10 10 188 https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/d59399e2ebe3fefac03a5459322070d3.JPG ab4babe6832efaf89e5f50d38bff146b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mark Lu Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arielle Hersh Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arielle Hersh Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Arielle Hersh and Mark Lu Subject The topic of the resource Exhibit Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 2017 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mark and Kangaroo in Australia Subject The topic of the resource Photo Description An account of the resource Mark interacts with a kangaroo while on vacation in Australia Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mark Lu Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arielle Hersh Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Mark Lu mark lu photos https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/6c5dbf2463f8d7c765024f76afd08c85.JPG a4e80297207d1c2fc125e8f13100a2c0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mark Lu Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arielle Hersh Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arielle Hersh Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Arielle Hersh and Mark Lu Subject The topic of the resource Exhibit Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 2017 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mark and Koala in Australia Subject The topic of the resource Photo Description An account of the resource Mark poses with a koala on his trip to Australia in 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mark Lu Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arielle Hersh Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Mark Lu mark lu photos https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/8d850f95adc5c3bd1331d149f91901d6.jpg 36f9d7abdef521aabb0c7b7415d16bfb Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mark Lu Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arielle Hersh Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arielle Hersh Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Arielle Hersh and Mark Lu Subject The topic of the resource Exhibit Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 2017 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mark Lu Subject The topic of the resource Photo Description An account of the resource Mark Lu on April 8, 2017 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arielle Hersh Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 8, 2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arielle Hersh Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Arielle Hersh, Mark Lu mark lu https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/77eb74dd4c8c034b04f088cbad72dd7b.png 7658df386a06df103b6df44af4b6007f https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/f9892853996d599b71a5d42901075a20.pdf 4883d85e2dff93a5e1729bf7702d676a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mark Lu Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arielle Hersh Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arielle Hersh Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Arielle Hersh and Mark Lu Subject The topic of the resource Exhibit Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 2017 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Narrator: Mark Lu Interviewer: Arielle Hersh Date: April 8, 2017 Place: Melrose, South Bronx NYC Transcriber: Arielle Hersh Abstract: Mark Lu was born in China and immigrated to the US with his family in 1995. They settled in Kensington, Brooklyn, where Mark’s father ran a Chinese takeout restaurant while Mark attended Brooklyn College. He later pursued medical school at New York College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYCOM), but after realizing that it wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life, he shifted his focus and began a career in real estate. Mark began his career renovating houses and renting them out tenants in Columbus, Ohio in 2004 and then moved back to the New York area in 2008 where he worked on similar, but larger projects with an investment group in Long Island. In 2010, Mark’s partner of 10 years passed and he spent a year travelling. During this time he visited South Africa and Australia. In 2011, he returned to real estate in New York, and in 2012 he met his current partner, Luigi. In the same year, they moved to Via Verde in Melrose and Mark and Luigi began opening restaurants in New York. After a few years, they moved from Via Verde to a house nearby in Woodstock. Mark and Luigi are currently opening a restaurant in Melrose called Porto Salvo. In this oral history, Mark contemplates his role as a businessman in the process of gentrification and neighborhood change. AH: Alright. Hi, this is Arielle Hersh and I’m here with Mark Lu, M-A-R-K space L-U. It’s Saturday, April 8, 2017. This oral history is for (Dis)Placed Urban Histories, NYU Gallatin Spring 2017 in collaboration with WHEDco. Alright, so I guess to start can you tell me a little bit about your background—where you come from? ML: Yes, well my name is Mark Lu and I was born in China, and I came to to the states in 1995, I think November 31, 1995. I remember when I first landed I came from southern part of China, so it was relatively warm, and then [I landed] … after they had a huge snowstorm of 1996, the blizzard of 1996, and I was really thinking like, “What am I getting myself into? It’s a totally different kind of weather” so it was very different in terms of environment. I was really looking forward because New York City, obviously, we thought of it as the center of the world and landing here is not what I expected it to be, so it was quite [an] interesting transition. Then I went on to Brooklyn College. I studied there [as a] chem major for four years and it was a very very wonderful educational experience at CUNY Brooklyn. Then eventually I went to medical school, studied at NYCOM, New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. Then just upon [my] last year, I think I realized my passion really was real estate and business, so I drop out of medical college and then went into real estate. And that is where I am today, continue doing real estate, both on the investment side and the brokerage side … AH: Alright, so do you want to talk a little bit about China, about your childhood, what you liked to do growing up: ML: Well in China I think, I think it was very different. I grew up in a relatively suburban area, so nothing really in particular, but I think when I grew up it was really very academically-focused. I spent most of my time studying, and my parents, like many Chinese parents, are very much emphasizing on education is the way to move forward, way to move up. I really … listened to that, and I did very well academia, … My parents, when I was like four years old, five years old, [my mom] was telling like, “You’re going to be the doctor!” And she was telling my brother, who’s about like four years younger, “You’re going to be the lawyer!” You know, that kind of mentality. I always focused on that and then I did really well. However, … when I went to high school, … we knew that we were coming to United States, as immigrants, so … instead of going to Shanghai, which is the top university there, I decided that I was gonna stay in my own province to go to the college there because it would be easier to do the transition, all the paperworks and things. … I think the Chinese experience had taught me [that] education are very important, although that later on I did drop out of medical college … I do think that [education] provides a sense of character-building blocks for us as we go through education because the things that we learned in classes might not be super helpful or even you can find it online or somewhere—the content itself—but I think your interactions with your colleagues, and the experience as a whole, it builds a character in who you are. I think that’s an invaluable experience. For Chinese part of my life, oh about 19 years, I think that was very important to me … to understanding that educations are important, understanding what kind of person that I want to be, not what I want to go into do, what I’m going to do, but what kind of person I want to be. That I thought it was very important. AH: Yeah, do you want to talk a little bit about coming to the US and what was that like? ML: I think what I mentioned … I came here ‘95 and just like any other immigrant, my father rent … a very small Chinese takeout restaurant and it was a little difficult at the beginning from the housing perspective. We lived in a 2-bedroom apartment and I had to live in a bunk bed with my brother, in a very very small room. So I think initially it was very different from the housing perspective compared to China. However, we understood that, … it was very expensive in New York even back then, I mean 1995 the housing itself. And we had the goal of, “We want to buy our own house,” so we were saving a lot, so we weren’t spending. My father would work and I would go to college and then I always also understood that it would be beneficial, from financial perspective, that if I do well, that I can apply for scholarships, and have that kind of financial support to alleviate some of the burdens that my parents would have. So during the college years here, in CUNY, I had like two [or] three scholarships, so it was more than enough to cover the expenses of the tuition, and plus the school’s textbooks and all that expenses. I think I even brought home some money, which I thought was really nice at the time, so I was able to buy computers and, you know back then. … Again, I think for me educational experience, both in China and here, was very very wonderful. I loved it. … And I really appreciated, when I went to Brooklyn College, that I was able to interact with students from different backgrounds. I have friends who are Russian. I have friends who are Jewish. I have friends from Haiti. Different colors, different backgrounds, and we were forced to speak English—’cause for me English was a second language, and at age 19 was little bit difficult—but I think that forced me to interact with the people from different backgrounds and that we had to speak the common language of English, which really helped me to progress in terms of educationally and I guess in future, professionally. So I really, I really enjoyed it, and really appreciated it. CUNY, I do have to say, with the low tuition, obviously, more focus on the public benefit … I think it’s really, really needed to be preserved. The quality of the education that the public universities or public colleges that you provide for people who are financially not as secure at the time, I think it’s very important. AH: How did you make the personal decision first to go to medical school, and then that that wasn’t what you wanted to do? ML: So as I mentioned [when I was] four and five years old, my parents already, or my mom at least, was telling me that I was going to be the doctor, and that had always been my focus, which I did. When I was in China I was already medical college … ‘cause the … Chinese system is that you go through high school, and then maybe the top 0.1%, then you get to directly go to medical school. They have a standardized test, and then by the score of that test, the tops, really top percent, you get selected to medical college. There is no college, like a pre-med like that we have here. I went there for a year, but with the understanding that I wasn’t gonna staying. I came to America with also the understanding that I was gonna continue the medical path. When I went to Brooklyn College, I took pre-med courses and I was pre-med, chem major, but I was pre-med. Everything was really according to plan. Then I did the MCAT. I didn’t do as well as I was hoping to, but I did get into two colleges, so I picked NYCOM, which is New York College of Osteopathic Medicine, which is closer because it’s closer, it’s less expenses for me … The other one is in Philadelphia, so I thought New York was better. Everything was according to plan for the first two years. The academia was great. I don’t have a problem with academia, but then as I was going into rotations, into different hospitals, I think that’s when I realized that the profession itself—at least in United States—is a little different than what I was expecting it to be. I think there is a lot of focus on salary, a lot of focus on the … not on the doctors, but at least you’re hearing that. On the morning, … I would be there like five o'clock and then go through my first rounds, and then sit down with the interns and residents, and then you go through their rounds of their patients, and then, you have 10-15 minute gap waiting for the attendings to arrive. And the people would be talking about what they wanna talk about. Then, very often—I was in Long Island at the time—and then, very often, the subject would be, you know, so and so just bought a boat, so and so just bought a house that’s worth this much or worth that much. I mean it’s all great, but I think I resented that a little bit because I came from the Eastern background and I thought the medical field—yes, you would make a very decent living, but on the other hand I wasn’t prepared to be so upfront with money. I think I wasn’t, so I resented that a little bit. Then I thought to myself, “Wait, if going into medical field means to make money, I think there’s plenty of other fields that makes money.” I said at the time Wall Street [is] at the height of those … financial gains. I thought they would make a lot of money—why would I be in this field? … That was back in 2003. I went into medical school in 2000. 