Sidi Ibrahima smiles up from his 125th Street stand. (Photo by Sonal Shah)

Harlem’s 125th Street is a bazaar of cottage industry products: incense and earrings, knit hats and demo CDs. But the goods on one table near Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard are more colorful than the rest. Bright books with racy covers are spread over the stand. People, mostly women, stop to flip through “Homo Thug II”, “The Lesbian’s Wife,” “Mandingo,” or Sister Souljah’s latest title.

On any given morning, you can find Sidi Ibrahima at his bookstand, stacking paperbacks and recommending good reads to passing ladies. He hands “A Streetgirl Named Desire” to Deborah McKenzie, a self-described “bookhead” who goes through five titles a month. “If you don’t like I’ll take it back.” Besides this stall, Ibrahima distributes books on five other stands across New York, including the Bronx, Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan. Besides being Harlem’s main distributor and street fiction enthusiast, Ibrahima, who is from Ivory Coast, is a self-published author who made his foray into the industry with a book about a West African girl, Fatou.

Variously called hip-hop, street or urban lit, the pulp genre has been growing in popularity since the 1990s, when activist and author Sister Souljah first published her autobiography, “No Disrespect,” and then her debut novel, “The Coldest Winter Ever.” These books are widely credited with resuscitating the tradition of 1970s authors Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim, streetwise counterparts to Ralph Ellison.

Ibrahima owns one of Harlem’s few bookstores, the Harlem Book Center, a small outlet that also sells movies and cohabits with a lively hair-braiding salon. Harlem Book Center consists of two walls of shelves, a counter, a computer and another wall of shelves for movies. Ibrahima, tall and dark-skinned with a piercing gaze, spends his afternoons behind the counter at his crammed bookstore. Dressed casually in running pants and a jacket today, he sports a newsboy cap and round glasses that give him an earnest look. In between checking his email and conversing with the women who come in to get their hair braided, he describes the long road he’s travelled to get here.

Ibrahima, born in the capital Abidjan, read a lot when he was young, but was especially impressed with the works of African “Negritude” writers like Amadou Ba. Ibrahima immigrated to Germany in the ’90s to start an import/export business based in Nuremberg. In 2000, he moved to New York to pursue more opportunities.

“In Africa, on TV, they’re always talking about America. We think America is a paradise,” he says. “When you come here, you see the reality. You have to work. But for that you need a work permit. You have to start from scratch.”

It was this reality that Ibrahima, then driving a cab, decided to write about. He had just discovered urban lit, which he describes as targeted mostly to African-Americans and African-Caribbeans. Ibrahima learned the genre by reading books like Sister Souljah’s “Coldest Winter” and Terri Woods’ “True to the Game.”

A tubful of urban lit at Ibrahima's stand. (Photo by Sonal Shah)

His first book, “Fatou: An African Girl in Harlem,” might not be a “World’s #1 Bestseller” as it’s cover proclaims, but the author says he has sold 85,000 to 95,000 copies since publication in 2004. Accurate sales figures are hard to come by, since most of these books sell on the street. “Fatou” begins with a man raping his young daughter in an African hut before sending her off to Harlem to marry a much older man in exchange for a big dowry. She escapes into prostitution, drug dealing and gangs. Despite its incredibly graphic sexual and violent content, Ibrahima says his book is based on the true story of an immigrant he met on his first trip to the U.S. in 1994. When the woman who inspired “Fatou” told her story, he says, “I was in tears. I said, ‘I’ve got to let people know what happened to this brave and smart – not only book smart, but street-smart – girl.’”

Ibrahima approached several publishers, but says he lacked the connections to get his book printed. A few mainstream publishers have urban lit imprints, Random House’s One World and Simon and Schuster’s Atria/Strebor Books, for example. Most major urban lit publishers, however, started with one author on a shoestring self-publishing budget and grew. So Ibrahima decided to try and go the way of Terri Woods Publishing, Urban Books and Triple Crown Publications and published 500 copies of “Fatou” on his own.

He had saved money from his stall and from cab driving to publish “Fatou.” “It passed my expectation,” he says, recounting how the first run sold out in a week. He published another 1,000 copies, and says he was inundated by calls from Barnes & Nobles, Borders and distributors wanting more. Mary Davis, a spokesperson for Borders, said that although the stores do have dedicated African American and urban lit sections, they do not currently carry Ibrahima’s titles.

Despite the fact that “Fatou” appears nowhere on any of the national book review sites for urban lit like streetfiction.org and theurbanbooksource.com, local success is part of the genre’s vitality. The book’s popularity, particularly among New York’s African and Caribbean readers, led Ibrahima to his next project. While shopping at a 116th Street West African grocery, Ibrahima ran into a fan. She told him her own story, which eventually became “The Lesbian’s Wife.” “Fatou was a girl coming from Africa to America and ‘The Lesbian’s Wife’ had a woman going back to Africa,” he says, pointing at the cover of the latter book, which features a buxom woman in a power suit against a backdrop of palm trees. Ibrahima says the book has sold  about 15,000 copies. Under the moniker “Sidi,” Ibrahima has also written a sequel to “Fatou”; “Tamika”, about a Jamaican girl; and two books about a male prostitute, “Mandingo.”

Readers and writers of urban lit can’t seem to quite agree on why it’s so popular. McKenzie, the “bookhead” says that she likes stories with “drugs, killing and sex,” and reads them to escape from her life for a bit. Ibrahima, though, insists that his books reflect reality. “Most of it is about our day to day struggle,” he says. He extends his arm to reveal a bullet scar on his hand and describes how he was shot at while driving a “young thug” passenger who was dealing drugs.

Ibrahima insists that urban readers have already been exposed to sex and violence; to pretend these don’t exist would spell irrelevance for his books. “You know America – anything with sex sells. People really like violence,” he says. “Violence in our books, it doesn’t really mean that we’re trying to teach the violence. At the end of the story, there’s always a lesson to learn from the story. Because if you raised by the gun, you’re going to fail by the gun, and that’s what we’re trying to say.”

Marva Allen, who co-owns the more highbrow Hue-man Bookstore across the street, disagrees. When it comes to urban lit, “I’ve heard all the arguments for it, but I believe that what we’ll see is what we’ll be,” she says. “It’s an unfortunate life for people to emulate.” She’s read Ibrahima’s books and objects to more than their violent content. “I read it with a red pen,” she says. “You might as well put the book on Twitter.”

Ibrahima believes that getting African-Americans to read – anything – is a worthwhile endeavor, however. “If you want to hide something from black men, put it in a book,” he quips. He points out that he sells non-fiction as well, like Barack Obama’s memoirs and various biographies. He believes that urban fiction can open the door for readers who then get hooked on more serious literature.

But Allen believes that urban lit’s popularity will wane. “It’s like what happened to hip-hop,” she says. “It started as a solidarity movement and it’s become an urban commodity with nothing to do with liberation. Hip-hop lit is kind of passé right now. It’s like eating too much sweet and then feeling sick. I’m hoping that’s the trend.”

Ibrahima makes personal recommendations to potential customers. (Photo by Sonal Shah)

Ibrahima’s outlook on the genre remains positive though. He’s started publishing other authors, like Ashante Kahari (aka Aaron Fraser), who has spent time in jail for check fraud, run for City Council from Brooklyn and penned the “Homo Thug” series. Ibrahima dreams of fostering more authors and becoming a global distributor of urban fiction.

Eventually, Ibrahima would like to return to Cote d’Ivoire. Speaking over a piped CD of African drums he says, “I’m not rich, but I have a lot of experience and ideas and, God willing, I will go back soon. We cannot leave the responsibility of building our continent in the hands of Europeans or Americans,” he adds. Meanwhile, he’s working on an autobiography. “Self-made Millionaire,” he calls it.

Imam Shamsi Ali on a workday, clean shaven and wearing a suit. (Photo by Hani Yousuf)

Imam Shamsi Ali sits with his group of three students in the main prayer hall of the mosque at 96th Street and Third Avenue, officially the Islamic Cultural Center of New York. Recent converts to Islam, the students attend the imam’s Saturday lectures on subjects ranging from prayer rituals to looking beyond the Quranic text to its essential meaning. The class is informal: students get to ask questions during and after it, and Ali smiles a lot. He makes references to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

“What happened?” he calls across the hall when a student hurriedly walks out just after coming in. He has accidentally brought shoes into the prayer hall, not allowed in a mosque. Allah always forgives mistakes, Ali says with a smile.

