Ian Avilez can’t get sufficient of books. A lot in order that the first-grader is studying at a third-grade stage. “I used to learn to him when he was a child,” mentioned his mom, Miguelina Minier. His kindergarten instructor requested about Ian’s expansive vocabulary. “Why does Ian know phrases that I didn’t even train him?’ I’m like, ‘We reside on high of the library,’” Ms. Minier mentioned.
It’s true. Ms. Minier and her son reside within the Sundown Park Library and Flats in Brooklyn, which opened in 2023 with the residential half constructed above the library. The primary library on this spot opened in 1905, and it lasted till 1970, when it was torn down. A brand new one opened in 1972, though, in time, it wanted numerous love.
Ms. Minier remembers it nicely. She’s lived within the neighborhood for 20 years and he or she’s been going to the library since she was a teen. “It was darkish, very, very darkish and it was small,” she mentioned. “Generally they didn’t have the guide that you simply have been in search of.” When she developed an curiosity in legal justice, she needed to take a look at reference books about police academy exams. “They didn’t have them,” she recalled.
By the point her son was born, the constructing wanted repairs — to a damaged air-conditioner and an outdated electrical system, to call simply two. The Brooklyn Public Library couldn’t afford the required work. So it partnered with the Fifth Avenue Committee, a nonprofit developer, to renovate the library and add 49 items of the inexpensive housing.
To qualify to reside within the constructing, Ms. Minier needed to have an revenue between 30 and 80 % of the world median revenue, which was $86,380 when she utilized. The variety of items contains eight flats that profit from a project-based Part 8 subsidy program and 9 flats put aside for households and people who previously skilled homelessness.
“I didn’t notice that it was going to be a constructing on high of the library,” Ms. Minier recalled. “I assumed they have been simply going to resume the library and that’s it. However then, the constructing got here and I used to be like, ‘Oh, I bought to use for that.’”
It wasn’t Ms. Minier’s first time making an attempt her luck at a housing lottery. “I’ve had greater than 38 functions. However this one was meant to be.” She was chosen out of 60,000 candidates.
The condominium she and her son moved into has two bedrooms. It’s the first time that the 6-year-old and the 34-year-old every have a room of their very own. “Think about,” she mentioned, “33 years residing with someone else, not having your individual house. This place is a blessing.”
$1,350 | Sundown Park, Brooklyn
Miguelina Minier, 34
Occupation: Relationship supervisor for a nonprofit financial institution
On reputation: As a result of Ms. Minier has come to know so many individuals within the neighborhood by the work she does, it’s uncommon that she will exit with out being acknowledged. “Each time I stroll down the road I hear, ‘Hello, Miguelina. Hello, hello, hello, hello — just like the president,” she mentioned, laughing.
On leaving New York: Though Ms. Minier hopes that she and Ian keep within the condominium for years to return, she does typically marvel what it will be wish to reside in a home. “I need to have a yard the place I could make barbecue,” she mentioned. “My son tells me that he needs to have a trampoline to leap and I need to give him that.”
Ms. Minier, born within the Dominican Republic, got here to the United States as a baby and her residing situations have at all times been tight. “I’m from a overseas nation,” she mentioned, “and while you come right here, you don’t have your individual house. Though you’re 13, 14, you’re nonetheless sleeping with a cousin or someone else. Ian, thank God, he’s fortunate. He has one thing that I by no means had earlier than. He has his personal house.”
Ian, born in Sundown Park, had grown up in crowded flats for the primary few years of his life, so getting his personal room was sufficient to make him excited in regards to the transfer — and that was earlier than he came upon in regards to the library downstairs. “That got here in a while,” Ms. Minier mentioned. “When the library was about to open, we had the chance to have a tour within the library for the tenants. When he noticed that, I defined to him, ‘We’re the primary ones seeing the library as a result of we reside on high of it.’ He was like, ‘Oh, mommy. Oh my God, oh my God!’”
If it have been as much as Ian, he and his mom would go to the library each day. “I’m the one who’s like, ‘Not in the present day, Ian, mommy’s drained — let’s go one other day,’” Ms. Minier mentioned. Nonetheless, they make it no less than 3 times every week.
Ms. Minier reads to Ian each every now and then, however lately it’s largely him studying to her from favorites just like the “Pete the Cat” sequence and “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!”
When her son is at school, Ms. Minier spends her personal time within the library. She works from dwelling and it’s useful to have entry to the library work areas.
“They’ve chargers,” she mentioned, “they’ve the Wi-Fi so that you can join, they usually even have plugs so that you can join your machine. To me, personally, the library means quite a bit. The employees are all very, very useful. You ask them for any useful resource, something, and they’ll assist.”
Ms. Minier works for a nonprofit financial institution that lends to entrepreneurial ladies, many who reside within the neighborhood. “The work that I do focuses on the those who we see typically on the prepare promoting churros or promoting chocolate or typically you see them on the street promoting mangoes and stuff like that. We give out a small mortgage to assist them get their enterprise began.”
The very best a part of the work is seeing a metamorphosis in her neighbors. “Once they textual content me and say, ‘Hey, Miguelina, look, now I’ve my very own churros cart,’ I get joyful as a result of it’s one thing that they obtain, similar as me, that they arrive from a unique nation they usually achieved one thing.”
It isn’t simply the Wi-Fi and books and quiet house that the library gives Ms. Minier and her son. It’s additionally pleasure. On a latest subject journey together with his classmates to a close-by hearth station, Ian had the possibility to level out the library. “He informed all his pals, ‘That’s the place I reside. I reside on high of the library.’”
Upstairs, he informed them, is the place he has a room of his personal with a shelf for each guide he checks out.
