The Marine Parkway Bridge Award
Michelle Crentsil
from the New York State Nurses Association
Michelle Crentsil is the Statewide Political Director of the New York State Nurses Association. She is deeply committed to the labor movement and the overall fight for social justice. Before joining NYSNA’s political department, Michelle organized healthcare workers at the Committee of Interns & Residents (CIR/SEIU) and property services workers at SEIU Local 32BJ, working on their airports campaign in New York and New Jersey. She also funded and advised political and advocacy campaigns nationwide to end mass incarceration at Open Philanthropy. She comes from a family of healthcare workers and advocates, including her mother, who retired as a registered nurse after nearly 40 years in the field.
Michelle started at NYSNA—the largest union for registered nurses in the state—in March 2020, just as the pandemic started to make NY the epicenter of the pandemic. She immediately went to work and built a strong team to engage union members, elected officials, and community allies to advocate for patient and healthcare worker safety during a major healthcare crisis.
Michelle has led successful campaigns at NYSNA, working in partnership with elected leaders, labor partners, and community organizations to pass legislation to improve the health of all New Yorkers and support the nurses who care for us.
In 2023, Michelle led NYSNA’s political and community organizing efforts to build a broad coalition of support for the historic and successful nurses’ strike for safe staffing and patient safety. Later that year, NYSNA also succeeded in winning pay parity for NYC’s 9,000 public sector nurses, resulting in one of the biggest increases in the union’s history.
This year, she worked as a strategic partner in the Battleground New York coalition of major labor unions and advocacy groups, which successfully flipped Congressional seats in New York.
Advocacy for healthcare workers and registered nurses has never been more important. Michelle took over the political department of the largest nurses union in NY right before we entered our biggest health crisis in generations, and her leadership has delivered results that improve the working conditions of the members, the care of their patients, and the health of our communities.
The George Washington Bridge Award
Tenant Associations from 705 & 709 West 170th
The Madison Ave Bridge Award
Savoy Park Tenants Union
The Savoy Park Tenant Union has the great honor of advocating for and representing the demands of the tenants of Savoy Park located on the historical site of the Harlem Savoy Ballroom. It is in this spirit of working class Harlem energy that they have brought passion to their work, determination to their standoffs with management and heart to the greater fight for safety in their complex and peace in their homes.
The Queensboro Bridge Award
Susanna Blankley
formerly of The Right to Counsel NYC Coalition
Susanna is currently the Senior Organizing Capacity Coordinator at the Service Employees International Union, helping to build the capacity of organizers at SEIU across the country. She has over 17 years of tenant and labor organizing experience.
She worked as the Director of Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA) in the Southwest Bronx. CASA is made up of community members working together to improve the living conditions in the South Bronx and maintain affordable housing through collective action. As the Coordinator of the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition for 10 years, she helped form the coalition and launch a campaign to pass legislation making it a right for tenants to have an attorney when facing eviction. She has also been teaching and training organizers for over 10 years.
The Brooklyn Bridge Award
Scott Sommer
Host of our radio show on WBAI since 1984
Vajra Kilgour
The Williamsburg Bridge Award: Sheila Garcia, former Tenant Representative to the Rent Guidelines Board 2014-2023