, social diversion. The circus industry has gone through many changes over the last two decades with the rise of contemporary circuses that compete with the traditional ones. Traditional circuses like the Big Apple Circus provide an intimate, artistic performance experience under the iconic circus tent. Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circuses  entertain with the razzle dazzle of three rings. Contemporary circuses like the world renowned Cirque du Soleil place emphasis on artistic performances, often supported by full orchestras.

The biggest change in the industry, according to Keith Nelson, founder of the vintage Bindlestiff Family Cirkus, is the decreasing number of traveling circuses around the country. Nelson believes the decline is related to the expense of traveling, with its higher insurance premiums as well as more paperwork. But there is reason to be optimistic, as a new vein of community-based circus performance is growing in popularity. It is creating new jobs in many non-profit groups that use circus performances as a means for education and social rehabilitation.

Francis started his foray into the circus by learning a little bit of everything. He learned tightrope walking along a thin, tensioned rope high above the ground. Francis found his favorite activity was mastering juggling with a variety of props like balls and clubs. He believes versatility is key to success in the circus. “If you’re in a circus and you only do one thing, “ said Francis, shaking his head a little, “you’re going to have a really hard time making money.”

The recent high school graduate has a lot of plans. He wants to study Information Technology at the Illinois State University because he likes “taking stuff apart and putting them back together.” But what he is hoping for is a spot with the university’s prestigious Gamma Phi Circus as a launching pad into the industry. The Gamma Phi Circus is the oldest collegiate circus in the country and its alumni have gone on to perform with many well-known circuses including Cirque du Soleil and the Roberts Brothers Circus.

For now, Francis focuses on practicing his skills to perfection. The teenager spends up to eight hours a day, most days after midnight, to practice his circus skills, particularly juggling. He said the improvements had been noticeable over the months, for which he had received high praise from Nelson and others, who see potential in him. He also teaches the juggling class at The Point to develop himself professionally. He’s part of the coaches-in-training program, geared toward teens who are serious about advancing their skills and also sharing the knowledge with peers. “I try to be as encouraging as I can,” said Francis about his teaching technique.

While the teens at The Point have aspiration in abundance, breaking into an industry as close-knit as the circus is an uphill task. Aside from stage performers, circus jobs can range from set designers to sound and light technicians to business managers. After the Soviet Union broke up in the early 1990s, there was a mass influx of talented Eastern European circus artists into the United States. This resulted in the growth of many multi-generation troupes in the country. “It’s a family business,” said Paul Miller, a professional clown by training and the founder of Circus Mojo, an organization in Kentucky that teaches circus skills and performance to adults and youths.

Miller has been in the industry for almost two decades and said the circus follows an “apprenticeship model” where seasoned performers have routinely refused to teach the skills to anyone outside their families. They believe the circus is their intellectual property, said Miller, and they protect it fiercely. Miller’s breakthrough came with the Ringling Brothers circus in 1996 when he won an apprenticeship as a clown. “I was a Gadjo,” he said, referring to the derogatory Romani term used to describe new circus performers who did not inherit the job from their ancestors. “Real artists would rarely have given me the time of day.”

For aspiring performers, there are more opportunities available now than there were during Miller’s time. More circus training schools have opened up in recent years, dedicated to training the next generation of gadjo performers. There are many non-profit organizations, funded by city councils and state funds, offering free or inexpensive courses in circus training; the knowledge that was once aggressively protected is becoming democratized.

Sixteen-year-old Xia Greenberg, from Queens, made the one and a half hour journey from Queens to attend the Hunts Point circus program last month. It was her first day as she stood in a corner and watched as others somersaulted through the air. “There are no circus classes in my neighborhood that are free,” said Greenberg, who had been riding the unicycle since she was 11. Her eyes were fixed on the solitary trapeze bar that hung in the right-hand corner of the auditorium. After some hesitation, the 5-foot-3-inch teenager gathered enough courage to climb the horizontal bar, holding tightly onto the ropes. Knees bent, she swung experimentally and smiled with satisfaction on her first attempt.

Greenberg fully intends to enter circus college after graduating from high school. She’s currently looking at the New England Center For Circus Arts in Vermont, which teaches many varieties of circus arts to its students. For Greenberg, the circus is a place where she can be herself. “I’m a really quiet person,” said the soft-spoken teenager, “so when I do circus, I feel like I can express myself without having to speak.”

Miller is very receptive towards younger performers as he knows the difficulties of breaking into the industry where having connections is essential. Earlier in July, he gave Francis, and his peer at the program 19-year-old Omar Rodriguez, a chance to perform in Cirque DeVou, a joint production between Circus Mojo and the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, consisting of various circus acts like juggling and stilts walking, where the performer stands on small platforms elevated on a pair of poles. They performed before an audience of nearly 3,000. “My biggest crowd before that,” said Francis, smiling, “was 20 people.” Performing before a big crowd felt easier. “In a crowd of 20, if only 50 percent clap,” he said, “it’s not that much, but in a big crowd, it’s pretty loud.” It is a confidence booster.

