Diana Reyna

KITTO: So today is August 17, 2017. I'm Svetlana Kitto from the Brooklyn Historical Society. I'm here with Deputy Borough President Diana Reyna at Borough Hall on Joralemon Street.

REYNA: That is correct.

KITTO: This oral history interview is for the Brooklyn Historical Society's upcoming waterfront exhibit. Now, if you would, introduce yourself and then please tell me where and when you were born and a little bit about your early life.

REYNA: So my name is Diana Reyna. That is spelled R-E-Y-N-A, although my parents' original surname is spelled with an I, not a Y. Immigration, when they came to the United States, happened to change their name where later on it returned back to its origin. And so half the family is spelling their name with 1:00a Y and the other half with an I. Just for grammatical purposes we have -- I am the Deputy Brooklyn Borough President, have been for four years. I served in the city council for twelve, representing my hometown of Williamsburg/Greenpoint, Bushwick and Ridgewood, Queens. I was born in 1973, [date redacted for privacy], and I was born technically in Manhattan, but raised in what would be Los Sures, Williamsburg, the South Side community. And my parents are from the Dominican Republic. They settled here in the '60s in Los Sures, Williamsburg.

KITTO: So can you tell me just a little bit about your early life in Williamsburg?

REYNA: So my early life in Williamsburg, I would say as far back as perhaps being in a Head Start in Williamsburg is the earliest memory I have. Being at the Williamsburg Y Head Start program and just mesmerized with my kindergarten teacher who was just looking like Wonder Woman. And she was tall, long hair, you know, the Jane Fonda long hair and just amazed at how beautiful and smart. And then I had a very strict household. My parents, having experienced what was a 3:00Williamsburg in the days of the '60s when they were there in the time of civil rights movement, in the time of a blackout, in the time of arson, in a time of drug dealing and just epidemic era, they wanted to make sure they protected their daughters. I'm one of four daughters. Three of us were raised here. My eldest half-sister, my father's daughter, was raised in Dominican Republic. And so my childhood was an upbringing of culture, the Dominican culture, slash American of which they knew nothing. And they assimilated as much as they could, balancing what were certain ways of what is American tradition that they did not 4:00adhere to, such as dating. That was not welcomed in our household.

And the opportunity to be able to recall my parents -- my dad was a livery driver for most of his life up until he passed away, and my mom was a factory worker and the opportunities for my dad to become a livery driver was based on the fact that he wanted to be self-employed. The opportunities to be able to be a business person prior to as a pizzeria owner and a two-time failed pizzeria owner. Prior to that he was working in the factories right here in DUMBO in the 5:00waterfront area as well as my mom who worked as a factory worker making military uniforms, making hats, men's suits, just a real craftsman and craftswoman traditional labor. And it was great to see my mom design and make patterns and teach us everything she knew about sewing. My dad did not enjoy being in the factories and was always a self-employed individual dating back to what was his native land of Dominican Republic. And so, you know, he recalls the days of working as a livery driver down Kent Avenue, two-way street where all you saw 6:00were prostitutes. And he wanted to always make sure that we were sheltered from all of that. The opportunities to know that him being a livery driver gave him access to seeing so much more of the world, the world as in the city of New York. [laughter]

And my fondest memories are going to the waterfront to see the fireworks on July fourth and that was a tradition in our community. And no matter how fenced off and militarized the waterfront looked, we always gained access. From the streets, we would put down barricades, you know, as much as they fenced off -- the city would fence off, private property owners would fence off from the public to gain access. There was always kids trying to cut it open and access it 7:00anyway and that would give what would be the opportunities to go to the waterfront. But July fourth, I would say, would be the favorite holiday. Leading up to it, knowing that we were going to go to the waterfront to view the fireworks, that just seemed like such a close display. The clear view that we would have from the Upland South Side community of Manhattan and how far it looked but how close the Twin Towers were if you were standing right on Division off of Hughes Street. And the opportunity to know that, you know, the smell of what was Domino's sugar molasses. There was this authentic smell. There was also 8:00Ross Ridge on the Newtown Creek that was a reminder that we were getting closer to home if we were coming from visiting family in Manhattan or Connecticut. To see the water tanks getting closer on the highway, on the BQE [Brooklyn-Queens Expressway] crossing the Kosciuszko Bridge, we knew we were getting closer to home.

So there were always landmarks to be able to navigate and as a child those are the most memorable pieces that you start linking together and that's your mapping of where you are in this world. So there's an opportunity here to be able to recall how the waterfront was always surrounding, hugging, what would be 9:00my community from every angle and how there wasn't access entry points and yet we had to always be over water to exit the island of Brooklyn. So it's fascinating, you know, to me to see how we as people have been given this no entry point and we're trying to regain waterfront access. And doing it can mean many different things, but what I've seen is the loss of employment opportunities. When I first became a council member in 2001 I stood on the 10:00picket line with Domino Sugar workers and, you know, you could find what are individuals who used to be employed by Domino Sugar. Many residents of Williamsburg worked and remember the days when the Brooklyn Navy Yard was very active and being a part of that particular work force. Fewer exist in the way that it used to be back in the '70s or '80s, but knowing that the Brooklyn Navy Yard was my backyard because I grew up in the South Side. It's never been considered part of Williamsburg. It's been considered part of the downtown area, but I had no distinction because the entrance or exit to the Brooklyn Navy Yard on the Williamsburg side gave me a perfect view of what was the Brooklyn Navy 11:00Yard and being intrigued, what is this?

And no one ever really talked about the waterfront growing up. It existed, it was there, but no one gave reference to it. It employed people, it was, you know, the waterfront was part of your landscape, but there was no history connection to it. And I think that's the art and the science that we have to connect, that we have to raise awareness, that we have an obligation to generations after us so that they have an understanding as to how commerce was possible because of our waterways, through our waterfronts being developed, 12:00industrialized. You know, the history of all these different communities. When Brooklyn had the Five Towns and the boom of an overcrowded island of Manhattan and how people would want to come into the suburbs of Brooklyn. And to have then, have it redesigned in the early 1900s to the mid-1900s by Robert Moses where highways started to become the priority. And I think when highways began to make way for more movement of freight and people, I think that's when we lost 13:00-- as the public we lost the connection to our waterways, our waterfront. We became more dependent and our shift of behaviors became more vehicle dependent as opposed to waterways.

KITTO: That's great. Can you tell me a little bit about your father's work in the factories? Any memories you have?

REYNA: I don't have memories because this was probably when I was an infant and he was a recent immigrant. What I do know is that I had the pleasure when my dad was in his final days in the hospital, there was a neighbor who came to visit, her name is Vicky, and Vicky was expressing how she -- her best moments were the days when they would sit by the waterfront for lunch outside the factory and 14:00shared their lunch, shared their meal, exchanged what would be, you know, "what did you make today" and "have some of this, try it." And my dad, with a lot of pride, sharing his cooking skills. Being able to have fond memories that were perhaps never shared with us as children, but to hear someone else, third party, express them to us, it was almost like wow, that was my dad and I didn't even realize he worked on the waterfront. And here I am now in a position of shaping our waterfront to have it preserved and balanced so that it's not at the cost of 15:00one or the other. You know, it's very difficult to see how there's less opportunity, employment opportunity, for people in this borough as we continue to develop our waterfront. And I don't know that I'll ever know how my dad felt from the days working on the waterfront. I think he was -- those were joyful days because of the people he worked with, the bond of being able to work together and understand their struggle together. It was a shared common journey and --

KITTO: Were people he was working with from the same neighborhood, from Los Sures?

REYNA: Yes. And so the connection of, you know, these waterfront industrial 16:00manufacturing sector jobs are word of mouth, right? You know someone from back home who just moved and is looking for employment and now you bring them to the factory and you vouch for them. Those were the reference letters that today are more email structured or perhaps written in letter format, but back then, you know, your word was your bond. And being able to vouch for the individual you're bringing to the factory would drastically transform the person's life. And that to me, I think, is one of the pivoting points in an immigrant's life. So my dad to have been recommended to this waterfront factory job, but he never really spoke about it. He had memories about it that he would in passing mention, but I 17:00learned more about it from what was this neighbor of ours, Vicky, who just happened to come and say goodbye to him at his end of life. It was at the end that I realized how connected he was at one point to the waterfront. But like everything in life, you move on and because it's not in close proximity to you it becomes a thing of the past where the details are no longer as clear. So there's no recollection and if you asked him, you know, "How do you get to Downtown Brooklyn?" he'll remember that because he spent thirty years as a driver in the industry of what would be livery service.

