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Lincoln Park community farm launch attendees enjoy farm-grown produce and live music at the farm on July 14, 2010, in Newark, N.J. Produce is grown on the half-acre brown field using hydroponic and raised-bed farming techniques. Photo: Andaiye Taylor

NEWARK, N.J. – Robert Wisniewski stood under the shed he’d built on top of a half-acre brown field, across the street from historic Newark Symphony Hall.

“How was that okra?” he called out to a man working in an adjacent lot.

“Good, good,” the man shouted in reply, before turning back to his work.

The okra had come from the new community farm that is now sprouting from the field. Wisniewski, sustainability director for Newark’s Lincoln Park Coast Cultural District, was busy shuffling containers and deciding what to do with brown paper bags full of unclaimed tomatoes that Thursday afternoon. The leftover produce symbolized one of the major challenges facing the farm.

In the weeks since its launch, the farm’s managers are looking to overcome key tests whose outcomes will determine whether it will be a long-term fixture in Newark’s Lincoln Park neighborhood.  According to Wisniewski, Lincoln Park is a produce desert with no fresh vegetables available within a mile of the farm.

The nonprofit cultural district sees its role as facilitating the housing, educational, cultural and now, the nutritional needs of the Newark residents it serves. To that end, the organization has added the farm to a list of other projects it has launched in the community: its annual, three-day Lincoln Park Music Festival; new mixed-income sustainable housing that will include 32 units; and the planned Museum of African American Music.

The farm sits atop unusable soil, behind the facade of what was once the South Park Presbyterian Church. The crops grow where the building once stood, and the soil’s toxicity stems from pollution from fuel tanks that once powered the building.

To grow crops in the space, farmer Brian Barry brings in outside soil, and also uses a technique called hydroponics, which enables him to grow the produce in a nutrient-rich solution instead of directly in the plot’s native soil.

Weekly shares cost $20, and earn customers a basket of assorted produce, including collards, tomatoes, okra, and assorted herbs and lettuces. When shareholders pick up their food on Wednesday evenings, they also receive preparation tips and instructions on how to properly store and maintain the produce.

While Barry and Wisniewski man the farm during pickup hours, they also employ two seniors, both paid by the Urban League’s Mature Worker program, to tend it up to four hours per day, usually in the mornings.

The worker program, along with a startup grant, were both pivotal funding sources for getting the farm off the ground, but Wisniewski seeks to rely mostly on revenue to sustain farm operations.  For that reason, the gap between interest in farm shares and actual sales reveals both the farm’s potential, and the highest hurdle it must clear. The farm can currently feed 20 to 25 families per week, according to Barry, and about 25 people have signed up. However, to make the produce affordable, the district decided not to require consumers to pay upfront for all of their shares for the season. According to Wisniewski, only about eight to 10 people actually show up to retrieve their shares weekly.

The price of the produce is also not affordable for many in an area where nearly half of all families live below the poverty level, according to 2000 census data. The district’s recent mixed-income housing initiatives bring potential customers who are more likely to be able to afford the shares than the average Lincoln Park resident.

Jan Zientek, senior program coordinator at the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, agreed that building a sustainable business model for the farm will not be easy. “The economics of the project are hard to figure,” he said during a telephone interview.  Still, Zientek is skeptical of the long-term prospects for grant-supported farms, and thinks the share-supported model that the Lincoln Park cultural district is trying to build has greater promise for long-term sustainability, despite the startup hurdles they face.

Zientek visited the farm recently, and said he thinks it has a shot. He noted common problems such as blossom end rot on some of the tomatoes, and cabbage that had been nibbled on by moths. But the issues affected only a portion of the produce, and the remedies were simple: lighter-colored boxes for produce to preserve moisture, and cloths over the cabbage to deter the moths.

Wisniewski is clear-eyed about the challenge of building a consistent customer base, and has been considering additional revenue for the farm, including distribution to local restaurants. Back under the shed, perhaps trying to figure the economics of accounting for absentee shareholders, he mulled what to do with his orphaned tomatoes. He decided to try pitching the produce to Allure, a bar and lounge across the street.

The establishment’s chef, William “Staff” Powell, recalled the visit the following week.   “They have nice produce,” he said. “The quality is good.”

He mentioned that while it is impractical for him to buy anything but bulk for restaurant cooking, he would consider creating specialty dishes made with the locally grown vegetables.  “That type of thing might appeal to customers,” he explained. “Everyone is going green.”

During a recent Wednesday pickup, Vashti White, who owns a trio of health and wellness-related businesses in nearby Montclair, claimed her first share.

“I thought it was great,” she said of the vegetables two days later. “The food was fresh and flavorful.”

