Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News
(l) Resident Gloria Robertson speaks to Michele Grimes, the interim director of Quincy Senior Residences in the computer room. (Mark Bonifacio/New York Daily News)
BY LORE CROGHAN
A new program to make Bed-Stuy a better place to grow old promises seating for seniors in long checkout lines and elde rs-only hours at local banks.
Organizers of the Aging Improvement District, which is being launched Thursday, are instituting a host of small measures to cater to the nabes 65-plus population, which has grown 30 in a decade to 13,000.
The community was built on the backs of our seniors, said Melissa Lee of the Coalition for the Improvement of Bedford-Stuyvesant, which is in charge of the program. Its important that now they reap the fruits of their labors and are able to age in place.
CIBS is setting up senior-friendly retail zones where merchants will offer discounts for elders and allow them to use restrooms that are otherwise off-limits to customers. The Bed-Stuy Gateway Business Improvement District will help set up the zones on Fulton St. Lee hopes Tompkins Ave. and Malcolm X Blvd. merchants will also get involved.
Special bank hours will be helpful for seniors who need to learn electronic banking because Social Security is ending payment s by paper checks next year.
Seniors are invisible to the younger people on our streets; this program makes them a priority, said Michele Grimes of Quincy Senior Residences, which is offering free computer classes and computer access to over-55 Bed-Stuy residents as part of the program.
This shows you matter in our community you matter in our eyes, she said.
Bed-Stuys Aging Improvement District is Brooklyns first. Other districts are located in East Harlem and the Upper West Side.
Theyre part of an Age-Friendly NYC initiative created by the Office of the Mayor, the City Council and the New York Academy of Medicine. The motivation: an expected 45 surge in the citys senior population over 20 years. By 2030, one in five city residents will be over 60.
New elder-friendly efforts in Bed-Stuy also include safety programs for block associations whose homeowners are largely seniors and a request to the city Transportation Department for more t han a dozen new sidewalk benches, Lee said.
CIBS will also push for expanded cultural and recreational activities, including seniors-only swimming hours at Kosciuszko Pool. For starters, Brooklyn Academy of Music will charter buses to take Bed-Stuy residents to a free May 16 Senior Cinema Day.
lcroghan@nydailynews.com
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