Edgar Santana prepares for his fight at Mendez Boxing Gym. (Photo by Gabriel Stargardter)

Edgar “Chamaco” Santana, a/k/a The Pride of Spanish Harlem, walks into the Mendez Boxing gym in Manhattan’s Flatiron District and approachs a duct-taped punch bag. He’s compact and wiry, like a tourniquet wound tight. Dipping his left shoulder while he jabs with his right, he clamps his jaw in concentration.

The gym walls are lined with images of famous Latino fighters – Salvador Sanchez, Julio Cesar Chavez – intermingled with the giants who, like Ali and Tyson, require no first name. Its clientele is mainly comprised of white-collar boxers who come to work out. These days, Santana is one of a few remaining pros.*

In 2008, Santana was one of the country’s most promising light welterweights with 24 wins and 17 knockouts to his name. ESPN televised his fights and talk of world titles was not unrealistic. But by late 2009, he was behind bars, a convicted drug trafficker.

Since his release from Riker’s Island two years ago, Santana has fought twice, both bouts ending in knockouts. In the second, against Omri Lowther, Santana was crowned North American Boxing Association champion. With the next step a bout against Wilfredo Negron, his comeback is on.

Edgar Santana,born in Manatí, Puerto Rico, moved with his family to El Barrio in 1986, when he was seven.

“It was definitely rough, a lot of drugs on the street,” Santana recalls, his soft voice barely registering over the thud of fists hitting bags. “There were people lined up to get drugs. That was a shock.”

He found his calling at 15, when José “Chegüi” Torres, a Puerto Rican light heavyweight, came to speak to students at his high school.  Santana, already practicing martial arts, decided to switch to boxing.

By 20, he’d turned pro, but struggled without a manager or promoter, bouncing back and forth between Puerto Rico and East Harlem. He changed trainers frequently, until by 2005 he’d begun to attract enthusiastic headlines. He also opened a barbershop, Santana Cuts, on East 106th Street, populating it with a coterie of childhood friends.

“He was on the cusp of his career,” said Hector Sarria, a trainer at Mendez Boxing. “He was close to fighting a world championship fight.”

Everything changed on July 18, 2008, when Santana was arrested at his East 102nd Street home. He was just weeks from an ESPN-televised fight, but officers of the New York Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force, listening in for over a year on his conversations with two suspected drug traffickers, had little concern about that.

That morning, Santana emerged from his apartment in handcuffs wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with one of the many enigmatic slogans of local artist and friend James De La Vega, which now line his barbershop walls: “The pressure of survival in the big city will make you lose sight of your dream. Hang in there.”

Accused of brokering a deal to mail a kilo of cocaine from Puerto Rico to New York, Santana posted $150,000 bail. He eventually served four months on Riker’s Island, convicted of conspiracy to sell narcotics. He emerged a free man in January, 2010.

His arrest and imprisonment affected fans at Mendez Boxing. “It was kind of deflating for everyone,” says patron Mitch McMahon while Santana lays into an Everlast bag. “You live in the jungle and there’s a lot of alligators. The longer you live there, the more likely you are to get bitten.”

“Believe none of what you hear and half of what you know,” adds trainer Joey Gamache. “Boxing’s an unforgiving sport.”

Santana himself remains cagey about the episode – “Sometimes you’re at the wrong place at the wrong time,” he says – but is more willing to talk about prison’s impact on his physical state. He was well known on Riker’s, even respected, but struggled to keep in shape. It was, he says, more a waste of time than anything.

Once out, Santana decided to take a break from boxing and focus his attention on the barbershop. But soon he longed for the ring, and sought out Leon Taylor, a trainer he’d long admired, to orchestrate his comeback. He hopes to be challenging for a world title within a year.

“I have the ability to go many places,” Santana says.

At Santana’s barbershop on East 106th Street, sandwiched between an aromatic botanica and a Hispanic church, the unprepossessing red awning seems to herald a down-at-heel interior. But De La Vega’s Basquiat-meets-Haring scrawls give it a gritty sophistication. Santana points to his favorite inscription, daubed on the shop’s white wall: “Your mind has the amazing ability to organize chaos.”

As he sits by the window, slugging water from a gallon Poland Spring bottle, Santana moans about being unable to eat much over the holidays. But he’s about to travel with his manager, Brian Cohen, and his trainer, Taylor, to Dover Downs Casino in Delaware. When he weighs in, Santana needs to hit 143 pounds. He’s currently at 147, but doesn’t seem fazed by losing four pounds in two days. “What I have now is water weight,” he says. “Not fat.”

With his tight cheekbones and long lashes, Santana doesn’t look like your average cauliflower-nosed prizefighter. He dresses differently, too: his jeans tucked into ankle-high boots, the ensemble accessorized with an elegant fedora, complete with feather. He admires Picasso who, Santana says, made people think differently about art.

“I was always a little bit more open-minded about things,” he says, displaying his arm as an example. “You’ve never seen someone with a red sleeve.” A red-inked tattoo circles his bicep, a work in progress.

It’s a busy afternoon. Carlos Flores walks in with his mother and son. He’s wants his beard trimmed before he jets off to Jamaica the next morning. “I’m the subway hero,” he says, getting out his phone to display a video of his appearance on the Rachel Ray show.

Last year, Flores jumped onto the 6 train tracks at the 103rd Street station to save a man who’d fainted, a celebrated act that brought, among other rewards, this free family trip.

Antony Marquez, one of the shop’s barbers, arrives, and greets Edgar knuckle to knuckle. “Jefe,” he says in acknowledgement and respect. “No matter how famous he gets,” Marquez says of his boss, “he stays in the Barrio and that’s why he’s loved round here.”