While she plans to sample other growers’ produce, White said she is leaning toward partnering with the LPCCD farm for her restaurant, Raw N Simple. “I really like the fact that this is a local effort,” she said. “For that alone, and the freshness of the food, I would lean toward buying there.”

The farm’s managers must contend with other issues endemic to urban farms, including insects and rodents, possible theft or vandalism, and limited space. Wisniewski explained that the cultural district wants to use the farm as a living laboratory to devise solutions to some of these issues. While urban farming is not a new practice, the cultural district is aiming to grow 100 percent of its produce onsite to ensure complete local sustainability.

Kelli Koontz, a writer and drug counselor who lives one block from the farm, bought her first share a couple of weeks after attending the farm’s launch party.  “I see it as an investment in this community,” said Koontz in her kitchen, as she cut a tomato that came with her share. “I see the garden as a catalyst for the beginning of change.”

The 45-year-old mother of two said she thinks buying produce from the farm will change her family’s eating habits.  “I’m really looking forward to investing time in preparing things a little bit differently,” she said, noting that the farm would help her family eat healthier.

Koontz also looks forward to involving her 11-year-old son in the process, turning the food pickup and preparation into a family project.

The farm fits into the cultural district’s broader plan for Lincoln Park. The district sees the neighborhood as an artists’ hub. In addition to figuring out operational details, its planners also want to achieve syncretism between the neighborhood’s artiness and the farm’s layout.  When farm operations resume next year after a winter hiatus, Wisniewski envisions creating an “art farm park” that is both a working farm and an artist space fit for performances and exhibits, in line with the broader Lincoln Park arts milieu.

Additionally, the cultural district is considering redesigning the farm to make a statement about what it means for the urban and the agrarian to exist side-by-side. Wisniewski said the design theme would be the “built environment that grows,” and would feature “cool structures made of natural materials,” that illustrate how urban residents can sustain themselves without having to forgo the benefits of urban living.

While honing the produce growing process, the district is looking to shore up the community aspect of the farm next year by considering programming such as cooking classes and workshops on how to grow food.  In fact, the community outreach might be the key to boosting the farm’s shareholder revenue. Three weeks after she’d initially purchased her share, Koontz said she was happy with the produce, which her family used up in a week and a half.

But would she consider prepaying for shares for the entire season?

“Not at this juncture,” Koontz said.  While she would invest in a prepaid share if more of her neighbors did it, she said she didn’t want to be out on a limb as one of only a few seasonal shareholders because, “I guess I don’t have enough faith that it’s going to sustain just yet.”  If more people invested, though, she said she would “definitely” invest in shares.

Koontz, who likes the change that the farm brings to the community, and hopes it will last, thinks more consistent communication, including regular newsletters and programming, between LPCCD and Lincoln Park community members would increase engagement with the farm.

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Michael Scarlett, a cook, prepares a gyro-a special item of the day as part of the Greek/Russian cultural week at New York Hospital Queens. Photo: Larry Tung

The only food that Anita Wong was craving for after she gave birth at New York Hospital Queens was congee, a Cantonese-style rice porridge. It was past mealtime but the nurse managed to get the cook to prepare some for her.

“After major delivery, I was so tired and just wanted something close to home,” said Wong, a native of Hong Kong. “Just simple congee, it made me feel comfortable.”

Wong, 35, happened to be a clinical nutrition manager at the hospital, located just minutes away from downtown Flushing, where hundreds of ethnic restaurants serve one of the city’s most diverse populations. But she said similar accommodations could be made for any patient before midnight, when the kitchen closes.

At NYHQ, the menu reflects the staff and the communities it serves. Walking into the cafeteria, many languages can be heard spoken by the hospital’s staff, patients and visitors.  All major signs and brochures are printed in six languages, including English, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Russian and Greek. In August, the hospital is hosting its very first “International Month” series to celebrate its cultural diversity, and the centerpiece is food.

“Things that we have planned for the month are educating and re-educating our staff as well as patients and visitors on the language services and other resources…to make them feel like home,” said Kendra Haydel, a strategic planner with the hospital’s quality management administration department. “The cafeteria is playing a big role.”

Each week of the month features one or two cultures.  Starting with Chinese and Korean cuisines, the month also showcases food and cultures from Latin America, Russia, Greece, and India. The menu is overseen by the hospital’s new executive chef, Jerry D’Amico, who used to work for the United Nations.

NYHQ, affiliated with Cornell University’s Weill Medical College, is the largest hospital in Flushing with 519 beds.  It has been offering immigrant-friendly menus for more than 10 years.  Its Asian menu is published in three languages: English, Chinese and Korean. It offers a wide selection of choices that include the Taiwanese-style Three Cups Chicken, Indian Roti bread, and Korean seaweed soup.

