Bilingual educators met at Brooklyn College on October 7th to discuss the climate for bilingual students in public schools and how to better equip them. 

Bilingual education is teaching academic subjects in two languages. According to Gitnux, a market research and statistics website, 76% of U.S. students who are English language learners receive bilingual education services in U.S. public schools. These students need different tools, including translated versions of books, assignments, and more.

Carla España, an assistant professor of Bilingual Education and researcher with Puerto Rican and Latinx Studies at Brooklyn College, said, “Most of my students here at Brooklyn College tell me that their first time, their entry point learning about children’s literature, is through this picture book we read.”

Educators at the conference said these books and resources have to be available to bilingual students earlier so they don’t get left behind. Luis Tapia-Alfardo, a Mexican-American Brooklyn College senior, believes these bilingual resources would’ve been useful if he’d had them in his younger years. “My old schools never offered me any bilingual courses or resources.” He added, “It would’ve been helpful if those resources were accessible.”

Teachers are also finding it hard to fit these learnings into the curriculum, and bilingual teaching across different formats seems to be facing pushback. “I think that we are in many ways facing a lot of challenges,” said Emma Otheguy, a bilingual children’s author and historian. “I know many of the teachers mentioned curriculum challenges toward getting these books into their hands. I see on the publishing side serious obstacles to what I would call our book culture.”

Elementary schools may struggle to offer bilingual programs at all because of insufficient staff and curricular materials, according to Ileana Najarro, a writer at Education Week. Without these resources, bilingual students get left behind. However, Otheguy believes solutions exist. 

“I went to back-to-school night, and I met my daughter’s new first grade teacher…She said the most important thing you can do is to be a reader yourself. She told us that she reads from a book five pages every single day,” Otheguy said. “She won’t go to bed until she has finished her five pages. She recommended a book for parents to pick up, and I thought that was one of the most inspiring examples.”  

As schools struggle to provide bilingual students with sufficient programs and resources, parents have to take the initiative and become teachers themselves. 

“As a parent, for my child to have somebody who is modeling, I am bilingual. I’m Latina. I’m part of my culture,” said Otheguy.  “I seek out books that interest me, and I am a reader myself, so that I can model what it means to be a reader for my students.”

Pedicabs are a staple of New York City. These pedal-powered carriages are designed to ferry passengers across the city for a fraction of the cost, usually through areas inaccessible by car. However, these carriages have been faced with heavy scrutiny. Between being operated by unlicensed drivers and overcharging the passengers who use them, New York City is seeking to crack down on the pedicab industry as a whole. NYC Council Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection held a meeting on October 7, where they proposed a litany of bills focused on pedicabs throughout New York City.

Pedicabs are a part of NYC; the meeting sought not to completely eradicate them, but to reform the pedicab industry as a whole. While NYC has an upper limit of 850 licensed pedicabs and only 330 pedicabs in operation, the actual number of active pedicabs could be closer to 1,500. The New York Pedicab Alliance, a nonprofit group founded in 2005 and incorporated in 2024, which seeks to employ legally licensed pedicab drivers in a quasi-union, was in attendance at the council meeting. 

The President of NYPA spoke out about how the oversaturation of the pedicab industry has hurt his workers in more ways than one. The unlicensed drivers have been taking fares from those actually licensed to operate pedicabs in New York, while simultaneously leaving a bad taste in people’s mouths. “For us, protecting this industry means protecting our ability to put food on the table and pay the rent,” said NYPA President Makan Kamara. “We want our passengers to be safe, and we want honest drivers to be able to keep working with dignity.”

One of the bills proposed was a call to incorporate these pedicab drivers into the NY Taxi & Limousine Commission, as the pedicabs fall into a “grey area,” currently falling under the jurisdiction of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. NY TLC, however, expressed reservations regarding the transfer. “This legislation would be extremely costly to implement, going well beyond existing resources,” said Ira Goldapper, Deputy Commissioner of NY TLC. “I don’t believe it could just be as simple as a copy and paste of how we regulate taxis.”

Another problem plaguing the pedicab industry is the severe price-gouging, primarily targeting tourists. “We have heard that tourists have been charged $500 to nearly $1,000 for rides that are only 20 minutes,” said Gale Brewer, council member for the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. “We want passengers to know what they are paying. Right now, you have no idea. You just have to argue.”

In 2025 alone, there were at least 1200 criminal summons issued to these unlicensed drivers. Only 9% of these summons actually had any lasting effect, resulting in some form of criminal punishment. Enforcement of these laws and regulations remain largely ineffective, with one council member stating “If people think a ticket’s meaningless, then there’s no incentive to comply with the law.”

One of the most common violations issued to these drivers was riding in a bike lane, which is prohibited by NYC law. Under NYC Administrative Code § 20-259(b)(3), a pedicab driver may not operate a pedicab “on any bridge or in any tunnel or in any bicycle lane.” This, however, displaces the pedicabs to the streets, where they have to compete with cars and drivers. 