Imam Shamsi Ali wears a suit and has no beard. He doesn’t conform to the stereotype of a Muslim cleric and doesn’t feel he needs to dress the part. Robes and a long beard are not necessary criteria for being a good Muslim, he says. He has a slight build and calm voice, speaking clearly and articulately despite the accent and grammar of one who is not a native English speaker.

Named one of the city’s “influentials” by New York Magazine in May 2006, he is best known for his efforts towards interfaith harmony. “He’s soft spoken but projects this moral force,” says Walter Ruby, Muslim-—Jewish program officer at the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, who has worked with Ali on interfaith relations.

For two years, since his predecessor retired, Ali has led this mosque, overseeing everything from cleaning to settling religious issues. He has modernized the mosque’s communications by encouraging email use and has placed stricter rules around distributing zakat, a charity all Muslims are required to contribute to. He was also instrumental in planning an Islamic school, Manhattan’s first, scheduled to begin next fall.

Ali is an unconventional Muslim cleric. Unlike many other imams, he doesn’t consider music unIslamic. He doesn’t believe women need to cover their faces and thinks they should have roles equal to men, in religion and otherwise.

The imam dressed to lead prayer. (Photo by Hani Yousuf)

Ali believes that American Muslims should have an identity of their own rather than trying to adopt their parents’.

“I personally am in the view that we must create our own identity as a community,” says Ali. “ So, I want to see in the future American Muslims that identify themselves as Muslims and Americans; in other words they are not forced into certain identity as Pakistanis or Bangladeshis or Africans or Arabs.” He adds that he wants the Muslim community in New York to be very “advanced” socially, culturally, educationally and politically.

Born in Indonesia, Ali went to an Islamic boarding school there. It was unlike madrassahs elsewhere in the Muslim world, he emphasized; his school required biology and history along with Islam, he says. After graduating, he attended the International Islamic University in Islamabad, Pakistan, then located at Shah Faisal Mosque, considered the country’s most beautiful. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Islamic education, then went to Saudi Arabia to teach. In 1996, he came to the US with the permanent mission to Indonesia for the UN and led a small mosque for Indonesian Muslims in Astoria, Queens.

“September 11 then gave me even more opportunities to reach out,” says Ali, speaking in his spartan office in the mosque. “I represented the Muslim community at the Yankee Stadium’s Prayer for America weeks after September 11.” One of two Muslims who received President George W. Bush at Ground Zero, Ali told the president the terrorists did not represent the Muslim faith, but their own “ego.”

And after that he was everywhere, Ali says, lecturing at universities, speaking to the FBI and police officials, appearing in synagogues and churches. He believes such efforts landed him the job of assistant imam at the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, where he has organized many seminars and talks with rabbis and priests.

Last year, Rabbi Michael Weisser invited Ali to be the guest speaker at the Free Synagogue of Flushing on Holocaust Memorial Day, which takes place each year after Passover. Since then, Weisser says, he has spoken at the mosque after Friday prayers and the two have participated in prayer together at both the mosque and the synagogue. “He’s a shining light on the world,” says Weisser. “He sees the truth and then speaks the truth.”

Weisser calls Ali an inspiration not only to Muslims, but to Jews and Christians as well. “I introduce him to people as my rabbi,” says Weisser laughing and adds that Ali introduces him as his imam.

Ruby, from the Foundation of Ethnic Understanding, says Ali is a “very impressive guy.” While many Muslims have denounced terrorism, says Ruby, Ali is especially outspoken — despite the criticism he’s encountered from within the Muslim community.

“We organized a two-day seminar on what the holy book says about the others,” says Ali. “The Quran is very critical of the Jews and Christians and how should Muslims understand those verses that talk about the Jews and Christians? And in the meantime, we must maintain our relationship with the Jewish community and the Christian community.”

Bishop Ebony Kirkland of the Church of the Living God Worldwide in Queens Village, Queens, has been involved with Ali, since he spoke at an interfaith dialogue at the church. During a debate about which religion was right, she was struck by the imam’s statement that, “ There is really no absolute, the only absolute is God.”

“He has a peace that passes all understanding,” she says, referring to his calm manner. “He teaches in such a spirited way,” Kirkland adds. “There is such an ease of learning from him.”

Ali has also recently received the Prince Naif award, given by a Saudi official for intereligious harmony.

To help Muslim immigrants in the U.S. better assimilate, Ali organizes Thanksgiving celebrations every year and has been very involved with the Muslim Day Parade, which he sees as an opportunity for integration. “Get from the city and give back to the city,” says Ali. The parade, which usually takes place in early fall, proceeds down Madison Avenue, from 42nd Street to 24th, followed by bazaars and cultural shows.

Though orthodox Muslims consider music unlawful, Ali has brought children from the Indonesian community school in Astoria, Queens to perform Islamic songs at the post-parade celebrations.

“Some imams talked,” says Ali. “But they didn’t talk directly to me. Probably they know that when they talk to me, I will make them understand.”

His own colleague at the 96th Street mosque, Assistant Imam Abdul Rehman, thinks music is unacceptable.

Ali leading prayer at the 96th Street mosque. (Photo by Hani Yousuf)

“For me music is a neutral thing,” Ali responds. “Depends on what kind of music you’re talking about. And for which purpose you are using it. And so, if music is used for Islamic song where you are reminded of God and Islam, then what is wrong to use the music?”

He adds, smiling, that he has watched disapproving imams’ faces during the singing and they seem to be enjoying it.

As for the practice of women covering their faces, Ali agrees with the controversial Egyptian scholars who deem it more cultural than religiously required. “I see it as sometimes kind of embarrassing when I see a woman walking on the street covering her face,” says Ali. “People tend to say, ‘This is the way Muslims treat their women, covered from head to toe. They cannot move.’ This is not what Islam is about.” Though the niqab veil is regarded as a sign of modesty, Ali sees it differently. A veiled woman walking in Time’s Square will get stared at, rather than avert attention, he says.

Further, women with covered faces can’t participate in the mosque and its affairs as much as he thinks they should. While he doesn’t think women should lead prayer, which hasn’t been done traditionally, he believes women can lead other mosque activities.

He does believe that women’s covering their heads is essential to modesty but also sees it as a choice which shouldn’t be imposed.

This has brought critics within the community, including a widespread rumor that he once tried to convince a woman to have an abortion, considered a sin by orthodox Muslims.

Ali says he doesn’t remember such an incident, but that Islam is flexible on that issue, given the circumstances. In the case of teenage pregnancies or when there is a threat to a pregnant woman’s life, the religious leader needs to be wise and flexible while advising someone, he says.

The Islamic Thinkers Society, an Islamic advocacy group, has posted Ali’s picture circled in red, with a caption that reads “FBI Mouthpiece.” The site denounces him as a hypocrite and criticizes him for bringing music into the Indonesian mosque he leads in Queens and for allowing the “free-mixing” of the sexes. Ali thinks the FBI accusation stems from Islam-awareness lectures he held for FBI employees.

The Islamic Thinkers Society, emailed for comment, did not respond.

“These individuals oppose me basically because I oppose their ideas, their hateful ideas, their narrow mindedness in understanding our religion and I really disagree with them and I oppose them strongly and I will never agree with them in their approach,” responds Ali.

But the students here are all unemployed adults who dropped out of high school, and are taking a class through the Educational Opportunity Center, a federally funded program to help adults without high school diplomas get the equivalency certificates necessary to enter college and land jobs.

They’re taking the General Education Development (GED) exam, a rigorous seven-hour test of reading, writing, and math skills.  It’s equivalent to a high school diploma, though “the GED is much harder,” says David Perez, director of the Harlem Center for Education, which has prepared students for the GED since 2002. These students still have seven weeks till the exam, according to the countdown written on the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. Considering the obstacles GED takers uptown face, these students are going to have to make the most of this time.

Employed New York City residents depending on educational attainment (American Community Survey, 2005-07)

People without a high school diploma are less likely to find jobs, a recent study by the Community Service Society shows, and when they do, they often work fewer hours for lower pay.

Median annual income of New York City residents depending on educational attainment (American Community Survey, 2005-07)

The study documents how the city suffers too.

Undereducated and unemployed adults place a great burden on public coffers; over their lifetimes, they cost the city $135,000 more than they pay in taxes, for expenses from incarceration to shelters. Those who complete high school or pass the GED contribute over $190,000 more, on average, to the city treasury.

