Blog

TESTIMONY:

Jerome Avenue Scoping Session
Bronx Community College
September 29, 2016

Harold DeRienzo, President
Banana Kelly Community Improvement Association, Inc.

Testimony Focus: The need, and requirement for, a cumulative impact assessment on potential tenant displacement.

A. Basis for a Cumulative Impact Assessment: Under the 1986 Chinese Staff Workers case, when a proposed action is inconsistent with area character and is likely to change neighborhood population patterns and community character, the city is required to consider secondary, as well as cumulative, impacts.… Read more...

Acceptance Talk

Picture the Homeless “Dancegiving” Gala Event: October 6, 2016

We are living in a time of change. We see it all around us: people rising up to question inequality, institutional racism, and self-righteous, self-sustaining privilege. We see the potential for social progress, but we also see the potential for social regression.… Read more...

On Monday, September 26, 2016, over 300 hundred people came to City Hall to rally on the steps to demand passage of Right to Counsel, which would guarantee legal representation in housing court for low income New Yorkers. This day was historic.… Read more...

EDITOR’S NOTE: We are delighted to publish the second installment of Harry DeRienzo’s essays on racism.  This second of a three-part essay is entitled, “Are we Genetically Wired to be Racists?”  It is interesting and thought provoking but like all treatments of such a complicated and emotionally-charged topic, there is a need for other perspectives and follow up discussions. … Read more...

Well, as a matter of fact I do wonder why Bernie Sanders chose not to directly take on Hillary Clinton’s challenge. Let’s expand the philosophical discussion a bit and try to understand what is going on in this round of presidential elections. … Read more...

This election season has been, if nothing else, interesting, particularly for those (like me) who believed that money was fast becoming the sole determinant to political success.  This election season will probably go down in history as the season of the outsider. … Read more...

By Harold DeRienzo

How will 2015 be remembered?  Will it be viewed as the Year of ISIS, or the Year of the Beginning of the End of ISIS?  Will it be seen as the year that Republican obstructionism and anti-government rhetoric came home to roost, personified in the Presidential run of Donald Trump? … Read more...

By Harry DeRienzo

At our Annual Meet & Greet event, held on December 4, 2015, the Reverend Theodora Brooks, pastor of a local church and Vice Chairperson of the Banana Kelly board, was tapped to give the opening invocation. However, given the events of this year, she said it was difficult, if not irresponsible, not to take explicit notice of the extremism that appears to be manifesting itself in so many destructive and fatal ways in our country at this time, most recently given the mass shooting in San Bernadino and the long-delayed video of the killing of Laquan MacDonald in Chicago. … Read more...

Harry DeRienzo’s Keynote Address at the 6th Annual Meet & Greet, December 6, 2015.

Organize or Perish. This is our theme for this year. It is a theme that comes straight from our resident leadership.  It is a theme that is not simply an act of hyperbole. … Read more...

In a recent decision, the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that beyond “race,” color, in and of itself, can raise a bias claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  In this particular case, a certain waitress and bartender named Esna Etienne was passed over for a managerial position, which was given, according to her complaint, to a less qualified white employee. … Read more...