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There should also be a sports reference rundown sometime tomorrow later in the day/at night. A couple of examples of what you may see, like this ending from the Victor/Jamestown Class AA regional matchup: https://www.facebook.com/wnyathletic...09514137733774 (ironically will play against Elmont next in the state Class AA Final Four)
Or this interview with the young ladies basketball team from Aquinas Institute in Rochester after their Class A regional game with Lewiston-Porter: https://www.facebook.com/primetime.b...18268803820414
You can also find more community based radio shows in the quoted post above with previous posts in the thread with radio stations/media outlets from across Upstate NY, including shows on tomorrow.
Also, here are some related state NYSPHSAA championships that are coming up…
On the Women’s side Our Lady of Lourdes(Poughkeepsie)/Liverpool(Onondaga County)(10 am) and Hammond(St. Lawrence County)/Northville(Fulton County)(11:45 am): https://www.turbostatsevents.com/sit...girls2024/home (both are in Troy at HVCC)
On the Men’s side, Green Tech(Albany)/Bay Shore(Suffolk County)(1 pm) and North Warren(Chestertown, Warren County)/Sackets Harbor(Jefferson County)(3 pm): https://nysphsaa.org/tournaments/?id=3
^An interview with the young man from Syracuse's Christian Brothers Academy that verballed to play Football/attend Syracuse University: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNOEegUJPK0
"Their bones are being stored in a locked storage room on a college campus in New Paltz.
Each person, their remains unidentified, is wrapped in acid-free tissue paper, sealed in a labeled Ziploc bag and placed in a cardboard box, according to the professor who shepherded the team of researchers.
In 2008, the graves of more than 100 men, women and children, buried over two centuries ago, were unearthed from an African American burial ground discovered under what is now the city of Newburgh's courthouse. The remains of 99 of them were sent to the State University of New York at New Paltz to be studied and preserved.
The hope was that one day the city would reinter the individuals once a location was chosen and a memorial built. Fifteen years have passed, and the remains haven't been moved.
"We've had several city managers since 2008," said Gabrielle Burton-Hill, a member of the Newburgh Colored Burial Ground Committee. "As soon as the committee would take two steps forward, we get a new city manager, and then it'd be put on the back-burner again."
Two years ago, the city council passed a resolution to create a memorial at Downing Park.
The city, led by its first Black mayor and administered by a Black city manager, is moving the project forward now. Consultants are working on finalizing the design for the memorial, even though the park, where the bones will be reinterred, is asking for more time for public input.
"As the stewards and advocates for Downing Park, the Conservancy is asking that there be an official public process to discuss the memorial," stated Downing Park Conservancy Board Members, which maintains the park where the memorial is to be built. The conservancy was originally called the Downing Park Planning Committee.
The city's burial site isn't the only one in the Hudson Valley making its way through a slow, and sometimes haphazard, process to document, preserve and memorialize the hidden history of Black people in New York. The process is marred by land ownership issues, fundraising, planning challenges, and for some, having to navigate a system made up of mostly white decision-makers.
"If you're practicing, where you know, you're not saying that this is racism, but there is that invisible 'whites only,' or 'coloreds only' signs, that's what I fight against," said Burton-Hill, who has been a Downing Park committee member since 2018.
Each reclaimed Black burial site adds 'piece of the puzzle'
The locations of many of the cemeteries in the Hudson Valley have been known for decades. But the push to preserve these spaces and the remains buried there took on new urgency after the death of George Floyd, which threw a spotlight on police brutality, racism, social justice and how Black history is taught.
In 2022, Congress passed legislation authorizing the National Parks Service to create a program meant to offer $3 million in grants for the identification, preservation, and documentation of these sites.
New York recently adopted the Unmarked Burial Site Protection Act, which provides a process for how remains and artifacts are treated when discovered on private land. In Dutchess County, four of the 11 Black burial sites are on privately owned property, and two sites are described as "disintegrated" or "no longer identifiable," according to the Dutchess County Historical Society.
One of those two sites is in the city of Poughkeepsie, which, like Newburgh, has a high concentration of the area's Black and minority population. Caskets were discovered at 204 Main St. in the 1800s, according to the historical society's website. The property has since been developed into apartments and small businesses.
In the town of Montgomery, residents have been working to create a memorial at an African-American cemetery that was registered with the National Park Service in 1996.
A warehouse overlooks the wooded parcel of land. Trucks use it as a turnaround. Heavy tire treads mark the entrance of the makeshift memorial.
White pipes, barely visible from afar, mark the location of the remains of at least 171 enslaved and formerly enslaved people buried on less than one acre of land. The group leading the effort, Sacred Place of My Ancestors (SPOMA), says it has been working to raise funds and identify property owners adjacent to the cemetery.
