The Harlem First Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints found its home at 128th Street and Lenox Avenue. (Photo by Ali Leskowitz)

A bulletin board hanging outside the bishop’s office of the Harlem First Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints displays pictures of congregation members — a sea of various ethnicities and backgrounds. Church member Ned Gardner, the former president of the ward’s Elders Quorum, matches the smiling faces to countries of origin. “Honduras, the West Indies, she’s from Iran, Panama, Brazil, Pakistan,” he says, pointing to each picture.

Bishop Jay Salmon — who began his tenure about three months ago and has been a member of the ward, the name for a large congregation, for two years — explains that the Harlem ward prides itself on the diverse makeup of its congregation. “We’re one of the most diverse wards in Manhattan because of the local people born and bred in Harlem,” Salmon says. “Other congregations are full of interns or students, where our ward is much more local.” Church members say that individuals, like students, stay in a ward only temporarily while they are in school. Their congregation feels like more of a long-term community.

About 160 people attend services at the Harlem First Ward on a weekly basis, compared with the 50 to 75 individuals who attended before the ward moved to its present home on Lenox Avenue in 2005. Eighteen baptisms have been performed since January.

Joseph Smith started the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York in 1830, but the movement soon moved West and is based in Utah. Mormons are not a natural fit in Harlem, where churches that adhere to African-American culture dominate most blocks. “There was resistance to the church having a presence in Harlem,” Gardner says. “It’s seen as this very white religion.”

Yet, the areas of Harlem the ward covers are about 60 percent black and 20 percent Hispanic, and the congregation reflects the area’s demographics. “The church can be homogenous in different areas,” Gardner says. “In the West, families are similar-seeming. Here you’ve got people from every walk of life.”

Salmon notes that this variety might be shifting. “I think with the gentrification happening in Harlem, we’re seeing a slight influx of Caucasians,” he says.

The ward works to keep close ties with the neighborhood. “The intention is to come into the community and impact it in a good way,” Gardner says. When its new building opened, the ward held an open house and invited Harlem choirs to sing gospel music. “We were trying to sway; I looked awful,” Gardner says. Tourists often come to the church expecting the gospel music for which Harlem is famous and find themselves confused when they hear what Gardner refers to as the church’s “very Protestant sound.”

Harlem residents seem to have gotten used to the church’s presence, but nevertheless question how much it fits in the neighborhood. “I thought it was kind of weird when they opened,” says Jose Lopez. “They don’t really bother anyone, but it doesn’t make too much sense.”

The church itself has a tense history with African-Americans; members of African descent were restricted from participating in certain crucial religious aspects, such as holding priesthood and achieving the highest level of salvation, until 1978.

Despite perhaps clashing with Harlem’s culture, the ward tries to assimilate. The church holds a Christmas drive to collect and donate toys and also opens its indoor basketball court on Thursday nights for anyone to play. “We like to be considered another church in Harlem that provides open doors to anybody and everybody,” Salmon says. Every August, the ward sets up a genealogy booth during Harlem Week where volunteers work with individuals — regardless of church affiliation — to find ancestral history. Mormons emphasize genealogy in their teachings, so the booth allows the ward to extend its expertise into the greater community.

Being in Harlem even drove the ward to adopt what many members cite as one of their favorite traditions. New members stand up at the end of services and introduce themselves, after which the entire congregation verbally welcomes them. Influences such as Bishop Edwin Pabón, who grew up in Harlem and served for five years before Salmon was called, bring a more colloquial flair to worship.

However, when the church moved from its windowless, overcrowded home around the corner to its current location, many community members opposed the shift. Squatters in the derelict building the church bought and tore down protested in front of the new structure with sandwich boards claiming they had been forced out. “That just stopped after a while,” Gardner says.

Protesters drew graffiti on the facade and at one point attempted to throw a garbage can through the front doors. An individual from a rotating corps of the congregation now serves as a security guard throughout services, and security cameras were installed outside the building. Members say such incidents have ceased as the community has accepted the church.

As the newest leader of the church, Salmon simply hopes to continue what he considers the proud legacy already established at the Harlem location. “I think we’ve really improved the image here as a whole,” Salmon says. “People are happy that the building is there. It adds a legitimacy to that corner.”