In addition, the privately-funded hospital also offers a Spanish menu with popular dishes like Pollo Asado (Baked Chicken) and Arroz con Pollo (Rice with Chicken).  A kosher menu is also available and a diabetic menu is changed weekly.

However, there is no good news for patients with a sweet tooth. On most menus, the dessert section offers little imagination.  Fresh fruit is often the standard offering while the kosher menu offers Jell-O, pudding and applesauce.

“We want to encourage healthy eating because they are patients,” said Wong, noting there is no cake or heavy dessert. “This is not a hotel.”

NYHQ is not alone in offering multiethnic menu. New York Downtown Hospital, also a private hospital, offers a meal service of international selections. City hospitals are also developing similar services to meet the needs of the residents in their areas.  Coney Island Hospital now offers halal food to cater to its Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi patients.

Meanwhile, the hospital recently introduced a personal choice dining service that is aiming to provide similar dining experience as in a restaurant. During mealtime, a host will inform a patient about the specials of the day and take the order. Then, the host goes downstairs to the kitchen, assembles the tray according to the order, and delivers it to the patient. According to a 2009 census among hospital food service directors, 56 percent of the hospitals offer room service, including Manhattan’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Although the service comes with some additional cost that varies based on the patient volume, the hospital said the patient satisfaction scores have risen greatly.

“Overall, it is not a great expense to implement this program. As far as additional costs are concerned, occasionally we need additional staffing,” said Bill Kelly, director of food and nutrition services.

To make their meal service even better, the hospital is also looking into adopting a new food and nutrition service software that allows the host to enter the meal orders on a palm pilot that automatically screens out the food items inappropriate for patients based on recommendations from doctors and dietitians.

Florens Cvern, a Cuban native who moved to New York at the age of 4 in 1957, broke her ankle two years ago and stayed at the hospital, said she is happy with the wide selection of food.

“I’ve tried everything,” said Cvern, who now volunteers as a guide in the hospital lobby and was having Greek lasagna at the cafeteria. She noted that some of her favorite things on the menu are sweet potato fries and paella, a Spanish rice dish made with seafood, vegetables and meat.

“Everything is very good,” she said.

Sunset Salsa series on the traffic island on Ninth Avenue and 14th Street. June 22, 2010

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]]> http://neighborhoodbeatbox.org/2010/08/21/sunset-salsa/feed/ 0 http://neighborhoodbeatbox.org/2010/06/19/senior-centers-anticipate-strain-from-nearby-closures/ http://neighborhoodbeatbox.org/2010/06/19/senior-centers-anticipate-strain-from-nearby-closures/#comments Sat, 19 Jun 2010 18:55:28 +0000 Stephen Steim http://neighborhoodbeatbox.org/?p=4172

A community member protests cuts to senior centers in New York City at a Washington Heights rally on June 17, 2010. Photo: Stephen Steim

Reported on: June 19, 2010

Milton Pellot loves his senior center. The longtime Washington Heights resident relies on the STAR Senior Center for affordable and healthy food, companionship with fellow seniors, and friendly games of dominoes and billiards.

Pellot, 68, says his wife is also a fan of STAR. “She doesn’t want me at home, so she sends me to the center,” he joked.

Many Washington Heights seniors like Pellot breathed a sigh of relief when none of their community’s senior centers made the city’s list of 50 to be shut down on June 30. Local senior center directors, on the other hand, foresee major issues on the horizon if the New York City Department for the Aging moves forward with its plan.

Harlem, Washington Heights’ immediate neighbor to the south, will be one of the communities hardest hit by the closures. Of the 15 senior centers slated to close in Manhattan, 11 are in Harlem. That will leave more than 600 Harlem seniors looking for services at other centers in Harlem and, for many, in Washington Heights.

Fern Hertzberg, 54, is executive director of ARC XVI Fort Washington, a senior center in Washington Heights. Her center is already serving seniors traveling from other communities since the city’s May 10 announcement of planned closures.

“Closing 50 centers puts pressure not only on the communities where the centers close but on the entire system,” said Hertzberg. “People have started coming from the Bronx since they know their centers are closing.” Hertzberg noted that while her food budget covers 140 meals to be served each day, ARC Fort Washington is already serving 150.

The Department for the Aging said in a statement that while it hoped to avoid cuts, Gov. David A. Paterson’s proposed budget left the agency few options. “We embarked on this painful process because the state’s budget cut left us no other option. We are committed to doing what we can for the seniors and center staff whose lives will be affected, and will be providing all possible assistance through this difficult time.”