2003 when I finished my first year rotation which is my third year of medical school I had that crisis. I think crisis is Who am I? What do I wanna do? I think that maybe when I was so focused on academia I never was going through my search for myself, my own identity. I think … that manifested into dropping out of medical school, which is very painful for my parents because they felt that they invested a lot of time, money, expectation. They were very disappointed. But I think that I stuck it out and I thought, regardless of this decision is going to be right or wrong, it has to be my decision because I always thought that was my parents’ decision to go into medical school. I fulfilled that, and then for the first 20-something years of my life, and I said, “Now it’s time for me to define who I am and to find out who I am, what I want to do.” That’s when I drop out of medical school. That was in 2003, maybe July when I … finished the rotation year. Then I had asked for a year of leave of absence, just in case if I were to go back, so I thought it was a great thing to do. Then, during the year of searching, I think I was really looking to see what I’m good at, what should I do? My parents at the time, although my father owned the restaurant, but he was always very entreprenuer-spirited, so he thought of owning the building that they had the restaurant on. He didn’t speak English, so at the time he asked me if I can communicate with the owner, and … see if we can make a deal happen, which, I kind of helped. Then, we purchased the building, and then he was very happy, and then I helped managing the building. I thought that was very interesting, to acquire something. … It’s the same thing as a business: you acquire something, you have to run it efficiently to make profit. I thought that was very interesting. As I was going through college and continuing through medical school I was helping him doing that, and then during the year of searching I think, you know that might be something that I would be interested in exploring, so I did, and … I took a course. I took my credit card out and I swiped one of those Trump University courses (laughs) no, but yes, something like that. It was like $2,500 at the time was quite expensive. I took out my credit card and bought the course and I went in and I remember the teacher said something like, “I know you guys spent a lot of money to be here.” I think the guy’s name is James Smith, he said that “95% of you is going to finish this course, which is only one week, and leave here and do nothing, and only 5% of you is going to go out and really do something, and that does not even guarantee that you are gonna be successful, but at least 5% of you that will start doing something.” I remember that, so I always say to myself, Okay, regardless of success or failure that you want to be that 5% that at least do something, which I did. Then I did continue communicating with the people from the class, and I did realized he was speaking from experience. A lot of people going into those classes expecting get rich quick or make tons of money of that sort without understanding that there’s a lot of hard work involved. A lot of people that I communicated with didn’t really move forward doing anything. But I did, so I remember after that … I researched about six-seven different markets in America, and I settled in Columbus, Ohio because I thought the entry was very low. When I say entry, meaning the purchase of the properties is very low, and return on investment is relatively higher, compared to New York market, ‘cause New York is what I know, and I was helping my parents doing rentals and properties. But you’re looking at maybe like a 6% return on investment, so every $100 you make $6. But in Columbus Ohio, which is decent, mid-sized American city, where you can purchase a property (laughs) for, at the time, I believe it was 2004. You can purchase a two family property, which is what I did. My first one was $36,000 for two families: 3 bedrooms, 3 bedrooms. I was putting another twenty-something thousand dollars and I renovated the units and make it nice and neat and tenants would love to live in, and I rent it out. I rent it out, and then I refinanced. At the time, credit was good, so I refinanced and then I get more money, and reinvest it. I continued doing that. It’s like flip-the-house or something like that, except I didn’t sell them, I just refinanced them and get the money and … purchased more properties, renovated them, and then put in tenants, and then cash out, and then continue doing that. I did about 27 properties. That’s how I got into real estate. I really liked it because I felt that, and the same thing I think relates to Melrose here … I think real estate is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it’s the people who’s doing it with the intentions. If your intentions are to make as much profit as possible disregarding the people who’s living in there, the people who you are servicing, then it’s a problem. But I think if you’re intention is good, in terms of saying, I want to provide a quality housing to people who need it, I think that’s where the market comes in and balanced it out … because you have to make sure that it makes certain profits, just like, you know, when Bronx was burning, when Melrose was burning back in 1970s, the reason why is because the landlords no longer make money, so how can you expect them … to be maintaining the property to a good quality and people want to live in? I thought housing to me is really about … service, that somebody is providing a service, and somebody is needing that service. And then behind that service being met, is people. I think it’s really the judgement of the people who’s good charactered or bad charactered, or who’s more focused on pure profit or understanding that they need to fulfill certain responsibilities at the same time they are taking profit. I thought that was what I learned from my initial investment career, that I was able to provide housing that is … that people wanted to live in, and was happy to stay there because I always thought, if they stay there longer, then from a profit perspective, there’s no lag time. People don’t move in and out, then I don’t have to have a two month that nobody lives there without collecting rent. I always thought if you treat people nicely that people also understand, and also respect the space that they live in. I learned from that experience. And then when I felt that I was ready, graduating from that smaller market back to New York, that’s when 2007-2008, when the housing market crashed and for me, I thought that was the perfect opportunity for me because my business model is I need to buy it in a very inexpensive manner that I see what other people don’t see, and I’m doing to invest the capital to renovate it to the way that I think people would like the product to be, or service to be, and then put them in. I partnered with two other people. That’s 2008—2007, 2008, and 2009. I partner with three other people and we did investment group and then we actually flipped the houses in Long Island. We focused on anywhere between $200,000-$400,000 projects. … That’s a lot bigger than the Columbus, Ohio. I did that, and that was actually rather successful as well. I remember as people were saying don’t buy houses because 2007-2008 house value is going down, [but] … people still need to live somewhere. Then the first-time homebuyers that we interacted with, they are very excited to see the quality of the work that they are buying into, ‘cause we usually take pictures along the process of our renovation, so they see … what kind of material putting under the floor, that you don’t see, so they are very excited. We constantly have buyer that … during the housing crisis we have buyers who’s saying, “Oh where’s your next project? I have relatives who’s looking to purchase. Can you please tell us?” We never had to wait like everybody else, put the house on the market for month to try your luck if anybody bites it … We were very lucky. … I think from that experience, from that 2007 to 2009 I think my experience taught me that I think it’s as like, as all the previous ones … It’s like you have to treat people like if you were … the recipient of that product or the service what would you expect? If you can put yourself in other people’s shoes then I think your product is gonna be very much in demand. So that was very nice. [In] 2010, one of the family tragedy had happened. My partner of 10 years passed away. That was huge hit for me. … I lived in Long Island, I did very well (laughs). We had like a—you know from material perspective, we did very well—we had like a five bedroom house is almost one acre. From material it looked very nice, but I think that tragedy, when my partner passed away that it taught me like, all those materials really mean nothing when you don’t have the person you love, such as your family members, your parents, your sibling, your husbands and wives, partners, I think it means very little. From 2010 to 2012 I kind of drifted, kind of lost myself … again. So I traveled. I traveled to different parts of the world. I was very lucky because … I did very well on the financial aspect, so I was able to go to Australia … I went to South Africa, I went to all different parts of the world … to kind of well, either find myself or lose myself, either way that I think, just to get away from where I was. And then, by the time … 2011 ends, that I … kind of feel that it is important, like what I did, was important. That when the whole world was talking about housing crisis: … who was responsible for it, who should go to jail and all that stuff, you know, I felt that what I did was important because I thought I’m a little guy, I’m not, a developer who develops 100 unit buildings or something. I just thought that … if I can take a house or building and I can make it nice that people want to live in, either rent, or purchase in the future, I think that’s important. I think that’s for people to take responsibility of their own once I finish mine. So I decided to come back and [in] March of 2012 I restarted my investment career. And then that’s when I met my current partner and then I think he helped me as well in term of understanding that life … has more to do with a process, not the end, where you’re going to be. I think that I was back on my feet by the time 2012. … I didn’t know Melrose ‘cause I grew up in Brooklyn, I lived in Long Island. … Yet, when my partner … he’s Italian, and he said, “I would like to have an apartment. I don’t wanna be renting.” I was in real estate, so I said, “Okay, that’s great,” because to me renting is never a long-term, it’s a transition. He said there is a place called Via Verde—it looks beautiful. I said where is it? He said, “It’s in the Bronx.” And my immediate reaction at the time was Bronx, like are you sure? We lived in Upper East Side at the time, which is a very established neighborhood, and … I would never associate ourselves with Bronx, thinking what about the safety? What about how will people look at us? You live in Bronx? And there’s any kind of … understanding that people would associate with Bronx. So I was very biased back then. And then, he asked me, he said, “Why don’t we take a look? It doesn't hurt to take a look at the project, doesn’t hurt to take at look at the neighborhood.” June of 2012 he showed me the project and he showed me the neighborhood and … I came from an investment perspective, … and the moment I look at that Third Avenue where you came up from the subway, 149th St and Third Avenue, I immediately knew that was where Fulton Street used to be in Brooklyn, what downtown Brooklyn now is, very much like that. Very commercial, yet … has so much potential that’s so underutilized. So I … the decision to purchase Via Verde … was really on the investment aspect. He bought it for the purpose of the, “I want a home. I want a place that it’s mine, that I call home.” All the amenities there is really attractive: all the LEED certifications, all the rooftop gardens, the gym, and doorman. Those are really amenities that sometimes you find in the city, Manhattan or Brooklyn. I thought that was very nice. We bought, and then we moved in in 2012—August 31st 2012. And then about four-five years later, … we’ve outgrown the space, so we decided that … we love the neighborhood so much, we want to stay close by, but we would like a house so we have