Life is busy on the corner of Fulton Street and Nostrand Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant. People hurry in and out restaurants and stores. Cars rush by.  But planted firmly at the intersection the other day was a truck from Touchstone Health. It’s a Medicare approved Health Maintenance Organization with a prescription drug program with the government. It was if there was no other way to stand out and grab attention.

A white man in a red jacket and dark hat approached people as they came to the
intersection. He stood out like a sore thumb. He positioned a small table by the truck.
Applications to sign up with Touchstone Health and flyers filled the tabletop.

Medicare Truck in Bed-Stuy Taylor/ Brooklyn Ink

He was eager to talk to people about their healthcare coverage and would stop people by
yelling, “Miss!” Rarely would they actually stop.

Eventually he did manage to stop a woman long enough to ask, “Do you have health care?”

She looked at him with a puzzled look.  “No, they won’t give it to me,” she replied.

“You can get it with us if you make less than $27,000 a year,” he responded.

She smiled and explained that she was unemployed and had no income.

The man drew closer and asked, “What do you do for medicine?”

The woman, who spoke with an accent from the Islands, replied, “I just try to stay
healthy. They won’t give me anything until I turn 65.”

“You don’t qualify,” the man told her.

“That’s what I know,” she snapped back.

The man offered his pen as a token for taken the time to speak with him. She walked away
clutching the pen.

Photo: Taylor/Brooklyn Ink.

By Derrick Taylor

A woman dressed in jeans and a white button down shirt walks into La Table Exquise on the corner of Tompkins Ave. and Putnam Ave in Bedford-Stuyvesant. As she approaches the glass pastry case, she smiles, displaying missing teeth. Her eyes become glassy as she gazes down at the French pastries. She places her order, folds her hands, and patiently waits for it to be boxed. She walks out the door clutching her pastry. Paris has come to Bed-Stuy and people are eating it up.

“I want to open minds in the neighborhood,” Sebastien Chaoui, 36, says as he rolls out more dough to make pastries. With the lights above reflecting off his bald head and dressed in his food-stained chef’s jacket, he carefully adds some flour to the counter and points out that none of his pastries contains sugar. According to Chaoui, he uses a substitute but won’t reveal what it is. It’s the secret to his pastry success. In any event, you wouldn’t notice the difference.

Originally from Paris, Chaoui has been a chef for 20 years. He was trained at the Mederic Culinary Institute in Paris, came to New York in 2003, and began working as a chef in Manhattan. He grew tired of cooking meals and wanted to try his hand in something new, pastries. According to Chaoui, pastries require more skill than regular cooking and he enjoys the technicality of it.

Shortly after he arrived in New York he met Mylène Mirande, 34, also from Paris. She was also working in Manhattan restaurant, not as a chef but on the administrative side. She’s now his girlfriend and business partner. Speaking with heavy French accents, they laughed as they described how they arrived at opening their own bakery.

While living in New York the couple grew tired of Americanized French food, which left them less than thrilled. They missed the comforts of home and its food, particularly the pastries. Pastries in America, according to Mirande, don’t taste authentic. America’s imitations of French pastries are too sweet according to Chaoui, which is why he leaves the sugar out. Their disappointment drove them to take a leap of faith during these hard economic times. “Why not open a shop to have what we want, what we love,” Mirande said. Chaoui traveled to Miami to be a chef in a restaurant and Mirande accompanied him, the couple then returned to New York in 2007.*

Chaoui and Mirande have been planning to open La Table Exquise for more than a year now. After establishing a catering business, doing business around town, and catering Jay-Z’s Rocawear 10^th anniversary event this past August, the couple earned enough money to open the pastry shop they both desired. They found an old rundown corner lot just a block over from where they live. They chose the location because of its proximity to their home and because Tompkins Ave. is a busy street. The couple decided to invest their money into the dilapidated space, spending nearly $30,000 in renovations. They installed dark hardwood floors, plumbing for the bathroom, and a brand new kitchen. They painted the walls lilac and purchased dark wooden tables and chairs to fill the space. Community artists display their artwork on the walls of the cozy bakery.

