Bronx jazz musician selected for All-Stars concert at historic Queens venue
Whether it is playing guitar, jamming on the saxophone or singing, Pelham Bay resident Frank Bergamini loves music. He was recently chosen to perform in a highly selective jazz concert in Queens.
On July 10, Flushing Town Hall, a Smithsonian affiliate, was scheduled to host its fourth annual Jazz Jam All-Stars Concert and honor the musicians who regularly attend its monthly Louis Armstrong Legacy Jazz Jams. The event celebrates the year’s most outstanding jammers based on their musicianship and dedication to the monthly Louis Armstrong Legacy Jazz Jams.
Unlike the regular Louis Armstrong Legacy Monthly Jazz Jams where any musician is welcome to participate and play, the Jazz Jam All-Stars concert features only selected invited musicians.
“Frank Bergamini is not only a neighbor of mine in Pelham Bay, but also an incredible sax player and singer,” said Bronx resident Gabrielle Hamilton, who is Flushing Town Hall’s director of education and public programs. “He joins us each month at Flushing Town Hall’s Jazz Jams. I’m thrilled that Frank was chosen as an All-Star to perform on July 10.”
Yankees host opening day for Summer Night Lights program
The New York Yankees, in partnership with the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) Blue Chips Program, NYC Parks, the New York City Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD), The Players Alliance, SCAN-Harbor and Poland Spring Spring Water, held opening day for the Summer Night Lights Program on July, 9 at Elston Gene Howard Field across the street from Yankee Stadium.
Summer Night Lights is a collective effort to encourage engagement in baseball-related activities, which can serve as an outlet for recreation, social responsibility, and healthy competition. More than 300 Bronx children and teenagers will have the opportunity to take part in tournament-style, co-ed baseball, and softball games at Elston Gene Howard Field throughout the summer every Tuesday and Wednesday night.
The evening schedule was chosen to supplement the limited number of organized evening activities available to Bronx youth from ages 12 to 18 during the summer.
“I really believe that it takes a village to raise a child, so the more of us are together, we have the same idea, right? We want to provide for the kids in our community,” said NYPD Det. Darnell Gatling, co-founder of NYPD Blue Chips. “We want to give them the best experience, and the best way to do that is coming together as one, working as one, and just producing the best that we can do.”
Bronx County 18-year-olds have state’s lowest voter registration rate: report
New data shows that rates of voter registration among Bronx 18-year-olds are the lowest in the state — but local advocates, plus a few new state laws, aim to turn that around.
New York City as a whole lags behind the rest of the state in voter registration for 18-year-olds, and Bronx County ranks dead last at 18.6%, according to research published by The Civics Center, an Los Angeles-based nonprofit working to improve youth voter registration. The state has work to do overall, with 150,000 18-year-olds remaining unregistered in New York — just a 40% registration rate for that age group.
By contrast, New Yorkers over age 45 are registered at a rate of 77%, according to The Civics Center.
Recent changes to state law have aimed to make voter registration more accessible to young people. A law passed in 2020 allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote (although they cannot cast a ballot until they turn 18), and a new law took effect on July 1 requiring all local boards of education, school boards, charter schools and private schools to promote voter registration. Additionally, online voter registration is available for New York City residents without a driver’s license or permit, removing more potential barriers.
Bronx Defenders union authorizes potential strike
The union representing Bronx Defenders attorneys and staff announced it has authorized a potential strike beginning the week of July 22 if bargaining demands for higher pay and other benefits aimed at preventing attrition are not accepted.
With 93% participation, 93% of union members voted on June 27 to authorize the bargaining committee to call a strike if necessary. The Unfair Labor Practice strike, if called, would disrupt service to clients in every court in the borough — housing, civil and criminal — as well as federal immigration court.
About 20,000 Bronxites per year are served by the nonprofit Bronx Defenders, which provides legal representation and other holistic services. The Bronx Defenders Union-UAW Local 2325 represents approximately 260 members in all roles within the organization, including attorneys, paralegals, social workers and other non-attorney staff.
Attorneys at the Bronx Defenders are the lowest paid public defenders in New York City, according to Samantha Espada, a staff attorney in criminal defense who grew up in the Bronx and Westchester and currently lives in the borough. Espada serves on the union’s bargaining committee.
Union members “actively want to reach a deal” to avoid a strike, Espada told the Bronx Times — but they accuse management of bargaining in bad faith, adding that the full executive management team was not present at negotiation meetings until a strike date was already announced.
Bronx-based artist Tasha Dougé isn’t afraid of artistic destruction
Bronx-based conceptual mixed media artist Tasha Dougé’s rendering of the American flag on display at the Longwood Art Gallery is not a flag at all. In fact, the piece, “This Land is OUR Land,” more closely resembles Fourth of July streamers. Stripes of braided synthetic hair are unraveled and slumped away from their chicken wire anchor, cotton ball stars displaced from their canonical top-left hand mainstay and chicken-wire matrix laid bare. The composition slouches on a gallery stool, its supposed patriotic messaging sterile.
One of Dougé’s first forays into the art world — the artist created “This Land is OUR Land” 10 months after starting her practice in 2016 —the piece in its undone state is not what Dougé intended nor forged. In its intact state, the five-foot by three-foot piece had been a complete recreation of the American flag with synthetic braiding hair stripes woven into chicken wire, a nod to African hair shop tradition, and fixed cotton ball stars. So when the artist mid-studio run on March 27, 2023, found the piece in an unsolicited state of shedding — effected by a critter in the building, Dougé thinks — she was hit with an acute grief. A telling window lay open and the piece’s garbage tarp sheathe, its last bastion of protection, shredded.
“I came in to find my studio in complete disarray,” Dougé told the Bronx Times. “I died that day.”
Though the scene paralyzed the unassuming artist, on display in the Longwood Art Gallery is only one of the piece’s — and the most recent — histories with shedding.
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