It took Long Island City activists two years of petitioning, marching and waiting, but on Friday, June 29, their tireless efforts ended when Amalgamated Bank opened at the corner of 21st Street and 36th Avenue - a short walk from the Queensbridge and Ravenswood Housing Developments.
“Nobody should have to walk a mile just to get to a bank,” said Amalgamated President and CEO Derrick Cephas, during the opening ceremony, which drew Congressmember Carolyn Maloney, New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson, Borough President Helen Marshall, Assemblymember Cathy Nolan and the state's new Superintendent of Banks Richard Neiman.
In addition, three of the branch's eight employees at the 2,400 square-foot, full-service location, are local residents, Cephas added.
“We can play a much bigger role in the community, than just making a profit,” Cephas said, before handing over a $12,000 check to East River Development Alliance (ERDA) and a $50,000 check to LaGuardia Community College's Office of Economic Development.
In 2006, Queens had 399 banks for more than 2 million people, Neiman said. When banks are not situated in close proximity, “alternative lending and predatory practices are quick to fill that void,” he said.
At Queensbridge - the largest public housing development in the country - residents have used check-cashing places and kept piles of cash in their apartments for as long as Bishop Mitchell Taylor, a 40-resident of Long Island City and founder of ERDA, can remember.
A 2005 study commissioned by Councilmember Eric Gioia and ERDA of the estimated 15,000 Queensbridge residents found that nearly one-third had never used a bank account.
During a 2006 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march for a bank, Gioia remembered asking a boy why he would want one in the neighborhood.
“My mother shouldn't have to go to Steinway Street every Friday night to cash her check,” the boy told him.
But getting residents to “trust” the bank, situated where a fried-chicken eatery once stood, might take a while, said Branch Manager Josh Andre, who has been in the banking industry for 37 years and worked in similarly under-banked neighborhoods like Jamaica and Harlem.
Even before the bank's unofficial opening in April, Amalgamated and ERDA held financial literacy events to try to convince public housing residents to open accounts. In addition, they talked about incentive programs, where residents can earn up to $150 for setting up an account.
“It's going to take a lot more work for the people to come in and understand that the bank is here for them,” Andre said.
Queensbridge finally gets a bank
By Christina Santucci
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