more outdoor space. For that four-five years I saw the growth of Melrose, Woodstock, Mott Haven, and I say let’s look around here. Then we immediately found something that’s like, about four-five blocks from there. So we also purchased a house. That’s where we live now. We love it. We have a front yard, backyard. We have parking. You’re still in the city, but … you don’t feel you’re cramped. You don’t feel like everybody else is on top of you. That’s a great feeling. We have … grape vines in the backyard. In the summertime, it’s really beautiful when the morning, four-five o’clock you get up sometimes, and then you can sit outside, underneath the grape vines and have a cup of coffee, and I thought … that was important to us, the quality of it. We find the quality of life that’s here, that it’s hard, or very expensive to find in Manhattan or Brooklyn. Now we consider, we really consider Bronx our home. We consider Melrose our home. AH: What do you like about Melrose the most, or just like about it? ML: Well, discovery I guess … because we came from a background that is very much distant from [that], although I’m an immigrant, but … everybody has its own culture and own circle. I think I was still rather biased as you can see from 2012 about Bronx, about Melrose. Then, after I moved here I think I discover a lot of people, which I’m always very curious. And then, food. I never even knew that I liked Mexican food. I always … I always look at those taco trucks and I’ve tried, and my friends would take me to some Mexican restaurants, which tend to be a little gourmet, and this and that, and then I never felt that I liked it. And then I moved to Melrose and the selections are limited, so sometimes you’re forced like okay, I’m gonna try it. So you try different restaurants here, tend to be a lot of Spanish restaurants, and we discovered a lot of things … By being forced into something because of limited selections you tend to discover something you didn’t think you would like. I thought in terms of here, the discovery of a different culture, of different ways of living, of different people living under different circumstances was … is what I love the most. I think I had it in Brooklyn when I first came, but as we grew and get more involved in our professional lives, or daily livings, we lose sight of that. We lose sight of other people who might still be struggling. We lost sight of other people who live differently than us. I think Melrose provides me that. It’s a constant reminder of where I came from, that year we lived in a very small apartment and had bunk beds, and the rent was expensive for us as we are trying to save money to purchase buildings or houses. I think that’s what I love the most, and at least where I live. It’s not apartment, which I showed you Via Verde is the apartment. But, the communities there, because the currently house that I live in, I know all the neighbors. You get out in the yard in the morning people are out and about, and you say hello, and you tell them when you are going and where you are going because my partner and I, we travel a lot. We tell them, “Oh, we’re leaving. Can you keep an eye on the house?” Yeah, You know cameras, and all that but I think it is better somebody else eye, that somebody cares about you. They are watching out for the best of your interests. So I thought that’s where I live, I like. You still have that sense of feeling, which I’m very accustomed to when I was in China, but not anymore here. Then I found it, and again, I think in Melrose here, you have a lot of diversity. You do have, you do have people who are in different stages of financial success, so I like that. AH: Yeah, do you want to talk a little bit about the restaurant and how this started out? ML: Yes. Everything actually do come back to Melrose. So, when I met my partner, my partner was a chef. He’s an Italian chef. He was trained in Tuscany. He came to United States I think maybe ‘96, ‘97. And then he had his life, and then we converged our lives in 2012. At the time he worked at Alfredo of Rome, which is a very prestigious restaurant right by Rockefeller Center. I mean, I was in real estate—I eat, but really didn’t know much about restaurant business except my dad opened the restaurant and it was takeout, and I always thought that was very hard-working. My dad would go there open the store at 10 o’clock and we would come home at 11 o’clock at night, if lucky. I always remember we always stayed up until he comes home and then we would go to bed. I always took late morning and afternoon classes, so I don’t have to get up so early. In my mind the restaurant business is very difficult and time consuming, not a lot of money. All the Chinese restaurants that you see, spread out on the different blocks … it’s a very very long hours of work with not much, comparatively, it’s not a lot of money for the hours that they work. But I think it’s a typical way that immigrants live, and even in Melrose as you can see there’s a lot of Spanish families that open small mom and pop Spanish restaurants, and that … it’s a way to provide for the family, and I think more importantly, that the family can be together, ‘cause usually they’re family-run restaurants. So I liked it, and I didn’t like the fact that he was in restaurant business. At the time he didn’t have any restaurants, but I knew he was a chef and his ambition is to open restaurants. And of course as a partner you support what your partner do. I think my strong suit is business, and his strong suit is cooking and, I guess knowing the ins and outs of operations. He has a great thing about design. … We’ve owned four restaurants since we together. We sold one, but he designed all of them. He even built one. The third one he built with two other people, physically using his hands built it, which I was very very impressed. As I was getting more involved with his ventures, I think I realized that restaurant or any business that we do, it comes down to the core of you’re providing a product or services that other people are looking for, and how do you make the product and services best-suited for the people that’s coming. After understanding that I think i get less of a resentment, more of a involvement. I helped him from the business side of it. Running the business, there’s a lot of things besides what you see here, Health Department inspections, and applying for liquor license, and those point of sale systems, swipe credit cards with the percentage. There’s a lot of things that goes into a business, and that’s what I love. That’s actually what I love, because I feel like it doesn’t matter what profession that you choose, you must have a business sense. Because the ins and outs of money, is important because if you consider money as a game, then you need to know the rule of the game. You can utilize the rule of the game for yourself, and at the same time, if you’re good-hearted, you can utilize the rule of the game for the people you love, and eventually for the people you see and wanna help. That’s how I view it, and … I like to understand the rule of the game, and I want to be able to utilize it for the people I love and for people that I think that deserve help. That’s how I view it. We opened our first restaurant in East Harlem. We tend to like areas that are developing. The first restaurant was back in 2012 right after we bought the house and the Via Verde apartment, and then … we opened up our first restaurant in East Harlem right on the East 116th Street by Lexington Avenue where the explosion happened. When the explosion happened we had to shut down our restaurant and all that stuff. So we were there. We like the areas that really is up and coming because I think—well which goes back to this whole gentrification and displacement thing is that we didn’t understand what our role is, as entrepreneurs and as investors. What’s our role in this whole gentrification? Are we the bad guys? Are we the good guys? Who are we? Because we’re coming in here in an area, let’s say, East Harlem is … called Spanish Harlem, it’s very Hispanic, low rented. … Before it was a Mexican restaurant, and then we took it over and we turned it into a wine bar. We didn’t have an idea. We just went in, and we just thought wait, the demographic demands that they wanted something nearby that it’s a little bit different than the traditional Spanish restaurant—not that … they don’t serve the food but the demographic is changing. People are looking for good bottle of wine with friends hanging out, have nice plates of pasta or some elegant prosciutto, or something of that nature. We went in without understanding of that. We really didn’t think that we’re playing any part in gentrification, but as we moved into those neighborhoods, our second and third restaurants in Hamilton Heights, one’s called the Draft House, the other’s called the Anchor Winebar. As we are getting more and more involved in the restaurant business we realize we do play a part because … the restaurant that was there before no longer makes profit—they closed doors. We go in, we cater to a different demographic. Now, obviously the pricings of the menu items are much higher and for the people who now moving into the neighborhood, they are looking it as, it’s a bargain ’cause compared to where they used to go: Village, or Midtown, it’s a bargain, and they get the same quality of food or better. So they feel like this is great. Yet, the neighborhood people, … the old-timers who’s lived there for a while, then they realize wait, then my favorite Spanish restaurant just closed, and I can’t afford to go to that wine bar to have $12 a plate prosciutto. I guess we struggled a little bit. I mean, not from the business perspective, but we struggled a little bit to say okay … are we invading other people’s space? What are we? Are we the bad guys? I think … we had to struggle a little bit of that, like from a personal and moral perspective, we had to look for, and then we still continued looking for it, but we find a lot more peace understanding that we are complementing, we are part of the transition, that we providing product and service to people who’s coming in, who’s need it. In terms of the bigger picture, we can’t. We don’t have the ability to control the bigger picture. We can only do it from a small perspective is that when people coming in regardless of their race, their background, we treat them the way everybody else is. We don’t say if you’re coming in, you don’t dress the part, we don’t put you in the worse table than the better table. We just don’t. We treat you exactly the same. And I think that’s … I think that’s what we can do. We don’t know in a bigger picture where we are, but we know from a smaller perspective, from us, that as personal perspective, we treat everybody equally. Everybody who was in the neighborhood, or who is coming into the neighborhood we treat them equally. I think that’s all we can do. And we cannot further decide. It’s not in our place to really judge what we do, who we are, are we the good guys, are we the bad guys, because only … later on people get to know. The character of a person is established throughout time. It’s not … you are a good guy today, and you are good guy forever. No, I think it’s throughout the time that your behavior and your action … have other people decide who you are. We are rather excited kind of, because this new restaurant is very close to where we are, and this is in Melrose, which from a business perspective it’s a very up and coming area. We like it. We like the prospect of it. … From Via Verde, I think the complaint—I’m very active with the board—is like there’s not restaurants—there’s restaurants—but very limited selections and mostly Spanish food. They were saying if I wanted to go somewhere to have Italian, to have sushi, I have to go all the way to the city. Then fortunately, or unfortunately (depends which side you are on), Mott Haven is really up and coming, and they have some sushi restaurants and things … but that’s all the way 132 Street. It’s not walking distance, and many people who live here—not like us, we have vehicles—so you have to go to subway, take maybe two-three stops, and you have to walk, ‘cause it’s on 6 train line, not on 2 and 5 train line. So for them they realize their immediate neighborhood of Melrose is lack of selections of what they are looking for, at least complementing to what they are used to. I think that’s the complaint that I get the most. I think it’s different people. The old timers here, they’re used to what they have and they are comfortable. For the newcomers who are coming in, they are looking for something that’s new, that’s not here. So there’s this tug of war in terms of understanding, saying well I need this service, yet the service that’s coming in is not going to be comfortable for the old timers. I think that’s where the differences are. So anyways, we love it. We love what we do. We have chosen this spot because we realize … we know that Melrose Commons is finishing, we know that Elton’s Crossing is being built up. We didn’t know is that the Music Heritage Center is going to be there. We bought