The following month, Miller brought Francis to Germany with members of Circus Mojo on an international exchange program with a local circus, Circus Pimparello. “Germany’s a lot different from America,” said Francis, recalling the sense of wonder he felt on his first trip to Europe. “It was really fun and clean there. Not much trash cans but not a lot of trash either.” Francis immersed himself in classes in juggling and acrobatics and gave a series of street performances outside the Stuttgart Opera House, in Stuttgart, Germany. Though it was his first international street performance, he was not fazed. “People were just walking by and some stayed to watch,”he said, with a smile. “It was pretty fun.”

Francis believes juggling is the most difficult prop to master in the circus. He puts in four hours of practice every day. The improvements have been noticeable but there are “too many good jugglers out there.” He’s pragmatic about his chances of breaking into a professional circus, where having an extensive network makes a big difference. “I made a lot of connections this year,” he said beaming with confidence. “So I guess I’m off to a good start.”

Francis’ family back in Antigua, however, has set conditions for the young performer. “They’re pretty cool with it,” said Francis, as long as he gets a college degree first. They are not too thrilled with his recent spate of traveling for circus. Other parents have been more vocal in their disapproval of seeing their children run off to the circus. The stigma still exists, said Miller. “You know what they used say, lock your doors, lock your windows, the circus is in town!”

Within a big circus, there are a variety of non-performance jobs like house staff, ring crew who manage the day-to-day performances, the technical staff looking after lighting and sound, the kitchen staff, animal groomers, among others. The Cirque du Soleil, for example, is one of the biggest employers in the industry, hiring close to 4,000 employees, of which only 1,300 are artists.

New avenues for circus acts have also been on the rise with places like cruise ships, theme parks, nightclubs, shopping malls and casinos hiring skilled performers. The rise of social circus–where circus is used as a tool for social intervention and rehabilitation among high risk groups–has added to the demand for performers; for example, the Big Apple Circus’ Clown Care program is an outreach effort where clowns perform in pediatric facilities across the country.

Rookies work long hours, do grueling tasks, and get very little pay. But Miller reckons starting small and climbing up the ladder is the traditional way to go. When he started his clown apprenticeship with the Ringling Brothers, he worked 60 hours a week and earned $237; which amounted to $4 an hour, slightly below the minimum wage rate of $5.15 in 1997. Miller defended the “exploitative” nature of the circus towards newcomers and said rewards for perseverance are high. Following his apprenticeship, Miller went on to work as a circus performer in casinos around the country, making $500 a day; more recently, he worked for six months in Japan, putting in “12 minutes a day” worth of effort, and was paid $2,000.

For athletic performers, the lifespan is relatively short. By 40, most of them are “old, broken circus performers” reduced to manning the concession stands, said Miller. With many big circuses like Cirque du Soleil opting to hire Olympic athletes and professionally trained dancers, many young, talented circus performers are also going out of work. Jugglers have a longer lifespan, which makes it more competitive – a fact Francis said motivates him to work harder. “I met a lot of really good jugglers this year,” he said, which made him focus more on developing his technique and skills.

The road has been bumpy for Francis. Two years ago, he had his first opportunity to go on an overseas trip to Italy to perform with a circus troupe. “While the trip was upcoming, I didn’t have my U.S. passport at that time, so I wasn’t able to go,” said Francis. Disheartened and frustrated, Francis wanted nothing to do with the circus anymore. For the next three months, he hung out with his friends on the basketball court. Eventually, he could no longer ignore the call of the stage and returned to the circus program. Francis still thinks about giving up circus when going through a bad patch. “But I never actually go through with it,” said Francis, with a smile.

One of the most important persons Francis turns to, whenever he experiences his moments of self-doubt, is the circus program coordinator at The Point. With short hair, a pair of t-shirt and three-quarters, and a warm, welcoming smile, Amy Chen easily stands out in the crowd. The coordinator herself is a trained juggler, trapeze artist, and acrobat, and occasionally performs one of the toughest circus acts–fire breathing.

When she started working at the teen program, her goal was to promote the ideas of community building and peer support, along with teaching the teens about circus. “Most of the students came in their cliques of friends and were primarily interested in furthering their individual skills,” said Chen. The tumblers had no interest in juggling while the jugglers did not care much about aerials. Everyone wanted to focus on their own interests and on ways to further them. The sense of collaboration and togetherness took time to build and nurture. Chen keeps careful track of each and every student who drops by the program and works to build a tight-knit circus family. “They have each other’s backs–so no matter what they choose to do with their circus skills in the future, they have each other,” she said.

Back at The Point, when practice time was over, most of the teens stayed back and continued with their juggling and tumbling routines even as the night grew darker. Francis was one of the last to leave. Though the dedication of the students and the instructors were evident, the program has yet to place a graduate with a professional circus. The overwhelming odds do not deter Francis about his future. For now, he wants to simply focus on perfecting his techniques. “It makes me happy to juggle,” he said. “It makes me happy to make other people happy when I’m doing it well.”

