Randy Millard, counsellor and coach at BRC (Courtesy Photo)

It’s game time on a Saturday afternoon at the Brownsville Recreation Center. Middle schoolers in haphazardly tied pinnies are battling it out on the basketball court under the watchful eyes of black leaders and sports stars painted like graffiti on the gym’s walls. The figures seem to be saying that there are possibilities outside of Brownsville—outside of the “hood.” But youth need more than colorful role models plastered on concrete.

“That’s the shot,” Randy Millard shouts at one of the sweaty players on his team, sliding across the waxy floor in blue Nikes. Clusters of older boys fill a few rows of the stadium, gossiping about girls and waiting for their chance to play in the next game.

At halftime Randy lets the littlest boy on his team play. Sitting on the bench, his feet don’t quite touch the ground, but on the court he fights viciously to get his hands on the ball. He steals a peek at Randy every so often for a look of encouragement.

And Randy gives him the direction he needs with arms high in the air, like an air traffic controller, pointing this way, then that. Randy’s team wins by two points, sending a dozen boys skipping through the air.

Randy says he knew many of these kids “before they even knew themselves.” In fact, he used to be one of them. At the age of 11, Randy started going down to the BRC, where his dad often worked. He picked up a basketball and, in this haven from the often crime ridden streets of Brownsville, he found his calling.

Now, 14 years later, Randy has come full circle.  When he’s not working as a family counselor or assistant coach at the same high school he once attended, he volunteers at the Rec Center, coaching and mentoring local youth all weekend long.

Randy differs from most other twenty-somethings living in the area. He went to college, a rare feat in a neighborhood where less than ten percent of residents have a degree. And instead of receiving his diploma and checking out, Randy came back to guide the next generation of hoop stars and hopefuls.

“Where I’m from needs a lot of help, but nobody wants to come back,” Randy said. “This is where I was put. They need me here. Some people graduate and get families and move away for jobs, but that’s not me.”

Randy graduated from Norfolk State University three years ago with a degree in mass communications. Good grades paved the way for his entrance to college, but Randy says that basketball was ultimately what saved his life.

“Basketball just kept me out of trouble. It was pretty cool to have something to do and not get in trouble for it,” Randy said. “It really changed my life.”

As a teenager, Randy and his best friends, all of whom ended up attending college, played daily. They usually set up three games, stumbling home at night with aching muscles from the hours of play. They traveled to games in every borough, and the best part was that basketball didn’t come with a price tag.

“We were young and tired and played too many games,” Randy said, shaking his head with a silly grin. “But all you needed was five dollars for the whole day when you were playing.”

Randy and his friends were competitive on and off the court. They had a different mindset than many of the other teenagers they knew – instead of looking for trouble they pushed each other to do well in school and use basketball to their advantage.

But Randy admits to being curious about the darker side of teenage life in Brownsville. He never went to jail or became a “thug,” but he was a keen observer of those around him.

“I decided I wanted to go to college. I saw people not doing what they should,” he said. “And I got myself together with the help of these gentlemen here.”

“These gentlemen” are the many men who work or volunteer at the center, dedicating their lives to helping Brownsville youth stay off the streets. Several of them are at the basketball game today, cheering on a new crop of young men they’ve come to know and love.

Daryl Glenn could talk for hours about the 28 years he has worked at the BRC, while touting its reputation as one of the best youth centers in Brooklyn. He’s known Randy since he was two feet tall and speaks about him with the pride of father.

“The teenagers love him because they see something different,” he said, slipping some skin to the boys that pass. “They see that you don’t have to be a yes man or a gangster, or have your pants sagging.”

Glenn said that too few college grads from Brownsville come back and spread the wealth. But the spirit of giving back pervades the Rec Center. Its manager, Greg Jackson, was a former NBA player who came back to Brownsville and used his own success to foster change in the community.

Now Randy is doing the same and using his youthfulness to his advantage. His number one rule? Never talk down to a child.

“I’m someone they can relate to, even though this generation is different,” he said. “A lot of these kids are learning things that even I wasn’t learning at that age, but we have the wisdom and experience.”

Randy sees the good inside most of his players, even if they succumb to or become the victim of more powerful social forces. Just two weeks ago one of his high school players was shot dead in the back, never to dribble a ball again.

“He was 50/50,” Randy said without pause. “A good kid with bad friends – a knucklehead.”

These kinds of experiences have shaped Randy’s outlook on Brownsville. When he’s not on the sidelines or counseling in his office, Randy likes to write about the place he grew up in and the game he loves. Oftentimes he’ll pull out his blackberry to compose a short piece about something on his mind, sending it to his friends.

“Writing is like a form of therapy,” he said.

Randy and a few of his friends started a blog last year, The Brownsville Journal, which was an outlet for Randy to share his thoughts about the good and bad of Brownsville. He likes to tell real stories, what he calls “movies with words.”

He stopped blogging when his computer broke and work caught up with him, but he wants to make a better site in the near future.

