The Star-Revue has two openings:

1 - DISPLAY ADVERTISING SALESPERSON. The job involves meeting neighborhood store-owners and educate them about the wonderful goodwill they will get by advertising in the local newspaper. Another aspect is to talk to bigger corporations such as hospitals and schools to tell them that this is the perfect place to get their messages across to the people they are serving. You get paid with a percentage of what you sell, which is called a commission. This is a part-time job to supplement your income - you decide on the hours.

2 - WE ARE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO LIVES IN NYC PUBLIC HOUSING, preferably Red Hook or Gowanus, to write about things going on where you live. You do not need any experience. As long as you can put on paper interesting stories that our readers will want to read, you are our person. You don't have to be a great writer to start - see how we edit your stuff and learn from it. This is a free-lance position, meaning part-time.

For both positions call George at 917 652-9128 or email me at gbrook@pipeline.com

“Our presence in Red Hook helps meet the needs of this underserved community,” said Larry K. McReynolds, executive director of the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone.

Services at the Health Center include primary care, including pediatrics and family medicine, routine dental care, women’s health, including gynecologic wellness visits and obstetric care during pregnancy, as well as behavioral health and family support.

“There are nine exam rooms in total, including two dedicated to dental services,” said Jon Diaz, site director for Health Centers at NYU Langone. “We understand there’s not a lot of dental down in Red Hook so this is a big addition.”

Dental care included

“Oral health is really important,” said Isaac Dapkins, who is chief medical officer of the Family Health Center and a primary care doctor. “We want kids to have fluoride treatments and sealants. Gum disease is associated with heart disease and bad outcomes in pregnancies. The same goes for cavities. Getting access to preventative dental services lowers the risk of a lot of other health issues.”

“We’re very fortunate because we’ve had an NYU school-based clinic for medical, mental health, and dental at P.S. 15 for many years now,” said principal Julie Cavanagh. “This is a dream come true to now have the services be available for all of the families. We have a vision of comprehensive, coordinated care for the children and their families, and NYU is a big first step in making that happen.”

Cavanagh is “Encouraging all of our families to enroll here so that way if there is an emergency or something happened which requires them to receive care outside of Red Hook, they’ll already be fully connected to the NYU network.”

Violeta Maya, a board member, thanked McReynolds and NYU Langone for both taking care of her health-wise and for opening in Red Hook.

“Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of people go through health problems in this community but I have also seen the big improvement in health care here,” Maya said. “Red Hook isn’t about just one group or community, it’s about all of us, and I’m not sure there are many other neighborhoods like that. So this is helping all of us.”

One of the key points is that they want to provide health care for everyone.

Inclusive care, even without insurance

“We’re focused on being comprehensive and culturally competent,” said Dapkins. “If anyone comes to see us, we’re open to seeing them regardless of their ability to pay, their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. It’s our mission to take care of anyone who comes in and that really distinguishes us. Anyone can come here, even if they don’t have health insurance.”

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Blondel. Memories of the storm and its aftermath stirred amongst the audience, who ranged in age from their teens to their 70s and 80s. Many recalled months of living with no heat or hot water, no working elevators, and other disruptions caused by the storm surge that flooded the boilers and utilities infrastructure in the East and West Houses. “You all lived this, you all know what happens when a storm surge comes into Red Hook.”

“It was terrible,” said Awilda Lopez, seated on a lawn chair outside the West Houses on a recent Sunday morning. Lopez, who has lived in Red Hook since 1959, felt helpless in Hurricane Sandy’s wake. “We couldn’t do nothing, we just had to wait.”

But Sandy proved a catalyst for unprecedented action by the community. In the aftermath of the storm, a unified front of residents and community groups rallied to put pressure on NYCHA, to do something truly meaningful to help Red Hook not just recover, but also to prevent calamities like this from happening in the future. “This is what gave us the impetus to apply for the funding,” Sinderbrand continued, amid the clamor of kids getting out of afterschool activities in the echoey hallway.

