Guardian Angels On Patrol

Recent Guardian Angel graffiti reading founder Curtis Sliwa's name. Only 10% of the time do they make citizen arrests.


Snitches get stitches and end up in ditches. That is unfortunately the mantra of many in the city, but for the Guardian Angels, the opposite is true. For an unarmed volunteer group that aims to provide public safety and goes where it’s called, the Angels rely on people speaking up, which is what brought them to the Belmont area of the Bronx recently.

About six months ago, Curtis Sliwa, one of the group’s founders, received emails from Fordham University students after there were a number of incidents near Fordham’s campus. Since then, members of the organization have “stepped up patrols in Belmont area.” On any given night, particularly weekend nights near Arthur Avenue, the Guardian Angels might be seen in groups of three or four patrolling the streets, wearing their signature red berets, red satin jackets, black camouflage pants and black combat boots. Their aim is to act as a crime deterrent and one of the main ways they do that is with their image.

“The fact of the matter is when people see us the will cease and desist,” said one of the founding members Arnaldo Salinas. “You’d have to be Helen Keller not to see us.”

Although the group may be known for making citizen arrests and following them through the court system, Salinas said they don’t often have to go that far, though they will intervene in a fight if they come upon one. If that happens, the first thing members are instructed to do is call 911. Then, the Guardian Angels would physically place themselves in the middle of the fight and separate people. If someone tried to leave, “we have every right in the world to detain,” Salinas said, up to handcuffing.

Although the Angels are all inclusive and accept people of all genders, races and backgrounds, there is an interview screening process to make sure the new recruit doesn’t want to join for personal vengeance reasons. Basic training is three months long and involves a variety of classes, learning to work as a team and field work.

Zeek Gavares, 38, joined the Guardian Angels last month after witnessing the group break up a fight near his home.

“They caught my attention,” he said. “I liked the way they acted.”

Although Gavares used to be a carpenter, he quit in order to become more involved in the Angels, saying he now has “more time on my hands to lend.” On a recent afternoon, Gavares was campaigning with Salinas and other recruits, but he wasn’t sure what exactly they were campaigning about. When asked about Salinas, he seemed to only know him by his nickname, Thirteen.

The nickname refers to the original 13 members of the organization when they came together in 1979 in a McDonalds on Fordham Road. Around that time, then-mayor Ed Koch decreased the number of transit police, and because Sliwa, Salinas and their fellow employees took the 4 train to work, they decided to pick up the slack. They started patrolling the subways, riding in adjacent cars. Eventually, in order to communicate more efficiently, they began to don red berets they would wave when they popped their heads out of the doors at stops to see one another.

The group functions pretty independently and they have no preconceptions that they are on par with the police department, but are trained citizens. However, Salinas did say that prominent politicians as well as residents have been known to call the Angels to ask for additional help in their neighborhoods and that many Guardian Angels go on to the police department or military. He also mentioned that in New York City, the group sometimes works with local precincts. These claims could not be verified.

One officer reached through the police press office who would not give his name, said he was indifferent to the group.

“We don’t deal with them. They do their own thing. What do they really do? I don’t know,” he said, adding that he doesn’t know of any officers who were once involved in the Angels. Another officer reached through the same line directed the call to John Kelly, who did not respond to multiple emails for comment.

Whether or not the Angels work with the police or politicians, there is not doubt that their two hundred or so members in New York City are active, patrolling drug areas and going where they are called.

“We’re not vigilantes,” Salinas said, “because we’re not judge jury and executioners.”

Welcome!

Welcome to Beyond the Bronx Beat! As a person who is obsessed with words and writing, I was excited when I got the opportunity to write a weekly column in the Fordham Ram, Fordham University's student-run weekly newspaper. However, as the industry rapidly undergoes fundamental changes, I decided to keep up and take the Bronx Beat off the page and into the realm of multi-media too.

As it is now, small non-for-profit papers as well as larger publications are tampering with multi-media work - and there is no standard yet established by either. Pictures can say things words cannot, and words can go into a depth that a picture is unable to portray. The use of both together enhances the telling of a story like text, no matter how long and extensive, cannot. This blog will include my weekly column, in addition to a slideshow (which may sometimes become an audio slideshow) and sidebars. Please leave comments about the stories and how they are presented, and stay tuned!