Pedicabs, for what it’s worth, should be able to operate in an area where they aren’t at risk of being struck down by an aggressive driver; it’s why NYPA has found great success in areas like Central Park and Times Square. This issue has come up in past City Council meetings, with a 2009 meeting stating “Pedicabs should not be restricted from using any bike lane or path. It is the safest lane of travel for any bicycle.” Chad Marlow, then-President of NYC’s Public Housing Advocacy Group, also talked about how “forcing the pedicab into regular traffic lanes will only result in more accidents, injuries, and congestion. A bike belongs in a bike lane.”

   Creatives from all around the nation entered Brooklyn Navy Yard on Oct. 3 to hear from New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

   CultureCon is a two-day convention curated towards Black creatives within media and technology that is held every year in early October. 

   Every year, the convention is themed, this year’s being, “Museum of Us” which highlights the impact that Black creatives have had within the media and tech industry. 

“The most important work of art is the people in the room. The art is you. It’s Us,” as stated on the Culture Con page.

    For the 10:30am panel, Mayor Mamdani joined Chief Executive Officer and Founder of the convention, Imani Ellis. Ellis asked questions catered to creatives in New York emphasizing the impact of creatives that live in the same city that the convention is held in. 

 “This week we announced, for the first time in close to 20 years, we’re doubling the size of the artist’s grant to up to $10,000 in New York City. And this is a grant that any New Yorker can apply for so long as they’re an artist,” said Mamdani.

  After hearing about this panel, many New York attendees felt a sense of hope, including Bronx native Unique Tomlinson.

  “It took a lot for me to even get to this convention alone, so I feel like Mamdani has been a breath of fresh air when it comes to being able to commit to my craft,” stated Tomlinson. 

  Due to inflation artists, which make up more than 233,500 of the NYC population, have had to choose between their craft and bills.

   “To me, that’s also what it means, because if we just rest on our laurels as being a city where great art was once made, we will forget the fact that we’re becoming a museum where artists today can only afford to come once a month as opposed to live here,” stated Mamdani. 

  “I feel burnt out because I am stuck between doing a job to basically live or being able to fully pursue my passion which literally, sucks you know,” expressed Tomlinson. 

   This convention was piloted in a Harlem apartment by Ellis who previously worked in crisis management for Bravo, as well as VP for NBC. 

   She started this in her living room in Harlem designing this convention around bridging the gap between creativity and action; it expanded to the Brooklyn Navy Yard with a total of 12,000 attendees this year. Mamdani used this as a sentiment when speaking on the panel. 

  Ellis asked about the current climate and many artists not being able to fully commit to their path because they fear failure but also face the reality of what failure means. 

“ […] if you never fail, you will never learn. And so many of the greatest artists that we all admire are artists who had to deal with those kinds of failures. stated Mamdani. “And I would say that what we want is in this city that you feel like you can take a swing at something.” 

The NYC’s Council hosted a meeting supporting multi-language learners in early childhood education programs on September 29. The meeting was chaired by District 34 Council Member Jennifer Gutiérrez.

Gutierrez mentioned the Trump administration proposed rule changes for Head Start, a federally funded program providing free childhood education, that includes a new requirement to deliver all instruction in English only. With NYC’s early childhood education increasing in prominence, the subcommittee wanted to understand how the DOE is planning to expand programs and inform families about options.

The subcommittee on Early Childhood Education held the meeting due to 45% of NYC residents from the ages of 0-5 identifying as multilingual with the national average of 32 %.

The hearing detailed the department of education’s ability to identify, educate and support the needs of multi-language learners in preschool programs. 

According to a memo issued by Erica Phillips, Deputy Chancellor for Early Childhood Education at New York City Public Schools, identifying multilingual learners in early childhood differs from English language learners in K-12. The latter identifies English language learners by having families take a home language questionnaire, an individual interview when appropriate, and the New York State English language proficiency assessment. For early childhood settings, families provide their child’s language experience through a survey that specifies which languages are spoken by parents and caregivers, as well as which languages the child understands and uses most often.

“All programs are required to support multilingual learners by using developmentally appropriate practices such as visual aids, modeling, intentional vocabulary development, home-language connections, family partnerships, and culturally and linguistically responsive instruction,” Phillips said. “The goal is to enable children to fully participate in learning while developing English.”

According to Phillips, the Department of Education supports emergent multilingual learners by using data such as home-language information, enrollment, provider information, current Dual Language Bilingual Education Program locations and K–12 Bilingual Education Program data.

 Implementing such support is aimed to enhance the quality of children’s learning experiences to ensure families have meaningful language access and to determine which programs best meet the needs of their children.

Just as with any early childhood program, there may be waiting lists. When a family applies for 3-K or pre-K, they can list an unlimited number of programs on their application. Each student is assigned to their highest ranked program or placed on the wait list. 

There is a massive demand for dual language programs in early childhood and 3-K. Dr. Georgette Branch, Chief of Learning and Partnerships, detailed the exact numbers in terms of applicants. For 3-K, 28 Russian language, and 60 for Spanish. For Pre-K, 17 Arabic, 129 Chinese, 100 French, 47 Italian, 24 Korean, 34 Polish, 60 Russian, and 1574 Spanish. 

To attend to the demand, Branch mentioned that there are 108 teachers who are certified or close to certification to teach in 3K and pre-K dual-language classrooms across NYC. To accommodate teachers, there are instructional coaches, social workers and inclusion specialists. These specialists help teachers in subjects such as literacy, language development, social-emotional learning and inclusive education.