KITTO: So were you ever aware or aware later of any kind of political consciousness around being a worker or the factories or any sort of, like, coalescing around that?

REYNA: As a child?

KITTO: Yeah.

REYNA: No. But now as a young person in my twenties and remembering what is, you know, fighting Radiac, fighting the storage, flammable storage, facilities and raising awareness and educating the community on all these uses that were concentrated in our community along the waterfront. And threats that that would bring to the people of our community. And so our waterfront has been an area, a 19:00land area, that has been considered to be a place of dumping as opposed to an opportunity to re-envision, to be able to service the public in a more positive way. And the dumping is what I most remember in my early career in politics of what made me angry and that the opportunity to have a vision for it was never really shared or suggested. And perhaps later on life I've realized and learned what was a 187-a plan -- a 197-a plan and how that is the community planning 20:00process, right? And did my parents know about that process? Was my parent invited to that process? Who gets invited to that process and who gives permission or is it you invite yourself? In the immigrant community are we waiting for an invitation or are we pulling up the chair to invite ourselves to what is a public session that should include everyone? And so, you know, the waterfront, through the 197-a plan, had a transformative, divided and 21:00controversial, very complex list of ideas that people wanted to see and --

KITTO: So I don't really know about this so can you tell me when you're talking about and those kinds things?

REYNA: Sure. No, absolutely. Back in the '80s, and I'm a young child, I don't know about any of this, but I learned later on in my adult life that the community came together, Greenpoint, Williamsburg on the 197-a plan to transform what is the uses to deal with a lot of the dumping aspects of what were inequitable environmental issues that were negatively impacting our community. Health-wise, noise-wise, truck traffic-wise, pollution, and the 197-a plan had 22:00-- is a formal process in the land use law to be able to have community support, what are certain goals. And from the '80s to the '90s that was a plan the community continued to participate in, but at one point or another it split where Greenpoint decided they no longer shared what were perhaps views that the south Williamsburg area were trying to push. And those are politics that, you know, are hearsay, anecdotal. What I realized is that a lot of what different 23:00sectors of population in the community were trying to do was, you know, list out priorities, right? So open space, affordable housing, employment, industrial small businesses. And rather than saying, "Okay, this is the holistic plan of what we want to achieve" it was broken into pieces where we want open space, we don't want to deal with the issue of affordable housing because that's their issue. And it was divided and compartmentalized as opposed to holistic approach and it pitted community against community. And it was economic development through the lens of real estate development which compromised the waterfront.

And so from that 197-a plan that was completed after twenty years, now the city of New York in 2004 begins to hear the rumors that city planning is going to certify an actual rezoning plan. And so the rezoning plan is what now dictates a serious discussion on once and for all what are we going to see that's transformative on the waterfront? That was a scary process. And with uncertainty and perhaps if we don't do it now when are we going to get the next opportunity? 25:00And the city was the primary applicant, but the majority of the land was privately owned already and perhaps flipped five, six times, making it more expensive because the land -- what was then in the '80s purchased for perhaps $10,000, once everyone started hearing of rezoning the speculation made everything just prohibitive. And it almost stripped what was the importance and historical nature of what the waterfront was to help shape what it should be, right?

And what we see today is very glossy. It's new population with very little 26:00connection to history, but valuing what is an amazing view. And if we weigh more on what is a view as opposed to the connection to humanity it makes it feel very cold. And the cost of having lost employment replaced with what is permanent structures that only are self-serving really hurts the community at large. And so, you know, I look at the waterfront and when there were industrial uses on 27:00the waterfront or where there is industrial uses you have a greater cohesive sense of community. When you have what are structures of residential buildings you have a wall built where now you have this inequity of access that goes beyond a fence because now it's a gated community as opposed to what would have been link chains that you could cut open. And a lot of kids in the neighborhood would jump into the river to gain access, to swim. And the currents there are dangerous on the East River. And people want to be connected to water in a way 28:00that perhaps, especially children, and we haven't mastered what is community access but rather real estate access. And I think that's where there is a loss in greater value than what we've seen become developed over the years. So yeah.

KITTO: So you, it's obvious that you love this community and that you have a strong connection to it, that it is your community, and I'd just love to hear a little bit -- you were so good at describing at the beginning, like, the smells 29:00and the -- I'd love to hear just a little bit about the experience of, like, south Williamsburg. So you know, maybe the apartment you grew up in or like any street scenes or neighbors, just what it was like at that time.

REYNA: Right.

KITTO: Because it's very different now. I used to live in Williamsburg and even since I've lived there it's changed so much. So it would be great to hear about that.

REYNA: So I grew up on Hughes Street and Harrison. It was a corner home, three family home. The bathroom was near the kitchen. You had to go through -- when you entered the house, up the stairs, our door to the right with a fog door in the hallway which was an entrance to the toilet area. And the -- when you 30:00entered into the main door you were in the living room slash dining area and the kitchen was to the left and it was like an alley kitchen the size of a closet. And the toilet was next to it. Not the most hygienic but I imagine, I always imagine, that this was a beautiful single-family home at one point where the parlors were, you know, on the second floor and this was a hall bathroom as opposed to an actual apartment unit. And so my days and years in this house where we shared, you know, fond memories having the landlord live downstairs with his uncle. His uncle and the nephew were co-owners of the house. The nephew 31:00had his wife and his two kids who were Puerto Rican and then there was a Cuban elder who lived above us and he was the owner of the corner store, the candy store where you bought candy for a penny. And it was up the street and next door to us was Mr. Caravallo and, you know, dark skin -- I can't remember if he was Cuban or Puerto Rican. Always wearing a fedora just like my dad.

And you know, up the block, you know, friends from school that lived on the block on Hughes Street. And you know, my second-grade teacher, Sister Marcellus. Around the corner, our church, and around the corner again, our school, our 32:00elementary school, Our Savior Transfiguration. And so it's a close-knit community of families. I always mention how we were tribes, you know, the Espinams [phonetic], the Durans, the Reynas, the Hernandez, the Gonzales. You would find them everywhere. And intermarried, intermingled, sometimes even closer connection because they were from back home, from their native land, they were from the same provinces in Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico. And it's because of that word of mouth, you know, "come, there's so much employment here, there's opportunity here, and I'll help you get on your feet, you could stay with me." And those are the, you know, connections of just neighbor to neighbor support, family members and just children of that you would just sponsor.

And I remember being in this house and exploring the basement all the time. So when you went to the cellar there were -- it was gloomy, it had a smell like it was always wet, and there was no concrete floor. It was dirt. And it was like a time capsule. Big oil tanks, two of them, that were taller than me and we would go and explore. And we would start scraping the walls trying to find treasure or, you know, digging a hole into the basement and the further back we went, because it was very deep, we would come across certain artifacts that were just 34:00stored in the cellar. And I remember coming across old newspaper prints and the more I went through them I would look for the date and the date would go as far back as 1905. And that was extraordinary to me, to sit here and look at these newspapers and I didn't want anyone touching them. I didn't want anyone discarding them and ruining. I valued the actual timeline that I was able to witness on something that was as old. And you know, looking back as I'm saying it, my parents -- my generation of being American doesn't go far very much. And so this was my way of connecting to beyond my parents being the immigrants and 35:00being able to read about something that was older than them, here in America.

And I don't know whatever happened to those newspapers. We spent great years there. Half of them were not pleasant because the co-owners sold to new owners who were not interested in renewing leases in the house and slowly they were able to get each tenant out where we were the only ones remaining in the house. That led to turning the property over to a new owner and then another owner and every time there was a new owner there was no heat, no hot water, no electricity 36:00in the hallway. Where we became the landlord as tenants just to survive staying there. And you know, those were troubling years, seeing my mother struggle going to court, seeing my mom not able to access more work because the factories were not doing well either and work was becoming more difficult to acquire. She had to make decisions as to what she was going to be able to do, transform herself. And all the while also trying to deal with what could have been a homeless situation and not being able to remain in the neighborhood and finding ourselves 37:00having to move. That was, you know, probably one of the saddest moments in our life and --

KITTO: How old were you?

