Early last month, the late Morgan Powell invited me along with several other of my friends to help him document a run through of a tour on Hunts Point he had been working on for 5 years.  Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts I couldn’t make it but I was told it was quite the informative tour and really well done.

Shortly after the tour, Morgan asked that I publish the tour on Welcome2TheBronx for all to enjoy so below, in its entirety, is Morgan Powell’s Hunts Point Walk, the culmination of 5 years of work and research.  Bookmark this page and take the walk that Morgan so lovingly designed with you all in mind.  Take a journey into the real Hunts Point; learn about the rich history of an oft maligned and misunderstood neighborhood that has been the brunt of exploitation, environmental injustice and environmental racism for far too long.  The history which Morgan wanted everyone to make sure they knew.

There is currently no additional information on Morgan’s passing other than what has already been posted here and in various mainstream media outlets.  As before, if you have any information on any relatives, kindly let us know at info@welcome2thebronx.com as any information leading to his family is greatly appreciated.  In the meantime, we ask all to kindly celebrate his life during this time of great loss for The Bronx and respect his memory.

 

A Hunts Point Walk: Part 1

 

Welcome to our first on-line Hunts Point walking tour!

In two parts, you’ll see this New York City neighborhood including the westerly streets that were divided from it by the Bruckner Expressway and now called “Longwood.”  Tour no. 2 is a shorter (1 hour) walk including parks, historic structures, and shout-outs to local civic boosters.  Click here to enjoy that alternate Hunts Point journey.

The picture you see above comes from Bronx River Sankofa’s first Hunts Point tour.  It was given in March 2013. The final on-street guided tours were conducted in summer 2014.  While most Sankofa tours were attended primarily by those over 25 years in age, it was fun to have a young adult audience for these neighborhood explorations.  Now it’s your turn to make the trip!

Please note that all text in colors other than black are hyperlinks you may click on to explore a site further.  All photos may be seen larger and in greater detail by clicking on them.

WALK 1 (two hour tour) points of Interest:
A. The Point: where community and creativity connect
B. 889 Hunts Point Avenue (incubator of big ideas)
C. The South Bronx Greenway
D. Yes She Can Mural
E (5). Hunts Point’s Post Office reflects citizens’ ambitions for their neighborhood
F. Corpus Christi Monastery
G. Hunts Point Recreation Center
H. P.S. 48 where students and teachers have revived interest in the Joseph Rodman Drake Park Cemetery and Enslaved African Burial Ground
I. Barretto Community Garden
J (10). American Bank Note Company printing complex
K. SEBCO (South East Bronx Community Organization)
L. Hunts Point Library
M. St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church
N. Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education
O (15). Banana Kelly, an iconic Bronx Street made famous in biographies and hip hop lore
P. Mothers on the Move, a center of local activism
Q. Rainey Park, almost one whole block of green space where housing stood 60 years ago
R. PS 39 building once housed Longwood Arts Gallery, Pregones Theater, and Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Bronx office.  It is now the Holcolm L. Rucker School of Community Research, a high school
S. Police Athletic League (Longwood Center)
T (20). Longwood Historic District
U. Prospect Hospital (where Bronx Frontier was born; See Gardening and Garvey article)
V. Dra. Evelina Antonetty Way
W. Casa Amadeo, where Afro-Caribbean music lives!

START: The Point Community Development Corporation is headquartered at 940 Garrison Avenue (3 blocks from the Hunts Point station of the no. 6 train line). This indoor/outdoor youth-focused community center was built a century ago as part of the sprawling American Bank Note Company’s printing complex anchored across the street. It later became a bagel factory before falling into cliche illicit uses by the 1980s. This industrial gem was re-purposed as a youth-centered community center in the early 1990s largely by staff from Seneca Center– formerly on Hunts Point Avenue– where they did similar work. As the type of funding Seneca sought began to seem unreliable support for non-traditional youth work like theater, key Seneca staff established The Point two blocks away.