The DOE is continuing to expand its multilingual program. “We cannot do that without investing in the workforce,” Emmy Liss, Executive Director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Child Care, said. “We need to continue both bringing multilingual educators into the pipeline and supporting those who are already in our system to get their bilingual extension or otherwise develop the skills to support multilingual learners.”

According to Dr. Branch, the public school allocation memorandum for bilingual revitalization disseminated this year shows about $13 million distributed across 93 schools. The schools’  programs average from one to five years of existence. 

The meeting made sure to mention that multilingual children will always be honored and valued in the early childhood system. “We will always prioritize ensuring that they can show up and learn in both their home language and in whatever other languages they might be learning in school, and that we see multilingualism as an asset and a strength,” Liss said.

Churches United For Fair Housing (CUFFH) and Hands Off NYC threw a party Sunday for the Bushwick Latinx community to celebrate immigrant families and generate awareness for constitutional rights. Although the event is usually an outdoor block party, CUFFH moved it indoors to Xanadu Roller Arts due to rainy weather.

The venue was decked up in neon lights, metallic streamers and handmade ‘ICE OUT’ signs. Community members were in their Sunday best, with little girls running around in frilly skirts and adults in traditional South American attire. The organizers provided guests with free lunch, and access to roller skates for a spin on the course. The event welcomed people of all ages, seniors mingling with young adults and families creating memories together.

Gabriel Fantacone, CUFFH’s Deputy Director of Civic Engagement, spoke about how the organization usually throws an annual appreciation party for it’s members, and why it was important to have more this year. “We partnered with Hands Off, who we’ve worked with in the past— and we’re trying to spread more awareness about immigrant rights, have our community members engage with business owners who have been involved with housing advocacy and just overall letting people know they have access to resources.” Fantacone also shared that they had 324 volunteers signed up to work the event, and that both organizations were extremely pleased with the turn out. CUFFH is a grassroots advocacy organization founded in 2009 that provides affordable housing services and integrated social resources.

Hands Off NYC is a coalition that trains organizations, unions, faith leaders, and everyday people to protect their communities from ICE and stop the Trump administration’s consolidation of power. Jim from Hands Off, who preferred not to give his last name, said that gatherings like the ‘Know Your Rights’ party are a major hub for educating people about just how much power they truly hold. “We’ve trained about 2500 businesses in New York City, and each of them have been surprised at the fact that they can actually say ‘no.’” Hands Off trains volunteers free of cost and provides them with supplies such as ‘NO ICE’ cards to distribute to local businesses. The more volunteers there are, Jim said, the more people truly “know their rights.”

Overall, the event was extremely lively, and really felt like a celebration of the community. There were birthday parties going on simultaneously, which only added to the fun. Some independent charities were also invited to set up booths, including a fund selling jewellery to raise money for families affected by the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Most guests belonged to South American and Latinx communities, and CUFFH founder Rob Solano addressed them in Spanish. Fantacone summarised his remarks in English, after which Solano’s five-year-old daughter closed the event with a wave to the crowd.

Council members, parents and advocates came together outside City Hall on September 15 to urge the Mamdani administration to adopt more stringent guardrails on computer technology for public school students, starting with children in classes K- 5 grade ahead of the 2026-27 school year. 

The call to action comes following a drop in test scores.

The rally comes two weeks after Mayor Mamdani and schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels put in a one year moratorium to ban the use of generative AI for children in grades 2K-8. The Department of Education will revisit the policy throughout the school year. 

 Councilmembers Shekar Krishnan, Eric Dinowitz, and  Julie Menin led the rally, calling for bans on YouTube and  gamified learning, and a return to pen and paper testing. “Everything we give our children is evidence based,” said councilmember Dinowitz while calling for the Department of Education (DOE) to show the evidence of education technology or “ed-tech,” and how this is either helping or hurting the students.

Julie Menin took the podium to explain the consequences of too much screen time, sharing that proficiency scores for students in 3 through 8 grade have dropped since 2024. 

Parents were concerned about tech companies’ access to  and information about children through these big ed-tech platforms. “ i-Ready currently has two major lawsuits against them for violation of privacy laws, ” said Kaliris Salas, a mother to two boys and the president of the Community Education Council in District 4 or East Harlem.  Salas states many parents, teachers and students have come into these meetings stating how the children feel as though they are spending more time with the screen than their teachers.

Right now the moratorium includes screen time caps on certain grades. Students in grade Pre-k through second grade will lose their screen time altogether. Students in grades three through five will have 30 minutes of screen and students in grades six to eighth will have 45 minutes. Those in high school can still use AI technology platforms geared towards career placement and development. Although the policy is only for one year, if successful could be implemented into all classrooms. 

“We don’t hate ed-tech,” said Dinowitz. “We just want to see the evidence behind these platforms.”

The 14th annual National Voter Registration Day took place with a block party next to Washington Square Park as the November 3rd General Election approaches. As polls open, races are off to a fast start; in particular, the governor’s race between Kathy Hochul and Bruce Blakeman looks like a potentially competitive contest.

