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Kids line-up to receive their gift bags from Santa Claus.

The Caribbean American Center of New York spread Holiday Cheer with gifts for over 100 New York’s needy children at its 11^th annual Christmas Holiday Celebration on December 5 at Brooklyn Borough Hall.

“I grew up in poverty and I understand what it means when others make your holidays special,” said Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who spoke at the event. “So it’s almost like it is me. I know the way they feel because I felt that way.”

The Christmas gift bags handed out to the kids at the party.

CACNY Board Members and volunteers prepared 150 of the 4,000 gift bags given at the event with new toys, clothes, books and other items. All the gifts will be distributed before Dec. 23 to disadvantaged children who live in more than 22 homeless shelters in Brooklyn, Queens and Harlem.

“It’s a lot, a lot of work to put this together,” said Jean P. Alexander, executive director of CACNY, “but it is so satisfying to see the kids.”

CACNY will host two more holiday parties to get Santa Claus to continue to help distribute some of the remaining gifts.

“I feel good because it is something minor, but to see the smile on their face is like wow,” said Tiffany Williams, 24, a volunteer from Bed-Stuyvesant.

Miss Brooklyn 2008 Cherelle Gaines, 22, and Miss Brooklyn's Outstanding Teen 2008 KeyAna Williams, 13.

Volunteer Sheila Singleton, whose organization Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc. helped to prepare the gifts for the first time, said she was excited to have her Soros participate help children in need.

“We said we will all come down here to help, it is not a problem, you know, it is all Brooklyn,” Singleton said.

Borough President Marty Markowitz addresses the kids at the Caribbean American Center of New York holiday party.

Markowitz ended his remarks with some inspirational advice to the kids.

“In America, you can fly as high as Barack Obama,” Markowitz said, “or you can fly a little lower like Marty Markowitz, but your ability to fly depends upon you. Enjoy your Christmas and enjoy your presents.” 

More and more young families priced out of Manhattan have wrangled with older, long-time residents in Jackson Heights, Queens. In this neighborhood’s historic garden apartments these two generations have struggled over the use of private gardens. At some co-ops, the established residents have compromised. But at others they’ve held their ground, prohibiting this wave of new children from playing on their lawns.

Dudley Stewart and a group of his young neighbors took action. They organized and won enough seats on their co-op board to change the rules.

It was fall when Dudley and Laura Stewart moved to Jackson Heights. Spike, their three-year-old son, could bounce around the jungle gym at the local public park. They lived in one of these historic co-ops with a beautiful central garden. Rent was much less than what the young couple had paid in Manhattan. The Stewarts had found a great spot.

After winter rolled around the neighborhood kids emerged with the spring thaw. Travers Park became so crowded that Dudley couldn’t keep track of Spike. He figured out why his community ranks second to last (pdf) in New York City for the number of parks per resident. “It was almost to the point of danger,” Stewart said.

Danger at the public park and pressure to use the private gardens was not always a problem. When Edward MacDougall originally developed Jackson Heights, beginning in the early 1920s, there was plenty of open space. The ends of blocks were covered with grass. Fields and farmlands abounded.

“Then after World War II the original developer died and his children basically sold off the land,” said Daniel Karatzas, author of “Jackson Heights – A Garden in the City.” “By 1954 or thereabouts the whole neighborhood had been covered over with the exception of one block for Travers Park.”

Today, children play in the park as the private gardens sit serenely.

Some older residents fear that their tranquil gardens, which they have tended over many years, will be ruined. Many have lived in Jackson Heights since the 1960s, or even before. They watched the neighborhood decline in the 1970s and 1980s, when the cocaine trade flooded nearby Roosevelt Avenue. Their lawns leached into mud patches. Everything was in disrepair. Then, a few residents decided to clean up the gardens and formed committees. With their dedication and the assistance of professionals, they nursed their private parks back to life. Today, they see the results of their dedication threatened by little feet and plastic shovels.