Photo: Taylor/Brooklyn Ink.

Ultimately, Chaoui and Mirande understand the risk in opening a French pastry shop in Bed-Stuy. It’s a risk because people in the neighborhood aren’t educated in French culture, particularly French food Mirande said. “It’s a challenge for us,” because customers are initially hesitant, she said. People come by and peak in the windows, stop and stare, but don’t always come in. She and Chaoui take care with their customers. When customers ask about the pastries they’re buying Chaoui and Mirande explain the ingredients in each pastry and how each is made. Customers are receptive to their explanations she said, and they listen patiently. “This is how you gain trust” she said, “We will explain it until they get it.”

Mirande, her hair short and her lipstick red, keeps her cool when she encounters impolite customers. She knows that some Bed-Stuy customers are more aggressive than others. They come in and ask why such a shop is in Bed-Stuy and sharply suggest they go to Park Slope or Forte Greene. She says she tries to stay nice. She knows that once she gets them to taste something they’ll be back, and without the attitude. It works, according to Mirande. Locals come in on a regular basis.

Living in Bed-Stuy has given Chaoui and Mirande a perspective on the community that’s different from outsiders who come in and start a business. “I want to be part of the community” Chaoui said. “We are not from here, we want to be accepted.” But Chaoui feels at home in Bed-Stuy. Mirande says that Bed-Stuy is what Chaoui’s neighborhood in Paris, Vitry sur Seine, is like, predominantly black.

Opening a pastry shop in Bed-Stuy requires special circumstances to survive. Chaoui says he needs the community support to be successful. It’s not unusual to see Chaoui giving away free pastries to the police department, local churches, schools and even neighborhood kids looking for something sweet to eat. Perhaps, like his affordable prices-many pastries start at four dollars- this is a clever way to win over Bed-Stuy residents. He mentioned that prices needed to be affordable enough for the neighborhood. La Table Exquise has yet to make a sizable profit. By summer they hope to be in the black, “I can feel it,” Mirande said.

When asked why their pastry shop matters to Bed-Stuy, Mirande has an answer. “We wanted to bring a part of Paris to Brooklyn,” she said.

* This information was corrected based on fact checking.

Photo by Taylor/Brooklyn Ink.

The bakery, La Table Exquise, opened the other night in Bedford-Stuyvesant and families and friends came to Tompkins Street in groups. Not quite lost among the grownups was a little curly head boy who was 3 years old. He was loud and energetic and he wore jeans and a little jacket that fit him perfectly. He walked quickly and with purpose, as 3 year olds want to do. He was at the party with his parents but didn’t feel the need act grown up.

As all the adults schmoozed, talking about nothing in particular, the boy set his sights on the hors d’oeuvres table. He stared at the little baked goods sprinkled with white powder sugar spread across the table. His eyes lit up as he saw the variety.

He stood on his toes and reached over with his little arms and with his small hand and tried to grab a white chocolate fruit cup with white chocolate and raspberries.

His first attempt ended with his knocking over several pastries. They landed on the floor and he didn’t seem concerned. He noted that they had fallen and then tried again. And again.

At last, on his third try, he retrieved the treasure that had eluded him. He paused and looked around. No one looked down at him. He shoved part of the fruit cup into his mouth. His hands were sticky and wet. His eyes got big.

The remains of the treat were on his hands and shirt. He smiled as if he had committed the perfect crime. He then ran and yelled. And for a moment all the adults who had barely noticed him quieted down and then laughed.

By Sarah Portlock and Derrick Bryson Taylor

A friend holds Jayden Lenescar's grandmother, Diana Tate (far right, in white) as she watches Jayden's casket placed into the waiting hearse on Saturday. Photo: Portlock/Brooklyn Ink

The time had come for Diana Tate to speak at her grandson Jayden’s funeral. She rose from her seat on the aisle at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church and walked past his small white coffin.

She climbed three steps and turned to face the congregation that had grown quiet in anticipation of what she would say.

