New York City Funds N.Y. Yankees, Closes Senior Centers

Look at the photograph above. This is proof I wore the Yankees uniform in 1970 (and in 1971 ).

That's me in the bottom right of the black and white team photo holding the Yankee logo.
Photo is the courtesy of Michael Grossbard/Louis Requena

Franck Strongbow in the Yankees uniform in the summer of 1970 (and 1971), with the famous Yankee Stadium facade of the original Stadium in the backdrop. This photo was taken years before the 1974-1976 disastrous renovation.
(Photo is property of Franck Strongbow, all rights reserved.)

Senior citizens are special. Just ask from left to right: Carvill Shaffer, Bonie Shaffer, Milt Faarr and Marilyn Faarr. Photo is property of F. Strongbow

The City of New York and the State of New York are in a zero-dumb mode now! The City and State have committed over 1 Billion dollars in public financing to subsidize the New York Yankees in building their new state of the art Stadium which will open in April, 2009!
The City of New York is closing 147 senior centers currently located in the public housing projects, with no announcement of any plans to build new senior centers off-site on City-owned land. Senior citizens have given more than their full share to make this City, State, and Nation great. The major newspapers and TV outlets of news appear silent or suffering from "tired-blood" in as much as this big news is invisible and not being read about in the newspapers or television outlets.
It's a question of fairness that seniors enjoy the fruit of their labors. We have public officials asleep at the wheel in the City Council, and in the state senate and assembly, while the City of New York subsidizes a wealthy privately owned sports franchise with a $1,000,000,000.00 dollar subsidy to build their new state of the art play-pen!!!! Count the ZEROS! But they have no money to build 147 new state of the art senior centers!!!! And now, the Yankees want the City of New York to give them an additional $450,000,000.00 dollars, count the ZEROS, to finish the construction project!!! Go figure! Are you outraged like me? So make some noise!!! Write to Mayor Bloomberg now and to your state legislators and tell them you will not stand idle if they do not find money to build senior centers to replace the 147 senior centers in the public housing projects which will be closed by the City of New York.
I can even understand that that there may be a legitimate reason, like public safety that mitigates the need to remove senior centers from the public housing projects as crime in many sites is high and seniors fall prey all too often. But the City must build new facilities to replace the ones they will close. Join me in demanding such priorities for our seniors. What motivates the City mostly to close the senior centers? Safety? Maybe, and that is a very legitimate reason, I believe, since the incidence of crime against Seniors is high in public housing projects around the Nation. The City has thousands of lots it owns, and it should donate those lots of land, to build new Senior Centers away from the housing projects, but within proximity to the Seniors who live in the projects so they can continue to enjoy the benefits that they derive from attending the senior centers. So, where is the plan to build new senior centers? Have we stopped caring about seniors? You must help with your voice, as your tax dollars are being spent to subsidize the rich and powerful Yankees while seniors get the bums' rush. This is not fair, and for me, building off-site Senior Centers to replace the 147 senior centers which will be closed, is a question of fairness. If the City of New York does not build the new Senior Centers while giving bonds totaling more than $1,500,000,000.00 to the New York Yankees a privately owned wealthy sports franchise, then we have here a glaring example of a violation of the federal Rangel and federal Powell Amendments. The Powell Amendment stated that, "Taxes and fees collected form all of the People shall not be used to benefit some of the People".
A violation of the Powell Amendment is glaring in the Yankee drama. The Rangel Amendment helped change life for all Human Beings by insisting that federal tax dollars not be used to promote apartheid whether economically, socially, or racially.
These two federal congressional Amendments make it clear that the City of New York can not subsidize the Yankees to the tune of over 1 Billion Dollars with your tax money while closing 147 senior centers and not making any plans to build senior centers to replace the ones being closed. The new concept of Healthy Seniors being promoted by the City's Department for the Aging relies on the notion that the Baby Boomers ,those persons who were born from 1940 to1948, are going to come to Senior Centers demanding less Bingo, less trips to Atlantic City, no-more serving the trays to seniors at the table (a good idea because Seniors should get their own trays at the food serving windows to enhance their cardiovascular activity and discourage "servility" which is prevalent at many senior centers. We must continue, however, to take the food- tray to the Seniors who are truly frail and can not stand or walk , which must always be done for the frail, and the new Senior Model claims that the Baby Boomers want more of the Tai Chi, Meditation, Walking clubs, Interactive trips that force more walking which is good, less salt, less fat based foods, so the New York City Department for the Aging (DFTA) thinks, but soda (high in sugar and calories)and Snapple being sold at Senior Centers is okay!!! And selling "frituras", or fried-delicacies for fund raising is okay too. Is this a glaring contradiction? The DFTA leadership is leaning toward getting more being done for less by the non-profits, but it takes money, space in the form of new Senior Center facilities with enhanced lines of vision, disabled access , more bathroom amenities, James Monroe Senior Center in The Bronx, for example, has one Male and one Female bathroom for more than 200 seniors who visit the Center daily!
We need for DFTA to do better planning to help the Baby Boomers who are today's' seniors. We need 147 new senior centers off-site (out of the housing-projects) and DFTA and the City Council can find 1 Billion dollars the same way they have found more than 1 Billion dollars to subsidize the Yankees sports franchise!!! My friends, don't get me wrong on this topic, as I do love Baseball, and I am a Yankee and Mets fan, and I even have my own history with the Yankees. Look up the Yankees Team photo of 1970 and you will see me in that photo wearing the famous pinstripe uniform. I'm sitting on the ground up front along side Mike Slater who at the time of that photo, lived in New Jersey, God bless him. Look for the photo and see that I am telling the truth here. In fact, here is a photograph from my own personal collection, and you can see I too wore the Yankee uniform back in 1970. You can see the photo at the top of this Blog News Note.

