Bob Humber. Still here. Still fighting. Still holding out hope.

“Two Friends and the fence between them” The Daily News

Juan Gonzalez @juangon68 Tuesday September 20, 198(?)8

Ira Dobrin had been desperate to leave the job for months. Too much work, so much misery on every bench, “so little recognition all for $18,000.

Ira shook hands with Robert Humber across the iron railing last Friday and said goodbye to Roosevelt Park, that long sliver of rundown trees and playgrounds that cuts through Manhattan’s lower East Side.

For the last two years Dobrin’s job has been to keep the park clean, which is something like being a point man for the rotting of urban America.

“We’re gonna miss ya, buddy,” says Humber, sprinkles of gray glimmering from the sides of his Afro, his Doberman pacing sentrylike at his side.

Humber is staying because of the kids, because he has no job to lose, and because each of us at some point has to take a stand or the weeds will strangle us all.

About 20 scraggly bodies are scattered nearby sleeping on benches or sipping alcohol out of brown paper bags.

“You wouldn’t believe the stink in this park some mornings from urine and feces, especially after a weekend,” says Humber, who has lived on the lower East Side for 30 years.

“Some mornings when I come to work every bench is filled with homeless,” says the tall Dobrin who sports a beard, wears a blue jean jacket and baseball cap, and has a Walkman draped around his neck.

They wanted me to throw the homeless out of the park,” he says with rebel’s contempt for his old supervisors, all the way up to Parks Commissioner Henry Stern. “Wake up a homeless man sleeping in a box and say, “You’ve got to move? Who knows what a person will do?

“They used to have 15 people working this park. I’ve been the only full-time maintenance man since [?], “ he says.

Dobrin lives in Bensonhurst, has a bachelor’s degree from Fordham and a wife and three kids to think about.

“Those steps used to be the biggest shooting gallery in the neighborhood,” Humber says, pointing to the old park house 20 feet away that has become his battleground. One Saturday last June, junkies killed one of their own in the park.

“The Mexican league was playing, 300 people were watching a game when the shooting started. Any one of those kids could have gotten killed,” says Humber, who used to work for the Children’s Aid Society.

“I just blew my stack that day. I told some of the fellows: We have to do something about these drugs.” Kids and old folks had stopped using the park. The dope fiends had claimed it.

Humber decided to take it back. Every afternoon he sits in the enclosed area near Stanton and Chrystie Street and asks the junkies to move. He called it Friends of Roosevelt Park.

Once he asked a man not to smoke crack on a bench. The guy pulled a gun. “I’m just a concerned person, “ Humber told him. The junkie left.

“We don’t walk around with clubs or guns. This is not a vigilante-type thing. We ask them in a nice way,” Humber says.

The kids have returned. Friday there were more than 50 on the basketball and baseball courts.

“Two of the prostitutes (on Chrystie St.) even brought us books for them to read, “ says Humber. He and the kids have built several brightly painted birdhouses.

“I knew most of their fathers. Some are dead now. I enjoy telling them about their dads and what we used to do in the old days,” he says. He’s posted anti-drug signs on all the trees and painted a big sign: “LET OUR CHILDREN GROW”.

Park bureaucrats say staples in he signs are dangerous to the trees, that birdhouses are illegal. They ordered Dobrin to remove the signs, which he refused to do.

Friday afternoon, while the kids played ball and the Doberman stood guard, the rebel and the warrior said goodbye.

Nearby tenants and long -time neighbors turned out to say ‘no thank you’ to Cafe Henrie’s request for a full liquor license. They listed a number of key reasons.

“Our long- time experience as a community has been that when a full liquor license is given, things change. I do not believe that our neighborhood needs more fully-licensed establishments with 7-day-a-week, 2AM closing hours.

• There are at least 3 OP licenses already on the Chrystie street side of the park, and their revelers can be heard late into the morning as they wait to gain entrance
• Happy Ending was a disaster, and Louie and Chan has similar noise issues from patrons gathered outside.
• In addition to the hotels, the number of businesses within 750’ of CH suggests that rampant proliferation of licenses in our community is not an exaggerated concern
• Every additional bar or OP business that opens has a significant impact on the quality of life of the residents who live nearby
• An over-arching concern is this: as one of the small streets located just west of the much-discussed over-saturated area, and just east of several new large hotels on Bowery and Chrystie – all of whom have (or will have) several OP licenses within them – we run the risk of being squeezed as the next area ripe for businesses that cater to transient visitors looking for pub-crawls and bar-hopping.

