Kris
August 25th, 2003, 05:39 AM
August 25, 2003
The Sand. The Surf. The Projects?
By COREY KILGANNON
http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/08/25/nyregion/25pros.xl.jpg
Thursday afternoon was a scorcher, but only a small group took advantage of the beach near the Ocean Village housing complex in Arverne, Queens.
The windows on one side of Desiree Bentsen's third-floor apartment overlook the hot concrete courtyard of the Ocean Village public housing complex in the Rockaways. Coarse arguments, loud rap music and sometimes the sound of gunfire waft in.
But the windows on the other side of her apartment overlook a very different scene — the Atlantic Ocean and a pristine stretch of beach — and let in the roar of the waves, the squawks of sea gulls and the smell of salt air.
On Thursday afternoon, it was scorching outside. Mrs. Bentsen has no air-conditioning in her apartment, but the kitchen window let in a continuous cool sea breeze.
Mrs. Bentsen, 47, has lived in this spacious three-bedroom apartment for seven years. The monthly rent is $900, $500 of which is covered by federal Section 8 rent subsidy vouchers. She has struggled to raise her four children.
"This is the only thing keeping us here," she said, pointing out her kitchen window to the beach. "There's a lot here I never wanted my kids to grow up with, but I look out at that beach and I say, `No, we can't leave.' Once you go down by that water, it's another world. All the arguments and bad feelings people here have, it's all gone."
Ocean Village, in Queens, is not the only public housing complex in New York with water views.
There are housing projects in the Rockaways and Coney Island within sight of the ocean, but none are as close as Ocean Village.
From the front, the Ocean Village complex, aging beige buildings from Beach 56th Street to Beach 59th Street in the Arverne section of the Rockaways, looks like most blighted urban projects.
The residents are mostly poor, and outside the entrance, young men gather around loud radios and hold 40-ounce bottles and smoke marijuana.
But out back, the complex abuts the boardwalk and hot concrete gives way to clean, white sand. The ocean, clean and kelpy, bears no resemblance to the murkier water at popular city beaches like Coney Island and Orchard Beach. A minute's walk across the sand from the complex's rear gates, the waves roll in gently and there are three lifeguard stands.
But most Ocean Village residents do not use the beach or celebrate its proximity. Mrs. Bentsen recalled the way her uncle from Lefrak City would rave about her $400-per-month oceanfront deal.
"He used to come over and have a fit about the view," she said. "He'd say, `Some people just don't realize what they got. Do you realize people pay thousands of dollars to be on the beach?' I just chuckle at him."
Most residents, she said, do not take advantage of the beach or even the views.
Jonathan L. Gaska, district manager for the local Community Board 14, said that a lot of the working poor in the Rockaways do not know how to swim.
"It's a little bizarre for an oceanfront community," he said, "but it happens to be the case. They don't have a place to learn, and you don't learn to swim in the ocean. The waves can get rough.
"Hopefully, that will change," he continued, "because they're building thousands of units of affordable housing in the next five years and we've insisted on a rec center so they can learn."
For now, rather than learning how to swim, the children in Ocean Village — O.V. to its residents — learn how to deal with trouble. Just across the elevated A train tracks are Ocean Bay Houses, also known as the Edgemere Houses, long considered one of the city's most crime-ridden projects.
"People here got mad troubles in their life," said Steven Rocker, 22, who moved to Ocean Village when he was 12. "You don't want to sit on no beach to relax." Residents smoke something or drink something for that, he said. "You go through your own personal hell. This place is like something out of Dante."
Mr. Rocker never traveled to Manhattan until after high school, but now he is an undergraduate at Columbia University on full scholarship. On Thursday, he stood on a sunbaked stoop in O.V. keeping a sharp eye on his younger siblings and nephews. He wore a do-rag under his baseball hat, some jewelry, and expensive sneakers.
Mr. Rocker grew up the third of eight children in a first-floor apartment with ocean-facing windows. The sea breeze, not an air-conditioner, kept them cool. He pointed toward the complex's centerpiece: twin basketball courts.
"You see hundreds of people watching a basketball game there and not one person down on the beach," he said. "It's almost like that ocean doesn't exist. When my friends from Manhattan want to go to the beach, I say, `Come to the one at my house. No one's ever on it.' They're shocked to see a housing complex on a beach."
He continued: "When I moved here, I thought I'd be on the beach the whole time. People think that just because we have it, we're going to use it, but a lot of black people don't swim."
He asked a teenage girl walking by in a full-length sweatshirt to explain to a stranger why the kids do not use the beach.
"It's dirty," she said without stopping. One of Mr. Rocker's younger brothers mumbled: "We go to the beach. We swim, we get tired. We stop and we come home."