A week had passed since her daughter and her companion had been arrested and charged with beating four-year-old Jayden Lenescar with their fists and a belt and leaving him in a bathtub to die of organ failure and cardiac arrest two days later, on Oct. 23.

Tate stood with her shoulders back, a stout woman in a flowing white skirt, a black jacket and white ribbon in her hair. She did not meet the eyes of those watching her. Instead she looked straight ahead and then to the coffin below her.

“I’m Jayden’s grandma,” she began. “This is a pain that has no medication for it.”

She closed her eyes and opened her arms wide in front of her and said, “I love Jayden and he loves me so much. I want to know why he’s not here with me. Why? Why?”

The ritual of mourning and burial had begun Friday night with a wake at the Robeson and Brown Funeral Home in Bedford-Stuyvesant. People had gathered outside the door and as they chatted they could hear the wailing coming from inside.

Jayden lay in an open casket. He wore jeans and Spiderman T-shirt. Nestled in the white satin in which he lay were his toys — a big teddy bear, a GI Joe. Photographs of Jayden rotated in the flat screen television above him — Jayden at a pool, at the beach, in a tuxedo with a bow tie, with his father, and, as an infant, being held by his mother.

The room was filling up. “One Sweet Day,” by Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men played in the background. Diana Tate sat in front of the casket, weeping. “I want Jayden back,” she said.

From time to time she rose and walked to the casket. She reached in to touch his folded hands. She shook her head and cried until people came to lead her back to her seat.

Her daughter, Myrna Chenphang, was being held at Rikers Island charged with second-degree murder. She had visited the funeral home earlier that day, escorted by a prison guard.

The guests took turns telling stories about Jayden; how he loved making believe he was Spiderman, leaping off the bed mimicking the sound of webs coming out of his finger tips.

Someone sang “Amazing Grace” and then the funeral director asked everyone who wished to view Jayden to line up. Some reached to touch him. Others paused to take a photograph.

The following morning perhaps 200 people gathered at St. Matthews on Eastern Parkway. It is a vast sanctuary filled with images and icons and illuminated by sunlight.

An aunt releases balloons into the air above St. Matthews Church in Crown Heights. Photo: Portlock/Brooklyn Ink

Father Andrew Struzzieri, accompanied by a deacon and two altar girls, walked down the center aisle to Jayden’s casket, which lay at the Baptismal fount. Father Andy, as he is known, sprinkled holy water on the casket before the pallbearers covered it with a white cloth and accompanied to the altar. The deacon handed the censer to Father Andy who made the sign of the cross over the altar and then over the casket.

“There is really no way I myself can console you,” he said. “Only God can.”

He continued. “Jayden is like Jesus. Jesus was innocent and died a terrible death. Jayden is innocent and died a terrible death.”

Readings followed, as did songs. A soprano sang “Ave Maria,” and as the music soared so too did the wailing from front of the room, where Jayden’s grandmothers sat. The sounds were so primordial, so filled with hurt and pain and suffering, that people looked at one another as if they did not know what to do.

The congregation joined in saying the Lord’s Prayer. And then the time had come for Diana Tate to speak.

“Jayden, I’m sorry,” she said. Her composure was ebbing. “I’m sorry I didn’t save you and I couldn’t protect you. Forgive me. Forgive me, Jayden. I wish I was here to save you. Oh, Jayden. You know how he was my love, my happiness. He made me so happy. He was almost my kid, and I miss him so much. I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.”

An aunt of Jayden’s tried to lead her back to her seat. But Tate would not leave the casket. She rested an arm across it, as if in a hug. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

The pallbearers accompanied the casket of the church and to a waiting hearse that would carry Jayden to Pinelawn Cemetery on Long Island.

And on Monday morning, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office presented its case against Diana Tate’s daughter to a grand jury.

Friends and relatives set up a makeshift memorial this week for Jayden Lenescar, 4, outside his home in Crown Heights. Photo: Portlock/Brooklyn Ink

Father Andrew Struzzieri received a phone call this week from Mackenzy Lenescar, whose four-year-old son had been murdered on Oct. 23, allegedly at the hands of his mother and her companion.