Tykym Stallings, youth pastor at Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion, leading sparsely-attended services at the Hip-hop Church. (Photo by Paul Smith)

Harlem’s Hip-Hop Church by Hellopaulsmith

Two churchgoers wait outside Greater Hood Memorial AME Zion, dressed casually in jeans and sneakers. Youth Pastor Tykym Stallings arrives, pushing a stroller. He unlocks the doors and ushers them in to the church with red carpets, organ pipes and crucifix-shaped windows.

“I gotta do a soundcheck,” Stallings mumbles. He plugs his iPod into a speaker and begins scratching behind a set of turntables. He turns up the bass to cochlea-splitting levels. He closes his eyes and nods his head. This is Harlem’s hip-hop church.

“Tonight we present Jesus Christ in an unorthodox way; we like to say uncensored here,” says Stallings, 24. Since December 2004, the weekly Thursday evening service in the church on West 146^th Street has preached the Gospel over a grinding hip-hop beat and chanted, “Amen. Word. That’s what’s up,” after prayers.

Pioneering 80’s rapper Kurtis Blow, ordained a reverend in 2009, used to lead the service until 2008, attracting crowds from Harlem and overseas. The congregation christened it lyrical theology and inspired a generation of urban Gospel worship from East Coast to the West Coast.

But on this evening, attendance is sluggish. Worship begins in 10 minutes, and only 18 people occupy the benches. No one sits near the front. The congregation looks tentative and clutch New York City guidebooks and maps.

“There are no locals here,” observes Caroline Le Moign, 25, on vacation from Paris, “only tourists.” She read about the church in a Lonely Planet travel guide, which recommended the hip-hop service as a “truly unique experience.”

Stallings starts rapping, bellowing into a faulty microphone, which cuts in and out. With his encouragement, the audience timidly claps along. A dozen more people trickle in from a Bronx rehabilitation program. Stallings’s wife, Juliette, assumes DJ duties, allowing him to bound about the altar, as if he were on stage.

The couple performs D.R.I.V.E., from his debut E.P., which stands for Doing Right In a Violent Environment. Once the music stops, they sing the verses acapella. Then Juliette Stallings, 21, gives her testimony, an account of finding God after a youth traumatized by sexual abuse. Now the service feels less like a concert and more like church. The tourists leave at 8 p.m., while a select few, mainly the Stallings family and friends, stay longer.

“I was hoping there’d be more people and the crowd would be cheering,” Le Moign says outside, lighting up a cigarette. “It was fun, though. The pastor was very energetic.”

It’s the same the following week, with a predominately international congregation from Italy and Switzerland. Only two people are from Harlem: Deborah Coleman-Mason, and her teenage daughter Juanita Watkins, lifelong members of the church. “My friends usually come, but some are away at school right now,” says Watkins.

Reflecting on the congregation, Juliette Stallings says: “We get a lot of tourists. It’s really hard for some of them to understand, so a lot of the time they just come for entertainment. Sometimes it’s frustrating, like, ‘Why don’t you guys understand what I’m saying? This is good news,’ but if God wants them to hear it, they’ll hear it.”

Lamar “Noah” Haney, 25, who raps at services, began attending the church as a teenager.

“I was here for the first hip-hop services,” he recalls. “It was amazing: a whole lot of people in the building. Kurits Blow was here. It was a new chapter; a ministry being born within Greater Hood Memorial.”

Back when the hip-hop church was a novelty, attracting MTV camera crews, attendance could exceed the building’s 300-person capacity and spill into standing room only.

“Lately we’ve been losing locals,” says Juliette Stallings. “In retrospect, people were coming for Kurtis, rather than to hear the word.”

Harlem-born Blow enjoyed a string of hits in the 1980’s, and was the first rapper to have a gold-certified record, with “The Breaks.” In 2008, he moved to California, where his wife and sons live. He leads a monthly hip-hop service in L.A., but returns to Greater Hood “every couple of months.” Speaking on the phone, he compares his work to evangelism.

“God gave the Apostles this popularity and this wisdom and he sent them out into barren churches, so when the apostles come to town, everyone comes to church,” says Blow. “And while the Apostle is there, he is building up the church and it is growing and growing and then he leaves and goes on to the next.”