In Kingston, Harambee, the group working on memorializing the Pine Street African Burial Ground, expects their process to take about another decade — they're committed to also identifying and preserving the remains. The cemetery where enslaved people were buried was rediscovered in 1990. Harambee took over the deed, with help from the Kingston Land Trust, in 2021 when the property was going through foreclosure.
"Each individual burying ground has a connection to the next one. Newburgh helps us to confirm the research from Montgomery, New Paltz, (and) Kingston," said Michael VanDervoort, who has researched archived records to piece together history for the Newburgh and Montgomery projects. "Each one a piece of the puzzle when fully assembled helps to clarify the picture of what really happened here in the Hudson Valley."
Newburgh remains may never be identified
VanDervoort collected the names of 66 people presumed to have sought relief from the Newburgh Alms House from 1853 to 1858. Of those, nine asked for burial relief.
The list is a snapshot of the population that might have been served by the cemetery found under the city's courthouse.
Next to each name is a note.
Application for burial, employed as waiter Orange Hotel many years.
Brother made application for funeral expenses, toes frozen & consumption.
Application for coffin & burial, never had assistance from (town).
Burton-Hill said the decision not to conduct DNA testing, which may have helped identify the individuals and their descendants, was made because of the cost and the fragility of the remains.
They were discovered in 2008 when the city moved to turn an old school building into a courthouse. The Black cemetery was known to the city prior to the school building's construction, having been marked on a map from 1869 and referred to in other archived documents.
More than 100 graves were discovered, and 99 remains could be recovered. The condition of the skeletal remains was already disturbed due to previous construction. Some of the graves were severed by utility lines, bones protruded from the walls, and the remains lay inches from a sidewalk.
Burton-Hill visited the anthropology department at SUNY New Paltz, three years ago, where the remains are kept. The city had requested the research services of the school, where anthropology professor Kenneth Nystrom and his team documented, studied and preserved the remains.
"Walking into that room, I felt a sense of responsibility and also a sense of disappointment that it had taken that long for me to get there," Burton-Hill said.
However, there is one name that Burton-Hill hopes will adorn the project at a later phase. Effie Smith was an enslaved Black woman who worked at the William Smith Farm, which was then turned into Downing Park. Burton-Hill would like to see the pergola, now neglected and covered with graffiti, turned into an event space or even a museum under Smith's name.
"There is no Black representation, there is no solid Black history in the city of Newburgh, and we've been here forever and now is the time for us (as) a society to right some of those wrongs," she said.
'This has been a long, long haul'
Burton-Hill, a restorative justice practitioner and community organizer, joined the Newburgh Colored Burial Ground Committee in 2018, about a decade after its creation. The committee is made up of four people of diverse backgrounds, some who are original members.
"Lucky for me, I happened to come along when we had a very stable, minority-led city council and mayor, so it was easy for me to get things done," she said. Since then, the committee has done its due diligence in making sure the community was heard and the process inclusive, according to Burton-Hill.
During a council meeting in February, Studio HIP Landscape Architecture gave the council an update on the design. The circular style included an education area and a semi-circle contemplation area, an entry plaza and ceremony area.
The next steps are a final design presentation and putting the project construction out to bid. The estimated cost, up to this point, nears $100,000, with up to $82,862 allocated for design services and $15,000 toward the preservation and documentation of the remains. The city would not provide the Journal with how much funding it has allocated to this project, but the hope is to have it completed by 2025.
"This has been a long, long haul," said City of Newburgh Mayor Torrance Harvey at the February council meeting.
Both Downing Park Conservancy and Olmsted Network — the national organization to protect parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and the Olmsted firm, including New York City's Central Park and Downing Park — have asked the city to allow for more public input into the decision-making, specifically the location decision.
"The design team's plan specifically states that a public process will be held before moving forward with approving a design, however, this has not happened and there are no plans for public participation in the timeline before approval," said Downing Park Conservancy in a statement.
Olmsted Network President Anne Neal Petri expressed concern about the cost of maintaining the memorial and also the need for DNA testing to identify possible descendants in a letter to the city. The organization is not opposed to having the memorial in the park. Petri suggested other locations in the park that would have less impact on the landscape.
"The city has held multiple public input sessions and received public comment throughout," said Mike Neppl, chief of staff for the city of Newburgh. "It is time to move the process forward and bring respectful closure to our community with one of the most historically significant and beautiful memorials in the Hudson Valley."
Neppl said the steering committee included a representative from Downing Park Planning Committee, though the conservancy contends it has been part of the process "to choose the spot for the memorial or issue the RFP for the design."
"The city created this harm, and the city is going to pay for this harm," Burton-Hill said. "We're not taking any shortcuts."
It has been 22 years since the pastor of St. John Baptist Church first called for a massive nonprofit and private-sector investment on the East Side.