I was there at the old Stadium, and I will forever cherish my memories of Mickey Mantle whom I saw up front then. I have a lasting friendship with Lindy McDaniel the great Yankee relief pitcher from the 1968-1973 teams. I saw Tom Seaver and Nolan Ryan of the Mets up front in their prime when they came to Yankee Stadium to play the Mayor's Trophy Games before packed Stadium crowds of over 60,000 fans in the 1970 and 1971 Trophy Games. I was there in the Yankee dugout. I knew the late and beloved Mike Burke, former President of the Yankees before the Steinbrenner Era really started, although Burke was the Chief Executive for about 100 days during the beginning of Steinbrenner's reign of ownership.

I do not dislike the Yankees, I am endeared to them by history ,my own personal fondness for the game, and the brief time I worked for them in 1970 and 1971.
I am enormously saddened that the actual Stadium where Babe Ruth heralded the dawning of the home-run era is going to be razed, torn down! This breaks my heart! How can all that history be demolished for the sake of a new ornate cathedral-looking Stadium? Had the City been possessed with more vision and a true sense of history, they could have saved hundreds of millions of dollars by doing the renovation correctly that first time during the 1974-1976 renovation. Instead, when the 1974-76 renovation was completed, what was once a magnificent looking cathedral-exterior structure that featured on the exterior front entrance to the old Stadium, the beautiful eagle with wings spread that rested inside a circular seal that was joined to the right by another seal that symbolized major league baseball, and the magnificent Stadium facade (they now call it by another name, "Frieze"), that draped the whole upper deck of the old structure, what we got was the look of a federal prison penitentiary-J.Edgar Hoover federal building-look! The current exterior of the old Stadium was made to look like a federal slab of cement! No expression, no character, no sentimentalism, much like the cold arrogant fishes who have run Major League Baseball for the last 34 years!
Additionally, the old Stadium of 1923-1973 had a Stadium capacity of up to 57,000-67,000 seats. The renovated Stadium of 1974-76 was reconfigured and reduced to hold 52,000 fans largely because the suits found that it is more profitable to sell luxury boxes at 5 Million dollars a season, to corporate bigwigs or high rollers.
There's nothing wrong with bringing in big money, I'm all for it, but why diminish the Stadium experience for the fans who pay general admission? The new ornate-looking Cathedral style exterior (Thank God they finally found an architect with vision and appreciation for the distant past) is magnificent on the new Stadium slated to open in April, 2009, but, the general admission fan-seats will be reduced even more to 42,000-44,000 people. This means the new Stadium will have 23,000 fewer general admission seats than the original site built in 1923, but it will have close to 1,000 executive suites, and "Premium Seating Areas" for well to do patrons. Hard Rock Cafe, not your regular-person type of venue, already has a lock on the new Stadium and it has not opened yet.
Senior Citizen discounted games are reduced even further in the new Stadium, and won't include August and September 2009 games. General Admission tickets at the new Stadium are 200 per cent more expensive than the ones sold in 2005. 3 general admission seats and say, 3 beers, 3 Cokes, and 3 hot dogs will run you about $300.00 plus parking fees.

