Alberto Hernandez

Phillip: [00:00:01] All right. Today is Thursday, March 2nd, 2023. We're here in the Brownsville neighborhood, East New York. At the Nehemiah home of Alberto. I'm Phillip. Mr. Hernandez, did you want to introduce yourself for the recording?

Alberto: [00:00:18] Yes, yes. Hello. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Alberto. I'm an original homeowner of a Nehemiah Home, constructed and finished in 1985. Approximately between—in December, moved into this home between Christmas and New Year's. Best memory—one of the best memories of my life, besides having birth to our son here.
First generation in my family born into a home in the United States. Our background is from Puerto Rico and back in Puerto Rico, yes our families do have properties, but none as grandiose as the one I'm in now in New York City.

Phillip: [00:01:14] Phenomenal. Well thank you for doing this, Mister Hernandez. And we'll get into the whole Nehemiah story. But just to start up, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about your upbringing in Alphabet City.

Alberto: [00:01:25] Right. I did tell you, I was raised in—most of my memories of being raised in New York City was down in the Lower East Side, Alphabet City, as people referred to it. And now for the purpose of increasing the value of properties, they call it the East Village. But no, when I grew up there it was Alphabet City. And I grew up in what they call NYCHA now, back then we called it the projects.

Beautiful upbringing in the projects, comfortable upbringing in the projects. Where neighbors left their doors open to let the draft from the windows of the hallways come into each apartment. Very safe. And my initial—growing up in the projects. And with time and, negativity, yes, drugs did make their way into the projects and made things a little bit more dangerous, but I still felt very comfortable. I'm a native New Yorker.

I grew up playing basketball in the basketball courts in the projects. My parents put us in Catholic school, from grammar school through high school we were in the Catholic school system. And I learned about, a lot about being Catholic, which is very important to my family. Had a lot of memories, a lot of fun. Probably about, I tell you about 15 photo albums of good times in the Alphabet City area, Lower East Side.

I had tons of friends, many of which I'm still in contact with today. But also many that has, did go the wrong way and no longer with us. Nonetheless, we were good friends when we were young, having fun, playing kick the can, ringolevio, Johnny-on-the-pony—

Phillip: [00:03:30] What are those last two you just named? I don't know those games.

Alberto: [00:03:33] Johnny-on-the-pony?

Phillip: [00:03:34] Yeah.

Alberto: [00:03:35] It was teams, that we would all crunch over and hold each other's waists. And then, the next thing, we'll have to try and jump over our bodies to the one closest to the tree. So, and then we would make that crowd that we're jumping on fall. And then it's our turn to grab each other by the waist from the tree, going back as many people as we are. And then the next team jumps on our backs. So that was Johnny-on-the-pony. It was terrific.

Ringolevio, was like, a type of, manhunt type of thing. Hide and seek type of thing, you know. And, we would hide behind bushes, in the buildings, all over the place. You would—-there we would get tagged, and then we're in and we gotta tag somebody else, the tagged ones as we get tagged. We're out of the game, you know, till the last one survives.

And we have snowball—in the wintertime, snowball fights. And we would also have itchy ball fights. Itchy balls, I don't know if you ever seen these balls that fall off of trees. And then you can pluck each one, little things, but when they're a ball, they're hard. So we would hit each other and that would make lumps on our skins and stuff like that. We make up games. We didn't have to buy games. We had tons of fun. You know, we go to the tenement buildings and sneak around the backs of the tenement buildings and alleys and all that, just to explore. That was our exploration in the city. Go to the roofs, jump from roof to roof, you know. Safe jumping. Not across air onto another roof, just down from one roof or climb another roof, you know. Good times, good memories.

And as we grew up, we, the hormones kicked in and we used to have little private parties at those places where parents were at work—both parents were at work. So our friend, their child, would say: "Hey! Let's have a party at my place." And, yes, we all chipped in our little pennies and quarters and had some wine, and everybody would pass around the hat for more wine, to get more wine. We had good times, good memories.
And then the disco days came in, you know. And then, the relationships came and some lasted and some didn't. And then the families started growing and we started moving apart, you know. People got—finished schools, some got great jobs, some got mediocre jobs. And, people move on, move—our friends would move to different states, you know.

And I got into skiing. So since age 20, my age is 70 now, for over 50 years I got into—went through a lot of ski trips, bus trips. When I had my own vehicle, we would carpool up to the mountains to go skiing.

Phillip: [00:07:01] What was like the closest mountain to New York City?

Alberto: [00:07:05] The closest skiing mountain to New York City, I would say, is Camelback in Pennsylvania.

Phillip: [00:07:12] Okay.

Alberto: [00:07:13] Then there was another one in New Jersey called Runyon Valley Great Gorge. Everybody liked that one because when you ski, take the lift up to the top of the mountains. A lift is a chair that you mount and it rides you up to the top of the mountain like a gondola. And then you get off with your skis and ski down.

But from the top of the mountain, what was visible to all of us guys and popular with all of those guys was you could see the Playboy Mansion on the top of one of the mountain peaks at great gorge, Runyon Valley Great Gorge. And then the other, the highest elevated mountain within reach to us that was very well known was Hunter Mountain. Hunter Mountain. And, we enjoyed ourselves.

And, one thing I did do when I was—began my employment with the United States Postal Service, was in a locker. I would put pictures of my dreams. I had a picture of a family, any family. Case in point, I wanted to eventually fall in love with someone and raise a family. I had a picture of a Mercedes Benz in my locker. I wanted that. And I had a picture of a home. I wanted to be the owner of a home. That was my American dream.

And with God's help and savings I saved, I was able to achieve all of those. I achieved the ownership of a Mercedes and enjoyed it, showed it off, and then that was done.

I fell in love. Met my love in Canada on a bus trip from the neighborhood. No, met her in Mexico on a bus trip from the neighborhood. But just better there when we're in Mexico since she was from the same neighborhood. I just wanted to reach out and meet other people so I started looking at other ladies in Mexico and, that were on—also on trips like us and flirting with them. And then came back home and nothing—.

Then there was another trip a year later and I saw a young lady again. And from there we began to talk and flirt and eventually got married.

Phillip: [00:09:53] What's her name?

Alberto: [00:09:54] Her name, she—well, also 18 years ago. Her name was Awelda. Awelda Hernandez. The mother of my son.

Phillip: [00:10:04] And what's your son's name?

Alberto: [00:10:04] Christopher Hernandez. yeah. And he's doing well, thank God. We raised him up through, also the Catholic school system. He went through procedures. In fact, the grammar school, in eighth grade you have to, and in my time too,  you have to start picking high schools you want your scores to go to. Scores of I believe its called SAT tests or some regents tests. And you have to pick three schools.

One of the schools my son picked, the teacher said to him, and he came home and told us, which got us pissed off. The teacher said to him: "Listen, nobody in this school ever made it to that school, so why don't you pick another choice? So guarantee you get into another school." He came home. We went back to that school. We talked to that teacher and told him: "Don't you dare, ever, tell any kid, especially my kid, not to do something he wishes to do. We teach our son he could do anything. Everything is possible."

And lo and behold, guess what? My son Christopher made it to that school. The name of the school was Xaverian. A very prestigious high school in Brooklyn. He maintained a 4.0 grade point average and it was beautiful. Got into the saxophone group, with playing sax in that school and everything.

And towards the end of his time in that four year high school, Christopher's mother, my wife Awelda, began getting sick. And she got very sick. She didn't want Christopher to know she was sick. So he, she had me promise not to tell him. And then, we raised an intelligent child, so it came to a point where we all went to see her in the hospital. The elevator opened up and my son read oncology ward. To which he asked, why is mom in an oncology ward? And we had to tell him and he broke down.