The $3 billion in federal funding, secured by NYCHA in 2015, for Sandyrelated repairs and prevention work, included a $550 million carve-out for floodplain improvements and repairs in Red Hook. Securing the funding was considered a historic victory in itself. These funds, which came through FEMA, represented the opportunity to create a silver lining in the aftermath of Sandy.

In 2016, the renovations began, following intense negotiations involving

NYCHA administrators, community advocates, and the federal government.

NYCHA, armed with a hefty budget, entrusted the renovations to a reputable architecture firm, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, known for their innovative designs and promising solutions to preempt future disasters. But the construction progress, initially slated for completion by 2019, continues to inch along slowly. Only sheer scope and size of the project, and the pandemic. “They start, but they don’t finish,” said Lopez pointing to the various construction sites in view in every direction. “They go there,” she said, pointing to a fenced off lot with construction materials scattered about. “They go there, they go there. They don’t know when they’re going to finish. They put up so many fences, it feels like we are on a high enough priority for NYCHA, so it is as if the scaffoldings are there indefinitely.

20% of the “lily pads” (sections of elevated ground, with concrete tanks installed beneath for water collection) have been completed. “In 2016, I was told this would all be done by 2019,” Sinderbrand lamented. “Clearly, that hasn’t happened.”

Several factors have contributed to the delays; standard construction setbacks (when do construction projects ever get done on time?), a residentdriven mandate to minimize disruption and avoid relocations, and the unexpected halt due to the 2020 pandemic, to name a few. Plus, the project was, and still is, very large in scope. Despite delays, many of the key features of the project have been either completed or are very close to complete, including the utility pods that dot the campus, and the East and West power plants. Installing new roofing was a top priority after Sandy, and 100% of that work has been completed according to NYCHA. Many new benches and tables throughout the campus have been completed to date.

Still, some residents, like Lopez, see incompetence and negligence where NYCHA reps make excuses about the

Rikers Island.”

If you walk along the perimeter of Red Hook East and West, and through the campus along Centre Mall, indeed, everywhere you look, you see fences and “Danger” signs, installed to protect residents from the active—and inactive—construction sites all around them. There is also a noticeable lack of trees, a grievance that came up at the June meeting several times. “This has been a source of frustration,” Silberbrand said when pressed on NYCHA’s plan to replace the trees that were removed during the construction. “FEMA will pay for trees to be removed, but not for replanting.”

There are other signs of construction across the landscape of the Houses, that have nothing to do with the Sandy recovery - but that did not stop residents at last month’s meeting from raising them as urgent issues. One such issue is the presence of scaffoldings that line many of the Houses. The reason for the scaffoldings is Local Law 11, a law mandating that if a building facade is in bad enough condition, there must be scaffoldings built and kept until the repairs are done. But these repairs are never

“Across NYCHA, we are looking to prioritize Local Law 11 in the funding we’re getting from the city and state,” Sinderbrand explained. “But in total, it’s a $40 billion capital need, and we tend to spend money on types of repairs that are immediate health and safety concerns. For example, if there is a gas outage, replacing gas would be a top priority, whereas with Local Law 11, because we can put the sheds up and protect people that way, if we don’t have the funding, we aren’t able to do the capital work there.” Blondel and several other residents pushed back on this, highlighting the public safety and health concerns connected to the scaffoldings. “When you removed the trees for the construction, the birds moved to the scaffolds, so they are pooping and peeing up the railing and we have elderly residents and kids touching the railings, and we know bird flu, avian flu, all that stuff is out there,” Blondel said. “Either you need to suspend Local Law 11 or do the work. You can’t just leave us like this forever.”

Other issues raised by residents at the June 6 meeting included sewage backflow resulting from new developments in Gowanus, concerns about new keycards that will be given out to residents when the new entry doors are installed, noise from the construction, and other concerns.

The dialogue continues, with the next community meeting scheduled for October. We’ll share more information when we have it, hope to see you there!