Celeste Thomas Interview 08/10/2024

Celeste Thomas Interview Transcription

Hello. My name is Natasha Fair, and I'm here with Celeste Thomas at the Bronx Hotel Paradise Reunion at Port Street and 6th Avenue on Saturday, which is 102,024. Can you please spell your name? C e l e s t e, Thomas, t h o m a s.

What is your relationship to Park Slope or to me? My relationship to Park Slope is my family and I, we moved here in 1958 in June. We were the 1st African American family to live on Third Street between 7th and 8th Avenue. Needless to say, at that time, we had our problems with our neighbors. Okay.

Specifically, we were called told to go home, racial appetites, you name it. It happened for a little while. And, we went to I went to the school that's now 3/21. It was PS 77. For the first I wanna say until I was, like, 8 or 9 when I started we started to see more African American families in in this neighborhood.

It was a little tough. It was a little tough. But once they started coming in, especially here on 4th Street, and I started hanging out on 4th Street, and the Caesars came and the Simons came and everybody started coming. This became a beautiful neighborhood, and, people just started understanding each other more. In other words, we started getting along with the Hispanics, the whites, Poland, you name it.

Because the school here, we all went to this school right here during high school 51. And I still have the yearbooks. The pictures are a little faded, and I probably needed to do something about that, but I have the yearbook from 1966, 1967. And my twin, although he got left back, he graduated in 1960 8. And, yeah, this neighborhood has sort of changed a lot.

Yeah. I wanna just go on with Michael said, at the time in 1968 when you had the Black Panthers coming, when you had the, you know, when African Americans started to demanding and, you know, vocalize it, you know, equal rights, that's when I believe that the neighborhood community, neighborhood, the churches, and everything else started paying attention to us and started listening to us as, no. You can't tell us to go home because of our color. Or you can't or we go into a restaurant and no. You didn't discriminate, but we were served last, you know, and pride everybody else.

You gotta stop that. So I think once the Black Panthers came here into the neighborhood, I think they get brought more of awareness of how we should treat each other. And just on a side note, one of the things I think people don't know about, Black Panther, they were the first ones to initiate and start the food stamp program here in United States. Although it started out in California, it because they believe everybody should eat. Why should we not eat?

So, yeah, I want I wanna say that movement, it it it even encouraged me to and my mother was she really knew more about black history, to get more into. We wasn't being taught that. So when she named the dog Hannibal, I didn't know that Hannibal was this black guy that went up to over the with Alps Alps and came down to beat the heck out the Romans. Didn't know about that. We didn't know about the black cowboys.

My mother was the one that told me about that and told me how they influenced, you know, the United States. And there wasn't just cowboys. There were black cowboys. So, yeah, 68. I gotta say, 68 was the year.

Why did you decide to come to the conference room for a month? I thought you know what? I I came last year, and I missed the first two 2 years. I felt that, I I really want to connect with people that I haven't seen in a long time. I wanted to to to not only see them, but I don't wanna I wanna stop meeting people at funerals.

My mom worked with his mom in 321. They were the first black parents in that school. His mother, my mother, miss Maple, a lot of them, they there were no black parents in that school. So you had African American school children going to a school predominantly white with no one to relate to until his mom, my mom, and a bunch of other moms started working at school as Paris. Yeah.

And that and that was, like, 60 I wanna say from 65 to, like, 68, 69 when they started employing African American parents. The teachers were still white, of course, but the parents yeah? What's the see if they can see if they can see if they can see based of your experience? I think they should know that, the park's up of today and the park's up yesterday is is very different. I I I I think pushing out a lot of us did not help.

I think we, as a people, did a lot for this community, and it was a community orientated per place. Even he said it. So I would come down 4th Street, and you would get the hellos starting from the beginning of the block because you knew everybody on the block. Everybody looked out for each other. If we and, and we didn't have a problem with Michael at the time and the others, well, consider young one than us, because they are.

They're younger than us. So it's a big age shifter back then. We had no problem taking them out. We had no problem letting them, quote, unquote, hang out with us. You know?