…This site does not have [a full liquor license] currently, and if approved it becomes such a space ever after.

– There are families with school-aged children who would thank you for this.

– There are seniors who like to go to bed early, and they will thank you, too. 

– There are workers who live the 9-5 grind who would appreciate being able to enjoy their quiet time at home.  

CH’s owner is internationally known as a nightclub developer, a graffiti artist, style and fashion maven. As he stated, to become this successful: “Everything I do comes from the freedom” he embraced as a grafitti artist: “if I want to do something, I do it. If I want to paint this rooftop…this train…or a place that is difficult to access..I’m going to do it…. and I’ve kept this attitude with everything I do…I want a night club, I’ll do it.” **

Andre wanted a coffee shop, and he got it.

We ask that he work with the community to make sure that we get what we want and need, too –  the peaceful enjoyment of our homes and neighborhood, and a continued successful coexistence with the café.”

These issues and…

• the venue is required by their lease to close at 12midnight
• the Pentecostal Church (which one of the attendees is a member of) is within 200 ft

For future reference:

Community Groups in Community Board 3: CB3 keeps a listing of all nearby community groups to help get the word out for venues requesting licensing. It helps…democracy. It means venues have easy access to reach out beyond the, at times, insular world of their own clientele. It keeps us communicating openly and honestly as neighbors.

BoweyBoogie covered the preliminary issues here. (Thank you BoweryBoogie)

Sad day our community.

NYT: “Another New York Diner Turns Off the Grill, a Victim of Rising Rents”

“John Vasilopoulos and Nick Tragaras stood before an assembly line of egg sandwiches. Mr. Tragaras slid the eggs and bacon from the griddle onto the buns as Mr. Vasilopoulos followed to wrap and stack.

It was a familiar rhythm for the owners of Cup & Saucer, a diner on the eastern edge of Manhattan’s Chinatown. But on Monday afternoon, after more than 70 years, the clink of metal spatulas flipping eggs and bacon will quiet for the last time as Cup & Saucer closes its doors.

“We really care about every customer who comes in; we get involved with them,” Mr. Vasilopoulos…..

….The owners plan to take the summer off to regroup and possibly look for another space.

“We have to do something,” Mr. Vasilopoulos said.”

We hope so!

Lots of hard working gardeners today: Hideyo, Dan, Eddie, Lanza, Kevin and others!

Supervision supplied by Head Gardener’s Kate Fitzgerald and Bob Humber.

Deacon Hopper stopped by looking very fit!

Plus a cardinal tweeting up a storm…

From “Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution

On Homelessness:

“We humans are so constituted that we need a sense of our own social significance. Nothing can give us more pleasure than the sense that we are wanted and useful. Conversely, nothing is more productive of despair than a sense that we are useless and unwanted.” Dr. M Scott Peck, People of the Lie

“I think people usually use the term ‘homelessness’ without ever really being able to understand what it means… Not to be flippant, homelessness actually means sofalessness, cookerlessness, showerlessness…and, worst of all, bedlessness…

The word ‘homeless’ seems to present the condition as a single lack, but homelessness is actually many individual deficiencies combined. The worst of them are emotional: but to mention the physical challenges first: the single worst bodily aspect of homelessness is exhaustion. It is caused by several different factors including sleep-deprivation, hunger, and a constant need to remain on the move…

..When I became homeless, the first shock to me was the constant ceaseless need to remain in transit, and finding somewhere to simply be was a far bigger problem than I could have previously imagined. Nowhere you go are you left alone. Nowhere can you expect that luxury, because of course, all the private places of the world are closed to you and all the public places offer no privacy. Many of them do not even grant you admittance

…nowhere that offers dryness, safety, cleanliness, warmth and comfort. A park bench may be dry, if it is not raining, and it may be clean, if you are lucky, but it is not safe, warm or comfortable…

…the real and deepest damage of homelessness: the loneliness…

…It’s the experience of being utterly unwanted, of your very presence being an undesirable commodity in all places and all situations. Wherever you are, as a homeless person, you are unwelcome. When a person is homeless, their sense of social significance is reduced to zero. It doesn’t exist. Their sense of themselves is of being worthless and unwanted; a social pariah, an exile, an outsider whose very body is an unwanted intrusion they must carry with them wherever they go. They are unwanted in the most literal sense of the term. They are redundancy embodied. I felt these feelings in homelessness. All homeless people do. It’s unavoidable…

[Homelessness] is joylessness, and for many, hopelessness also.

