St. Michael's

EDUCATION/SUNSET PARK
Nicole Pesce
3/2/05


A 10-year-old girl with long brown hair and bangs that fell just above her eyes stood demurely before rows of packed pews at St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Wearing a long pink dress with a dark fur collar, the petite child could hardly be seen standing before the pulpit in the sanctuary. Those sitting in the scratched wooden pews arched their necks, or shifted to one side to the other to see the tiny figure at the front of the room.

When she opened her mouth and began to sing, however, many in attendance started in pleasant surprise. The sure and confident voice that surged out of Alessandra Guercio’s mouth was that of a grown woman.

“I believe the children are our future / teach them well and let them lead the way / show them all the beauty they possess inside,” she sang.

Many assembled in the drowsy winter sunlight that filtered through the stained green and purple glass windows nodded their heads. Performed previously by Whitney Houston, “The Greatest Love of All” had a message that many in the audience could identify with. “I decided long ago never to walk under anyone’s shadow / if I fail, if I succeed, at least I’ll live as I believe.”

Alessandra opened for Anthony Kearns, one of “The Irish Tenors,” who sang at St. Michael’s Church on Sunday to raise money to save St. Michael’s Catholic School from closing. St. Michael’s at 4222 4th Ave. is in danger of having its doors closed permanently after an announcement last month by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn.

The diocese announced that it will close 26 schools in Brooklyn and Queens this June because of increased operating costs, declining enrollment, and a shift in religious demographics.

What has been called the biggest round of Catholic elementary and middle school closings in the city’s history was announced on Ash Wednesday, one of the holiest days on the Catholic calendar.

More than 4,100 children will be relocated and approximately 250 teachers will have to find new jobs, as reported in The New York Post. The superintendent of Catholic School Services, Dr. Thomas Chadzutko, Ed.D., could not be reached for comment.

In a policy established two years ago, the Diocesan education officials designated kindergarten- to eighth-grade schools with 220 students or fewer as “at-risk” of surviving only three to five years.

Msgr. Michael Hardiman, the Vicar of Education for the Brooklyn Diocese, estimated publicly that enrollment has decreased from 220,000 in 1967 to 61,000 today. He could not be reached for comment.

Although there is a prominent Catholic community in Sunset Park, enrollment numbers at St. Michael’s have decreased over the last five years by 42 students. Currently, the school has 142 students in kindergarten through eighth grades, according to Father Patrick Burns, the pastor. Brother William Kemmerer, the principal, declined to comment.

The school is one of four buildings that comprise the church of St. Michael’s on Fourth Avenue, spanning the area between 42nd and 43rd streets. The spire of the church with its domed roof can be seen for miles. Strollers line the sidewalk in front of a third building on the property which is designated as a day care center. Stained glass windows and signs asking, “Open your doors to Christ” in both English and Spanish can be seen on the sides of the elegant building dating back to 1802.

After a recent snowfall, the playground behind the school stood desolate, its bright yellow slides and green monkey bars noticeably still covered with a delicate layer of snow unmarked by children. The school doors stood closed, and even the mural of St. Michael the Archangel painted on the brick wall seemed resigned to its fate; he stood in a victorious pose with one foot planted proudly on a rock, yet his chin and eyes were downcast.

A lack of financial resources is blamed for St. Michael’s decline. The $3,000 tuition is out of reach for most of Sunset Park’s working-class families. According to 2000 Census data, 28 percent of Sunset Park residents earn less than $15,000 a year. A significant amount of the population falls below the poverty level, with many holding manufacturing or food service jobs.
St. Michael’s aided needy families by letting 70 percent of its students in without asking for the full tuition, which further hurt its finances, Burns said in an interview with the Home Reporter. There has not been enough money coming in from tuition to pay for teachers’ salaries as lay men and women have substituted the nuns who formerly taught for free. The diocese gave $132,000 to the school last year to keep it afloat.

Although the 26 schools will close no matter what, Hardiman has said, the diocese has agreed to listen to proposals to open new schools in their place if parents can present a solid three- to five-year financial plan. Many parents, including those at St. Michael’s, have already organized fund-raisers.

In order for the school to remain open in September 2005, it must raise $200,000 this year. Burns said that they are asking for a 30-day extension in order to come up with the money in time.

The Irish Tenor concert was the first fund-raiser scheduled to meet this task. Donations of $30 reserved a seat at the event, which also presented awards to Sister Mary Paul Janchill, the founder of the Center for Family Life, and a posthumous award to Fireman James C. Riches of Ladder 114, who died Sept. 11, 2001.

Mike Sheehan, a senior correspondent at Fox Five News, served as master of ceremonies.

In between introducing the various acts, including young Guercio, Anthony Santelmo, Jr., and Anthony Kearns, Sheehan spoke passionately on behalf of Catholic education and the preservation of St. Michael’s school.

