Honors for Bishop Taylor

Bishop Mitchell Taylor, (second from left) founder and President of the East River Development Alliance (ERDA) in Long Island City, was honored recently by the Consulate General of Israel, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, and the Jewish National Fund. Rabbi Michael Miller (left), Israel Consul-General Asaf Sharif (center), Janice Florenstein (second from right), and Rabbi Eric Lankin (right) presented the award to Taylor at an annual tribute to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., held at ERDA, located at 12-11 40th Avenue.
The award is given each year to an individual who embodies Dr. King’s spirit and ideals, organizers said, and previous award recipients have included Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and Music Executive Russell Simmons. Taylor, the son of a minister who founded a church in the 1960s to serve the Queensbridge Housing Development, started ERDA in 2004, and the group now runs financial-planning programs, college preparatory classes and a soup kitchen, among other programs.