REYNA: So when we started I think I was ten years old, if not nine, when we started -- when the house was sold and we spent seven years there in that situation after having lived there for so many years very stable. And you know, the landlord selling -- so the Hasidic community had purchased -- one Hasidic owner purchased and then the next Hasidic individual introduced himself and said he's the new owner and then another one would come over and mention how he was 38:00the new owner until there were no owners really. It was just a tactic to enter court proceedings that led to eventually my mom accepting what was an offer that they would move and pay our first month's security deposit and first month's rent. So those expenses were covered, but they took much more than that. It wasn't just our home. It was our childhood in this neighborhood. Sorry.

KITTO: No, don't be.

REYNA: If that had not happened -- I think that's the first time I actually say 39:00that where I realized -- so by that -- I was sixteen years old and we left to go to school and when we came back home we went to a completely different borough in Queens, Ozone Park, and we remained there, but I was going to college so I didn't really get to spend much time or ever connect with that community. We didn't know anyone, we didn't have friends there. All our friends, our whole life was in Williamsburg.

KITTO: And it wasn't possible to find a new apartment through your --

REYNA: My mom walked and spoke to so many realtors and applied to so many, what were different developments at the time, and public housing. And then when she was able to secure a Section 8 voucher we were able to take advantage of what 40:00was an opportunity, but the opportunity meant that we would have to give everything up, our network, our social network, our support system. And you know, it was an opportunity that she could not walk away from and it was going to position her family in a much more stable environment. At least she wanted to believe that, right? What's amazing is that those situations are still happening today, thirty years later.

KITTO: Specifically what do you mean?

REYNA: Specifically, you know, tenants being relocated, tenants being harassed out of their apartments and rents that they can't afford, rents that at one 41:00point or another you don't know where you're going to make more income to be able to sustain what is already an overburdened rent. And so, you know, the development of our waterfront for real estate purposes impacts these families that could have had employment opportunities if that was part of the envisioning process. This is part of the challenge. It's making sure that we are blending opportunities, that it's not just from the lens of real estate development for residential purposes, but that we factor in and help transition a work force 42:00into those plans. And we don't allow ourselves to stop and think that way and if we do we don't make the connection. That's why it's important to have a reflected population sitting at the table because then you have a true dialogue where there's equity all around. You know, we still have what is remaining waterfront land, but for how much longer if the speculation continues?

And so, you know, we fight for the preservation, the balance, and the mixed use so that, you know, as we continue to see, let's say, the borough of Brooklyn, 43:00which has become so hot and where the city values land more than ever because it's at a premium now. You can't find it any longer. You know, you can't find that one dollar land deal that the city was giving away in the '80s. And so where do you go but vertical and if it's going vertical how high do you go? And if it's going that high are we incorporating a blended model that truly reflects opportunity beyond housing?

KITTO: Do you -- gosh, I have so many questions. Okay, do you have any -- like 44:00the people who -- in the neighborhood who did own property, like you were talking the owners of the building you lived in who were Puerto Rican, like were there a lot of Puerto Rican and Dominican landowners and sort of what happened? Do you have any stories about what happened there? And how -- because I've seen the same thing happen in Crown Heights where it's not -- it actually was, like, a large black middle class that were property owning and that have in the interim had to give -- had to sell their buildings under a lot of pressure.

REYNA: Yeah. We have had a lot of immigrants that have owned in Williamsburg that were either offered a deal where perhaps at the time selling for $30,000 45:00was a lot of money and all the person wanted to do was retire to go to Puerto Rico. But that was in the '80s and '90s. In the '70s and '60s they were begging you to buy the buildings for $13,000, $7,000. My parents never bought one. Let me strike that. My dad never wanted to, typical of a man, too much risk, fear. My mom was like, "Let's do it." And my mom was not valued with her opinion, but fought to have her own home when we came back to live in Brooklyn after we had 46:00an opportunity to buy an affordable home in Bushwick. That's when my mom was like, "I've had it, we're doing this with you or without you, but I'm going to determine my future because if we don't own, this can continue to happen to us as renters."

I think that's the lesson learned of the past where owning and not being sold a bill of goods, having strong will with purpose and intention to stay is a conviction that perhaps on principle very few people are able to honor. Because you have a lot of individual property owners who have sold because of the market pressures and perhaps because they've aged in place and would find it better to 47:00move to another -- their native land or perhaps Florida. A lot of families who used to own have moved to Florida. And what has occurred is that many of those families end up coming back asking what happened. I came back because I wanted to come back to live here and I find myself with no opportunities, not realizing that it's not the Williamsburg that they once knew and that it's a shock and then it's disappointment. And then it's, you know, a lack -- a loss that they're feeling. And then it's despair. What do I do? You know, this was the community, 48:00you know, I was fortunate enough where I was able to get stability and gain wealth, right, become the middle class and I'm returning to be in need and it cannot help me anymore. My social network is no longer there.

And you know, Brooklyn used to have thirty years ago 67% Latino population. Today it has 19%. That's telling. And if you look back at, you know, despite the growth of development there is no development that is inclusive of what is the Latino population. Because a lot of the new development if it's being purchased, 49:00speculated, purchased, and developed where you have to factor in all of those costs you're talking about million-dollar property and above. And the Latino resident in the neighborhood is not making that income because the employment opportunities that are local are not reflective of that income. And so it's cyclical. And so we have -- I've known of property owners that have been able to secure ownership because of the struggles and organizing skills of the South Side community United Housing Corporation, which is a nonprofit organization 50:00that worked towards developing abandoned buildings and turning them into HDFC [Housing Development Fund Corporation] co-ops. So they're tenant owned.

Turning them into co-ops provided each tenant to have their own unit and today I think that's what has salvaged what is a middle class of families that have been able to survive the storm of real estate pressure. But even that has become a challenge because there are owners who are selling because they purchased the units at $200 down payment, today they're getting half a million dollars for that two-bedroom apartment. They can't even imagine seeing that type of money ever. And so do I stand on my conviction of preserving my ownership or do I take 51:00what is money I'll never see in my life? So you know, it's a challenge, a battle, that the individual goes through.

KITTO: So you said your dad owned a couple of pizzerias. Were you alive when he did?

REYNA: Yeah.

KITTO: Do you remember them at all?

REYNA: Yeah. So up the block what is Division and Broadway, Hughes Street station -- so if you come down or go up to the train station, the pizzeria -- it was Benny's Pizzeria and it had two entrances, on Broadway and on Division. And I can remember he and my uncle, Rafael, who were born on the same day, October 8, different years, best of buddies, just hearing their stories were more funny 52:00to me than anything else because I can remember my dad making dough in the machine and we were all eager to touch the dough, to make it for him or with him. To sit on the counter, you know those stools that you go around if you spin on them? Being able to sit on the counter, which was much higher than we could have ever be able to sit on and gaining access to what would be, you know, a soda that we would ask for. Just remembering that smell of pizza and how my dad would fling the dough up and being able to see how much pride they had in their 53:00business. It was a small place. The arcade -- they were very well known to the children in the neighborhood because they had the arcades in the pizzeria. And so you not only went for the pizza and soda, but you went to play all afternoon arcades, Pacman, Donkey Kong, I don't even know what others. My husband remembers going in there and spending way too much time.

There were moments of loss because my dad would remember times when they were held up at gunpoint and, you know, it was a period where you had to own a firearm in order to have a small business. And I grew up always fearing that my 54:00dad was going to die because of it. The, you know -- I remember them talking about an incident where they were hit over the head with a pistol and they took their money from the cash register, they were on the floor. And we were crying listening to all of this. And it didn't happen just once and after a while you just become so numb to the story, like you expect to be a victim of crime. And that pizzeria folded. Just they didn't own the location and, again, that ownership aspect is everything to what is the preservation of who you are and 55:00where you want to be. As a tenant leasing space they had no fighting chance and just when the business was probably starting to be built this came crashing down on them where the landlord wanted more money and they couldn't and they have no option but to leave.

