Dear Speaker Quinn: I know you’re not here tonight, but hopefully you are listening. If you recall, we welcomed you to East Harlem when you came to hear our concerns about affordable housing. (Of course, you ignored the solution we proposed to turn thousands of vacant lots and empty buildings in El Barrio and elsewhere…
Tag Archive for Melissa Mark-Viverito
EDC, Melissa, Yolanda and The Julia - Rumble in El Barrio?
Note: There has been some controversy for some time over charges of the mismanagement of the city-owned building housing the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center in Manhattan’s East Harlem. In a highly controversial move, alleging mismanagement by Taller Boricua, New York City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverto intervened to change the management of the center working through…
The Julia de Burgos Latino Cultural Center: Art, Transformation, and Political Muscle
Council Member Mark-Viverito’s campaign to “reform” a sizeable portion of cultural programming space in a city-owned building has accelerated into a full-blown, East Harlem-style political brawl. On September 30th, the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC), on behalf of the Council Member, issued a Request for Expressions of Interest (RFEI) to rent, operate and maintain 8,000…
Julia de Burgos Remembered
On Friday, October 27, 2006, Iris Consuelo Burgos unveiled an historic mosaic by artist Manny Vega honoring her sister, Julia de Burgos, the revered Boricua poet. The ceremony took place in the heart of East Harlem’s “Cultural Corridor” on the northeast corner of Lexington Avenue and East 106th Street. The mosaic initiative was organized by…
