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.