From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed Nov 18 2009 - 07:48:49 EST
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2009/11/18/doors-close-eritrean-community
Doors close on Eritrean community
Manhattanville's Eritrean club is defunct after eviction.
By Maggie Astor
Published Wednesday 18 November 2009 03:35am EST.
Since the summer, Manhattanville’s Eritrean community has found itself
without a home.
Harlem, which encompasses Manhattanville, remains one of the most diverse
neighborhoods in New York City, where groups ranging from African Americans
to Hispanics to Europeans have all staked out niches. Yet residents from
Eritrea, an African country bordered by the Sudan, Djibouti, and Ethiopia,
remain without a central meeting place.
The Eritrean Social Club—which since 1985 had been located just east of
Broadway in a University-owned building on 125th Street—was evicted in July
for nonpayment of rent after a final extension from a June eviction date.
Now, while leaders continue to look for new sites, they have found nothing
suitable, and the club is “not operating,” said club secretary Berhe Kifle,
who also works in the finance and administration department of the Permanent
Mission of Eritrea to the United Nations.
“Especially in that area, it is very, very expensive,” Kifle said, adding
that the club had considered locations in the Bronx, but members rejected
these locations because they were not easily accessible by subway or bus.
Kifle estimated the club has 80 active members and between 400 and 500
nominal ones.
“We gathered over there to meet Eritreans ... and then we have a language
school for the ladies that are not speaking English,” Kifle said. “We have
also a school for the children to learn our language, and we have different
organizations, women’s organizations, that meet over there. We were
celebrating all the national holidays.”
“Our main problem is the children,” member Yohanes Gebrtensae said. “They
cannot even see each other. We’ve been here half of our life, and when
someone comes in and forces you to leave, it’s hard. People ask what
happened—we have no answer for them.”
Kifle said the rent issue arose when Columbia officials did not respond to
requests to repair the space. Daniel Held, director of communications for
Columbia Facilities, declined to comment, citing the University’s policy of
not discussing relations with tenants.
“The reason we didn’t pay them was because they don’t want to fix the water
leak in the bathroom from the roof, and they don’t want to fix the garage,”
Kifle said.
“We can’t even teach—it was very unsafe,” Gebrtensae said, referring to the
damage from the water leaks that made the floor unsuitable for dancing.
At first, Kifle said, the club dealt with the leaks. “We are a lot of handy
people and we are fixing it,” he said. But the leaks eventually caused
extensive damage. “All these things we explained to them [Columbia].”
For the past four to five years, he said, the club had been operating with
no long-term lease, only a month-to-month one.
The club’s lawyer, Simon Medhin, was unavailable for comment.
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