the property without understanding it, but … now knowing that’s coming, this particular 161st Street is going to be a really, I guess desirable, and … a little bit cultural spot. I thought we would fit in really well, helping the patrons of the Music Heritage Center to have a place to gather. There’s also the Bronx Defenders who’s here, and they are very professionals. … We’ve kind of communicated with them and asking them what they are looking for in terms of their food choices and things of that. We do the best we can to understand the people who are already here, what they are looking for, incorporate into what we are thinking we can serve. We’re really excited. Rather excited. AH: And as far as—you touched a little bit on neighborhood change—it’s a process that just happens, not good or bad, but it’s something that just, the market goes one way? ML: I think everybody plays a part. I think I had mentioned. It’s either good or bad. It is a process. Everybody plays a part, so it depends who plays the part and when. It determines that the pace of transition. I don’t think transition is stoppable. I think it’s not benefitting who or what. It’s selfish to say that we need to preserve the neighborhood for the people who’s already here because people who are coming are also people—as I said from the very beginning—being displaced from other neighborhoods, and they deserve a place to live, and they deserve a standard that they think fits them. I think it’s just a continuation of the whole evolution of New York City as a whole. I think I’ve mentioned it to you the activists who were here, the Yolanda Garcia played a huge part by protecting the people who were here, not to be suddenly displaced, meaning they would have very little chance of participation or their voice to be heard. Yet, I don’t think it would have stopped the transition. I think it helped in a way of putting a voice into the whole design of the neighborhood. … Why is transition not stoppable? Because people grow. … I mean, when I say grow, people grow in age. As they grow in age, their needs are different. My neighbor, she is 82 years old. The property that I bought, the owner was 78-79. They’re coming to a spot that they’re transitioning out of the neighborhood. Now not everybody is, but certain populations are transitioning out of the neighborhood, and the newcomers are coming in tend to be younger. Their needs are going to be different. This is unstoppable because of the aging and the growth. Yolanda Garcia passed away, now what’s next? Of course we have WHEDco, we have other organizations that are here. Now, I think it’s just organizing some kind of voices to be part of the entire design, and I think that design, that voice, in that grand design, it’s important, yet I think the voice of people who’s coming in is also important. It’s just how to balance it out. It’s not to say one group is better, worse, than the other, it’s just they are different. They have different needs, and they all deserve to have a place that they’re comfortable with. They all deserve to have a place where they can go be safe, have a place to live, have a place to eat. I think those are the two very important things. That’s why, I think, my partner and I fit in really well, in terms of I’m in real estate—provides housing, where he’s in restaurant business—that provides the food. As long as the intention of all the group that’s behind it is good, that’s the most important thing. It’s not what’s happening, but … during the process the people behind it that’s more important. … AH: Yeah, before we end, I want to circle back—you mentioned a number of times the restaurant that your parents had in Brooklyn. What neighborhood is that and can you tell me a little bit about it, what it looks like? ML: Very very small. I think my father owned that particular restaurant from 1992—before I came to the States—to about 2004, 2005, something of that nature. Very small. … That neighborhood, for the last 20 years has been changing. It’s called Kensington, and I don’t know if you know much about Brooklyn, but Kensington was—I mean not in terms of demographic makeup or racial makeup, is not Hamden Heights, East Harlem, or Melrose—yet it was very similar in the way of working class, immigrants. That’s when we first came. And then, it changed. It became very Russian. And then it changed again: it became very mixed. That was probably, maybe like 10 years ago, it became very mixed. Now, Kensington is very Bangladesh, they even call it Little Bangla. People from the country next to India. That … maybe happened about five to seven years ago, and then continues to be. Yet, you have this whole continued pushing of gentrification where it used to be Park Slope, I’m sure you’ve heard of, and then the next stop on the F train is Windsor Terrace, and then the next stop is Kensington. So you do push that sense of … Actually your professor Rebecca lives in Kensington. So you have that so-called gentrification is the young professionals who keep pushing in from center of Manhattan, where universities and offices are, it kind of radiates out. And it keeps pushing. Now, Kensington is a very desirable neighborhood for young professionals. … Circling back to the restaurant, my dad sold the restaurant in 2004, but they continued to live there. They live right at the corner. Every time I go and visit them, I see the change. I see the people coming and going. And I see the restaurants are changing. Now, the Bangladesh restaurants not as good as they was five, six, seven years ago. Now, there are small little coffee shops. There are bar that are popping up, that not the Bangladesh people would eat or drink. But that’s how neighborhoods transition and I think that Melrose is same kind of transition. If I can say anything about our interview here—it’s different, it’s a progress. Neither good nor bad, it’s a progress. It’s different. And I think we should embrace difference. AH: Alright, I think that’s a great place to end. Thank you so much. ML: You’re welcome. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Mark Lu Oral History Transcript Subject The topic of the resource Transcript Description An account of the resource A transcript of Mark Lu's oral history, recorded on April 8, 2017 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arielle Hersh Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 8, 2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arielle Hersh Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Arielle Hersh and Mark Lu https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/82961c5a9c0ab1e8fa071d7aac998fa2.jpg 62deab836433db3b5f1ad23b7a7c94bd Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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Title A name given to the resource Mark Lu Profile Photo Subject The topic of the resource Photo Description An account of the resource A professional photo of Mark Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Mark Lu Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Arielle Hersh Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Mark Lu https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/2a3f92f567c6ae6235f71fdbaa824248.png aedc3f54ee03b586dd2b65349ee7f5a2 https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/06abc9be28a54523dfb5d88f7743343c.m4a 3b7a1663e0044051a12ba2b194abe359 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marty Rogers Subject The topic of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource An account of activism in the South Bronx by a lifelong member of the community. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dylan Garcia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Audio recording Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 5th 2017, April 21st 2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Marty Rogers, Dylan Garcia Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marty Rogers Audio Recording Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dylan Garcia https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/e85d27aa68168a3a8b6d8f7ed8b4d6e6.png 7658df386a06df103b6df44af4b6007f https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/16ed6b34ca5ef5c95d81b0faad058e8a.docx b5c9603d4d1f22fd49213622543b9895 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marty Rogers Subject The topic of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource An account of activism in the South Bronx by a lifelong member of the community. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dylan Garcia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Audio recording Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 5th 2017, April 21st 2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Marty Rogers, Dylan Garcia Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document Interviewee: Martin Rogers Interviewer: Dylan Garcia Date: April 5th, 2017 Place: Melrose Bronx, New York NY Transcriber: Dylan Garcia DG: I’m here with Marty Rogers and it is April 5th [2017] and this is for Displaced Urban Histories, NYU Gallatin, Spring 2017. I Guess we’ll just start off by you telling me a little about yourself, your history, where you come from, family, geography, culture, things like that. MR: Okay, my name is Marty Rogers, I’ve lived in New York all my life. My family’s been in New York all their life, my family’s been here so long… I think somebody in my mother’s family fought in the civil war, we always said to her which side, thank god she said the North. *laughs* Ethnically my family’s Irish, German, Swiss, and a few others. they’ve been here since the late 1800s, no connection to Europe, New York is our home always was our home, and I grew up in this community, in this neighborhood. My mom’s family moved from 71st and York Avenue on the East side to here in 1927 and we always said, “Mom why didn’t you stay on York and 71st?” and she said, “Well in those days it was so crowded and congested and polluted coming to the Bronx was like coming to the country.” *laughs* More open space. And this historically was farm country, there were breweries around here and we got good water, and we had space, and we had German people and all other people who wanted to drink beer. I have two older brothers and a younger sister, and I live here with my beautiful wife Francine we have three great kids and I grew up in this community and was educated in this community and a member of the Immaculate Conception Church our church is very important its served as an anchor for the community, Ive worked, lived here I’ve worked 38 years with the community resource center which is a local non for profit which ran group home for developmentally disabled people, they still do. Im basically retired now, but I stay busy, because theres so many things to be a part of in the community. So Thats a little bit of my background. DG: So your family has basically your family has lived in New York all there lives, do you know how that happened? Did they come through Ellis Island? MR: I don’t know if they got through Ellis Island they came by boat. They lived down on the 30’s when they first came down…. on Essex Street. Basically were here and we don’t know any body else who’s in our family who is anywhere else like out west or anything like that. So basically blue collar works. The story of my family like so many is education. When we were coming up, my generation was the first generation that was told you’re going to college. Before that it was only “rich people” who could go to college. My father left grammar school in the 7th grade- and but he-you thought you’d be murdered if you didn’t go to college, because education’s very important, same with my mom, my father had a 7th grade education, my mother had two years of high school but again they could read and write and do everything and wonderful people but the stress was you’re going to college. I had too older brothers they went to college I didn't really want to go but I had no choice, later on my mom said, “We never thought you’d go,” I said, “I didn't think I had a choice I thought you guys would kill me if I didn't go to college.” Plus in my time was the Vietnam War, so you went to college because you could get a college deferment to stay out of the Vietnam War. So no disrespect to the veterans but that was a terrible war and my fathers a World War II vet but he used to say to me and my brothers, “you’re not going to that war because that war’s ridiculous okay that not a true war… “ So thats basically it, I went to Colonel hayes High School. I’m Catholic by faith and got a great Catholic school education. Grammar school Colonel Hayes High School is a small catholic boys high school and I went to City College and thank god I was able to go to Hunter for a masters degree. DG: Tell me a little about your childhood, growing up here what was it like in sort of the neighborhood sense. MR: I always say this, it was a great place to grow up we grew up on 151st street almost the whole block is the school and around the block is the church. and in the summer we were a play street, which meant they closed the street, no