The event was scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.; organizations such as Headcount and NYC Votes set up registration tables to encourage eligible voters to register. To spread awareness of other causes, organizations like Oxfam, which fights inequality to end poverty and injustice, and the Civic Engagement Commission, which aims to strengthen civic participation and support less fortunate communities, were also present. 

To draw people in, the event included vendors like Pots on Wheels and Nixie Zero Sugar Beverages, plus registration tables with prizes, including a chance to win a trip to Madison Square Garden to see Harry Styles in October. 

NYC Votes reported that 94.3% of eligible NYC voters were registered in 2025, with 260,195 first-time voters. That’s a 145.4% increase from 2017 and more than double the amount from 2021.

Because the event is held near Washington Square Park, next to universities like NYU and other colleges like City Tech, it is easier to reach youth and keep increasing their participation in elections. 

“It’s part of your right as a citizen of the United States to have your voice heard, to contribute to the civic stature of our country, to make sure that your city and state are represented well, and that funding goes to your cities and your education,” said Julia Bartholomew-King, a project manager working with Headcount at the event.

Some people still believe voting doesn’t matter because they feel their voices won’t make a difference. Lemuel Frett, a senior at City College, is a bit skeptical about registering, as he feels it’s not gonna move the needle. “I’m just reluctant to vote because I feel as though I’m just one person, so it’s not like if I don’t vote that it causes much of a disruption to the races.” 

On the other hand, “It’s really hard to question what’s going on in our country if you haven’t had your voice heard…Especially now, we really need to pay attention and participate in our government,” said Julia. 

With November 3rd’s General Election approaching and election season heating up, organizers continue using different outreach methods to help citizens register by the October 24th deadline. 

The NY Department of Sanitation [DSNY] told the City Council on Sept. 15 that it will reexamine methods to recycle residential textiles, even though previous pilot programs failed. 

“There was a growing realization that we are asking more of our planet and its people than we can endure, and that this economic model, “Take, Make, Waste,” was unsustainable,” said DSNY Commissioner Gregory Anderson. 

Textiles, such as clothing or woven fiber items, make up roughly “5% of NYC’s waste stream”, despite a “robust industry” surrounding textile reuse or second hand stores, according to Anderson. 

Every year, New York State residents and businesses throw away almost 1.4 billion pounds of textiles that could be reused or recycled, according to the NY Department of Environmental Conservation. Textiles include clothing, footwear, belts, hats, handbags, drapes, towels, sheets and other linens.

DSNY is currently seeking to help outside companies boost their efficiency in processing the items, rather than creating a mandate and method themselves.

“For textiles, there are a number of not-for-profit and for-profit entities developing their own operational capacity for sorting and processing, and DSNY is ready to assist as this industry develops,” said Anderson. “[DSNY’s] current textile recycling partnership provides easy and convenient drop-offs for many New Yorkers, but we are interested in working with private sector partners to develop mass market solutions more aligned with our composting and traditional recycling programs.”

Introduction 256, a bill being heard by the City Council, would require Anderson and DSNY to “study the feasibility and potential environmental effects of a recycling mandate for household textiles,” according to the bill.

While DSNY supports the intent of the bill, Anderson reiterated that there are currently, “several programs to divert [textiles] from landfills” in place. 

One such program places a bin to collect residential textiles in various buildings, such as one that has 10+ apartment units, office buildings, commercial industries – like gyms, apparel businesses, and hotels, among others– as well as schools and non-profits. 

Helpsy, a DSNY partner, will empty and transfer the recycling to its proper facility once the bin is full in any one of the 2500 buildings enrolled in the program, according to their webpage.  

“We think it’s a really great program,” said Anderson. “It’s a great additional amenity that buildings can offer their residents.”

The bin program has been “stagnant” for the past few years, according to Anderson. This lack of demand has also been the scourge of past pilot projects by DSNY to recycle household textiles, according to Anderson. 

“We have in two different occasions piloted curbside collection of textiles, and sort of proven out what these challenges look like,” said Anderson. “We had an appointment based program around 2022-2023 where Staten Islanders could make appointments for the collection of textiles. We saw really really low demand for that program.”

Demand isn’t the only problem facing a collection program, according to Anderson.

“The first was a pilot we did, maybe a decade ago in Brooklyn, where we did the curbside collection [of textiles.] We actually sent out these pink bags out to residents and said, ‘put all your textiles in these pink bags. We’re coming on this day, and we’ll pick them up,’” recounted Anderson. “We found a couple of things there; One, if it rains, it really destroys the quality of the textile, and the ability to reuse those textiles, so then you’re automatically downcycling them into lesser products.”

Anderson also said that operational costs create a barrier for the department to maintain a curbside collection program for textiles.

Previously, bins had forms for donators to take as a tax write-off for donating their textiles, which have since been removed. 

“Our prior contract was with Housing Works, which is a non-profit. Our new contract is with Helpsy, which is a B-Corp, so they are not technically a non-profit, so you can’t do the tax write-offs,” said Kate Kitchener, the executive director of resource recovery at DSNY. “[Helpsy does] work with Goodwill and a lot of other partners. A lot of the clothing does end up going to non-profits, but because they have B-Corp status, they can’t actually do the tax donation receipt.” 

