Also, I preached to gangs on the streets of Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx - and miracles began to happen.
I grew up with my parents screaming and yelling at each other for the rent in Bronx, New York City at the time. It was $36. So my mind hadn't stretched out to that place where I could spend a whole month's rent on a 45-minute plane flight to Fargo, N.D.
I don't sing white; I don't sing black - I sing Bronx. When I sing 'Ruby Baby,' I'm rolling like Jimmy Reed. I wanted to communicate like Hank Williams and groove like Jimmy Reed.
When I started really singing I was 17, 18 years old. I used to go around trying to be a singer in the Bronx. My knees would shake but I learned by doing.
I'm just a simple Jewish boy from the Bronx.
From the streets of Los Angeles to the public schools of the Bronx, there is no state of the Union where Latinos are not becoming local leaders and responsible politicians.
I represent a district covering Rockland, Westchester and Bronx counties, all of which are part of the 9 million people that this water is so important for.
I'm tenacious, I think - I know - and I do also have a quality where if you tell me I can't do something, if I know I can't do it I'm the first to raise my hand and say, 'I can't do that.' But there is a big Bronx, New York Jew in me that just says, 'Really? Really? You think I - yes, I can. I can do it. I can do it.'
Unlike accredited zoos like the Bronx Zoo, San Diego Zoo, the Los Angeles Zoo, these are private menageries, and these people are frightened and there is an existential fear that they are going to be shut down by the government, by PETA, by HSUS, by animal rights groups. So they, generally, are very guarded.
From the Bronx to Buffalo, cities and towns in New York have been plagued by what are commonly called zombie properties. These are homes that residents abandon - often after they have received a foreclosure notice - which then languish, uncared-for, until the foreclosure process is complete.