The City of New York must build 147 new Senior Centers and they have the money to build them. It is a question of fairness. New York City's congressional delegation should review and consider if they can assign federal funds to build 147 new Senior Centers over the next 10 years. The City of New York has thousands of acres, lots of land that it owns which can be used to construct new Senior Center buildings. Congress should assign federal funds in the form of grants of $100 million dollars each, to non-profits like the Institute for the Puerto Rican Hispanic Elderly, Inc. and R.A.I.N. , Well Care, Visiting Nurse Service of New York, Touchstone, Health First, to name a few, so they can build new Senior Centers.
They must build from the ground up, and the structures should be at least three stories tall with wheel chair access ramps, elevators, lots of bathrooms, large dining areas, lots of class rooms, lots of Staff office space., lots of air conditioning for the summer months, and good heat for the winter, big activity rooms for special events, senior birthdays, etc, ample parking for seniors , visitors and staff. I would seek environmentally safe wind power for energy. The structures should be built within 3 miles from the nearest bus stop of subway stop. Congress can help us, Congress could assign the federal dollars directly to non profits or the City of New York. I may even run for public office to make some noise about this, maybe for state senator. I would push for tax credits for corporations like Jet Blue, Chase Bank, Microsoft, Smith Frozen Foods, the Yankees, Mets, to underwrite the construction of new Senior Centers. A partnership with business and the non profits can be created, even a consortium to get federal funds for this purpose. This would be worth running for public office to promote, along with safe streets, reduction in crime, more money for police, and when was the last time you saw a public campaign to teach drivers to drive 20 miles per hour on City streets, to use directional signals when turning, keep to the right, etc.? When was the last time you saw the City of New York using the airwaves to promote Cross at the Green, not in between? Of course, I'm, thinking out loud. What do you think? We need new Senior Centers to be built, and the City of New York can find the money, so can the State and the Congress.

Send your protest letters today to :
Mayor Mike Bloomberg,
City Hall,
New York, New York 10007

and
The New York City Council
Attention: Christine Quinn, Speaker
City Hall
New York, N.Y. 10007

James Monroe Senior Center Open House June 20,2008

On Friday June 20, 2008 the James Monroe Senior Center will have it's 46Th anniversary Open House fund raiser.

Above is a photo of our senior center along with the flyer for this event which I created on my home computer.

The days' events will run from 9AM to 3PM for the public to drop by see the Center, and view the exhibits of tables set up at the entrance to the Senior Center.
The presentation ceremony will begin at 1:30PM sharp. We are recognizing James O'Neal, a wonderful advocate of seniors who has spent a life time laboring out of love for the golden age population. We are also honoring Elizabeth Rosado who is a tireless fighter of senior rights, and advocates a healthy life style along with Zenaida Roger of Touchstone Health, herself a peerless leader in the effort to give seniors a larger voice in the corridors of power. We will recognize Juan Tavarez who is a an outstanding supporter of senior rights, whose life reflects the love he has for our Golden Age seniors.

