The Bronx Ink

VIP members and others march in a candlelight vigil to support those fighting addiction. (HAN ZHANG / The Bronx Ink)

Wednesday night, about 75 people in Tremont joined a candlelight vigil organized by a local treatment center to honor people in recovery and those lost to drug addiction.

VIP Community Service, a non-profit organization providing treatment and housing in Tremont to people fighting addiction, invited its clients and their local supporters to join the walk. Most of the participants were men and women from its residential treatment project, a six-to-nine-month intensive recovery program. Some disabled members participated in a van.

About 65 per cent of VIP’s 1,574 clients are engaged in medication-supported recovery and 120 clients are enrolled in the residential recovery program.

Among all five boroughs of New York City, the Bronx has the highest rate of drug overdose deaths. The number grew  from 132 deaths in 2010 to 185 in 2013, according to data released in August by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The same study shows that the Crotona–Tremont neighborhood was one of the top five areas in the city for deaths caused by drug overdose between 2010 and 2013.

Maria Garcia, who lost her sister to HIV six years ago, expressed gratitude that the addiction treatment program helped her sister get her life back in her last days. She brought her seven-year-old grandson to the event.

Maria Garcia expressed gratitude that the treatment program helped her sister, who died six years ago. (HAN ZHANG / The Bronx Ink)

“Family shouldn’t feel embarrassed. Instead, we should help, be united, guide them and support them,” said Garcia.

The vigil started at 6:30 p.m.  and lasted about one and a half hours. As participants walked along Arthur Avenue and around Crotona Park, others joined in along the way. The crowd sang “Lean on Me” and other songs.

“It’s such a beautiful scene,” said a neighbor, watching the group walk by the park at sunset.

The event created an opportunity for the clients to socialize and interact with the local community, according to VIP’s assistant vice president Carmen Rivera, the organizer of the vigil.

“We want to take away the stigma on former drug addicts and show that they can pull it together and be a positive influence in the neighborhood,” said Rivera.

In one contribution to the neighborhood, in August, VIP clients unveiled a mural, “Bridging Transformation,” created by 20 VIP clients who worked with local artists for six weeks.  Images of a shadowed man walking on a path that leads to an explosive cluster of bright colors enliven the side of  a five-story building on 176^th Street in Tremont.

Tanesha Green, a mother of four who marched on Wednesday night, said that the treatment program helped her focus on recovery.

“The program is within you, if you are ready to do it,” Green said after the vigil.

In early September, 25-year-old Bronx native Kennedy Brown enrolled as a liberal arts freshman at the College of New Rochelle in Westchester. Three weeks later, the father of 6-year-old twins was offered a part-time job at the retail-clothing store Hollister.

Three days later, in the early hours of Sept. 24, Brown was shot dead, just steps away from his childhood home in Bedford Park.

At the time, family and friends of Brown said they were shocked and could find no explanation for Brown’s shooting, which took place outside an apartment building on Decatur Avenue just off of 197th Street.

Now, more than a month after the shooting, the police have offered neither leads nor suspects. Brown’s family is left with questions as they continue to mourn a man described as a focused, charismatic, and dedicated father.

“Who would want to hurt my nephew?” asked Hope Harris, Brown’s aunt, in an interview near the one-month anniversary of his death. “I don’t understand why he had to die—and die violently. He was a father, he was somebody’s son, cousin. I cry everyday.”

The moments leading up to Brown’s shooting outside an apartment building during a party are still cloaked in mystery. What Brown’s family do know is that just before 2 a.m. on Sept. 24, Brown stepped outside the party alone, readying himself to leave. A few minutes later, he was discovered with a gun wound to his head, and was later pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital.

“He was actually leaving the party,” said Harris.“The way it happened, I think, it was someone close to him. It wasn’t gang violence. We figured it had to be over a girl. Kennedy had over 10 different girlfriends.”

In interviews with several family and friends, Brown’s reputation as a gregarious flirt was well-known. It contrasted with the serious life he led as a student and father to his twins, Kennedy, a girl, and Kron, a boy. A couple of months ago, he had taken the twins’ mother to court to sue for equal visitation rights, said the family.