DSNY awarded the recent bid to Helpsy because the previous contract, held by Housing Works, would struggle to maintain the project, sometimes subcontracting the collection duties to Helpsy, according to Anderson. 

As Intro-256 moves through the legislative progress, DSNY will continue to study and find additional gaps in current recycling mandates between residents and corporations alike.

“When we are able to do a first commercial waste characterization study at some point in the future after commercial waste bins are fully rolled out,” explained Anderson. “We’ll have a much better understanding of how many textiles there are in the waste stream, where they’re coming from, what the condition is at the time of disposal, and really be able to dive into programs around that.” 

  Every year during Labor Day, people from all over flood Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn for the   West Indian Day parade. On Sept. 6 in preparation for the event, Prospect Park Alliance and Smorgasburg hosted “Islands in the Park: A Caribbean Jam”. The event featured different activities and food vendors to celebrate the Caribbean community.

  Smorgasburg is a food festival that takes place in Brooklyn, with two locations; Williamsburg and Prospect Park. Multiple vendors from various cultural backgrounds serve every weekend in the summer until October. 

  For the event Federation Sound, a popular Caribbean DJ collective, had their member, DJ Danglez, on the turntables playing a mixture of new and old Caribbean hits. 

  Greg Will, also known as DJ Danglez spoke about what these events mean to him as a fellow Caribbean.

  “So I grew up in a house full of DJ’s. My stepfather and his family were DJs before I was born, so I kind of grew up with it,” said DJ Danglez.

   This is Danglez second time deejaying the Smorgasburg event. He expressed how his sets go off of the vibes and how he uses music to cater to multiple demographics.

   “I think you could plug me in any room and I can play a set for whatever the room looks like,” stated Danglez. 

  Many individuals dressed casually wearing flags representing their countries for a pop of color. 

     Lawn chairs and blankets filled the area with different families who relished in the sounds of the Caribbean. New York City (NYC) has a large Caribbean community, concentrated in Brooklyn. An estimated 1 million people gathered at Eastern Parkway for the West Indian parade, from all different backgrounds on the day following Smorgasburg.

  Right outside the tri-state area, a group of friends from Connecticut came out to the Smorgasburg event to immerse themselves in Caribbean culture. 

  Keyla Casildo, who is stationed in Connecticut but originally from the city, attended the event to get a taste of home. She expressed how the cultural scene is different in Connecticut compared to the city.

 “We came for the vibes, great food because we are stationed in Connecticut and the festivals do not hit and we are from the city so we miss it real bad,” stated Casildo.  

   Angela Herrera, another resident from Connecticut talked about enjoying her favorite cuisine and finally being able to enjoy it at this event.  

 “I love oxtail, I had oxtail and cocoa bread from the vendor E Cocoa Bread. It was really good, it was a little spicy but I told them to go light on the spices.” stated Herrera. 

   Oxtail, Jerk Chicken and a variety of other Caribbean dishes were served during the event by multiple vendors. Jerk Chicken is a traditional Caribbean cuisine which features chicken doused in spices and peppers. Oxtail, aptly named, is the tail of an ox that is served with another Caribbean staple, rice and peas and gravy. 

The 59th annual West Indian Day Parade traveled along Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, drawing an estimated million people on September 7 – including Mayor Mamdani – to what has become one of the city’s biggest festivals, and with that come safety concerns that have followed it for years.

The festival was slated to end around 5:30 p.m., 30 minutes earlier than last year, because of safety concerns. However, that didn’t stop altercations from arising.

People wasted no time flooding the streets Monday morning with flags representing different Caribbean nations and memorabilia from their cultures. It didn’t take long for the floats to settle in and the vendors to start selling. “The parade personally means to me that my people have conquered and sacrificed so much to get a day of celebration for all of the hardships we have gone through.” Nathaniel Smalls, a Brooklyn resident representing Barbados and Guyana.

However, this year, as in years past, some violence followed. There were two separate shootings that occurred around the parade, with three people injured. According to Fox 5, a man was shot in the buttocks, and another man and a woman both suffered graze wounds to their legs.

“It was really the same as it is every year,” said Keanu May, a Brooklyn resident celebrating his Jamaican culture. “But I would like the violence to be toned down cause that really lessens the excitement of what we really should be celebrating.”

Last year’s parade saw a similar level of violence. According to NBC New York, at the 2025 West Indian Day Parade, there were four different shootings with seven people shot. In 2024, according to Brooklyn Magazine, at least four people were shot, with one man dying in a shooting along the route of the parade.

Many people still enjoyed the day. “The parade was great as a whole,” said Snalls. “We as people just need to come together more and settle all differences for just 1 day and enjoy life on earth.”

On Sept. 8, Brooklyn College community and faculty members gathered at the Woody Tanger Auditorium to honor Dr. George Cunningham – A Brooklyn College professor for 48 years and a former chair of the Africana Studies Department.

During the memorial, Cunningham was remembered as a father figure who advocated for his colleagues, offered personal support to students and challenged them intellectually. According to his former students, his lectures extended beyond literature into resistance, responsibility and fighting for freedom.