No surprises are anticipated, although I would welcome a nice surprise set of announcements from the huge corporate community in the City of New York.
I would love for the corporate bigwigs to come forward and offer to bankroll our need for a new building. It promises to be a nice day to highlight and show case what the James Monroe Senior Center offers seniors and the community. We need money for our programs and the Institute for the Puerto Rican Hispanic Elderly, Inc. needs your financial support today, now, ahora, please.

This is the 9Th Open House I will oversee, and it is probably my last one. I am quite certain of some things that life gives us, and some or most, I can not predict. I do not know if I will be alive one year from now, so if my health holds up, and Heavenly Father feels I can still make some noise on this Earth, then we will all see my rumblings next year. I have lived my life in the service to others, and I am enjoying quite thoroughly the time that God has given me.

Any how, back to the big event. The James Monroe Senior Center has been open to the public since 1962.

The James Monroe Senior Center is administered under contract with the New York City Department for the Aging by the Institute for the Puerto Rican Hispanic Elderly, Inc. The Institute has been operating the Center since 1997. The Chief Executive Officer for the Institute is Suleika Cabrera Drinane who founded the Institute in 1977. Suleika is a dynamic, compassionate leader who sees the trees beyond the forest. In my time as Assistant Director of the James Monroe Senior Center, Suleika has given me a free hand, along with My Director Glisette Rivera, who is an outstanding leader always willing to go the extra mile for seniors. I am indebted to Suleika and Glisette, whom I consider dear friends. They put up with me in spite of my grouchy demeanor. I'm a nice Sort of "Oscar the Grouch". meaning, You might greet me with "Hey, it's nice and sunny today", I may say "Aah what's so sunny about this morning?"...but I'll quickly add..."You know what? You're right...it is a nice sunny day indeed." I'm a nice Grouch not a mean Grouch. I have a big soft spot for nice people, children, and the Elderly.

Our senior center is located at 1776 Story Avenue, The Bronx, New York. We need a new structure, so I'm campaigning to get corporations to build us a new state of the art building for seniors and the community. It probably will take upwards of $50,000,000.00 to buy a tract of land and build on the site a three story senior center, but it can be done. I'm hoping to convince Microsoft, JetBlue, TimeWarner, The Yankees, Chase, Sovereign Bank, to kick in money so the Non profit Institute for the Puerto Rican Hispanic Elderly, can look forward to getting a new building for all of us to have our seniors go for daily holistic activities. If I don't convince the big companies, maybe I will run for public office and use the effort as a "bully-pulpit" to create awareness via public opnion in support of a new senior center building in The Bronx.

At the James Monroe Senior Center we are renting tables for just $150.00 on Friday June 20, 2008, to various companies, but we need a big infusion of funds to stay a float. I'm sure the Institute for the Puerto Rican Hispanic Elderly, Inc., the sponsor agency would not mind it if a big corporation finances the construction of a new building, and puts their corporate name on it. Please help us make this happen.

To all of you who love seniors as I do, please send your donations to Institute for the Puerto Rican Hispanic Elderly, Inc. 105 East 22 Street, New York , NY 10022, ATTN: Suleika Cabrera Drinane, CEO, in support of buying land and constructing a new senior center for the James Monroe Seniors.

Maybe the U.S. Congress can buy land for us and donate it to the Institute.
Thank you all for your support of Institute for the Puerto Rican Hispanic Elderly, Inc., a wonderful organization. For more information log on to iprhe.org.

To all my friends throughout the U.S.A. please support this worthy endeavor. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Sincerely and gratefully, I am,
Franck Strongbow Red Cloud

I'm Back. Summer 2008 Is Here. It's Hot Out There.

Dear Friends-
I'm back to blogging after a hiatus of a few months. Nothing happened. I was too busy living life and earning a living. Every time I leave my home in the morning I'm usually lucky to see my very nice neighbor who lives across the street, and some times we trade parking spaces because she works far away, and I usually have the alternate-side parking spot she could use, when I'm lucky to see her and her husband is gracious to a fault in a nice quiet way. She is a magnificent Lady who is kind, polite, friendly, and possesses a magnificent aplomb that is fast becoming a thing of the past. God bless her.