One way out of poverty is to study for the GED exam which offers a faster track towards a job. “It’s code for people.  The GED is a code used to explain that I need to return to education to improve myself,” says Bruce Carmel, deputy executive director at Turning Point in Brooklyn, which provides adult education services.

Net fiscal contributions of New York City residents (American Community Survey, 2005-2007)

But local GED test-takers may have more to reckon with than those elsewhere.

New York State has very low GED pass rates; with only 60 percent passing, the state ranks 48th in the country. New York City does even worse, with only 47.5 percent passing. Despite the fact that 1.1 million city residents are eligible for the GED, only 28,000 took the test in 2007, just under 3 percent of the eligible population, according to the American Council on Education.

The CSS study indicated even worse results for uptown Manhattan, where 30 to 40 percent of working-age adults lack a high school diploma or its equivalent, a higher proportion than any city neighborhood except the South Bronx. GED pass rates here are low, and lack of information about the test and a badly functioning school system are to blame, Perez says.

The GED was not the Harlem Center for Education’s primary focus when it opened, Perez says.  The center started offering the GED only seven years ago. “But we need it because this is East Harlem,” he says. “Students come in with a lack of skills and a lot of it is foundational – they just don’t know how to read and write.”  So GED programs uptown have more work to do than those elsewhere, Perez says, because they have to start with the basics.

Maritza Ptsos, the program director at HANAC, a state-funded GED testing center that’s free for welfare recipients, agrees. “Many of them barely have the skills to start studying for the GED, forget passing it,” she says.

The problems are also personal. “There is so much baggage, and the big problem is a lack of self esteem,” Ptsos finds. “One year ago we had a student who was involved in a gang, in prostitution, when she joined our program. How can anyone be expected to study under such circumstances?”

Often, personal problems lead to high levels of absenteeism and attrition. At the Harlem Center for Education, the attrition rate is almost 70 percent, Perez says. To combat this, the Center and other test programs uptown like HANAC offer students counseling for their personal problems.

“Most of our students are from the Bronx and upper Manhattan,” says Glykeria Manis, a counselor at HANAC. “Many live in shelters. And when they go home at night, are they going to be concerned about feeding themselves and their kids, or about doing their math homework?”

However, the problems also lie within the system.  Reduced funding has led to a lack of seats at testing sites like SUNY. “GED sites are overwhelmed,” says Perez. “Sometimes people just don’t get to take the test, even if they’ve prepared for it.”

Manis agrees that funding cuts have made it much harder for her students. Since HANAC lost all its November and December funding, it is offering fewer testing dates. “What we need is a change in policy perspective,” she says.

Ever since welfare reforms during the Clinton administration, students at centers like HANAC must work at jobs three days a week and come to class only two days. In order to take the GED for free, they have to work 35 hours a week. “They complain that if we want them to get the GED, then how come we expect them to work more than they study?” Manis says.

The study shows that the State Education Department allocates $3.9 million per year for GED examinations — not enough to cover even administration costs, according to Jacque Cook, author of the recently published education book, “Our Chance for Change.” Providing information to test-takers about how the GED is structured, and why it is useful, is the first step towards achieving better results for students, she argues, but the state offers little help.  According to the Community Service Society study the city’s Department of Education spends about $1000 per GED student taking the test in New York  — definitely not enough, Perez agrees.

Information seems another key factor in explaining abysmal test scores. “There is no one place where students can get all the information they need, and the state needs to provide one,” says Ptsos, who fields hundreds of questions from prospective students every day. “People put in three different applications in three different sites, and then there are seats left vacant, and people still can’t get a seat.” Her message is clear: the state needs to create a comprehensive information system to clear up such confusion.

Moreover, the study reveals a distinct lack of standardization in instruction. Some GED teachers work for the city’s education department, which generally pays them better, while others work for private testing centers. There are no standards for what qualifies them to become GED instructors; usually, a bachelor’s degree in any subject is sufficient.

“I think they need to be certified teachers and expert in a specific subject matter,” says Perez. At his center, the instructor, wizened and friendly, has a master’s degree and a decade of teaching experience under her belt. “There is no set criteria that is disseminated by the state or the city on what these programs need to cover,” Perez adds. Does his staff just take a shot in the dark, then? “We try our best, we look at preparation materials, but this could all be so much easier.”

His center tries to teach students more than just how to pass the GED. “We are trying to build a framework, to encourage good habits.” The wall of the classroom is covered with motivational quotes. “You want to pass the GED or not?!” says one poster. “If you don’t have time to study, then you don’t have time to pass,” says another.

Though the GED provides a route out of unemployment and towards a career for those without a high school education, Perez thinks that in the long term, that’s not enough. Five years down the line, he said, a non-GED holder’s income catches up. “If the GED holder does not move forward and get at least a year of post graduate education, then the non-GED holder will gain job experience, and it will all be same,” he says. “What we need is to foster a sense of momentum.”

Daniel Rodriguez, who structures the program at Perez’s center, agrees. “I keep trying to tell the students that this is just the beginning. I start them off and get them to pass, and then I pass them along to Marlene, who gets them into college.”

Marlene Flax works with the college portion of the center’s comprehensive program. “We get them into good colleges, anywhere that they want to go, but mostly within the CUNY system. The GED is just a starting point,” she explains. “We get them financial aid, and we do all this within the community, by putting up flyers and banners.”

New York’s poor performance has a lot to do with its government’s attitude, according to Perez. “This city does a good job of absorbing these people, under lots of money poured into welfare programs,” he says. He notices better results in other states like Oregon and Michigan, whose GED programs coexist with courses for college credits. Students there can study for the GED and take college level classes at the same time, making them better equipped to handle the job market. In New York, no such system exists. “[Government authorities] don’t feel the need to develop the homegrown workforce like others do. They don’t care about these people,” Perez says.

“Where are these people going? If this was anywhere else, we’d have outrage on the streets. Here, it’s all quiet.”

Aggressive and best-selling denunciations of religion by critic Christopher Hitchens and scientist Richard Dawkins have given atheism a more controversial profile in recent years. But the Harlem monthly meetings, egalitarian by design, challenge the common perception of the atheist movement as antagonistic, says Charles Zorn, a psychology professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College in Harlem and a meeting regular. Organized by the Harlem branch of the Center for Inquiry, a national atheist organization, the gatherings are subdued affairs aimed at confronting divergent beliefs and brainstorming ways to create dialogue.

“We don’t ignore or negate the idea of culture,” Zorn says, referring to the extreme influence of religion in America. “The meetings are driven by pro-intellectualism and pro-thinking. Contention is on the fringes.”

Problems have arisen nonetheless. Harlem atheists sustained a blow in September when the group’s de facto leader died of a blood disease at 49. Herbert Crimes, who went by Sibanye, a Swahili name meaning “we as one,” was the Center for Inquiry’s Harlem coordinator.

“Sibanye was the voice of atheism in Harlem, without a doubt,” says John Martey Young, Sibanye’s partner and a practicing Christian. Sibanye’s charismatic personality brought people together and he staked his reputation on first-rate discussions, Young says. More than 100 family and friends attended his memorial service at a midtown restaurant, eulogizing the man with an ironic blend of spirituality (Sibanye was raised in a religious St. Louis household) and non-theist ideology.

Three months later, the fractured community remains leaderless and none of those who regularly attended Sibanye’s meetings are willing to step forward. “They need some real help,” says Ken Bronstein, president of New York City Atheists.

In Harlem, a neighborhood with countless places of worship, there’s tremendous need for an atheist community, says Jane Everhart, of New York City Atheists. With an estimated 400 places of worship, according to Harlem Heritage Tours – “three churches on every street,” Everhart says – the neighborhood is a hotbed of religious life.

Because it’s also a center of black culture, the new atheist leader would, ideally, be black, says Zorn. He is white, and he sees that as a problem. “I feel comfortable participating, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable leading” the group, he says.

Atheism has a less-than-fervent following here – the monthly meeting regularly drew about 20 people. Atheism in Harlem is not only marginal – with no central gathering place – but stigmatized as well.

So, to identify oneself as a black atheist is to “lose your race card,” says Everhart, using Sibanye’s words. Everhart attributes the leadership void to fear of exclusion from the black community.

Although humanist thought played a defining role in the Harlem Renaissance, and therefore has a historic significance in Harlem’s intellectual legacy, “to be an atheist and an African American is a double bind,” says Anthony Pinn, a black humanism scholar at Rice University.