Blow is reluctant to accept responsibility for the service’s dwindling audience. Instead, he cites “changes to the executive,” with the director of music leaving to start his own Baptist church. He also points out that different programs stopped coming, and that it isn’t promoted locally. “The church itself has hundreds of members and they have at least 20-30 kids who should be there every week,” he says.

To target the youth, Juliette Stallings is contemplating moving the service to Friday evenings. Noah Haney suggests evangelizing on the street, while acknowledging they “can never build it back up to where it used to be.”

While money is a problem, according to Tykym Stallings, it’s no less of an issue now than it was in the church’s heyday, in 2005. The influx of tourists, in place of the neighborhood, doesn’t faze him either.

“Our attendance fluctuates,” he shrugs. “Everybody comes for a reason. We’ll minister to them, whether there’s 50 or 500 or 5. If ever we don’t have room, we’ll minister outside.”

For now, he’ll continue to preach his message with zeal and a set of turntables.

A woman passes the Church of Scientology in Harlem (Photo by Chris Le)

The Church of Scientology in Harlem doesn’t quite look like a church—yet. Enter and you see desks, posters and bookshelves lined with the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, the church’s founder: “The Way to Happiness,” “Knowing Who to Trust,” “The Complete Dianetics How-To Kit” (also available in Spanish). On the wall hangs a picture of soul singer Isaac Hayes, “Lifetime Member.”

The church moved into this location on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in March. But these are only temporary quarters, says the church’s minister and executive director Phyllis Mack; the church plans to move into a more luxurious building it calls the Ideal Org.

In 2007, the church purchased buildings 220-232 on East 125^th Street, previously unoccupied structures totaling 12,615 square feet, according to the New York City Office of Environmental Remediation.

The Ideal Org will be a beacon, Mack says, hosting Sunday services, social events and community programs like drug counseling and student tutoring. The programs will be open to non-Scientologists and showcase the church’s “technology,” a frequently-used term to describe Hubbard’s self-help techniques.

Also available at the Ideal Org: auditing courses, one-on-one sessions intended to unearth and expunge negative memories. The results, Scientologists believe, allow for maximum personal potential. “You’re freer to be you,” Mack says.

It remains unclear when the facilities will open; director of special affairs Verlene Cheeseboro says contracts and renovation permits are still needed. To date, the buildings remain untouched.

In the meantime, the church hopes to grow from its smaller location on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, where five to 20 people attend services most Sundays, Mack says. “We get a lot of curious people,” she says. “We give them information and some come back to find out more.”

Terrance Rushing, a 28-year-old Army veteran, is among those who came back. While visiting his sister in the hospital, Rushing filled out the Scientology personality test (which includes questions like “Are you a slow eater?” “Do some noises set your teeth on edge?” “Does life seem vague and unreal to you?”). The results amazed him.

“They were so accurate and so detailed in all the troubled areas of my life,” he says. “I just became intrigued.” Rushing has been involved with the church for two months.

No less curious is 22-year-old James Jones, wandering outside the church’s storefront. “I noticed it about four months ago,” he says. “There was a crowd in front, even on a weekday.” But he acknowledges, “I never take the time to go in and sit down.”

This curiosity, Cheeseboro says, is common among African-Americans and has helped expand Scientology. “Black people are more open, very spiritual,” she explains. “Scientology just fits right into them.”

Integration will be key for the church, which is trying to grow in a predominantly Christian area, three blocks from the renowned Abyssinian Baptist Church. Many Scientologists are converts — Cheeseboro, a Harlem native, is a former Baptist, and Rushing’s family is predominantly Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Scientology has operated under a cloud of controversy for years. One source of contention is its reported policy of “disconnection,” in which members separate themselves from nonbelievers, including family and friends. The church released a statement in 2008 denying all claims of disconnection. But Jenna Miscavige Hill, niece of current Scientology chairman David Miscavige, disputed that. Born into the church, Miscavige Hill was denied access to her parents for years when they defected and she remained; the church prohibited her from even answering the phone, she claimed in an open letter to the church that same year.

The Harlem Church of Scientology remains steadfast in its denial of disconnection. “We change nobody’s religion,” Mack insists. “In fact, we encourage them to stay wherever they are.”