In memory of their friend who was fatally stabbed five years ago, the House of Spoof Art Collective opened a new show in Hunts Point’s Brick House Gallery on August 23, celebrating young talent from the Bronx and beyond, and expanding the gallery’s role in the burgeoning Bronx arts scene.

This year’s Annual Summer Show, the fourth, is its largest exhibit to-date and combines a wide selection of photos, videos and paintings from 32 different artists that fill the gallery walls top to bottom. While shows there typically confront social and political issues, this exhibit is not bound by any thematic, aesthetic or geographic constraints. The all-embracing organizing rubric, intended to draw a diverse range of submissions, was “Community and Culture.”

“It’s a celebration of art,” said Misra Walker, art student at Cooper Union and co-founder of the Spoof Collective. She said one of her goals is to facilitate rather than curate: all artists who submitted work in response to a call through social media were accepted. Misra said she wanted to help kickstart some careers with this event rather than be a gatekeeper.

This is also the group’s first effort to reach out to likeminded artists beyond the South Bronx. Participating artists came from California, France, and the Netherlands, as well as from New York. Danish photographer Petrine Clausen flew in from her new hometown of Amsterdam to see her five color prints on display. “This is my first time in the Bronx and it’s very different from what I know,” she said with a wink, sipping wine from college-style plastic cups and sampling homemade fried chicken outside the gallery.

Capturing unposed moments in artsy party scenes in Europe, her photos of white young people in shiny outfits may seem out of sync in the midst of Hunts Point, but fit the exhibit’s underlying theme by opening a window on a particular community.

Randy Clinton’s photographs, in contrast, are stark cityscapes expressing the beauty of the borough. The former Marine Corps photographer, who spent a year in Afghanistan in 2008, shoots with a camera phone and prints the digitally enhanced pictures on square metal sheets that give the images a bright sheen. “I just want to try to capture everything around me as it happens,” he said, explaining the freedom he feels without lugging around the cameras and lenses he used as a Marine. “My iPhone makes that process easier.”

Most of the contributing artists applied by submitting five samples through JotForm, a social media platform. The number of submissions surprised the gallery collective, who cut their own work from the show to accommodate all 32 applicants. “We don’t agree on everything,” said Richard Palacios, co-founder and multimedia artist, describing how members of the collective held different views of the work they received, but supported the principle of the open call. “I guess there was some kind of democratic process behind it,” he said.

The House of Spoof Collective (THOSC) was officially founded in 2011, when four friends working summer jobs at The Point CDC, the renown community art and activist center in Hunts Point, sought to honor the passing of their close friend Glenn ‘Spoof’ Wright.

Wright, who would have turned 26 on the day of the show’s opening, was a flourishing South Bronx photographer who was brutally killed 2009. Mistaken for a rival gang member by a group out for revenge, Wright was stabbed to death outside his grandmother’s Lower East Side apartment.

“After Spoof’s death we were in group therapy sessions and decided to channel our grief and his spirit by creating this project,” said Palacios, 24, one of the co-founding quartet including fellow art students Misra Walker, 22, Ryan Smith, 24, and Alberto Inamagua, 27. Only a couple of months later they had already curated their first show in a space provided by The Point.

Though they continue to present a rotating selection of Wright’s black-and-white photos at every show, the group has since moved beyond the original premise of keeping Spoof’s legacy alive.

Walker admitted that the group is still very young — “We often have no idea what we are doing,” she said — and that their current work is only a stepping stone to bigger goals. They plan to create an art incubator for young artists and “bring back that Andy Warhol, factory-feel to art in New York City.”

In many ways their work space reflects their own transformation. Set on a remote stretch along Hunts Point’s industrial waterfront, the stocky Brick House Gallery is the only remnant of a burnt down fur-tanning factory that was converted into an experimental art spot for the community in 2007.

Working out of the South Bronx in an impoverished area with scarce public resources, the group has always seen location and context as a central element of their work. They see themselves as activist artists, tackling local issues related to violence, neglect, and the environment. They are currently building a greenhouse out of discarded soda bottles. The group conducts free art workshops for Hunts Point’s residents throughout the year.

“We want to make the art accessible to the Hunts Point community,” explained Walker, who gave an emotional TED TALK on activism through art back in 2009. “Art has always been really important in this community and we want to keep that going. That’s what Glenn would have done – given back to the community.”

The Bronx has historically been a hotbed for the arts — it is the birthplace of both hip-hop and modern street art — and is currently seeing a resurgence, with a host of galleries and shows opening across the borough.

Among the work in the Summer Show, photographs by Tiffany Williams stand out: prints showing colorful smoke wisping against a black background. Williams, one of the group’s mentors and the co-creator of The Point’s after-school photography program, has been active in the Bronx arts community for more than a decade. “The Bronx has been involved with the arts way before Brooklyn ever got cool for its art scene,” she said, basking in the late afternoon sun in Hunts Point. “It might take time, but we’re bringing the conversation back.”