She got very sick, to the point where the school was very nice and offered to have a makeshift graduation for our son so she could attend. But it didn't seem like she was going to make it to the original, already organized graduation, which was going to happen in June. They offered, but they couldn't do it because it happened to be around Easter time, and all of the teachers were away on family trips and stuff to be close to their families around Easter. So, it wasn't able to be done, and she passed before, just around the time we reached her in April, of 2003.

He, my son went to college and continued his 4.0 grade point average in college for a whole year. And then it hit him and his grades skyrocketed, skyrocketed down. Went down. And I told my son:  "Listen, college is a business. They cannot focus just on your situation. And I recommend you take a break because your grades are going down. And if you don't, right now, step out of your classes–.” And I don't know what the term is, drop out of the class? “You will be charged. And then you'll have to also be charged to take the class all over again.".

Phillip: [00:14:34] Right.

Alberto: [00:14:35] So he dropped out, took my advice, and grieved—we both grieved here at home. And then it came a time where I tell him: "Listen, you can't just stay home." And he stepped up and went and found himself a job.

And, because I guess God's help and we raised him up good, someone saw how he was working at Macy's, and they offered him another job. They tell him, "I come here shopping all the time, and I'm impressed how you handle your, your clients, your customers. The rough ones and the easy ones. We will pay more if you come to be a bank teller." And he took that lady's advice and became a bank teller.

And from there, on his own two feet, he stepped up and went back to college. And also he took some tests that I recommended he take. Government tests for the government jobs and city jobs.

And when it came to graduation time, his grandma came from Puerto Rico, my mom. She was up there in her 80s and we thank God for having her until 101 years old. Here in this—near my home. You know, we weren't putting her in a home to take care, we could handle taking care of her. All right, and she came to his graduation, and his aunts from his mother's side came to the graduation. It was beautiful.

And the same month of his graduation, three weeks later, MTA, New York City Transit called him for a beautiful good paying job. So he finished college, stepped right into the job market making good money. And I'm proud of him.

Phillip: [00:16:33] Right, yeah. Raised a beautiful family here in this home it sounds like.

Alberto: [00:16:36] Oh, yes yes yes.

Phillip: [00:16:39] I wanna rewind a little bit, ask you a couple more questions about sort of your upbringing. I mean, I always like to learn about people. Who were the most important mentors, who were the people who kind of gave you your values, or were the places that gave you your values?

Alberto: [00:16:52] Well, growing up in the Lower East Side— I'm of a brown complexion, so when I did the college thing, and hearing about the lack of interest for education for people of my background, Hispanics. I don't know what the term is, but I was a sympathizer and I demonstrated.

I want to demonstrations to fight for, Hispanic studies in colleges and stuff like that. And, and fight for Hispanic signage in different, let's say stores and streets. But we had many, many Hispanics that were here and we saw that they had signage for other backgrounds.

I'm not going to say, because I don't want to seem like I'm against any other signage. You know, but I fought to get our signage, you know what I mean?

Phillip: [00:18:02] And that's just places in the neighborhood and the—  [crosstalk].

Alberto: [00:18:04] Neighborhood, bodegas and stuff like that, and, to have signage for people to, get benefits that other people who are born English speaking people can see the signage very easily, you know. And, so I became, I demonstrated a lot. To the point where I almost was arrested, you know. This was back in the 70s, and a lot of different groups were fighting for their rights, you know? So I was there fighting for Hispanic rights.

And then I became— I was at the post office making enough money, and I wanted to move out of my house. In my own neighborhood, I wanted to move where I wanted to move. I lived there so I know what apartments were empty, and I see how long they're empty. And I see that they're available.

I will go in nicely and request to see the apartment before if I wanted to rent, and always being told: "Oh no, that apartment was taken." Five months later I see the apartment is still empty. So can I say that was a racist incident that I was involved in? You know, I want the apartment, I go, you telling me no its taken? I see it's still open months later, I see it's still available. What else can I depict from that?

Phillip: [00:19:44] Sure, sure.

Alberto: [00:19:44] You know?

Phillip: [00:19:45] Right. Right.

Alberto: [00:19:46] So then it came to the point where I said to hell with it, I'm not paying nobody's mortgage by paying rent into somewhere they don't really want me because of my complexion. So I started looking at government programs where they were building homes, a partnership program I think was one of them. Or they're building homes for people going at that time for 65,000 and up. But I didn't like those projects because they were like maybe four homes in a not so great neighborhood, you know?

And then eventually, while working at the post office, I hear people talking about homes. I want a home, let me go over there and be nosy and get into that conversation. And I heard from people that were learning of this program called EBC, East Brooklyn Churches [Congregations] program, building affordable homes. And, they were hearing these things in church, you know. After mass maybe, the pastor or the priest is telling people that this is available, handing out fliers about these programs.

So I got ready, and I came from Manhattan all the way to Brooklyn, which I didn't know much about. No, wrong. I was already moved into Brooklyn because as I said before, I tried to live in my neighborhood but they didn't want me. So I eventually found an apartment in Brooklyn. And also it was more, more reasonable, the prices of rent in Brooklyn.

So I came deeper into Brooklyn to learn about this EBC program. And they showed it to me and I fell in love. I said, this is the house I want.

Phillip: [00:21:37] What did you like so much about the program, or the meeting you went to?

Alberto: [00:21:40] The program I saw was a grand project, of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of homes being built in this same area. Now, I'm from New York! This area where the home I won was being built is a well-known criminal area. Brownsville, Brooklyn. Everybody called me crazy! What, are you going to put all your money into Brownsville, a neighborhood that's in the news every day with crime, murders, killings, drugs, police that are being bought by criminals and drug dealers. Why you gonna invest all your money there? I said "Listen, this is a beautiful area. Once everybody gets in here, working class people, we're going to change the police. We're going to change the crime."

This was the time of the politician that everybody called the mayor of New York. This is the only time I ever had a liking for this individual. And his name is Giuliani. And Giuliani, we put an action to Giuliani. I wasn't there but I heard about it through EBC, and maybe other communities. "We want you to get rid of this crime." And Giuliani did it.

One situation was landlords. They owned these tenement buildings. Giuliani and his department got wind that there's drug dealers in these tenements. Giuliani went to the landlord: "You get those dealers out of your building, or I will get them out of your building." They couldn't get the dealers out of their building so Giuliani got the dealers out of the building. How? Right to domain [imminent domain]. Giuliani took the building from the landlord and eventually gave it to EBC, where the building would be demolished and eventually have brand new Nehemiah homes on it.

So the O'Reilly project in land up for—given to EBC to build homes was grand. And Giuliani made it grander, because there were a lot of tenements that had drug dealers, dangerous drug dealers, and there were those that couldn't get rid of them.

Phillip: [00:24:51] Right, right. Yeah, sometimes, you told me last time we talked was, you know, when you heard about the whole Nehemiah plan, you were excited because it was more than just building homes. It was building that community. Right?

Alberto: [00:25:02] Yes, yes, yes. Well, that part is in it. That part is in it. EBC's plan was to build a community. EBC's plan—within EBC is a lot of different arms and legs and many of those arms and legs were churches.

So when these neighborhoods were being abandoned here in Brooklyn, or up in the Bronx, the last thing standing in those neighborhoods were the churches. And those churches would survive with maybe 5 or 10 people going there to hear the word of the Lord.

With Nehemiah EBC's plan was to bring—fill all these empty lands with families and worshipers, and bring back the worshipers to the churches that are still standing in those communities. And the one here is Our Lady of Mercy church. Its a beautiful church, and it gets filled up with the Nehemiah homeowners' families, you know. And, we're still here. Whats the—that was '85. More than 35, 40 years. Beautiful. I love it.

Phillip: [00:26:20] So for you making that decision as a new home—prospective home buyer and hearing bad things about this area, do you feel like it was kind of an act of faith to try out this experiment?