traffic could go through and there was always some organized, usually though he church and we had games and we owned the street and we played all day long we played stick ball, I love stick ball we still play stick ball one day a year on our block. At night we played games like Ring-a-levio. We played so many street games but that’s how we did it in those days we played other guys on other blocks. There was a sense of ownership that this was our block. It wasn’t like gangs like we’d fight other people who’d come down the block first of all we weren't that tough. We just wanted to play sports, street games. In that sense it was good. Now there was a part of it that was… was there was just this prevailing sense that drugs were coming in strong, drugs create crime, crime makes the streets not safe, the buildings not safe, makes you scared, people break into buildings, they break into schools, churches, they don’t give a damn if they’re using and stores and cars and anything, all bets are off. There was just a sense when we were growing up, people mugged in the streets, snatching pocket books, there was just this sense that things were going awry, but I also thought that that was happening in the entire world, I thought the whole world was experiencing these things, also in the tv you did see, I remember when Dr. King was assassinated and you were like, “Oh my god the tension on thew streets…” Even though this always kind of a.. where I grew it was a racially mixed neighborhood, Black, White, Hispanic, largely Puerto Rican at that time, so it was a mixed community, we had friends of all races, that was a great equalizer, school was a great equalizer, I’m glad I had two older brothers because they were on the good curve of things and educating me on issues of the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War they were schooling me which was fabulous. So growing up then there was also this sense that all hell was braking loose okay it was just a ritual that just friends from your class, it almost seemed like it summertime one family just disappeared, like were moving “goodbye” and never came back. And people always said its true the phrase they use is White Flight, but I always say it was across the board flight, stable families, White Black and Puerto Rican it was a certain point in time there would be a straw that broke the camels back, and there would be no drama about it you’d just here so and so’s moving. And it was a sadness because you lost your friends. They were taking up stakes and going…North Bronx, we thought that was far away Fordham Road it’s not that far away, or other places, so that was part of the situation. So in that sense that was a shadow over the childhood but we thought it was normal and I appreciate growing up in this environment because it teaches you there’s evil in the world theres not evil people, drugs are horrible, normal people became addicted and did things they normally would not do like steal beat people up break into apartments terrible stuff. On the other hand I would never trade growing up here for nothing because it taught you so much and it was a great moral lesson, and at the end, grounded me in many ways. DG: Did you had any friend that you grew up with that got caught up by the drugs? MR: What was happening was people… it gets to 8th grade, high school, and then college was different ‘cuz that wasn’t in the neighborhood it wasn’t far but that was a big world going to college even though it’s City College it’s not far. What really happened was which still happens in New York people just disappear, they just kinda’ disappear and then you say, “What happened to so and so” and they would say, “Awe man I heard he’s messed up.” Or the family would move. But you saw, I remember a guy in particular who came back from Vietnam and he was a strapping dude, and then he looked like hell, and he was addicted to heroin and you were like, “What the hell” and the big thing out in my day all in the street was drinking, families almost gave you a medal if you drank beer because you at least weren't smoking pot. We were deathly afraid we would never - I mean I would never… heroin cocaine… the heavy drugs and again I say it’s a lesson because I saw it… I saw people stoned out of their mind, I saw people who looked like walking skeletons and I said, “What could drive you to that situation.” No judgment attached just it scared the shit out of you, so I was never going to go that way. Which was bad too because it made alcohol so acceptable I have a shit-load of friends who are in AA. It was kind of the time too, all bets were off, there was tremendous license. DG: So you had friend maybe that you were growing up with that maybe you were really close with when you were young and maybe they disappeared. MR: Yeah there were guys that just kinda disappeared, now that we had this play street and the school and the church were an anchor, I have friends now that I grew up with and I still go to a baseball game with them I’m… we were a band of brothers… I have childhood friends that come back for stickball or they come back to watch because their legs are shot.*laughs* I have childhood friends that I grew up with and thank god they’re in tact, and we get together and we… support each other and… you know… still know each other. Now there are always those people who… I don’t have any real blood close friends who just kinda’ fell of the… The guys you knew that you would say what ever happened to so and so and they’re like, “Yo I heard he’s screwed up I heard he lives in Florida now I heard he’s using I heard he got arrested” So there were those guys who became lost in the dark side. DG: Were there any places in the neighborhood that you avoided did you know spots that you knew not to go to? MR: Absolutely I mean the word was, our block, you felt safe on our block and the general vicinity, but there was certain sense that if you were going to go, like we have a lot of public housing; 99% of people who live in public housing are hard working, trustworthy, friends of mine, go to the church. 99%. 1 or 2% are knuckleheads, are in my opinion, not a scientific survey, are selling out of the apartments, heroin marijuana all kinds of crazy stuff oxycontin, all kinds of drugs and guns. And those 1 or 2 % are very successful of screwing up the buildings and peeing in the hallway and those of the things which are quality of life issues. So yes when we were growing up we would kinda go around but it was lets go around in a group not that we were in like gangs or crews but just for safety and you shouldn’t go by yourself, go with a few friends but I would say there would be a rubber band of like 6 blocks, stay within the 6 and then once you got beyond the 6 blocks you don't really know anybody. Uou may know 1 or 2 people but you don’t really-and they don’t know you and then you kinda gotta flip thing because I’m white that it easy to pick on the white guy, okay *laughs* and that wasn’t fun. So I always prided myself, I got mugged once or twice but my father taught me to fight, Not fist and cuff but we fought in the street to and you weren't going to let nobody push you around so you were going to fight but then you had to be carful if guys had a knife or something there were no guns in those days I mean you were worried about getting punched, hit with a stick, a chain maybe, maybe a knife but now it’s so bloody dangerous with these crazy knuckleheads with these guns. There was a perimeter. One place that was always safe to go was Yankee Stadium, we’d walk to Yankee Stadium we’d go in groups, we loved the Yankees, and thats our backyard its 12 blocks from us were proud of that too. There were definitely certain places you wouldn't go and there were certain places you would NEVER go at night and there still are. DG: Same sort of Places? Or they’ve moved around a little bit probably? MR: They’ve moved a little bit some have not moved much at all, but I will go there now, I will go there now, Because… why…because my neighbors live there. Now I’m going with young people sometimes from the church the school or the documentary center. So when we go back from the game you don’t say goodbye you say, “Wait were you going” they say, “I’m going home” you say, “no no i’ll walk you.” Especially the young ladies we walked them you walk a person to their door, but thats the New York thing. DG: Tell me a little bit more about how specifically you’re involved in the neighborhood how you got involved in the community with gardening and explained what you do specifically. I’m very pleased to always meet with the young people ‘cuz I admire you and I’m glad that theres an interest in this community. and i was in the community and you saw thing buildings being burnt. destruction and there was always this sense that you should be a good citizen and be involved, and then there was also a sense that the city’s corrupt and the politicians are totally corrupt and just stay away from that. And there was a sense that it was pointless you're hittin’ your head against the wall you cant fight City Hall. We were always somewhat socially conscious, but the tipping point was me and my wife got married and we made a conscious decision to be in this neighborhood and to raise children in this neighborhood and in 1986 and she was teaching in the South Bronx and I could walk to work, but right around the block is the firehouse and believe it or not in 1986 the city of New York said they were going to close our firehouse, and we said wait a minute, did you never here the story about how the South Bronx burned down? and you’re going to close the firehouse? It was the 23rd busiest firehouse in the city of New York engine 41. And the city said they were going to move it but by moving it they were going to close another Engine company. Well make a long story short, and it was a long story, from 1986 to 1990 we fought to have it not moved, public hearings, mobilization, demonstrations in the street. And this was all brought about by a wonderful group called the South Bronx People for change and our church we were the Social Action Committee in our church, and if we knew what we were getting into I don”t think we would’ve done it, but we got into a war with the city of New York. and allied with us in the course of this were elected officials and [we] really had to grab the by the collar sometimes and the fire department union and I met so many incredible people and we fought, fought, fought and we got money in the city budget to keep our fire house, we had a lot of great support by the city council and the mayor was Ed Koch and on May 4th 1990, Ed Koch in spite of all the money that was there, he close the firehouse and that son of a… we… he broke our heart and he closed our firehouse, and some people told us, “you guys fought a great fight you have nothing to be ashamed of but its over.” and now we said, “wait a minute, what more can you do to us? now you close our firehouse,” so we did not stop, we continued to fight and put it in the public eye we had a lawsuit we kept pushing trying to breathe life into that bloody thing and Koch was leaving office and everyone who was running for mayor we brought every single one of them to this block and pointed at that building and said, “yo are you going to open a firehouse?” and they all promised, and David Dinkins became the mayor and David Dinkins reopened our firehouse. But what happened was in 14 months it was closed, 14 people died in this area, and we said that would happen. We were a high fire incident area, arson still not as bad as it was, but that was the tipping point, and we fought and they said “You cant fight City Hall” we said, “yes you can, now you might get your ass kicked but you got to fight.,.” So that was an issue and was all about public safety it was about our buildings and it was also about pride. You come to our block? to close our firehouse when its this busy? are you crazy? you would never have gone to Riverdale, you would never have to the Upper East Side or the West Side in the 80’s and tried to close their fire house you wouldn’t you came to the South Bronx, it was Environmental Racism and it affected the environment, you came down to a community of color which had a horrible voting record, we should be ashamed of ourselves we vote like a bunch of knuckleheads, we don't vote and we had elected officials who were clueless and they've gotten better i’ll say that. This fight galvanized the community on many level. the churches the civic groups, when it reopened hallelujah. The next phase was they were tied to other crazy things and now we had the South Bronx People for Change, whatever are the issues this is how you organize: community based organizing. and we had the tools and we had the structure and we had allies throughout the whole South Bronx and so that was a wonderful thing and then we wanted to get a traffic light, 12 years we fought for a traffic light we finally got a traffic light. Gimme a break it doesn't take 12 years to get a traffic light in Times Square area it Doesnt take 12 years to get a traffic light in Riverdale, it takes 12 years to get a traffic light in