Would Father Andy, as he is known, conduct his son’s funeral?

Struzzieri said yes. He has been struggling with what to say ever since. Father Andy is 62 and has been a priest for 34 years, and he has never faced this responsibility. His hair is white, and his demeanor gentle. He has been the pastor at St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church in Crown Heights for 10 years.

“I feel very sad for them – my heart goes out to the family,” he said, his hands folded calmly in front of him. “When I saw the headlines in the paper, it just disgusted me. I couldn’t read it.”

Jayden Lenescar died from extensive bruising and internal bleeding, and police arrested his mother, Myrna Chenphang, 25, and her companion, Steven Dadaille, 26, on Oct. 24 and charged them with second-degree murder for beating Jayden with their hands and a belt, police said. The New York City chief medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide after an autopsy revealed Jayden died from blunt impact injuries to his torso, back, legs, arms, and buttocks, according to the criminal complaint filed by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. Chenphang and Dadaille are currently held at the Rikers Island jail and will be arraigned in Brooklyn criminal court on Friday. Messages left with their attorneys were not immediately returned. Chenphang may be attending Jayden’s wake on Friday evening because inmates are allowed to attend significant events with an escort, said a Department of Correction spokesman. The spokesman would not comment on the particular case for security reasons.

Father Andy, meanwhile, has spent his week preparing a funeral mass. He has considered several themes. “The first thing that comes to my mind is that this shouldn’t be,” he said in an interview with The Brooklyn Ink this week, from the brownstone offices of his church. “A parent shouldn’t have to bury a child.”

He has thought about the innocence of the child, he said, and about the suffering and pain the child endured, but how he would not have been able to articulate the pain.

And the softspoken and contemplative Father Andy has thought about Jayden’s parents and his family, and if they are angry at God. “God is big enough to take it – they shouldn’t be afraid of any of their feelings at all,” he said.

He also believes it is his duty to discuss the mother and her boyfriend in the service, but will wait to get the approval to do so from Jayden’s father, Mackenzy Lenescar. “We have to pray for them,” he said calmly. “She must be experiencing so much guilt.”

On Thursday morning, Father Andy met with Jayden’s maternal grandmother, Diane Tate, to choose readings for the traditional Catholic funeral mass. “We had a beautiful conversation,” he said.

The first reading will be from the Book of Lamentations, 3:17-26. Father Andy noted the sadness in the passage, and said, “I think that touched her.”

The second reading is from a letter from St. Paul to the Romans, 8:31-35 and 37-39, which “gives so much hope,” Father Andy said.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.

Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died-more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,

Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And, the gospel portion will be from the Gospel of Mark, 10:13-16 in which Jesus tells children to come to him and he embraces them.

But Father Andy is still working out what he will say during his sermon.

“I keep on reflecting on that. I’m not sure yet,” he said. “I’ll keep reflecting.”

The funeral will be at 10:30 am on Saturday, Oct. 31 at St. Matthew’s Roman Catholic Church at 1123 Eastern Parkway at Utica Avenue, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. There will be a viewing from 9 to 10:30 am. Following a burial at Pinelawn Cemetery in Farmingdale, Long Island, there will be a repass at St. Matthew’s Church.

On Friday evening, the family will hold a wake from 4 to 7 pm at the Robeson and Brown Funeral Home at 396 Gates Ave., at Nostrand Avenue.

A fire hydrant where residents at 274 Malcolm X Blvd would gather water for their daily needs. Photo: Taylor/Brooklyn Ink

In Bedford-Stuyvesant there is a small apartment building that seems to catch more grief and misfortune than any other. For two months, 16 residents at 274 Malcolm X Blvd. lived without running water. And it’s not the first time they’ve gone without life’s necessities.

Last winter residents went without electricity for one month. This summer the building was served a notice of violation from the Environmental Control Board, stating that the building’s water pipes needed repair. The landlord, Carl Plata, died more than a year ago and no one has been the given the title of proprietor since his death. Without a landlord to correct the violations, the water was promptly shut off as promised by the New York City Department of Buildings. Residents lived in the rundown gray building from July to mid-September without running water.

