Janice Walcott’s Biography

Janice Walcott has devoted her life to serving her community with passion and dedication.

Born in the South Bronx in the mid-20th century, Janice graduated from Taft High School, completing about seventy credits of higher education at Bronx Community College. The proud mother of two children, three grandchildren and one great grandchild, Janice embodies values which are integral to Community Board 11, which she moved to from the West Bronx in 1975.

In the early 1990s, the United Workers Cooperatives complex, commonly known as the Allerton Coops, became CB11’s only hitherto National Historic Landmark. Preceding this, the Coops were treated like a “slum,” according to Janice, who was compelled to successfully lead a rent strike with a handful of other tenants in 1985. “It was a very scary time,” Janice said, which is why only 110 out of 741 rental units joined the strike, which concluded in 1987. Twenty two years later, Janice made a brief appearance in a PBS documentary about the Coops called “At Home in Utopia.”

A City of New York employee since 1968, Janice did not become a union member until she encountered a problem with her supervisor, who tried firing Janice for unknown reasons. After successfully beating back the attempt, Janice joined the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees’ Local 1549 until the 1980s, when she became a supervisor at the City Human Resources Administration, joining Commercial Workers of America Local 1180. Always doing what she can to assist workers, including being the only member of CB11 to testify against the Board in response to a discrimination complaint lodged by staff, she formally became an 1180 Shop Steward for eighteen years until her retirement in 2014.

Janice was first appointed to CB11 in 2004, chairing at one time or another the Housing and Parks & Recreation Committees. Unfortunately, tragedy hit Janice hard in 2008, when her thirty-three old son, Nathan, who had a six year old daughter, was senselessly murdered by a young punk with a hand gun. (Three men in total would be charged and serve jail time in connection to the crime.)

As early as age seven, Janice developed her thick skin from her mother, who made Janice beat up a child of similar age, after he had beaten Janice up first. When the boy’s older brother then tried to hurt Janice, she beat him up too. Necessary violence aside, we are on this earth, according to Janice, for one reason only: “to help each other.”

In 2024, Janice received a Legacy Award by the Community Development Committee of Community Board 11 at its 2nd Annual Juneteenth Celebration, receiving citations by State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Assembly Member John Zaccaro. State Senator Fernandez, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Bronx District Attorney Clark also stopped by the event, congratulating Janice on her well-deserved award, which included receiving a citation from Mayor Adams.