Cunningham, born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Baltimore, earned a doctorate in American Studies from Yale University. In 1978, he joined Brooklyn College’s Africana Studies Department. Along with his service as Deputy Chair and two terms as Department Chair, Dr. Cunningham co-edited Representing Black Men and co-founded the Black Filmmaker Foundation.

Robert Jones Jr., a former student of Brooklyn College, described Cunningham as one of his first Black male professors during his time in Brooklyn College, that fundamentally changed his life. Professor Cunningham believed reading books was one of the most important things in life. Through his course “Reading Race,” he deepened Jones’s love of literature and taught him to approach reading and writing with a critical eye.

“He gave me a passion for resistance that I’ll forever pass on,” said Jones. According to him, Professor Cunningham also taught his students about civil responsibility, literary gatekeeping and the importance of education. He gave the students a path to run free. “Professor Cunningham was one of the very few people who knew the importance of freedom and to protect it, every hour, every minute, every second.” As he fought back tears at the end of his tribute, Jones described Dr. Cunningham as someone who “had his neck pressed bravely on the blade, daring them to cut.”

Former students described Professor Cunningham as a demanding teacher. Despite all other courses, responsibilities and deadlines, he expected all students to read multiple books during the semester and come to class prepared to discuss it all. “Pick up the damn book,” he would joke.

While he demanded rigor, he also offered support. Dr. Cunningham’s efforts continued outside classroom, as he helped his graduates find their direction in life, encouraged them to pursue higher degrees and offered them various job opportunities. “He’d remember to call you on your birthday,” said a former Brooklyn College student, Zinga Fraser, “He called me when my mother passed and talked to me for hours.”

Professor Cunningham shaped the lives and careers of his colleagues as well. The faculty members remembered him as a presence who knew how to light up the room. Linda Day of Africana Studies Department remembers her first encounter with Dr. Cunningham. “Are you an activist?” he asked Day during her interview in Brooklyn College in 1991, and her answer sealed the deal. “Throughout my career, he was the one who fought for my job and made sure I stayed at Brooklyn college,” Day said.

The speakers remembered him as a campus leader that always stood up for his co-workers, advocated for fairness and often took responsibilities nobody else wanted to take. Dale Byam of Africana Studies department mentions “If I needed help, everybody would tell me to call George, and he would always respond “Why not? Let’s do this!”

Cunningham is survived by his four first cousins along with many other relatives and friends. After nearly 5 decades in Brooklyn College, Professor Cunningham’s legacy continues through the students and faculty that he mentored. “He’d fight for you till hell freezes over,” says Fraser, “And when it does, he’ll fight on ice.”

New York City union members gathered in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan for a Labor Day Rally and then marched to Foley Square to stand in solidarity with one another and to honor those who suffered during the 9/11 attack.

Organized by the New York City Central Labor Council, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, the “Our City, Our Fight, Our Future” Labor Day Rally and March was described by organizers as an opportunity to demonstrate the strength of NYC’s labor force.

While the rally does traditional spotlight unions and their workers, the platform and attention has been used to shine a light on and educate the public on other issues like the growing presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the United States or increased violence and control over women’s autonomy.

There were keynote speakers from many different representatives of the unions present like 32BJ SEIU, NYSNA, and TWU. For many participants, the rally was an opportunity to support their unions and to recognize how different struggles facing New Yorkers can be connected.

Rebecca Lurie, a member of several unions, most notably the Professional staff Congress and Carpenters’ union, said that she attended the rally primarily to show her support for the labor movement. “I’m feeling like all of our struggles are interconnected,” Lurie said.

For Lurie the rally was less about a single issue or even a single union’s goals but about showing the connection and community unity of the workers across NYC.

That same sense of unity was shared by Tamoya Norwood, an administrator and organizer at 1199SEIU United Healthcare. “All the unions come together, you know, and show our union pride”, Norwood said. “to show our union force.”

For some workers, being part of the rally was a way to encourage other union workers to become more involved and make their voices heard. Evelyn Lanzo, a member of the Organization for Staff Analysis, said, “Other union members should come out to represent themselves because I’m only one person, and there’s so many of us”

New York City is dubbed the “city that never sleeps,” operating twenty-four hours with no breaks. But Coney Island, wide awake in the summer as an iconic tourist destination, sleeps during winter, until the scorching heat returns. 

To most New Yorkers Coney Island is the beach, the Cyclone and Luna Park. It is constantly labeled as a summer attraction. Summer crowds jump around from the boardwalk to the rides to local dining options. All day, the MTA’s Stillwell Avenue station brings waves of visitors, who follow the same routine as those who arrived earlier. It is the season where businesses, both corporate and local, are able to thrive off the large crowds. 

But after the summer, foot traffic diminishes to a trickle of local residents taking the subway to work. The long lines are reduced to three to five people. Business operating hours, which once stretched from noon to midnight or beyond, now end by 10pm. Local businesses, without a brand name to carry them through the off season, close early or shut down entirely. Surf Avenue at night becomes a deserted, quiet space.

Two related development plans are in the works that might swell Coney Island’s resident population and maybe draw visitors to Coney Island in the cooler months.