I I really I I got a real sense of community when I came down here all the time. We just hang out, play music, have fun. Hey. What's going on? I don't feel that no more when I come down here, and I have come down here, you know, especially, you know, since 2023.

That's when I sold a house. Okay? And we live on Third Street, and I just I did hold on to the house until that long. It's not the same. They're all in their little houses.

You don't see nobody hanging out. You can walk down there. They're looking at you like, oh, does she don't she belong on a block? You get that drive over here now. Not like before.

No. And so we sold the property that your mother had moved in in 2023. So you But I was the last one. All my okay. I had a twin brother, and they would call him the creeper.

All my family is dead. Everybody in my family. I'm the only one left in my family. I don't have any kids. And as you as I was trying to explain to someone else too, when you own property in New York City now, if you don't live in that property, it's a whole different ballgame.

If you can, you know, you you you understand, and I mean a whole different ballgame down to what you have to report, what forms you have to fill out, what has to be done as far as repair, and what you have to inform the residents. You know, there are certain things. We have to inform residents like, a, you know, you want window guards, stove knobs. We had to inform them when they did a the they revised the 2019 rent guidelines. We I had to tell them I had to tell my residents.

Even though that didn't apply to them, I still was obligated under law to tell them. They led. The house was built in 1988. No. You don't know where the house got it led in it.

But by 2025, I don't know whether you're a constituent or whoever don't notice. I don't care if they blind, cripple, or crazy. 8 to 80. You have to abate your lead in your house. You know how much that cost?

I had to do an abatement because I had a 7 year old in there and just those 2 floors alone ran me 14,000. I ain't even talking about upstairs. I didn't have to go upstairs because they were over 7 years old. So they make it, particularly if you don't live in your house. I make it very awesome landlords now.

They really do. I I hope that, you know, as old time and, you know, I wanted to kinda go back to the way it way it was. I I really want to see you know, people not be afraid of people. What's that about? Yeah.

I want to come down here and basically feel wanted. Just like I noticed people just came in, they walked through, and, you know, welcome. I wanna go on another block and feel the same way, and not feel like I'm alienated or what is she doing here. So do you feel like and this is my last question. Yeah.

Like, so that his team has a relationship with you? Yes. I do. Yes. Yes.

And it needs to have a relationship because a lot what you see now, this is not how Parksville looked in the sixties and the seventies. You figure I've been been in this neighborhood since 1958. So I've definitely seen the changes. Just start let's go to 7th Avenue. There was no 321.

321 didn't get built in 1967. You know? So if anybody else talks to you and they're here, they'll tell you this name of the school is PS 77. It was a little over it's Brick Schoolhouse in the back on okay. You had stores in the front of 7th Avenue.

It's nothing like you have it now. The schoolhouse was in the back by, like, all the way down in the middle of the block. And we just had the big school yard and the little school yard, and that was it. It wasn't until, like I said, 1967 when they tore that school down and built 321, which they immediately realized they built it too small. That's why you got the you got the little school.

The, you know, the extensions in the yard. I mean, like, within a year, they realized, oh, we didn't build it big enough. Well, who was your architect and your city planners back then? But, yeah, this neighborhood has changed. Not so much the brownstones, but the stores and everything.

But the stores were here. York. The only stores I can remember is Pino, the the pizza shop. He's still there. But even on Third Street where Tarzan was at well, they call it something else.

That that was Tarzan, a hard store, but he hadn't expanded like that. And right next door to him was a liquor store, Staley's. That's how far back I go. The liquor store was on the corner of Second Street and Seventh Avenue. Then you had Tarzan.

Then you had this little, candy store I used to go to, and then you had the fish market. None of those stores are there no more. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

It was just it's gonna change for the better you say or it's in between now? It's in between now. I I think, like, any other area, you have a problem with the rents. I mean, the go on. The rents are ridiculous.

The rents are really, really ridiculous, and it forced a lot of people out. You know? Not necessarily me because I, you know, I could've just stayed here. I live on the other side of the park and have been. That was my mother's house that I sold.

But the ranch, 4000, 5000. Can afford that. Come on. Nobody can afford that. Alright.

Well, miss Thomas? Yes. Thank you. So much. I do appreciate it.