Christianity is normative in black communities, with churches the most prominent institution for social activism and personal progress. Black churches, however, can also be repressive, Pinn says. Human frailty and suffering are promoted as keys to a better life; subservience to God becomes more important than self-empowerment. These ideas – “no pain, no gain; no cross, no crown” – are detrimental to black communities, Pinn believes.

Sibanye had a similar perspective. In a taped conversation with Everhart last summer, he recalled a trip to South Africa and the negative impact he thought Christianity had on its black population.

“I would go into the homes of Africans,” Sibanye said. “They had dirt floors, tin roofs and tin walls and they had a blue-eyed Caucasian Jesus on every wall. It wore me out. I couldn’t say anything because I was the only Black atheist in the country at that time. I was strong in my atheism; I was unshakeable. Being witness to the oppression that those people had suffered, it made me want to cry.”

Reverend Booker T. Morgan, minister of evangelism at Convent Avenue Baptist Church, wasn’t aware a Harlem atheist group existed but maintains that atheists won’t necessarily face ostracism. Historically, the black community has found strength in God, he says, but “African Americans have been some of the most accommodating people in the world. If atheists are interested in dialogue, we’re open to that.”

While Sibanye’s belief that he was a one-man army now looks prescient, his death marks a new opportunity, says Michael De Dora, Jr., executive director of CFI-New York City. Sibanye’s death “gives us a chance to rethink how we’re treating the Harlem community,” De Dora says.

Given Harlem’s history as a home for black atheist thought, “atheist activists look at Harlem as a beacon on a hill,” De Dora says. “Harlem is a big piece of the puzzle.”

At the time of his death, Sibanye was working to extend CFI-Harlem’s education efforts beyond manning tables at local fairs and posting fliers. Aware that faith-based groups can apply for tax dollars to fund community projects, Sibanye wanted to seek public money for projects under the auspices of Harlem atheists, according to his partner Young.

“We’re going back to the drawing board, and that’s a good thing,” De Dora says. Zorn hopes to run more education and outreach programs and has discussed mounting a plaque and planting a memorial tree for Sibanye in Harlem.

Still, Young believes it’s unlikely that the Harlem atheists can enact a major culture shift. “Sibanye’s ideology will never catch on in an African American community,” he says. “The Church is too thoroughly entrenched.”

As job developer at Exodus Transitional Community in Harlem, her mission has been helping ex-cons find the work essential to their reentry into society.  Crucial to that function is her ability to build ties with employers.

In many ways, Ortiz’s biggest asset is herself – her warm, personable manner, her eloquent speech. Well put together and attractive with unlined, caramel skin and long straight hair, she is 44 but easily looks 10 years younger.

She also spent 22 years in prison.

Diana Ortiz offers closing comments at an East Harlem breakfast meeting given by Exodus Transitional Community. (Photo by Suzanne Weinstock)

Ortiz presents herself as evidence that people who have served time are not the thugs depicted on television.

Bright and early on a Thursday, Ortiz stood in front of a room full of community leaders at an East Harlem breakfast meeting and introduced speakers, including Exodus founder Julio Medina and City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito. Ortiz had brought them all together to explain the Exodus program and build cooperation between local organizations.

“That was so awkward for me,” Ortiz says afterwards. Her prison time has left her a self-described introvert who struggles for comfort in social situations. But standing in front of the audience in a charcoal gray suit and patent leather pumps, her confident demeanor gave no hint of unease.

Ortiz was arrested at 18 as an accomplice in an armed robbery turned deadly. A high school dropout under the influence of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and heroin, she was dating a 36-year-old who planned the robbery with two other men. Ortiz stopped a man on the street in Coney Island, where she lived in the projects. After she stopped the target, her three accomplices approached and Ortiz left the scene.

“The robbery was supposed to have gone easily but the victim was killed,” Ortiz recounts. The shooter was sentenced to 25 years and the other three participants, including Ortiz, to 17 years.

“I went through all of the appeals and at 18 I was thinking, ‘This is it, my life is over,’” Ortiz says. She was angry. She was a young, first time offender, not carrying   a weapon, under the influence of a much older man. How could the court not take her circumstances into consideration? It took her nearly five years to mourn what happened and accept her lot.

“Once I went through that process and took responsibility for me, I was able to say, ‘Now what do I do with my life?’”

Ortiz threw herself into education, earning her GED, associate’s and bachelor’s degrees and finally a master’s in English literature. She did advocacy work helping female inmates reconnect with their children. Being educated and employable are the keys to success upon release, Ortiz says. “Even if we do think we’re facing life in prison, we have to make ourselves productive in prison, and that’s what we did.”

Around her 15th year behind bars, the possibility of going home started to become a reality. Ortiz hung back after a job readiness workshop to show the facilitator her resume. “I did the sell,” Ortiz said. “This was a once in a lifetime opportunity.” Impressed, the woman told Ortiz to contact her when she was released.

Ortiz was rejected for parole but stayed in touch until she was finally granted her freedom after more than 22 years’ imprisonment. That same facilitator gave Ortiz her first job. It initially paid only a $50 stipend per week, but a month later led to a case manager position in which she could continue the advocacy work she began in prison.

“I always took initiative, I always came up with ideas and I always extended myself, even for $50,” says Ortiz. Another agency soon hired her away to oversee programs for kids with parents in prison. Ortiz then joined Exodus several months ago.

“This is where the work is,” Ortiz says. “This is where I belong. Being formerly incarcerated, we can help each other and make sure the recidivism rate is lowered and that we don’t go back to prison.” In the last 10 years, Exodus has helped more than 5,000 men and women get back on their feet.

“It’s kind of hard for ex-offenders due to having a record. There’s a lot of places you go to find a job and they frown on that and the application doesn’t go anywhere,” says Exodus client Alex Pierre-Pierre, who served a year and a half for mail theft.

The statistics for people like Ortiz and Pierre-Pierre are grim. Among 272,111 prisoners released in 15 states in 1994, an estimated two-thirds were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within three years, according to a study by the US Bureau of Justice Statistics. Of those rearrested, nearly half were reconvicted and a quarter resentenced to prison for a new crime. Recidivism rates were particularly high – more than 70 percent – for those with robbery convictions, like Ortiz.

Programs like Exodus aim to keep people from landing back in the prison system through support services ranging from interview preparation to counseling. “Employment is a necessary but not sufficient condition for reducing recidivism,” says Christy Visher, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at the University of Delaware, coauthor of the Urban Institute study, “Employment after Prison: A Longitudinal Study of Releasees in Three States.”

Ortiz is lucky to have a strong support system she built within the prison system as well as family. She lives in Washington Heights with her long-haired Chihuahua,  named Beans, her Maltese, Mimi, and her 74-year-old mother, who is too ill to live alone. Her five sisters are scattered around the country.

“It’s not just having a job, it’s having a good job,” adds Visher. The better the job, the lower the recidivism. Her employment study showed that the probability of re-incarceration in the first year was eight percent for those earning more than $10 per hour, 12 percent for those making between $7 and $10, and 16 percent for those making less than $7. The probability jumps to 23 percent for the unemployed. Having health insurance and potential for advancement also lowered the chances of re-incarceration.

Exodus offers a one-year program, after which participants are expected to be self-sufficient, armed with a job and coping skills. “Part of the plan is, we put people to work – and if that doesn’t work, then the agency doesn’t work,” Ortiz says. The program maintains ties with others that supply everything from job training to legal advice, many of whose representatives attended the Exodus breakfast Ortiz convened. And each participant gets a week of training in interviewing, resume writing and accepting rejection.

“There was a lot of little things that they helped me with,“ says Pierre-Pierre. “My eye contact probably wasn’t too good.“ Ortiz showed him how to smile and speak more properly and helped him trim his resume to a single page. He ultimately put his new skills to work in an interview he got through a friend. Pierre-Pierre now works setting up cones for street work.

Ricardo Cisneros credits Exodus’s advice on sending thank you notes for helping him land two job offers. He had worked in such kitchens as the Park Avenue Country Club and the Tribeca Grand Hotel before being convicted of selling cocaine. He served 18 months, plus 90 days for violating curfew in transitional housing. But Cisneros then came to Exodus every day for two months until he accepted a job cooking at a new burger joint, Fresh-N-Fast.