Alberto: [00:26:33] What sold me, like I told you before, was that I didn't want to buy a brand new home where there's four brand new homes. You know, already lots of people that’s wild and partying and drugs, you know. I liked this whole project. I felt safe with this project. I felt safe. It was just me and my wife, we didn't have children then.

She didn't, my wife didn't want to come here, cause she's female so she feels more, more endangered in a neighborhood like this that's been in the news all the time for crime, than I am. I'm a man, you know. I'm used to it. I could—I'm a native New Yorker. I walk up and down dangerous streets. It don't, it don't bother me, you know, cause—.

Phillip: [00:27:23] Its just how you came up, right?

Alberto: [00:27:24] Its just the way I came up is correct! Yeah, yeah. I didn't feel that fear, but, a female I could understand. So I told her look, we're gonna, I will drive her here. She didn't even want to come here. And we already—I got to pick my house. I said: "Look, we got two blocks of new homes this way. Two blocks of new homes that way, two blocks of new homes that way." We're smack in the middle of this sector of the EBC homes, you know? "And then we got the 3 train right there. We got the L train right there, so you could go to work."

We both worked in Manhattan. You can't park in Manhattan, you know. And she came and she loved it. We had a swimming pool in the backyard. We had good furniture in the backyard, you know. When our son was born, you know. And we enjoyed many picnics in the back with family and all that kind of stuff.

Phillip: [00:28:15] You said Christopher was one of the first Nehemiah babies, right? On this block.

Alberto: [00:28:18] I think he was the first, not in the block in this sector of Nehemiah. Because, how I found that out was because, yes, I moved in to a new home. Yes. I had to unbox boxes in the new home. Yes I had to do, the to-do list, my, the honey to-do list, you know, the honey to-do list in my home.

You know, planting here, planting there. But also what came to my door were leaders. Those leaders that heard about EBC through the churches. Those leaders that always were here before the homes were here, fighting and doing actions with political officials and even with the churches to get this done. And those leaders were still in charge, and they wanted other leaders. "Okay, we built this home for you, let's get out here and maintain this community to be better and better and better and better." So they got me.

Phillip: [00:29:30] Who were some of the first leaders you met?

Alberto: [00:29:32] I met Carmelia Goffe. I met Mike Gecan. I met Mr. Roberts. I met Mr. Kahfi. We raised our children up with my best friend, Irving Dominic, who we lost. A great loss, and I still am close with the family. We go— we've gone skiing.

Phillip: [00:30:01] [crosstalk] Right, his son's Vincent, right?

Alberto: [00:30:03] —with his son Vincent. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes. We wish his son Justin would hang, but his son Justin has complications, you know. And we all wish him the best.

Phillip: [00:30:14] Could you just say a little bit about each of those people, those early EBC leaders?

Alberto: [00:30:20] EBC leaders, Carmelia Goffe was grand. She was the greatest. She raised the three boys on Powell Street about a block and a half away from me. And she got me to be a community leader. Her mom's lived on my block. She motivated me to be block president. And being block president, I organized block parties. I organized patrols for three, three blocks, up Sackman Street, going up towards the train station.

And then they basically got me. I kind of moaned that I didn't want to, leadership wasn't in me. Got me to be on the board of directors for the Homeowners Association of Brownsville. And, that was a whole nother level. You know, we're now—we have to think of the whole community of 1100 homes. Not just a block, you know. And we had our fights and all that. We had our training. We we were sent away for training sometimes.

Phillip: [00:31:43] Right, right.

Alberto: [00:31:43] You know, three days, like a retreat.

Phillip: [00:31:46] Sure, sure.

Alberto: [00:31:47] You know, and we speak what we want to see in the community. And we hear others speak of what they want to see in the community. And, we work with each other to help each other, you know. You scratch my back I scratch your back, you know. I want street signs on my block, you want street lights on your block. You know, we'll fight for each thing, you know.

And, it got me to think about money. I said, we got these mortgages. Because for many years, people saved on mortgages. Those mortgages were so low. But when I bought the house in '85, mortgages was 9%. So we did an action to lower the mortgage and we challenged the banks. And I spearheaded that. And they kinda boasted. "Yeah good job Al." Cause I was the junior guy in the team.

Phillip: [00:32:47] Right. What did you do to spearhead it? What was your assignment?

Alberto: [00:32:50] We actually gathered leaders to travel together. We had fun too, traveling together. On trains and all of that to different banks. We went to, I think it was Capital Bank, Manufacturers Bank. They basically closed and changed their names. I think it was Citibank. But the bank that accepted our challenge and lowered the interest rates by 3%. From 9 to 3%—9 to 6%! Was European American Bank. They're not here no more either. And they did this work with the help of our church—nearby church, Lady Mercy Church, in their basement.

The bankers came to Our Lady and Mercy Church, set up on tables in the basement, and then we, the EBC Homeowners Association leaders, formed the lines, and the appointments, you know, for the bankers to accept each homeowner through their paperwork of refinancing and get them the 6%. Not everybody qualified, because if you got bad credit the bank ain't gonna play with you. You know what I mean? but, majority of them benefited from it.

Phillip: [00:34:31] Wow. Could you tell the story of that day when y'all, like you said, traveling together was fun, so just like taking the train to European American Bank and how you got them to say yes?

Alberto: [00:34:41] Yeah, went to the bank, we took the trains and stopped for coffee, stuff like that you know. Chit-chatted, goofed about ourselves, goofed about our families, what's happening with our kids growing up and stuff like that, you know, on the train. And we already had the meeting on how we were gonna perform this action.

And I wasn't the best speaker so we had Mr. Kahfi who has—I think it may be in his field. So he knew banking and stuff like that. He knew—see that's a whole thing. When we do actions we try to get the leaders that know the language of each department we're doing an action with. Because transit has their language, banking system has their language. They know the words to use, you know. We just back them up, you know.

And European American Bank says, yes, we are a family bank. And we understand that you are 1100 homes. And we're impressed that you've given us your time. So we will table this, get back to you. So I guess they did their thing with their leaders and their bankers and stuff like that. And then they called us for a meeting and we went down there, and they gave us what they could offer us.

And then we said: "Excuse us we'll be right back." Then we went outside and talked about it, bum bum bum. We already did four banks, we got a bank that went down 3%. Do we wanna work with them and open this up and bring them to our neighborhood? Or do we want to continue and find another bank? And then Kahfi, because he was the banker, he says—at this time with the situation— bum bum bum. I think lowering our interest 3% is big. Every family member will save like at least $10,000 on their morage. Over the 30 year mortgage. And their mortgage fees will be lowered each month by, let's say, 100 bucks or 200 bucks.

So we went back to the European-American bankers and said: "Listen, we accept your offer. How soon can we start on this?" You know, and then they told us, which Kahfi already knew, they told us what we need to provide each homeowner and all that at the meeting. And then, they said: "Give us a list of who's–,” because they wanna come here and know they got somebody. So we had to set up meetings, you know. And we have to do the footwork here with ourselves. We got meetings with our people, and people signed up for what they could come and bum bum bum. And then we handed that list to the bank and so the bank said: "Okay, we'll have five of our employees go over there and handle this."

Phillip: [00:38:22] Wow. That's amazing. I haven't heard anything about that yet. So that's amazing.

Alberto: [00:38:26] Yes, yes, yes.

Phillip: [00:38:27] What was his name, Kahfi Jeremenko?

Alberto: [00:38:28] Well then maybe because I was, you know, the spearhead and I was junior. So EBC was more for fighting the politicians and stuff like that.

Phillip: [00:38:40] Sure sure, but that's really important. Like you said, you took probably ten grand off of some people's mortgages.