Then my dad went into business with another partner who was already had an established pizzeria across the street from the 90th precinct on Union. And he knew so many officers from the nine-oh who would just go in there. And it wasn't as pleasant to go in that pizzeria as it was going to my dad's pizzeria. Just 56:00the sign alone, right, like "Benny's Pizzeria," was a telling prideful moment because that's my dad's name up there. Going to Union, it was more about asking permission because it wasn't really just my father. And seeing officers so close, because there was always officers eating in the pizzeria, it was just fascinating, right? So I don't -- and it was farther away so we didn't have the ability to go there all the time. But this was up a block -- the first pizzeria was up the block from where we lived, went to school, went to church. We lived in this little triangle of a world. That's how sheltered. And I didn't look at 57:00it as sheltered. I just -- for me it was just this is my neighborhood. You know, like I have everything I need right here. And it's the pinnacle of community, I find.

KITTO: What were the other groups and what were the other, like, demographics that were living there, if there were any?

REYNA: A lot of Ecuadorian, Salvadorian, Nicaragua, African-American. I remember going to Bob's Store. But Bob's Store didn't have a sign. Bob's Store was on Division across the street from my dad's and he was like your neighborhood go-to person for anything and everything. So what we consider a Macy's taking overstock goods and selling, Bob was Macy's and he would have, you know, the 58:00shoes you needed for school and my mom swore by Buster Brown. And understanding that at Bob's you could find any knickknack you wanted. It was like a treasure trove you would go into. And everything was just piled up so you had to dig through mountains of goods to find what it was you needed. I don't know whatever happened to Bob.

KITTO: Where was it exactly?

REYNA: Oh my gosh. I want to say it was closer to, not Penn Street because Penn Street is this way. Keep and Division, if not one block over, like closer to Rodney, but it didn't have a sign. There was a door, barely a window, and it was 59:00street level. The Hasidic community lived around --

KITTO: At that time already?

REYNA: Yeah. They were a smaller community, growing very quickly. And my block went from being Latino and Irish -- there were a lot of Irish families and Argentinean Jews. And I remember having a piano teacher that my mom befriended to teach us piano lessons at her home. And she taught her how to make applesauce from scratch and we hated it because it turned brown. But that shared culture, it's amazing, right? Like where would you find a Dominican mom sharing with an Argentinean Jew mom and speaking Spanish, right? Like that's why -- I value most 60:00is that I was never in culture shock because I was exposed to so many cultures at a very early age and that was always reflected, right? So I remember having -- walking towards the Marcy Avenue Williamsburg library and seeing the women waiting there, the Polish women, the Latina women, for the Jewish Hasidic women to pick them up to take them to their home to clean their homes. And this has been a tradition till this day. And seeing this informal process. There was always informal structures.

The day laborers being at a certain intersection and they've moved more so than 61:00the women. The women have maintained the BQE post on Marcy and -- or Division and Marcy Avenue. And no matter whether it's raining, sunny, you know, snowing, they're always there. You know, the different families that have had the opportunities to live in Williamsburg were always also associated to the different churches, houses of worship. So there's a real sense of neighborhood not just from living, working, worshipping, but it's a constant flow of 62:00connection. Just a fondness of my neighborhood.

KITTO: So beautiful. So what about like experiences of discrimination? Maybe from, I don't know, the Hasidic community like outside of your triangle or --

REYNA: There was -- I could always remember trying to play with the Hasidic young girls next door to us and how they would spit at us. They would play these games that we always wanted to learn from them where they would spin a circular rope where they would skip over it. And they were really good, almost experts, 63:00and we would start mimicking them trying to do it ourselves and they would laugh, right? And we were getting older and it got to a point where we realized they were never going to socialize with us as much as we would try to. And I don't think they were trying to be mean spirited on purpose, but they didn't know how to interact outside of themselves with other people. I do remember the Hasidic owners that would come to collect rent who would want to see the news, but they couldn't touch the knob and they would want to turn on the television and ask us, "Can you turn on your television?" And I remember, you know, finding 64:00that weird, like why are you asking me to turn on my own television, but they were eager to see what was on the news or just on television, period. And I would turn it on or, you know, I remember turning on lights, being asked to turn on lights on the block. Small gestures like that, but the discrimination was in your face because they didn't interact with our family, our neighborhood. It was always us and them.

The stores, my mom loved shopping in the Hasidic stores. I hated it because you could feel the eyes lurking. And I would tell mom, "Please make this fast. I don't want to be here." And my mom would haggle with them. And now I understand 65:00why --because there's two prices, one price for their community and one price for the rest of the world and that's why she was so good at making sure that she wasn't going to accept the price they were telling her. I didn't know that as a child. And she was constantly haggling, to the point where we would be almost thrown out of the store, but that goes to show you how smart my mom is and how she doesn't take anything less than what she deserves.

KITTO: Just want to affirm again that I love the stories you're telling me and I lived on Hooper when I first moved to New York for like the first five years and so it's -- I know all the place -- like, the areas that you're talking about and it's so cool to hear. But so let's move forward a little bit. What about your 66:00sort of transition from -- so at this point you were in Queens, but going from Queens to --

REYNA: Bushwick.

KITTO: Yeah. You went to Bushwick? Oh, Okay.

REYNA: No, no, you're right. I went to college, to Pace University in Westchester. So my time in Queens really didn't develop an attachment.

KITTO: Is your mom alive?

REYNA: Yes, my mom is alive.

KITTO: Was she there?

REYNA: In Bushwick.

KITTO: Oh, okay.

REYNA: Because once I came back from college I started working in my local assemblyman's office in Bushwick -- Assemblyman Vito Lopez -- and that was because of conversations with a youth leader I had in Williamsburg from my church, Transfiguration, Marcia, who, you know, happened to just express this 67:00opportunity. And I said, "I'll take it." You know, like it's great, I'll get exposure, what is not good about the opportunity?

KITTO: Had you been thinking already about politics?

REYNA: No.

KITTO: Not at all?

REYNA: Not at all. I was a nursing major. And in school, being away, working three jobs just to stay in school. I wanted to go away. It took me a year to convince my parents that this was the right thing to do, to let me go dorm. That was foreign to them and that's the American way of going to school and, you know, being able to get out of my norm was very important to me. To experience what is beyond my parent's experience. And after a year of just nagging, pleading, raising it over and over, my persistence, they agreed and I left. And --

KITTO: What did they want you to do?

REYNA: They knew I wanted to become a nurse, but the reality is that I don't know that the nursing and the education stamina you had to have to be able to be a good test taker -- right? -- was present in my life. And so I struggled through nursing because the multiple-choice tests and you're leading up to training to pass the NCLEX exam [National Council Licensure Examination] which is very difficult, right? And it's multiple choice and so I had to struggle. And then my final year my nursing professor had expressed how I was exhibiting a lot 69:00of leadership skills, that I should rethink nursing. Because I started organizing all the nursing students and we formed an organization.

KITTO: What was it?

REYNA: It was called Student Nurses at Pace.

KITTO: Snap.

REYNA: Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. So this snappy chick here had to digest what the professor was saying and I felt discriminated against, like maybe she's saying that I as a Latina can't do this. And I don't know if that was the case, but I know that that really opened up my eyes to reflect on was there something else I needed to pay attention to? So this internship at the assemblyman's office offered -- really gave me a sense of looking forward to something beyond 70:00thinking about nursing or doubting nursing. And that focus led into a career of politics. So by the time I came home after college I had a fulltime position, or part-time position first in '96 and then in '97 fulltime. But in '96, when I returned back home we were living in Queens. In '97, we were able to purchase the two-family home in Bushwick and we've been there ever since and that particular neighborhood was the neighborhood growing up in Williamsburg where everybody would say, "Don't go to Bushwick" and Bushwick would say, "Don't go to Williamsburg."

KITTO: Why?

REYNA: It was the '70s and '80s.

KITTO: But if they were similar then.

REYNA: No one knew because everybody was saying don't go over there. And the most you would experience was Knickerbocker Avenue and Graham Avenue which were 71:00the commercial strips of where you did business of shopping. So all the local stores, if you wanted good sneakers and whatever, you know, article of clothing, that's where you had to go. That was the only reason you ever went to either community. And then we discovered what was Queen's Shopping Mall or 34th Street. You know, like why stay in the neighborhood when you have The Gap in other neighborhoods? As we got older, right? And then I thought well, why don't we have The Gap here in the neighborhood, right? Now I'm like forget The Gap. We don't need a Gap. We have designers, you know, fabricating their own designs and selling their own designs right here locally. And the opportunities to be able 72:00to see the elements of what Bushwick was and struggled through, similar to Williamsburg, is what I admire most because Bushwick was the heroin capital of the United States. The Latin Kings ruled. This is what I had to grow up with.