Please walk north along Garrison Avenue in the direction of the nearest visibly busy street with shops just one block away. That’s Hunts Point Avenue. Once at the intersection, turn right and walk a few stores deeper into the Hunts Point neighborhood. Stop at 889 Hunts Point Avenue where the Hunts Point Alliance for Children is located.

 

 

 

 

 

STOP 2. Many social entrepreneurial projects have been based here beginning with an annex to The Point. The Point leased this storefront for community arts programming here around 2000 before sub-leasing the space to the then new Sustainable South Bronx (SSB) in 2001 founded by Majora Carter. SSB moved to the American Bank Note Co. building we will see later.  Then, for two years–still under lease from The Point–the Bronx Museum of the Arts operated an artists-in-residence program there while administering the Hunts Point Fish Parade.

The following five years were guided by local artistAlejandra Delphin (already on-site as a BMA artist in residence) who remade the space into a print-making studio (Studio 889), sharing the space through 2008 with Michael Wiggins’ theater groupMud/Bone Collective who have relocated. The current tenant succeeded Delphin who does print and on-line graphic work and programming at The Point.

The sidewalk, street and view farther into Hunts Point Avenue from the place where you stand show most of the key elements in our next attraction.

 

 

 

 

STOP 3. The South Bronx Greenway  is a long-planned and recently expanded linear park and system of park-connectors between Hunts Point and Randall’s Island.  Click on the hyperlink that begins this section for a comprehensive impression of how much greener it’s made and may make these places.  The South Bronx Greenway won about $60,000,000.00 from the 2009 federal stimulus bill.  What you see here is a small part of what that money paid for–far beyond this street are new bike paths at the extreme other end of the greenway and more!  The cobble-stone walkways surrounding the street trees, uniform tree guards, younger trees planted off the curb, metal benches, sleek new light posts, and generously planted medians that calm traffic are just part of this new amenity.  Omar Freilla of Green Worker Cooperatives, just over a decade ago, developed a survey for locals to express their hopes and wishes for its design once the original Sustainable South Bronx team won a million dollar grant to study and propose designs for this relatively new expansion of the local tree canopy!

Continue to walk in the same direction–southwest–along Hunts Point Avenue on the same block until you approach the last apartment building before the US Post Office.  Stop just beyond 823 Hunts Point Avenue and look up at the mural covering the stucco-faced south wall.

STOP 4. Yes She Can mural by Majora Carter Group, LLC
!Si Ella Puede!/ Yes She Can was painted c. 2009 (fence panels added later).  Majora Carter Group, LLC hired Goundswell to execute the design concept, which they jointly solicited from community members.  Don’t move, improve has been a Bronx rallying cry since the 1970s and this woman-focused image is a great update to that concept.  Read more about it by clicking here.
Tanya Fields worked on this mural for the Majora Carter Group.  Tanya(b.1980-) is CEO/ Founder/ Executive Director of The Blk Projek. She holds a bachelors degree from Baruch College/CUNY in Political Science with a minor in Black and Hispanic Studies. Fields moved to the Longwood neighborhood of the Bronx from her native Harlem in late 2001 in search of affordability. She has had a long history of local civic participation as a member of Mothers on the Move (MoMs), Sustainable South Bronx and other groups. Tanya sees unity between culture and ecology.  She promotes this vision with events centered on healthful food, yoga and more. She means to empower and link progressive African-American women and Latinas in concrete community building that improves housing, diet, social and career experience in sustainable ways that are self generated.

Tanya’s a powerful public speaker and writer. She is featured in the book The Next Eco Warriors: 22 Young Men and Women Who are Saving the Planet, edited by Emily Hunter with a forward by Farley Mowat, published 2011.

You’ll want to see the front of the post office next door so continue a few more steps to the end of the block and turn right onto Lafayette Avenue. Now walk to the middle of the block so you can see the entrance to this low-rise building where it forms the corner of Lafayette and Manida Street.

