Interview with Rochelle

We interviewed Rochelle who has been working at the point for ten years. She has always been interested in helping the community and getting involved. Rochells’s parents came up to the Bronx in the 1940’s from Spanish Harlem. She has been here ever since the 1960’s. Back in the 70’s the Bronx was a very negative place to be. There were deterioration, drugs, crime, many abandoned buildings, and many building were being burned down. At the time there were about 6,000 people living in the Bronx and Rochelle and her friends thought that they needed to inform the community on the happenings of the Bronx. They needed to take a stand and get change. In 1976 her and five others put together a newsletter. They printed it in English and Spanish. They printed about 500 copies and would deliver them to people’s apartments, put them in grocery stores, and would hand them out to a local school (Ps 48). They named the newsletter “The Point” because they were letting the community in on the happenings of the Bronx and it was to the point. The letter would come out once a week on Tuesdays and they did this for about a year. At the time, they would use one of the empty apartments in a building. The building held about 50 rooms but only 12 families lived there. They used the room to make the letters. After a year when they were finished writing the letters, Rochelle became involved with the Bronx Frontier. While working here, she met one of the four cofounders of the Point, Paul. In 1994 The Point started to come together. In 98’ there was a position available and Rochelle has been there ever since.