Armando Alequin, waiting for a cut, bemoans the decline of boxing in Spanish Harlem. When he was growing up, the sport produced role models. Boxers, Alequin says, demand respect; they eat well, look after themselves and don’t use drugs. “You’re a badass but clean cut,” he says.

Santana looks nervous at that. “I hope I inspire people, most especially kids,” he says. “But I don’t know. Being a role model is tricky. There’s so many things that come with it, so much expected from you. I can do without that.”

The bright façade of Dover Downs Hotel & Casino emerges from an endless ribbon of strip malls and chain motels.

A function room serves as the boxing arena; a giant chandelier hangs above the ring. A few rows away, with a look of furious disappointment, Santana sits watching the action: Anthony “The Bull” Smith knocking out Douglas “Al Capone” Otieno in the sixth round; Epifanio “Diamante” Mendoza’s corner staff throwing in the towel against Amir “Hardcore” Mansour, also in the sixth.

Santana’s own fight was abruptly cancelled. The explanations vary: Santana’s manager, Brian Cohen, says opponent Wilfredo Negron had a car crash on the way to the airport. In the press box, veteran boxing journalist Rick Scharmberg has heard rumors that Negron wasn’t allowed time off from work. One of Santana’s corner staff, Emmanuel Brujan, provides a different narrative: “He was scared.”

Cohen, an affable bull of a man wearing a thick silver chain, takes the disappointment in stride. His client gets paid anyway – Santana’s promoter Dave Escalet suggests anywhere between $3,000 and $10,000. In the boxing world, Cohen says, such disruptions aren’t unusual. “I’ve seen fighters fake an anxiety attack before a fight,” he says. “I’ve seen it all.”

Santana seems strangely distracted. As his entourage makes its way to an after-party in the casino’s oyster bar, he drops behind, walking alone, carrying a bottle of iced tea. “I only came to get paid,” he says.

Cohen, however, leads Santana off to a table where three white-haired men are sitting. Santana shakes their hands; they talk a bit. Pleasantries exchanged, he and Cohen return to the table.

Ordering a second vodka, Cohen struggles to contain his excitement. He doesn’t want to “jinx” anything, but the discussions bode well for his client’s future. Santana, declining another drink, doesn’t seem to share Cohen’s enthusiasm. “People offer me a lot of things,” he says.

Santana hopes to defend his NABA title in February, again in Dover. But at 32, he knows he’s only got four or five more years left to fight, so Negron’s no-show represents a setback. The comeback is still on, he insists, but it’s been delayed.

A few weeks before he’s due back in Dover to defend his title, Santana walks into the Mendez gym wearing a black t-shirt featuring De La Vega’s latest aphorism: “Be Mindful, Even if Your Mind is Full.”

Taylor, his coach, greets him with a clasped hand and a shoulder barge that knocks his charge sideways. In mock retaliation, Santana clips him lightly with a weightless fist.

After a half hour’s shadow-boxing, Santana leaves the ring, sweating through his pants at the knee. He looks in good shape.

“Whatever I did before; now I’m doing twice as much,” he says. “It’s a good opportunity. This fight is very important to me.”

Santana and his team then head to another Mendez gym a few blocks away to work on conditioning.

“I definitely started 2012 with a whole different head on my shoulders,” Santana declares. “I want to show everybody I’m the real deal.”

*The Uptowner originally reported that Santana was the only professional boxer training at Mendez gym; in fact, there are several others.

Getting Out and Staying Out founder Mark Goldsmith works late into the night in his East Harlem office, planning a seminar for young ex-offenders. (Photo by Sarah McNaughton.)

On a rainy Wednesday night, six young ex-convicts sit in the basement of an East Harlem storefront, eating slices of pepperoni and sausage pizza. Except for the sounds of chewing, the room is silent, the young men shifting in their chairs and avoiding eye contact until Mark Goldsmith walks in, takes a seat beneath a poster of Muhammed Ali and begins his seminar: “How to be Successful in School and Work.”

Goldsmith, known here as Mr. G., introduces a hypothetical situation: “There’s a hot party in Brooklyn tonight, best-looking women in town, you’re on the guest list. I’ll pick you up outside Yankee stadium at 10:30,” Goldsmith says. The guys who have heard this one before smile; the ones who haven’t look at the floor.

“Now, you know what I have in my car. I don’t go anywhere without a weapon. Never. I don’t go anywhere without some drugs that I can sell,” he says. The guys chuckle. “But this is the hottest party of the year and you’re on the guest list. So are you coming with me or what?”

“Hell yeah,” says the youngest man.

Goldsmith groans. “You don’t want to miss the party, but you ain’t going in my car,” he says. “What happens if we go one block and I got a blinking light and the cop pulls us over? Guess what, we’re going to Rikers.”

Goldsmith later says he’s sick of hearing people complain about being unlucky or tricked into bad situations. “The idea that they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time is getting tiresome,” he says. “It’s bullshit.”

A retired cosmetics executive, Goldsmith, who is 75,  spends most of his time with ex-convicts. After 35 years in business, he switched to working with and for people with whom he ostensibly has little in common: poor young men with damaged families, criminal records and no plans for the future.

Six years ago he founded Getting Out and Staying Out, a non-profit program working to keep New York City’s young men out of prison for good. Recidivism rates — the proportion of people who return to prison within three years of their release – hovers above 60 percent nationally, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. In New York City, reports the state Division of Criminal Justice Services, the rate is about half that.  Recidivism for men enrolled in what’s informally called GOSO, Goldsmith says, stays in the range of 15 to 17 percent.

