East New York

The Starrett Judo Club has earned more trophies than can fit in its display case.

The overflow of awards, some three feet high, cover a cafeteria-style table and some floor space throughout Starrett City’s Office of Community Relations on Pennsylvania Avenue. The club, founded by former Haitian Olympian Parnel Legros, is a mirror of this integrated 153-acre community of just under 15,000.

“It’s like Disneyworld,” said Legros. “You name the country – Haiti, Russia, Poland – it’s probably the most diverse community I’ve ever seen. I don’t know anything else like it.”

A Towering Neighborhood

Starrett City offers a middle class, almost suburban lifestyle, to a diverse working-class community in East New York. Streets are called loops and the homogeneity of the 46, 15-story high-rise towers give no hint of the diversity that dwells there.

Starrett City was the first and remains the largest federally subsidized housing community in the country. When it was built in 1974, the owners set a policy to ensure a tenant ratio of 70 percent white to 30 percent black. They said the purpose was to prevent white flight, but the reality was that many black tenants were placed on an endless waiting list.

The policy was struck down in federal court in 1998.

Today, the growing Caribbean community in Starrett City reflects the surrounding neighborhood, where 33 percent of the population was foreign-born as of the 2000 census. Of that number, 41.4 percent were from the Caribbean – the second largest foreign-born population in the whole district, behind immigrants from Latin America.

Local Champs

Legros said since the racial quotas were struck down, his club has become a United Nations of judo. Legros, 52, is the sensei (teacher) of the club and has taught physical education at Starrett City’s Intermediate School 364 since 1989.

Legros, who immigrated from Haiti at 14, is a Judo world champion and was captain of the 1992 Haitian Olympic Team. He was training for Barcelona at Starrett City’s school weight room when someone from management asked him to start an after-school judo program for local kids. Now, the club is known as a home to national and international champions.

World Travelers

Harry St. Leger, 23, has lived in Starrett City his whole life. He and his twin brother, Garry, the sons of Haitian immigrants, started lessons at the Judo Club when they were 8.  Their parents did not hesitate to support the two brothers and their sport, despite economic hardship.

Starrett City Public Affairs also helped out with college scholarships for both brothers. Harry St. Leger recently took a bronze medal at the nation championships in Massachusetts, despite an injured arm.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my club,” said St. Leger.  “It’s different from other sports. You compete out of the state, out of the country.

“I’ve been all around the world.”

On a recent chilly morning, about 25 people waited on line with their dogs and cats in front of one of the ASPCA’s mobile animal clinics. The truck was parked outside of the Animal Care and Control Center in East New York, where an on-site veterinarian was set to perform up to 100 spay/neuter surgeries in a day for free or minimal cost.

Little Bit, a miniature pincher, was shaking from the cold, so he hid inside the jacket of his best friend, David Fryay. Little Bit’s mom also recently had visited the mobile clinic, shortly after she gave birth to her litter. Now it was the baby’s turn.

“If you’re not going to mate them and find a good home for the puppies,” said Fryar, “you should take care of them.”

Ad Campaign Launched

Fryar was talking not about throwing a dog a bone, but of spay/neuter surgery, which has been known to reduce the risk of reproductive cancers, lessen a pet’s aggression, and help control animal overpopulation. But spay/neuter programs are only effective, advocates say, if the public knows they are available.

The ASPCA launched an advertisement campaign in October that targets large breed dog owners, whose pets are most in need of the spaying/neutering, statistics show. The campaign featured graffiti-inspired artwork of a man with his dog and the slogan: “Show your boy you’ve got his back. Fix your dog, it’s all good!”

The spay/neuter advertisements were posted on billboards in the Bronx and Harlem, in newspapers, and there were companion radio spots in Spanish and English. Within 10 days of the campaign’s launch, the clinics saw a rise in the number of larger breed dogs at the clinic, officials said.

It’s estimated that 50,000 to 60,000 spay/neuter surgeries would need to be performed annually for programs such as the mobile clinic to have a major impact on animal overpopulation in New York City. The Center for Animal Care and Control currently takes in more than 27,000 stray cats and 12,000 dogs a year.

No-Kill Goal

The ASPCA mobile clinics are one of the more than 140 efforts being funded by the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC Animals, a collective of animal rescue and adoption groups, working towards the goal of making New York a no-kill city by 2012.

