Destination: El Barrio
El Museo del Barrio and The East Harlem Board of Tourism
Announces Free Saturday Walking Tours
Beginning Saturday, April 15, individuals and families may join a free highlights walking tour through El Barrio. The tour, conducted by guides from Big Onion Walking Tours, has been specially developed with the East Harlem Board of Tourism to feature the thriving Latino arts, culture, and cuisine of the fabled El Barrio community. Sites include the Graffiti Hall of Fame, street murals, St. Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church, First Spanish United Methodist “Young Lords” Church, La Marqueta, Luis Muñoz Marin Boulevard, the remarkable concentration of museums, galleries and restaurants in El Barrio’s “cultural corridor,” and much, much more.
The Destination: El Barrio walking tour is offered Saturdays at 3:00 p.m. from April 15 through October 14. The tour is FREE and supported by a grant to El Museo del Barrio and the East Harlem Board of Tourism from the Deutsche Bank Americas and Rockefeller Brothers Fund Arts and Enterprise Program. The tour meets at the SE corner of Fifth Avenue and 104th Street. Prior to the tour, participants are invited to visit El Museo del Barrio and the Museum of the City of New York (suggested admission contributions apply). All individuals and families are invited to join, but no groups, please. No reservations necessary.
The East Harlem Board of Tourism is a group of museums, galleries, artists, activists, historians, entrepreneurs, business organizations, and housing advocates who share a vision of East Harlem/El Barrio as a mecca for tourists with an interest in Latino culture, New York style, and the rich multicultural history of the neighborhood. Its mission includes developing tourism destinations and infrastructure and increasing overall visitorship in East Harlem as means to develop the local economy.
Please visit www.eastharlemtourism.org or e-mail ehtourism@aol.com for more information.
Poor, struggling Hispanic immigrants are being victimized by their own people. Sham groups such as the Movement For Justice In El Barrio and its notorious leader, Juan Haro, aided and abetted by a citywide umbrella group of like movements called Housing Here And Now, are systematically sucking the life out of their countrymen under the guise of organizing them against their landlords. One has only to go to the Housing Here And Now website called nyc worst landlords to see that it is nothing more than a total rant against all landlords and they will support any group that claims to be fighting against their landlord. The manner in which these people are victimized is shameless. They are packed 15 – 20 people at a time into tiny apartments meant for a few people, children and all. What’s worse is that, even though it is illegal and dangerous, the city of New York tacitly sanctions the overcrowding. Landlords are complaining to HPD, DOB and the FDNY with no response. Inspectors from all of the city agencies refuse to issue violations for overcrowding and judges refuse to give evictions without the violations. It’s a vicious circle that leaves the poor tenants sitting in the middle, with no place to go. Instead of ranting against landlords, the legitimate groups should condemn the people who rent the apartments and then sublet them illegally to a dozen or more others. All they are trying to do is deflect the blame from themselves and direct it at the landlords, who make a convenient target. What is even worse, the people doing this, like Juan Haro, are being legitimized by their misguided NYC councilwoman, Melissa Mark Viverito, who is under pressure from people like Sister Kathy Maire, from St Cecelia’s RC Church, to back their schemes. Instead of helping the poor immigrants find decent housing of their own, they are perpetuating the overcrowding by rallying them against their landlords. Who in their right mind would condone herding people, like animals, into tiny packed apartments, except someone who had something to gain by it; something like votes or donations or dozens of rents from each apartment.