“Not true,” says Rev. Isaac B. Graham of Macedonia Baptist Church. “I’ve seen them in my building. I’ve witnessed them trying to convince people.” But Graham, while not a proponent of Scientology, acknowledges their right to practice their religion.

The more radical tenets of Scientology go unmentioned at its current Harlem location. Notably missing are any hints of its creation story, in which an alien god named Xenu brought billions of people to Earth and killed them with a hydrogen bomb. Their souls now inhabit the bodies of those living today. Critics call it bad science fiction. Hubbard described it as space opera.

The story remains unknown to many, including members.

“I only heard about it in news interviews saying Tom Cruise was a Scientologist,” Rushing says. “I had no idea what it meant.”

Asked about the story, Cheeseboro bursts into incredulous laughter and claims she never heard such a thing. Mack brushes it off, saying, “We need to get this hearsay out of the way. We need to focus on making a whole community with our commonalities.”

And that’s a theme among its membership: the Harlem Church of Scientology looks to improve the community. That’s why it’s there, Cheeseboro says.

“Scientology gives people of the community the chance to rise up,” says Cheeseboro. “It empowers my people through knowledge.”

“Harlem is my heart,” she adds. “Harlem is my love. That’s why I wanted a church in Harlem.”

In a decade, enrollment at Good Shepherd School in Inwood has dropped to 141 students from more than 500. (Photo by Dewi Cooke)

UPDATE: Inwood’s Good Shepherd School will remain open after the Archdiocese of New York announced the school had presented a convincing plan to ensure its long-term sustainability.

Good Shepherd was one of 32 schools named by the archdiocese as “at-risk” in November due to heavy subsidies and shrinking enrollments.  School officials, given one month to devise a plan to save it, staged a series of meetings with parents and alumni  and cast around for ideas to keep the 85-year-old school afloat and financially independent of the archdiocese.

On Jan. 11, the archdiocese announced that Good Shepherd would be one of only four schools on the list to remain open.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE FROM Dec. 14

As the littlest members of the Good Shepherd student body take the stage, a crowd of parents, grandparents and alumni rush toward them. Digital cameras held high, they’re there to record every tentative look and shy grin the children throw out to the packed auditorium. Holiday-themed decorations line the walls and two giant snowmen frame the stage as the students sweetly make their way through verses of “The Little Drummer Boy.” It all makes for a familiar scene, with one exception: It could be this Inwood Catholic school’s last-ever Christmas concert.

Since Nov. 9, the future of the Good Shepherd School has been under a cloud. A fixture of the neighborhood for 85 years, it’s facing closure after being named by the Archdiocese of New York as “at-risk” following a decade of steady enrollment decline. Although school officials and parents knew the numbers of enrolled students had dropped – to 141 this year from 523 in 1999 – when the news came that they had a month to put a rescue plan together, it still prompted a scramble for ideas.

“For me, I don’t think I could ever walk by and know it’s not the Good Shepherd School,” says parent and alumna Regina Christoforatos. “It’s just so sad.”

On Dec. 6, one month after the archdiocese’s list came out, Father Robert Abbatiello, pastor of the adjoining Good Shepherd Church, submitted the school’s final outline for how it planned to increase student numbers. He presented it in person at the archdiocese. Thirty-one schools were on the archdiocese’s at-risk list and while a couple asked for an extension to the Dec. 6 deadline, all made a pitch for their continued existence, archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling says.

For Abbatiello and school principal Mary Singer, it has been a long month of meetings, brainstorming and soul-searching. “We really need your support right now and we need your prayers,” Abbatiello tells the Christmas concert audience.

Planning to save the school eats up much of the holidays for Abbatiello and Singer. The day after Thanksgiving, they spent hours with Good Shepherd alumnus Manny Ramirez at the school, sifting through the e-mailed suggestions of parents and former students.. Abbatiello spent more time on the plan that weekend, communicating with two other alumni and redrafting until it was ready to be presented publicly.

Three days later, on Nov. 29, he outlined the plan to a meeting of parents, alumni and school supporters. Of the school and its future, he is hopeful but matter-of-fact. “We believe we’ve got something good, but we believe it could be better,” he says.

