Inwood’s Love Kitchen ministers to the needy

by Darius Dixon
October 1, 2009

Two blocks south of the Manhattan landing of the 207th Street Bridge lies a nondescript building that is home to a popular eatery in Inwood.

At first glance, one might confuse it with any of the dozen or so warehouses that line the western shore of the Harlem River. The building has no windows and is not adorned by any colorful mural. With the exception of an ocean-blue streak running across the bottom third, the exterior is painted white and at its center an awning that reads “Manhattan Bible Church” juts out across the sidewalk. The building is indeed home to a church. And a private school. And a community-run soup kitchen: the Love Kitchen, where a banner reading “Not By Bread Alone” hangs high in the dining room.

“We do a lot here,” said Jewel Jones, 72, church elder and manager of the Love Kitchen. The kitchen has about 15 volunteers and the ones present that afternoon did not sit about with idle hands. Many were moving tables in preparation for their dinner guests, straining boiled vegetables in the sink, or putting away the bags of carefully packed groceries. The attached school, Manhattan Christian Academy, has close to 300 students in Pre-K through 8th grade—and an afterschool program. The dining room can seat about fifty people and is open five days a week. In July, according to Jones’ records, between 70 and 90 people stopped by for a hot meal—each day. Love Kitchen attracts people from all over New York City.

A frequent visitor, Henry Williams, 59, a former platform worker for the Hunts Point Market, has been coming to Love Kitchen for five years. He said he was currently unemployed but living on disability. Williams was quick to point out the healthy meals the Love Kitchen staff prepared. He pinched a bare chicken bone resting on his plate to demonstrate its lack of greasy texture. Williams went so far as to invoke the now-obsolete “Food Pyramid” to describe what a balanced meal the kitchen provided. He was adamant that the food was well worth his trek from 232nd Street, one he walks multiple times a week. During a later conversation, another man who otherwise preferred not to talk, from across the table, said he came out from Brooklyn to eat at Love Kitchen.

Such compliments don’t go unappreciated. Eddie Torres, 58, has been the full-time, volunteer chef at Love Kitchen for about four years. It wasn’t until he started working with the church doing maintenance, and volunteering with relief efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans, that he really learned to cook. During the time that Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York City, Torres was homeless, a situation that caused him to be “resentful,” “angry” and “deranged,” he said. It was open season on the homeless, he explains: bridges where he took refuge were boarded up, there was the crackdown on squeegee men, and the criminalization of homelessness. Working and volunteering with the church helped turn things around for Torres and he now dedicates himself to his craft. After learning the basics from Jones, Torres said he “watched the cooking channel, four hours a day for four months.” In the end, he loves his work because, “I know what it’s like to be hungry.”

While some love to eat food, Jewel Jones has a passion for dishing it out.

“Food is in my blood,” he said in a phone interview. When the Love Kitchen first opened in 1988, Jones was there and has been ever since. At the time, Jones was working at an International House of Pancakes (IHOP) franchise in Riverdale. He had worked his way up from busboy to franchise owner in 10 years, and continued there for another eleven. Even as a busboy, Jones said, “I was in my element.” But his focus gradually shifted as he began interacting with the homeless who took shelter under a nearby bridge. So when the founder of his church, Tom Mahairas, asked him if he were interested in running a soup kitchen, Jones submitted his two-week notice and sold his franchise. The community served by the Love Kitchen is among the city’s neediest.

Inwood shares Manhattan’s 12th Community Board (CB12) with Washington Heights, positioned just to the south, an area that is roughly 2.8 square miles according to Department of City Planning. Manhattan’s CB12 had the greatest number of people receiving food stamps of any community board in the city, according to data compiled by the Human Resources Administration for fiscal year 2008. Also, a report issued last Friday by the U.S. Census Bureau demonstrated that families accounted for roughly 80 percent of those that fell below the poverty line in 2008.

When asked about how the recession has affected the Kitchen, Jones said that compared with this time last year, their sign-in records indicate an increase of at least 34 percent. Over the last five years the visitors list had also shifted dramatically, he added. Where the Kitchen used to serve an overwhelmingly homeless population—98 percent, he estimated—that is now down to about 10 percent. Making up that difference at first were individuals who weren’t necessarily homeless but still struggled to find enough to eat. Now, he says, along with a growing number of seniors, there are many more families coming by. “We never really had children before,” Jones said, with a frown.

According to the most recent American Community Survey data (2005-2007) available from the U.S. Census Bureau, 25.6 percent of families residing within Manhattan’s CB12 had incomes below the poverty level “in the past 12 months.” A figure 58 percent higher than New York City as a whole.

The staff at the Love Kitchen is clearly devoted despite the challenges that lay ahead. The same Census report stated that the national poverty rate in 2008 reached 13.2 percent, up 0.7 percent from 2007, a figure not seen since 1997. But tucked away in such figures are also the lives of those who fell below the poverty line before 2008, the previous 37.3 million Americans. As the economy continues to upend lives, places like Love Kitchen could also see this as their defining moment: when the needs of their constituents test the ceiling of the Kitchen’s capabilities.