The Arctic Circle (near Bush Terminal).
By Cristiana Baik
Before I realized how cold it was, I decided that I would take a walk around Bush terminal (along 2nd, 3rd Avenues, between 30th-40th Streets, in Brooklyn). After writing about the Terminal, I had a driving curiosity to see what the yard looked like. . .
Note: “Vivero El Badia Halal Live Poultry” (wall to wall of poultry livestock in cages. . . I was quickly shooed away before I could talk to the two men working inside).
There weren’t much people around to talk to (no one was crazy enough to wander near the waterfront with the weather, which literally froze little icicles on my lips). The scenery felt open, exposed, desolate, somehow like a big empty film set.
It was near arctic temperature. The wind knocked me over a few times (I kid you not). But it was worth the walk. Next time, a walk near/through the Navy Yard.
About Open City
Open City: Blogging Urban Change is an interdisciplinary neighborhood blog and community project coordinated by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Five commissioned writers, called Organizing Fellows, are working with community organizations and neighborhood folks in Manhattan’s Chinatown/Lower East Side (LES), Flushing, Queens, and Sunset Park, Brooklyn to collect oral histories and interviews, offer commentary about gentrification, neighborhood change, and produce new creative work around these themes. Read more.
Featured Profile
CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities was formed in 1986 (formerly known as the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence) as a response to an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes both in New York City and around the country (which included violence by police officers against Asians).
They have two offices – one in Manhattan’s Chinatown (which houses the Chinatown Tenants Union, and the new Asian Youth in Action organizing project) and the Youth Leadership Project office in the Bronx – and have members from all over the city. Over the years, CAAAV’s main campaigns have focused on community-based organizing work rooted in Asian immigrant and refugee communities. Although their advocacy and organizing work is focused mainly in Manhattan’s Chinatown and the northwest Bronx, CAAAV’s work also touches upon larger issues (such as affordable housing, war, and immigration) shaping communities all over the world: “Our work is primarily centered around issues facing New Yorkers, but always with a global analysis.”
CAAAV’s mission is to organize and build the power of working-class Asian immigrants, refugees, and youth to change concrete conditions and participate in a broader social justice movement. In the past, CAAAV’s work included organizing South Asian taxi drivers, Korean women workers, and Filipina domestic workers. Several of these organizing projects have gone on to become their own organizations, such as the New York Taxi Workers Alliance and Domestic Workers United. CAAAV’s current work focus on three different program areas: Read more.
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