Abbatiello, Singer and Ramirez are three-fifths of Good Shepherd’s newly formed executive committee. Before Nov. 9, the committee didn’t exist. With two other alumni – John Brennan and Richard Scarlata, both members of the class of 1956 – it took them three weeks to put together a five-year proposal to save Good Shepherd.

It’s a tight timeline in which to craft such a document, but one that Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese, defends. For the 31 schools named on the list, student numbers had clearly been low and subsidies, both from local parishes and the archdiocese, had been “very large”.

“This is not just something that dropped out of the sky,” he says.

Three of the schools named on the list were in northern Manhattan, including All Saints and St Joseph’s of the Holy Family, both in Harlem.

To illustrate why Good Shepherd was included, on Nov. 22 Singer presents a meeting of about 100 parents, alumni and supporters with the enrollment figures since 1999. The school needs to demonstrate how it will attract 160 more students, more than doubling its enrollment, by next year. Quiet realization of just what the community is up against sinks in across the auditorium.

The plan Abbatiello and Singer take to the archdiocese’s Reconfiguration Committee centers on a “monumental push” to increase enrollment. The proposal includes a new organizational structure made up of subcommittees of parents and alumni dedicated to fundraising and promotions. It recognizes the school has done a poor job of promoting itself to the Inwood community and recommends numerous Open House events for 2011.

For Juan and Dalba Castrillon, the possibility that their two daughters’ school may close came as a terrible disappointment — but not necessarily a shock. They say it has been clear for some time that school numbers were on a downward slide. But that doesn’t make it any easier.

“We all kind of saw something happening that wasn’t right,” Mrs. Castrillon says of the drop in enrollment. “But no one stood up to say that hey, we’ve got to do something about this.

“It’s hard, how do you explain to your kids that, as adults, we kind of dropped the ball?”

The Castrillons are among a small group of parents and alumni who have taken the fight to save the school online, establishing Yahoo! and Facebook groups as well as organizing a Web-based petition directing people to write to the archdiocese’s superintendent of schools, Timothy McNiff. So far, more than 280 names have been gathered, many from former Good Shepherd students and their parents.

“The whole thing with doing it on Facebook was so we could reach out to as many alumni as possible,” says Christoforatos, who organized the Facebook group. “I’m friends with over 1,300 people on Facebook and 80 percent are friends from Good Shepherd and high school.”

Christoforatos is an Inwoodite, “born and bred,” and remembers when she first transferred to Good Shepherd from another Washington Heights elementary school. Good Shepherd was a place her Greek Orthodox family finally felt they belonged, she says. Her connection was so strong she returned as a teenager to work in its after-school program and again as a substitute teacher after college. Her daughter Zoe, 8, has been a student there since pre-K.

“It was so different, it was a family-oriented environment,” she says. “We were taken in regardless of religion and race.”

Christoforatos continues to value the family-focused atmosphere the school creates, as well as the fact there are teachers and staff still working who were there when she herself was a student. The intimacy of the school is clear at the Christmas concert where staff mingle with the crowd, greeting parents by name and recognizing past students with hugs.

It’s exactly this personal, close interaction that appeals to Adrian Carel. His daughter Paige entered seventh grade at Good Shepherd this September after transferring from Texas and, he says, she’s been “instantly included” from her first day.

“I like that they have close relationships with the teachers and the teachers pretty much always know what’s going on,” he says. “It’s a one-on-one environment and they can have that individual attention that you don’t often get in other schools.”

More than that, he values the relationships the students develop with one another. He remembers meeting a little girl “as tall as my waist” on his walk to school with Paige one day. She was a younger student from a lower grade and Paige knew her name. The two walked to school together, talking all the way.

But by many accounts, Good Shepherd slipped not just in student numbers but also quality over the past decade. The Great Schools website posts mixed reviews about the school, some from the time of the former administration and others more recent. Discipline, of students and teachers, were cited as major problems while other reviewers complained that Singer, brought in as principal in 2006, was too strict and did not communicate well with parents.

Relationships with the parish had been erratic; since the Franciscan friars took over in 2006, it had not been associated with school administration, something that will change if archdiocese support is pulled next year. Neither Singer nor Abbatiello responded to requests for interviews.