Another brother, Jonathan, 21, said that the beach had a reputation for being dirty, even though that is no longer true.
Proving his point, Nikeema Perry, 12, said, "The beach is dirty," and her friend Goldie Campbell, 13, added: "Yeah, and the seaweed gets on your feet."
Ocean Village is flanked to the east and west by empty lots waiting for redevelopment. The elevated A train is to the north and a rickety boardwalk and endless ocean horizon are to the south.
Right now, schools of bluefish feed 50 yards offshore behind the complex, and large striped bass are running. But there are few fishermen here.
The sand and water seem to be as clean as they are at Long Beach and Jones Beach to the east. But even on hot summer days only a few dozen people are here. Sometimes the lifeguards outnumber beachgoers. The lifeguards know the O.V. residents and keep many of them from going in past their waist.
One recent evening, Von Miles, 31, and her sisters Kiki and Sunshine barbecued on the beach.
"Everyone comes to visit us here says the same thing: `I can't believe you're right on the beach. If I lived here I'd be out there every day,' " said Von Miles. "And our first summer here, we did come here most every day. But then it gets to be like, it's just there."
Ms. Miles lives with her daughters, Fantasia Miles and Taniqua Watson. Kiki Miles, 26, has a balcony with a view of the ocean.
Both Kiki and Von said that Ocean Village was inconvenient and dull, but a far cry better than the family shelters they lived in before this.
Many young people speak of feeling trapped here. They lack the money to go elsewhere and the patience for the long train and bus rides.
"We've always had the beach, so it's no big deal," said Eddie Banks, 17, who lives in an ocean-view apartment from which he can flick a cigarette butt onto the boardwalk. "What we really need is stores and movie theaters: somewhere to go. We're stuck here with nothing to do."
In Mrs. Bentsen's kitchen, her oldest son, Bruce Smith, 26, made himself some chocolate milk and said he was saving money as a security guard to move "anywhere else but here."
"I wouldn't care if there was a beachfront casino down there," he said. "I wouldn't go."
But some residents still do.
On Thursday, Sean Debouse, 12, and Dwayne Banks, 13, met outside the projects and ambled down to the water. Both dropped their pants on the beach and pulled on their bathing suits and made their way through the waves. They looked back toward O.V., which rises high out of the sand.
"Whoa, it's cold," said Sean.
"Feels great," said Dwayne.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
The Sand. The Surf. The Projects?
By COREY KILGANNON
http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/2003/08/25/nyregion/25pros.xl.jpg
Thursday afternoon was a scorcher, but only a small group took advantage of the beach near the Ocean Village housing complex in Arverne, Queens.
The windows on one side of Desiree Bentsen's third-floor apartment overlook the hot concrete courtyard of the Ocean Village public housing complex in the Rockaways. Coarse arguments, loud rap music and sometimes the sound of gunfire waft in.
But the windows on the other side of her apartment overlook a very different scene — the Atlantic Ocean and a pristine stretch of beach — and let in the roar of the waves, the squawks of sea gulls and the smell of salt air.
On Thursday afternoon, it was scorching outside. Mrs. Bentsen has no air-conditioning in her apartment, but the kitchen window let in a continuous cool sea breeze.
Mrs. Bentsen, 47, has lived in this spacious three-bedroom apartment for seven years. The monthly rent is $900, $500 of which is covered by federal Section 8 rent subsidy vouchers. She has struggled to raise her four children.
"This is the only thing keeping us here," she said, pointing out her kitchen window to the beach. "There's a lot here I never wanted my kids to grow up with, but I look out at that beach and I say, `No, we can't leave.' Once you go down by that water, it's another world. All the arguments and bad feelings people here have, it's all gone."
Ocean Village, in Queens, is not the only public housing complex in New York with water views.
There are housing projects in the Rockaways and Coney Island within sight of the ocean, but none are as close as Ocean Village.
From the front, the Ocean Village complex, aging beige buildings from Beach 56th Street to Beach 59th Street in the Arverne section of the Rockaways, looks like most blighted urban projects.
The residents are mostly poor, and outside the entrance, young men gather around loud radios and hold 40-ounce bottles and smoke marijuana.
But out back, the complex abuts the boardwalk and hot concrete gives way to clean, white sand. The ocean, clean and kelpy, bears no resemblance to the murkier water at popular city beaches like Coney Island and Orchard Beach. A minute's walk across the sand from the complex's rear gates, the waves roll in gently and there are three lifeguard stands.
But most Ocean Village residents do not use the beach or celebrate its proximity. Mrs. Bentsen recalled the way her uncle from Lefrak City would rave about her $400-per-month oceanfront deal.