And it didn't feel that way, perhaps because my mom and dad sheltered us. What I failed to express was that our home on Hughes Street in Williamsburg, as we lived on the second floor we had access to the fireplace -- not fireplace. A fire escape from the living room area that when you walked down was the rooftop of the back apartment, the rear apartment, that would have been a yard. So we 73:00didn't have a yard because it was built out. And that family was a Dominican family as well and we grew up with those girls and their rooftop became our playground and so we would camp out. We would, you know, garden on the fire escape, we would read and have alone time on the edge of the roof, which was kind of dangerous, you know, looking back. We would climb over to the next-door property, which was not a very smart idea, and just we would have, you know, gatherings of our cousins on top of the roof. Of course our neighbor was not happy because she would hear all the stomps on the roof and we were ruining the roof as well.

But the roof was our playground. We didn't have a park we went to. The park, 74:00which was Rodney Park, when we were young my mom had taken us and there was a shootout between police officers and a perpetrator they were going after in the middle of the park. We had to run for cover behind the outhouse, the comfort house. And ever since that day we never saw a park after that. So this era of crime really shaped how you experienced life and how you perceived certain neighborhoods. And to see yourself now investing in that very neighborhood, now you're becoming part of, you know, shaping the future of this neighborhood. And 75:00so as the years went by and I continued to work in politics you have an appreciation for -- Bushwick was also to receive the very last public housing built in the United States, Oak Gardens. That's remarkable. And to see photos and remnants of what was, you know, the church, St. Barbara's, which is right across the street from us, be the reason why families united to stay together to protect the church from it being torched when everything else was burning down. And to see that where our home stands, similar to many of the two-family homes that are new, these are the invested families that are going to rebuild this 76:00neighborhood again.

And that, you know, rising from the ashes has been possible because of that investment, because of that, you know, livelihood of being able to have, you know, saved money, raised children that then contributed to the cause of owning and setting forth a new future for yourself. You know, today, twenty years later, my mom gets a letter every day asking if she wants to sell. Every day being offered a new figure. My dad, before he passed away, several visits were being -- where he was being asked, you know, "I'll offer you this amount" and my dad would say, "When you offer me three million I'll take it" in a joking 77:00manner, just so that they could understand I'll never sell you my home, I worked hard to have this home. And the pride in being able to say, "No, I don't need your money. I have what I need right here." That history did not have to repeat itself from the days of Williamsburg, at least not for our family and that we were in full control. And so that preservation, perseverance, and being able to, you know, struggle together to get to this point has been a value and at the core of what this community has always been.

KITTO: So, yeah. So you started working for Vito Lopez and can you just sort of 78:00take me through your political career a bit?

REYNA: So in the late -- in the mid '90s, right, '95, I'm an intern and I remember being -- reporting the first day to his office on Myrtle Avenue and an old grate gate. I didn't have keys, but you would have to push -- pull, rather -- that gate grate. And with a lock that was older than I don't know who, rusty, and no smooth rolling of that gate, it was a struggle every morning, but waiting for someone to come from the office who had keys and the line of constituents forming. One person after another waiting for services, waiting to speak to 79:00someone, asking for help. But I could hear two ladies commenting, "Maybe she works here," "Oh, I don't know, maybe -- she looks Indian." And, "She may not speak Spanish." So I said, you know, "Buenos dias, I do speak Spanish. I'm not Indian, I'm Dominican." And I get that a lot. People assume I'm of Indian descent from India. And so they question whether or not I can relate to them. And that first day those were the ladies that I had to assist as the intern. So it was comical to say the least, but moving from what would be an intern to a fulltime position within a year, or two years, right? The internship was in '95, 80:00part-time in '96, and then '97 I became the chief of staff where a full staff turnover was unexpected. And I was very young, but basically the only one left. So it was this opportunity that I was able to seize. And --

[Interview interrupted.]

KITTO: Where were we? So you were talking about now running a staff.

REYNA: Yes. Running a staff. I was twenty-three, twenty-four? And I was very 81:00intrigued with politics at this point, just amazed at the systems and the connections of how this is all webbed together. And it was the start of the tech bubble, right? Like the -- you're seeing the world transform globally with what is something that is not yet very present in neighborhoods like Bushwick. And so an opportunity to be able to utilize politics and learn from someone who was very good at it, leveraging support for resources in the neighborhood. A lot of 82:00what was rebuilt in Bushwick was because of the assemblyman being chair of the housing committee, taking lots, transforming them. A lot of housing was built. The years from '97 to 2000 as I ran his office as chief of staff, I was organizing neighborhood residents, constituent affairs, making sure that they were a continuation of his coalition building.

So every month we would have five different town hall meetings, every month. And not only were we having these meetings, but we were able to grow these meetings 83:00from, you know, a group of twenty, twenty-five people to 150 people to 300 people to now 500. And so imagine 500 times five. It's a lot of people you're engaging on a monthly basis. And I enjoyed talking to people. It was probably one of the most aggravating pieces for him because I never cut short a conversation, but it was the way that I connect with people in a way that complemented his office, his operations. Because what people had to say mattered to me and it gave me a depth that otherwise we would not be able to get if we're 84:00just entertaining people. And that's -- I separate myself from politics, just doing politician work, where I pride myself in making sure that you are the most important person right now, this moment I'm listening to you, my undivided attention. And that, I think, has really helped, to listen to the priorities, the concerns, the issues, to be able to reflect on what I've been exposed to and make connections so that that issue I've seen in the past, could this be a pattern, could we address this at a higher level?

And those are connections that I think are missed all too often, to address 85:00systematic problems in neighborhoods, especially complicated neighborhoods like Williamsburg, like Bushwick, because there's issues at every level. It's not just, you know, "I need my street paved" or "I need a garbage can at the corner." And those are luxuries compared to, you know, three out of five tenants don't have hot water and why is that? A whole public housing development has no heat. You know, you're impacting, you know, the masses, not just one or two. And the opportunity to be able to have access as a young person to commissioners and 86:00addressing issues, finding solutions, seeing the impact at a local level, was very gratifying. And so by being able to do all that work and organizing community residents around these issues and working towards impact solutions led into what would be a character building exercise where now people knew who to go to. And the more work we did the more people would seek our office.

And you're not one thing for them. A lot of literacy issues, right? They can't read a letter and you have to read it for them, not just translate it for them. 87:00The opportunity to be able to manage, you know, a system as big as education for their child. Who do you mean I have to go to this school? But I have a school right across the street from me. And understanding the difference between whether or not that school is better for you or is the one across the street better and they're just not interested in having that child because it's an L student. Those are probably issues that get overcasted because it's all too often the case and people don't know the difference and don't -- even if they knew the difference they feel like they can't fight the system.

And that reminds me of my childhood because my mom had to fight what was in 88:00Williamsburg the Department of Education pushing what was the designation of having her daughters being placed in bilingual education where you were not learning English and you're not learning Spanish. And she felt like the public-school system was going to fail us and said, "I have a choice here. I'm going to put them in Catholic school if you can't do your job and all you want to do is categorize my children based on their last name, based on the fact that I speak Spanish. They will learn Spanish at home, but they can learn English in school. Don't set them back." And she put her foot down and voted with her feet, so to speak. That's a very courageous way of being able to recognize choice. Do 89:00most people who are immigrants think that way? I don't know. I don't think so. We see it every day where we have families that didn't realize their children were L designated and how does that happen?

Then, you know, working in politics and being exposed to all these situations, all these case studies, all these families and their issues, give you breadth and depth of the work that grows within politics. So every decision you're making is influencing all these people, you know. And so running his office, 90:00managing and organizing around these coalitions, addressing city agencies to activate resources that were appropriately navigated for impact in these specific issues was gratifying because you were seeing real results. And in the meantime, that was the 9 to 5 and then after 5 we would go to the Democratic Club to make sure that we were organizing what would be the voter turnout for impact at a local level through the politics of being counted, being present, being visible, and making sure that there's a voter base that's strong so that that voter base is going to be the voice behind these issues that needed resources and need to knock down the barriers of not being seen, right? So 91:00running campaigns at the Democratic Club, Judge Reese's [phonetic] reelection for the assemblyman, being a part of this political family was a big deal.

