East of Broadway

Synopsis

Cepeda is currently writing a book of essays currently titled East of Broadway, about her beloved Inwood, considered the last working-class enclave in Manhattan. The collection of interconnected essays will explore the shifting process of gentrification through the prism of Cepeda’s life as a native dominiyorker and lifelong resident. Cepeda straddles the line between the gentry and gentrified, Black- and white- America, and her own hyphenated identity, while being quite literally and spiritually located at the invisible border wall dividing the neighborhood between east and west of Broadway. The book will explore belonging, what it means to be authentic, embracing change, and the spiritual and tangible consequences of gentrification that threatens to eat away at the soul of a once piquant and diverse community (Beacon Press).