Alberto: [00:38:45] Yes, yes, yes. [crosstalk] But it was surprising that there was a lot of people that said: "No, no, no, I like my bank. I like the way it is right now." They really don't understand this.

Phillip: [00:38:57] Your loss! Right, right, right.

Alberto: [00:38:57] You know what I mean? How could you not do this, you know what I mean? Or they were mistrusting.

Phillip: [00:39:04]  Sure, yeah. People don't trust banks, right?

Alberto: [00:39:06] Yeah.

Phillip: [00:39:07] What was his name? Kahfi Jeremenko?

Alberto: [00:39:09] Kahfi Jeremenko, he still lived over there.

Phillip: [00:39:11] Oh okay, he's still in the neighborhood.

Alberto: [00:39:12] Yeah, he's over on Mother Gaston across the street from the church. He was a top leader, but he also wanted us to use the homeowners association money that was coming in and not needed at the inception, because of the brand new homes. How is your sewer gonna go bad so fast? You know, I mean, and invest it, because he was a banker. He wanted us to turn that money into a bigger money, you know. And still for the people, not for himself or anything like that.

Well, he got it to the point where we bought a property. So I don't know what happened after that, cause they kind of blacklisted him or something went wrong. There was something wrong there and I don't know what it is. Only EBC leaders and him know what went wrong.

Phillip: [00:40:09] Gotcha, okay. But early on, it sounds like he was a really important leader and neighbor.

Alberto: [00:40:12] Oh, he was. He was awesome. Awesome, awesome leader. Awesome motivator. You know, between him and Carmelia Goffe. Oh, my God. And then Mike Gecan and Roberts, Mr. Roberts. Great people.

Phillip: [00:40:29] Mr. Roberts, who's that?

Alberto: [00:40:31] I think he was one of the builders or something like that.

Phillip: [00:40:36] Oh ok, yeah.

Alberto: [00:40:36] He was also involved in the leadership of EBC.

Phillip: [00:40:39] Okay, interesting. Or Heidi Robbins, is that—?

Alberto: [00:40:47] Heidi Robbins is good. But I don't know. I still got Roberts. Heidi Robbins was great, yeah. And, phff. It was excellent. Oh, my God, the church guy. Ugh, what was his name?

Phillip: [00:41:03] Yeah Father—.

Alberto: [00:41:04] Saint Paul's. Saint Paul's—.

Phillip: [00:41:06] Saint Paul Community Baptist.

Alberto: [00:41:08] Yeah but—.

Phillip: [00:41:08] Reverend Youngblood?

Alberto: [00:41:09] Youngblood, he was a jointsky. Oh my God. Yes, he was, yes he was. I mean, we have fun seeing how—and hair standing up, you know, moments with these leaders.

Phillip: [00:41:23] Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about one of those hair standing up moments.

Alberto: [00:41:26] Oh, well my best buddy, Dominic, we used to take the train to get to go work, and then, hear him over here, I think it was Saint Paul's, riling up everybody. Oh my goodness, boy. He like challenged everybody to get up and fight for what you want, have it now. And he had the voice. You know, I would cough. [coughs] Yeah. But he was good.

Phillip: [00:41:58] Right right. Good speaker, yeah.

Alberto: [00:42:00] That guy, he became a leader after I became a leader. They—he went all the way. He just shot up to be the president of the board of directors, all that kind of stuff.

Phillip: [00:42:08] Yeah, I've heard a lot about him. He'll sit down with us for sure. Maybe that'll get us into—.

Alberto: [00:42:15] Then he had—there was conflict there between him and Kahfi too. Cause Irving was listening to EBC, yes. You know, I was listening to both, both had good things, you know. You know, I felt like this. EBC wanted us to become self-sufficient. You know what I mean? And it still be aligned with them. But then the way Kahfi was thinking, self-sufficiency was—.

Phillip: [00:42:45] Kind of separating.

Alberto: [00:42:46] It was. And it wasn't worth it.

Phillip: [00:42:49] Right. Right. Well, with Irving Dominic, I mean I'd just be interested to hear a little bit more about your two families growing up together [cross talk] and this life in the neighborhood?

Alberto: [00:43:02] Listen. My son went to St. Fortunata Catholic School. And I became involved in that as a—going to parent meetings and all that kind of stuff. And growing up I became involved in that church, and they were also a part of EBC. A part of their leadership, which is—weren't homeowners but they were into the community. And I had a situation I was combating. I was not a good public speaker. I felt I would stutter, I felt I would mumble, I felt fear. And I wanted to conquer that fear. So, and then I had a child that I wanted the best for him.

So Boy Scouting was a well known good agency for children. So I organize a Boy Scouting Group at St. Fortunata. And I got Irving to be one of the Boy Scout leaders with me and other people, and his two kids come in and be little scouties. And my son was a little scoutie, you know. We would take them to—we would organize things like taking them to the airport and have the kids have a tour of a pilot's cockpit. You know, right there at JFK. And we would take him skiing, with their candy fundraisers so they could buy their backpacks and all that kind of stuff. You know, we did camping with them.

And then, privately, he would invite my son—I didn't like it. He liked to do a lot of fishing in the lakes, upstate New York. I didn't like all that. But I went because it was also camping. So we would camp out in tents or cabins or we'd camp out in trailer homes, trailer park homes, you know. So that was good times.

And then on his block across the street was empty. Right now across the street they got buildings there, with three story apartments. Three story buildings, a row of them with apartments. Before it was empty. So we got used to that land, and with the help of Green Thumb New York, had little boxes to garden in. So we're over there gardening, I would leave here and go across those two blocks— three blocks down. Hang out with him and look at my crops and all that kind of stuff. It was real nice and we would get water from the pumps to water the plants and all that. Real nice community stuff.

And then as he got to be involved with the EBC, stuff like that, he got me to help him with street signs. Where we would literally have to individually sit in our cars and count how many cars are going by this intersection. And then we brought that, according to EBC who told us who to bring that to, to a city agency and do a demonstration. And demand that we get stop signs over here. Well with a mandate for traffic lights. Ask for the most and then theyll give you something minuscule. So, you know, it became a one-way stop. And then we fought harder and said "No it should be a four-way stop." Cause even with a four-way stop sign there's still accidents, people ignore them. We weren't into that field.

Phillip: [00:47:02] So you're counting cars so you can be able to tell the city, "Hey, this is a high traffic intersection, that's why we need the stop signs."

Alberto: [00:47:08] Right, yes yes yes. Well, that's why we need street lights and traffic lights. And the city said "No, with that count, probably we'll give you stop signs." That was good. And we fought with the post office. And I kind of had to hide because I am a postal employee, I'm not supposed to fight the agency I work for. But we went door to door and get people out to support it, because I have a cluster box here.

So the community was saying, "Why are we getting cluster boxes? Why can't we get delivery like everybody else?" If you've got a home, you get delivery right in your mailbox at your home. So they basically cancel the cluster boxes. Those are two big actions. And he did a lot of actions on his own, that I just went to meetings and I heard him talking and stuff like that. You know, that I wasn't involved with those—I started getting tired of me, of asking my neighbors to do stuff and then they don't come out and do it. I organize a block party, why am I the only one setting up the decorations and all that stuff, you know what I mean?

Phillip: [00:48:26] Sure. Right right. So it sounds like with EBC you were kind of hesitant to call yourself a leader, but you did really care a lot about community. So why do you think you care so much about community? Why is it so important to you?

Alberto: [00:48:36] I think that's the way I was raised in the Catholic school system. Religion. You know, God helps those that helps themselves. So all that is embedded in me. I also saw more of my moms than my pops, even though my pops was always there bringing home the money from a job. My moms was more community because she was a seamstress. So, you know, that kind of stuff. And then when we grew up, you know, like I told you of all those different games, that involves uniting with others to partake in games.