KITTO: It must have been amazing for you to, like, have so much, like, mobile -- like upward mobility, especially at a young age.

REYNA: It was. It happened where I say quickly and almost in slow motion so that -- and that's an oxymoron, I know, but we have -- [laughter] I could see those building blocks of moments as I think back. And it's so many faces and 92:00individuals that, you know, have spiraled with you into -- that you have learned from, that you have leaned on or have leaned on you. Organizations that growing up I didn't know who they were, but now you're sitting at the table sharing a meal at 1 in the morning because we finished at the Democratic Club and now we're just making sure that we're having that after work opportunity to just wind down. My parents didn't understand why I was working so much. "What do you mean you're out having dinner at 11:00 at night and you're coming home after midnight?" It was not palpable. Like for them it was just such a foreign way of living.

And that led to a lot of understanding as to how these organizations shaped and 93:00helped to have families survive. Enormous respect for the work of our elders. You know, I was not a child growing up in the neighborhood scared, but if you look back and you look at the images there was reason to be scared and as an adult how do you protect your children from that? How do you give them hope and belief that there's light at the end of the tunnel? How do you believe and have hope that there's better times ahead? And so it was the shared experience and now there's this new generation that you can pass that down to so that it's not forgotten. I think that's where I had the greatest lessons. It was just 94:00listening to everyone around the table sharing their stories about how they got started, that they were VISTA [Volunteers in Service to America] workers, similar to Peace Corps, and were doing organizing work in the neighborhood and forty years later they're still here. Who does that?

And so this dedication to the neighborhood and the people of the neighborhood to be able to survive this shared experience, there's value and nostalgia and appreciation. A lot of enormous respect. And so, you know, we go from having what is now managing a staff as a young person, running judicial campaigns, helping other elected officials get elected or reelected, to now an opportunity 95:00is presented where I can be the party district leader of the Democratic organization for the 53rd Assembly District because the woman who had the post was interested in moving on and the opportunity was presented to me by the assemblyman and I said, "Sure, I'll be very honored to run for office. I've been running and helping other campaigns, why not do it for myself?" And when I did it was a struggle because it was a one on one race with another individual who was from Williamsburg. Just similar backgrounds, right? She was Puerto Rican, I'm Dominican. That whole ethnic division really percolated to the surface in 96:00ways that, you know, were biased and discriminatory.

KITTO: What -- can you give me an example?

REYNA: Well, if you're -- I'm picking the Puerto Rican because you're not Puerto Rican. Claiming that I won because I had all the illegal Dominicans voting for me. You know, and not because -- don't look at the seven years I've been working supporting families, you know, resolving their problems, you know, working and navigating government agencies to assist in providing resources for the neighborhood, building what would be future developments in the neighborhood. At this point none of that mattered but that I was not something they thought they 97:00associated more to.

KITTO: And also what about being like a woman?

REYNA: Forget about it.

KITTO: Yeah.

REYNA: Being a woman, Latina, young, young and pretty. The beauty, the you haven't experienced life yet, the you're a woman and how could you be more than just a secretary type? It was just -- and no one ever said "secretary" -- well, there was one moment and that person sent flowers to apologize.

KITTO: That's nice.

REYNA: Yeah. He was a candidate for council. And you know, you get exposed very quickly to what are perhaps deeper sentiments that people may not be aware of 98:00they have and only surface, or more so surface, in politics, right? How do you really know what your constituency really thinks? Because you're only as good as your last deed, good deed. And I had to move beyond that, I had to look past that.

KITTO: And you also didn't have your mentor at that point.

REYNA: For district leader?

KITTO: Yeah.

REYNA: Yes, he was still around.

KITTO: Oh, he was?

REYNA: I was still his chief of staff, I was running for district leader, I was running his office and running a campaign as a candidate.

KITTO: And so he was supporting you?

REYNA: Yes. Full, absolutely, to the fullest extent. And I won that seat by like 1,200 votes, I think it was, but a total of like 6,000 people came out, right? Like out of 55,000 people registered to vote. A seat is won by less than 1% of the voting population. And that angered me. You know, like more so whether I ran or -- whether I won or not it's this inactive and this sense of why does it matter if I vote or not attitude that I realized. Because now it's one thing to go and help in a campaign for someone else, it's another when it's your name, your physical self sacrificing everything to make this moment happen and the 100:00only thing I have that I look forward to is that there is an end to this. It's either I win or lose on the day of the election, period. So I had literally nine months to look towards the end of this. And I won and people were so happy. Just amazed because our Democratic Club didn't just have this win. They year prior we won a judgeship race, they year prior to that a different judgeship race. We had had these wins, a winning streak for consecutive years that truly gave people feathers in their hat to say, "Look at what we can do." And that empowered everyone. That made people feel like it does matter that we vote, there is a 101:00value in this collectively.

And I remember asking people, "Come out and vote." "Vote for what?" you know, when you say, "Ven a votar" and you would invite people and the snarking remark of, "Votar que la basura." To vote what? Votar as in throw out, botar. La basura, the garbage, right? And I would get so rattled by the comment of them being so -- such a clown at that moment where there was so much more high stakes being played out here and they had no clue. At least I looked at from that lens, right? That, you know, this race, everyone in government is looking at it and 102:00what will that mean for our neighborhood? Will the governor pay attention tomorrow because we did win this race? That means that governor for reelection will pay attention to our neighborhood because we turned out a community to come out and vote in the masses, in a unified front.

And that's very difficult to express to people. They're not doing this every day. This is not what they live and breathe every day. You know, what they live and breathe is putting food on their table, going to work, making sure they have work. Those are the primary elements of what they need satisfied. They don't associate any of that to politics and yet politics has a huge impact on all those elements. And I constantly remind our youth by asking them, "Who's 103:00government?" And it takes them a while to understand that it's them, we're all government. And so the day you stop participating in government is the day someone else is making a choice for you, on behalf of you, and it may not be in your best interest because they don't know who you are, what your needs are, what your future may entail, what your background has been about in order to reshape so that another person doesn't have to go through what you did because you've shared your experience.

And so there's value in politics when there's a shared experience in politics. The 2001, that was the district leader race in 2000. By 2001, term limits is 104:00active, has been activated. And now the opportunity from having lost probably twenty, twenty-five pounds from the previous race and, you know, recovering from feet that just were swollen all the time I have to endure what is another year of campaigning. And I want this, I want to do this, and I had the stamina, my youth on my side. Did I have the skin for it, the thick skin to hear the comments from the year prior, right? This time around I'm the only woman running 105:00and there's four men, all of whom are older, experienced, Latino, with the exception of one native Italian from Williamsburg. And I never looked back. Continued to talk to people, knocking on doors, going to town hall meetings, making sure that I focused on the platform of education because I know what I went through as far as my being a Spanish speaking household and being categorized into what was special education, whether or not I needed it, and my mom standing up to the system. So education was really important for me to now 106:00address if --

KITTO: And that was one way that you distinguished yourself from your --

REYNA: Opponents?

KITTO: Opponents, yeah.

REYNA: Well, the irony is that the school district president was -- the school board president was running. And so, you know, here I am, a twenty-something year old with a lack of experience talking about education, but what he was not valuing is that I was speaking to the parents while he was dealing with the bureaucrats in education. And talking to the parents and having my own experience where he was an influence in the district and there was the most corruption during that time in the school district where the school board was dominated by the Hasidic community and they had no childs in public school. 107:00Where there were --

KITTO: So what were -- what was -- like why then?

REYNA: The jobs.

KITTO: The jobs of?

REYNA: In school board. Crossing guards, school aides, but they were no-show jobs for the insurance, for the health insurance, because they were large families. And so these no-show jobs were being issued as favor to the Hasidic community, having full -- majority control over the school board and guaranteeing that the school, you know, the school board president was guaranteed his chairmanship. Nothing makes me angrier than to see the self-preservation in politics at the cost of our most vulnerable, children. And 108:00so this particular effort to focus on education wasn't about corruption, but making sure that we were strategic in systemic changes and, you know, we could point to many different examples of what that means in the neighborhood. But we have a band of school districts across north Brooklyn that have struggled with underperformance for fifty years and no one's doing anything about it. And that has to be addressed. Or maybe, you know, people think they're doing something 109:00about it from the ivory tower where no one's checking and balancing whether or not it's impacting at a local level, verifying, inspecting, suspecting, what is actually happening. And so it doesn't matter how many great programs you announce if they're not working to impact the child.

