NYC NOW - September 11, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

As New York remembers the 9-11 attacks, Mayor Eric Adams recounts visiting Ground Zero 22 years ago. Also, a recent study shows that Latino neighborhoods in New York City have a higher prevalence of lead water pipes. Finally, Williamsburg’s Caribbean Social Club, known as Toñitas, has long been a vital spot for New York’s Puerto Rican community. Journalists Marta Campabadal Graus and Leticia Vila-Sanjuán Zamora discuss its evolving role with the influx of new migrants.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. Today, New Yorkers are pausing to remember the 9-11 attacks. Mayor Adams, a former NYPD cop, was on duty when the plane struck the World Trade Center. In a W-CBS interview, he shared his experience of visiting Ground Zero that evening. The ground was smoldering. You still saw the smoke. You saw officers and Marine and National Guard all covered in certain.

There was just airy stillness. Today, 22 years later, Adams was at this morning's 9-11 ceremony. He was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Kathy Hokel. Every year, families and friends of victims gather to read their names aloud. New Yorkers are more likely to be drinking water from lead pipes in predominantly Latino neighborhoods. WNYC's Jacqueline Jeffrey Wulenski takes us through the findings of a new study. The researchers from Columbia University wanted to see if lead pipes were more common depending on the demographics of a neighborhood. So they combined the city's service line inventory

with census data and looked for connections. They found that for every additional 20% of Latino residents, the proportion of lead pipes increased by 15%. Exposure to lead can cause irreversible brain damage in children. The pipes are less of an immediate threat because the city adds chemicals to the water to prevent the lead from flaking off the pipes. But researchers and advocates say they need to be replaced in the next decade to avoid any accidents, and that these higher-risk neighborhoods should get top priority. Stay close. There's more after the break. For nearly 50 years, the Caribbean Social Club in Williamsburg

has been a mainstay for New York's Puerto Rican community and new arrivals from the island. It hosts its celebrities from Bad Bunny, Maluma, Blue Beetle director, An Hel Manuel Soto, and Madonna, to local bands who fill the tight space with the sound of horns and moroccus. But with the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants to New York City, the club, known as Tonitas, after its owner, is taking on new life as a community hub for some of the city's newest New Yorkers.

Last week, I caught up with Marta Campa Badao Grouse and Leticia Villa San Juan Zamora, two freelance journalists who wrote about the role Tonitas is playing for new arrivals. So this question is for you both, Letticia, you can still. start. Toniatis has been around for decades. Can you describe what the club is like? It's a small place located in Williamsburg. The walls are full of pictures. There's Christmas lights all year around. The lights are always on. There's a big pool table. There's people playing domino. Right by the entrance on the left, there's food because Tonita cooks every day for the people who go there. And she's always hanging by the bar, which is at the end of the place near

a patio where people like hang out, sometimes have a beer, and she's always there with her big brings serving beers for the people who go there. Do you have anything else to add to that, Marta? One thing that struck to me the first time that I went there is that if it's during the day, you don't even see it because the door is so small and it's like at the end of a little hall. And if it's at night, you don't see it, but you hear the music. The music is pretty loud at night and people are there on the street.

Yeah, we talk to it. Tonyita about it and she said that literally nothing has changed since she opened the place. She says she's only like painted a few walls that were, you know, kind of falling apart. But apart from that, nothing has changed. For example, she's resisted to installing an AC. There's no AC. So in the summer when you are there and you ask her, oh, it's so hot here, she's like, oh, no, it's just like the island.

Like we're just reproducing the climate on the island that we're talking. Rico weather. So yeah, I would say it's a very untouched place. That's one of the really interesting things about it because Williamsburg has changed so much over the past 20, 30 years, right? The club itself has survived some pretty drastic changes to the community. How has that been possible, given all of the gentrification that's gone on around there? Yeah, so Donita herself explained to us that the fact that, you know, she owns the building and she lives on the first, floor, the rent for the social club hasn't increased over time because if she didn't own the place, she probably wouldn't have been able to keep paying the high rent that would have increased

over time. When she bought the place and opened the social club, all the businesses around hair were owned by Puerto Ricans, and that has definitely changed over time. Now, there's a few bodegas that maybe are, but it's not the same. Yeah. In that neighborhood, is it largely still Puerto Rican or is it, I mean, when I think of Williamsburg now, particularly South Williamsburg, which is where you see a lot of Puerto Rican people living, it's changing a lot. What is it like now? Compared to what Williamsburg used to be, I mean, is it a drastic difference?

