{"id":343985,"date":"2026-09-11T14:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T14:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/343985\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T14:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T14:20:09","slug":"council-member-justin-sanchez-celebrates-opening-new-office-with-back-to-school-carnival-bronx-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/343985\/","title":{"rendered":"Council Member Justin Sanchez celebrates opening new office with Back to School Carnival \u2013 Bronx Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

City Council Member Justin Sanchez celebrated the grand opening of his new permanent office with a Back to School Carnival, complete with a community talent show, free food and even a ferris wheel.<\/p>\n

Amidst rain and shine, the Back to School Carnival on Aug. 1 saw Bronxites of all ages perform some of their favorite songs and wait patiently in long lines for classic carnival attractions and delights. Over a thousand attendees enjoyed the festivities and over 700 meals were distributed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToday felt like something the community hasn\u2019t experienced in what feels like generations. There was so much community joy, community spirit,\u201d Council Member Sanchez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Sanchez came into office this January, he and his team were not able to follow standard practice of taking over the office of the council member that preceded him, as Rafael Salamanca Jr.\u2019s office was being bulldozed at the end of his term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were seven of us all working out of a two-room office downtown when we first started, it was crazy. Then, we secured a pop up office in March,\u201d Matt Rego, Communications Director for Justin Sanchez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Councilmember Justin Sanchez opened his new office at 1307 Southern Blvd. Photo by Alex Krales\/NYC Council Media Unit<\/p>\n

The temporary office in Grand Concourse was serviceable, but smaller than ideal and on the edge of the district. Rego considers the new office at 1307 Southern Blvd a necessary improvement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a full basement where we\u2019re gonna be able to host people. We have multiple office spaces where we\u2019ll be able to have one-on-one constituent services with people as well,\u201d Rego said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the day, however, Bronxites seemed much more enamored with the amusement park-style attractions and the free community talent show. With varying levels of confidence and nervousness, many children performed their favorite songs \u2013 tracks from KATSEYE and \u201cKPop Demon Hunters\u201d were particularly popular.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One bold dancer, Melissa Lee, enjoyed taking the stage ahead of starting the upcoming semester at a performing arts school.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI had so much fun, especially on the ferris wheel. It was so entertaining and how everybody was interacting with people. And it really involves you so much, so there\u2019s never going to be a time where you\u2019re going to be bored here,\u201d Lee said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Amidst rain and shine, the Back to School Carnival saw Bronxites of all ages perform some of their favorite songs and wait patiently in long lines for classic carnival attractions and delights. Photo by Alex Krales\/NYC Council Media Unit<\/p>\n

RosAnne Hernandez, who helped staff the inflatable kid-friendly rides, enjoyed contributing to a memorable event for the children.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot of work but it\u2019s fun. It\u2019s very fun with the kids. You get all types of ages; small, to medium, to large. It\u2019s good, it\u2019s nice for the kids,\u201d Hernandez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Council Member Sanchez thanked the young members of the South Bronx Youth Council for their help in advising him on the interests and needs of the youngest Bronxites, and helping to curate his office\u2019s summer calendar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why you see so many of the high school students out here, so many of the middle school students out here, because their friends are working at the office, and now the Justin Sanchez internship is the hottest commodity in the 17th Council district,\u201d Councilmember Sanchez said. \u201cWe hope to continue to be able to expand that and show that there\u2019s new community partnership here. We can\u2019t wait to grow together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City Council Member Justin Sanchez celebrated the grand opening of his new permanent office with a Back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[128898,128899,98,100,99,25246,128900,128901,48486,22096,15891,128902,128903,9,24,63,128904,128905,84132],"class_list":["post-343985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-1307-southern-blvd","tag-back-to-school-carnival","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-carnival","tag-carnivals-festivals-and-parades-nyc","tag-carnivals-in-the-bronx","tag-council-member-justin-sanchez","tag-councilman-rafael-salamanca","tag-justin-sanchez","tag-matt-rego","tag-melissa-lee","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-rosanne-hernandez","tag-south-bronx-youth-council","tag-southern-boulevard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343985","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=343985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}