“So many fat cats were benefited by a Catholic education,” he said. “It’s time for them to give back.”

Two sisters dressed in Irish step-dancing costumes - a green, almost matronly top with gold piping over matching green kilts - stood before the audience prior to the tenor’s performance. As a recording of Irish flutes and pipes played cheerfully, the sisters began hopping up and down before the audience. Their chins were up and their long dark hair cascaded over their shoulders while they held their upper bodies rigid, their arms stiffly at their side. Below their skirts, however, their legs kicked and skipped furiously.

Nicole Logozo, the elder sister, had just graduated St. Michael’s last year. Danielle, the younger, is still a student there.

“I’ve never seen the church so full before!” the elder Logozo exclaimed after their performance. “I think this helped.”

“It was just great,” said the younger Logozo. “We’re so sad about the school closing. We thought [dancing] would help.”

“Whatever we could do to help,” said her sister.

Their aunt, Noreen Harte, looked on. Her family was devastated when they heard the news of the school’s imminent closure.

“It’s just so upsetting,” she said, shaking her blonde head and rubbing her eyes. “My son is in first grade here. My mother and father went here, and my six brothers and sisters and I all went here. For it to close … ” she trailed off.

If St. Michael’s does shut down, students will matriculate nearby at St. Agatha’s and Our Lady of Perpetual Help schools.

Although the number of tickets sold and the total monetary amount raised were not available as of press time Tuesday evening, a 50-50 raffle, where the winner takes half of the pot for his or herself, produced $1,845 for the school. The raffle winner, an unidentified elderly woman, then gave half of her winnings back to the school, drawing thunderous applause and rounding out the total raffle donation to approximately $2,768.

Burns made a few announcements at the concert’s end. A private donor had pledged $25,000 to the school. The cheers and whistles from the audience reverberated throughout the church.
The school has also taken the unexpected step of submitting a video tape to the ABC television show “Extreme Make-Over,” in the hopes that St. Michael’s can receive a miracle renovation that the institution cannot afford to give itself. The added publicity could also attract increased money and support which could potentially save the school.

“They recently did a farm,” Burns said, “so why not a school?”

As he stood before the members of St. Michael’s and their families, Burns was clearly inspired by the outpouring of support from the community and the high turnout for the school’s first fund-raiser.

--End--

Brooklyn's Chinatown

CULTURE/SUNSET PARK
Nicole Pesce
3/30/05


A steady flow of automobile traffic weaves around delivery trucks paused on Eighth Avenue in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. As the deliverymen unload crates of oranges, bamboo leaves and string beans, the pungent smell of fish wafts from myriads of stands displaying the glistening bodies of trout and butterfish; the long and spindly legs of crabs thrusting out from ice chips in sodden cardboard boxes; and rows of shellfish for 99 cents a pound. Crimson and gold paper lanterns twirl in the breeze from multicolored awnings. The plastic shopping bags clutched in shoppers’ hands are a blinding saffron-orange; the Chinese color of good luck. The sidewalks, still damp from the morning’s rain, dry slowly in the afternoon sun, drawing women with strollers and clusters of children toward the clutter of shops and vendors lining the 10 blocks that comprise one of the fastest growing Chinese communities in the city.

Census data from 1980 to 2000 show that the greatest change in the make-up of Sunset Park has been the influx of Asians, mostly Chinese, whose population has doubled to 26,493 people in just 10 years. New York City absorbs 14.2 percent of all immigrants who arrive in the United States, according to the Department of City Planning, and Brooklyn absorbs 31.6 percent of those settlers; more than any other borough. Sunset Park received the third largest number of Chinese immigrants of any city neighborhood, after the Manhattan Chinatown and Flushing, Queens. Chinese is spoken at home by 20,247 people, compared to the 21,255 who reported speaking English in a survey taken by Sunset Park’s Center for Family Life in 2002.

Sunset Park stretches from 17th Street in the north, where it is separated from affluent Park Slope by the Green Wood Cemetery, to 64th Street in the south, where the Gowanus Expressway divides it from Bay Ridge. It is a diverse working class community with commercial areas along the Hudson Bay in the west and residential areas, including small apartment buildings and picturesque brownstones, along its eastern boundary on Eighth Avenue.

The waterfront neighborhood has historically been an entry point for immigrants looking for work. The Scandinavians arrived first in the mid-19th century, followed by the Irish, Italians, Poles and Greeks. The area declined in the 50s as containerized shipping and railway links moved industry away to New Jersey. Eighth Avenue became decrepit and desolate. Squatters resided in the empty stores. Property values declined.

Then the new immigrant wave of Latin Americans and Chinese broke shore in the 1980s and 90s and revitalized the neighborhood. Other Chinatowns besides lower Manhattan’s have sprung, including one in Flushing, Queens, and a second fledgling Brooklyn Chinese enclave in Sheepshead Bay. Sunset Park’s Chinatown is thriving. The Chinese population in Sunset Park now makes up 22 percent of the overall population of 112,866, mostly hailing from the Guangzhao and Fujian Provinces of China. Property values soared with the influx of immigrants and the late 90s real estate boom; one- and two-family houses jumped from $160,000 in 1998 to $275,000 in 2001.

