{"id":188285,"date":"2026-04-07T13:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188285\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T13:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:59:14","slug":"nothing-rotten-about-this-neighborhood-representation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/188285\/","title":{"rendered":"Nothing “rotten” about this neighborhood representation"},"content":{"rendered":"

It didn\u2019t sit well with a younger Che Williams that there had never been a community basketball tournament in his neighborhood in Flushing,\u00a0 Queens. He and other neighbors knew the area as the \u201cWastelanz,\u201d a nickname popularized by the likes of rappers Mic Geronimo<\/a> and Royal Flush<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But when Williams helped coordinate the area\u2019s first basketball tournament there in the early 2000s, he had no idea it would also be the beginning of a business specializing in hometown pride: Rotten Apple Wear<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The online shop features T-shirts, hoodies and caps representing each borough and nearly every neighborhood and major public housing development in the city, from Astoria to the Woodside Houses. The brand\u2019s roots in hip-hop are documented through photos of the celebrities who have visited and bought merchandise<\/a> over the years: among them, Nas, 50 Cent, Fat Joe, DJ Kool Herc and LL Cool J.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the originator of representing neighborhood pride,\u201d Williams said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s doing it now, but they weren\u2019t doing it in the early 2000s. We had some brands, such as FUBU, School of Hard Knocks<\/a> and Shirt Kings, where they represented different boroughs, but I went a little deeper \u2014 from East New York, Brownsville, Harlem, all over. Nobody was putting [in] the neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"\"The brand\u2019s roots in hip-hop are evident through rappers who have visited and bought merchandise over the years. Credit: Rotten Apple Wear<\/p>\n

The tournament\u00a0<\/p>\n

In summer 2001, Williams helped organize a tournament among four different public housing buildings in the community. He and his friends applied for park and sound permits and secured sponsorships from local delis, supermarkets and pharmacies. Raffle tickets, sponsorships and money from Williams\u2019 family paid for trophies, referees and the food his mom made for the barbecue.<\/p>\n

The friendly competition was held on a court at Colden Street and Juniper Avenue. The games involved a separate \u201cpeewees\u201d division for children and games for adults who were used to playing together but had never done so with official referees and uniforms. It meant a lot, Williams said, that after years of having to leave their community to participate in tournaments they could finally have their own here.<\/p>\n

It was also the start of Williams\u2019 experimentation with what would become his signature merchandise for Rotten Apple Wear. His older brother, who organized an annual basketball tournament in Harlem, gave him some pointers on how to get T-shirts with players\u2019 numbers. Williams hired a graffiti artist he admired to make a basketball print with \u201cThe Wastelanz, Queens,\u201d then sought out a cousin in Maryland working in screen printing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He could make the T-shirts at a lower price point there, so he ordered both the players\u2019 uniforms and a separate batch to sell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On the day of the tournament, \u201cThe Wastelanz\u201d T-shirts \u2014 about 10 dozen, at $10 each \u2014 sold as quickly as his mom\u2019s free barbecue food. Their popularity sparked the idea to produce more T-shirt designs around neighborhood pride.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Making \u201cRotten Apple Wear\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Customers display their finds from Rotten Apple Wear. Credit: Rotten Apple Wear<\/p>\n

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On a visit to his father\u2019s neighborhood in Queensbridge, Williams noticed the sign that said \u201cWelcome to Queensbridge Houses.\u201d It was the same style as all New York City Housing Authority signs. This became the template for designs \u2014 not just for shirts representing NYCHA buildings but also neighborhoods from Corona to Queens Village.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The name for his business came from a lyric of one of Nas\u2019 most well-known songs, \u201cThe World Is Yours\u201d: \u201cDwelling in the rotten apple, you get tackled.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It represented how he viewed his hometown: \u201cNew York is called the Big Apple but the rotten apple gets overlooked \u2014 the bad parts of the neighborhood, the slums, the ghettos,\u201d Williams said. \u201cBut a lot of positive things come out of the rotten apple. We inspire the world: 50 Cent, Nas, Jay-Z. You can\u2019t overlook the rotten part of the apple and you get nutrients from rotten fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n

For around six years after his start in 2002, Williams sold his merch out of a backpack, walking through the city. He sold at tables during family day events, block parties and housing project events. He expanded to different boroughs, and his product line grew. . He took neighbors\u2019 feedback to include hoodies, thermals, hats as well as seasonal colors and school and sports colors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Throughout this distribution, his brand gained recognition through the likes of its sources of inspiration, including Nas, Mobb Deep, 50 Cent, Wu-Tang Clan, Remy Ma and The Game. It became a kind of early organic marketing through celebrity influencers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2009, after attending a major trade convention in Las Vegas, Williams learned more about sourcing, overseas production and wholesale scaling. He introduced bulk ordering and manufacturing from abroad into the business, which helped lower costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shortly after, he opened his first brick-and-mortar store in the Jamaica Coliseum Mall while continuing to sell on the streets. By the 2010s, these operations expanded beyond New York\u00a0 into Atlanta, cities across North Carolina and cities such as Compton and Long Beach, California and Newark and Paterson, New Jersey. Street sales often made more sense than the high costs of a retail store.<\/p>\n

Resilience in the face of rotten apples<\/p>\n

Williams launched his website in 2022, with help from his graphic designer cousin. Now much of his business is through online ordering and his social media presence, steps that helped him withstand the closing of the Jamaica Colosseum Mall<\/a> earlier this year. This past holiday season was also the worst ever Williams had faced, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a season \u2014 it\u2019s ups and downs, just like Wall Street,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if this is a down period, I\u2019ve got to wait for my up period. And it\u2019s going to come because this is not the first time you\u2019re going through this. This is a rerun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Otherwise, he said, \u201cyou go from having a store to not having a store and you\u2019re trying to figure things out, but you don\u2019t want to make a desperate move. You make a desperate move, you fall deep in debt, you fall deep in the red making bad decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams is continuing to focus on his online sales and wholesale partnerships in neighborhoods across the country. And while he is considering having a permanent presence via a street van, he is still out in the streets himself, at seasonal pop-ups and other community events. It\u2019s where it all started.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the pioneer of representing neighborhood fashion, with receipts,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To other aspiring pioneers, Williams advises: \u201cNo matter who doubts you, believe in your passion and you must persist,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you quit, you\u2019ll never know anything but regrets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It didn\u2019t sit well with a younger Che Williams that there had never been a community basketball tournament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4567,1123,2610,9,24,63,122,124,123,2990,25019],"class_list":{"0":"post-188285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-hip-hop","10":"tag-neighborhoods","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-queens","15":"tag-queens-headlines","16":"tag-queens-news","17":"tag-small-business","18":"tag-streetwear"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}