Q+A with the Bronx Direct
The Bronx Direct, is a collective database that highlights the Bronx community and documents local efforts and inspirations, created and organized by Brayan B.D. Feliz. We spoke with him to find out more behind the inner-works and process of creating it.
Thank you for joining me today, Brayan. Why don’t you introduce yourself to our audience. Please tell us about where you are from and what you do for a living?
Well, my name is Brayan Daniel Feliz, officially. But I tend to go by B.D. Feliz, because it’s easier and my branding. I would say that I am a Bronx-based visionary. I am a designer, artist, and writer. My main area of expertise is in design.
Are you originally from the Bronx? Tell me about your personal experience as a Bronxite in your particular neighborhood.
I was born in [Santo Domingo,] Dominican Republic, but raised in the Bronx pretty much since I was two. So that technically doesn’t count. I kind of moved around throughout the Bronx so I can say I’ve lived in more or less the different regions of the Bronx. I started on the D line and then moved around to the 4/5 line, 2/5 line, and now I live by the 6, by Pelham.
I would say my experience growing up has been like everyone else’s experience growing up in the Bronx. A lot of hardships in the sense of when you’re growing up in the hood, it just is what it is. I lived in the struggle, basically. And then going from that environment, it teaches you what you should know. It’s a really New York upbringing. You have your mom and pop shops that you go to and your bodega. And then you have your friends that you would hang out with all the time.
I went to college in Brooklyn, first City Tech initially and then I transferred to Hunter. It was obviously very different from living in the Bronx. But [City Tech] was small, community-based and everyone there was like family. So I feel like it wasn’t too much of a change.
To be honest with you, I feel like that is one thing that is unique to the Bronx. In other boroughs, it’s a little bit easier to just say “I live here and I work here and I’m going to stay here.” But the way that things have been for the longest, from what I know of the history of the Bronx, most of us tend to work outside of the Bronx. Unless you work in your neighborhood, like at a mom and pop shop, or a food spot, a lot of the income that comes into the borough is from people working outside of the borough. So it’s normal for us to just travel to get anywhere. Unless you’re driving, then it’s not that bad. If you want to travel to Brooklyn, it’s an hour. But if you want to get to the other side of the Bronx, it’s over an hour and you have to take mad buses.
I know the feeling. I live in the Bronx by Sedgwick, so I have to take the 12 bus to get to you all the way in Pelham. It’s a whole journey and a half.
And the 12 bus is chill!
How would you describe your pandemic experience? Have you been able to stay productive or have you taken this time to reflect and rest mostly?
It’s been okay. Let me give you an example of the past and right now. Typically because I occupy a creative space, I’m used to having to freelance and it’s like being an entrepreneur. I started designing when I was sixteen. There weren’t a lot of people that were designing in my area back then. This was before Instagram or any of that stuff, I actually had to learn it on my own. Coming from that space and growing up in the type of environment where you had to just hustle. I had to teach myself. It taught me at an early age to use my downtime as hustle time. If I wasn’t in class, I would either join clubs or get involved.
Before the pandemic, I was working corporate for a while and then I decided I would do my own thing. I wanted to focus on myself and build a business. I was also working on this Creative Bronx book, where I interviewed your team, the Bronx Narratives.
So when the pandemic happened, it didn’t affect me too much. I was already on that wave, to work remotely. As much as there are people working in offices that are in tech, most people are working from home. One, because it’s cheaper for the companies, compared to having a fully occupied office building. Two, because it’s efficient.
This year, my sister was diagnosed with cancer, so that hit me much harder.
Oh wow, I’m sorry to hear that.
Thank you, she beat it thankfully.
That’s great news.
Yeah, this year was bad news and good news. But that was something that affected me more because of the pandemic. In a way, it was a blessing in the sense that society slowed down because sometimes it feels like things are moving so fast if you’re in the Bronx. But then also looking at the rest of the world, you realize how slow things are moving here relative to the rest of the world. The fact that the world slowed down, it gave us a chance to catch up. That’s been my experience with the pandemic.
You chose to use your time wisely and create with that time.
Yes. I think this year, I’ve done more than in the last two years, working on ideas I’ve always wanted to do and that I’d put in the back seat. Part of that, because of finances. When society is in full effect and the machine is running, you have to either keep up or start moving faster than it. Having everything slowed down allowed me to not go crazy for money because right now there is barely anybody working, so if I had anything saved up, I could afford to focus on my ideas. And it’s also just straight up not having any other choice. Either you’re gonna stay the whole pandemic waiting for things to open up or you’re gonna find a way to adapt to it. So for me, amongst other things, it was building The Bronx Direct.
The front page of The Bronx Direct.
“To me, that was an act of resistance by saying that if anyone is going to own anything with ‘The Bronx’ in it, they need to be from there. So that’s what makes me proud of this. The Bronx Direct, I’m glad it’s somebody from here that did this. And it makes me excited just to see other people doing things in the Bronx and discovering them along the way.”
