(reflections on past, present, and future, in the midst of COVID 19) “unaffected” A friend I had an email exchange with used that word to suggest that they hoped my family and friends had not been directly impacted by the tragic events of COVID-19. The sentiment was meant genuinely, sincerely…

“Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable” -James Baldwin Filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s mini-series When They See Us recently premiered on Netflix. The series details the 1989 case of the now exonerated men previously referred to as the Central…

“Some of my parents’ friends have called and said when is it (NY Proton Cancer Center) going to open, because we live in Florida and Harlem would be a great place for us to have a second home” — A Developer At Bisnow Conference On a Thursday in July, I…

Designing A Master Vision Of Harlem: With, Not For In an age of spoiler alerts ruining your movie watching experience, when the community is involved, starting a conversation with the end in mind can be considered a more direct approach. The question many were left with after the June Mart…

My grandmother worked in the Lower East Side for 38 years at an organization that primarily started to create opportunity and equitable healthcare access to immigrant families and moms who were struggling. Came across this passage from the founder, and her words uttered in the 20th century appear to have…

The Town Hall Conversation You Probably Didn’t Hear About The future of Mart 125, the former city owned vendor’s market on 125th across from the Apollo Theater has been in question for nearly two decades. The concept space, initially envisioned in 1979 as an attempt to bring street vendors inside…

**warning contains mild Black Panther spoilers** “All you are ever told in this country about being black is that it is a terrible, terrible thing to be. Now, in order to survive this, you have to really dig down into yourself and recreate yourself, really, according to no image which…

Just came from speaking to a group of Black & LatinX teens in Harlem encouraging them to join the community board. I don’t think people truly understand how urgent their situation is, and why those designing their futures (tech community, talking to you) should care. It took some time for…

Timing is everything. Leonardo DaVinci said “nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.” We are at a point and time as a nation where silence in the face of assault is no longer muted, and certain actions are no longer being tolerated in certain spaces. Brave women and men are stepping up to…