“The blog was just a snippet of what I can show people,” he said. “A lot of things aren’t talked about and I want to show what’s really going on here.”

And as a family counselor, Randy listens to the stories that few are privileged to hear. He feels like he’s making more of a difference by counseling people in his own community and plans on going to graduate school for psychology in the near future.

But for now another BRC game is finished, and its time for Randy to coach the next team ready to take the stage. This time it’s the big kids – teens who actually have a chance of using basketball as a free way into college and out of Brownsville.

He looks to a group of boys next to him and rubs his hands together, saying with a sly smile,  “We’re gonna smoke these kids.”

A hospital official's testimony implicated William Boyland Jr.'s sister, Tracy Boyland, in court yesterday. Photo by Claudia del Castillo

A Jamaica Hospital official testified Thursday that state Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. received improper compensation for his efforts to secure city council funds for the hospital. The testimony, in emails presented to the jury, also implicated former city councilwoman Tracy Boyland, his sister.

Boyland Jr., part of a prominent political dynasty in Brooklyn, has represented District 55 in the New York State Assembly since 2003. He is the son of William Boyland, who occupied a seat in the New York State Assembly for two decades. His uncle, Thomas S. Boyland, was a member of the Assembly from 1977 to 1982.

At opening statements on Tuesday, the federal prosecutor said Boyland Jr. lobbied for hospital funds in exchange for $175,000 from Brookdale Hospital, a sum disguised as payment for a consulting job from 2006 to 2007. Boyland lobbied on behalf of David Rosen, the former chief executive of MediSys, a nonprofit corporation supporting Brookdale and Jamaica Hospitals, prosecutors say. Rosen was found guilty in a September trial on the charge of bribing public elected officials.

Jamaica Hospital Director of Planning, Ann Corrigan, testified today about an email exchange from 2003, in which Corrigan told Rosen that the number of MediSys clinics serving MedicAid patients was depleting hospital funds. Seeking a way to move funds around, Corrigan asked Rosen in another email if MediSys had “any leeway when a city council person allocated funds to a hospital,” referring to money obtained by the Boylands for the purchase of an additional hospital building.

In the email, Corrigan said she “wasn’t sure if changing the purpose” on these funds “would be allowable.” Rosen’s response referred to “implied obligations to the Boylands” attached to the funding, suggesting that the city council money came at a price, according to prosecutors.

In a letter from 2005 presented by the prosecution, Councilwoman Boyland informed Rosen that 2 million dollars in funding would be awarded to the hospital for the fiscal year. Another document offered by the government shows that Royal Health Care hired Tracy Boyland in 2005. According to the document, Councilwoman Boyland used Rosen as a reference when she applied for the position.

Corporations seeking funding from the city council must make certain disclosures about their personnel and operations on VENDEX forms. One VENDEX question asks if any consultants for the organization have held public official within the past five years.

Corrigan’s testimony also concerned a VENDEX form, reviewed by Corrigan but compiled by Rosen, which failed to mention Councilwoman Boyland’s involvement at Royal Health Care. The form also concealed Boyland Jr.’s consulting position at the hospital, Corrigan said.

Police search for suspect involved in the shooting of a police car. Photo by Michael Wilner

Article corrected on 11/7/2011.

Over fifty police officers from the 73rd and 81st precincts, a canine team and at least one NYPD helicopter are searching for a man who shot numerous rounds from a black Mercedes Benz around 1:00 pm today.

The suspect abandoned the car in Glenmore Plaza in Brownsville after he fled the scene of the crime on Ralph Ave. and Macon Street, police say.

The car was left just two blocks away from the location where Zurana Horton was killed less than two weeks ago, protecting school children from gang gunfire.

The target of the shooting is unclear, but police say they believe the perpetrator may have been shooting at a fellow off-duty security officer during a car chase from Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The suspect was accompanied by two people in the back of the car, police say.

The menu at Magic Soul Food Restaurant is a welcome change from fast food joints (Michael Wilner/The Brooklyn Ink)

Fast food chains have always dominated Pitkin Avenue, Brownsville’s primary commercial street. So this month’s grand opening of the neighborhood’s first full-service, black-owned soul food restaurant in years was greeted as a moment of pride by the community.

Customers, employees and business people along the strip see the opening as a sign of progress, an antidote to the two dozen rental signs lining the rest of the block in an area with historically limited dining options.

“This is important to me personally,” said Joanna Joseph, a staffer at the new Magic Soul Food Restaurant. “The area itself is going under, not over.”

“It’s like we’re bringing soul food back,” she added.

When asked when they last remembered a restaurant with plush booths, home cooking, and the potential staying power, customers answered in unison: never.

Pierre, who has been eating at Magic Soul Food almost every day in the past week, said the closest full-service restaurants are in Bedford Stuyvesant— a walk he said he took weekly, just to take a break from fast food.

“We need more restaurants like this,” he said. “Fast food owners aren’t investing in the community. They take the money and run.”

