UC Recap: October 13 – October 18
Led Black
October 13 – October 18
Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez has $1 Million in discretionary funds to spend on capital improvement projects within the district and he is going directly to the people to find out how to spend it. The participatory budgeting process kicked off on October 14th at the Inwood Library (4790 Broadway) and continues on October 21st at the Fort Washington Library (535 West 179th Street) at 6 pm and on October 30th at the Washington Heights Library (1000 St. Nicholas) at 6 pm. Residents of the district can help with coming up with potential projects as well choosing delegates who will then develop those ideas into proposals. The proposals will then be voted on early next year. So there you have it folks – Democracy in action. Kudos goes out to Councilman Rodriguez for such a progressive initiative.
Our Time Travel Tuesdays post took us back to December 16th 1987 and shed light on the work of Mura Dehn, who documented the history of Black Social Dance on film. Mura Dehn left her native Russia and moved to New York City in 1930 after meeting Josephine Baker in Paris in 1925. Miss Dehn dedicated her life to studying and highlighting the art of Black social dancing. Check out some of the videos on the site to see really fancy footwork.
Adam Glanzman of Time’s LightBox photography blog highlighted the work of Khalik Allah, a 29-year-old filmmaker and photographer who has been brilliantly documenting Harlem since 2012. The always-astute Cole Thompson of My Inwood wrote a well-researched post on the evidence of Native American activity recently uncovered in Isham Park.
Our Uptown Video selection was Luminata, a site-specific dance piece presented by the West Harlem Arts Fund as part of Harlem’s Festival of Lights for the third installment of the Under the Viaduct Tour series.
It was a busy week for Uptown Hip-Hop. Our Monday Mood Music featured the latest from wordsmith Oveous featuring Tiffany Janell, Burj Eye View. The homie, Tellie Floydd, dropped a new one, The Vent. Ace IOD of the mighty IOD Camp released the video for his new joint featuring Dub Work, Young Gods. Lastly, Uptown Hip-Hop heavyweight, Dark ATM, also dropped the video for The Motive featuring Chase N Cashe.
Keep checking us out at www.uptowncollective.com.
Led Black
Editor-in-Chief
The Uptown Collective
The UC’s mission is to become “the” definitive, transformative and community-based force impacting the arts, culture, business and New York City’s overall perception of Upper Manhattan. Its objective is to reset, reboot and positively redefine Uptown’s artistic, political, cultural and business spheres via the online space as well the collective’s initiatives and functions.