Well friends, I'm doing well, yet taking each day at a time. Please stay in touch and comment on this blog when you want to. It's nice to know friends do care. Indeed, I have lost weight, and I know I am living on the time God has given me, so I am trying to sound the clarion call about things that matter to me, even if only two handfuls read my blogs on a given day. I have always promoted niceness, so I do not like rudeness in people who should know better. I don't wear black not because it is not an agreeable color to me, black is beautiful, but because I wear it only for mourning.

I was never a bully so I don't like bullies. I was imbued with a sense of caring and a possession of sensitivity for the feelings of others. In the time when I was a handsome very young man, I dated the young ladies, and once in a while I stole a kiss, but I was never rude, disrespectful or "fresh" with any of them, and they all went away with a good impression of me. Most said, "He's a real nice guy, has good manners, and is very respectful", and they always asked me to go on a date with them because they felt safe, secure, and felt they could have innocent fun around me. I prided myself in knowing them as persons, they were never sex objects to me, and I loved knowing their Moms and Dads, and in turn, they loved me for I was genuinely a nice kid, and parents knew this.

I remember with a measure of somber recollection, the time long ago, when I dated a very nice Jewish girl while I was in High School, and we were quite fond of each other. She liked me immensely and I liked her. I remember she approached me in the cafeteria and said, "Can I sit here?", and I replied, "Sure, you're welcome". We got to talking, and she enjoyed my conversation. I got invited to her home, and her Mom loved me, for she saw I was a good young man at heart, but Dad did not like me. I was not Jewish. I had visited the home a half dozen times before, and he was never friendly to me in my visits. Racial prejudice got the best of him, and he went into a tirade about race, and one night, when I made an intended brief visit, this misguided Jewish Father lobbed racial slurs at me, hurting his daughter's feelings, while stunning his wife as he threw me out of his home, literally pushing me out the door of the apartment in Yorkville, with the hurtful words; "I don't welcome your kind, my daughter will not marry below herself, and don't come back here anymore. Don't let me catch you with my daughter at school!"

I went home shaken, teary-eyed, saying, "What did I do to deserve this, we were just talking." I got it, so I avoided her with much heartache, and I often went home during the first few weeks of that somber Winter, looking over my shoulder fearing her Dad might jump all over me if he even saw me greeting her. In spite of the deep hurt I felt, I moved on with my life. She graduated, kept correspondence with me through the college, years, and by 1974, she had married a Jewish fellow just like her Dad wanted. Time moved forward, and so did life.

Ten years later, I found myself changing trains at a subway station near Houston street on the East Side. There, to my amazement, I heard someone calling my name, and when I turned it was her Dad, approaching with caution, a half smile, and a kind word. "Franck .....my goodness you have gained weight, all these years I have wanted to see you.", he said. "Me? What do you want with me, I was not welcome in your home, remember?", I replied as I offered a delayed, limp handshake in return.

He answered, "I was wrong for what I did and said to you. I am so very sorry I hurt you, and how I hurt my daughter and my wife. I have regretted that day more than you will ever know." I replied with serene words of peace: "It's over, in the past, and we must move on. I have no hard feelings, I forgave you Sir." The gentleman 's eyes welled with tears as he took a few moments to disclose how his daughter had long ago left her husband who had been racially insensitive like him, and cruel to her during the marriage. He commented on the daughter he pushed away from this once-young man who was all too Human, but not Jewish : "She's in Vermont now, lives by herself, and I have always thought of you all these years living with remorse for my cruel words and terrible behavior, I am so sorry I treated you with such disdain." His words spoke to a heartfelt contrition, a sincere remorse, and I felt sorry for him at that moment, sensing he had also lost a lot as I observed the emotional toll his own cruelty took on him, the isolation, the despondency of a daughter who seemed to have put lots of distance between herself and her Dad, and this made me sad for him and for her.