the South Bronx. Why? why? okay? It begs the question, “Gimme a break will ya?” And also one or two [hone calls to the elected official he gets on the things and I’m not talking about under the table I’m talking about right on top of the table just get it done okay so people don’t get hit by cars, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand this stuff. So finally something positive in the sense of… there was an abandoned lot on 151st street and one of the brothers in the church said why don’t we make a community garden there, and that was a good sign to me that we were saying were going to be proactive instead of reactive. Fighting the city which we get put in a reactive situation. lets create a garden and it was done in conjunction with my job at that point in time which was group homes for handicapped people and the garden would be something that would be green for the community, grow vegetable plants and all the beautiful things, and also get people who have been isolated because of their physical disability and mental retardation, they lived in institutions back in the day. This is a good place where they could garden and meet people and get involved. And the community garden came out of that and it’s been amazing and it brought together lots of people, we have music in the garden, we grow stuff, we have a barbecue pit, we have celebrations, we celebrate Halloween, Easter we, celebrate lots of things in the garden, and it’s become a community center and the point of all of this… I’m going around the Mulberry Bush - “how’d you get involved.” I did not get involved because i’ll be honest with you because of the importance of greenery, that was part of it, but… it was anger. It was also survival… and it was also like, “Wait a minute other parts of the community have great resources how come we don’t what it wrong with us.” And part of it is you say, “Okay take responsibility” and part of is I don't talk about the man the man dump on us even though I do believe the man does dump on us whoever the man is the establishment we had to get some creditability and we also said to the powers that be, and we had to learn to use the system in the City of New York to say if we want a garden we’ll get a garden you know follow the rules and get a garden. So all the focus was the children. Our kids deserve a nice, green, safe place to plant and learn something and come together. The fight for the firehouse was to save buildings but the most vulnerable people were the seniors the children the people with disabilities, and thats what drove us crazy that these sons of… of… guns would dare to put us in that position. Well, you put us in that position were going to fight. And thats what we did. I would rather spend more time being proactive because we still seem like we’re fighting so many other powers that be. But thanks to the South Bronx People for Change it gave us the tools and mechanisms to see things in our community which need to be improved. And then use the system to get it done. Do your due diligence and do your work and make it happen and thats what we learned to do. It’s and intoxicating feeling. It happens as a group and happens as a community and it’s empowering and it teaches the young people this is how you live your life, wherever you go, you don’t let nobody treat you like a second class citizen and don't let nobody dump on you. But you have to create a group thats going to work together to try to have a good quality of life and you deserve that. It’s not silly. For example the firehouse, the firehouse has been there since 1924 maybe before that, we said and were people of faith, the South Bronx People of Change had Mosques, Catholic churches Lutheran churches Episcopal churches, we didn’t have a synagogue but if there was one they would’ve been on board we would’ve tried to bring in our Hebrew brothers. we said this, god almighty but our firehouse up there because it was to save peoples lives. Ed Koch has got it all wrong. Because he thinks he has the power to come down here. Now he had the power and he exerted that power and he did it and what did it get him, 14 people died, he didn’t even save money for the city, knucklehead. There was a play on broadway once, “Your arm’s to short to box with god.” God put it there and we kept saying, “God, put it back” and he did put it back, now we organized and we pushed on the ground, and in the courts, with the elected officials and it was successful, but we give all the power and thanks to God, everyone else helped and that’s a good thing. And the same with the community garden it’s an ongoing thing it’s a lot of work to keep a garden going, but that’s a long way around, a lot of that stuff for me personally came from anger and indignation that, “here we go again,” and “Just stop doing this to our people, this is ridiculous, you guys, stop neglecting us, stop looking the other way. and stop saying what you say, ‘We can get away with this stuff in the South Bronx.’” and its been our legacy, waste transfer station, we had a medical waste incinerator, a lot of issues they dumped on us because we were politically disorganized and because some people were taking money under the table, so that’s a little, but where it all came from now I'm glad that historians and students are learning what happened to us because we were like soldiers in the trenches, and if somebody asked whats going on, “I don't really know whats going on they're shootin’ at me,” we don’t want to be violent were pacifists, we practiced civil disobedience, we stood arm and arm, we are not against the police but they sent the police, but we were in the trenches, so we’re fighting, when the smoke clears it’s important to understand the context and what exactly happened, and why? So it’s not repeated so that we can pass on these tools which we can pass onto the next generation. we say this look i touch that firehouse every day of my life, they may want to come back, we watch that firehouse like a hawk, and the same with the garden, our garden was on the list to be auctioned in the city of New York, and we had to fight for our garden, same thing, a lawsuit citywide with other gardening group, demonstration. They used to come with a bulldozer at five in the morning and drive it in and try to trash the garden and then by the time you got there it was back to an empty lot again. And say, “sorry guys, close it padlock it.” Putting the police in that terrible position, because the cops don't like that either you're using the cops to be like the Gestapo on the community. DG: So they bulldozed your garden and you had to keep building it back up? MR: Well no see they didn't bulldoze our garden, but we had a plan we had those airhorns, we had the people across the street with airhorns and a phone chain and if someone saw a bulldozer at six in the morning and we were going to run up and lay down on the sidewalk, and say, “Go ahead run it over” But I know other gardens Cabo Rojo garden was bulldozed one of my buddies climbed up the tree, and was in the tree and it was like a standoff, now they bulldozed as far as they could and he wasn’t coming out of that bloody tree, it was a demonstration it was to try to prove, but eventually he came down, I don't know if they arrested him, but that was the story with him, but they bulldozed a lot of gardens and I was also part of a group called South Bronx United Gardeners, there were 22 gardens around here we wanted to save them all, I knew we weren't going to save them all, but I said what if we save half, gardens have to stick up for themselves, South Bronx United Gardeners were successful because half of the gardens were saved, then the developers came and nothing against the developers, but we were like, “We took over these gardens when no one was down here and we built them into beautiful gardens. now you wanna come here?” The garden is city land okay? There was a building there once that became usually burned down and then the city demolished the building and then all that rubble laid in that lot and some groups had the idea lets make a garden and they cleared all that out and they put all that dirt in and they put this nice garden, they used to pay 1 dollar a year for that lease and its city land. now technically they were supposed to tell you… half of the gardens were saved because evolutions… the gardens became true community resources and true community meeting places and we have very little green space around here and they became a little pocket of heaven for some people. and they are our green space, they’d become also educational centers because the kids are learning stuff the kids our going to come in our garden [in a couple of weeks] see real plants see real compost bins, see real stuff, right next store so they don't have to go to the Botanical Garden, well they should go… but they could walk right next store and see the whole thing, cherry trees, birds, so it created… it evolved way beyond our wildest dreams which is a wonderful thing which happens… DG: so just to give a time frame, when did this whole thing start, with the firehouse and everything. MR: They started with the firehouse in 1986, we fought for 3 years, and in 1989 they closed, on May 4th 1989 and it reopened July 1st 1990, 14 months later and thank god it’s been open. and I don't think they’ll ever mess with it again but you can never say never. And then the garden came around… it was before that, it started in 1983, but the garden started to get threatened in the 1990s so then things that you think like we got our garden it’s great it’s beautiful… and then all the sudden you started hearing, “They’re going to auction your garden off?” And your like “what?” The garden has a block and a lot number and for the block and the lot number for all the vacant lots it’s listed as… a vacant lot… so some guy downtown sees a block and lot number in the Bronx and says for some reason, “I like 151st street, thats my lucky number, it’s really cheap, but they don't know its a community garden because on the paper it says vacant lot and then it became a community garden, that was a citywide lawsuit and Elliot Spitzer was the attorney General, finally it was all ironed out, a lot of demonstrations, people got arrested, civil disobedience, it was peaceful. finally the city agreed… two major garden groups, Bette Middler’s Group, New York Restoration and the trust for public land, bought a nice bunch of all these community gardens, the Parks Department said, “Okay we won’t touch these gardens and the rest can go to these developers.” Some gardens got consolidated, our garden, we didn't know it, our garden was saved we were part of the lawsuit, this particular day we knew they were going to court and they were, “like we should know by three o’clock” and I called the lawyers and Giuliani was the mayor then. they said “your garden is saved” Giuliani… they struck a deal but your garden is saved. We were like “who?” they said someone bought your garden but not a developer, a trust. We didn’t know it took two weeks we found out it was the Trust for Public Land so our garden will be a Garden forever, whatever forever means… so our garden is saved. but again they were going to come down with bulldozers and clear our garden. but thank god our garden was saved… that would've been somewhere around 1993, whenever Elliot Spitzer, whenever the agreement came with the Giuliani administration, but it never would've happened if the pressure was not brought city wide, but Elliot Spitzer was the champion of that… he did some crazy stuff… but he ironed out that whole agreement him and his staff, i’ll give him credit his people used to come to the South Bronx United Gardeners meetings and… the classic story: David and Goliath…so the Israelites saw the Goliath and said “We can not win,” and David said “he’s a giant, how can i miss him?” And he took the rock and hit the giant because he was a big target… and thats what I saw that we were doing. And they, “Said you can’t fight City Hall are you crazy?” and we were like, “no.” After the firehouse was reopened, there was an article in the Daily News, “A little engine that could” you can fight City Hall and win because thats what happened. you might get you're ass kicked but you got to fight, if they beat you fair and square or they beat you dishonestly then they beat you but at least you just didn't fold, you put up a fight, but the fight is never over, and they told us the fight was over at 41, and it looked over we were crying in the street, then we got madder, we got even crazier because what the hell can you do now? you took the bloody firehouse… we fought with a new anger and energy. but always would hope… it was about Koch but it wasn't about… we saw Koch at parades and we’d say, “Do the right thing, Ed… You can’t close the company.. .you’re doing the wrong thing.. .” He refused to look at the big picture, same thing with the garden. I know it’s about money. You can put up a thing and collect taxes and taxes, I know that, but you see the kids come on earth day, you see the joy the children have, can we just have a little piece a green? Don't you have enough