“I would buy 30 gallons of water for the week,” said an unemployed tenant, Connie Lundy 56, who is working on her master’s degree at Kaplan University. She sat on the steps of the modest gray apartment building and talked about life without water. “The main thing is to flush the toilet, can’t have no stinky house,” said Lundy, explaining where most of her 30 gallons went.

The Tenants Rights Guide provided by the Attorney General states that landlords must provide a “warrant of habitability” which means a warm, safe, clean, and dry apartment. When no landlord is available, residents are allowed to make repairs privately as well as take legal action if needed deducting cost from rent.

During the course of the year Lundy said that an unidentified woman began coming around collecting money for the rent. Lundy wasn’t comfortable giving money to a stranger so she refused. Lundy later learned that the woman was the late landlord’s sister. When the water was originally shut off Lundy tried calling Plata, not knowing he was dead because he didn’t live in the building. With no one to deal with the shutdown the other tenants asked her to spearhead the effort to have the water turned back on. Most of the blue collar residents, according to Lundy, are on a fixed incomes and don’t have the resources to “stretch out the ropes and contact people.”

She began making contacts, calling Con Edison as well as reporters and various city departments around town. But, she said, “people were passing the buck.”

In fact, tenants do have options when there is no landlord to turn to, says Larry Jason, executive director of Brooklyn Housing and Family Services.  Residents could send the landlord a certified letter with a returned receipt request. According to Jason, the request must be sent through certified mail, phone calls and face-to-face conversations don’t count. Then if residents want to make the necessary repairs, they may do so. Residents should then send the receipt for the repairs to the landlord and have him deduct the price from the amount of rent due. Another option would be to go directly to housing court, at which a judge could order the pipes repaired and water turned back on immediately. Only afterwards would the court determine who should pay for the repairs. 

This September, Mark Winston Griffith, an unsuccessful city council candidate, led a protest at the building at the corner of Malcolm X Blvd. and Macon Street. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development has since stepped in and repaired the pipes. The water was turned back on last month.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development website still shows that Plata is the owner of the building. However, someone else who is not identified by the New York City Housing Department has been paying taxes on the building in his name.

On October 19^th Environmental Control Board Court held a hearing to discuss the violation resulting in the water shutdown. No one appeared at the hearing to represent the building. The court is waiting for someone to come forward to reschedule it.

Meanwhile, Lundy has ideas for the building “I want to establish a tenants association,” she said. Lundy has an idle wish and it’s to gather other tenants to buy the building. “I want to put solar panels on the building,” she said with a large smile.

A bench in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Taylor/Brooklyn Ink

When the three men begin to read the newspaper, suddenly Maya Angelou’s voice comes through the speakers. She reads her poem slowly in her coarse voice emphasizing each word. The men squint their eyes as they listen and relax as the poem ends, as if they are trying to decipher the meaning of Angelou’s words. The man in the blazer finishes smoking and he drinks from a bottle filled with a dark golden liquid. A smile emerges from his face. The mechanic dozes off with his cane on his side. His head droops and his body relaxes. The third man taps his paint stained boots to the new gospel song that now plays.

A few minutes pass and the men on opposite sides of the bench talk over the sleeping mechanic in the middle. The painter notices the mechanic sleeping and nudges his shoulder to wake him.

The painter begins to preach to the other two on to how to raise kids properly. He shouts about how his mother raised him. He prattles on about his family history as the other two men look at him with dazed and uninterested eyes. Meanwhile, the same songs play on an endless loop on the boom-box. The man in the blazer rises and struggles to put one foot in front of the other, he begins to walk away. His zipper is down and his pants are unbuttoned exposing white underwear. He makes it to the fence where he relieves himself. He returns to the bench and collects his cassette tapes as the rambling painter continues to talk and the mechanic falls back asleep. He stuffs his cassettes and poetry book down in his handcart.

As he walks down Marcus Garvey Boulevard his music slowly begins to fade. The painter gets up and walks away after seeing no one is listening to him. Left alone on the bench is the mechanic who awakes to find himself alone.