“The job developer has a very difficult and interesting job as intermediary between the employee and the individual,” Visher says. Job developers need relationships and the credibility to vouch for the people they send. To achieve this, Ortiz uses her agency’s standing, the participants’ commitment and herself as selling points.

The recession compounds the difficulty of her task. “I’m sure it’s more difficult to place people in jobs,” Visher says although there is no supporting data yet.

Working to place her program participants, “We tell employers that they’re ready to work, they’re so ready, they’re so hungry for this. They will take minimum wage, they’ll work whatever hours you want them to work,” Ortiz says. “The people that are coming from us want second chances, so they’re going to do a better job than any one else that’s never been in prison because they want that job so bad, and that’s the truth.”

Ortiz still gets some no’s from employers but when she gets an opening she takes it and runs. If a company asks for one person to interview, she sends three. The employer gets an option or, as happened recently with a moving company, the employer hires them all. But after she does her job, it’s up to the Exodus participants to make things happen. “She’d tell me, ‘Rick, this is what I have for you. Go. It’s on you now. I’ll find the connections. You put in your own legwork,’” Cisneros says.

Services aside, the support of people like Ortiz who understand what they’re going through is essential. “Exodus is a good support base. They was ex-offenders also,” Pierre-Pierre says. “Diana is a very, very good person.”

Ortiz is now shifting from a job developer to a community liaison. During her time as job developer, employers responded well and continually expressed surprise that she had a prison record, so Ortiz is moving into a role where she can build an image of the formerly incarcerated that others can relate to.

Being the public face of Exodus is not easy for Ortiz, who missed out on 22 years of normal social interaction. “It’s still not that comfortable for me and I just hope it comes more naturally as time goes on,” Ortiz says of dealing with new people. “I feel like I’m always part of the system.”

But she tries to lead her life as an example to her program participants. “I can’t tell them to do it if I don’t push myself to do the same.”

One of the two buildings that still sit under the Metro North rail tracks, taking up three blocks instead of five as they used to in the 1930s. (Photo by Cecile Dehesdin)

On a regular weekday, the stretch of Park Avenue between 111th and 116th Streets in East Harlem is all but deserted, with four passers-by at most. Blocks away from the newly opened Costco, two brightly painted buildings sit under the Metro-North railroad tracks. Only one is open, welcoming visitors with a sign spelling La Marqueta in joyful letters. Inside, the two first stalls are rented and open, plus a few more next to them, but that’s all. The rest of the building consists of empty stalls barred by iron gratings, some of which can only be seen from afar, because a huge grid blocks half the building. The only noise is the soft humming of Latino soap operas watched by some vendor waiting for customers to serve, and every so often a discussion with those few customers.

Shopping at La Marqueta used to be a real bustle. “In the ’60s you couldn’t even come through here because it was so busy,” butcher José Cintron fondly remembers. “It was packed from 6 to 6 Monday to Saturday, it was loud, and there was a fish stink like hell!” He pauses. “It was the good days.”

The good days passed in the late ’70s, when La Marqueta started slowly dying. Since then, the city has tried various times to revive it, without success. Today, a new plan is in place: part of the market is to become a kitchen incubator, where food entrepreneurs will rent kitchen space to get their businesses started at a low cost.

It was the city that first created La Marqueta, East Harlem Chamber of Commerce President Henry Calderon explained. “It started with Mayor La Guardia in the ’30s,” he said. “There were vendors all over the place,” and so the idea was to regulate the activity of all these street vendors by putting them in one place. Merchants quickly filled the five buildings, and evolved with the neighborhood. It was the place to find food impossible to spot in New York. “The food in the rest of the city catered to the majority” of its residents, said Calderon. And so as Puerto Ricans settled in East Harlem, La Marqueta “became a place where you could find food that your recognized. So La Marqueta became a symbol of El Barrio.”

Yuca, yautia, bacalao, malanga, morcilla, chorizo, longaniza were among the specialties at La Marqueta. “Everyone came here, from the Bronx or Brooklyn too, especially those who didn’t have the staples of their diet,” said Pedro Pedraza, a longtime resident of East Harlem and a researcher at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. “And since you were here you might eat here too, since on the West Side you couldn’t find Puerto Rican restaurants, unless you went farther up.”

Marina Ortiz, founder of the advocacy website East Harlem Preservation, said, “That was the shopping district.” Goods would be “pouring down on the sidewalks, blocking the access,” she said. “It was just a trip. You could spend a day there and buy cheap. We didn’t have chain stores or as many bodegas.”

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment of and reasons for La Marqueta’s slow death. According to Pedraza, the East Harlem community started changing in the late ’70s, diversifying. As he and the few merchants still at the market explained, some vendors died, some retired, and no young generation came to replace them.

At the same time, supermarkets and bodegas started carrying the ethnic food that used to only be found at La Marqueta. “Before, people came from all the boroughs and all over the city because they couldn’t find it elsewhere. If you can, then why make the trip?” Calderon said. Ortiz added, “It became a place where people didn’t go, and even avoided.” The downhill slide “culminated in a fire that destroyed most buildings,” she said. Today only two buildings are still standing: the one with the market, and a large empty one. A third lot has become a gated outer plaza, while the two last ones are empty.

With fewer and fewer shops, La Marqueta stopped being that giant open air market, and “people like to shop in places where they can buy everything at the same time,” fishman Bernard Lifschultz said. At 90 years old, Lifschultz, who goes by Benny and is affectionately nicknamed “the old man” by some customers and vendors, has been working at La Marqueta for 63 years. He came at the end of World War II, and hasn’t left since. He still remembered the time when “there was a long waiting list to have a stall here, because it was very lucrative.”

Today business is not as profitable, but Benny and the handful of current vendors are not ready to leave. “It occupies my time,” said Benny, whose savings from the glorious days of La Marqueta help carry through his older years. “I doubt a newcomer would do very well.”

Jose Cintron watches a Latino soap opera while waiting for potential clients. (Photo by Cecile Dehesdin)

His colleague of 40 years, José Cintron, said: “I’ve got two more years before I retire. I don’t need to get rich, I don’t want to die rich. I make enough to have fun now.” Cintron, Benny and the few other vendors benefit from low rent since the building is owned by the city. Cintron pays $600 a month, utilities and insurance included. He said he had enough to live with around $5000 a month after expenses, 60 to 70 customers a week.

“Forty years ago, I had 1,000 customers a week,” Cintron said. “I don’t think this place is going nowhere.”

Throughout the years, city administrations have tried to revive the space but one plan after another fell through. Calderon said, “The plans to revive it have been mislaid because they were trying to recreate something that was there in the ’50s.” Ortiz added: “People are very nostalgic. They don’t want to let go of the heart of El Barrio, it’s a landmark.”

For the New York City Economic Development Corporation, one of the reasons previous attempts failed was their large scope, spokesperson Janel Patterson explained. So at the beginning of August, the group decided to take another, smaller approach, by announcing the construction of a kitchen incubator in the market’s building. The fully equipped shared kitchen will take over a little more than a third of the 10,000 square foot building. Young food startups or food businesses looking to expand will be able to rent a kitchen space and equipment to cook at a cheaper rate than elsewhere in the city.

Contractors sent out proposals to undertake the construction at the beginning of September. They are now being reviewed, Patterson wrote in an email. Construction is expected to begin by the end of the year, and the incubator should be completed by the end of summer 2010. Ultimately, the group hopes to revive the whole La Marqueta area, but for now the focus was on the market building and the empty building, which could be used for storage. The city has budgeted $1 million, allocated by Speaker Christine Quinn for the outfitting of the incubator, Patterson said.

For the vendors, it’s a simple case of being burnt one time too many. “I went to so many meetings,” Cintron said. “We sit down there like dummies hearing those people say, ‘We’re gonna do this and that’, and then they get the money and they vanish. Promise, promise, promise, yeah, promise in your pocket!”

Patterson wrote that the vendors have been “informally informed,” and that the kitchen’s construction and operation should not affect them. Cintron said he learned about the plans from a reporter in September. “I got to see this to believe it,” he said. As for Lifschultz, he said he may have heard of it, but that “it sounded so ridiculous to me that it slipped my mind.” La Marqueta’s veteran thinks the area will not support the initiative. “People come here to buy food cheaper than elsewhere, they’re struggling to subsist. See those tails I cut off the fish to put in the garbage? Yesterday someone asked me to give it to them to make soup. Times are bad, and they are making fancy projects.”