But Christoforatos credits Singer with turning the school around, increasing standardized test scores and restoring discipline over what she says had become a sometimes unruly learning environment. Test results the principal presented to parents at a meeting on Nov. 22 showed dramatic improvement over the years of her tenure, particularly in religious education.

“Ms Singer came in to a hellhole, she really did,” Christoforatos says. “She brought in people who really turned the school around and other schools wish that they had teachers like that.”

Good test scores, however, are not enough to guarantee a school’s survival. Zwilling says what really counts is enrollment. Poorly-enrolled schools suck up large subsidies from the archdiocese, which currently pours $18 million into education. With revenues from tuition, fundraising and building rental of $920,000 a year but expenses of $1.275 million, Good Shepherd still comes up short. Once the archdiocese withdraws its support, if Good Shepherd is allowed to stay open, it will need to make up the $355,000 a year shortfall –  a situation that can’t be solved by bake sales and spaghetti dinners, Abbatiello said at the Nov. 22 community meeting.

One week after the at-risk schools list was released, the archdiocese also put out its annual report for fiscal 2009 showing New York’s weak economy had shaved almost $19 million off the net value of its cash and fixed assets, or 8.5 percent. Zwilling denies the loss is behind the push to close or merge the schools on the list.

“Even if it were a robust economy and we had these same numbers of enrollment in our schools, we would still take a hard look and say that we can’t keep putting in $20 million to $30 million,” he says. “The financials of the archdiocese are what they are and we have to be good stewards, but that’s not a motivating factor.

“The decision on these schools is enrollment-driven. I think there are some cases where parents just assumed that the school will always be there. They don’t realize that if you only have 120 kids in grades K to eight, that’s not a viable school.”

The existence of the at-risk schools list had been rumored for weeks and was first flagged in the October release of the archdiocese’s “Pathways to Excellence” strategy for education reform. It followed the closure of two schools by the archdiocese last year and the merging of two others over the summer.

It also comes as the Catholic system in New York has shed thousands of students across the city. Zwilling confirmed a Daily News report that enrollment had dropped to 79,000 this year, from 94,000 two years ago.

Randall Reback, a Barnard College economist, says a number of factors could affect student enrollment. The economic downturn, increased choices for parents in public and charter schools and the shift of Catholic families out of traditional inner-city neighborhoods and into the suburbs all play a role.

“Many of the families have been using them as a relatively low-cost version of the private school system,” he says. “The fancy private schools in New York aren’t hurting at all, really it’s the families who pay a few thousand dollars a year who may have to think twice.”

Reback says a major challenge for the Catholic system in the future is how to retain strong donations from parishioners when more and more students at parish schools aren’t necessarily Catholic.

“The real question is that if there continues to be large numbers of non-Catholic students using the school, does that affect their support?” he says.

For the Good Shepherd community, the school’s religious education seems to be an important element in what attracts parents. At the Nov. 22 community meeting one parent stood up and urged officials to better emphasize the school’s faith-based framework when selling it to prospective families.

Jose Agosto, whose 12-year-old son, Joseph, is a student at Good Shepherd, says that even though his family members aren’t devout Catholics, it is important for him that his son grows up in that environment.

“You can’t forget about it,” he says. “That’s a value that me and my wife really want to impart on him.”

School officials hope that the affection families and alumni have for Good Shepherd translates into something more tangible. The school must show it has a plan for raising the $1 million over three years needed to cover the subsidies that have, until now, been provided by the archdiocese. In the week leading up to the Dec. 6 deadline, $330,000 had been pledged by three donors. An additional $35,000 had been raised for school scholarships, essential for the one-quarter of the students who rely on financial aid.

A pledge link on the school’s website – which does not come up on a Google search – went live the last week of November and small donations, including $50 from a 12-year-old student and a promise of $35 a year for five years from an unemployed supporter, started trickling in.

At the Christmas concert, which is so crowded the hall’s upstairs balcony has to be opened, a parent who wins $260 in a fundraising lottery immediately hands the money back to the school. Singer is clearly touched by the gesture.

“I think we can all see why we need to keep this school open,” she says.