And that was one of my major platforms, education. Economic development. I expressed how the gap -- once we discovered the gap it was like we're going to get, you know, close up the gap. And then you realize you don't want the gap. We should be collecting what is a purchasing power right here in our neighborhood. I shouldn't have to travel outside my neighborhood to spend my money and be 110:00supporting another neighborhood outside of mine. So I wanted to see economic development, making sure that we understood what were some of the needs. A survey of, you know, the public's interest of what they needed to see. A good shoe store. What happened to Bob's Store, right? Bob was no longer there. Who replaces Bob? And Bob was informal. Few knew about Bob unless it was word of mouth. We didn't have, you know, the Stop and Shops or Pathmarks because they walked away when the neighborhood was burning, when the neighborhood had a blackout, when the neighborhood had a drug epidemic. And as much as people promised that they would invest, no one was ever investing.

And the supermarket owners who were grocery owners at one point became the 111:00commercial economic development investors. Many of them Dominicans who started out with a small store and graduated into a supermarket. Those are the Key Foods, the Fine Fares, the Compare.

[Interview interrupted.]

Compare? We had, I think I mentioned Fine Fare, Associated. Many of these supermarket owners were the reasons why our communities were getting access to food. They were creating the employment opportunities for our youth and our adults. And so many were neighborhood residents, neighbors. So they knew your 112:00child and when you asked them, "Can you give my child a -- you know, maybe they could pack the bags of your patrons." "Sure, send them over," right? That was the equivalent of a summer youth job. And having been able to see the lack of economic development that we used to have -- Broadway as the mecca of theaters and no longer the case. The last theater that we had was the Commodore Theater in Williamsburg and that that was purchased and we tried to compete to purchase it for like 1.6 million. It was sold to the Hasidic community for 1.7. By 113:00$100,000. And the Hasidic community demolished this beautiful structure that has stood still in time since 2001 as empty land until this day.

And so there's no theater, no movie complex, no real shopping choices. When you have choice, you have power and I wanted to make sure that we focused on having -- bringing back choices to families in the neighborhood. And last but not least, and in no particular order because I find them all to be dependent on one another, was housing, the continuation of the production of affordable housing. But the understanding that they had to be blended because we couldn't -- I think 114:00our elders who were founders of the different housing complexes and nonprofits that developed the new housing or preserved old housing, what they did not keep in mind was what happens to the children of all these residents who then do become the middle class? Where do they go? We have to preserve our brain trust because they're the second and third generations that otherwise are not going to have where to go. And sure enough, there was no middle-class housing in the neighborhood to lead up to that.

And so if you don't consider in your design or envisioning process affordable housing to be blended you lack out a whole population. And that's exactly what's happened in these neighborhoods where they were always built as supportive 115:00housing or the formerly homeless, for low income, below the poverty line, senior housing, in a very compartmentalized way. And so the second and third generation earning a better income didn't have anywhere to go. They were squeezed out. And it was important for that to be recognized, to start moving into the blended model. So that year, speaking on all three topics, we were able to, you know, host very specific coffee klatches in different homes expressing to people -- I remember listening to an older woman who asked me, "But what experience do you 116:00have? Who's going to listen to you?" Like just this really apologetic, you know, sympathetic tone in her voice like, "Are you sure you can do this?" And you know, I would smile a little and I would try to comfort her concern, but move right past because if I legitimized her concern then it became about my -- what she perceived to be my inability to perform to a certain level, of which she knew nothing about, but a presumption that because I was young I would not know where to start or what to do.

And my opponents ran on that, right? That I was inexperienced, that I was young, 117:00that I, you know, I would say as far as that I was young and pretty and no brain. Those weren't all of the candidates, but one or two. And the seven years that I had worked with the assemblyman is what I always pointed to, all the work that was tangible that you could point to, that you can tough, feel, and hear, that people had been able to secure through those efforts. And so that nine-month process, again, from, you know, inception to delivery of what was the 118:00day of the election, and then 9/11 happened the day of the election.

KITTO: Yeah, tell me about that date.

REYNA: The election -- I'm standing at Lindsay Park in Williamsburg and we're looking at smoke at a distance and people commenting. And you could smell the smoke coming into Williamsburg. And I would stand post because I was very disciplined. I've always been disciplined in campaigns. I never move from my spot from 6 in the morning to 9 pm. And that day I was torn. I was like, what do I do? Do I leave to figure out what's going on? Because now you're hearing 119:00sirens all around, fire trucks, police cars, and the noise of sirens just ever so loud and increasing in volume and in all direction. And one of my volunteers who was with me just trying to figure out what is going on and then I remember driving, trying to get a closer look at where the smoke was coming from and I went to my spot on Division and Hooper because I knew I could get a clear view, and it was the Twin Towers. And then I remember going into a store to understand what was happening.

And then as we saw the visual on the screen the volunteer that I was with said, 120:00"Oh my God, my children. I need to go pick up my child." So I said, "I'll take you." We go and we pick up her child and there was havoc, just so many parents outside the school trying to figure out "where's my child, I need to take my child home." No one understanding what was happening next, the fact that the Twin Towers were on fire, the fact that there was a plane, the fact that there's reports from the Pentagon, the fact that -- just the uncertainty and fear ever so strong by the second was just overwhelming everyone. And then no one knew what to do as far as we're in the midst of an election, it's election day, primary day. And having seen what was on the screen I report back to the 121:00Democratic Club and at the Democratic Club I remember the assemblyman --

KITTO: So it would be great to know a little bit about currently what you're balancing when you're with your constituents, with big developers, with issues around economic development, with navigating this waterfront.

REYNA: Right. So we've been working with several organizations, the Waterfront Alliance, the Kingsborough Community College, the private developers on the waterfront like John Quadrozzi, the shipping container terminal in Red Hook, the 122:00Red Hook Container Terminal, to Mike Stamatis -- I was trying to remember his name -- and bringing stakeholders together so there's a sense of accountability. I didn't know who you were today, but today I see you. Being seen in a very visible way is a key factor in being able to have a conversation. Most people don't realize what we have along the waterfront. And we've been sponsoring a Borough Hall thanks to the support of what has been the borough president's advocacy to continue economic development in the borough, but in a very 123:00responsible way where we've hosted what would be these stakeholders to come together and truly have an honest dialogue. I'm comfortable making people uncomfortable. And when we talk about development we quickly tend to hear waterfront and we've put the brakes on that. And when we talk about development and the waterfront we have to start identifying well, who's on the waterfront right now? Because they matter. And that is just as important as the few who want to see it transform for selfish reasons or real estate purposes or 124:00transactional opportunities, investments.

And so we have been able to host many forums, workshops, seminars. We've had meetings with the Port Authority, with EDC [Economic Development Coroporation]. We didn't have what would be the cruise terminal in Brooklyn. Now, if you visit the Manhattan cruise terminal versus the Brooklyn terminal you're going to ask yourself, well, why are we the stepchild? And I remember becoming the council member in 2001 where we spoke about -- I was committed to economic development where I wanted to become chair of the economic development committee in the council. That was never rewarded to me, but I was always a member and 125:00independent of being on the committee I commissioned two different economic development studies for my district to address economic development. And within that study connecting what would be the nexus points of commercial districts that were vital to our district. That identified what were needs like entertainment venues such as movie theater and bowling as an activity for youth, adult, family. The need for restaurants. The need, you know, staple restaurants that are affordable like IHOP or, you know, better food choices, shopping choices, such as a Trader Joe's. I was never able to get the Trader Joe's because we didn't have the demographics according to them. And that is where, 126:00you know, you're insulted because you see the discrimination in what is the retail sector and where they choose to be based on supposedly the demographics. Now, open data has changed a lot of that. I think people realize that they don't understand --

[Interview interrupted.]

KITTO: Maybe you could just -- when you say -- when you're talking about the waterfront can you tell us -- and you said who is at the waterfront. Like who are we talking about? Can you tell us who that is and how we can best support communities on the waterfront that you're representing? And also those specific 127:00challenges right now. But from that politician space and that activist space.