Calderon said: “To me, it’s a sad ending. Having a commercial kitchen sounds good because it creates these jobs in this economy, but the symbol is lost.” While agreeing that nostalgia was not going to help La Marqueta, he would have preferred it to be turned into a destination for tourism, something with local restaurants and ethnic cuisine, but also local artists creating crafts. “Something that brings tourism, money, and jobs for the people who live there, while keeping the name of La Marqueta,” he said.

Deciding to start small might not necessarily be the best answer, said Kathrine Gregory, who started working with kitchen incubators seven years ago. As a consultant for kitchen incubators with her company “Mi kitchen es su kitchen,” she was in touch with the New York City Economic Development Corporation over the plans for La Marqueta. She said though kitchen incubators were a good solution for food start-ups since they reduced costs drastically (renting a kitchen space means not having to buy a $50,000 bread oven for example), they couldn’t be sustainable by themselves. “No incubator without other streams of revenue is financially viable,” she said as she was touring the kitchen incubator she runs in Long Island City, Queens, because without them “you can’t keep prices low enough.”

Ovens like this one, lit up by Kathryn Gregory in her Queens kitchen incubator, can cost up to $50,000. (Photo by Cecile Dehesdin)

The Queens kitchen was built into the Consortium for Worker Education building, and is used for a culinary certification program as well as for the incubator. Those classes, as part as numerous other classes the consortium provides, are the reason the incubator can survive, Gregory said.

“To be sustainable in and of itself, an incubator has to be 75 percent occupied,” she said. If the 4,000-square-foot incubator in La Marqueta was broken into four kitchens, available to rent for three shifts seven days a week, like the one in Queens is, that would amount to 336 shifts. The incubator would need to rent 252 shifts out of those 336 a month in order to be sustainable. “That’s why an incubator as a stand-alone project will not work,” Gregory said, arguing that side projects could help pay for utilities, maintenance and managing fees, especially at the start.

Gregory, who did not answer the city’s requests for a proposal but would consider working with whichever contractor wins the request, said she had tons of ideas for La Marqueta, “to create something that becomes like a Mecca” for East Harlem. She thought side projects should include renting small stalls in the market to incubator users or other food merchants, as a way to create a buzz. “More stalls equals more excitement equals more people coming and more chance of them buying!”

When asked about the possibility of incubator users renting stalls in the market to sell their products, Patterson said that those were still early days, and that “lots of decisions will be made by the manager.”

Palacio Edelberto, a Cuban immigrant, collects cans for several hours a day. (Photo by Ashley Foxx)

Palacio Edelberto barrels down a residential block along 123rd Street between Lenox and Fifth Avenues, but stops his shopping cart, overflowing with cans, bottles, bags, smaller push carts and even coat hangers, to politely let two children and an older woman pass by.

“Buenas dias,” he says “Como estas?”

“Bien,” the woman replies, smiling, while maneuvering the children around a bulging plastic bag hanging from the edge of Edelberto’s shopping cart.

“See, not everybody speaks like that,” Edelberto says in his thick Cuban accent, watching them walk away. “You go to other countries — go to France, Germany, Cuba — and no matter where you come from, people say hello. Not here. People pass you like you’re garbage.”

But passers-by can’t help noticing his own garbage: mounds of empty Coke and Pepsi cans, Heineken bottles and orange juice jugs. Edelberto is one of hundreds of can collectors as local residents dub them: men and women, some homeless and others just strapped for cash, who rummage through the tons of garbage on city streets for bits of aluminum, glass or plastic.

Can collectors recycle hundreds of cans at smaller recycling machines, primarily found at grocery store chains and redemption centers. There are 12 redemption centers in Manhattan, six uptown, according to a report by the Council on the Environment of New York City. However, a spokeswoman for the council said there’s little data available on how the homeless and low-income residents boost can recycling efforts. So, often their contributions go unreported.

Edelberto, who immigrated to the United States in 1980, says he worked for more than 20 years all over the country — Chicago, Key West, Louisiana — as a welder, a Woolworth’s clerk, and even a guitar player. He claims to speak seven languages, and during conversation, flows easily from Spanish to French to English. He talks of traveling the world, spending time in South Africa and witnessing Nelson Mandela’s historic rise to the presidency. But now, he’s 66, living on little more than $320 in Social Security every month, and foraging for cans for three to four hours every day.

“I don’t want people to give me no money,” he says. He doesn’t mind “working hard for it,” even if that means looking through trash.

“Mira,” he says, peering over his delicate wire-rimmed glasses. His mass of salt-and-pepper hair is tucked in to a messy ponytail under his black and white baseball cap. “I do not care what people think when I’m trying to make a couple of bucks.”

Uptown resident, Edelberto, supplements his social security by can collecting. (Photo by Ashley Foxx)

On a Thursday, he has been searching since 9 a.m. It was now noon.

He stops systematically at every pile, poking around in all the bags and examining each can. He’s particular about opening and closing the bags and says he chooses not to leave them ripped open, like other collectors do, so residents and sanitation workers won’t complain about the litter caused by the slashed bags.

He holds up a Welch’s Fruit Punch can.

“See, this one is no good because it is missing its tab,” Edelberto explains and tosses it in back in the bag. “The machine won’t take it but I could take it to the scrap metal yard if I want to.”

At the Pathmark at 124th and Lexington Avenue, a few blocks from the shelter where he lives, Edelberto gets 5 cents per can, bottle or plastic container. But even the recycling center becomes a challenge for people just looking to earn some quick cash. He has to wait in a bustling line of people —a mix of the homeless and locals, with immigrant women chatting in Spanish and leaning on smaller push carts filled to the rim and twenty-somethings toting plastic bags full of cans slung over their shoulders.

But the line at this Pathmark is more orderly than other locations, like in Inwood and Washington Heights, according to Rich Stauffer, store manager at the 125th Street location.

“We’ve never really had too many problems,” Stauffer said. “Regular customers usually don’t complain. But if they do say something, we just ask the guys at the machine to let the others have their turn.”

But, in addition to long lines, some items, like out-of-state beer bottles, are not accepted. Sometimes carts and bags are stolen by others more desperate for change. And often, tempers flare if collectors jump ahead of others waiting in line.

Edelberto eyes a friend, William, who’s arguing with someone who has cut in line, and decides to wait his turn. After finally making it up to the blue machine marked “aluminum,” he deposits about a third of his cans — depositing his whole cart would take too long and annoy those still waiting their turn. He presses the button for his ticket and holds up the slip of paper; he just made 70 cents.

After depositing a third of his cans, Edelberto makes 70 cents. (Photo by Ashley Foxx)

Edelberto and William chat with the other locals huddled around the recycling machines and share stories, cigarettes and a bottle of liquor. William, like Edelberto and others on this East Harlem corner, is an expert at can collecting.

For the last several years, he’s split his time between the streets and the Kelly House, a local shelter for homeless New Yorkers with mental health disabilities, a couple of blocks away. He declines to give a last name but says he’s 58 and already suffered from bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia and cocaine and heroin addictions.

He’s ventured far from his childhood in Bloomfield, N.J., where he grew up with several siblings, including Benjamin F. Holman, a pioneering black news reporter who worked for the Chicago Daily News and CBS News. He boasts of his own college education: a degree in accounting and child psychology. He smiles as he talks about his past but there’s a hint of sadness in his eyes.

The years of addiction wear on his face: his eyes have slightly yellowed, clashing against his brown skin.

He admits that many can collectors “do it for the alcohol and for the drugs” while “some do it to survive.” But, after knocking his own cocaine and heroin addiction, William says he still collects cans to satisfy one last, old habit.

“I’ll be honest. I do it for the alcohol and to survive,” he said. “I’m not happy but I’m content.”

So, he studies the machines. He knows which recycling centers, like the ones in Washington Heights that limit you to 12 dollars. He knows which scrap yards also accept aluminum and copper. He knows that broken bottles are still worth five cents.

“Once you figure out what they won’t take, you don’t even waste your time with that,” William said, leaning against his cart, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his worn, burgundy leather jacket. “If you cash in and don’t make enough, you get back out there. Time is valuable when you’re out here trying to make a dollar.”

He nods his head in the direction of the young woman beside him who just set aside a broken glass bottle.

“See, she hasn’t learned the game yet,” he says, knowingly. “You can still get credit for that bottle.”

“Hey, Miss! Miss!” he says, motioning for her attention. He shoves the glass bottle through and points at the 5 cent credit that pops on the screen.