The Good Shepherd plan is to gradually wean the school off the archdiocese’s support. By the executive committee’s estimate, next year’s subsidy could be cut to $125,000 and four years from now it will be able to operate with no subsidy at all.

It is a strategy parents and alumni applaud, but they seem to wish the problems had been recognized years ago. At the end of the concert, the best attended in years, parents are exultant. Dalba Castrillon later says they are filled with optimism for the school’s future.

Parish priest Abbatiello sends them off with words of hope. It’s all that is left now as they wait for a meeting with the Reconfiguration Committee on Dec. 15 and the final decision, expected in mid-January.

“We believe in Good Shepherd,” he says, “and we know that you do, too.”

Archives reveal the names of those buried under the bus depot. (Photo by Marina Kolobova)

The oldest church in Harlem celebrated its 350^th anniversary amid a battle for its original cemetery, buried beneath an MTA bus stop on First Avenue between 126^th and 127^th Streets.

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, New York State Assembly candidate Robert Rodriguez, City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito and Sen. Bill Perkins attended the celebratory service on Sunday Oct. 24, congratulating the Church on its anniversary. A proclamation from the mayor’s office stated that Oct.24 will be known hereafter as Elmendorf Reformed Church Day.

Perkins, who in March held the Senate hearing which kick-started the Church’s campaign to protect its cemetery against further MTA construction work, told The Uptowner that the slaves who built the first road to Harlem left a legacy preserved by Elmendorf. “It is astonishing that a descendant would go back 350 years to reclaim the history of those bodies, those souls, who actually built the place,” said Perkins of Elmendorf’s current pastor, the Rev. Patricia A. Singletary

“This is more than about the church,” Singletary said of the Harlem milestone. “This is about celebrating the village.”

Robed in white at the Sunday service, standing under a big yellow cross, Singletary, who has led the battle to reclaim the 17^th century cemetery, honored members of the African Burial Ground Task Force with certificates for their work.

The Elmendorf cemetery closed for use in the mid-19th century, at which point the white bodies buried there were moved to another location, leaving only African-American remains. The site was built over by the Third Avenue Railway in 1947 before the MTA bus depot arrived, said Hilary Ring, MTA government affairs director in March. The burial ground came to public attention when the MTA announced plans to rebuild the depot on the site for 2015 .

“We would like them to remove it and never build it again,” said task force member Christine Campbell, who wrote “Sweet Spirit,” a play about the burial ground.

This is not the first time that an African burial ground has been discovered in New York City. Workers at Ted Weiss Federal Building at 290 Broadway discovered the remains of 400 people during construction. In 2006, the site was memorialized with a sculpture and now also includes a visitors center.

Surveys and archives, some held locally at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, show the existence of the burial ground on First Avenue, between 126th and 127th Streets. The records list the names and the ethnicity of those buried.

Local parish registers also show that the Elmendorf burial ground was shared by at least three Harlem congregations, said historian and Landmarks Preservation Committee member Christopher Moore, who worked for the preservation of the African-American cemetery downtown.

Several colonial maps leave the size of the burial ground in dispute. The last known written property record from the 19th century logs a burial ground of one-fourth acre underneath the bus depot, said Moore, but he believes that the area it occupied is much larger than the MTA recognizes because of the cemetery’s long duration. It was used for an estimated 200 years.

The MTA declined an interview, but MTA spokeswoman Deirdre Parker said in email that “the precise dimensions of the burial ground are difficult to establish, but historical accounts and early maps indicate that it covered about one-quarter of an acre.”

An MTA investigation will look into the site’s possible archaeological value and the likelihood that remains “have survived the disturbances created by subsequent building on the site, including the construction of the current depot,” wrote Parker.

If there are untouched human bones under the bus depot, they would be buried 25 feet deep after years of burials and landfills, said Moore.

Singletary emphasized that the task force is currently communicating with the MTA in “a collaborative manner to honor the burial ground.”

“We are working to set a date with the task force co-chair for a working session,” wrote Parker, “to share our findings and review the research from the task force and the Elmendorf Church.  Once that is done, the findings will be presented to the State Historical Preservation Office and the Landmark Preservation Committee.”

