Norwood News

Speaking before a crowd of at least 1,000 people at St. Nicholas of Tolentine School on Oct. 25, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. said the battle for living wages jobs at the Kingsbridge Armory was the beginning of a movement for economic justice in the borough, calling it “our new revolution here, our new civil rights movement.”

The Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition organized the forum, called “A Blueprint for the Bronx,” to lay out its agenda on a broad range of issues. But most of the crowd said they were there to support community efforts to ensure living wage jobs and school space at the Kingsbridge Armory.

People came from all over the Bronx, many straight from church. They arrived singing hymns in English and Spanish and carrying signs and banners with the name of their congregations.

A group from University Heights Presbyterian Church stood outside singing “Hallelujah” and clapping as they waited to enter the gym. Rev. Brenda Berry said they had come “in support of the Armory project, to fight for full-time jobs for the Bronx and a whole new focus on what the Bronx needs.”

Inside, people packed the gym in the basement of the Tolentine Church, filling folding chairs, bleachers, and standing along the walls, waving small flags that read “Blueprint for the Bronx.” Signs on the walls said, “Say no way to poverty pay!” and “Save our jobs! Vote No!”

Up on stage, elected officials and clergy members sat facing the audience, and for two hours, Coalition organizers, clergy, and local elected officials spoke, interspersed with music, dance, and a poetry recital. Coalition leaders pulled elected officials up to the microphone and asked them to answer straight on the coalition’s agenda, ranging from banking reform to, of course, the Armory.

Switching back and forth between Spanish and English for the benefit of the crowd, Diaz focused on the Armory, and what he called, “our new revolution here, our new civil rights movement.”
“I want to do business in the Bronx, [but] it is not radical to simply say, a) we should protect surrounding businesses and b) we should have jobs and living wages,” Diaz said. “You want to do business, we can do business. But business has to be good for everybody. “

Diaz added that the political pressure on him to support the development deal with Related Companies before a community benefits agreement has been signed has been intense. “But I know the Bronx has my back!” he shouted, bringing the cheering crowd to its feet.

Later, Diaz told the Norwood News he didn’t yet have the support of the full Bronx delegation in the City Council, which will vote on the project next month. “If Related does not want to negotiate, I will ask the City Council to vote no,” he said.

Diaz said the vote earlier this month at the City Planning Commission, in which two other borough presidents directed their representatives to vote with him against the plan, was encouraging: “I think the tone is changing,” he said. “I think they [Related] realize we have a lot of support outside the borough.”
After the forum, some of the crowd marched to the Kingsbridge Armory, breaking into intermittent shouts of “Si, se puede!” and “Yes, we can!”

Queens Councilman Tony Avella, chair of the City Council’s Zoning and  Franchises committee, which will get to vote first on the proposal before it heads to the full Land Use Committee, turned up to tell the crowd, “Until you get what you want, I’m voting no.”
As the crowd dispersed, NWBCC organizers passed out small “prayer cards” with residents’ wishes for the Armory written on them, for protesters to tie to the Armory fence.

As she fastened a string of the prayer cards to the fence, Anne Gibbons, a Kingsbridge resident who came with members of her congregation at New Day Church, said she was hopeful that momentum was building around the issue. “This could be the start of a new direction across the city,” she said, when elected officials “take a political risk in favor of the people for a change.”