Sitting in his East Harlem office across the street from a dollar store, Goldsmith still looks dressed for Wall Street: pressed navy slacks and jacket, crisp collared shirt, red silk tie. He’s a community advocate trapped in a marketing executive’s wardrobe. When he’s in his element—speaking to ex-cons from Rikers Island about succeeding in school and work—he curses like a D-list celebrity. He’s not shy about saying he believes drugs should be legalized. “I deal with reality,” he often says.

His involvement began in 2002 when Goldsmith, already retired, agreed to participate in a Principal for a Day program organized by the non-profit group Public Education Needs Civic Involvement in Learning, or PENCIL.

Always looking for a challenge, Goldsmith asked to be assigned to a struggling school. “I was a bit of a wise guy,” he admits. “I thought I was going to get East New York or South Bronx, but I ended up getting Rikers Island. So off to Rikers Island I went,” he goes on, “and I had a terrific day.”

Goldsmith requested a return to Rikers the next year, then founded GOSO in 2004, using a Starbucks at 39^th and Madison as his office for almost two years before moving to this storefront on 116th Street in East Harlem.

His wife, Arlene, founded and directs New Alternatives for Children, which supports medically fragile children and their families, so Goldsmith knew what a non-profit needed. Development was slow and he wasn’t used to limited funding, but he was determined to make GOSO a success because he saw a little of himself in the Rikers inmates.

“When I was 18, 19 and 20, I didn’t have a clue,” he recalls. “All my friends were finishing four-year schools and going off to professional schools” while he dropped out of Penn State and joined the Navy for two years, then arrived in New York harbor and decided he’d found home. “I know what it’s like to be looked at as a truant or a troublemaker versus someone who is performing,” he says.

He finished his undergraduate work at New York University and earned an MBA from Baruch College before landing a job with Pfizer, the pharmaceutical firm.

He and Arlene, married for 50 years now, had twins—a boy and a girl—in 1967. She says Goldsmith was a great father,  something that informs the way he runs GOSO now. “I think he’s translated that fatherhood experience into helping these young guys who’ve never had a father figure,” she says.

Goldsmith says many of the Rikers guys do look at him like a father, or grandfather. “When they leave this office at night, they’ll say, ‘Home safe, Mr. G,’ and they mean it,” he says. “They hope I don’t get shot, because where they’re going they could get shot.”

GOSO begins its work while inmates are still in Rikers or an upstate prison. Mentors visit or correspond with them frequently, encouraging them to focus on school and on developing a plan for when they’re released. Participants who excel at academics receive full scholarships to Ohio University’s College Program for the Incarcerated; for inmates who don’t receive a degree before they leave prison, the first goal is to obtain a GED, then find a job.

But while education and employment are important parts of the program, as in many others across the country, GOSO also helps participants with such basic life skills as building healthy relationships and managing stress. On the first day participants walk into the office, sometimes just hours after leaving Rikers, they sit down with a mentor and create a new resume, find housing and make appointments for psychological and health services.

GOSO works with men ages 16 to 24.  They’re required to complete a full curriculum of seminars, including Goldsmith’s success seminar and others focusing on financial planning, interviewing skills, legal rights, self marketing and fatherhood. The successful businesspeople Goldsmith has recruited for the board of directors also serve as mentors and help participants find work.

Even after six years—during which the program moved to a real office, hired six employees, helped more than 3,000 inmates and raised an annual budget of about $1 million from grants, donations and prizes—Goldsmith still organizes nearly every aspect of GOSO. He even makes the “success bags” each participant receives on his first day: alarm clock, notebooks, pencils, condoms and a monthly Metro card.

Sara Hobel, executive director of the Horticultural Society of New York, hired four GOSO participants last year to join the society’s “Green Team” of 40, which builds and maintains gardens and plantings for non-profit organizations across the five boroughs.

“It was great,” she says of the experience. “In fact, two of the guys were some of our absolute best workers.” She’s looking forward to hiring more GOSO grads when the society’s projects pick up again in the spring.

The Horticultural Society has worked with Rikers inmates before on the island’s large garden, but Hobel says GOSO offers something unique. “The one thing about repeat offenders, and young offenders in particular, is that there is no one answer. There are so many layers when you look at why are you there, and how did you get to this place, and how are we going to get you out,” she says.  Unlike “a lot of cookie-cutter, well-intentioned programs out there,” GOSO tries to customize its assistance to each incarcerated or released man.

The guys eating pizza in the basement are lucky and they know it. GOSO is an exclusive program that only enrolls several hundred inmates each year as compared to the usual thousands at other reentry programs. But GOSO is important, says JoAnne Page, president and CEO of the Fortune Society, one of the nation’s more prominent reentry programs, serving around 3,000 prisoners annually.

“While our programs have helped tens of thousands of men and women stay out of prison and find a new, crime-free path, there is still a pressing and growing need for more services,” Page says. “Getting Out and Staying Out is part of the non-profit community helping to fill this need.”

At Rikers, Goldsmith says, “a big question always comes up: Why am I doing this? They’re very suspect. Why aren’t I out driving a Rolls-Royce and playing golf?” he says. “They’re very concerned about why I am spending my time with them. Deep down they consider themselves worthless and stupid, which I know they are neither.”

But it’s still a tough road. In the GOSO basement, the guys are discussing their talents and where their strengths could take them professionally, listing interests in writing, math, athletics and computers. One participant who has been with GOSO for several years is training to become a paramedic; another is interested in songwriting.

When Goldsmith asks the group to think of three people in their lives who are supportive, most of them can hardly come up with one or two. Several look at Goldsmith shyly and say, “You.”

This isn’t a surprise. The family is often the main problem, Goldsmith says, and most of these young men have had multiple relatives serving prison terms.