Great, I appreciate that. I think many of us feel the same way about this year in general. Now that we know a bit about you, let’s discuss your brainchild, The Bronx Direct. What would you say was your inspiration for this project?
The inspiration was the fact that there really isn’t a space that is for us by us. As far as the Bronx is concerned, when you look at what’s available, like the Bronx Arts Council has a directory, there’s the Bronx 200, the Bronx Chamber of Commerce. There are a couple here and there, but they are all mostly narrowly focused and very specific. They have certain people on some lists, and others on different lists. There’s a lot of disconnect. If I’m not an artist, but I’m a designer, where am I gonna be listed? If I’m not a business or I’m not registered with the Chamber of Commerce, where am I gonna be listed? So I figured it would be cool to create a space that addressed that. To create a space that is inclusive for all in the Bronx.
At first, I thought “there are already directories out there, so do I really want to do this?” Then part of me was like, “Is this something that could be a business?” But then I realized that certain things can be business and certain things that you just do. I felt like this was something that needed to be done, because there was a genuine need to have a space where people could discover one another. I figured why not? It can only help. So that’s what motivated me. The need for this space for creatives and professionals to come together regardless of their association.
I understand that you are the solo creator of The Bronx Direct. Can you tell me how working alone affected the creation process?
A lot of the projects I do I tend to do on my own. It’s not necessarily because I don’t want to work with other people. I legit don’t have the patience for certain things. If I can do it and solve that problem, I’ll do it. I’m trying to do the teamwork thing more.
I understand. If people don’t pull their weight on a project, that’s unfair.
Right, and honestly, it took me about a month to build The Bronx Direct. I’m sure that if I had spent more time, I would’ve been able to build something crazy. But the main thing with me was that it was something that I needed to get off the ground because sometimes I tend to become a perfectionist about things and then… don’t launch it. I’ve thankfully gotten around this by just saying ‘you know what, lemme just put it out there and we’ll grow from there’. Ultimately, I have an idea of where it could go in the future.
More power to you. Most people couldn’t even accomplish this with a team. Are you currently looking for more partners/team-members or do you want to continue managing this project solo?
I don’t have expectations per se, I’m really treating this as something that should grow organically and I’m not doing it for profit. To me, it’s what the community wants it to be. It’s a project that I want to live on its own and can be used as a tool.
I embrace the idea of having a team. I have so many things I’m working on, so it’s hard for me on the time and the resources. If anyone donated, it would go right into the mechanics of running the Bronx Direct. It would go into automation. I’ve always wanted someone to build this, but I know it’s not something I want to control in the long run. That wasn’t my endgame. I would hope that people want to step up and want to get involved with this.
Okay awesome, thank you for elaborating on that. The Bronx Direct seems to have a very user friendly interface that’s easy to navigate. Can you describe how it works as a platform?
Back in the days we used to have the Yellow Pages, I think they still exist, but I haven’t seen a book in forever.
I have not seen a book in a long time!
[Laughs]
Yeah, well it works the same way. There were so many design elements that I wanted to add, but at the end of the day, the simpler it is, the easier it is for users. Not everybody that will go on this directory may be a young person. It might also be an older person that lives in the Bronx and wants to get involved with something. So it needed to be extremely easy to navigate. As soon as you go on there, it’s listing everyone that’s on it. Or, you can filter it. On the left side tab, you can click different areas of expertise and that would narrow down the folks that are on the platform. Then you can click on the different profiles and take you to either their twitter page, website, etc. The way that I have it set up at the moment — is that it relies on Twitter. I built the Bronx Direct off of a code that’s based on discovering people on Twitter. But it’s limited because unless you’re on Twitter at the moment, you won’t be able to be listed. This is something I’m looking to change very soon.
I noticed that your ‘about’ page mentions that your directory is full of professionals that have been Nominated. Please explain this process.
For the most part, anyone can submit a nomination. There’s a form on The Bronx Direct that can be filled out. I take a look at it, to make sure it’s a real person with a professional profile. I take into consideration any type of bias I might introduce. I don’t want to ever not create a space for someone I personally might not like. There are extremes, like if someone is a harm to the community. Cases like that, I want to create a space where everyone can feel comfortable. If a nomination seems correct, I can potentially honor that. I would like to get to a point where there’s a team that reviews nominations. Then to take it a step further, we could eventually create algorithms to sort that out.
Does a nominee have to be an actual professional or can they be more amateur level? Their interests could align with someone else’s and they could grow together via The Bronx Direct.
At the moment, it’s more so about what I can see. If I can see you are active and doing something, then I’m more likely to list you versus if you only have a profile that says you’re an artist but there’s no art. It’s hard to gauge that if you don’t have social media, or a website or something so I can get an idea of what you do.