STOP 5. Hunts Point’s Post Office mirrors citizens’ ambitions for the neighborhood.  Cybeale Ross has lived on this block since 1958 and long been involved in preserving it.  Manida’s Street’s 800 block has long been among the best preserved in the whole district.

Before this relatively new branch was constructed, earlier generations knew their closest USPS station as the one that remains on Westchester Avenue between Freeman and Simpson–quite a walk!  Mrs. Ross made a point of attending meetings surrounding the establishment of this branch.  The building reflects that wisdom.  Note that vehicular traffic is oriented onto the commercial streets  and away from Manida’s tree-lined calm.  The low-rise scale and planted courtyard were her ideas too.

Across the street on Lafayette Avenue and just beyond Manida Street towers a stone-clad religious cloister you couldn’t miss if you tried.

STOP 6. Corpus Christi Monastery  is located at 1230 Lafayette Avenue.  It was constructed in 1890.  According to the American Institute of Architects Guide to New York City, “The best time to visit this cloistered community of Dominican nuns is on Sunday afternoon, when they sing their office.”  This black and white image was taken around 2005 for Bronx River Sankofa’s founder by the late great photographer and musician Ibrahim Gonzalez.

Locals call the field at the intersection of Lafayette and Manida Street Manida Park—not it’s official name—and have come to enjoy it’s modern recreation center visible from our last two sites. Walk along the broad field of this park until you reach 765 Manida Street.

STOP 7. Hunts Point Recreation Center (not shown) is operated by the Department of Parks and Recreation of the City of New York.  It is very active with all kinds of activities for all ages 12 months of the year.  It’s also one of the newest recreation centers anywhere in the city.

Our next destination is the corner ahead of us. We won’t be visiting but simply looking over to it where Manida Street and Spofford Avenue cross. Do you see the imposing red brick schoolhouse one block away to your left?

STOP 8. P.S. 48 where students and teachers have revived interest in the Joseph Rodman Drake Park Cemetery and Enslaved African Burial Ground.  See how they publish their research by clicking here!

Take Spofford Avenue one block farther away from P.S. 48 walking down-hill to Barretto Street–which you’ll walk half-of-one-block into for the first green space you see to your left.  You’ll know you’re approaching it because of its distinctive foundation planting outside the fence in the public right-of-way bordering the sidewalk.

STOP 9. Barretto Community Garden was one of the first community gardens in Hunts Point.

Double back up Barretto Street to Spofford Avenue, turn left so you are continuing down the gentle hill —passing Casanova Street—and join Tiffany Street. Now turn right.  Be mindful that you’re on a heavily trafficked commercial route as you head north. The Bruckner Expressway will be visible in the distance. Where Tiffany reconnects you with Lafayette Avenue, a massive twentieth century red brick industrial building will command your attention on your right (across from Corpus Christi Monastery).

STOP 10. American Bank Note Company printing complex (built 1911) is an official NYC Landmark.  Read all about it in its official designation report by clicking here.  This highly productive facility once employed hundreds who worked in three consecutive shifts.  Among it’s many products were South American currencies and American Express Traveler’s Checks.

Tiffany Street unfolds with great sites as we continue toward, below, and immediately on the other side of the Bruckner Expressway above head. Now, at the intersection of the Bruckner Boulevard (at street level) and Tiffany, a powerful community development group presents buildings visible on both north and south sides of the street.

 

STOP 11. SEBCO (South East Bronx Community Organization) was founded in 1968 and has done a great deal to improve the lives of many in the Hunts Point-Longwood neighborhoods.  Much has been written about this group over the years.  To your left is a low-rise health center they initiated over a decade ago.  The tall senior housing facility on the right (although it faces the next block: Southern Boulevard) has the name “Sister Thomas Apartments” facing you.  Housing and health are just two of their areas of action.  Father Louis Gigante of St. Athanasius Church and other locals formed the South East Bronx Community Organization (SEBCO) as a community development non-profit. Many came to know SEBCO for having painted on some of the buildings they rehabilitated the words “Father Louis Gigante Rebuilding the South Bronx.” This large declaration was seen for decades from the Bruckner Expressway.  Learn more by visiting their website here.