I told him I wished him , his daughter, and his wife well, and that I wanted for his daughter nothing but the best in life. He seemed genuinely surprised that I could wish for him nothing but good things, but life had to go on and I had cast my hand of forgiveness over his memory a short time after his offense to me. I was stunned by his parting remark though: "My daughter probably would have been happy with you, if I had not gotten in the way. I guess I turned the hand of destiny's happiness, away from her, and I will always regret this" he said, as his tears fell. I hugged the now older gentleman.

"Put this behind you Sir, and see how you can make her happy now.", I replied.
With this, we moved in different directions toward our next destination in this journey through life. I never saw him, his wife, or his daughter again.

I have shared this story, so that you can know that I have lived through life's enduring lessons. I hope to find my way to God's Rainbow when the sun does set on my life. When that time comes, I hope those who have cherished my impact on their lives shall feel blessed to have given me the honor of being their friend, and for having shared their lives with me. I have never spoken from a pulpit of high acclaim, nor have I ever made headlines, but if I could be the tallest tree in the forest of wisdom, it would be to promote the peace, bring reconciliation, herald the hope of tomorrow in the future of our great Nation. I hope I am not being partisan in terms of political remarks, but I sense that United States Senator Barack Obama will give us as President of the United States, an America that honors the Elderly by ensuring that their lives will be filled with love, nurturing, and care until the twilight of the evening sun sets on their lives and they levitate to the everlasting embrace of God. Mr. Obama reminds us that our future can not be embarked with any degree of promise, if we do not honor those citizens who gave more than their full measure to make this Nation great for all of us to enjoy freedom, and peace, along with economic prosperity.

Senator Obama gives me that great feeling of hope much like I felt when John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, and I was enthralled then by Senator Kennedy's youth and vision for America. I see that vision in Senator Barack Obama, God bless him, and for once in my life time, I feel connected to a future President that is all too human like me. He lives every day, smiling for the promise of the sun as it greets us in the morning, while hurting and crying when we hurt, because he feels the hurts of all Americans. His wife Michelle, like his own children, hold him dearly and preciously in their arms as the caring devoted Husband and Father that he is, and we can cradle him in our arms and hold him in our hearts for a life time. I honor this magnificent American. I feel Senator Obama will leave his imprint on the history and posterity of our Nation like no other American has since the great Lakota-Sioux Chief Red Cloud,Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Geronimo the great Apache Warrior, Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Tubman, Congressman Charles B. Rangel, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Edward Brooke, Mary McCloud Bethune, Marion Anderson, Hattie McDaniel, Shirley Chisholm, Nydia Velasquez, Ellen G. White, Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez, U.S. Senator Dionisio "Dennis" Chavez, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr, Joseph Smith the Mormon prophet, and Brigham Young. When we look back in posterity and recall the everlasting impact that these venerable Americans have had on our Nation, we will also crystallize what Senator Obama has imprinted on the American Landscape.

We can all hold in our hearts, the feeling of honor that comes to all with deep gratitude for United States Senator John McCain as the great patriot that he is, and a superb United States Senator from the great state of Arizona. Senator McCain honors America by his service in the hallowed halls of the United States Senate, and for his undaunted courage in the face of great and terrible adversity as a prisoner of war during the era of the War in Vietnam.

And so we move on.....

Please know that I will put up a more improved set of blogs with animated characters soon. My wonderful and lovely daughter Marisol who is quite the computer-Trekkie is helping me with this part, and she pledges that I will have one of those cool web sites before too long.

June, 2008 in New York has been pleasant except for 3 days we had: June 3rd, 4Th, 5Th, which were 91-99 degrees days...when the mercury went up quite badly. Hopefully we will not experience any meltdowns this summer. Yes I'm back.
Summer 2008 is here, and boy it's hot out there. Let's hope for a nice pleasant Summer. and stay cool out there. Remember to stay in touch and keep smiling.