REYNA: So when you take inventory of the waterfront from Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Newtown Creek, from the mouth of Newtown Creek down the East River, all the way down past DUMBO, Brooklyn Navy Yard, you have what would be a transformational waterfront that has gone from industrial use only to now what would be industrial, entertainment, residential, open space, industrial, 128:00residential, open space. And each rezoning that has occurred has not been part of a master plan, at least not one that the public knows of. Perhaps in the department of city planning there's a master plan for the waterfront that has not been shared with the public, but to my knowledge there isn't a master plan but these piecemealed actions according to interest by the decade. And in what 129:00would be the last decade we've lost a significant amount of manufacturing industrial use land where Brooklyn Bridge Park was built out, where you have what is the Bushwick Inlet Park, and then you have all the development in between for residential. Just in Williamsburg alone there's going to be 10,000 new residents on the waterfront, 10,000.

You take what is the development of DUMBO and Brooklyn Bridge waterfront. That's going to have an additional volume of perhaps five to 10,000 more people as well. Now you're looking at 20,000 new residents multiplying whomever they're 130:00living there with. Where are the 20,000 jobs being created? The opportunities to preserve industrial development for industrial uses is not a development that actually exists because the financial sector does not consider industrial transactions to be of higher price index. A residential transactional lender is the higher price index and that's where they favor more. And so we're trying to 131:00explore different ways. Does mixed use make sense? Could we shift development to include first/second floor manufacturing industrial space with housing above? But not every manufacturing industrial business operate in a very clean and self-contained way to share what would be development rights above on permanent residents. That is why, you know, the city in its land use, you know, actions has divided industrial away from residential so that businesses can operate without restrictions.

The waterfront, when you look at the cruise terminal, the cruise terminal was 132:00recently built, reinvested in, but it was reinvested in with a deal that only included Queen Mary II, and so the ship -- cruise liner -- was indicative of how the infrastructure was going to be built. Our investment dollars were not spent where the highest use was considered but rather an exclusive use was considered. Today we can't accommodate any other ship liner other than Queen Mary II. We've lost opportunities because then how do we accommodate other ship liners who are interested in coming to this borough? Because the passengers are interested in coming to Brooklyn. Brooklyn twenty years ago, people would ask, "What is that?" 133:00Today it's a different story. People want to come to Brooklyn and they want to experience Brooklyn. They want to see what it's all about. And the waterfront is an experience where we want to be able to share how that is a resource for this borough that has made it flourish in all its capacity so that we have, in this administration with Borough President Adams, invested in the gangway to be replaced so that we can start competing with other venues to have other ship liners come into Brooklyn.

That investment dollar matters. It matters how you spend it, where you spent it, why you spend it, and we're asking those tough questions, making sure that it's 134:00not about an exclusivity but an inclusive investment. The opportunity to see Newtown Creek, which is, you know, a wastewater treatment plant that gives a service to the public but has become this iconic egg structure that gets published as a form of art and people talking about it and wanting to see it. It's lit. That there can be -- that something so grimy could be considered art is what I think Brooklyn has been able to do with the Brooklyn waterfront. That we're not looking at it from a lens of grimy industrial waterfront, but that 135:00we're looking at it from an artistic industrial waterfront and how it can connect to people, connect to access, you know, connect to employment opportunities, residential opportunities, and striking that balance. There is no magic bullet here, but we can't ignore one piece for the sake of another.

And so the Newtown Creek, now that it's built in full operation, how do we double its impact by making sure that we're creating, let's say, bioenergy from and connecting the south Brooklyn waterfront with the north Brooklyn Newtown 136:00Creek waste treatment facility to provide employment opportunity because we can take this resource that exists and manufacture it by collecting what is that waste into barges that can float down the East River, go to south Brooklyn, and the idea of what John Quadrozzi at his land in the Gowanus and Red Hook area, of being able to manufacture biofuel. That's visionary and the complexities of, you know, who's standing in the way of all of that? Government. And government is there to facilitate these conversations, not turn their backs on it. And we're 137:00trying to make sure that a property owner like John Quadrozzi who believes in manufacturing industrial land, but also appreciates what has been a transformative Upland neighborhood of artists that are occupying, whether legally or illegally, the neighborhood, that he's able to maintain his truest form of existence. And we're continuing to support that. And does the artist community know and respect what he wants to do and can they be supportive of that effort? And can they appreciate the connection that John Quadrozzi's vision could have to employing people, people who are the artist community's neighbors 138:00in let's say Red Hook houses who have the highest unemployment rates in the Gowanus/Red Hook area.

And so when you talk about unemployment rates as high as 34%, that's real. And you know, the development of the waterfront doesn't provide jobs. It may produce what is a seasonal opportunity. And so we have to find longevity in this economic development boom along the waterfront and that requires being able to support the ideas of how do we use technology in the 21st century era and incorporate sustainability, resilience. You know, we have coastal issues that 139:00we're trying to address and raise awareness around and explore new engineering ways of how to protect, you know, our land from surges, our businesses from surges, and our residents from surges.

You continue to go down the waterfront and you have South Brooklyn Marine Terminal and all the investment that the city is now pouring into it. Companies that are discovering -- rediscovering, not discovering. That's a very important element in the discussion of the waterfront. I find it disturbing when people 140:00say, "We discovered the waterfront." No, the waterfront was always there. You are rediscovering the waterfront and businesses are now appreciating that this was always here but had no access to it. The lack of investment on behalf of government. Government is the owner and walked away from it. They should have been leading the way for it. And so, you know, you have SBMT as a great example of what is possible for businesses to continue to thrive in the city of New York, in Brooklyn. Industry City, this huge complex of many buildings and how now you have retail sectors like Bed, Bath and Beyond moving to the waterfront. Is that really the best value for the waterfront? Because a Bed, Bath and Beyond 141:00can move on any commercial strip. An industrial business cannot. And so we have to measure the worth of who we are inviting to these spaces and what is the multiplying effect of it, negative and positive.

And so if the waterfront continues to at Industry City see what are tendencies that are more retail than industrial use, then the employment will be dictated to be below the poverty line on the waterfront because retail pays minimum wage. It doesn't pay industrial wages and the average industrial wage is anywhere from 142:00forty-five dollars an hour to as much as sixty, eighty dollars an hour because it's a craftsmanship, it's experience that you learn on the job training that you are valued for. And now you can't find those machinists. You know, businesses have a hard time seeking the appropriate work force that's trained or at the very least that they can train and retain.

And then you have what is our Coney Island strip, right? Surrounded by water, north and south, east and west, right? Like just how do we protect our Coney Island community? And how does it continue to preserve its amusement history? Where, you know, the shoreline was the vacation resort of places to go for the 143:00suburbans from Brooklyn to enjoy the waterfront, the beaches, the roller coaster. So there's many discussions and coalition building that I think is the beginning of what we can create as a master plan. And that master plan is a living document. That living document can be guarded with stakeholders that have 144:00agreed to shared goals and will have impact where now they're not competing factors, but they're more complementary to one another. And we have a long way to go to drafting that master plan so that, you know, we're making sure that everyone has a seat at the table, sharing what it means to have a waterfront, an active waterfront. You know, you have your recreational uses. Tokyo came to have a conversation with us, their bureau of waterways, and Yuka was asking, you know, she wants to understand how are we trying to balance the uses of our waterways.

And I was expressing to her that that's a continued conversation and we have dialogue and invitationals to continue to work on what that really means. Because 20 years ago there was no kayaking on the East River. Today all you see is launching pads in different access points, which is fantastic but then what happens to the barges that are navigating those waterways? What happens to the cruise ships that want to come into Brooklyn? You know, we have a great responsibility right now and our ferry system is growing, which is truly a great 146:00apparatus for people to connect to the waterway and give thought to the waterways. Twenty years ago, we didn't have the ferry unless you lived in Staten Island and had a need for a ferry. Now you go from Greenpoint to Williamsburg to DUMBO and there are four stops right there. Ten years ago, you didn't have that. And the more people are having a dependency on their mobility by water the more they're going to be active thinkers about our waterways, the more people will have to begin to question where do we want to see our waterfront ten, twenty 147:00years from now, one hundred years from now? And I've been asking that question since I was a child growing up in Williamsburg.

KITTO: Thank you so much. That was great.