Looking just one block ahead on Tiffany Street, let’s head to the Renaissance-inspired building at 877 Southern Boulevard.

STOP 12. Hunts Point Library.  This site indicates a rich man’s literacy revolution. The Andrew Carnegie endowment built libraries throughout North American and Britain. The Hunts Point Branch was the final NYC branch built under this endowment; it opened in 1928.  At one time, the New York Public Library houses a substantial Latino literature department here.  Today, you would find a similar specialty collection at the Bronx Library Center a few miles to the north.

This important public building is situated on Father Gigante Plaza, a pedestrian-oriented public open space framed by a gated park and fountain to the south (maintained by SEBCO), Fox Street on the west and our next attraction.

STOP 13. St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church

Skirt the church building, leaving the plaza, and examine its beautiful westerly windows on Fox Street. Then continue along Fox 1.5 blocks (passing Barretto St.) to 928 Fox Street.

STOP 14. Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education

The Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education has developed their own South Bronx Culture Trail.  Their mission is to empower youth and their families by creating a culture of learning through high quality social, cultural, and educational opportunities.

They welcome kids at the age of six and stay with them until college while providing family learning through the arts.  They distinguish themselves in the plurality of ways in which they attract community members to utilize their services.  Their students introduce their parents to their cultural programs, while their public programs guide parents to wide ranging education programs.  Founded in 1934, they have served many who have gone on to enrich the world through culture, public service, education, and business.  Alumni and program providers have been many.  Some highlights include:

Tina Ramirez, Founder of Ballet Hispanico

Joe Conzo, Jr., Photographer

DJ GrandWizzard Theodore, Hip Hop pioneer

Hon. Annabel Palma, NYC Council Member

David Gonzalez, Journalist and Photographer

Wandee “WanderPop” Candelario, Dancer

Rita Moreno, Singer/Actress/Dancer

Dave Valentin, Latin Jazz Musician and Composer

BG 183, Tats Cru

Lorraine A. Cortes Vazques, 65th Secretary of State of New York

Marta Rivera, Educator

Francisco Molina Reyes II, Photographer

Americo Casiano, Poet

Double back along Fox street to Father Gigante Plaza where the church we visited stands. Now walk away from the plaza along Tiffany Street so that you are seeing low-rise private homes to your left. Join E. 163rd Street two blocks away, then walk along that street to where E. 163rd and Kelly streets cross.  Looking into Kelly Street, take a moment to appreciate the crescent shape of this block as well as it’s early 20th century feel.

 

 

STOP 15. Kelly Street (aka Banana Kelly) is an iconic Bronx Street.

It’s been made famous around the world by memoirs of locals including General Colin Powell who recall living and playing here.

Walk slowly down this crescent-shaped street toward the park one block ahead.  Next, turn right and find 928 Intervale Avenue.

 

STOP 16. Mothers on the Move (MoMs) is a community organizing group. There has been good power sharing between Latinos and African-Americans here.  Joyce Culler, a long-standing Bronx Community Board 2 member, is a MOMs board member. MoMs works on education, transportation and other issues.  It has been led for over a decade by Wanda Salaman, a modest and highly effective Latina of African descent.

Next door is a convenience shop where you may want to grab a drink and a snack so you can enjoy a break in the park across the street.

STOP 17 (SHADE/REST/BATHROOM BREAK). Rainey Park has athletic fields rimmed with shaded strolling paths and benches and a comfort station.  It symbolizes the Bronx rebuilt.  Similar to most community gardens, it occupies land where housing stood 60 years ago.  Today, it’s a park named for a major local African-American civic leader–William F. Rainey (1920-1985)–who once ran the local Police Athletic League.  Once you’ve enjoyed the charms of this relatively recently renovated park, proceed to the school anchored at its southern end.

