you gonna be marching out there mm? -g-
Fifth Avenue Buildings Board Up for New York Puerto Rican March
2002-06-07 14:55 (New York)
New York, June 7 (Bloomberg) -- Maintenance workers Benny
Bitiq and David Ortiz put an 8-foot-high plywood fence around
bushes in front of 910 Fifth Avenue, a cooperative apartment
building on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Similar barriers are being erected along one of New York's
most famous and desirable streets, and some residents said they
would leave for the weekend, because Sunday is the annual National
Puerto Rican Day Parade. The march brings as many as 2 million
people to a 42-block section of Fifth Avenue.
Building tenants, superintendents and doormen said the
temporary walls are necessary to prevent damage and vandalism
caused by the crowds. Parade organizers said the enclosures
perpetuate a stereotype of Puerto Ricans and are unnecessary.
The barriers are a ``very sad and worrisome new phenomenon,''
said Ralph Morales, chairman of the parade's board of directors.
``We have been on the avenue for many years and we have conducted
ourselves in the proper manner.''
He said, ``it sends a terrible message in terms of the
residents of the area and how they view the diversity of the
city.''
Hugo Navarrete, superintendent at 927 Fifth Avenue, said he
started putting up plywood panels seven years ago to protect the
garden of shrubs, impatiens and geraniums in front of the
building.
``There's going to be disorder'' because of large crowds,
said Navarrete, 58. ``They used to stand in the garden, break down
the flowers, throw a lot of garbage.''
Landmarks
The section of Fifth Avenue that runs past landmarks such as
Rockefeller Center, Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of
Art is the favored route for marches in which the Irish, Italians,
Germans, Greeks, Jews and other groups celebrate their heritage
with bands, floats and banners.
The parades go past limestone buildings where the average
cost of a cooperative apartment is almost $2 million, said David
Pratt, a spokesman for Insignia Douglas Elliman, a real estate
company.
After the march ended in 2000, roving gangs of men doused
more than 50 women with water, tore at their clothing and sexually
assaulted them in Central Park. The attacks were recorded on
video. Eighteen men ages 16 to 39 were convicted or pleaded guilty
to rioting or sexual abuse.
``What we're looking at is an unfortunate perception that
there is a security risk in that neighborhood,'' said Jose Luis
Morin, chairman of the Puerto Rican/Latin American Studies
Department at Manhattan's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
``There have actually been more security measures taken''
since the attacks, he said. ``It's a parade that's not much
different than any other parade.''
`Greater Anxiety'
Days before the Puerto Rican celebration, workers erect
barriers of wood, chain-link and netting at residential buildings
from 59th Street to 86th Street. Some doormen said similar
partitions are set up for the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Morales
said other marches don't elicit the same response.
Reno Viotto, 75, a maintenance worker at 1040 Fifth Avenue,
said he builds a fence only for the Puerto Rican parade. He said
he started doing it 10 years ago after the building suffered
$18,000 in damages to landscaping.
``It's legitimate that these things are loud, that they are a
major inconvenience,'' said Philip Kasinitz, a sociology professor
at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York,
referring to all parades. ``On the other hand, there seems to be
greater anxiety about the Puerto Rican parade than any other.''
Irmtraut Hubatsch, program director for the Goethe-Institute
Inter Nationes, a German cultural center at 1014 Fifth Avenue,
said the facility doesn't need protective barriers around its
gardens because there has ``never had a problem. It's
ridiculous.''
Leaving the City
Puerto Ricans established a presence in New York during the
1930s and are the city's dominant Latino group. They paved the way
for Dominicans, Mexicans and other Latin Americans in a city where
27 percent of the population, or 2.2 million people, is of
Hispanic origin, according to the 2000 U.S. Census.
The 44-year-old parade grew with the community from a three-
float, one-hour long march, to a televised all-day event.
Puerto Rican leaders criticized NBC television after the
situation comedy ``Seinfeld'' depicted the march as unruly in a
May 1998 episode and showed one of the characters accidentally
setting fire to a Puerto Rican flag and stomping out the flames.
Liz Bentley, 33, and two other friends were leaving 953 Fifth
Avenue this week with their children and Bentley said she was
scheduled to depart the city for the weekend. ``If not, we would
plan to be away,'' she said. ``I want to avoid'' the parade.
Jennifer Mason, who lives on Fifth Avenue, surveyed the
barriers and said ``it looks like a war zone. It's not like this''
during other parades. She said she also would leave for the
weekend.
A doorman at 985 Fifth Avenue, Franklin Puentes, 57, said a
small number of spectators might cause difficulties.
``Though I have to tell you that the parade is beautiful and
it has a lot of Latin spirit,'' he said.
--Maite Junco in the New York newsroom (212) 893-3529 or
mjunco@bloomberg.net. Editor: Rosen |
