Brother’s Grocery/Old Drug Store
Built in 1925, this spot is an ode to the evolution of the Brooklyn Bodega. If you have spent a day in any NYC neighborhood, it isn’t hard to understand the integral role of the bodega in the ecology of the barrio. Once a drug store in the 1930s, selling medicines and other household necessities, the Brooklyn bodega has evolved to a part of the lifeblood of a community. Bodegas differentiate themselves from larger supermarkets in a few ways, including selling individual or “loose” items. Sometimes you don’t need an entire box of poptarts, just two. Or you don’t need a whole six pack of beer, and one can will do the trick. Or perhaps payday is just a day away, and you only need enough ham and cheese to last for two meals, not an entire pound. The bodeguero got you, and always has.
Gramma’s Prayer
by Shy Richardson
I chase the memory of how we got here
After the earth oozed fire and spit islands from her watery womb
What of the ghosts that gave birth to our glory?
Sun people that survived the night
The 1492 Blues
Songs we are still singing
In a bastard tongue.
I mourn the love poems
That were forced from my mouth
Stolen from my pen tip,
The loot of legacies
I chase the memory
Of the scream
That put fear in a colonizer’s heart
El Grito
That awakened the sleeping spirit of a rebellion
The OG Proclamation of “pal carajo”
That became the melody of a Nation’s anthem
Blasting from car speakers, Harlem windows, from inside Poems and punchlines, from Pietri to Punisher, from the voicebox of viejitas, all over barrios the world over
A sound as sweet as arroz dulce
In the middle of the metal of Gramma’s spoon.
I have heard people wonder aloud
About what makes a people so proud
To be from a place
A borough, block
A barrio
A collection of square feet
A nation dressed in paisley pattern
A territory
A legacy
A collective memory
A disaster dressed as an island, if the talking heads of cable TV are to be believed
And like a swig of rum, I chase the answer:
It is the resilience
The resolve to create something new: a brew from the crumbs of broken
Bones, backs, spirits
Pockets, wallets, hearts
Families, screen doors, institutions
Dishes, language, and promises
My people are proud of the concoctions
That are birthed from necessity
Recipes written in the sweat and spilled blood
Every day we make it is a prayer
Every birthday a bent knee
Let the choir say
Wepa.