Up Before Dawn

The job of selling food from a pushcart in New York City is not an easy one, but that doesn't stop Lorena Dareuch from loving it.



The job of street vending can involve a decade-long wait for a license, turf wars, a nearly nocturnal work week and hours on your feet. It seems a difficult career path to choose, but Lorena Dareuch doesn’t seem to mind.

A resident of Astoria, Queens, Lorena is a small-framed woman of medium height who talks and laughs often. Her uniform is a red apron and her big and brown eyes twinkle, making her look younger than her 50 years. As a vendor selling baked goods and coffee to commuters just outside the University gate on Fordham Road, Lorena gets up at 2:30 a.m. each morning to prepare for the day’s work.

She and her husband Hector, who also sells food in a pushcart on Fordham Road, visit four different bakeries each morning to stock up for the day. They go to one bakery for bagels, another for donuts, one for rolls and a different one for danishes. They pick up milk for the coffee and then head up to the Bronx with their pushcart hooked to the back of the car. Because there are two carts – hers and her husband’s – Hector drops her off at 3:30 a.m. and then takes the 20 minute drive back to Queens for his cart. Although they work across the street from one another, Lorena doesn’t see her husband until 11:30 a.m. when she closes up shop and goes to help him until 2p.m.

Their positions are strategic, and they seem to be working since Hector and Lorena have been there for over 10 years. Positioned next to a Metro North station and a main bus stop and across from Fordham University and the offices at Fordham Plaza, they get a lot of foot traffic.

To even have such a business in New York City, Lorena and Hector needed to get personal vending licenses issued in order to be eligible to apply for a Department of Health permit, of which there are only about 3,000 city-wide. The wait for this permit can be very long – Lorena waited six years for hers and her husband waited 10. Once you have these two things, maybe a decade later, you’re good to go. But of course you also need to have a cart (which costs thousands of dollars) and a garage where it is legal to park it (which rent for a couple hundred dollars).

However, the long wait seems to be paying off for the Dareuchs, who have been doing this for over 10 years now, each making about $300-$400 a day. Although her biggest complaint about the job is having to get up so early, she says the best part is the customers. She loves “to work with the people and talk with the people – to know many different people from everywhere.” Her enjoyment is evident and is also the reason most of her customers are regulars. She knows what they want and is already preparing it by the time they get close enough to order. On a recent morning, a smiling round man walked up to the window in the cart.

“You know my order?” he asked, but she was already on it. He usually patronizes her husband’s cart, but today he said he came to visit her. She has formed relationships with many of the customers and some of them give her gifts for the holidays. One woman, Norma, has been coming to Lorena for 13 years now, as long as she has been vending. When they met, Lorena was pregnant and had just started vending.

She had been working during much of her pregnancy despite the unfriendly working conditions – early hours, a small space with nowhere to sit, and no bathroom. Six months in, however, she had to go to the emergency room and stayed in the hospital for the next two weeks with painful fibroids.

“I almost lost the baby,” she said.

Since then, Norma has brought birthday gifts for Lorena’s son, Brendan. For the years of good customers, Lorena has only had a few bad ones. Once, a woman started verbally abusing her and threatened to throw hot tea in Lorena’s face. Most times, though, people are just plain rude, acting impatient and asking for refills as if she runs a diner.

“Some customers say they aren’t coming back and I say, ‘Oh, please,’” she said, putting her hands together under her chin as if to pray, pleading, “Do it.”
Despite this unfortunate reality in her business, there have been few bad customers over the years.

“I can count them on my hand,” she said.

Over the years, though, she had worse things to worry about than rude customers. Recently, the owner of a falafel cart decided to situate himself right next to Hector and started harassing him, bringing a group of men whom Lorena calls his “bodyguards” to the corner and verbally abusing her and her husband. Although they called the police, nothing has been done and the falafel cart has been there for a few months. Lorena complains about how dirty the falafel cart owner keeps his business and about the customers he takes away from Hector. Luckily, this is the first time something like this has happened, which is why Lorena is so cheery about the job. Despite the various hardships, she is sending her son to a Catholic high school next year.

“We worked hard to give him the best,” she said.