money? When is enough enough? It’s a quality of life issue, and we deserve that. And we built it. It's a wonderful thing when the community achieves. It’s a powerful thing to the children. DG: So it sound like what you’re saying in the beginning when you started our with all this stuff the city was like this unstoppable madness and you had no say. Do you think that changed over time, because of the community’s work became more aware of you guys? MR: Yes I think because of the South Bronx People for Change, which was here fighting for firehouse, over in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx was fighting against drugs and prostitution with the same tools. and I think we built kind of a track record, which somebody once said to us, “you guys are like pit bulls and they just don’t want to deal with you anymore.” We went through the proper channels and we were schooled by some brothers in Brooklyn because they closed their firehouse int he 1970s, we went to the fire commissioner’s house we went to the mayor’s house, every parade in New York City and we’d go with sign and when we saw the mayor running we’d yell “Don’t close engine 41,” and we know they were like, “we don’t want to hear about their house any more.” because we were such a giant pain in the house and that politics get in their ear. Again were a faith based organization there’s a story in the scripture Jesus tells… where the unjust judge, the widow comes and says, “You have to give me my share” and he says, “no I’m not giving it to you, I fear neither god nor man” and she’s a widow so she has no children or husband to fight for her so she keeps knocking on the door and eventually he says once more, “I fear neither god nor man but give her what she wants just to shut her up.” and part of our thing was our persistence. It also about speaking truth to power. why would you close our firehouse? answer me, Don’t gimme no bullshit about money. That the question, why? If you’re mad enough to do it come to the block with the bulldozers meet with the people explain it to the people talk about some options and then do it but they don't they send their minions down here. Buts that’s right, it was this machine and we would just get run over and peel ourselves like in cartoons off the sidewalk and say, “They're right we are a bunch of idiots around here,” and then a lot of self hate comes in and you know… but what we experienced was learning the tools to say there’s ways to addressing this. trying to speak truth to power, using the system and then going around the system and putting pressure… and I think it did build a track record we’re still fighting in this community, were fighting in the New York City housing authority to get peoples apartments cleaned up now South Bronx People for Change doesn't exist anymore there’s a new group called South Bronx Churches, not really that new, and they've done a lot of good stuff in the community but it’s the same concept, organize, put pressure on the politicians, hold them accountable. Our elected officials in that paster were sometimes very week, and normally thats their job to hold them accountable the lines get blurred because sometimes they all seem to be at the same table but in the same bed with each other, they might say something to your face and then walk away and say, “Do what you want, don't listen to those people they’re a pain in the neck,” and we told all of our people you got to fight with us, and we made enemies and we said if you can’t do it, we’ll vote you out, we’re telling you to do your job, don’t you get paid to do this and they get offended, but we’re trying to have a nice relationships, and we’d pull that card… it’s not a card it’s to hold them accountable. And that’s what they do in Riverdale they tell them to their face. They call he politicians and say, “You sit down we’re going to talk to you” and “You go to City Hall and do this,” and they represent the people, around here it was like a third world country its like a South American dictatorship, and these guys in power were out to lunch, making a lot of money, and they’re in bed with the developers as opposed to representing the people in the street. and it will never end but the struggle continues on many other issues still. DG: You say a lot they had the tools the resources when you started out. Tell me a little bit more what kind of things they had how they helped how that community built over the years a success, what sort of tools they had what sort of resources they had. MR: It was a small group that got funding through the Catholic church and some government money for like inner city justice campaigns and basically what they would do is: base up. people power… it was bilingual, Spanish and English, people power, saying, “would you like us to come to your church?” and they provided training, my wife went to the training and I came behind her and she got all of these things going, examine the power structure and who has the power in this situation and you go from the mayor and city council and community board, and you learn the system and then we walked that walk, so they would help you with that, also what they really said was “What is your issues?” First these building on Cortlandt Avenue were being demolished and we say, “Stop demolishing them, we got blocks and blocks of empty block, renovate them, there’s good structures.” We used to go around with a stencil and stencil the building, “This building is claimed by the people.” It meant nothing but again it was what are these people doing in the street? Civil disobedience, this is our building don’t dare touch it. On top of that there were people meeting with HUD and with the city saying, “stop doing this,” young people of color and white, it was a great group learning the power structure, with Koch we’d try to hit the community board, the community board would say, “Well you know we’ll try but…” …”okay write a letter to tell the mayor”…, “I don’t know if I can write a letter you know” cuz you saw they were afraid, they didn’t want to get on the bad side of the mayor and we’d say, “Okay to hell with them.” You saw it they’re in bed, so don’t find them and then the borough president “Well you know the mayor you know how the mayor’s a pain in the ass.” “He is a pain in the ass but wait a minute.” I’ll never forget, once we went to a meeting where there was elected officials, our best friends with the fire union, we went bang! screaming and yelling and shit and when we left the meeting one of my friends from the fire union called me, and said “They had no idea you guys were so militant” and I said “good, good” You can’t buy us you cant buy us they’d say, “what if we just put ambulances in the building, what if we gave you guys like two thousand dollars for you organization.” And we could not be bought cuz we’d say, “no ambulances, 41 and 41 alone.” A lot of people can be bought, organizations can be bought, but that organization was so incredible, for example this is what… and I threw this out I had to go give a talk at the gentrification conference about oral history and this was basically ***explains the chart** One of our friends in Brooklyn said, “Take ‘em to court get some lawyers pro bono, reach out to any group in the city, fire protection, community gardens.” It’s about faith it’s about believing, its about churches, churches are full of nuts and dedicated people, churches scared the shit out of elected officials, they’d say, “Wait a minute how did all these… they got muslims, catholics… lutherans.” We got a letter from Jesse Jackson just before he ran for president back in the late 80’s, we got a letter from the Rainbow Coalition, we were so proud of that, I swear when Ed Koch saw that he went to the bathroom and said, “Wait a minute, gimme a break, why are they reaching out across the country are they nuts? this is nothing, what are they crazy?” But we reach people of faith and when you have demonstrations, they come. Community awareness make the neighborhood realize community action, we had a prayer vigil every night at 7 O’clock in front of the people one or two people rain cold snow somebody would put a hand on the firehouse and pray thats what we believed. And then the press, this was before the internet, mailing things, snail mail, and the press was wonderful to us, and that’s a big job… this is what the South Bronx People for Change… that you have to hit this on every front. At least once a week you tried to hit somewhere, you tried to do something whether it was a phone call, a letter, something, and you just don't let it die. thats hard, keep breathing life into this thing. Everyone wants it do die I swear to god! Even the pastor in the church sometimes will… when our firehouse reopened the paster came and he’s a good man and he came and, we knew this, the pastor came and blessed it, the church bells rang, it was like a movie it was fabulous. He said to Francine my wife, “I never thought you guys would get this firehouse reopened,” and I said, “I knew it… but you’d in the kitchen… “he’s a knucklehead…” because he didn’t have faith, well i’m not saying he didn't have faith he had faith in his religion but he had been a beaten down dude he didn't have faith in the community… and were walking on water we didn't know what the hell we were doing we were a bunch of knuckleheads. and you know… they say courage is fear that has said its prayers. We were scared shitless, we were getting beat up constantly… not literally emotionally. But we kept going forward because we were together, it was a unity. so i dunno… DG: Now about the incinerator, It was late 90’s, there was a medical waste incinerator over on 138th Street and Locust Avenue which is about two miles from here a mile and a half, it was amedical waste incinerator and they would only burn red bag medical waste. It was the only functioning incinerator left in the city of New York, but they built it, they BUILT it in the 90’s. The jewish community of Riverdale said to some people in the South Bronx, “you know they’re building a medical waste incinerator near you?” we said, I don’t think so, who does that anymore. Red bag medical waste is a biological problem it could have disease, so theres a problem there, so when you burn it you burn plastic so now you create a chemical problem. You try to solve a biological problem but you create a chemical problem so the point of it was this technology of incineration was antiquated, you don’t burn anything anymore, you autoclave everything. So this is part of what we had to learn: autoclave means you get all the red bag stuff and you steam it and it becomes a giant block of plastic and the pathogens are dead, and you created steam and steam is not pollution, you could use it has landfill you could recycle it, and we were like wait a minute are you guys crazy? And they hadn’t even finished building and it was “No… it’s going to be staate of the aaart” *fake reassuring* and we were like, “State of the art my ass!” So they built it and community pressure now, tried to get a lawsuit, environmental impact study and a lot of elected officials were in bed with that company that built it. the head of the community board was indicted by the FBI because he took fifty thousand dollars from that medical company that built that incinerator. And we were like. “here we go again.” the South Bronx Clean Air Coalition, and that was environmental racism 101 and we did a lot of stuff to fight and push, honestly I did not want to get involved with that I’m done, the firehouse, the garden, we won I’m going to take a vacation, but the guys I got to know them and they’re my brothers now and it’s that voice in your head “oh bullshit i ain’t takin this no more” and it’s “what are you doing to our kids are you guys crazy?” they are nuts they are… their drunk with money, and they see money, and we’re secondary and their pocket came first. and the medical waste incinerator… burning, burning, i smelt it many times, but you would not smell smoke if you got close to it you'd smell a horrible nasty smell of like decaying food and of like a thing that gets in the back of your throat… like a dead body. we fought we fought we fought, legal, the churches again, but the South Bronx clean air coalition was its own entity, we applied a lot of the same principle, we had demonstration and everything. We brought the kids, Bronx Lebanon hospital.. to had the medical waste incinerator a hostpital had to hold the license. Bronx Lebanon Hospital held the license. We used to meet with the heads of BLH and say, “What’s wrong with you? How could you do this in could conscious.” Becasue they got all their medical waste done for nothing. We used to go to BLH with 2-3 busloads of kids lay on the sidewalk and draw chalk marks and every kid would have a mask on and then the kids write the name and we’d say, “You're killing us,” this was before everyone was talking about asthma, we were ahead of the curve. and they were like “It’s not really… it doesn't effect the air” they tell you this to your face and… we fought we fought we fought… at that time the governor was Pataki who was a republican and D’Amato who was a senator