Until now, eating on Pitkin Avenue meant a stop at one of the welter of pizzerias and fried chicken shops, including Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald’s, and Popeye’s. While many of these places offer limited seating, all operate as fast food dining establishments.

Now, many community members feel that Magic Soul Food may be providing an alternative: a restaurant that will reinvest in the community, acting as both a healthier eating establishment and a venue for safe nightlife activities.

Owner Shawn Williams hopes to keep Magic Soul Food open late on weekends for comedy and karaoke nights until 2:00 am, and will be applying for a liquor license. Currently, no neighborhood establishment provides these services.

Even without these features, Brownsville has reason to celebrate the new venue. Magic Soul Food is the only sit-down, family-operated restaurant on Pitkin Avenue, and residents claim it to be the first viable black-owned restaurant to open in Brownsville—a community that is over 80 per cent African American—in at least thirty years.

“Every soul food restaurant I’ve been to is in and out,” said Chris Darby, 19, at the opening. Here, he said, “you get to sit and have a nice time.”

Williams’ mother taught him all of the recipes he uses in his restaurants, and came to his aid on his first day in the kitchen. She originally learned them growing up in South Carolina, Williams said.

“She cooked seven days a week, no matter what,” Williams said. “All holidays—she never got a break.”

Among the classic dishes served at Magic Soul Food are chicken served southern-style fried, down home BBQ or smothered; home baked mac and cheese, southern collard greens, sweet corn on the cob and down home candied yams. Grits and pancakes are offered for breakfast.

Williams, who is also head chef, invested $175,000 to start the new venture, following on his success in restaurants of the same name in Bedford Stuyvesant and Ocean Hill.

“It’s all about location. African American people love soul food, so it’s a great location for that,” said Rodelle Mallory, as she prepared the restaurant’s first batch of macaroni salad.

Having succeeded twice before, Williams’ confidence may prove an asset as he begins his most ambitious project yet.

“I’ve been wanting to come here for a while now, but when you come here you definitely have to have it together,” Williams said. “I’ve been coming to Pitkin ever since I was young. There was no place to eat… there was no place you could actually sit down and enjoy a meal.”

Magic Soul Food Restaurant is located on 1546 Pitkin Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, (347) 663 – 9600.

The window of the Peanut Supermarket has now become a memorial for Zurana Horton. (Cristabelle Tumola / Brooklyn Ink)

Just days before a mother of 13 was killed in front of the Peanut supermarket in Brownsville, a bullet went through the window of the same store, nearly missing a worker inside, according to a staffer at the store.

Four or five days before the mother’s murder, between the hours of 10 and 11 p.m. a stray bullet that came from outside the store pierced through the supermarket’s side window, the staffer said. According to him, an employee was working behind the counter, just in front of the window, but walked away from the counter just before the bullet hit.

A bullet hole is still visible from inside the supermarket, located at 112 Watkins St. on the corner of Pitkin Avenue. No evidence exists to suggest that incident is connected to the murder that occurred later that week.

The outside of that same window is now a memorial to the mother, 34-year-old Zurana Horton of Brownsville, who was murdered Friday afternoon.

Three suspects were arraigned on Wednesday at Brooklyn’s Kings County Criminal Court in connection with the shooting. The violence also left a 31-year-old woman seriously wounded with gunshots to her arm and chest and an 11-year-old girl with a graze wound to her check.

Andrew Lopez, 18, and Jonathan Carrasquillo, 22, were arrested Tuesday and charged with 2^nd degree murder, two counts of felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon. A third suspect, 17-year-old Kristian Lopez, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon in connection with the same incident, police said.

Daily News reported that, according to its sources, Andrew Lopez confessed to the shootings after his arrest, telling police that the killings were not intentional. According to police, Lopez was a former drug dealer and a gang member who was shooting at rival gang members from his apartment building roof at 1800 Pitkin Ave., the report said.

All three suspects have addresses for that same Pitkin Avenue building, said police.

During the day Wednesday people continued to stop and look at the memorial to Horton just off of one of Brownsville’s main commercial streets.

As some of these people quietly read the words praising Horton, they declined to comment on the shooting.

These words, left on the outside of the Peanut supermarket’s bullet-damaged window, are a mix of calls to end the violence, such as “Stop: put the guns down,” and words of praise for the murdered mother who many are calling a hero.

According to police, Horton and the 31-year-old victim were picking up their children from PS 298, at 85 Watkins Street, just diagonally across the street from Peanut supermarket.

Moments before Horton was killed, she was seen shielding several children to protect them from the gunshots.

Although others didn’t want to discuss their reaction to the arrests, an employee, who was working at the market on the day of the murder, said that people in the neighborhood seem more relaxed now that the suspects have been charged.

The Food Bazaar supermarket in Brownsville recently received funding for expansion from the city’s Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) initiative (Photo Credit: Danika Fears).