"He used to come over and have a fit about the view," she said. "He'd say, `Some people just don't realize what they got. Do you realize people pay thousands of dollars to be on the beach?' I just chuckle at him."
Most residents, she said, do not take advantage of the beach or even the views.
Jonathan L. Gaska, district manager for the local Community Board 14, said that a lot of the working poor in the Rockaways do not know how to swim.
"It's a little bizarre for an oceanfront community," he said, "but it happens to be the case. They don't have a place to learn, and you don't learn to swim in the ocean. The waves can get rough.
"Hopefully, that will change," he continued, "because they're building thousands of units of affordable housing in the next five years and we've insisted on a rec center so they can learn."
For now, rather than learning how to swim, the children in Ocean Village — O.V. to its residents — learn how to deal with trouble. Just across the elevated A train tracks are Ocean Bay Houses, also known as the Edgemere Houses, long considered one of the city's most crime-ridden projects.
"People here got mad troubles in their life," said Steven Rocker, 22, who moved to Ocean Village when he was 12. "You don't want to sit on no beach to relax." Residents smoke something or drink something for that, he said. "You go through your own personal hell. This place is like something out of Dante."
Mr. Rocker never traveled to Manhattan until after high school, but now he is an undergraduate at Columbia University on full scholarship. On Thursday, he stood on a sunbaked stoop in O.V. keeping a sharp eye on his younger siblings and nephews. He wore a do-rag under his baseball hat, some jewelry, and expensive sneakers.
Mr. Rocker grew up the third of eight children in a first-floor apartment with ocean-facing windows. The sea breeze, not an air-conditioner, kept them cool. He pointed toward the complex's centerpiece: twin basketball courts.
"You see hundreds of people watching a basketball game there and not one person down on the beach," he said. "It's almost like that ocean doesn't exist. When my friends from Manhattan want to go to the beach, I say, `Come to the one at my house. No one's ever on it.' They're shocked to see a housing complex on a beach."
He continued: "When I moved here, I thought I'd be on the beach the whole time. People think that just because we have it, we're going to use it, but a lot of black people don't swim."
He asked a teenage girl walking by in a full-length sweatshirt to explain to a stranger why the kids do not use the beach.
"It's dirty," she said without stopping. One of Mr. Rocker's younger brothers mumbled: "We go to the beach. We swim, we get tired. We stop and we come home."
Another brother, Jonathan, 21, said that the beach had a reputation for being dirty, even though that is no longer true.
Proving his point, Nikeema Perry, 12, said, "The beach is dirty," and her friend Goldie Campbell, 13, added: "Yeah, and the seaweed gets on your feet."
Ocean Village is flanked to the east and west by empty lots waiting for redevelopment. The elevated A train is to the north and a rickety boardwalk and endless ocean horizon are to the south.
Right now, schools of bluefish feed 50 yards offshore behind the complex, and large striped bass are running. But there are few fishermen here.
The sand and water seem to be as clean as they are at Long Beach and Jones Beach to the east. But even on hot summer days only a few dozen people are here. Sometimes the lifeguards outnumber beachgoers. The lifeguards know the O.V. residents and keep many of them from going in past their waist.
One recent evening, Von Miles, 31, and her sisters Kiki and Sunshine barbecued on the beach.
"Everyone comes to visit us here says the same thing: `I can't believe you're right on the beach. If I lived here I'd be out there every day,' " said Von Miles. "And our first summer here, we did come here most every day. But then it gets to be like, it's just there."
Ms. Miles lives with her daughters, Fantasia Miles and Taniqua Watson. Kiki Miles, 26, has a balcony with a view of the ocean.
Both Kiki and Von said that Ocean Village was inconvenient and dull, but a far cry better than the family shelters they lived in before this.
Many young people speak of feeling trapped here. They lack the money to go elsewhere and the patience for the long train and bus rides.
"We've always had the beach, so it's no big deal," said Eddie Banks, 17, who lives in an ocean-view apartment from which he can flick a cigarette butt onto the boardwalk. "What we really need is stores and movie theaters: somewhere to go. We're stuck here with nothing to do."
In Mrs. Bentsen's kitchen, her oldest son, Bruce Smith, 26, made himself some chocolate milk and said he was saving money as a security guard to move "anywhere else but here."
"I wouldn't care if there was a beachfront casino down there," he said. "I wouldn't go."
But some residents still do.
On Thursday, Sean Debouse, 12, and Dwayne Banks, 13, met outside the projects and ambled down to the water. Both dropped their pants on the beach and pulled on their bathing suits and made their way through the waves. They looked back toward O.V., which rises high out of the sand.
"Whoa, it's cold," said Sean.
"Feels great," said Dwayne.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company