“Going to jail is something they are aware of the day they become aware of society. Some of them fully expect from the get-go to end up there,” he says, frowning. “There’s a combination of ending up there and not living a long life, which means they aren’t future-oriented.”

One of the older and quieter guys at the seminar says this is only his second time at the office, but that he’s been a part of the program for his five years on Rikers. This was his first seminar, and he loved it.

“He’s cool as shit,” he says of Goldsmith. “I didn’t know he cursed that much. Makes him more down to earth.”

After the seminar, the men say goodbye and Goldsmith rushes to pack up and leave in time to get to a dinner party. As he flutters around the room, one man returns to tell Goldsmith he thinks he lost his Metro card.

“How much is it to get on the subway these days? I don’t even know,” Goldsmith says.

“Four-fifty for both ways,” the man replies.

“Four-fifty?” Goldsmith‘s eyes widen. He reaches into his wallet and pulls out a five.

“Thanks, Mr. G.,” the young man says, pocketing the bill as he walks out into the rain. “Home safe.”

"The Spirit of East Harlem" by Hank Prussing is painted on a residential building at East 104th Street and Lexington Avenue. Click on the above image to see an interactive graphic of the mural then and now. (Photo by Elizabeth Harball)

It was the summer of 1974. New York artist Manny Vega, today known for his public mosaics and murals, was 18. He had recently graduated from high school and was trying to decide whether to go to college. Vega knew he had an artistic voice, but he didn’t yet know what to do with it. Then, while kicking around East Harlem, something on East 104th Street and Lexington Avenue caught his attention:

“I would walk by on 104th Street and this guy was on a pull-up scaffold by himself,” Vega says. “A tiny, wooden, crickity-crackety scaffold.” Armed with oil paints and a brush, the man was meticulously creating a mural on the side of a four-story residential building.

Vega walked by the mural every day or so to see it progress. Slowly, recognizable faces started to emerge from the wall –  people who lived in the neighborhood,  even people who lived in the building.

“But it was unusual because he was this Caucasian, lanky white guy painting this Puerto Rican, black barrio thing, with a lot of soul, a lot of ‘esencia’ — with a lot of essence — as though he had been living in the neighborhood all along.”

Vega, fascinated, decided to ask if he could join the project.

“One day, I screamed up at him. I said, ‘Hey, white boy! Give me a job!’ He came down from the scaffold and he asked me, ‘What, do you paint?’

“I said, ‘I can learn…’”

The artist’s name was Hank Prussing. Vega became his apprentice and helped Prussing complete one of New York City’s most iconic murals: “The Spirit of East Harlem.”

Looming above a rapidly changing neighborhood, “The Spirit of East Harlem” represents a rougher yet more romantic time in East Harlem’s history. People who look up at it can imagine what it was like to wander East Harlem in the 1970s.

It portrays neighborhood residents of that time, including toy store owner Morris Wittenberg and George Espada, who sang in an “electric Latin soul” band called Flash and the Dynamics, presented in vivid tableaus between the building’s windows.

An East Harlem street in 1973. (Photo by Hank Prussing)

The work has survived the elements, a fire and vandals. Each time it was threatened, people joined forces to preserve it. Because of its importance to residents, Hope Community Inc., which owns the building, says it is committed to maintaining the work.

“The mural became like a cultural hallmark, not only to East Harlem, but specifically to that one block,” says Vega.

“It’s a time capsule,” he says. “It invokes a dialogue with people where they come together, collecting thoughts and sharing anecdotes about the past. That’s a very precious thing.”

The mural’s story begins in the 1970s when East Harlem, known as “El Barrio,” was largely populated by Puerto Rican immigrants. Between 1945 and 1965, nearly one million Puerto Ricans moved to the United States seeking employment. Two-thirds of them settled in New York, establishing a large community in East Harlem. The neighborhood struggled with poverty and a widespread drug scene.

But it also nurtured a Latino cultural renaissance. Two arts organizations were born: El Museo del Barrio, founded in 1969, and Taller Boricua, founded in 1970.

“It was a romantic time,” says Vega. “We had more of an art scene. We had grassroots arts organizations that were sponsoring projects and places for people to go to explore their creativity.”

The neighborhood around Lexington Avenue and East 104th Street was alive with activity. Angel Ortiz Jr., who visited his grandmother there on   weekends, remembers summer block parties with food, music and dancing. George Espada and his band performed in a nearby schoolyard.

“When you were a part of that neighborhood you got to know everybody,” says Ortiz. “It was truly an incredible sense of community and family.”

Jorge Vargas, owner of a nearby botanica, recalls: “There was a lot of things going on. It was beautiful.”

A sketch Prussing used as reference to paint the mural. (Image courtesy Hank Prussing)

In 1972, Hank Prussing, a young artist from Maryland, was in East Harlem surveying the neighborhood’s public art for an architecture course at Pratt Institute. He was interested in street art and East Harlem was already known for its murals.

The Rev. George Calvert, pastor of the Church of the Living Hope on East 104th Street, suggested that Prussing add his own mural in the neighborhood. Prussing, who’d never created an outdoor mural, initially felt taken aback.

“I don’t know, let me think about it,” he remembers replying.

A family friend, Calvert had recently helped establish Hope Community Inc.,  an affordable housing organization. Calvert had grown up in wealthy Scarsdale, N.Y., but despite “that stigma of being an outsider and a white privileged guy, he had a very strong sense of a mission and he did all kinds of things for that community,” Prussing says.

When Prussing agreed to paint the mural, Calvert arranged for local stores to donate paint and a scaffold. The artist planned the project during the summer of 1973, taking hundreds of photographs of East Harlem residents and becoming captivated by its people and culture.

