Stopped And Frisked Around The Way (near Valentine Ave.)

An Introduction To Valentine Avenue and The Peace Poets

Most people in The Bronx know that Valentine Avenue is no lover's paradise. 2,230 apartment buildings on 1.4 square miles of land, and just footsteps away from prestigious Fordham University, (and with less than 1% of local residents in attendance at said institution) and home to the second largest heroin hub in New York City.


Where overcrowded and underfunded schools educate youth poorly, and where police presence is a gift and a curse. This is Valentine Avenue. A place that earned the nickname "Tombstone" because of the never-ending rows of attached apartment buildings on either side of the street, and because of the high death rate. Drugs, gang violence, and despair. These are the images people see when they hear "194th Street and Valentine". But this is not all that resides in the heart of this Bronx neighborhood.


Enter children, playing basketball in the middle of the street and soccer on the sidewalks.  A consortium of abuelitas (Spanish for grandmothers) setting up tables and carts to sell homemade latin cuisine in front of their apartment buildings, shouting wisdoms over the din of car radios playing salsa and hip-hop, and the clanking of the latino-owned barber shops opening their gates for business. Elementary school groups en route to Edgar Allen Poe Park to see the home he lived in and penned timeless tales. The ringing of bells on the icee and piragua carts, the familiar repetition of "The Entertainer" blaring out of the ice cream truck PA system. The barking of young men talking sports and politics in the barber shop vestibule, the sing-song of the bonchincheras (Spanish for gossipers) pouring out of the salon right across the way. This is Valentine Avenue, The Bronx, NYC.



In the midst of all this, there are two young men playing guitars in front of 2674 Valentine, singing Juan Luis Guerra with twelve elderly women in chorus. They are wearing t-shirts that say "The Peace Poets" on the front and "estamos juntos" (Spanish for "we are together") on the back. Everyone I speak to on this block knows who they are: the guys in front of the corner store said they helped them get back into school and provided a public defender for their court cases, the cashier at the Chinese food restaurant says they offer him guitar lessons, the school groups wave at them and the teachers remind them to come back to their class to teach workshops. The police drive up, roll down their windows, and sing along with the community elders for a few moments. These young men change the perceived negativity of this environment in every way possible; they have become a part of the fabric of Valentine Avenue. These are The Peace Poets.