Church archives have allowed the task force to determine the family lines and some biographical details of people buried between 126^th and 127^th Streets.  The Nichols family, for instance,  belonged to St. Mary’s Church, lost a baby on Sept. 8, 1854 and buried her at Elmendorf’s cemetery.

The Elmendorf Reformed Church was originally known as the Reformed Low Dutch Church of Haarlem. Its first building, at First Avenue and 127^th Street, was connected directly to the burial ground, first used around 1664. In 1658 Governor Peter Stuyvesant planned for a second village in Manhattan, ordering slaves to build a road from Greenwich Village. The Church was organized in August 1660 under a Royal Charter, when Haarlem received its village charter.

“Who is the original MTA?” asked Moore. “The slaves.”

Tourists come to the Trinity Church cemetery and mausoleum in Washington Heights to learn about upper Manhattan’ s past. The 168-year-old burial ground provides the final resting place for many celebrated New Yorkers: John James Audubon, Clement Clarke Moore, Ralph Waldo Ellison, and Jerry Orbach, to name a few.

Community Board 12 Historian James Renner serves as a knowledgeable guide, leading the way past hundreds of tombs that stretch over two city blocks.

Renner led a group of sightseers through the maze of graves on Sunday and allowed The Uptowner to tag along.

Another cemetery and mausoleum tour is scheduled for late December. Renner’s collection of upper Manhattan research can be found here.

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.

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.”

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.

The Islamic Cultural Center of New York, at 96th Street and Third Avenue plans to open the first full-time Islamic school in Manhattan next fall. The school, financed by the government of Kuwait, will occupy two floors of an adjacent apartment building. It will begin with grades pre-K through 2 and eventually expand to include high school, said Imam Shamsi Ali, acting imam at the mosque.

“It’s like a dream for us,” said Raesa Algazali, who teaches at the mosque’s weekend school and has been hoping for an Islamic school for her children for the past six years. “If they learn about Islam here, I don’t have to go back home,” said Algazali, explaining that she returns to Yemen every three or four years so her children are exposed to Islam and to Arabic.

The center is trying to complete construction so it can apply for a certificate of occupancy, required to apply for a license.

“Though we call it Islamic school, we are going to teach everything else,” Ali said, “plus, of course, Islamic tradition.”

While a private institution, the school will conform to New York City requirements and follow a public school curriculum along with an Islamic one, Ali said. It will hire licensed teachers fluent in English. The medium of instruction will be English and Muslim students will be required to take courses in Islamic practices, Arabic and ethics. Non-Muslim students will have the choice to study the parallel curriculum, but will not be required to.

The school will be open to discussion regarding controversial subjects like evolution, Ali said, and the students will be free to choose their own stances on the subject.

While “cultural reasons” may prevent the school from continuing coeducation after grade 6, the imam said that will depend on facilities at the time. The imam, however, is a proponent of educating girls.

The school will recruit children of diplomats, United Nations representatives and other residents of Manhattan, Ali said. Students from outer boroughs may also attend.

Many worshippers, however, think the school would be too far for children outside Manhattan.

Samir Hoti, who is working on the construction of the school building, said he would be interested in his daughters attending, if it were not so far from their home. While he lives close by on 106th Street, the girls live with their mother in the Yonkers. His son, however, will be registered when the school opens next year.

Harlem resident Algazali said she would love to have her four children attend, but she thinks it will be too expensive. So, she will enroll only one child.

Fees and finances have not been discussed, Ali said, but a system of financial aid is being devised.

The school will be housed on the first two floors of a luxury condo building next to the mosque. Entrances are separate and acoustics will be dealt with so as to avoid noise and disturbance to tenants.

Tenants walking in and out of the building were unperturbed by the idea of the school and some were supportive.

“It’s a great thing,” said Brooke Connell, who entered with two little girls.

“A school is always good,” said Heijoon Chung, another tenant . “Religious school is always OK,” she said, adding that her son goes to a Catholic school. She said she often wonders whether the Islamic school will admit students of other faiths.

Jeremy Price feels there is no real interaction with the activities of the mosque except for crowds during Ramadan and on holidays which he does not feel are intrusive or disturbing.

Algazali, however, is excited. “I have another baby,” she said, patting her stomach. She would love for that baby to attend the Islamic school, “Inshah Allah,” she said — in Arabic, God willing.