Dubbed the Buffalo Black Billion since 2019 – borrowing from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion – the initiative is designed to create new housing, jobs and business opportunities in the lower-income and mostly minority neighborhoods east of Main Street and just beyond the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.
The ambitious billion-dollar plan has multiple components, large and small – such as a nine-story building on the church parking lot, or multiple four-story buildings within the Fruit Belt neighborhood dominated by single-family homes and vacant lots.
But despite lofty proclamations and promises about “two churches, two campuses, one village,” Chapman has little to show for his efforts. Aside from renovations and two townhouse clusters, most elements of his plan are still just concepts, as they’ve been for at least 15 years.
Moreover, the efforts keep running into roadblocks and resistance, including from some Fruit Belt residents who don’t want him there, and now from the medical campus over a specific part of his plan.
“There’s a long history of opposition from the Fruit Belt against Chapman,” said Veronica Hemphill-Nichols, founder and head of the Fruit Belt/McCarley Gardens Housing Task Force. “He’s a bully, and he’s trying to steamroll the Fruit Belt.”
Even the city has sometimes put up barriers, Chapman complained, such as a moratorium on sales of city-owned lots in the Fruit Belt, which the pastor needs as part of his plan.
“It’s been a nightmare just to try to do something good,” he said.
Calling out critics
Now, Chapman is voicing those frustrations publicly.
Chapman has been pursuing the redevelopment of the church-owned McCarley Gardens for more than a decade. That is after he initially worked with the University at Buffalo to potentially sell the complex to UB as the possible site for the new medical school, now on Main Street.
After first teaming with local developer Nick Sinatra, Chapman and the church’s community development arm eventually partnered with BFC Partners from New York. Together, they finished a $57 million renovation of the McCarley buildings and 149 apartments – although not without a lot of initial criticism from residents.
“The completion of McCarley Gardens allows the Buffalo Black Billion LLC to move forward on its projected economic development initiatives in the Fruit Belt and East Buffalo community,” said Buffalo Black Billion spokesman Michael Norwood Sr.
BFC and St. John are now pursuing a much bigger second phase of work – construction of a six-story building at 172 Goodell St., in the northwest corner stub of the McCarley property. The $160 million project would feature 220 affordable and workforce-housing units above 20,762 square feet of retail space. That would more than double the size of McCarley.
But that second project has been vehemently opposed by the neighboring medical campus – even though it would provide much needed housing for some medical campus workers, as well. Campus officials say they back the concept, but the layout would hurt them by cutting into their ability to develop their adjacent parking lot in the future. Their third and latest lawsuit is still pending.
“We 100% support the building of affordable housing there. We have zero issue with that,” Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus CEO Matt Enstice said. “Our real issue is with the site plan. And while there’s been traffic studies, we have issues with that.”
With no resolution in sight, Chapman and his team are calling out the medical campus leaders, demanding in print and radio ads that they stop obstructing a “much needed” affordable housing project that has been repeatedly approved. They even invited campus officials to speak at a community forum on March 8 to explain their position to the community.
“The need for affordable housing has been supported by our local and state elected officials,” Chapman said. “This project is important to our Fruit Belt community.”
No one from the medical campus attended, but Enstice insisted they want to meet.
“We’ve been willing to sit down and talk about this and come to a resolution,” Enstice said. “We support this low-income housing development. We believe there are options to build this, and we’re more than happy to have conversations to figure out how we can do that.”
What is the Buffalo Black Billion?
The battle over McCarley is just part of Chapman’s struggle to gain traction with the Buffalo Black Billion, since the Western New York native became pastor of St. John in 2002 and then Gethsemane Missionary Baptist Church in 2017. That earned him the religious title of “overseer” of the two churches, and more than 20 subsidiaries.
“We’re the largest developing agency in East Buffalo,” Chapman said. “There’s not another African American developer that has been doing it longer or has done the projects that we’ve done.”
Chapman has focused on economic and community development, working through the St. John Fruit Belt Community Development Corp. and entities such as WECGOD Inc. He is targeting a 43-block area of the Fruit Belt, where the churches are centered, with more than $60 million in real estate holdings.
But that is also a highly sensitive area, not only because of its history, but also its predominantly minority population, where residents have seen disinvestment and decay for decades, and where they often feel resentment and bitterness toward development. That has left them skeptical and resistant to changes imposed by others – even by one who claims to have their interests at heart.
“He’s trying to force people out of their homes so he can take the land,” Hemphill-Nichols said. “There is such a sour taste in the mouths of the residents in regards to Chapman. Whatever he does, they don’t want it.”
Chapman rejects those criticisms as “just a few folks.”
“We have been in the Fruit Belt since 1965. if you take what we have out of the Fruit Belt, it’d be a ghost town,” he said. “What are they going to do? We’re the only ones building. We’re financially helping all of them.”
