5th Annual Allerton Avenue Festival

   Sunday was the 5th Annual Allerton Avenue Festival Hosted by Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera. The festival was scheduled to run from 12 - 5 P, and I arrived at 12:30 PM to find very few people, the stage being set up, and only some of the tables or should I say vendors set up. For over one hour I went to explore and ask some questions.Since Allerton Avenue was closed for four blocks between White Plains Road and Boston Road I asked one of the officers how many people were expected, and was told a few hundred. I asked people at the tables if they were being charged for the spots, and many workers did not know saying they were not the boss. Those at the tables who knew told me yes, and it seemed that the answer most given was that there was different fees for different people. 

    I asked a few workers in some stores about the festival, and again mostly got the answer that they could mot say. One customer when I asked about Assemblywoman Rivera said that he is having a good laugh every day when he reads the stories about her in the New York Post. There was free cotton candy and popcorn being given out, but that was all as one woman commented on the prices being charged by the vendors saying she paid three dollars for a roasted ear of corn.

   Before I was about to leave I went into the Campaign office of Assemblywoman Rivera which was conveniently located right in the middle of the festival, asking if the assemblywoman was at the festival yet. First I was told not yet, and when I asked when she would be here I was told in about a half hour. Since in the past that could mean one hour or more I decided that I was not going to waste my time to see if Assemblywoman Rivera would even show up, and left a little after 2 PM after speaking to one of her opponents in the upcoming primary Irene Estrada Rukaj who walked away from me when I said that the primary was really between the Naomi Rivera and Mark Gjonaj..

check out the photos below

Left - Photo taken at 1:45 PM 

Right - Crowd in front of supermarket standing in the shade waiting for the event to start. Inside the store was empty as was the case in almost all of the stores that were open.

Left - shows one of the empty stores on Allerton Avenue.

Right - Shows Assemblywoman Rivera's campaign office an empty income tax office.