It’s been almost exactly one year since an empty storefront in the Jackson Heights train station was transformed from a retail space into one for retelling stories.
Occasionally, it’s a story Naomi Sturm half-knows — like that of La Mecánica Popular’s lead singer Efraín Rozas. Sturm, executive director and co-founder of media arts nonprofit organization Los Herederos, had met him more than a decade ago, at the start of his band’s time in New York.
On a Wednesday afternoon, Sturm and Rozas reminisced about his early days jamming at Terraza 7, a live music mainstay in the neighborhood. Their nearly 90-minute exchange moved like a live set, shifting from Afro-Peruvian sound to reflections on language and identity.
This conversation is part of Los Herederos’ “Creators” interview series. Its eclectic range runs parallel to the diverse themes and ways Los Herederos interacts with music, memory and story. The organization is part community radio station, part cultural documenter.
The origin story
The idea for Los Herederos began in 2015. By 2017, Sturm, a Queens native, and Mauricio Bayona, a longtime Queens resident originally from Colombia, officially incorporated the nonprofit. They met working on a project at the Center for Traditional Music and Dance, where Sturm studied folklore and Bayona was a videographer documenting traditional musicians.
While they appreciated their work, they longed to pursue community projects that didn’t yet exist. Around then, Bayona was developing “The Inheritors” (Los Herederos) with others in their circle: a bilingual transmedia pilot leveraging photography, video and audio.
Sturm loved the concept but stressed the need for a broader mission: “If we’re going to serve Queens, the question is … is this a project that’s based around one community of practice or one cultural community, or is it something that we want to make a larger point of service?” she asked then.
They chose the latter. Bayona brought his visual storytelling skills to the partnership; Sturm, her expertise in anthropology, ethnomusicology and problem-solving.
Lessons in archiving and fundraising
The power of well-kept archives is a core aspect of Los Herederos’ work. Organizing and digitizing materials makes stories easier for communities to access, Sturm said. It also helps secure funding.
“It taught us to think about not just this … one-off,” she said. “You might wanna make a particular film because you have this or that information or interests, but it should always tie back to … a clear reason.”
Focusing on Los Herederos’ mission — to use “transmedia storytelling to educate and encourage a more culturally aware, equitable and sustainable society” — gave them a north star. They could better evaluate the purpose and priority of projects.
Community listening as resistance
Los Herederos airs about 20 to 22 radio show segments each month, 16 of which are made by community members. Formats range from interviews to freeform DJ sets. Some, like “Rush Hour Tribe,” invite drop-ins to go live. Others require media training, which the team provides, especially for new immigrants and older adults. Discolocas, a women-led DJ collective, launched a 10-episode series with no prior radio experience.
The 600-square-foot space houses free-access vinyl records and tapes, many donated by neighbors. One woman from the neighborhood, an immigrant from Ecuador, keeps her “old-time” music here. She found Los Herederos through a Spanish-language segment on NY1 Noticias.
“It’s a beautiful experience because it was so old school,” Sturm said — from the woman spotting them on TV to the team visiting her house in Flushing to pick up crates of records. They were each an archive in and of itself, Sturm said: records annotated with handwritten notes, love letters from her mother and memories wrapped in vinyl. Some had been purchased decades ago from a record store that once stood in Times Square — another music space once based in the train station.
Sharing and preserving this music is also a form of resistance to extractive media practices.
“Communities are tired that the people just go there to get their stories and they say ‘ciao, ciao, adiós,’” Bayona said. “Communities are not stupid… There are more ways to connect with them than just go for an interview or for research or whatever. Like, listen to music together, share with communities.”
The Sonicycle
During the “Creators” interview, Bayona weaved in the melody of La Mecánica Popular while acting as sound tech behind a table marked “Sonicycle.”
The sign alludes to a larger-than-bike invention, an audiovisual caravan Los Herederos staff wheel around to play music, document sounds and connect with neighbors outside the subway station. The Sonicycle parked nearby has hot pink, water tube-like tentacles that often reach curious onlookers in the streets. It’s built entirely from recycled materials and powered by green energy and community participation, according to their website.
All the languages
The “Creators” interview was unapologetically done in Spanglish. People here participate in all languages. Los Herederos encourages neighbors to host shows in their native tongue. Its team reflects Queens’ diversity: staff and volunteers speak Spanish, indigenous languages like Quechua and Kichwa, Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, Tibetan, Nepali, Mandarin, Arabic and others.