“There were people there that lived on the block and never left the block and that was their whole life,” he remembers. “They didn’t speak English, some of them, because they didn’t have to. They had their family and friends around them.”

Prussing stood out. “They called me gringo or they called me turkey sometimes,” he says, describing the neighborhood as “the quintessential different kind of environment than the one I grew up in.”

He relied on his photographs for inspiration. Each told a different story: Carmelita, who owned a nearby bodega, smiled as she wiped her hands with a dishcloth. A little girl in braids learned to ride a bicycle. Old men sat around a table playing dominoes. A musician plucked a cuatro.  Teenaged boys lunged for a basketball.

“The more I looked at them the more I was fascinated by the neighborhood and the spirit of the community that’s there,” Prussing says. “I said, ‘Why don’t I just work with the photographs – they say everything.’”

The mural was painted in three sections, the left third in the summer of 1973 and the middle third that winter during Prussing’s school break. He brushed on layer after layer of oil paints and solvent so the pigment would become imbedded in the brick. Slowly, an artistic vision of the neighborhood emerged.

Not everyone was pleased with his rendering. The bodega owner, Carmelita, was unhappy with her portrait. She was “very private and didn’t appreciate all the feedback she was getting from everybody,” Vega says. Taking matters into her own hands, she paid several neighborhood kids to paint over her face.

Of course, Prussing repainted her portrait, but he notes, “it never looked the same.”

Then, something unexpected happened: a fire broke out in the building. When firefighters arrived on the scene, one mural portrait caused some confusion:

“One of the people I had painted up there actually was a fireman, looking out a window,” says Prussing. Firefighters, startled, “thought someone was in the building already putting the fire out.” (That figure, painted on a boarded-up window, was removed later during a renovation.)

Though the fire didn’t significantly damage the mural, the building’s roof was ruined and there was some question about the building’s structural soundness. Looking up at the unfinished mural, people could see the sky through the topmost windows. Prussing didn’t know if he could finish the project.

George Espada believes that “The Spirit of East Harlem” saved the building. Calvert recognized that the mural had become a community symbol. In a 1974 article published by Pratt Institute, he is quoted saying:

“The effect is magnificent … full of variety and life. People gather across the street to gaze up at it, intrigued and strengthened. It celebrates us as people engaged here in common tasks, united by our humanity. Friends and neighbors seem to emerge from the wall, familiar, yet newly significant and we all walk taller.”

"The Spirit of East Harlem" before Manny Vega's 1998 restoration. (Photo by Hank Prussing)

Hope Community Inc. purchased and renovated the building for low-income housing. Calvert secured a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts and asked Prussing to complete the mural.

By that time, the neighborhood had embraced the artist’s presence.

“They totally adopted Hank,” says Vega. “Hank wasn’t white any more. They fed him. If he had to go to use the bathroom, he would just go through the windows. And because people thought that he was making them famous, almost, they had an endearing relationship with him.”

Prussing concurs, “I felt like I was sort of part of the family after a while.”

He finished “The Spirit of East Harlem” in 1978. “It was a big hit, I guess,” Prussing says. “All of the community residents were proud. The ones that were up there were proud they were there.”

Thirty-four years later, “The Spirit of East Harlem,” has undergone several transformations, but many who were a part of it still feel connected to the work.

Hank Prussing went on to paint about 35 more murals in New York City. Many have either faded or been destroyed  – one was lost in 2001 in the World Trade Center. Today, he’s an architect living in East Hartland, Conn., with his wife. His work keeps him busy, but he still finds time for art now and then. Prussing recently painted a mural for his daughter’s school library. “I would love to retire and go back to painting,” he says. “I always did architecture as a whim.”

Artist Hank Prussing in 2011. (Photo by Elizabeth Harball)

Prussing, now 63, accepts the way the mural has changed over the years. “I started something,” he says. “If they want to keep it up and continue to change it, that’s great. It’s not my mural anymore.”

With his support, Manny Vega restored the mural in 1998, adding his own embellishments and color palette. Once again, neighborhood residents watched and supported Vega as he brought the mural to life, bringing him coffee and doughnuts as he worked.

Hope Community Inc. financed the $35,000 restoration. George Calvert died in 2005 at age 76, but the organization continues to provide affordable housing, commercial space and social services to low-income East Harlem residents. In 1999, Prussing transferred the mural’s copyright to Hope Community. “It’s a part of our history,” says Executive Director Walter Roberts.

Many depicted in the mural have died, but a few remain and remember. Angel Ortiz Jr., now 56,works for General Electric. He can still be seen in the mural with a set of nunchucks tucked behind his belt. Ortiz never lost his love for martial arts; he earned his black belt in Taekwondo in 2002.

George Espada, 69, still lives in East Harlem. He has led a colorful life; performing with the Dynamics at Lincoln Center, pursuing a brief career in semiprofessional wrestling, then serving as Republican district leader in East Harlem for several years. Espada now works for AARP and still sings with a band. “I’ve done it all, except drugs,” he says.

When he looks at the mural, he sees many people he remembers with fondness  – Carmelita, Morris Wittenberg and two of the old men playing dominoes, whom he identifies as Joe and Mascota. Short gray hair has replaced Espada’s ’70s Afro, but he still seems to know everyone in the neighborhood; people smile and shake his hand as he passes. When he walks past Lexington and 104th Street, he often stops to look up at “The Spirit of East Harlem.”

“I’m still very proud of the fact that every time I go by there, there I am!” he says, laughing.

Take a closer look at Hank Prussing’s 1974 mural in an interactive graphic.

Click on the photo to see an interactive graphic of the mural with images from 1974 to today.

Take a closer look at Hank Prussing’s 1974 mural, or read the full article.