Once officially classified a “food desert,” Brownsville now has plenty of fresh produce, but that doesn’t mean that residents are eating their fruits and vegetables.

A 2008 study from the NYC Health Department revealed that Brownsville has some of the City’s highest rates of obesity and diabetes. The neighborhood’s supermarkets did not meet the city planning standard ratio of 30,000 square-feet per 10,000 people. And of the residents studied, 14 percent to 26 percent reported not having eaten fruits or vegetables the day before.

Since then community activists and city initiatives have been bringing healthy foods to Brownsville and encouraging residents to buy them. The City’s Healthy Supermarkets program redesigned several supermarkets’ produce sections, which are now stocked with local produce. Two farmers markets and fruit stands have been opened, and a handful of bodegas have been improved to carry healthy foods.

Some residents are putting down the potato chips and picking up greens, but several supermarket owners said fruits and vegetables still sell poorly.

“We’re informing a lot of people about food,” said Brian Goldblatt, a coordinator of Brownsville’s Youth Green Market. “We get a lot of reluctant customers because they don’t know what to do with it.”

At the Youth Market on Livonia and Rockaway, residents can buy fresh apples and collard greens at warehouse prices. The program, created by Green Market and the Brownsville Partnership, came to Brownsville last summer after the success of a stand in nearby Bedford-Stuyvesant. Youth market accomplishes two goals at once by making healthy food accessible to low income communities and educating local youth about food.

“I’ve eaten more apples while working here than I did in my lifetime,” said James Tolan, one of the teenagers working at the market. “I go home now and eat smarter.”

The program became so popular with residents that a second day a week was added to the market schedule this season. Since the market started educating residents about how to prepare fresh vegetables, many have started warming up to the greens, Goldblatt said.

“Seniors know how to cook, but their children have little connection with food,” he said. “I’m nearly sold out of collard greens now. A month ago we didn’t have those results.”

Weekend produce shoppers can also frequent the Brownsville Community Farmer’s Market on Saturdays. The market began as a single stand, but has since blossomed into an active market. When both markets close for the season at the end of the month, local produce will still be available at a few bodegas that agreed to sell the Youth Market’s vegetables.

Farmer’s markets are changing the way some residents think about food, but supermarkets are also influencing shoppers’ decisions to buy healthy products. Last year the city’s health department started a Healthy Supermarkets initiative that assisted grocery stores in sprucing up their produce departments. Three grocery stores in Brownsville benefited from the program.

“The stores we’ve worked with in Brownsville have been receptive to our program and have committed to working toward higher quality produce departments for their neighborhood,” a spokesperson from the NYC Health department told The Brooklyn Ink.

A few months ago a representative from the city reorganized the produce department at Key Foods on Belmont. Over the course of four days, more attractive signs were given to the fruits and vegetables and produce was shifted around to make the section more aesthetically appealing. A line of local vegetables was added to the mix, and the grocery store started cutting up fruit before packaging it.

“The watermelon sells better when cut,” said Antonia Rodriguez, who works in Key Food’s produce department. “The produce looks healthier, better.”

But residents are still wary of the locally grown goods, some of which can look less than appealing, Rodriguez said. Even with the changes, the owner of Key Foods, Joel Brodsky, said he doesn’t sell very much produce.

“I can’t give it away,” he said. “I can’t buy mushrooms and asparagus.”

The problem isn’t the price. Brodsky said he charges much less than the normal markup, which is 50 to 60 percent. As a storeowner he must stay competitive with several other supermarkets in the area, and it is these low prices that make fresh food a tangible reality for Brownsville residents, Brodsky said.

People’s Choice, a food warehouse, has some of the lowest prices in the area. Storeowner Jim Kahn said he wouldn’t be able to stay in business if he continued carrying healthy items. Over the years he’s tried to incorporate a number of low-fat and low-sodium products, but too many times he’s had to throw out spoiled foods like yogurt, skim milk and vegetables.

“You want to give customers what’s in their best interest,” he said. “But if you start discarding you will be out of business. We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

The Food Bazaar supermarket in Brownsville recently received funding for expansion from the city’s Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) initiative.

Food Bazaar’s current produce selection is the largest in Brownsville and the store sells $100,000 worth of produce sales weekly. Produce accounts for 13 to 14 percent of total purchases at the market, which is five to seven percentage points lower than at the Food Bazaar in Queens, according to John Park, the store’s manager. He believes the difference is ethnically driven because the other store is in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood.

“Hispanics eat more fresh fruit and vegetables,” he said. “Vegetables in Brownsville are moving good, but fruit is hard. Only if they have money will residents buy fruit.”

But many Brownsville residents are conscious about what goes on the dinner table and appreciate the community’s efforts to bring more choices to the area. They would still like to see more done.

“We have a daughter so we get a lot of fruits for her,” Byron Reed said. “But the quality isn’t always great around here. You can go to Flatbush and they have veggie stands everywhere.”