You know, ringolevio, Johnny-on-the-pony, all that, that's communal. So I got here and I became—we were all brand new homeowners. We were helping each other with our— with the stuff people know, you know what I mean? Everybody's saying that if you become a homeowner, you can even become broke because you don't know how to do for yourself. Or you could save your money and do for yourself, there's a lot of things you could do for yourself, you know? Yeah we bought ladders. I bought a ladder with three people, to go to the roof to clean the gutter. You know?

Phillip: [00:49:53] It's like all along the block.

Alberto: [00:49:55] Yeah, yeah, and people help each other out with different things, you know, or showing off different things. Then you get to a point where you try to keep up with the Joneses. This is here too, you know, with the fencing. Backyard fencing, front of the yard fencing. Some people—but they told us not to because we share a common sewer system. But I guess a lot of people don't go to meetings, or ignoring the information.

We're not supposed to be putting porches in front. The little porches weigh, and they weigh down on the community sewer pipe that we have. And when the homeowners association has to come and tear it up and fix the pipe, they're not going to put it back to the way it was. They're gonna put it back to the way it was built.

Phillip: [00:50:49] Where its supposed to be, yeah yeah yeah.

Alberto: [00:50:51] Right, right, right, so—.

Phillip: [00:50:53] But its just so interesting because y'all moved in at the same time. Brand new homeowners, brand new neighborhood, and just, like, kind of building it from the ground up. You know, [crosstalk].

Alberto: [00:51:02] Right, strangers with the commonality of a brand new home. We still—this block was still in touch, it was still very much in touch. Some people you go buy a home and live there and you don't even know your immediate neighbor. I know her, I know the next one, I know this one, I know across the street, bum bum bum.

Phillip: [00:51:23] Could you run me along the block and just tell me who's in each house and stories about them?

Alberto: [00:51:31] Well this house was the house I wanted. Well, I'm pointing, but I should tell you, you're recording. I'm the second house from the corner intersection of Riverdale and Sackman. Right? Riverdale or Newport—Newport and Sackman. Right. Riverdale is the entry block, and at my corner is Newport and Sack—the exit. Newport, and I'm on Sackman.

So the house next to me is the corner house. I'm the second house. When it came time to get my Nehemiah house, we were called to a meeting to come to the model home and pick the home we want in the community of 1100 homes. Those that weren't picked are available. So my corner home was available. My home, the next house, was available. But there was a line of people. There was somebody in front of me. So I'm praying with my wife. "Oh I hope they don't pick it, I hope they don't pick it, I hope they don't pick it." Lo and behold, the person in front of me picked the corner home.

Phillip: [00:52:50] Oh man. [laughs].

Alberto: [00:52:52] So then what's left, I picked the next home, the one next to the corner home. But it's still in a beautiful area. Smack in the middle of all these brand new homes. And, so the neighbor on the corner, a single lady who has about seven children. But she was living there by herself. No, she was living there with one of the children. All the other ones were independent. Fireman, postal worker, one worked for the bridges and tunnels. You know, good jobs, you know?

Then her husband, they were separated, lived on another part of Brownsville in a tenement building that they owned, or whatever. She was beautiful people, very much to herself. I kind of forced her to be open and talk to me.

Phillip: [00:53:53] What's her name?

Alberto: [00:53:55] Her, oh, she passed on, what was her name? Miss Sexton. Miss Sexton, I didn't call her Mrs. because I never met her husband. Miss Sexton. She passed, and the son that was living with her—I don't want to mention names, I don't want this to get to—was kind of trashing the place.

And the youngest son came and took it over while she was in a home. Miss Sexton was in a home now. The youngest son came and took it over cause he didn't want nobody disrespecting his mother's home. And I guess he told his family. Are they gonna pitch in? Cause the house was in disrepair. Total disrepair. Even holes in the wall. Cause the son that was there with her kind of, was living a not so nice life. Damaged a lot of things in the house. So this youngest son took it over and said to the other brothers, "You're going to help me? You gotta help me by investing, to get this place up to par for mama." I guess they didn't, and he got the place up to par for mama, remodeled the whole place. And with the grounds that, "Mama, you gotta sign the house over to my name." And I guess the rest of the family didn't like that. But, he, the one that saved the home for his mama, for her homecoming. Unfortunately, she did not last that long enough to come back home. And he's there now, with his lady. Beautiful people.

All right, then comes to me. Beautiful people. Then comes the next homeowner, [snaps] Pickering. Miss Pickering was also a single lady. Beautiful young single lady. One of the best groundskeepers in this whole community. Her place was always, in the springtime, with beautiful flowers in the front, displayed. So beautiful that I've even heard that people—that young couples that come from walking in our community, from NYCHA, the projects. Boyfriend girlfriend couples come. They will come by and pick one of her flowers and the boy will give it to his girlfriend and say "Oh, thank you." And I hear the girl say, "Oh it feels like walking in the countryside," when they pass our homes.

But Miss Pickering, she was the best groundskeeper, a beautiful neighbor. And a little forceful, because you gotta understand, I'm a working man. And yes I could become lazy and she would kinda, the word I was gonna say, diss me a little bit. She'll say, "Oh Al! If you want to, I could pick up your leaves, Al." Cause the tree would shed leaves on my property and her property. She would have her property, like I said, spick and span beautiful. But my property next to her, the leaves have fallen. And in her eyes she don't like that. So she'd diss me and say, "Oh Al, please let me clean up your leaves." And I said "Miss Pickering I'll pick em up." She said "No, Al its no trouble, its no problem. I'll pick them up." So listen you do what you want, and I will come home from work and her place would look beautiful. And now my place would look beautiful because she picked up my leaves. I felt real bad. So eventually I started picking up my leaves.

Phillip: [00:58:06] [laughs] She kinda guilted you into it.

Alberto: [00:58:09] Yes. Yes, yes. Then after Pickering is another family. And this family are Muslim. And the man, Mohammed, he's a firefighter with the New York fire department. Beautiful people. Raised three children there, two daughters and a son. You know, him and his wife. And to this day, they still there. So far, these four homes are the original homeowners.

And then the next one is Miss Mary. Mary inherited her home from her moms, which was the original homeowner there. Her mom passed away. Her mom worked in the post office, so I got to know her, but I don't remember—I believe her name was Mary, too. And now her daughter's there. They built a beautiful spiral staircase with a balcony up to the second floor back there, you know, and they got a hot spa over there, too. You know, people have made investments on what they wish and what they like, and they're doing it, you know. Mary.

Then after Mary is a second homeowner. That second homeowner belongs to the son of a lady called Miss Aileen that has, like, also five children. And one of her five children bought the sixth home away from me. Or fifth home away from me. I know them but I don't know em that well, I know their mom Miss Aileen. She's up in age and she's still around. She's Jehovah's Witness.

And my moms was a Jehovah's Witness, and every time my moms would come to my house, when she was able to travel, she'd always stop by and they'd talk Jehovah's witness stuff. My moms will talk to her in broken Spanish and she'll talk to her, back to my mother in English. They don't know what they said to each other, but they had a communication thing going on there, because they—.

Phillip: [01:00:35] —Because they're connected.

Alberto: [01:00:35] Because they were Jehovah's Witnesses. You know, that kind of stuff. And then we got neighbors across the street, the corner house across the street. She raised children, she was a foster parent, man—. Oh God, oh my God...Joan, Joan Arnolds? But she passed away. And now someone owns that home and is renting it to somebody else. I don't know them.

And the one across the street next to Joan is Anne May and her husband, May. Mr. May is passed away, Anne is still here. And she had five children, they're living well. They come and take care of her, their mom Anne, [sniffs] my neighbor. And they travel with her all over the world, you know? And I help her whenever she needs help, you know, we help each other.