And he insists he has extensive support in the neighborhood, where his wife was born and raised.
“But if they were the majority, what we’re doing is with our own property,” he said. “It’s not about supporting me. We don’t manage by consensus. I don’t need their vote“
Meanwhile, he has made some progress. Besides the first part of McCarley, Chapman and his team completed a pair of townhome projects a decade ago with 28 and 49 units, respectively, at a cost of $22.5 million, and they are 90% done with renovations to the 150-unit St. John Towers, the senior citizens complex adjacent to the main church. That is a $30 million private project through Capital Realty Group of Spring Valley.
They have also spent $1.8 million to renovate and restore Gethsemane, which is the oldest landmark in the Fruit Belt, dating back to 1874. Then came the McCarley renovations.
The second phase of McCarley was supposed to be next.
Revamping McCarley Gardens
Plans call for a 265,680-square-foot building at the far corner where Ellicott, Virginia and North Oak streets converge. The new building would include 132 one- and 88 two-bedroom apartments aimed at households earning 40%, 60% or 80% of the area median income. And it would include parking.
But medical campus officials object to the developers’ plan to straighten and reroute North Oak Street so they can gain a better layout for the building. They claim that would create traffic and parking problems for the medical and research institutions, and would reduce the size of a linear park along Ellicott Street that campus employees and patrons use.
“They made a ridiculous claim that this would disturb the community,” Chapman said.
More importantly, though, they also say it would make the adjacent 4.5-acre parking lot along Ellicott Street – which is bounded by North Oak on two sides – less attractive for redevelopment or future sale, particularly in the northern portion next to the proposed McCarley expansion. Instead of having a road between the two properties, any setback between new buildings would be reduced to as little as eight feet, Enstice said.
Besides opposing the project at the Zoning Board of Appeals and Planning Board, the campus has now sued three times, claiming the city improperly approved the project. It’s won twice, but over mostly technical issues related to proper public notice and disclosure rather than the merits of their arguments. Nevertheless, it’s still delaying the venture.
“There’s such political hostility here in this city,” Chapman said.
Ambitious Housing Plans
Chapman says he has a lot more in store. He has kicked off outreach to recruit minority contractors for what he claims will total $600 million in affordable housing.
Plans call for 750 to 1,500 new residential units, although Chapman acknowledges that includes the McCarley and St. John Towers renovations, as well as the McCarley expansion. So that is $237 million and 431 units already accounted for.
The church also owns the land next to the parking lot between Maple and Mulberry streets. That is where it would put up a $69 million housing complex of at least four stories, and possibly as many as eight, Chapman said – despite Green Code height limits. The 150,000-square-foot building could include as many as 135 one- and two-bedroom apartments, all affordable at 40% to 60% of the area median income.
That $3 million project was announced after the May 14, 2022, shooting at the Tops supermarket on Jefferson Avenue. It has been held up by negotiations over price and appraisals, as well as the earlier moratorium.
Gethsemane also owns additional land on Rose and Grape streets in the Fruit Belt, where the two churches together control about 70% of the privately owned land, Chapman said. Those sites could be used for additional three- to five-story apartment buildings, he said.
And he has asked the city to sell all of the city-owned vacant parcels in the Fruit Belt and any land on Jefferson Avenue from East Ferry to Cherry streets, where St. John could put additional housing. Those properties include 22, 43 and 51 Rose; 54-56, 71 and 86 Grape; 180-182 Mulberry St.; 190 and 226-238 High; 241 Lemon St.; and 242-244 Carlton St.
Together, that would allow for construction of five more apartment buildings totaling 254,000 square feet and $103 million in investment, with 306 apartments and 10,000 square feet of community facility or retail space, according to a Buffalo Black Billion slide presentation.
In all, the two McCarley phases, the St. John’s renovation, and the additional new construction would produce more than 961 residential units, at a cost of $368 million.
Beyond that, Chapman’s vision includes a plan for a nine-story building on the church parking lot, connecting the church with the Rev. Dr. Bennett W. Smith Sr. Family Life Center.
That building – whose cost Chapman’s team estimates at $300 million – would provide medical and pharmaceutical office space, and possibly educational space for colleges or universities that want proximity to the medical campus, Chapman said.
Finally, Chapman unveiled plans for another 660 affordable apartments at Towne Gardens on Clinton Street. The church and BFC already acquired the retail plaza on William, and will bid to acquire the existing Towne Gardens apartments next door. If successful, they would renovate the existing 360 apartments, while constructing another 300 in a two-phase project, at a cost of $230 million.
“This comprehensive urban development model is completely restoring the Fruit Belt and East Buffalo, one block at a time,” Norwood said."
Last edited by ckhthankgod; 03-20-2024 at 01:06 PM..
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Here is another sports rundown...