In homelessness, you are not invisible to people, but rather not worth looking at.

One of the strangest things about my experience with homelessness, and probably the one of those most worth recording, is the feelings I remember of my very first time on the street. There was the feeling of an irresistible and seductive pleasure to destitution in disguise, but it was a fragile creature and it perished like a little bird in the depths of an unendurable winter. I had morphed destitution into freedom in my own mind, but the ruse didn’t last long.”

Tweeted by Rob Watson:

Federal Budget & America’s Recycling Infrastructure

“the American Recycling infrastructure… provides three-quarters of a million jobs and tens of billions of dollars in economic activity…”

Written Bob Gedert, President, National Recycling Coalition; Senior Recycling Consultant, RRS; SWEEP Steering Committee Member

“..The President’s proposed fiscal 2018 budget, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) … budget allocation is proposed to be cut by one third [eliminate] over 50 programs and 3,200 jobs. …including the Sustainable Materials Management program and the Waste Reduction Model. [Reducing] ..critical support of recycling and negatively impact the American recycling industry.

…in order to have any chance of reaching for Zero Waste, our country requires an upgraded recycling infrastructure….

..Instead of shipping nearly half of all recovered recyclables to overseas markets, a refreshed recycling infrastructure will support new American end markets…

Investing in American recycling infrastructure will also lower impacts on climate change. The energy required to make new products from recovered material is a fraction of that to create them from virgin materials and tighter, closed loop systems lower transportation impacts.

Contact your local Congressional Representative: ask for support of the US EPA budget, as well as infrastructure support for the American recycling system…”

We were informed by a neighbor of this hearing (not by the tavern itself – though we are listed with CB3 as a local community organization and this establishment is on the park):

Item #7.    Cafe Henrie (Downtown Cafe LLC), 110 Forsyth St (aka 114 Forsyth St) (upgrade to op)

View the applicants questionnaire answers here. Application below.

op means full liquor license – unlike a beer and wine license.

SLA & DCA Licensing Committee: Meets:
Monday, July 17 at 6:30pm — Public Hotel – 215 Chrystie Street (btwn Houston & Stanton Sts)

Generally we oppose additional liquor licenses surrounding the Park especially locations that have never been licensed before (the license stays even if the bar fails).

• Our Park is already well endowed with op licenses. New hotels with lots of OP licenses. (Around the corner on Broome is the former Happy Ending – which was anything but – for this neighborhood). Took a long time and many sleepless nights to remove them.
• Liquor licensed establishments tend to drive other small businesses out – landlords often prefer the more lucrative alcohol establishments to a bodega, a shoe repair, tailor or barber. Businesses that serve our neighborhood.
• This one is 200 feet from a Church (see 200 foot rule below)
• We have a songbird sanctuary across from this site.
• We have 7 high schools, one Middle School and one Pre-School on Forsyth Street that line this park.
• We have a burgeoning homeless population that is often heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol.
• There is no ‘public benefit’ that offsets the difficulties these op licenses bring to the majority of the neighborhood.

We have supported licenses when their main function is not to get people drunk. When the entity offers a public benefit as their key mission (like Dixon Place with the arts) or when stipulations are all we can hope for to curb excesses.

No matter what, new licenses mean the public must become the watchdogs of bars and clubs. We think we have better things to do with our time.

Proud to be in such good company on this award! Thank you Design Trust for Public Space!

– Stanton Building Task Force (University Settlement, Green Map System and the Sara Roosevelt Park Coalition)

We were informed by a neighbor of this hearing (not by the tavern itself – though we are listed with CB3 as a local community organization and this establishment is on the park):

Item #7.    Cafe Henrie (Downtown Cafe LLC), 110 Forsyth St (aka 114 Forsyth St) (upgrade to op)

View the applicants questionnaire answers here. Application below.

op means full liquor license – unlike a beer and wine license.

SLA & DCA Licensing Committee: Meets:
Monday, July 17 at 6:30pm — Public Hotel – 215 Chrystie Street (btwn Houston & Stanton Sts)

Generally we oppose additional liquor licenses surrounding the Park especially locations that have never been licensed before (the license stays even if the bar fails).

Some local “good news”

Our Free Breakfast Lunch for Children Food Truck is Back! Invigorating the space near the children’s playground at Rivington Street with generosity and welcome and a terrific staff. Menu.

Flyers below.