And then the one next to Anne is a cat lady, and she—. That's my sweet friend from the islands, Jocelyn and Andre. They must—they have 2 children—3 children, and she just became a grandmother for the first time. She's up in age. I'm happy for her. And she has, like, about seven cats. One of them just passed, so she was sad about that. And she has a pond. She created a pond in her backyard. And in her pond she must have at least 50 koi fish.

Phillip: [01:02:08] Wow.

Alberto: [01:02:09] Those 50 fish must have a value of about $20,000.

Phillip: [01:02:14] Yeah, those are expensive fish! [laughs]

Alberto: [01:02:17] But they're beautiful.

Phillip: [01:02:18] Oh, yeah.

Alberto: [01:02:19] She invites us to her botanical garden. She has an enclosed back area where she has plants from her country and all that kind of stuff. And she posted it on Facebook. Beautiful flowers and beautiful koi fish. And—I don't like cats—and many cats.

Phillip: [01:02:40] [laughs] So you said she's Caribbean?

Alberto: [01:02:42] Yeah. Yeah. Then the next one over, they sold their house to the son of another homeowner that's on my side of the block. He bought the house and he learned that he got a little bit, a little ripped off cause the homeowner was known to have backups in their basement and flooding. So he has a good job in sanitation. He's management now, so I'm sure his mom and pop that live on my side are very proud of him, you know. And he also has two sisters, one sister that bought another house on this block.

And he got so upset, but he feels he got money. So he invested money and took his sewer system out of the loop of the adjoined sewer system with all of the other homeowners on his block. He no longer has backups in the basement. It was a $10,000 investment and he's happy with it. Very good.

Then his next door neighbor, the daughter lives there with her daughter. The owner, Alice, was her mom. A beautiful lady, that her business was hair, women's hair. She I guess owned a beauty parlor, you know, and she always upgraded her place. Has beautiful front fencing and everything like that. And she passed away, you know, and then—. I'm going to stop there cause there's many on the block that are still here— [crosstalk].

Phillip: [01:04:32] Right right, I was about to say—.

Alberto: [01:04:32] —I got stories yeah.

Phillip: [01:04:34] You take first prize in terms of knowing your neighbors out of all the interviews that I've done.

Alberto: [01:04:38] You're serious?

Phillip: [01:04:39] Yeah someone— you got something to say about everybody. [laughs] A lot of people— [crosstalk].

Alberto: [01:04:43] No but—.

Phillip: [01:04:43] A lot of people are like, oh—.

Alberto: [01:04:43] But these are people I know!

Phillip: [01:04:44] Right, right!

Alberto: [01:04:45] I could say gossip about other people, but I don't know them. But these are people I know. You know, I know across the street the other way. There is some story, you know. And being a leader and organizing the block patrol, you learn a lot about your neighbors.

Phillip: [01:05:08] You get to know everybody.

Alberto: [01:05:08] If you're involved. And that's the way the world should be. It ain't like they're into my business. They're not in my bedroom, they're not in my kitchen, you know? And they have been from time to time for meetings, but it's not about interfering with one's lives. It's about uniting for the common interest of improvement. Of feeling safe, feeling happy. Feeling, you know, the knowledge that you can rely on somebody, maybe. You know what I mean? So I tell my neighbors, "You ever need help, ask me. If I could help, i'll help. And if I can't help, don't take it wrong. Ask me again for something else.

Maybe at that time I could help." You know, we need to stop, you know, hate. And show interest and love and care and all that stuff, you know. That's me, I don't know.

Phillip: [01:06:17] Right, right.

Alberto: [01:06:18] I've enjoyed my life that way.

Phillip: [01:06:19] Yeah, I can tell. That's amazing. I won't take up too much more of your time, but I just want to ask you—.

Alberto: [01:06:25] You want a soda or something? Cause you're in my house, I got soda, I got cranberry juice or orange juice or—. You want any kind of beverages like that?

Phillip: [01:06:34] I'll take a soda, sure. Yeah yeah yeah.

Alberto: [01:06:36] Sprite or Pepsi?

Phillip: [01:06:40] I'll take a Pepsi, please.

Alberto: [01:06:44] With ice? Or without it. Just cold in the can.

Phillip: [01:06:46] I'll just take it in the can. Thank you, sir. Take a little recess I'll look over my questions here.

Alberto: [01:06:53] Okay. There you go!

Phillip: [01:06:59] I love all your tchotchkes, are these from your travels?

Alberto: [01:07:03] [distant] What's a tchochke?

Phillip: [01:07:03] It's like a knickknack.

Alberto: [01:07:05] [distant] Oh, yeah. From all my travels. Oh my God.

Phillip: [01:07:10] [laughs] Yeah, it's amazing. Stuff from all over the place.

Alberto: [01:07:15] [returning] And I have remodeled this. Maybe this is about the third time.

Phillip: [01:07:18] Oh okay. Thank you, sir. [inaudible] Appreciate ya!

Alberto: [01:07:25] Alright. Yeah this is—the homes like in Puerto Rico, when I grew up. [soda can opens] Then this is the—as one guy does this in Puerto Rico. This is the indigenous person from Puerto Rico. And I ain't gonna say Indian. The indigenous, the original person there.

Phillip: [01:07:48] Right, right.

Alberto: [01:07:49] Right? This was part of their travel art. Art, whatever. This is a whistle, artistry. This is part of their artistry. A lot of these things has to do—. And then this when my kid was little. That's over 40 years—over 45 years old from the first time we took our kid to see Lion King.

Phillip: [01:08:10] Oh, yeah?

Alberto: [01:08:11] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Phillip: [01:08:13] Handsome young man. [laughs] And I see some—.

Alberto: [01:08:16] No! The Lion King, the Lion King, this!

Phillip: [01:08:17] Oh! There we go. There we go. All right, all right. [crosstalk] Yeah, I was looking at the picture.

Alberto: [01:08:23] And that's his aunt, my brother's wife.

Phillip: [01:08:25] Okay.

Alberto: [01:08:26] That's me and my belated wife.

Phillip: [01:08:28] Okay.

Alberto: [01:08:29] That's our ski posses.

Phillip: [01:08:31] There we go.

Alberto: [01:08:32] That's his cousin and that's my friend's son. My best friend's son. And this is my ski posse, too.

Phillip: [01:08:40] Yeah. Where's that at?

Alberto: [01:08:41] That's probably—this one is Killington, Vermont.

Phillip: [01:08:45] Killington Vermont, alright.

Alberto: [01:08:47] And this is my son. The crowd that he went to China with. Then we got to go and see our family. I'm a family man. I'm a picture guy.

Phillip: [01:09:02] Yeah, I can tell.

Alberto: [01:09:03] I love pictures.

Phillip: [01:09:05] That's beautiful.

Alberto: [01:09:05] Funny family.

Phillip: [01:09:09] Seriously, that's beautiful.

Alberto: [01:09:09] Did all that. And then this was from my mom's sister, she lived in California. I used to take my mom to California on Amtrak. And these are pens. But they were having at our hotel a Hawaiian thing contest. Of the best—.

Phillip: [01:09:27] Hula dancing?

Alberto: [01:09:29] So, yeah. Not hula, Hawaiian dancing.

Phillip: [01:09:33] Okay.

Alberto: [01:09:34] Well, I'm thinking hula is a hula scoop.

Phillip: [01:09:36] Oh, yeah yeah yeah.

Alberto: [01:09:38] Hula hoop. But Hawaiian dancing. Maybe they're the same thing, I don't know. I don't know the other stuff.

Phillip: [01:09:46] Yes, it's like a—.

