Featuring Operations staff member Sandy Serrano, NY Mag wrote a nice piece encapsulating how the Red Hook community, and the Red Hook Initiative, worked to save itself.
Sandy Serrano heard the power go. A sucking sound, then a high-pitched whine, then click—the entire apartment was thrown into darkness. She was in her home on the fifth floor of 22 Mill Street, a brick cube in the heart of the Red Hook Houses, the largest public-housing project in the borough of Brooklyn and the second largest in New York City. The place, cramped on the best days, was chock-full: There was Serrano, and her husband, and her 82-year-old mother-in-law, and her 12-year-old daughter, and her 25-year-old daughter, and her 5-year-old grandson. In the hallway, Serrano saw light under her neighbor’s door. There was no logic to it, but the guy still had electricity—would he mind if she ran an extension cord from his place to hers? “No problem,” he said. An hour later, his power went out too.
(Photo: Christopher Anderson/Magnum Photos/New York Magazine)