“He was a person that would do anything to make you smile,” remembered Jazmin Lucas, 18, Brown’s next-door neighbor. “He was very genuine and sincere. I was shocked at what happened.”

Lucas said she remembered sitting on the front porch of her house that fateful morning, when she saw Brown’s mother, Candy, return home from the hospital at 3 a.m.
“She had blood on her hands, and she was saying, ‘This was my baby’s blood. I’m never washing it off,’” recalled Lucas.

Brown’s mother is still too traumatized to speak about the passing of her only son. Brown’s cremated ashes are kept in the second-floor townhouse they shared together in Tremont, said family members.

“She’s not doing good at all,” stated Harris. “We are still taking turns to staying in the apartment. She just can’t believe he’s gone, even now. This was the first homicide in our family.”

Harris believes the family will soon learn to heal after Brown’s passing, but the questions around how Brown died will continue to haunt them.

“It’s hard on the family, because we have no answers,” Harris said.

Kennedy Brown died of a gunshot wound in September. (PHOTO CREDIT: Shykeiya Harris)

Tulsie Singh, 35, was arrested yesterday on charges of sexual abuse of a young boy at P.S. 306 in Tremont. Sources told NY1 that past accusations had been made against the teacher. The Department of Education removed Singh from the school more than once but then allowed him to return. He is out on bail.

By Manuel Rueda

St Joseph’s Church is attended mostly by Hispanic immigrants. Since 1971, members of this parish take to the streets of Tremont during Good Friday to re-enact the passion of Christ. The 14 stations of the cross are carefully replicated by community members dressed in biblical garb, as a pre-recorded voice leads prayers from a loudspeaker and describes the challenges faced by Jesus on his way to crucifixion.

Rafael Gonzalez played the son of God this holy week, dragging a massive wooden cross around the neighborhood, for the sixth consecutive year. Gonzalez is proud to serve in his community, but he is aging and this could be his last year in this role.

Sidney Flores patrols the streets of Tremont relentlessly. He paints apartments to make a living. But in his spare time, he looks out for potholes, broken street signs and other problems in sidewalks and streets. Flores is a self appointed guardian of the Bronx. And the Ink went on his quality of life patrol.

By Manuel Rueda

by Alec Johnson and Amanda Staab

Serious repairs are underway at the notoriously rundown apartment buildings at 806-808 E. 175th Street in the Tremont neighborhood of the Bronx. Earlier this year, a group of tenants convinced a Bronx judge to replace their negligent landlord with a new manager who would finally make the improvements.

The two adjoining brick structures near the north end of Crotona Park have five floors each and 43 units all together. They are now getting more than just a fresh coat of paint.

A recently installed new boiler ensures that every tenant has heat and hot water. New metal front doors are replacing the old wood ones that were considered fire hazards.

“It’s getting better,” said Gladys Archer, a retiree who has been a resident for nearly 20 years and heads up the tenant association.

Before February, the building had hundreds of violations on file with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) that included collapsed ceilings and rodent infestations. But, in February, several residents took their landlord, Ocelot, to Bronx Housing Court, hoping to force the owners to make the necessary repairs.

“That’s what you have to do if you want to live where you’re going to live,” said Archer. “You gather together and you fight.”

She said that Ocelot managers kept promising that repairs would be made soon.

“We promise, promise, promise,” Archer said the owner told residents. “But, meanwhile, they were taking us to court for rent, and the building was coming down.”

Since then, the Bronx Housing Court has appointed a new administrator, Rafael Lara, an experienced manager and executive director of New City View Development, to look after the buildings and their tenants.

“We’ve been renovating most of the apartments,” said Lara. He has a $175,000 bond, forfeited by the landlord, to work with, and repairs have been ongoing since he stepped onto the scene.

In some cases, residents whose apartments have severe mold and mildew problems after years of continuous leaks have received new drywall in their units and even new kitchen cabinets. Some bathrooms have been renovated, and the hallways have been redecorated, wiping away graffiti. “We’ve been correcting it little by little,” said Lara.

Some residents complain that Lara is taking too long with the repairs.

“They’re all complaining he’s slow,” said Archer. “He’s taking care of the leaks, slowly, but it’s being done. February to now, it’s a lot of improvement.”