On December 11th, a one billion dollar reconstruction for the Coney Island boardwalk was approved, according to Grace Tang, program director at the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, who spoke at a Community Board 13 meeting. The plan includes renovating the boardwalk using existing materials, replacing broken wood panels and unleveled concrete floors.

“Once design kicks off, we’ll reach out and work with the Community Board 13, New York City Housing Authority, the alliance of Coney Island, the Aquarium, and many others,” Tang said. Aside from offering new housing space, the ground floor of these new buildings also includes space for businesses to build new restaurants. As of now, there is an Asian cuisine restaurant being built in the space, adding more restaurants in the area.

The boardwalk renovation is part of the “Coney Island West” plan, first announced by NYC Mayor Eric Adams in 2024 that also includes 1,500 units of new housing and an upgrade to the sports center. Mayor Adams said, “We are delivering mixed-income affordable housing, investing $42 million to renovate Abe Stark Sports Center, and making significant improvements across streets, sewers, and the public realm. Coney Island’s best days still lie ahead, and today, we are starting the next chapter of its bright future.” 

The plan intends to encourage local business and address many issues that were caused by Hurricane Sandy, as the storm’s impact on the area is still present to this day. But the Coney Island West plan also stirs fear of gentrification.

Rosalina Khanis, a longtime native of Coney Island, said, “When I was little there were a lot of mom-and-pop shops and overall family-run businesses where everyone knew each other, and now it feels more commercialized, where it’s for business rather than being a community.” Khanis added, “Gentrification, on one point, is ok to bring in more younger people, but on the negative side, the sense of community really goes down.” 

Some businesses, though would be welcome. The current Coney Island area lacks 24-hour delis. Delis on Surf Avenue close down for the night by 11pm. As of now, there is only one deli open for twenty-four hours. The deli is located next to the Coney Island-Stillwell Av, and a worker, Jaheem, who preferred to not give out their last name, said, “People come to us because we are the only deli open all day and all night. MTA workers getting off work come here instead of McDonald’s. We’re the better option.”

   Ruby’s, a popular family-owned restaurant, may also benefit. A former worker, Brandon Zayas, commented, “Rudy’s will only benefit from any change happening to Coney; the place has been in business for decades and is considered a local landmark.” Ruby’s is currently closed for the winter season.

One development plan was recently defeated: the plan to introduce a casino. The selling point for the community was that a casino would boost the area’s economy by attracting year-round foot traffic. The casino proposal encountered pushback from Brooklyn’s borough president, Coney Island’s community board members, and City Council members. Talks regarding the proposal have lingered in the air since 2022, but finally, in 2025, the casino idea was shut down. Dubbed as a victory for the community.

New York has the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans in the world outside Puerto Rico, but Puerto Rican Studies across City University of New York  has consistently been defunded and understaffed, and often a target for political attack. Puerto Rican and Latin Studies (PRLS)  at Brooklyn College has too few tenured lines meet the minimum requirements for a CUNY department at CUNY: only two tenured faculty remain, several courses run only every two or three years, and the department’s operating budget is less than half what it was in the early 1990s, adjusted for inflation.  

Today, according to CUNY, Brooklyn College is nearly 24 percent Latino, but Puerto Rican students say they cannot find enough courses on the history, diaspora and identity of Puerto Ricans on campus.  

This is not a new situation. In 2022, student Maria Hernandez told Brooklyn College Vanguard “there are barely any classes about our history anymore. Maybe one or two a semester, how is that enough for a Latino campus?”  

At that time, the Vanguard reported that PRLS lacked a viable majority of tenured faculty, despite two new faculty being hired. Students expressed fear that it would be merged with another department as had occurred in previous rounds of cutbacks at CUNY in the 1980s and 1990s. Dr.Virginia Sanchez Korrl, a historian who helped shape the field, warned that eliminating tenure lines in ethnic studies amounts to “disciplinary death.” 

When the Puerto Rican Studies Department, the forerunner of PRLS,  was founded in the early 1970s, fewer than 1% of the students at Brooklyn College were Puerto Rican. Despite having thousands of Latino students today, the department has less funding and fewer resources than some directors of the department had several decades previously.  

By 2007 the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, CENTRO, at Hunter College reported  that Puerto Rican Studies programs at CUNY were consistently “diminished… primarily for budgetary reasons” whenever those programs were placed under the purview of other ethnic studies departments. 

Students say these pressures continue today and are part of a larger pattern of reducing humanities classes. During the COVID-era budget cuts, CUNY eliminated over 3,000 adjunct class sections, disproportionately affecting humanities programs.  

“This is about what stories get told, and which ones get erased,” said Dr. Yarimar Bonilla, director of CENTRO, during a 2023 public panel on austerity and Puerto Rican cultural institutions. “Ethnic studies programs are structurally underfunded because they challenge the status quo. That is not accidental.” 

Bonilla has also warned that austerity measures typically accompany periods of political mobilization for marginalized people. 

“In times of crisis, policing, colonialism, Palestine, there is always pressure to shrink the spaces where critical conversations happen.” 

In 2024, CUNY received a $5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to continue and expand the Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative (BRESI), allowing Brooklyn College, among other schools, to offer new courses, support academic research, and offer internships. But experts say BRESI cannot reverse decades of erosion. 