Eighth Avenue from 50th to 60th Streets became the Chinese community’s central commercial district and cultural hub in Sunset Park. They were drawn by the cheap rents of the rundown community.

This Brooklyn Chinatown flourishes, according to Betty Lee, an office assistant
and citizenship teacher at the Brooklyn Chinese American Association, because "it is more comfortable here." Transportation is much less congested, parking is better, and the N train and a local van service connects residents directly to Manhattan’s Chinatown to work, shop, and visit friends and relatives.

The Chinese community is largely unknown outside its borough. "There are not too many tourists," she said. "Local people shop here. There is a lot of food shopping, and it’s not too expensive." If a Fujian immigrant craves a brace of chicken’s feet, or the pastry delicacy dim sum, "Brooklyn and local residents don’t have to go into the city," Lee said. "They can shop right here."

On the avenue sidewalks, hoary mushrooms and gnarled tubers are packed in cardboard boxes beside clusters of dried nuts and cartons of eggs. A woman in jeans and a blue apron beats the dust from a black rubber mat outside the Fung Sing Noodle Shop, where the blackened head of a roasted pig leers through the glass window. Inside the Hong Kong Supermarket of Brooklyn, fashioned after American giants such as Pathmark, Waldbaums, and Winn Dixie, Chinese brands of cleaning supplies are found beside the familiar names of Tide and Crest. Blue plastic buckets containing live frogs and snakes are sold with lobster and barracuda in the seafood section, while the durian, a spiny fruit resembling a pineapple, is found among the produce.

"Over 15 years ago, Eighth Avenue stores were mostly empty," Lee said. This attracted immigrants, who converted the empty shops into small businesses and residences. Now it is a commercial strip speckled with apartments stacked atop 99 cent shops and banks, or peeking between bookstores and supermarkets. "Most of the buildings are now all filled," Lee said.

The growth of this vibrant community has not come without challenges. The language barrier is a particularly tough nut to crack. "People have difficulty especially with the language," Lee said.

The Brooklyn Chinese American Association has begun offering English and citizenship classes, but immersion into American society takes time, and it is difficult for the elder immigrants to learn.

"It takes time for them to learn the American culture," Lee said, "even the way people act and speak."

The 10-block stretch of stores and businesses bear few English signs and posters. "We buy used cell phone" says one poster board propped against a Chinese pharmacy. Other signs and posters have English nouns such as "computers" or "T-Mobile" thrust uncomfortably alongside Chinese characters printed in dignified vertical lines of red and black print. English words sound foreign among the din of Chinese dialects heard on the street. "I have to call my grandma," says a teenage boy with spiky hair dyed a sunburst yellow, passing a woman in acid-washed jeans and a purple parka talking animatedly in Chinese to a friend while poking the dead bulbous eye of a trout at a nearby fish stand.

The Jade Plaza Seafood Restaurant staff prepare for the approaching dinner rush on Tuesday afternoon. Dressed impeccably in white collared shirts, black vests and black slacks, they vacuum the maroon rug and straighten the round tables decked with crisp white linen and straight-back chairs that match the shade of the rug. The night manager, who will give only his first name, Eric, directs his waitstaff and answers the phone while greeting early customers arriving for tea at the fanciest restaurant of the Sunset Park Chinese enclave.

He explains that many of the area restaurants are low-key. "This is middle class area," he says. "People work hard and don’t have the money to go out to fancy places."

The Jade keeps its prices modest to attract local families. "We are a franchise," Eric said. "We have another restaurant in Queens. There, we charge $18 or $20 for crab. Here, only $8 or $10."

For $10 a person, a family can sit down for tea and three courses at the Jade; a more socially and nutritionally fulfilling experience than piling into a McDonalds a couple of blocks over.

"Restaurants are a hard business," he said. Many on the Eighth Avenue strip have failed even as other Chinese businesses have thrived. The competition is fierce, and families can only eat out so often. Take out places spring up to meet the demand of deliverymen and workers on their lunch break, but otherwise, the sidewalk produce stands fare much better. The Jade has succeeded the last six years because it is the one Chinese restaurant in the area fancy enough to hold wedding receptions and baby showers.

"Even when people don’t have money, people still have to eat," he said. "And they have to go out sometimes, even just once a week."

--End--

****NOTE this is not one of my better stories; I'm well aware there's no real focus, and it ends rather abruptly (although I enjoyed writing a lot of the descriptions, and I think they came out well.) I got a late start on this one and punched out the research, reporting, and writing in probably two days. It scored well with Professor Blood, luckily, but I'm looking to do a much better job on the upcoming sports story.