was a republican. and we had gained critical mass and the looked really bad, and more stuff was coming out in the press and we wouldn't let up and we kept bringing busload for demonstrations. *giggling* get in the back of the bus with 60 kids and then the guys from Parks Department would have to come out and look at these sidewalks, I’m sure they got those guys with the hoses. It makes everyone who walks into BLH, “wait a min whats going on?” and you say, “The hospital’s holding the permit for the incinerator and they’re burning the medical waste and we have asthma.” and it begs the question, “why are you doing that?” We finally got… the company agreed to get an expert in to come and examine the place they paid for the guy, they gave him total access and he wrote a scathing report how horrible it was in there, bags popping needles falling on the floor poor workers are picking em up with their hand with gloves, throwin’ em back in, the whole thing was a goddam disaster, we always said this he wrote a report that was the torpedo that sunk the ship but they bought the torpedo they paid him… and then Pataki was the hero now where the hell he came from… we don’t care who does it just do it and he did it and it closed. It is still a waste transfer station but they don’t burn no more, and they had these stacks, we wanted reassurance that they were not going to burn again, because they kept the stacks up ad we knew that they had the mechanism. we went to their headquarters in Brooklyn with two busloads of kids and they came out like “what do you want? were no burning no more.” and one of the kids said why don't you take down the stacks? and we were like yeah why don't you take down the stacks? and then you know how things work a few days later, “were going to take down the stacks okay” that was our victory, they had a crane and they said, “Who’s going to press the button to lift the crane?” and they said the borough president and we said “The same borough president who looked the other way when they built that thing?” I don’t think thats right and I know the borough president he’s a nice guy, but we were like “really? The Borough President? I don’t know if thats right.” And they were like. “Well who do you want and we were like one of the kids.” It was the kid and the borough president *giggles* so I always told the kids after that and then we asked them for reparation money, and a lot for the churches and the schools got ten, twenty thousand dollars from Browning-Ferris Industries, and I always told the kids, “Now some neighborhoods will learn history, but to the day you die I want you kids not to just learn the history of the incinerator, you made history, you closed that thing.” Those kids wrote letters to the offices and they're learning how the system works, and don’t spin your wheels on low level people who cant effect it who can effect it the governor go right to the governor and keep going. and then look at that gov. and say how long does he got (If he ain’t gonna change his mind) so lets get the guys who are running next, these are not quick battles these are wars. once your into you’re into it, you're getting yourself beat up a lot and it’s emotionally draining. When it’s a community we joke sometimes and its like war stories like “Remember the days when we did this?” And you cant do this anymore you’d be arrested in a New York minute now-a-days or you gotta get a permit, we would do stuff bang we’d just do stuff, and it was not that far away 1990’s, 2000’s. One of my main points that I keep saying is, “If you could bottle up all that energy do you know how many parks we could’ve built and you made us fight an incinerator? Why didn’t you just let us do it the first week and let us bottle that energy and build more parks and more community gardens and paint murals and do positive things?” But it's the hand were dealt don’t cry about it and just… that model works and those are the tools we learned from the South Bronx People for Change, and they didn't invent them. In hindsight it work and it brings together people, it take a toll and it brings people together. DG: So you said your retired what sort of things do you nowadays in the community? MR: Yeah yeah… I’m never retired till they put me in the ground. Now I’m trying to be involved. There’s always that reactive stuff that we have to you know keep the wolves away from the doors cuz the wolves keep coming and they smell money down here and blood so i still try to be involved in improving police protection, i do help a little bit with the South Bronx churches, which is going to public meetings putting pressure on NYCHA. There’s a big public meeting here with the police commissioner in a few weeks in our church we’re gonna have five hundred people here and say what we need we got some good steps, but they’re not giving us enough cops. But then I stay involved with the garden of course, and I’m all now about proactive, the school has a garden club, I help with the garden club once a week, it’s all fun in games, I firmly believe in that too. We have a stick ball tournament once a year, we have the Easter egg hunt, our garden got totally renovated last year, fabulous, I volunteer at the botanical garden I’m on a committee, big deal… ‘cuz thats the other thing try to be connected across the board, the Bronx Land Trust I’m involved with that, yeah I do stay involved with “The greening community” and then my wife’s a teacher so if I can help her school. And I’m involved with the documentary center, anything to help them keep the building clean, we’ll build frames for the next show, this again elevates our community. I myself, I’m from the Bronx when the documentary deicide to come in I said to myself is this guy crazy? Does he know where he’s putting this documentary center, and the answer is he is crazy, *laughs* but I love him he’s my brother now because you would do it if you weren't *laughs* but it’s made such a magnificent difference. So anything thats involved in young people and energy and positivity, and the magical word is fun. If it’s fun for the kids, and if it’s not fun lets make it fun. What was important to me was play, thats what let us feel safe, that we played games and what we learned from play was yeah were all different colors and teams and we could get really mad at each other, fight with each other, and then it had to end, and you had to shake hands. So I stay busy and there’s enough things that are going on I play music in the church *phone rings* Im a musician…*leaves to answer phone* DG: I think were going to wrap up pretty soon, do you have any more things to say on that MR: No… Me personally i’m so grateful to God, I think live is a gift, i have experience now, theres so many wonderful people i also think its very important to be part of a larger community and I’m never bored, now that’s selfish and personal, but if I can do something to help this community because I’m a part of it, this community gave me so much, so i wanna be able to give back so that how I feel. DG: so when you tell someone where you're from what do you tell them? MR: You can always have fun with it but when people say where ya from I say I'm from the Bronx and if they ask where i say the south Bronx everyone one in the world *laughs* has heard about the South Bronx. a lot of people say “You Don’t still live down do you” so I get that a lot and then I get “You didn't live your family down there do you” we raised each other okay? Yeah you still get that eyeball that theres something wrong with you or you're a masochist. DG: You feel like the South Bronx as a whole is your community and neighborhood and not just melrose? MR: well melrose is my stomping ground but no I’m a product of the South Bronx, and maybe theres some sense of pride, but we've been through hell we’re a much maligned community and I've met people who taught me we need to be the champions of our community and we also need to be honest reflectors in our community. I don’t want to be running this bloody neighborhood but to say sometimes among each other, I like this expression that you young people use, “We gotta step up our game, we have to improve our conduct” now some peoples perceptions are wrong too but I’m proud to say I’m from the South Bronx and I’m proud to have been here all my life and I’ve so many different things. DG: If you’d left what would you miss most, I would miss the people, I would miss my church and the school, and I would miss the people, because this thing is full of characters to and the familiarity, I feel at home here, I’m not blind, I feel safe, now there’s certain blocks certain times of day I would not safe, I could walk down my own block if I saw like six dudes walking up the block I say to myself I might be in some serious trouble here *laughs* but I have plan b, my escape route, if I need to use my escape route, but I would miss the people. The energy, there’s a tremendous energy in this community, these relationships are my entire life, these things I’m involved in, I would miss the overlap in this community if were going to do something we tell the documentary center, we tell the church we tell the paster, we tell the people on the block now they all may not come but theres a good possibility there a lot of overlay and people who are good in this neighborhood, I’m surprised that their egos go in their back pocket, the young man you met Ryan, he’s a wonderful young man he’s a scholar he’s going to a fabulous school and his family comes to the garden and they help. Mario his father, we’ll do something at the garden, and i say i know he ain’t coming and he comes like the Calvary, quiet and he helps, and that sense of we need each other. somebody taught me this a doctor of epidemiology who helps us with our firehouse Dr. Rod Wallace that poor people, working class people whatever you wanna say, we don't have a safety net of bank accounts, property, jewelry, stocks and bonds, what is our safety net? Each other we need each other we literally need each other to get ourselves out of a jam sometimes. To borrow something to assist each other, things that we really need and we depend on each other, a good majority of the time, our wealth, our treasure is each other, and our institutions like our churches and our parishes and things like that. DG: Great. awesome, *laughs* Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Audio Recording Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marty Rogers smiling outdoors https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/41282bcac470d94de470037736e70ff8.png 7cd28d81401e30e83b68554338bc72ec https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/aae8b0f24192db9d8de5eacca60e2125.jpg f2ee381f16b2d73bf27717844d0d7f85 https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/226dd39bf39d34bdd312ca534355d0b5.png b222224b3ace5720f25dfa382d73aebe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Marty Rogers Subject The topic of the resource Oral History Description An account of the resource An account of activism in the South Bronx by a lifelong member of the community. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dylan Garcia Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Audio recording Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 5th 2017, April 21st 2017 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Marty Rogers, Dylan Garcia Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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Title A name given to the resource Meet the Supremes Subject The topic of the resource Adrienne McAllister Description An account of the resource First record released by The Supremes, one of Adrienne's favorite artist groups in 1962 on Motown Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Diane Ross Mary Wilson Florence Ballard Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Adrienne McAllister Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Stacie MacDonald Language A language of the resource English https://www.melrosestories.org/files/original/08ebba76d8f967b2e94e65aa9c3ffaf4.jpeg 29b23338b68f9980a4396cbd8b67f493 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bobby Sanabria Subject The topic of the resource Exhibit Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nathalia Sanchez Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Bobby Sanabria, Nathalia Sanchez Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nathalia Sanchez Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource April 2017 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Melrose Houses Subject The topic of the resource Bobby Sanabria Description An account of the resource Photo of Melrose Houses, where Bobby Sanabria was raised. The space surrounded the housing projects were often transformed to accommodate neighborhood concerts. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Apartamentos.com Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived https://www.apartments.com/es/melrose-houses-bronx-ny/8v8yvq2/ Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Nathalia Sanchez Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Apartamento.com