Minister Kevin Barlow is a self-described “health nut,” but believes only 20 percent of residents care about their food choices. Food is available and affordable, but the community needs more education, he said.

On Thursday, a 65-year-old woman was shot dead in Coney Island, in broad daylight, according to Gothamist. Police are looking for the suspect, who apparently rides a pink girls’ bike, according the New York Daily News.

Early Sunday morning more than 100 firefighters were called to a two-alarm fire in a Brooklyn synagogue, according to NBC New York.

In some better news from the borough, a 12-year old Brooklyn, boy who had gone missing over the weekend from his family’s upstate home, was found on Sunday, according to CBS.

In light of Obama’s recent announcement that all U.S. troops will withdrawal from Iraq by the end of the year, we are wondering how this war has affected Brooklyn.  We have reaching out to those families affected by the war.

What stories should the Brooklyn Ink be covering? Let us know at TheBrooklynInk@gmail.com

The Bedford-Stuyvesant Family Health Center, on Fulton Street, offers family planning services. Shane Hunt/ The Brooklyn Ink

More than half of pregnancies in Bedford-Stuyvesant end in abortion, one of the highest ratios in the city and more than double the ratio for the United States as a whole, according to data from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The neighborhood statistics were obtained from the health department by the pro-life Chiaroscuro Foundation through a Freedom of Information Law request. According to the data, broken down by ZIP code, the highest abortion ratios in Brooklyn were for Brownsville and Bedford-Stuyvesant, with 59 percent and 52 percent respectively.

The data represent the so-called Guttmacher abortion ratio, which is induced terminations as a percentage of all pregnancies excluding miscarriages. The Guttmacher Institute is a nonprofit focused on sexual and reproductive health.

The ratios for the two neighborhoods are strikingly higher than the Guttmacher ratio for the nation as a whole, which has been hovering in the low twenties for several years. They are also significantly higher than the 41 percent average in New York City as a whole.

“Numbers for the whole city are sort of abstract,” said Greg Pfundstein, executive director of the Chiaroscuro Foundation, of his organization’s decision to seek hyper-local data. “If you can look and see that in your own neighborhood the abortion ratio is so high, it brings the reality closer to you. So if you live in Bed-Stuy, for instance, you can look and realize: wow, that’s high, I should talk to my kids.”

Nationally, abortion has been on the decline for decades. A 2008 study conducted by Guttmacher researchers found that 30 percent of viable pregnancies were terminated in 1980. The number dropped to 28 percent in 1990 and 22.4 percent in 2008.

But the ZIP code statistics reveal that certain communities are still seeing a significant number–even a majority–of pregnancies end in abortion. According to Pfundstein, this is a reality either overlooked or misunderstood by many.

“People think of abortion as something that should exist because every once-in-a-while, people make mistakes. But when you see rates [like Bed-Stuy’s], it doesn’t seem like a once-in-a-lifetime mistake anymore. People’s idea … of abortion and the reality of abortion don’t line up so well.”

A Bed-Stuy community board official, however, said the ratio was not excessive.

“If the abortion rate is high, that’s because it should be high, because it needs to be high,” said Edna Johnson, chair of Community Board 3’s Health and Hospital Committee.

“These kids need to be in school, not on the streets trying to feed a child,” she said, referring to Bedford-Stuyvesant’s large number of poor, uneducated, and sexually active young people.

The abortion data published by the Chiaroscuro Foundation also included various other categories of information, much of which is concerned with racial demographics.

The data show that the fifteen ZIP codes with the highest abortion ratios were, on average, 67 percent black, whereas the 15 ZIP codes with the lowest abortion ratios had a black population of only 4 percent.

Emphasis on race can be misleading, Pfundstein said, because it is not the factor most closely correlated with the abortion data.

“We found that the only really good indicator of a neighborhood’s [abortion] numbers was the percent of female householders with no husband present,” he said.

According to the 2010 Census, single-mother households significantly outnumber husband-wife units in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Other studies show evidence that such indicators are themselves mere proxies for the underlying cause of high abortion ratios: poverty.

“Poor women are more likely to get pregnant when they didn’t want to, and, in turn they have more abortions and more unplanned birth,” explained Rachel Jones, Senior Research Associate at the Guttmacher Institute. “Rates of poverty are higher for Black (and Latina) women, and this partially explains why they have higher abortion rates and ratios and higher levels of unplanned births.”

Analysis of the data shows a discrepancy in the way Brownsville and Bed-Stuy ZIP codes were defined.

The Chiaroscuro Foundation allocated to “Bedford-Stuyvesant-Crown Heights” data for ZIP code 11212, which actually belongs to nearby Brownsville. The designation was consistent with the way the New York State Department of Health assigns ZIP codes to neighborhoods. But in fact that postal code falls entirely outside of the borders of Bed-Stuy’s Community Board 3.

Bedford-Stuyvesant’s four principle ZIP codes had a Guttmacher ratio of 52 percent, with 4,606 live births and 4,931 abortions.