“See, I told you,” he says but the woman continues depositing her cans with a look that implies either she didn’t want to be bothered or didn’t understand English.

William, a can collector, redeemed his ticket slips at a machine at the Pathmark on 125th Street. He made $4.25 that day. (Photo by Ashley Foxx)

William shrugs and grabs his last slip from the slot. Inside the Pathmark, he redeems four slips and makes a total of $4.25. He fans out the four bills and a quarter.

“See, so my beers cost about $1.25 each,” he says. “ I can get three beers. So, I’m good for the day.”

He tucks the cash in his pocket.

“You know, I’ve knocked cocaine,” he says, thoughtful. “I’ve knocked heroin. But I just can’t seem to knock alcohol.”

He shakes his head, pushing his empty cart out the supermarket’s door and back onto the street.

Harlem United CEO Patrick McGovern and Program Coordinator Jennifer Rodriguez (Photo by: Sam Petulla)

Mary sits calmly. Her jeans are clean and well-made, her hands compact — never fidgeting — and she’s telling anecdotes about all the men she’s dated. She has lots of advice for what to look for in a man, and she can tell you how to leave a man and confidently move on, independently, for yourself. The night before, she broke up with her boyfriend. She’s alert, can take a joke, and holds her ground, and she has lived with HIV for 16 years.

Mary, just by appearances, could be misperceived as uninfected. She goes shopping, meets friends for lunch — she’s even about to go to a recently opened “HIV Only” club downtown, where she can dance and meet other singles. “I haven’t experienced the things people experience,” she says. “I have never been to a hospital.”

She lives in Harlem, a neighborhood sometimes called the United States’ HIV/AIDS epicenter and bellwether. Local HIV/AIDS organizations constantly scramble to anticipate trends and statistics. In the ’90s, the focus was on needle-users and the MSM (men who have sex with men) community. Then there were the rumors. Sixteen years ago, when Mary became infected, she “thought that only gays could get it,” she said. Even today, some residents uptown believe HIV can be transmitted through doorknobs and house flies.

As HIV’s reputation has changed from an unknown virus to a treatable medical condition, Harlem United, Harlem’s leading HIV/AIDS organization, has radically revamped how it fights HIV. In the last two years, instead of targeting groups – even those experiencing startling rises in new infections — Harlem United has taken a more encompassing approach that could reach the whole community.

Harlem United maintains an extensive network. It runs two clinics and multiple housing facilities, and partners with smaller organizations focused more on local populations’ needs. It offers services from art therapy to health care for the homeless and runs the only entirely bilingual Spanish HIV/AIDS clinic in the United States.

In the last few years, HIV has spread in Harlem in various, often troubling, directions. In 2006, the average Harlem resident was six times more likely to receive a new HIV diagnosis than an average American, according to statistics released in 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most new infections were among Harlem’s Latinos, who were more than 12 times as likely to receive new HIV diagnoses than other New York City Latinos. In fact, “over the past five years, new HIV infections, and concurrent HIV/AIDS diagnoses have fallen among all race categories, except for Hispanic women,” according to New York City Department of Health evaluation coordinator Chris Williams, commenting on the 2006 statistics.  Health professionals believe that trends like these will eventually spread countrywide.

Harlem United, carefully monitoring the CDC and the NYC health department statistics and compiling its own, decided to retain its existing Latino support and testing programs, rather than launch new ones.

Instead, its Blocks Project, begun in January 2008, sets a broader goal of testing everyone in the area — from women discouraged by a partner to the unsuspecting elderly. For the organization, it’s a new way of thinking about HIV/AIDS testing.

Soraya Elcock, Harlem United’s vice president for policy and public affairs, sits in her office, surrounded by mementos from 20 years in HIV/AIDS work and explains the shift.

Although organizations have changed, one thing hasn’t. People still contract HIV in the same ways: through risky sex, intravenous drug use, or long-term partners who become infected.

“It’s not about whether you’re at risk. What is needed is a neighborhood taking care of its basic health,” Elcock says. Unlike programs that target specific groups, she explains the blocks project treats HIV as a basic community health problem, along with hepatitis C, diabetes and hypertension. That means it’s a treated as a disease no more spectacular than any other and no more applicable to one group than another. Women in particular, “respond to something targeting to a larger community health awareness,” Elcock says.

“You have to create a hothouse effect — or you miss all the small groups,” she explains. Targeting a group — like Latinos or small African immigrant populations — tells a sub-community: There’s a problem among people like you. That breeds fear, Elcock says, which can discourage testing by making people clam up in denial or driving them to disregard the risk.

In taking this approach, the Blocks Project also targets an elusive but crucial body of people: infected people unaware they carry HIV.  Harlem United consider them the most hazardous group.  Last year the rate of HIV transmissions originating from people unaware of their infection was 54 to 70 percent, Elcock points out.

“A lot of them don’t believe they are at risk,” she says. As a result, merely encouraging people to be tested for HIV has had limited success. But Harlem United says the Blocks Project, with its enlarged approach, led to 75 percent more testing its first year.

Since kicking off the Blocks Project’s 2008, it has gone through continual revision based on what has worked and hasn’t.

Jennifer Rodriguez, a Harlem United community outreach coordinator, explained that at first, “Harlem United would have meetings with tenant association presidents. We ask them what would be the best way,” she says. Then Harlem United’s outreach staff would head out to the large buildings in teams. “We would have messages that we would put on every door,” Rodriguez says. “They might say Tuesday or Thursday come to this corner,” where testing vans would be available.

But, “the whole ‘come-to-my-van’ approach doesn’t work,” Rodriguez says.  So this year’s strategies were totally different. “In the last month or two we started getting a more intense outreach focus. We’ll have a five-minute conversation like, ‘Oh, why won’t you use a condom?’” she says. “Now it’s not so concerned with tenants. It’s more zones. It’s wider.”

As Mary sits and talks about her experiences with relationships, she suggests that even as more effective HIV treatments have become widely available, the old rumors and stigmas about HIV still pervade uptown.  Although she feels well, facing the disease’s stigma can be the hardest part. She describes an incident she had one night at a bingo game, when she overheard some players talking.

“The older ladies would gather and say, ‘I don’t want him to get HIV out there,’” she says, referring to married women whose husbands may be having affairs. “I used to go out there and say: This could happen to anybody. Because you don’t know what your husband does when he walks out that door.”

A menorah, a traditional Hanukkah candelabra, at the Old Broadway Synagogue. (Photo by Joshua Tapper)

By Joshua Tapper

In recent years, Harlem hasn’t been a magnet for Jewish New Yorkers. In addition to a Chabad chapter and an itinerant minyan group, Harlem has just one traditional synagogue. Yet, the Old Broadway Synagogue, tucked under the shadow of the elevated subway, just off 125th Street, remains a stalwart of the small Harlem Jewish community, as it has since 1923.

This Hanukkah, the synagogue opened its doors to the community, bringing Jews and non-Jews together to celebrate the Festival of Lights. On the fourth night of the eight-night holiday, the synagogue, in conjunction with Senator Bill Perkins’ office, hosted a candle-lighting ceremony and feast of latkes (potato pancakes) and sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts).

Paul Radensky, the synagogue’s gregarious president, began the festivities by welcoming the crowd of about 30 to the community-building affair. A series of speakers, including Sen. Perkins, spoke of the Jewish community’s importance to Harlem.

The Hanukkah celebration, in its second year, “shows another side of Harlem and the diversity that exists,” said Cordell Cleare, Sen. Perkin’s chief of staff and the event’s main organizer. “We can learn what others are celebrating and it’s a way for us to come together.” Sen. Perkins’ office is organizing Christmas and Kwanzaa parties as well.

As guests filtered into the narrow sanctuary, taking their seats in wooden pews, a silver, menorah sat high on the bimah, an elevated platform at the front of the room.

Ronald Newsome, a 78-year-old Harlem resident, was attending his first Hanukkah party. He recalled the days when Harlem was home to a vibrant Jewish community. “We all occupy the same spaces,” Newsome said, stressing the importance of interfaith programs.

Old Broadway Synagogue has a congregation of 50 to 60, but draws 25 to 35 for regular Saturday morning services. While many of the congregants come from the Upper West Side, there are “more and more Jews living in Harlem now,” Radensky said. He jokingly calls the community “a ghetto in the ghetto.”