Alberto: [01:09:48] And! And my mom's sister. They were in Puerto Rico, and their whole life they had property in Puerto Rico. So my mom's sister that moved to California eventually, after her husband died, my uncle died, her children that they raised, they raised in California. So they said: "Mom you're coming back to California." That's, like my mom, I said, "Mom, you're coming back to New York. Cause you're getting up in age. Right? So she, in Puerto Rico, I call her the Orchidia Queen. These are orchids I believe?

Phillip: [01:10:24] Yeah, looks like it.

Alberto: [01:10:26] She raised these.

Phillip: [01:10:27] Wow!

Alberto: [01:10:28] And people from different towns, and word of mouth, will come and buy from her. Cause she has tons of these all over her property. Growing out of trees, growing out of cracks in the walls and all that. Yeah.

Phillip: [01:10:41] That's amazing. So are those—?

Alberto: [01:10:43] Those are fake. Because I kept buying it in her honor, cause she was my godmother, too, and I loved her. And then they die, right?

Phillip: [01:10:53] They're hard to keep alive, yeah.

Alberto: [01:10:54] Each one costs 20 freakin bucks! So then I found a place that had these plastic ones that look so real. I said, "Hell. This is one time 20 bucks and 20 bucks that'll last for lifetime.".

Phillip: [01:11:06] Right? They could have fooled me. They look super real. Yeah, yeah.

Alberto: [01:11:08] Yeah. So that was for my aunt.

Phillip: [01:11:12] Oh that's amazing. It's nice to get the little tour, it's like a museum in here.

Alberto: [01:11:15] Oh, thanks. I like that—

Phillip: [01:11:16] Its beautiful.

Alberto: [01:11:16] —stuff, yeah. And then that was—. Why do you think I had those two black ones on the sides?

Phillip: [01:11:25] Which—where at?

Alberto: [01:11:26] There's two long black ones down the sides of the red flower.

Phillip: [01:11:29] Oh, yeah.

Alberto: [01:11:30] What are they?

Phillip: [01:11:31] They're fire escapes.

Alberto: [01:11:32] Why do you think I bought her those?

Phillip: [01:11:34] Because you grew up around a lot of fire escapes—

Alberto: [01:11:37] There you go!

Phillip: [01:11:38] —livin in the projects.

Alberto: [01:11:40] There you go, Lower East Side!

Phillip: [01:11:40] Right, right.

Alberto: [01:11:40] No, my first apartment was a tenement with fire escapes.

Phillip: [01:11:44] That's an important part of the architecture.

Alberto: [01:11:45] Yes yes yes.

Phillip: [01:11:46] People hanging out on the fire escapes and everything.

Alberto: [01:11:48] Oh, and we also went to the beach. What beach did we go to?

Phillip: [01:11:53] Oh, I don't know.

Alberto: [01:11:54] Okay.

Phillip: [01:11:55] I'm not a New Yorker.

Alberto: [01:11:56] Okay. New Yorkers that live in New York City, in tenements, the beach they go to is called tar beach.

Phillip: [01:12:04] Tar beach. Okay, where's that at?

Alberto: [01:12:06] On the roof.

Phillip: [01:12:07] On the roof. Oh! [laughs]

Alberto: [01:12:09] Because the roofings of all these tenement buildings are tar.

Phillip: [01:12:13] Right, okay.

Alberto: [01:12:14] They're called tar beach. And we would put hoses, attach them to the highest floor that we knew. And bring the hoses to the roof and we would water each other down and all that kind of stuff.

Phillip: [01:12:23] Oh my goodness.

Alberto: [01:12:23] And barbecue up there.

Phillip: [01:12:25] Alright, so it's a homemade beach. Alright, that's awesome. Well, that reminds me something else I wanted to ask you about. Like, what's it take to organize a block party and what were those like when you organized block parties when your kids were growing up?

Alberto: [01:12:40] Well to organize a block party we had to go to the—. I haven't done it in so long I forgot their names.

Phillip: [01:12:50] Gotta, like, get the street shut down?

Alberto: [01:12:53] No, I know, but we had to get permission from—. It's called—every section, and there are so many different sections. Community board. We have to go to the community board out of Brownsville. I forgot what number we are. I think it's 16 or 18. And ask for permission to have a block party on our block between these two intersections on this day, from this time to this time. And we were allowed to have one once a year. We would get permission to have one once a year. I think there was a fee for that, a permit fee.

And then at that time we would get the street, the people to put their cars to block the entrance of the street. You know, and one car at the exit of the street. And just if somebody, if they want to be a part of it they have to exit. And then to the street, we would try to do it safely from the end, the exit of the street to come in. You know. And then put decorations.

And then different families—some families, we had a common barbecue area in the middle of the block. But some families didn't want just to, invited their—I seen some invite their own family and have their own little barbecue in their driveway or something like that. And sometimes we had—we have a homeowner that's down the block and over one—half a block, Christopher. That, I forgot his name, affiliated with the Black Cowboys. So because of that affiliation, we asked permission to have their ponies come to give the kids rides on pony-back. Or at times have a carriage ride. Okay?

And then also, we went to the different supermarkets and stores and told them we're having a block party on this day, would they like to contribute anything towards the cookout at the block party. So they would give us bread buns. And then we had Patagonia, not Patagonia, something like that. Its not there no more. It was a bread place. They made bread and you would smell the bread through the whole neighborhood. Delicious. Midnights we would go in and get bread for cheap. The long hero bread would be like a dollar, at the store that hero would be $1.80 or something like that. And we get it. But we ask them for permission. What would they contribute? And they contributed different sized breads, but they made different breads.

So, and then we gather all this stuff together and do cook outs and have the children eat, and then we'll have contests. We'll have races, some of the girls organized fashion shows and all that kind of stuff. We had dance contests, you know, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. We had neighbors that didn't want to be involved and yelling at us and all that stuff. This is life, you know?

Phillip: [01:16:29] Right, right. No, I enjoy hearing about this because I grew up in a small town. People kind of kept to themselves, and I grew up in the suburbs. People really kept to themselves. We didn't have block parties. I wish I grew up in an environment like that, but it sounds like a lot of fun.

Alberto: [01:16:43] Yeah, but suburbs, how close are the homes?

Phillip: [01:16:47] They were still—not as close as these, but still fairly close. But it's like you said, it's the type of place where no one knows their neighbors. And that was it was just depressing to me. I couldn't wait to get out of there, I hated it.

Alberto: [01:16:57] Wow. Mm mm.

Phillip: [01:17:02] There's one other thing you said. You had an organized, a paper route or something, and Carmelia Goffe's sons—.

Alberto: [01:17:08] Oh, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, I organized a paper route. Right?  And same idea—organizing the paper route gave me the mental thought of organizing the Scout troop for my boy. The paper route was—my kid was a toddler, was a newborn, alright? So I cared about the community. They gave me the feeling of caring for the community. And I care about, you know, the children having a way of making for their own. A little bit of money, you know?

So I organize—I don't know how I did it, but I organize a paper route. And—I forgot the steps I went to organize it. And I told them I got—. How do I do it? I think I put a paper route. And they called me to order a flier out. That's how I got all the customers for this area here. Then I extended it to another area of Brownsville, of Nehemiah homes. This area here is more like, let's say a square box. But then there's a ways down, you get out of the box and there's more Nehemiah homes. And there's non-Nehemiah homes also. And that's how I initiated it.

Then—and the kids going around and throwing these papers out to the people, bum bum bum. Then they will go around and collect the money. I will drive them around in my car to collect the money. Doo doo doo. And then, in that they will get new customers, too. People will see these kids throwing stuff and they'll reach out. "How can I get a newspaper?" You know, and stuff like that. And I said, "Well, you can support the community newspaper, these are kids that live in the community, and these are our children. You can support them." And it builds out, you know.

And in that there was a little dishonesty. Sometimes kids found ways to, you know, pocket more money.

Phillip: [01:19:45] Skim a little of the top. [laughs].