But that kind of multilingual work is becoming harder to do. On March 1, President Trump signed an executive order designating English as the sole official language of the United States. The order revoked a policy requiring agencies to offer multilingual access to information. Now they don’t have to. Language workers were already wary of an ideological push toward a homogenized America, as Epicenter has reported.
Even the name of the nonprofit is itself a subtle act of resistance. “Our decision to be called Los Herederos was a political decision because we know we’re not exclusively Latino-serving,” Sturm said. “We serve diverse communities. We work in multiple languages.”
Displacement and cultural erasure make this work more urgent. “People are being penalized now for doing certain kinds of work,” Sturm said.
Building a home underground
For years, Los Herederos had no headquarters. As a digital organization, they managed, but expanding their web radio into a community station required a physical home. They had developed a community archive around Diversity Plaza, with support from the Library of Congress and the Oral Institute at Columbia University. They wanted to exhibit the project nearby but lacked the space.
“We were saying, ‘oh, it’d be great if we could use one of these spaces in the train that are abandoned — how do you rent those?’” Sturm said.
A contact from the New York State Council on the Arts tipped them off to an MTA pilot: unused train station spaces would be given rent-free to arts groups willing to rehabilitate them. They applied, accepted and — after a failed attempt in Kew Gardens — were offered their current space. They got keys to the former Turkish clothing store in mid 2024.
They had no renovation budget, so they rebuilt it themselves. It helped that their team is comfortable literally being on the ground: neighbors who have been building supers, who have taught OSHA trainings, who have worked in construction and who aren’t afraid to figure things out. “Our team doesn’t necessarily possess your typical nonprofit worker mentality,” Sturm said.
Los Herederos recently got word it’s able to stay in its space rent-free for another year.
Uncertain funding
Los Herederos was gaining visibility when the funding landscape shifted. “We were starting to get access to more resources — and now the ecosystem is all screwed up,” Sturm said.
She worries small groups doing high-level work on tight budgets will be overlooked. “Money likes money,” she said. Larger organizations with more access may dominate unless they support the ecosystem.
She hopes the arts and culture sector will remain collaborative, a place where “we’re able to be kind to each other and not greedy… and not forget that everyone is struggling, and we really need to spread resources.”
For now, community support keeps the space running. “People’s creativity is not gonna go away,” she said. “The question is how well will it be supported.”
What would really help right now, Sturm says, is documenting how the space matters. Future support from the MTA hinges on proving impact. Los Herederos urges supporters to email testimonials or share them in person — and to tell their local electeds.
“It’s not enough to appreciate it in your head,” Sturm said.
They also welcome help connecting to funding, outreach opportunities. Old records are also well-received — just email them a heads-up first.
Documenting as resistance
During the “Creators” interview, an empty pastel chair angled toward the door. It summoned the sound of chairs being dragged across concrete plazas where neighbors sit and swap stories.
Outside, commuters rushed by. Everything trembled: the E, F, and R trains rumbling below, the announcements and portraits suspended by thread. The portraits look oddly familiar before you realize they are your neighbors.
Some faces in this exhibit reflect voices from longtime Jackson Heights residents along Diversity Plaza in the LH radio show “Documenting as Resistance.” One of them is John Park, who has owned the store 4 Seasons Uniforms for more than 30 years. He shared with Los Herederos memories of Jackson Heights as an early Koreatown.
After the show launched with his interview and his photo in the space, Park brought Sturm a bouquet of flowers. “He’s like, ‘I never thought I would tell my story like this on the radio in the train,’” she said.
“Not to sound corny, but really his story is his American dream,” she said. “He’s someone who has had a lot of success in his own way. And it’s a really moving story. And there are so many stories like that from our community.”
Visit them at the Jackson Heights train station, next to the stairs to the Jamaica-bound E and F and Forest Hills-bound R train tracks.
Check out some must-listen show recs from Los Herederos:
Documenting as Resistance – John Park
Documenting as Resistance – LGBT Network
Creators – Cynthia Paniagua, dancer, choreographer, educator and cultural activist
Creators – Prince of Queens, producer, DJ, and multi-instrumentalist
Next Stop – Noa Havakook, jazz singer and composer
Los Herederos is hosting a community pop-up event at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 9 at their space, in partnership with Memorabilia Berdisco, an Elmhurst-based Indonesian community initiative.
This post has been updated.