It's still an area, especially South Williamsburg, that's very Latino populated, especially with Dominicans and Puerto Rican. And when we were talking to her, she's very drastic in the way she says she's not interested in selling, that she's gotten a few offers, that no matter how many. many millions she gets offered. This is where her communities, this is what she enjoys, this is her life. And she even said to us, they could offer me a hundred million. I'm not selling the building. Like, this is where my club is staying. But I think the main change is that the businesses around her in the area are no longer run by Puerto Ricans or Dominicans in the

way that according to all the people that we've spoke that have been in the neighborhood for a very long time used to be. So as we've been saying, Tonita's traditionally catered to the Puerto Rican community in New York, but that does seem to be changing with the new arrival of tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers over the past year. You spoke to one Venezuelan asylum seeker who stumbled into the club one day and has been volunteering ever since. What does Toniatas mean to him? I think Donitas really changed his life in New York. He stumbled upon the place randomly on New Year's Eve. He was walking with some friends and they stumbled upon Tonuitas and, you know, I think that was a life-changing experience on his New York life.

And yeah, he goes there every day. He works as a delivery man for Uber Eats and he's like there with his phone plugged in and he keeps like checking, tracking the app in case he has, you know, any delivery and then he just helping Tonyita clear up the place, like picking. up the beers and, you know, he sometimes eats once or twice over the afternoon the food that she brings. He said that Tonya is such a valuable person for him and for the community and that he basically has that place as he is like central point from where he goes delivery, he comes back, and he also told us that he really precedes the fact that he can be there without drinking or paying for anything. But if he's not drinking anything,

No one will come and be like you need to leave because, you know, that's a social club. That's Donitas. That's really interesting. You can just go and hang out and you're not required to purchase anything. I feel like that's not something you see all the time, but it's providing community to all these new New Yorkers, huh? And the good thing is that beers cost $3. Food is free, so she will never charge you if you decide to grab a plate and serve yourself food. And beers are $3.

Oh, my God. Like, how can you find a place? City. Yeah, not even in Williams, but in New York in general, right? In New York City. Yeah, so talk more about that, right? It's a place where you can go and you can hang out, you can meet people, talk to people, eat for free, have a $3 beer, find people who speak your language and share your culture. What does Tonita's mean more broadly for the community? I think that Tonita herself, the way that she likes to describe it, is that it's a place where people who don't know each other, talk to each other, and then if you're still,

take around for long enough, you end up knowing everyone. So if you go for like three weekends in a row, you'll find yourself feeling like at home, like you enter a place where you initially didn't know anyone. And suddenly everyone says hi to you. I think that one of the themes that kept coming up was that it creates a sense of belonging for the community. And it's not just about the place or about Tonyta herself, who is obviously very central to the community around her, but about this flow of like different people and ideas and it's just like it's not just a place to drink but to gather to talk to dance if she ever had to live for some reason or clothes that would mean cultural erasor of a lot of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos in the city that wouldn't have a place

to hang out that wouldn't have a place to gather because not necessarily they know each other like in a deep way like but they our friends there. That was journalist Marta Kampa Badal Grauss and Leticia Villa San Juan Zamora. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Before we go, we want to let you know about a cool project we're working on here in the WNMIC Newsroom, and we want your input. All month we're focusing on how our relationship to work has changed post-pandemic,

and this week we're focusing on salary transparency. Most companies in New York City are now required to include a good faith pay range on their job postings. So has salary transparency helped you in your career? How do you respond to seeing a salary range posted? What advice would you give someone just starting out in your field? Send us your thoughts at your voice at WNYC.org. You can email us or send us a voice memo. We may play your comments on the air and on this podcast. I'm Sean Carlson, and this is NYC Now. We'll be back tomorrow.