East Harlem's McDonald's received a C grade by the city's health inspectors (Photo by Lucy Pawle)

Holding a half-eaten Happy Meal in his hand, Mike Serrano, 45, walked out of McDonald’s in East Harlem looking satisfied. He had picked up some fries and a McRib for his daughter, but couldn’t resist buying supper for himself. What he didn’t know was that the restaurant was rated C, the lowest grade the New York City Health Department can give without closing an establishment.

Serrano’s smile swiftly turned to a disgusted expression as he digested the news. He hadn’t noticed the C posted in the window – “They always have posters in the window, it just blends in,” he said. According to the Health Department’s website, this McDonald’s on East 110^th Street was found to have mice and flies at its latest inspection in October.

“I need to pay more attention to these things,” Serrano said.

East Harlem’s restaurants rank the lowest uptown and in Manhattan overall, according to the Health Department’s grades. Its most recent statistics show that in Central and West Harlem, 66 percent of restaurants have an A rating and 1.6 percent a C. In East Harlem, 58.7 percent of food establishments have an A rating, while 3.5 percent have a C.

Introduced just over a year ago, the restaurant grading system has caused controversy. The Health Department insists it helps maintain hygiene standards and forces restaurants to improve their game. But  New York State Restaurants Association Executive Vice President Andrew Rigie disagrees.

“The current system is subjective and very complex, leading to confusion and unfair grading,” he said. “It is a snapshot in time, but the sign hangs in the window for many months.” The association represents 5,000 eateries.

It’s rare to find a C-graded restaurant in East Harlem displaying the sign. Most have “grade pending” signs – which they are legally entitled to display if they’re challenging the decision – or no sign at all.

Bigger and older buildings are more likely to get lower grades because of difficulties in keeping them clean, Rigie said. East Harlem restaurant owners agree.

“I have a large building and it’s very old so there’s more to inspect,” said Erik Mayor, 36, owner of Milk Burger on Third Avenue. “The probability of something being there is much greater, and we also have a lot of pests in the area – just look at the asthma rates.”

At Restaurant Cuchifritos nearby, Maria Testal, 27, was preparing for this weekend’s opening. Her family owns numerous local restaurants and she agreed that the building plays a huge role in hygiene. “The buildings are old and the construction is old which makes it much easier for rats to come,” she said. But with her years of experience, she was confident her place would rate an A, “no problem at all.”

Open for nine months, Milk Burger, until last week, had a “grade pending” sign in its window because Mayor was contesting his C rating. It won an A, but if Mayor hadn’t prevailed, he insisted, his restaurant would have been short-lived. “People just won’t go there,” he said. “It plays a critical role.”

Mayor said he spent a lot of time in court fighting about $1,500 in fines from his C-graded inspection. Both the grade and fines cause immense anxiety, he said, because inspectors keep returning regularly. But he is delighted with his new A, which means inspections will be fewer. “It’s a year that I can conduct my business without having to look over my shoulder,” he said.

Mayor argued that East Harlem was challenging for businesses. “If you can make it in the industry here you can make it anywhere because it’s so brutal here,” he said. Poverty is a big factor, he explained. Employing enough staff and finding hours in the day to focus on health and hygiene can cost money that some restaurateurs feel they can’t afford to lose.

Serrano agreed. “You get what you pay for in East Harlem,” he said. And people don’t want to pay very much. “If people stopped going to restaurants with low grades, then things would change.”

Mayor seems right to be worried. “If I saw a C, I wouldn’t go in and I don’t think anyone else I know would,” said Carlos Baez, 48. But Baez was sitting in McDonald’s and like Serrano, had failed to notice the C-rating sign. “It needs to be more visible,” he said. “You just can’t see it.”

Up Third Avenue on 116^th Street, Adrian Sanchez, manager of Kahlua’s Café, ensures his team works hard to maintain its A grade. “I talk to my people, my workers, and remind them how important it is,” he said. “If we go down to a B we have less customers and less money.”

But even for restaurants graded A, health violations can bring large fines that many will struggle to pay. Sanchez thinks many restaurants will simply close. “The department needs to give us a break because they ask for ridiculous things,” he said. “Business is tough for everyone, so they should be more understanding and not fine us for things like leaving a door open.”

Rigie said that levying additional fines was “unfair and creates unnecessary anxiety.” How can an A-graded restaurant receive thousands of dollars in fines? he wondered. “Either it’s clean or not.”

Things might change if Rosemary Cruz, 47, is any indication. The East Harlem native and taxi driver regularly eats in the area, but her habits have changed since the grading system’s debut. “I think it’s great they’re grading restaurants,” she said. “I would never eat at a C-grade restaurant, and I’ve stopped going to some places.”

The Health Department insists its inspectors grade East Harlem restaurants as they do any other area of the city. “Every restaurant in New York City is inspected on an individual basis and the neighborhood in which it is located in does not impact its grade,” it said in an emailed statement.

Mayor admitted that he couldn’t entirely blame the inspector for his previous C grade. “Negligence is about 20 percent of the problem, I have to admit,” he said. Having owned restaurants for four years, he said the grading system had made him change his habits. “It does force you to improve an work on your restaurant,” he said.

People assume downtown is where you should go to chow down. Not so. To demonstrate that there’s an alternative, the Uptowner visited a random selection of uptown eateries that offer pita pizzas, local meats, a French brunch menu and a traditional Dominican dish of mashed plantains.

Custodian Anthony Rodriguez stands outside the building where the murder took place. Officer Vrachimes peers out (Photo by Yumna Mohamed)

A 22-year-old woman was arrested for murder today, suspected of stabbing a man to death at her Washington Heights apartment before dawn, police said.