Jane Hoffman, the president of the Mayor’s Alliance, said Mayor Bloomberg was all for the venture, which was formed in 2002, just a few months after he took office.

In 2005, the Mayor’s Alliance was awarded a $23.5 million grant by Maddie’s Fund, a nonprofit working city-by-city to turn the U.S. into a no-kill country.  The funds are to be dispersed over seven years to local rescue, adoption, and spay/neuter groups.

“Because Bloomberg is an entrepreneur, he likes private-public solutions,” said Hoffman. “This is private money to fund a [municipal] problem.”

There is currently no mandatory spay/neuter law in New York City. In 2002, the city passed a law, which required that all animals in shelters be sterilized. But other pet sellers – like pet stores or private breeders – are exempt under state law.

While the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene recommends that owners spay or neuter their pets, not doing so comes with only a small penalty. The difference between licensing a neutered dog and unneutered dog is just three dollars – $11.50 rather than $8.50 a year. For pet owners unaware of free and low cost spay/neuter clinics, the surgery comes with a price tag. Depending on the animal, the breed, and the gender – and the veterinarian – a pet owner could expect to pay anywhere from $50 to $800.

Getting Word Out

Emelinda Narvaez, who runs Earth Angels Canine Rescue and receives about 70 percent of her funding from the Mayor’s Alliance, said offering free services is not enough. Narvaez has rescued more than 8,000 dogs, primarily pit bulls, and believes there needs to be more information on the importance of spay/neuter surgery – especially in Spanish.

“The signs need to say OPERE SO MASCOTA!” said Narvaez. “Operate or neuter your dog.”

Hoffman also believes more public information would help with the no-kill goal. Not long ago, the city ran a subway campaign on dog-licensing – and licenses went up, Hoffman said. She would like to see the city team with the Alliance to produce a subway campaign, promoting free and low-cost spay/neuter services.

“The Alliance is ready, “ Hoffman said. “But we just don’t have the money in our budget to run the subway ads.”

RELATED STORY: NEW ADS TARGET PIT BULLS

By JESSICA FIRGER

(As Seen in City Limits)

When the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals launched an advertising campaign this fall to promote its mobile clinic for pet sterilization, the group tailored its message to the dog owners most in need of access to cheap or free pet services.

In addition to both Spanish and English newspaper and radio ads, the ASPCA sponsored wall-sized ads with graffiti-inspired artwork featuring a man and his canine sidekick on the sides of buildings in Harlem and the Bronx. The “wallscapes” target low-income black and Latino men, the largest demographic of owners of pit bulls – the breed that, more than any other, fills shelters and is euthanized.

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Young New Yorkers responded to Obama’s calls for hope and change by trooping to the polls to cast their first votes. We asked some of them to tell us their stories and what they expect from the new administration.

• Eighteen-year-old Cleo Crooks had a lot to do on Election Day. After G.E.D. and job-training classes, she had to pick up her niece from school, possibly take a shift as a cashier at the staffing agency where she works, and still find the time to vote.

A first-time voter from East New York, Crooks said she planned to vote for Obama, who she hoped would bring about the change he has promised. In particular, she hoped that Obama would improve the dismal housing situation in New York and throughout the country. Her mother, for whom Crooks is the primary provider, was evicted from her apartment and now lives in a shelter.

“We have people who live on the street,” she said. “I know people who are promised an apartment [but] it doesn’t happen.”

Despite her troubles, she was excited about Election Day.

“I couldn’t wait until the day I could vote,” she said. “I registered on my birthday and my card just arrived a few days ago. I made it in time.”
-Heather Chin

• Josh Zirschky, 28, a self-professed independent, voted for Obama – but he was not hooked by the buzzwords “change” and “hope.”

“I have a very hard time thinking anyone will change anything, no matter who gets into office,” Zirschky said. “I think they will feed from the same trough as the others . . . the system is corrupt and checks and balances need to be fixed.”

Zirschky, a photographer and first-time voter, moved to New York two months ago after traveling abroad in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and North Africa. “The Middle East is sick and tired of us,” Zirschky said. “Good people want to love and raise their families just like we do.”
-Lindsay A. Lazarski

• Valerie Suter, a 25-year-old freelance writer, hesitated to say for whom she voted. But eventually she said she chose Obama. He can “think rationally and be thoughtful about important decisions, rather than (John) McCain, who seems really impetuous and erratic,” she said.