In addition to Brownsville, with 59 percent, other Brooklyn ZIP codes with abortion ratios over 50 percent included East New York, Canarsie, Flatbush, and East Flatbush. The ratio for the borough as a whole was 39 percent.

Earlier press reports about the data focused attention on the Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea, which had a city-high 67 percent abortion ratio. However, with only 39 live births and 80 abortions, that neighborhood’s numbers were low in absolute terms, particularly relative to the many postal codes reporting over 1000 abortions, including Bed-Stuy and Brownsville.

Editor’s Note: An earlier headline indicated that these abortion rates were boroughwide. The Ink regrets the error.

Belmont Avenue's stranded streets reflect the commercial district's critical condition. (Photo: Danika Fears / The Brooklyn Ink)

It was only 20 years ago that pushcart vendors paraded along the busy blocks of Belmont Avenue, a four-block commercial strip in Brownsville. Now nearly half of the avenue’s storefronts are listed for sale and not a single eating establishment remains.

The landscape of Belmont swiftly changed in the 1990’s when street vendors and business owners moved out. What was once a neighborhood hub became a stretch of empty storefronts riddled with crime. Most recently, shopkeepers have struggled to stay afloat with high building taxes and fewer customers during the recession.

But now community leaders are stepping in to save the street.

“Belmont has a rich history, but that doesn’t mean that new histories can’t be made,” said Joe Blankenship, a Pratt Institute graduate student in city planning who is assisting Community Board 16 in uniting merchants, improving the appearance of the avenue and trying to attract back shoppers.

The task won’t be an easy one. At this stage Belmont activists are only just beginning to organize their efforts.

The Board’s Economic Development Committee is now holding meetings with Blankenship and Belmont merchants to assess the avenue’s issues and form a merchants association.

“We’re trying to get the businesses to reorganize themselves into a merchant’s association,” she said. “We’ve also been talking with city administration because for a while there most of the street lights were not working.”

Blankenship started working on the project only a couple of weeks ago, but he hopes the association will pool together shopkeepers’ business knowledge and give them a louder voice within the community, he said.

“A community that has a merchant’s association that is active on the street can help new businesses also,” he said. “If you’re a start up business in the area and you have a set of merchants to go to, it’s a more conducive atmosphere for better communication.”

Brownsville’s Community Board is also working with city officials and the 73rd Precinct to stem the area’s frequent robberies and encourage economic growth. The city recently improved Belmont’s lighting, though most businesses still close before nightfall. The Board has made smaller efforts to encourage shoppers, including installing parking meters for easily accessible parking. But shoppers often complained of the high meter prices — 15 minutes for a quarter —Joey Mizrahi, a buyer for Happy Days, said.

For some storeowners the efforts are too little too late. Mizrahi has worked at the Happy Days clothing store for over a decade. The store itself has been on Belmont for over 40 years. With high zoning taxes and few customers, Happy Days’ business has been steadily declining by 20 to 30 percent annually. Robberies are not infrequent either — only last week two teens stole boxes of apparel left unattended by the front door. Happy Days will close in the near future, Mizrahi said.

“No one is willing to come here,” he said. “It doesn’t even pay to open the store sometimes.”

Happy Days’ story is a common one on the block, even for businesses that lasted generations. M. Slavin and Sons auctioned off their 7,500-square-foot fish market in June after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last February. The odor of fish still lingers outside the empty property where the family-owned business stood for 90 years.

Nearby businesses are also affected by the market’s bankruptcy. Greene-Walker called the fish market an “anchor” in the community. Slavin shoppers no longer frequent other stores after stopping by the market, said Michael Winston, an employee at a shoe shop across the street from the market.

Now Brownsville residents who patronized Slavin avoid the block, in part because of high crime on the street. More people prefer to shop on nearby Pitkin Avenue, where police patrol heavily, Idalia Torres, a longtime resident at Seth Lo Houses, said.

“This used to be a place where you could walk at all times of night,” she said. “Now you don’t know who’s around and it’s not easy to be afraid all the time.”

While the community board has been working with local police, several storeowners are dissatisfied with the results. Mizrahi said he “doesn’t see light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Every time we complained we’d have police presence for only one week,” Mizrahi said. “It was a game and after awhile we just gave up.”

In the early 60s and 70s, Belmont was an active part of the community— residents would buy fresh fruits and vegetables from Jewish vendors and few storefronts were unoccupied. Over the years, the area’s demographics changed, Greene-Walker said, and many business owners moved out.

“It just seems as though one store after the other started closing,” she said.

Blankenship is currently creating an inventory about the retail options that remain on Belmont and possible new business ventures, he said. His role will include facilitating conversations with community retailers and creating an aesthetically pleasing atmosphere for shoppers.

“The area doesn’t need to live in the past, it can find a way to rejuvenate itself,” Blankenship said.