STOP 18. The PS 39 building once housed Longwood Arts Gallery, Pregones Theater, andCornell University’s Cooperative Extension Bronx office. It is now the Holcolm L. Rucker School of Community Research, a high school.  This is where a young and blessed Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) attended school too.  Carmichael’s legacy deserves to be remembered as we celebrate so many anniversaries of the Civil Rights Movement.

Across the street at 991 Longwood Avenue (at Beck Street) is the most recent incarnation of a longstanding children’s play/learning/health institution.

STOP 19. Police Athletic League (Longwood Center).  The building you see here dates to 1996.  Since 1914 PAL has been serving New York City’s youth with safe, structured programming designed to engage boys and girls in positive activities that improve their quality of life, present developmental opportunities, and offer the prospect of a brighter future. What started out as the closing of streets by the New York City Police Department to enable the city’s unsupervised youth to play became a city-wide Cops & Kids movement and later national model that brought communities and police together in ways that prevail to this day.

Cross Longwood Avenue into Beck Street. Explore the length of this block until Beck Street meets E. 156th Street.

STOP 20. Longwood Historic District  According to the Lehman College Art Gallery website, “Built at the turn of the 20th century, the Longwood Historic District is an enclave of primarily two and three story row houses constructed in anticipation of the population surge expected into the area.  Real estate developer George B. Johnson purchased the old S. B. White estate on speculation and hired architect Warren C. Dickerson (also known for his work on Mott Haven Historic District structures) to design and construct houses.  By the time that the IRT subway line (today’s no. 6 train) from Manhattan reached the neighborhood in 1904, Dickerson’s houses were completed and clustered nearby.”  Read the complete entry by clicking here.  See a simulation of the old White mansion on the SE corner of Beck Street and E. 156th Street.

Make a right on E. 156th Street. One block away is a white glazed brick building at the corner of Kelly Street.

STOP 21. Prospect Hospital (not shown) is where Irma Fleck hatched a late 1970s green business with help from a veteran of the federal War on Poverty scene.  Bronx Frontier was born here.  See the earlier Gardening and Garvey article to learn more about that Bronx success story.
Continue along E. 156th Street for three blocks until you arrive at Prospect Avenue. Please look up at the street signs on this corner by Public School 130.

STOP 22. Dra. Evelina Antonetty Way was unveiled in 2011.  The street sign is located at the intersection of Prospect Avenue and E. 156^th Street.

Take time to reflect and be empowered by thelegacy of Dr. Evelina Lopez Antonetty (1922-1984).  “Titi” or “Auntie,” as she was often called, createdUnited Bronx Parents and was a force for establishing bi-lingual education locally and nationally.  Among her hundreds of accomplishments, she protested, periodically shut down filming for, and got twenty jobs for local people-of-color in the filming of Fort Apache, a fictional film set in the Bronx.  Her mural across the street (below) reads her words from 1980: “We will never stop struggling here in the Bronx, even though they’ve destroyed it around us.  We would pitch tents if we have to rather than move from here.  We would fight back, there is nothing we would not do.  They will never take us away from here.  I feel very much a part of this and I’m never going to leave.  And, after me, my children will be here to carry on…I have very strong children…and very strong grandchildren.”

Titi’s daughter Anita Antonetty once provided career counseling services to the youths of Rocking the Boat in Hunts Point.  Many were pleasantly surprised to encounter a mature Latina deeply aware of Bronx ecology issues and trends.  Anita continues to make her mark on the Bronx sustainability front through community boards and beyond.

Our final destination for today’s tour is across from the nearest train station. Please make a right on Prospect Avenue and walk toward the very visible train tracks above Westchester Avenue in the near distance. Just before you reach this refurbished and remodeled Victorian Revival-styled train station, you’ll see 786 Prospect Avenue. You have arrived!

CONCLUSION: Casa Amadeo is regarded as a national landmark.  It’s a music store specializing in Afro-caribbean sounds.  You can even buy musical instruments there.  If you’re lucky, you may visit when a spontaneous jam session is happening live in the back room.  The owner, Mike Amadeo, is a musician and composer who is well known in traditional Latin music circles.   The elegant Old Bronx building they occupy once houses both Tito Puente and Celia Cruz.