Alberto: [01:19:45] Skim a little off the top. Yeah, but it comes out of—see cause I had, I would make a salary to maintain my car. My car needed breaks and all that kind of stuff. Every—more often than a regular car needed breaks. Cause I'm stop and go, stop and go, stop and go. I needed a salary for the maintenance of my car. You know.

And then on Sundays, the kids would be in the basement putting the paper together. The Sunday paper came in three sections. You have the comics, you have the newspaper, then you have the fliers. And you have to put everything together. They were in the basement and fighting with each other, hitting each other with the papers and all that. Cause I said "Stop it guys!" You know, and all that kind of stuff. And it was nice.

We drove around Brownsville. One time it got real scary because I stopped at a light and there was this, I don't know if it was a kid, a teenager, a grown-up up or what. It was a male pointing a gun. It was a red light, nighttime, early morning before people go to work. I took the red light. I'm not endangering these kids, you know. Whatever that person was doing. I didn't even hear the gun afterwards. Maybe it was just shouting and pointing. But I kept it moving. You know, that was going in between this square area and the other area, you know? So I had maybe two more blocks to go before we started throwing papers in the other area.

And I had Carmelia Goffe's kids, doing it. It was two of them, the youngest ones, the oldests one didn't care. And I had a lot of other kids in the neighborhood doing it, you know, and they call me Mr. Al. [laughs] I even had an Irish Setter dog for many years that all of them knew my dog and loved my dog. And my dog got away from the house one time, and the kids came to the house and said, "Al, Al! Your dog got hit by a car." And I went to where the dog got hit, cause my dog was on medicine, older already, and never ran away from the house, but this time I think the medicine did it. Got hit by a car and they actually picked her up cause I was too distraught over the whole thing, and put her body in the trunk of my car. And then from there I took up to ASPCA.

So they all loved me. They loved my son, they loved my wife. But she will cook us up—my wife was one of the greatest cooks of all venues. Whether it be Puerto Rican food, Soul Food, Chinese Food, my wife knew how to make it. Her moms was the best at Puerto Rican food. My wife was the best at all venues. Italian food, all venues of food. She was the best. You know, I love the memories she gave us. We must have at least another ten photo albums of the times we had together.

Phillip: [01:23:12] Wow.

Alberto: [01:23:12] You know. And yeah these kids threw these newspapers and they had fun. And they were in the back seat laughing and mimicking and all kind of stuff. And I was impressed that I was able to help them make a little bit of pocket change, you know? And they told me they would buy a little thing with their pocket change. One would buy a bike with that pocket change they made, you know? They made it like a little mini weekly salary, you know. Lower than minimum wage but it was time for them to do, you know, something positive.

And they always—to this day if they're in the neighborhood they'll stop by and say, "Hi Mr. Al! How are you doing?" You know, these kids must be in their 50s and 60 already. I said, "Oh my goodness!" Nice, beautiful. Some became lawyers, you know, others became bankers and others businessman. It was nice. Parents, you know. Very good.

The one that I said across the street, he wasn't a newspaper flier, but he hung out with them. And, he’s always saying “Mr. Al” to me, you know? He's a supervisor in transit now. You know? Real nice.

Phillip: [01:24:28] Yeah wow. So these relationships you all formed here have lasted a lifetime.

Alberto: [01:24:32] Yes! And this happened in Brownsville, a negative community. There is a lot of positivity where you see a lot of negativity. And there is a lot of positivity in this negative neighborhood, Brownsville. I love it, I love it. I wouldn't change it for the world.

Phillip: [01:24:51] It's beautiful, you know it. I appreciate you sharing that with me. And I'll bother you with one more question, then I'll get out of your hair. But you said earlier that, when Carmelia first kind of agitated you, you didn't think of yourself as a leader. But after all these years in the community and with EBC, you think of yourself as a leader now?

Alberto: [01:25:11] No I just think of myself as a caring person. I care a lot. I'm not looking for cool roles or nothing like that. I did it for the good. I felt I did it for the good. It's funny, for my wife's mother, you know, she would come visit here and she would call me the mayor of this neighborhood. I said—. Cause she would see everybody saying hi to me and all that kind of stuff, or asking questions or asking for help. She'd go, "You're the mayor?" I said, "No no no, I'm nobody, I just—." I guess I care. That's all, I care.

And I get out there and I dare. Cause you need to dare to do things too cause, like I said, there were drug dealers here, and they saw us leaders in the community handing out fliers, talking to neighbors. And one time one of these drug dealers asked me, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm setting up a meeting. You want to come?" And he said, "No, no, no." You know, I just make it like, normal conversation. But I was shaking in my pants because I know he's a drug dealer and most drug dealers have guns and all that kind of stupid shit, you know? Stupid stuff.

Yeah. Am I a leader? Probably. Do I care about that term? No, I just care about what I could do and get done. You know? On a volunteer basis. I'm not out here to get paid or nothing like that. Just a volunteer.

Phillip: [01:26:48] From the heart, yeah.

Alberto: [01:26:49] From the heart, yeah.

Phillip: [01:26:51] Right. That's beautiful.

Alberto: [01:26:51] Yes. Yes, yes.

Phillip: [01:26:53] Is there anything we missed?

Alberto: [01:26:55] No, just that I upgraded my house fully. I'm turning my house green. I got solar panels. I got the split units for heating and air conditioning from Conair for free for the whole house.

Phillip: [01:27:08] Wow.

Alberto: [01:27:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm be—.

Phillip: [01:27:12] So they offered that to the neighbor or what?

Alberto: [01:27:16] —I'm benefiting from that. Okay, the split units, they offered it to neighborhoods. They didn't offer it to this neighborhood. If it wasn't for me now having friends in other neighborhoods where they offered that for free, I wouldn't have benefited. I actually got that from a Queens friend that was getting that service for free from Conair in that neighborhood. So I call that—the connection that they were told about, cause they didn't do it. And the guy said, "Yeah, we could do it. We only got three more weeks cause this program's gonna end." And I get it for free. Yeah.

Phillip: [01:27:54] Any other upgrades we should know about?

Alberto: [01:27:56] No I upgraded my whole house, its beautiful, I think. What do you think?

Phillip: [01:28:00] I think it's beautiful. Like I was saying earlier, it looks like a museum. This is what I hope my house will look like. Cause I like the knickknacks. Like, that's what I'm going to have. I'm gonna put knickknacks from all my travels on shelves all over the place.

Alberto: [01:28:11] Yeah, and I'm gonna even promote. Most of the furniture you see here that you like is from Ikea.

Phillip: [01:28:17] All right, all right.

Alberto: [01:28:18] All that Ikea.

Phillip: [01:28:19] We'll get the Ikea endorsement for this interview. [both laugh] Sponsorship. Yeah. Right, right.

Alberto: [01:28:25] Then my kitchen was a whole nother upgrade, and I like the way that came out.

Phillip: [01:28:29] That's beautiful, yeah.

Alberto: [01:28:30] Yeah I redid the whole basement, the flooring, you know. I only changed it once. So now this change is gonna be for another while until my son either sells it or stays here and upgrades it again, you know. Cause I don't know I'm waiting for him to give his heart to somebody and fall in love, you know, like I did. And go from there, you know?

Phillip: [01:28:58] Right. Absolutely.

Alberto: [01:28:59] But thank you. I hope we covered everything that'll help out.

Phillip: [01:29:07] Yeah, absolutely.

Alberto: [01:29:09] Or motivate other people to get out here and do better for this world we live in.

Phillip: [01:29:13] Absolutely, absolutely. I think we more than did that. So I appreciate your time so much.

Alberto: [01:29:18] Handshake! Alright

Phillip: [01:29:19] Thank you, sir.

Alberto: [01:29:19] Alright. Thank you, Phil.