Paul Radensky, left, Sen. Bill Perkins, center, and Cordell Cleare, Sen. Perkins' chief of staff, discuss the night's festivities. (Photo by Sonal Shah)

The Hanukkah party attracted a diverse crowd. Bearded Orthodox Jews sat next to blacks, some Jewish, some not. Carla McIntosh, a black Jew and Harlem resident who’s attended the synagogue off-and-on for 10 years, said she’s never encountered religious prejudice. The party was important, McIntosh said, “because we’re a community, a small neighborhood, and we need to get along.”

Candace Queen Mother Abbess, also knows as Bishop Shirley Pitts, of the Ethiopian Orthodox Coptic Church of North and South America, is an example of religious synthesis in the area. She’s cared for “Jewish elders” for 40 years and has picked up some of the traditions. She pulled a prayer shawl from her purse. “I always carry a prayer shawl in case the Sabbath catches me somewhere,” she said.

Reporting by Sonal Shah

TALKING ABOUT KWANZAA

By Shareen Pathak

This holiday season, African-Americans will be placing candle-filled kinaras side-by-side with tinselly Christmas trees to celebrate Kwanzaa, which takes place from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1.

Created by Ron Karenga in 1966, the seven-day celebration is the first specifically African-American holiday.  The Uptowner spoke to Abdel Salaam, assistant director of Forces of Nature: A Kwanzaa Celebration, opening tonight at City College, about the holiday. (We have edited and condensed his responses.)

Q: What is the history of Kwanzaa? How is it particularly relevant to Harlem?

A: The holiday is non-heroic, non-religious and nonsectarian. It is based on the East African harvest called Kwanza, and finds a particularly relevant home in Harlem, which many celebrate as the black cultural capital of the modern world.

Many of the earliest devotees of Kwanzaa were from Harlem and Brooklyn and helped disseminate its cultural doctrine, the Nguzo Saba, or seven principles. They are:

• Umoja (unity)
• Kujichagulia (self-determination)
• Ujima (collective work and responsibility)
• Ujamaa (cooperative economics)
• Nia (purpose)
• Kumba (creativity)
• Imani (faith)

Q: How widely celebrated is Kwanzaa?

A: Kwanzaa probably has its greatest following in the cities of the United States, like New York, Chicago, Newark, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, which was the home of Dr. Karenga.  While particularly relevant to African-Americans, Kwanzaa’s universal principles can be celebrated by anyone and currently have followers and practitioners in Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and of course the Americas. Probably about 18 million people celebrate it today.

Q. What special products are sold for Kwanzaa in Harlem?

Kwanzaa cards, childrens’ games, Kwanzaa kits, Mishuma Saba (seven candles) and mkekas (straw mats) are very popular. We also get Kiikombe cha Umoja (unity cups) and vibunzi (Native American corn). Zawadi (hand-made gifts) are available nationwide in most African communities and some major chain stores. Walk along 125th Street and you’ll see what I mean. All the small shops are selling this stuff.

Harlem Stage presents Forces of Nature: A Kwanzaa Celebration, a dance, music and theater experience opening tonight at the Aaron Davis Hall at City College. For tickets and more information, call 212.281.9240 x 27.

EL MUSEO PARADES NEW PUPPETS FOR THREE KINGS DAY

By Shane Show
Note: This story was updated on Dec. 16, 2009.

El Museo's original Three Kings figures are being converted into a museum exhibit. Roughly six feet high, they rolled down Harlem's streets on wooden frames, but have been in various states of decay as years have passed. Photo by Shane Snow.

Having paraded down East Harlem’s streets each January for 32 years, El Museo del Barrio’s renowned, trundling Three Kings Day figurines will be retired this year, to be replaced by 12-foot high papier maché puppets representing the convergence of traditions, races and cultures in Latin America.

Local artist Polina Porras Sivolobova designed and is overseeing construction of the puppets, which will make their debut at this year’s parade on Jan. 6, said El Museo spokesman Ines Aslan. They’ll blend the traditional Christian style with some Caribbean flavor, Aslan said.

The puppets, an El Museo statement explained, are “inspired in the Taíno cosmological tradition, are made of papier maché, colorful fabrics, and a carefully-crafted structure that allows for graceful movement.” Taínos were pre-Columbian inhabitants of Puerto Rico and other nearby islands.

The local parade, which will step off from Park Avenue and 106th Street at 11 a.m. and circle its way to El Museo by 1 p.m., is renowned for its colorful floats, upbeat music and dancing. “The director of the museum started the parade,” Aslan said. “The museum staff and neighborhood artists created the puppets and decorations.”

Operators control the new puppets from the inside, bearing the weight with a backpack-like mechanism. The finished puppets will hold gifts in front of them and feature detailed painted heads rich in Taíno and Christian symbolism. Photo by Shane Snow.

Three Kings Day, the culmination of the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas, commemorates the trio of Biblical magi who brought gifts to the newborn Christ child. Though often overshadowed by its more commercial holiday counterpart on Dec. 25, Three Kings Day remains popular in many Latin countries, often celebrated with a banquet known as the Feast of the Epiphany.

“The synergy of the Christian and Taíno traditions, wonderfully embodied by our new puppets, perfectly synthesizes the unique cultural mix that characterizes our community, as well as El Museo del Barrio’s mission,” the museum statement said.

Interactive graphic by Lisa Waananen and Sarah Butrymowicz

Ask Ruben Lopez about his neighborhood’s crime rate in recent years and he answers with confidence. “It went down,” he says, standing behind the counter of his hardware store on Broadway, marking a lock with a piece of masking tape. He explains with assurance that crime is falling across the board, from robberies to drug deals. And what makes him so sure? “I see it,” he says simply, gesturing out the window.

Lopez is right, but the average American seems to have a hard time figuring it out. While others might rely on the news or stories about what happened to a friend of a friend, Lopez and other uptowners gauge crime by what they see on the street every day, leading them to much more realistic perceptions of its prevalence.

Crime in Harlem, and all of uptown, has been declining for years. Murders, rapes, burglaries, felonious assaults, robberies, grand larcenies and auto thefts are all on track to be lower in 2009 than in 2008, according to year-to-date statistics from uptown precincts.

In the 30th Precinct, in Central Harlem, robberies and grand larcenies have both dropped by over 27 percent from 2008 to 209. And in East Harlem’s 23rd Precinct, auto thefts have dropped by nearly half.

Across the country, too, crime is dropping – and has been since the early 90s – according to both official statistics and reported victimization rates, said David Green, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. And while nationwide crime statistics for 2009 can’t be compiled yet, indications point to a stable crime rate, if not to further decreases.

Yet Gallup’s annual crime poll showed that 74 percent of Americans believe there’s more crime in the country than this time a year ago and 51 percent say crime has risen in their area. Last year, though crime dropped, 67 percent still thought crime had worsened since the previous year.

Perhaps that’s because most individuals take their cues about crime rates from media reports and politicians. “It’s not newsworthy to talk about nothing happened,” Green said, noting that media often focus on the most negative aspects of crime rates and have a tendency to refer to a “worsening problem” even when one doesn’t exist.

“How can we blame people for not knowing crime is falling?” he said. “People don’t really have a baseline to work with.”

But uptowners don’t necessarily turn to the news first. They seem to have a different baseline for assessments of crime rates: their own observations and experiences.

Felipe Xochimitl, who lives in Harlem and works at a deli in Washington Heights, says crime is much lower than it was four years ago. “It’s good. It’s safe,” he said. “I don’t see anything wrong on the trains, the roads.”

For Lidia Aybar, evidence of declining crime comes from what happens every day inside the El Mundo department store she manages at 158th and Broadway. Her place used to get robbed often. A couple of men stole merchandise in September, but it’s been quiet since then and overall, robberies in the neighborhood have been less frequent this year, she said.

Anthony Meloni, director of the New York City Anti-Crime Agency, thinks that such perceptiveness occurs less often elsewhere in the city. For instance, those who attend a women’s crime prevention class his agency teaches consistently cite a rising crime rate as their reason for enrolling. “That happens a lot,” he said. “People are not crime experts.”

Part of the national perception of increasing crime may come from speculation that a poor economy leads to more law breaking – an idea that has sparked considerable debate among criminologists, Green said. Although some experts think the two are unrelated (crime fell during the Great Depression), others are bracing for an increase.

“We don’t really know what’s going on and why crime has declined so much,” Green said. “We don’t know why crime isn’t rising.”

Related Story: Robberies Decline in Washington Heights, Despite Recent Bank Heist