More Stories on The Brooklyn Ink:

Red Hook Food Vendors Adjust to New Rules and Changing Faces

Polish Flavor Lingers in Greenpoint Despite Changing Ethnic Demographics

Truths in Another Tongue: How Non-Native English Speakers Tackle Proverbs

Cayetano set the plates down on a small glass table in the living room of her Brownsville apartment. Lighting a candle and a thin stick of incense, she waved the fragrant wand over the food, filling the heavy July air with the scent of pine needles.

The 52-year-old Guatemalan immigrant took a deep breath and addressed the young man in the framed photograph on the wall in front of her. “Here you go, son, I’m leaving the food you like,” she said softly. “Enjoy your plate, and if you’re bringing your grandma, or somebody else with you, then share. Eat, ok?”

Cayetano stood quietly for a moment, gently fingering the black cross that hung from a string of wooden beads around her neck. Then she settled into an overstuffed recliner to keep her son, Marcos Jr. – who was shot and exactly killed four years ago – company while he ate.

Marcos Jr., then 24, was murdered at dawn on Sunday, July 22, 2007, in the courtyard of the Riverdale Osborne Towers, where he had been raised. Police found little evidence and no witnesses came forward, so Cayetano’s case joined the backlog of open homicides piling up in a neighborhood where unsolved murders are not uncommon. With few facts for comfort – a suspect, arrest, trial, conviction or sentence – Norma Cayetano relies on the spirit world instead, finding a measure of peace there that the criminal justice system could not provide.

Alone in the apartment one day, Norma heard the refrigerator door slam shut, as it did each time Marcos was finished rummaging for leftovers. Later, she felt a rush of air when she entered the apartment, as though someone were walking through the door with her.

“I can’t describe the feeling,” Cayetano said recently. “But his spirit is around the house all the time. It’s like he’s still alive. He’s close to me, taking care of his mama.”

Sometimes, Norma feels a breath at her back while she is cooking. It is Marcos Jr., she says, patting her shoulder as he always did when he entered her kitchen. Lying in bed at night, Norma has felt a slight depression in the mattress and smelled the familiar scent of her son’s cologne. She knows it is Marcos Jr., come to sit down beside her.

“I feel more relaxed, more peaceful,” said Cayetano. “It’s like he touches me to help me fall asleep.”

The day before his murder, Marcos Jr., who worked as a maintenance supervisor at the Police Athletic League, was running errands. He went to the laundromat to wash his clothes and then to the barbershop for a haircut and shave.

At 3 p.m., Marcos Jr. knocked on his mother’s apartment door. “Where are you going, smelling so good?” Norma asked her son, catching a whiff of his favorite Dolce and Gabbana cologne. She thought he looked handsome in his crisp white t-shirt, jeans and a blue Yankees cap.

A neighbor is throwing a birthday party for his one-year-old son in the courtyard, Marcos Jr. told her. He helped himself to food from the refrigerator, and begged his mother to cook his favorite meal – oxtail, rice and potato salad – for dinner the next night. She said she would.

When Marcos Jr. left two hours later, Norma Cayetano removed a piece of meat from the freezer and set it on the counter to defrost overnight. She made a cup of chamomile tea, took two Tylenol and her usual cholesterol pill, and fell into a deep sleep.

Neither Norma nor her husband, Marcos Sr., awoke until 5 a.m. the next day, when a cousin banged frantically at the door, shouting the news that their son had been killed six floors below.

Norma remembers jumping from her bed and following her husband downstairs. She remembers rushing toward an ambulance that she thought held her son. She remembers the paramedic’s shaking head and pointed finger, and how she turned in time to see the police cover a body with a long, white sheet. Then Norma fell to the ground.

“I was out,” she said. “I was out of the world.”

On the fourth anniversary of her son’s murder, Norma Cayetano shakes the contents of a worn manila folder into her lap. A cascade of papers documenting Marcos Jr.’s life and death – immunization records, school report cards, newspaper clippings, a death transcript and receipt for funeral services – pour into her lap.

But it is the page that says the least that stops her cold. The complaint report from the New York Police Department’s 73rd Precinct bears no suspect information; instead hard, black letters spell the word “UNKNOWN” with mocking regularity down the length of the page.

In a study released last June, researchers at the University of Colorado-Denver School of Public Affairs reported that co-victims – a term used to refer to surviving family members and friends of an unsolved homicide victim with origins in research published by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine – have particular difficulty making sense of their loss given the enormous uncertainty that surrounds the crime.

According to the 20-page report, the criminal justice system plays a crucial role in survivors’ ability to make sense of violent crime. When law enforcement officials fail to solve or prosecute murders, co-victims may experience a phenomenon called secondary victimization, in which further harm is caused by the belief that justice has been denied.

Norma Cayetano, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1983 and gained citizenship in 1997, pursued information about her son’s murder for a year after his death. She made regular visits to the 73rd Precinct to inquire about his case but was rarely rewarded with reliable news.

