DJ Kool Herc, on left, gathers with tenants and U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer in the rec room where hip-hop was born.
Efforts To Save Hip Hop Birthplace Stepped Up
On a mission of a very different kind than what used to draw him to the ground-floor recreation room that he made famous through music more than three decades ago, legendary hip-hop pioneer DJ Kool Herc returned to the Sedgwick Avenue apartment building in the Bronx last week in a bid to save the soul of the building itself.
As he stood alongside U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer to support an effort by the building’s residents to purchase the property and preserve it as affordable housing, Kool Herc emphasized that similar battlegrounds over fair housing exist elsewhere. “We need to recognize this building,” he told the tenants, activists and officials assembled. “But we’re seeing all throughout New York City how people are losing affordable housing.” (Meanwhile, he noted, storage facilities have sprouted all over the borough – “They got places to store your stuff, but not to keep you,” he said.)
It’s a message that resonates with housing advocates who hope that the well-publicized Bronx case will not only highlight a growing problem, but help spur state legislation to protect the city’s dwindling stock of reasonably priced apartments in the statewide Mitchell-Lama housing program.
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