Antoine Scott, 24, was found with stab wounds to his chest around 2:30 a.m. He was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.

Neighbors said the woman, Kelly Lopez-Roldan, was pregnant with twins and had a relationship with Scott. “I just heard he was at his baby mama’s house,” said neighbor Jason Tomas, 19, pointing to the building at 450 W. 164th St. where the murder took place.

Anthony Rodriguez, the building’s custodian, believed the murder stemmed from domestic violence. “The couple was always fighting, about three times a week,” he said. “From what I hear, there have been noise complaints about the couple.”

In Scott’s apartment on East 111^th  Street and Third Avenue, a woman who identified herself as his sister called him a “good, loving person.”

Scott’s neighbor Chanel, who asked that her last name not be used, said she believed the woman in custody was Scott’s girlfriend. “I don’t know if he has any kids right now, but I know he was expecting twins with the woman who murdered him,” she said.

Joel Aquino, 23, who lives in Washington Heights near the murder site, said he was not surprised by the violence. “This is the second time. A few years ago two guys got shot and they blocked off this whole block,” he said.

Officer Vrachimes, securing the building today, said the case is still under investigation and that residents know more than the police at this point.

“I guess he hit her too hard this time,” Rodriguez said.

Huang Ying Xia, 80, lives alone in senior housing, and would love to see a Chinese vegetable stall open nearby. (Photo: Nat Rudarakanchana)

Huang Ying Xia, an 80-year-old immigrant from Shanghai, has lived alone in an East Harlem senior housing center for four years. Her husband moved back to China to better cope with his medical problems; meanwhile, she hesitates to ask her married children to drive over from New Jersey just to keep her company.

Feeling sick and intimidated by the wintry weather, Huang missed the most recent community trip to Chinatown, where she usually buys Chinese groceries, prescription medicines and, sometimes, an ethnic dinner.

“I like going down to Chinatown, because I’m able to talk to the people there,” said Huang in Mandarin, though she notes she has never lived there. “People around here don’t really speak Chinese.”

Just this fall, Alma Collazo, the social work coordinator for Linkage Houses – where Huang and six other elderly Chinese reside – began offering free monthly shuttle bus trips to Chinatown, in conjunction with East Harlem’s Union Settlement Association. Collazo had noticed that elderly Chinese residents couldn’t easily make the long trek to Chinatown alone.

In response to such concerns, City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito is also devising a plan to invite Chinese businesses to East Harlem. Initially, she hopes to bring a stall selling fresh Chinese produce to La Marqueta, the city-owned marketplace at East 115th Street and Park Avenue.

“This is an idea that came about as a result of interactions and outreach with my Chinese constituents,” said Mark-Viverito. “Residents in senior buildings asked about some assistance in getting to Chinatown in order to shop.”

Mark-Viverito plans to work with Chinatown Councilwoman Margaret Chin, as well as the city’s Economic Development Corporation, to make this fledging business plan a reality.

She is more cautious, however, about inviting even a handful of other Chinese businesses to East Harlem too hastily. Although the area’s Chinese population has grown and become more visible in recent years, it remains relatively small.

According to the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York, Asians represented only 0.9 percent of East Harlem’s population in 2000, but had reached 3 percent by 2010. This represents an increase of almost 1250 Asians over the decade, with 1766 Asian East Harlem residents counted in 2010.

“We’d want to see how this stall is received first,” said Mark-Viverito. “We want to see how the community responds.” She added, “I think the community will respond well.”

Asked about possible tensions between new Chinese businesses and longtime local businessowners, she noted, “This is a stall in La Marqueta. It’s not a bodega, and what it can do is limited, since right now it could only sell produce.”

At least two stall owners in La Marqueta, John Colon of Breezy Hill Orchard and Mama Grace of the X-Square African Caribbean Food Store, would welcome a future Chinese neighbor.

Justin Yu, president of the city’s Chinese Chamber of Commerce, said he agreed “100 per cent” with Mark-Viverito’s plan. But Yu added that “there would have to be incentives” for larger Chinese businesses to move into East Harlem. Businesspeople would only be attracted to the area if they spotted opportunities to make money, in addition to providing a public service to locals.

“The government should give these businesses a place, like a greenmarket, to regularly sell these vegetables,” he said.

Mak Cheung, 73, has lived at Franklin Plaza, an East Harlem public housing complex, for over a decade; he was also glad to hear of the plan.

“It’d be more convenient,” he said of the proposed stall, speaking in Cantonese. “I would definitely buy from there. I also wouldn’t have to spend any money getting down to Chinatown anymore.”

Franklin Plaza is particularly popular with Chinese families, said Preston Tan, Mark-Viverito’s Chinese community liaison. Commenting on the plan, Tan said, “I think it’s great, and will definitely attract a lot of Chinese customers. Even if it’s a small stall, it’s a start, and we don’t know how it would fare if we made a big Chinese supermarket.”

The local Chinese population also needs medical and health services, Tan said, and special attention for Asian children attending schools here.

Huang’s concerns, however, are smaller in scale. She’d love to be able to buy fresh fish from a local Chinese-style wet market stall, instead of frozen fish from Costco, where she’s currently forced to shop because of her limited mobility.

“In our culture,” she concluded, “we love to eat live, fresh seafood.”

Read more about ethnic changes in East Harlem here.

Karen Bussen works in her new one-bedroom East Harlem condo. (Photo by Gabriel Stargardter)

When longtime renter Karen Bussen decided to buy a home in August, East Harlem wasn’t her first choice. She wanted to stay near her central Harlem rental, but after an exhaustive search yielded few reasonably priced options, she settled on a $258,000 one-bedroom condo on East 118^th Street.