Norma did learn that her son’s killer entered the housing complex through the eastern delivery entrance, shot wildly as he ran through the courtyard, and exited out the north gate. Marcos Jr. was sitting on a concrete rise in the middle of the courtyard when he was killed by a single bullet to his head. His friend, Javier (Wabu) Figueroa, who was seated next to him, was wounded.

For a while, rumors circulated through the Riverdale Osborn Towers about how many shooters were involved, and whether or not Marcos Jr. was the intended target. But Norma dismissed all this as speculation and eventually the talk dried up.

In time, Norma’s faith in the justice process waned, too. Though the NYPD defines all unsolved homicide cases as active, Norma says it feels like the investigation into her son’s murder ended years ago. She says she is resigned to living with uncertainty, but traces of anger still flash across her face when she speaks of Marcos Jr.’s death.

“I know that no one will do anything about this case anymore,” Norma said. “My son’s murder, it’s like they killed a dog and left it in the street.”

For two years, Norma grieved over her son’s death. She rarely left the apartment, preferring the comfort of her favorite armchair. Each day, she willed herself to shower and change her clothes.

Finally, a local spiritual group stepped in. Like Norma, its members are part of a small Central American ethnic group – called Garifuna – whose mixed ancestry includes African slaves, Caribbean natives and Arawak Indian tribes. For two nights of a purification ceremony, Norma was hidden in a thick cloud of smoke. The members joined hands and circled around her; they danced, sang, prayed, and reached their hands through the fog to touch her head and body.

After the ritual cleanse, Norma began to feel better. “I felt like I came from another world,” she said. “I was lost. They brought me back to life.”

Like many Garinagu – plural for Garifuna – Norma’s religious beliefs are a hybrid of Roman Catholicism and traditional Afro-Amerindian spirituality. She attends the 10 a.m. Mass in Spanish at a church down the block and has tucked wallet-sized pictures of Jesus and Mary into the corners of framed photographs of her son.

When Norma prays, the heaviness inside of her is momentarily lifted. “Without faith in God, maybe I would be in the crazy house,” she said. “Maybe I would have stood in the street until a car hit me.”

But Norma’s faith extends beyond God to belief in a reciprocal relationship between the living and the dead that is negotiated through ancestral invocations and spirit possession. In addition to feeling Marcos Jr.’s presence around the house, she also asks his spirit for protection when she leaves.

“I come here to talk to him anytime I go outside,” said Norma, gesturing to the shrine she built to her son. Upon it are Marcos Jr.’s basketball trophies, with his gold chains hung from the plastic figurines. Norma leaves a fresh glass of water here each morning for her son to drink.

“I tell him, ‘Son, bless me, I’m going outside. Bring me back home sound and safe,’” she recalls. “He’s my company, my cane to walk.”

In 2007, the year Marcos Jr. was killed, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that 38 percent of the 16,929 murders and non-negligent manslaughters that took place in the United States were not solved right away. One year later, an article in the Associated Press showed that the nationwide clearance rate for homicides had plummeted from 91 percent in 1963 – when records were first kept – to 61 percent in 2007.

Even today, arrest statistics in Brownsville under-represent the incidence of violence in the neighborhood since many shootings never result in arrest. According to a report by the Center for Court Innovation, the 73rd Precinct had 22 open shooting cases – including 3 homicides – by April of this year, but only two arrests had been made.

Kim Herring, director of the Families of Homicide Victims Program in Brooklyn, said that more than half of the murder cases that cross her desk each year are unsolved. Most families are looking forward to justice, Herring said, as though a guilty verdict will restore their loss. It rarely ever does.

“So the question is,” Herring said, “how do you learn to live with the memory of a loved one? How can you incorporate the deceased into your life?” For many of Herring’s clients, participation in religious communities increases over time. “After the immediate loss, when everyone else goes back to normal and a family member is still grieving, faith can provide an outlet.”

Victorino Elijio, the Belizean deacon at Our Lady of Mercy Church in Brownsville, was ordained two weeks before Marcos Jr. was shot. Since then, he has watched many of his congregants turn to faith for consolation when they fail to find justice on earth.

“It’s never easy for parents to bury their children,” he said. “But without someone to hold responsible, there can be no closure, no healing, and the pain lingers.”

Elijio remembers what he told Norma when he arrived at her apartment that Sunday. “Knowing may not be possible,” he said, “but God has promised never to leave or forsake us. Have faith, and you will find peace.”

On the second day of mourning, Norma arrived at John’s Funeral Home early. Standing over her son’s casket, holding his hands in hers, she spoke to Marcos Jr. for the last time.

“I told him, ‘Marcos, I know you didn’t see the guy that shot you, but if somehow he comes to your mind, please, come to me and reveal him so that I will know him,’” she recalled. “‘Don’t do anything to him; just let him go. God will take care of him and sooner or later he will pay for what he did to you.’”

At first, Marcos Jr.’s hands were cold, said Norma. But when she finished, they were warm and her son’s fingers tightened around hers. “I felt it,” she said. “He responded.”