“This is patchwork,” an ethnic studies researcher said during a public BRESI briefing in 2022. “Useful, but not a substitute for rebuilding what decades of cuts eroded.” 

Some PRLS students have noted a relationship between CUNY’s funding priorities and the wider national atmosphere on Palestine activism. After pro-Palestine demonstrations on campuses nationwide, administrators faced pressure from donors, elected officials, and the media to more rigorously scrutinize curriculum and activism taking place in ethnic studies environments. Some students argue that austerity leaves PRLS especially vulnerable to these pressures. 

Some PRLS students say the climate at CUNY has shifted further in the past year, shaped by national backlash to pro-Palestine demonstrations and new campus disciplinary practices. Students at multiple CUNY campuses reported receiving misconduct charges related to protest actions, including charges for “failures to comply,” “disruptive conduct,” and “unauthorized demonstration.” Brooklyn College’s Undergraduate Student Government and administration did not respond to repeated requests for  comment.   

Puerto Rican Alliance’s (PRA) president Angelina Rivera neologized the political climate surrounding ethnic studies as “the broader political environment exacerbated by campus protests,” referencing the campus conduct charges against students across CUNY related to the protests from the previous spring. She told the audience at the Encuentro event that “Our biggest issue as a club now is repression from the administration, especially against political activism,” in reference to the focus on PRLS and solidarity organizing.  

 “Even now, there are a lot of students facing conduct charges we’re still worrying about,” Rivera added. 

While PRLS fights for stability, other departments are growing. Jewish Studies programs across CUNY have received millions in philanthropic donations, including a $3 million donation to CUNY Queens College’s Jewish Studies program in 2023.  

Meanwhile, STEM programs receive more consistent investment: CUNY received $18 million in National Science Foundation STEM grants in 2023-2024. Brooklyn College’s new science facilities were funded through state capital allocations exceeding $100 million over the past decade.  

“STEM expansion is funded as the future,” Bonilla noted in the 2022 panel. “But communities also need the tools to understand power, race, and history. When those programs shrink, students lose more than classes, they lose the language to understand their world.” 

A new affordable housing project is set to be built in Bath Beach, with the remodeling of the New Utrecht Library and the adjacent parking lot, to create new apartments that will be part of a new city program called “Living Libraries.” 

Living libraries are a city initiative that is part of the “City for Yes for Families” led by the city government, as well as the Economic Development Corporation, the Brooklyn Public Library, and Housing Preservation and Development. The program involves remodeling existing libraries and adding affordable housing. 

Over the last few years, the Bath Beach/Bensonhurst area has seen many changes, including business openings and closings, and project delays. Still, one of the major topics under discussion is adding housing to the area.

In 2023, the area received notice of a new homeless shelter under construction, and the community’s reaction was adverse. Both Councilmember Susan Zhuang and Assemblymember William Colton, along with many residents, protested for over 100 days straight to hope that the shelter wouldn’t be built. 

The reasoning is that the homeless system is flawed, and businesses and schools surround the location at 2501 86th St. The current fight is ongoing as the neighborhood approaches the demolition date of the building that will become a homeless shelter. 

In late September, Mayor Adams announced the redevelopment of the New Utrecht library as part of the “Living Libraries program.” Its goal is to develop more affordable housing. His administration, earlier this year, announced that it “created, preserved, or planned approximately 426,800 homes for New Yorkers. This will include the 69-year-old library and the parking lot next to it. 

“Earlier this year, I told New Yorkers that we would make our city the best place to raise a family; projects like New Utrecht and how we get it done. This ambitious project will deliver affordable housing, high-quality services, and a state-of-the-art library, all in one location,” said Mayor Adams.  

The current stage of the process is the community engagement section, which seeks to understand the community’s views, including those of the public and government officials who represent it.

“At this very early stage in the process, my priority is to determine how our residents feel about the project,” said District 47 Assemblymember William Colton. “For this reason, I am reaching out in a variety of ways to those who live and work in the area, to determine what questions and issues they may have about what is being proposed, and any concerns that they may feel need to be addressed. My intention, once I clarify this, is to advocate strenuously on behalf of my constituents, to make sure that their needs are taken into account.” 

As of now, Community Board 11 hasn’t taken a stance on the project. They are waiting for residents to contact them. 

The library project isn’t new in New York; in 2017, the Fifth Ave Committee announced plans for an affordable housing project at the Sunset Park Library in Sunset Park. The project includes a renovated library and 50 units around it, which were reopened in November 2023. 

At the time, people were mixed on the project, as it could lead to gentrification or displacement from the community. Another issue is that some residents aren’t able to access that housing due to costs and background checks. 

“Yeah, it’s affordable for some people, and that’s great, but the reality is that a lot of people in Sunset don’t have the paperwork necessary to even apply for this type of housing. Not to mention the process is long and tedious,” said Antonio Meza, who has been a resident in Sunset Park for 15 years. “Overall, I’m more for more affordable housing, but the process to obtain it needs to be improved.”

As of now, there is no set date for the construction or demolition of the New Utrecht Library, but the questionnaire regarding people’s reactions to the NYC Housing Preservation and Development deadline is scheduled for December 19.