In prioritizing which centers to close, the department used three criteria: centers that serve fewer than 30 meals per day, part-time and satellite centers, and centers with poor records of service and management. Geography and considerations of how many centers would be closed in one neighborhood were not taken into account.

The department has promised that it will provide transportation to seniors who cannot access other centers in their communities due to physical limitations and proximity. For many Harlem seniors, that will mean bus trips to centers in Washington Heights.

“There are many issues with busing people to other communities,” said Timothy Hunt, executive director of Citizens Care Senior Center in Harlem. “Issues of cultural sensitivity have to be considered when you bus seniors to another area.” Hunt’s Citizen Care headquarters and six satellite senior centers, which serve more than 400 seniors, are all set to be shuttered at the end of the month.

At a June 17 rally on West 175 Street and Wadsworth Avenue, more than 50 seniors from Washington Heights and Harlem, local politicians and community leaders called on the city and state governments to reverse the proposed cuts.

Ralph Little, 55, joined his 78-year-old mother at the rally. Little’s mother and aunt rely on Wilson Major Morris Community Center at 459 W. 152nd St. in Harlem, only three blocks from Washington Heights. “I hope and pray it doesn’t get shut down,” said Little.

Little and his mother will have to wait and see how the budget process plays out.

“I don’t have money and this is what I was craving for,” said Bell. “If I’m craving something, I’ll just go ahead and eat it.”

Mozella Montoute leaves a McDonald's in Morningside Heights. Photo: Sasha Chavkin.

Bell’s meal – a cheeseburger, small fries and two apple pie desserts – came out to 1,330 calories. The total amounted to roughly two-thirds of the recommended daily allowance of calories for a 125-pound woman, according to the Harvard Medical School’s Family Health Guide.

Bell is not the only one who is ignoring the labels that have been posted in New York City chain restaurants since March 31, 2008, when the city’s pioneering calorie labeling law went into effect. Two recent studies have drawn differing conclusions on the law’s impact: while the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene found that the customers were decreasing calorie consumption, researchers at New York University discovered no change in behavior among consumers in low-income neighborhoods. The debate over the labeling law and its effects in poor communities has stirred broader questions about the policies that are needed to promote better eating habits in these areas.

Dr. Brian Elbel, lead author of the NYU study, said that his findings do not conflict with those of the health department. Elbel conducted his study in low-income neighborhoods in New York City and Newark, while the health department surveyed communities of widely varying income levels.

“I don’t think that our studies are necessarily different,” said Elbel. “Differences in eating could be reflections of the core inequalities in these communities.”

In Morrisania, one of the nation’s poorest neighborhoods, the question of whether calorie labels can promote nutrition takes on an added urgency. According to the health department’s 2006 Community Health Profiles, 27 percent of adults in Morrisania and Highbridge are obese, 7 percentage points higher than New York City as a whole. This has contributed to a diabetes prevalence of 16 percent in these neighborhoods, nearly twice the rate of the rest of the city.

Some nine blocks north of the McDonald’s, the South Bronx Food Co-op is trying to provide nutritious alternatives for Morrisania. But with its substantially higher prices, co-op members admit that its customers are few and far between.

Unlike the McDonald’s, where every table was filled with customers, the co-op was empty except for two members stationed at the cash registers. A “Vegetarian Nature’s Burger” on the shelves cost $2.69 for the burger mix alone – enough to buy two hamburgers and an apple pie dessert at McDonald’s.

“You pay for quality,” said Robin Arroyo, 50, a co-op member.

The importance of price was also raised by Elbel, who stressed that he did not interpret the unchanged behavior found by his study as a repudiation of calorie labeling. Instead, he interprets his results as an indication that a broader approach is needed to promoting nutrition in low-income communities. “Our results do call into question what other policies may be needed aside from labeling,” he said.

Elbel stated that the price and availability of healthy food, the food marketing messages visible in public spaces and the quality of foods served in schools were all important factors in a more complete approach to promoting nutrition.

At the crowded McDonald’s restaurant, Jose Sanchez said that there weren’t too many alternatives to the Angus Third Pounder with bacon he was downing, alongside medium fries and a Coke, for a total of 1,200 to 1,440 calories.

“Price has a lot to with it,” said Sanchez. “I’m not cheap, but I don’t have $10.”

On a Tuesday morning in October, Aura Sotomayor sat up in a hospital bed, stared open-mouthed at the ceiling and let a friend carefully brush her teeth. It had nothing to do with the 39-year-old being sick, though she wants to help people who are.

