NYC NOW - September 13, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Democrat Sam Berger wins the race for a vacant Assembly seat in Queens. Plus, a Bitcoin mining facility inside a Finger Lakes power plant continues to operate after it lost an environmental permit for violating climate law. And finally, a story from one of WNYC’s Radio Rookies, a program that puts microphones in the hands of young New Yorkers.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Greenwich Generation, a Bitcoin mining facility inside a Fingerlake's power plant, continues to operate more than a year after it lost an environmental permit for violating the state's climate law. Environmental groups and local residents worry the ongoing appeals process could drag on for years. Yvonne Taylor is one of the founders of the group, Monica Lake Guardian. Grenage has the ability under the law to take many bites of the apple during the appeals

process and just continue to drag it out. A state-appointed judge has been reviewing the company's appeal request since late last year, but there's no deadline for a decision. The facility produces several hundred thousand tons of carbon dioxide each year. In Queens, Democrat Sam Berger claimed victory Tuesday in the race for a vacant assembly seat. According to data from the Board of Elections, Berger earned more than 55% of the vote in Central Qar, Kansas District 27. The area includes neighborhoods of Q Gardens Hills, Poma Note, College Point, and White Stone.

Burger beat out Republican candidate David Hirsch, who earned about 44% of the vote. Stay close. There's more after the break. For more than two decades, WNYC's Radio Rookies program has put microphones in the hands of young New Yorkers. asking them to report on their own lives and communities. So for the next few days, we'll introduce you to our latest cohorts. First up, 16-year-old Christina Aja, who worries about changes in her South Bronx neighborhood. As new buildings and some chain restaurants pop up, Christina says gentrification has left her and her friends feeling less stable and disconnected to their community. If there were one word to describe my neighborhood, it would be now.

There's always a party going on. You can hear them from down the block. And sometimes, the ground shakes as cars drive by, blasts the music. Kids laugh and play in fire hydrants, and people lean out their windows to talk to each other. Men sit outside the bodega playing dominoes. They crowd around a small table, and they're always yelling at each other. I love how everyone shares their culture here.

Even my dad, who's from Togo in West Africa, greets people in Spanish, using a few words he picked up from the Dominican neighbors. All my friends here feel the same way. There's a bunch of Mexicans, Dominicans. Everybody's dapping each other up, saying hi to each other on the streets. That's my friend Diane. I met up with her and our friends Melanie and Bernie to interview them about our neighborhood. So, like, the question we were on is, like, if there's one thing you wish stayed the same forever in this neighborhood, like, what would it be? It would definitely be community.

I feel like, yeah, there is some, like, rough parts to this community, but it's always fun. Like, especially in the summer, like, everyone's having barbecues, everyone's outside. You see how we live in front of a park? There's a bunch of Dominicans, and they, one time they brought a whole DJ to the park. They brought a whole... We have our own culture in the South Bronx, which makes sense. We literally invented hip-hop, and we survived all those burning buildings decades ago. I think that's what really, like, separates us from the rest of the boroughs, and, like, it makes us unique, so...

I hate how people we, like, hated on the Bronx, but it's like, you're from Brooklyn. Don't speak. Oh, my gosh. Clearly, we all think our borough is the best. But lately, things are starting to look less familiar. I feel like the neighborhood is changing, as in, like, the buildings, them tearing down, like, the old buildings, the old crusty buildings,

and putting up new buildings. Like, everything is just suddenly changing. They're modernizing everything, like, trying to make the Bronx a better place. But it's, like, it's losing its actual, like, I guess, charm and its culture. Like, whitening. Like, they're making it, they're whitewashing it. The new apartment buildings look dull and gray. And yes, they look clean and polished, but they still look out of place.

And then, there are the chain restaurants. They're going up next to all the small businesses that have been here forever. I've always loved the small businesses. The candy shop, the bakery with the really good bacon, egg, and cheese, and a spot where I used to get my hair braided. I don't know if you guys been through 170 recently, but all the small businesses that were there before are gone. Now it's just some, like, random buildings.

I just miss those family businesses. Like, you don't need to change for some big corporations, and there's a Chipotle there now. I'd be going to the Chipotle because, okay, let me explain myself. Let me explain myself before y'all attack me. Okay, okay, okay. That's the only Chipotle deer here. I low-key feel guilty for giving my money to these big corporations.

It's just that sometimes I want to enjoy the new things, too. And even if I stop paying $14 for a chicken burrito bowl, it's not going to stop my neighborhood from changing. The countdown to gentrification has already started. We know how this goes. New buildings go up, a Starbucks opens, and then the rent starts going up. That's the part I'm really worried about.

Displacement. When people who've lived somewhere their whole lives have to move out because new people with more money want to move in. I know the word gentrification is overused, and it means different things to different people. So I asked my friends what the word, gentrification means to them. It just mostly means that people don't care about us and they only see

like the money that they can get out of all of these renovations like big companies trying to take over. It's just like ruining what's already been established for years. So I agree. I think gentrification for me means like people making money and profiting. They see the Bronx as like kind of an opportunity for them in a sense like a way to make more money capitalism guys. Not okay. So yeah, I feel like gentrification is another system that benefits white people, privilege white people specifically. Yeah. When I looked up the median rent for an apartment in my neighborhood,

I was shocked. It's $2,195 a month. To pay that much and live comfortably, you would have to make about $85,000 a year. But a lot of people here only make around $34,000 a year. I used to think my family was financially stable. We had enough to get by in our neighborhood. But now, I'm worried that we're not going to have a stable home for much longer.

I wonder what the future of my neighborhood might look like and what that will mean for me. I know a lot of Brooklyn has already gone through this, so I called up my friends who live there. I wanted to find out what it feels like when your neighborhood has changed forever. It's disheartening, it's disrespectful. That's my friend Samari. She told me about some of the ways. Flackbush has changed. Before it was like thriving businesses

and like small businesses, all PLC owned, and now there's just a huge building, apartment building. And it's like, it disrupts the environment and the culture of the community because now those people

who were there have to move. It's disrespectful to those businesses who had to move. It's disrespectful for the people who lived there for years who have to move. When Samari said it felt disrespectful, that was the exact

word I had been looking for. It feels like these new buildings and improvements are not met for us. Therefore, the people developers hope they can attract and profit off of. My other friend, Tandy, lives in Bette's Thai. He said that when he was a kid, all the store owners used to know him. And now there's less and less of that. And it feels less like my neighborhood and more like a neighborhood. He told me that these new people who've moved in make him feel like an outsider in his own home. The building across for me, I've seen like so many people move out and so many white people move into that building and it feels more uncomfortable because I feel like even just walking down the street, I just feel the way I'm judged is like different. I feel like

I am judged a little bit. That's another fear of mine, being judged by newcomers. I think I would feel the need to conform to match the changing neighborhood. I wouldn't want to be considered ghetto by new residents. So to take the spotlight off me, I would have to act more like them. Seeing my neighborhood start to change has made me realize that our homes are also part of our identities. This neighborhood has made me who I am, and it's the one constant in my life. As teenagers, we already have so much to deal with. We're being pressured by everything.

We're being swayed by everything. And gentrification makes it even hard. to feel comfortable and safe. We need to know we have a place we can come back to every day, a place where people know us and accept us, a place where we feel seen and welcomed, a place that can remind us of who we are. That's Radio Rookies reporter, Christina Aja.

Radio Rookies is supported in part by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Epstein-Tyshire Philanthropies, the Margaret Newbart Foundation, and the Pinkerton Foundation. Tomorrow we'll hear from another young cohort who shares her story of growing up ashamed of her Tibetan culture. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNYC. I'm Jenae Pierre.