My hopes are, that in the future, there’s a situation where literally everyone can just be listed on there and the categorization might change a little bit. There may be a way to show if someone is professional or not, or just looking to try something new that interests them.
As for the Job Board section, how do you select the small local businesses to highlight?
It’s not necessarily about me choosing who gets highlighted, but it’s more so about anyone who wants to list a job, can list a job. There’s a fee on there, of course, because it does cost money to have that. That flows back into development. But it’s definitely cheaper than Craigslist, at about a dollar a day. At a certain point in the future, I want to allow people to just list certain things for free. But right now, while we’re still getting off the ground, we needed something on there to help fund the building of the platform.
What would you say have been some of the more difficult issues in regards to creating the Bronx Direct as well as running the platform currently?
Part of what’s made it difficult has been finding enough people… more so on Twitter. I had to look for the Bronx twitter, but we’re not really there. We’re not really on there. Which is crazy because it’s such a useful tool. I hate big data, but at the same time, I understand that it’s really useful if you needed to communicate certain ideas. Twitter is perfect for politics, to connect to your representatives too. There are actual conversations about things. Trying to find Bronxites on Twitter was definitely a challenge. But after I started to really put in work and create good search queries, it made it much easier to find people. That was probably the biggest challenge.
What has been the most exciting or rewarding part for you?
The most rewarding part was, first of all, to just able to get The Bronx Direct. I’m a brand person. I’m always thinking of brands, ideas, and words. The fact that no one owned that is crazy. It’s interesting because when I first started getting involved in the Bronx from an activist standpoint, it was really about digital activism and about making sure we owned our spaces online. A good five or six years ago, the conversation of gentrification was just starting to happen. I remember a time period where people in the Bronx didn’t even understand what gentrification means or how it works.
It also didn’t affect us that much in the past. I like to call the Bronx “The Last Frontier” of New York City, because it’s not like Brooklyn or Queens, where gentrification has been prevalent for over a decade now.
Right, and back then, when I started to realize what was happening, I realized that in Brooklyn, outside people started to take control of the Brooklyn brand, and that made it easier for gentrification to happen. It’s always about the brand. That’s how they’re able to convince people to move in and build things that compete with the natives. When Brooklyn as a brand slipped out of the hands of native Brooklyn, old Brooklyn was, in a way, over. Then, you started getting all of these brands. Brooklyn this, Brooklyn that, everything Brooklyn. Everything was advertised towards people that weren’t from Brooklyn. That’s what really made gentrification work. Other than that, people probably wouldn’t have gone to Brooklyn. People were like ‘Nah it’s kind of dangerous in parts of Williamsburg’. That’s what the neighborhood was — I saw that back then because I was in Brooklyn all the time. So I decided that whatever happens, we need to control our digital selves like as a borough and a brand. I bought domain names that had the Bronx in it, in order to make sure people that requested the domains were actually from the Bronx.
To me, that was an act of resistance by saying that if anyone is going to own anything with ‘The Bronx’ in it, they need to be from there. So that’s what makes me proud of this. The Bronx Direct, I’m glad it’s somebody from here that did this. And it makes me excited just to see other people doing things in the Bronx and discovering them along the way.
Does the Bronx Direct give back to the Bronx community?
At the moment, I haven’t done any fundraising. That’s something I would like to do if we had a team and we can really start working more so on the job board side of it. I hate job fairs not because they don’t work, but because they don’t work here. The advertising sucks, the people who advertise them are not popping like that, and the events themselves are not really popping as well. But that would be a way that we would be able to give back. It’s a goal for the future. At the moment, there’s a platform, but I’m not really getting money for this project. The most I can do is provide the service.
Right and if you connect others on your platform, there might be someone that has access to fundraising if someone is interested.
That’s all doable and I’m open to it, if we had the time and resources to do it. That’s taking an idea that works and making it something big.
Could you see an expansion into an app interface?
It’s a web app. It’s a website that’s not static. It’s constantly pulling new data from Twitter. It works on a mobile phone as well. Theoretically, if you add it to your home screen, it would behave like an app. It functions like one, but it’s not in the app store.
Last question, Brayan. Where do you see The Bronx Direct in 6 months, especially when New York City really starts to reintroduce itself post-Covid?
Six months from now, it would probably be in a place where it is a lot more inclusive. It would be able to list people regardless of what platform they’re on. I would like to make it a lot easier for people to continue to find more Bronx creatives, professionals, movers, and shakers. And hopefully to have more Bronxites involved in managing this and realizing the vision, to create different and newer ways to improve our platform and brand.
Thank you so much for your time, Brayan. I look forward to The Bronx Direct continuing to grow and connect the Bronx community.
You can follow The Bronx Direct on Twitter. Brayan’s socials: Instagram and Twitter
Brittany Villalona is a writer and videographer. She holds a B.A. in English Creative Writing from CCNY and an M.A. in International Affairs from the New School. She lives happily in the Bronx with her cats and plants.