Melissa Rodney (center) and Carmen Rivera (right) check Treshornor Bell’s blood pressure at the Highbridge Community Life Center on Oct. 6, 2009. The six-month-long training requires all future nurse aides to perform basic tasks under the supervision of higher trained nurses. Photo: Delphine Reuter

Sotomayor was playing the role of the patient in a free skills class she takes in the Highbridge section of the Bronx. The class will help Sotomayor study for a state exam she plans to take in January to hopefully earn her certification as a nursing assistant.

“It’s intense,” said Lislliam Rivera, 24, who also attends the six-month-long nursing program at the Highbridge Community Life Center. “You have to learn bit-by-bit how to help patients.”

A survey published on Oct. 5 by U.S. News and World Report showed that certified nursing assistants typically spend more time with nursing homes residents than more experienced nurses or doctors. Subsequently, they create closer bonds with the patients and play a larger role in making sure they stay healthy and happy. As a result, programs like the one at the Highbridge Community Life Center are trying to give these professionals more training to help them navigate the demands of the stressful job.

“CNA’s should be able to make the everyday life of the residents better,” said Mildred Dace, 68, a nurse aide instructor at the Highbridge Community Life Center. “That’s exactly what they do.”

The survey ranked the Jeanne Jugan Residence, opened four years ago in the southeast Bronx, among the nation’s top 34 nursing homes out of 15,500 homes nationwide. There, the certified nursing assistants spend almost 45 minutes more per resident than the average of two hours and 15 minutes reported on the state and national level.

“The quality of care is closely linked to the quality and quantity of staffing,” said Mark Miller, the long-term care ombudsman at the New York State Office for the Aging.

While six residents per nurse is an ideal ratio, according to Dace, it is also unusual. No specific ratio exists to determine how many nurses are needed per facility because of rapidly-changing needs, said Miller. The homes also care for a wide variety of patients, with some addressing chronically ill or disabled residents’ needs and others serving senior citizens.

Miller pointed out that as the baby boomer generation ages, the need for well-trained nurses will only grow, and this shortage will affect all types of facilities. According to the Administration on Aging, a federal agency that compiles data on senior citizens, the population ages 60 and older will increase from 16 percent in 2000 to 25 percent in 2030.

“There are generally not enough nurses for all beds,” said Ami Rodriguez, assistant to the administrator of the Highbridge Woodycrest Center.

The free classes at the Highbridge Community Life Center are trying to respond to this real demand for nurses, who can watch out for patients’ health and hygiene as well as their happiness.

“You have to love helping people,” said Kee Chen, 50, who commutes from his Brooklyn home to Highbridge – an hour-and-a-half journey –to attend the nursing classes.

Richard Symister, senior physical therapist and co-owner of Brooklyn Body Works, gives an evaluation to a patient in his Williamsburg clinic. PHOTO: TRICIA SUMMERS

Reported on Aug. 22, 2009

Health care is getting physical in Williamsburg.

“This neighborhood needs quality health care,” said Richard Symister, senior physical therapist and co-owner of Brooklyn Body Works on Union Avenue. “Most people I speak to, they actually go into the city because they have a stigma of Brooklyn not having good clinicians, good doctors, and we found there was a great need around here for that.”

Incorporated in 2005, BBW is in its fourth year. Co-owned by senior physical therapists Symister and Matthew Spiegelman, BBW prides itself on one-on-one attention between therapists and patients, a pleasant office, and a holistic approach. For Williamsburg, which has had few physical therapy outpatient clinics, this has been a welcome change.

“Within five miles, there were probably three or four places,” Symister said. “And all I hear when patients come to see us, if they’ve been to another clinic, they say the same thing: ‘They stuck me in a room, left me with my exercises, all they did was hot pack and then a bike, and that was it.’ I don’t hear a lot of people saying they received quality treatment, hands-on care. It was almost like a meat market, like a conveyor belt for patients in most of these clinics.”

According to Symister, the choice of Williamsburg was strategic: He and Spiegelman consider it an “un-captured” market, where they found lower rent for more space, and a diverse population. BBW has capitalized on these under-served and diverse demographics, accepting insurance and pay-for-service coverage from its patients. BBW’s bread-and-butter specialties are a broad range of orthopedic injuries: muscle strains, rotator cuff tears, and sports injuries–the bulk of their treatment–in patients that range in age from 30 to 55.

“I don’t really have any other experience with any other physical therapy places here in New York, just because I came here first and I liked it and I stayed,” said Tricia Turbold, 26, a marathon runner.

Stephen McDowell, 32, is a city corrections officer who has been coming to BBW to treat a torn Achilles tendon since July. McDowell, who was on crutches for the first two weeks of his treatment, comes on a weekly basis to strengthen his healing tendon.