“I am so much happier than I even thought I was going to be,” Bussen said, looking around her new white-walled, driftwood-decorated space.

Demand for East Harlem real estate has more than doubled since last year, according to figures released by Urbandigs.com, a real estate analytics site. Even in the last three months, the pending sales trend, which provides the most accurate measure of changing demand, has moved from -30.8 percent in August to nearly +11 percent in October.

This growth is altering the neighborhood, spurred by three factors: lower prices than in nearby neighborhoods, first-time buyers lured by low interest rates—they’ve dropped by 0.5 percent in New York City since last year, according to mortgage rate analytics site HSH.com—and new incentives for development.

Bussen, an interior decorator and party planner, is delighted to own an apartment.  As part of her contract she’ll have a seat on the building’s co-op board in a year and a half, a thrilling prospect for a first-time buyer.

“Madonna, forget it, you’re out,” she said.

Buyers appreciate East Harlem’s cheaper prices, said Bruce Robertson, a real estate agent with Corcoran Group. He said local properties offer similar perks to central Harlem’s for less.

“We’re selling a one bedroom on 112th which is practically brand new because the guy never used it,” he said. “It’s a resale, we’re selling it for $375,000, and it’s like 650 square feet in a nice building.” A similar west Harlem condo typically goes for closer to $550,000, Corcoran’s website shows.

Paradoxically, the economic malaise can benefit first-time buyers with steady incomes. “If you only have to put down five percent, your payments are still going to be comparable to renting,” said fellow Corcoran agent Brian Armstead.

It was low prices and mortgage rates that lured Bussen into purchasing. ”The housing market was a buyers’ market,” she said.

Realtors are also offering a host of incentives for new buyers. At Corcoran’s “attainable luxury” Embelesar condos on East 118^th Street, where Bussen lives, studios start at a bargain $138,000; they come with a number of resale restrictions, but give buyers access to affordable first homes.

Robb Pair, president of Harlem Lofts Real Estate, said his clientele has changed since 2007, when he mostly sold to investors looking to rent out properties. Now more than 95 percent are “in-users,” meaning they plan to live in the buildings.

“The investors had some trouble getting loans and stopped investing for a short period of time and then the federal laws, the lending practices, supported in-users,” he said.

Bussen bought her apartment as an investment, but also plans to stay for at least a decade. As a freelancer who travels for work, her airy new building’s proximity to JFK was an unexpected bonus. “It was never about purchasing and flipping it,” she said. “I wanted a base.”

Developers, too, have flocked to East Harlem. According to 2010 Department of City Planning figures, the neighborhood had 385 vacant lots compared to 287 in central Harlem. It’s cheaper for developers to build on vacant lots than to demolish and rebuild, Armstead said, which prompted a construction boom in East Harlem.

Another factor is the September arrival of Hunter College’s School of Social Work between East 118^th and 119^th Streets, which drew a new group of potential customers and raised the neighborhood’s profile. For Karen Bussen, however, the school is only one of many local attractions.  Not only is she walking distance from Central Park, her favorite place in the city, she also appreciates East Harlem’s diversity and the slew of new businesses sprouting up.

Gentrification is no foreign concept to East Harlem’s longtime residents, but Bussen’s immediate neighbors sounded pleased about the new arrivals.

Across from the Embelesar, Altagracia Camilo sat in the Leiby Beauty Salon getting her hair colored.  She has lived above the salon for 12 years and watched the condos go up.

“The people who came are calm, without problems,” she said in Spanish. “They are a good influence on the youth around here.”

An unprotected bike lane on First Avenue in East Harlem. (Photo by Elizabeth Harball)

On Tuesday, Community Board 11 withdrew its Sept. 20 vote in favor of the New York City Department of Transportation’s proposal to install protected bicycle lanes on First and Second avenues in East Harlem, said Judith Febbraro of the board’s transportation committee.

Since July, the Department of Transportation has planned to extend protected bicycle lanes on First and Second avenues up to East 125thStreet and the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge, with hopes to begin construction in the spring. The protected bicycle lanes would be separated from traffic by a lane for parked cars, reducing traffic lanes from five to three and removing up to 19 percent of parking spaces.

Erik Mayor, a 31-year East Harlem resident, business owner and Community Board 11 member was instrumental in getting the vote rescinded. Mayor said he had collected 61 signatures from business owners opposed to the bicycle lanes.

“We feel the information wasn’t presented in the way it should have been,” he said, adding that the Department of Transportation presented to the board the “positives, but not the negatives,” of the plan. He disputed the Department of Transportation’s claim that it had communicated with East Harlem business owners before the proposal was brought before the Community Board.

Mayor said he was also concerned that protected bicycle lanes would cause increased congestion, worsening air pollution in East Harlem. He said, “Stop-and-go traffic is going to create much worse air quality than what we have now, and bike lanes will exacerbate conditions.” The New York City Community Air Survey reported high levels of air pollution in East Harlem, and the area has some of the highest asthma hospitalization rates in New York City. Mayor suggested that the Department of Transportation should provide air quality reports from before and after the implementation of protected bicycle lanes in downtown Manhattan.

Mayor said he was not against bike paths in general. “It’s not about getting rid of bike lanes,” he said, “it’s about coming to a real conclusion as to whether bike lanes will benefit or make the situation worse for East Harlem.”

Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito called the board’s move a “misunderstanding,” saying that the action was the result of “a select few who were disingenuous in their efforts.” She and the Department of Transportation plan to coordinate efforts to regain the Community Board’s support. Mark-Viverito still believes the plan for the bike paths will go forward. “We’re going to coordinate efforts so that the correct information is shared,” she said. “I believe this is a temporary setback, but not a permanent setback.”