This was her first election. “I was out of the country for college and I didn’t get my absentee ballot,” she said. But she was determined to vote this year. “I’ve been waiting to participate in democracy.”
-Nicholas Martinez

• Wearing a do-rag and looking sullen, Paul Crews explained why he decided to vote for the first time.

“The fact that I was crying about a lot of stuff that was happening and I wasn’t registered to vote,” he said. “So I realized that I can’t complain about it if I’m not doing anything.”

Crews, 21 and unemployed, voted for Obama because he said he trusts him.

“He listens to us out here,” he said, “unlike McCain, who only cares about making Barack Obama look stupid.”
-Igor Kossov

• Orlando Isaac is a Bronx native, the child of Filipino immigrants and a McCain voter.

The 20-year-old nursing student said his family inspired his vote for the GOP ticket. “My parents are Republican,” Isaac said. “They’re interested in what the McCain administration is going to do.”

He said McCain was better equipped for the presidency, especially on foreign policy and national security. “Obama never did anything with war, and he (has) never (been) affiliated with anything with military stuff. McCain has been in the Navy, he has seen how the war affects everybody.”

But it might not be a tragedy if the other side takes the election, Isaac said. “If Obama wins, we’ll see if his promises will keep up. You don’t know what’s going to happen until they do their job, so hopefully they do their job properly.”
-Xiomara Martinez-White

• Ashley Crisostomo got the chance to do something on her 21st birthday most college students don’t: she voted for president for the first time.

Originally from Minnesota, Crisostomo now lives near Fordham University, which she attends. Instead of sending an absentee ballot back to her home state, she registered to vote in New York and celebrated her 21st by pulling that lever for Obama.

“I think this country has kind of skewed (values),” Crisostomo said. “Too much about money, too much about your own self. But I want change, I want more emphasis on education and health.”

She said she believes Obama has the most to offer students.

“I just read a few weeks ago that Obama was like, ‘If you donate 100 hours of volunteer work you get $4,000 off your college education,’ and that’s a change that is so personal to people our age,” she said. “That’s the values we need instead of, like, lowering taxes.”
-Rachel Senatore

• Eighteen-year-old Annie Badavas sat on a fence outside Washington Square Park, drinking coffee and trying to decide for whom to vote.

“I want to vote for Obama,” she said. “But it’s just breaking my parents’ hearts if I don’t vote McCain. You know, my dad’s worked so hard and now his money’s just gonna trickle away.”

Badavas moved to Manhattan two months ago from Boston, and said the pressure from her family back home was making her first voting experience difficult.

Her father is a Republican who might face a tax increase under Obama’s plan. Her mother, a registered Democrat turned off by Obama’s youth and inexperience, also decided to vote Republican.

Badavas said Obama’s calls for change appealed to her, especially economic change. She works two jobs—as a hostess in a restaurant and as a cashier in a clothing store—and to her, Obama’s tax plan makes sense.

“Personally, you know, I’m in the smaller tax bracket,” she said. “It would truly help me.”
-Jeanmarie Evelly

• The pair came to the polls together to vote for Obama.

Does their candidate mean what he says? “We’re just going to see once he actually gets into office,” said Von Tucker, a 22-year-old Radio Shack employee.

Britney Thornton was more confident.

“School – he’s going to help pay for school. So I really want that because I want to go to college and… get paid for it. And social security and lowering taxes, all that. He should be for gay marriage but I mean O.K.” She laughed. “Whatever.”
-Igor Kossov

Beneath a mural of a dark-skinned Jesus tending his flock, state Assembly candidate Inez Barron greeted her supporters at a fundraiser on a recent Saturday night at the Reverend Herbert Daughtry’s House of the Lord Church.

Barron, a Democrat who is expected to win the race, was introduced to those gathered by a familiar figure in Brooklyn politics: her husband, outspoken City Councilmember Charles Barron.

“They say this is the post-civil rights era, the post-black era,” Charles Barron told the small, but energized crowd. “We cannot let them post our blackness. Don’t fall for the okee-doke. Don’t let them say we can’t be black and win.”

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