Thank you for walking with us! Bronx River Sankofa invites you to always move forward strengthened by the wisdom of reflecting periodically!

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A Hunts Point Walk: Part 2

You are invited to trace the steps of a few dozen young Americans (ages 16-38) who have walked their neighborhood.  American history expresses itself in stone and paint, plants and asphalt as you will see.  Enjoy these points of interest:

1. Hunts Point Riverside Park
2. Bright Temple A.M.E. Church
3. Engine 94, a beautiful fire house
4. Bryant Hill Community Garden & Old NY Townhouses
5. Garrison Park (once envisioned as a sculpture park for the Bronx River)
6. South Bronx Greenway
7. Ruby Bridges Mural by Sharon De La Cruz

This article is dedicated to two active citizens in the Hunts Point community: Cybeale Ross has been a Hunts Point home owner since 1957.  She has marched with Mothers on the Move for improved schools, traffic-calming street enhancements, and more over the last several decades.  Paul Lipson helped establish The Point community center in the early 1990s after earlier success with Bronx Frontier, a local and popular green business.

 

Begin at Hunts Point Riverside Park now enjoyed in its second and most recent phase.  This waterfront park at the base of Lafayette Avenue was established in the 1990s through many hands after an executive at The Point (a younger Majora Carter) was forced to spend a moment at this former dead end street following her dog’s independent spirit.  The original park had several magical weeping willows and a simple boat launch.  The professionally designed green patch you see today opened around 2006.  It has garnered national attention and won the Rudy Bruner Award for excellence in the urban environment.  Next door is The Point’s Campus for Arts and the Environment as well asRocking the Boat.

Walk up the hill along Lafayette Avenue to its intersection with Faile Street, named for a wealthy nineteenth century resident according to John McNamara’s History in Asphalt: the origin of Bronx Street and Place Names.  You’ll notice as you go many younger trees planted in the public right-of-way along curbs, on side streets and even with relatively new traffic medians.  Hunts Point has had several waves of urban forestry enhancement since the 1980s, especially since the late 1990s.  This short walk takes you past the successful product of three distinct tree planting campaigns!

On your right is Bright Temple AME Church.  This stone neo-Gothic former single-family mansion was built circa 1860 by a family that manufactured printing presses–including for the New York Times in the 1800s.  This building is a great place to consider ethnic succession within Hunts Point.  An English-descended family, whose land extended down to the nearby Bronx River, was the first to occupy it.  Some time after the contents of the house were auctioned off following the death of that family’s patriarch, a Jewish Synagogue was established (1919).  In the post-World War II period, Bright Temple AME Church assumed ownership to serve the expanding African-American population.  Skirt Faile Street to see each side of this richly ornamented building.  The church photo you see above was taken around 2005 for Bronx River Sankofa’s founder by the late great photographer and musician Ibrahim Gonzalez.

Without crossing the street, continue along Faile Street until you reach Seneca Avenue.  As you approach this corner, look at the Renaissance-inspired fire department building from the “roaring twenties” on your left.  Engine 94‘s open-air third floor facing Seneca Ave. combined with light-colored terra-cotta decorations contract handsomely with red brick to evoke Old Italy.

Now turn toward the industrial border of Hunts Point and walk one block along Seneca Avenue to Bryant Avenue.  John McNamara’s book reports that, “Its proximity to streets dedicated to American poets Longfellow, Whittier, and Drake would seem to be reason enough to honor William Cullen Bryant.”  Once at the corner of Seneca and Bryant, turn left and walk half-way into the block passing the first open lot inhabited by rabbits and chickens.  Several steps ahead, you will see a community garden on your left unusual in its abundance of trees.  You’ve arrived at Bryant Hill Community Garden.  Taino Indian traditions live here under the guidance of local gardener Lucia Hernandez whose circle have succeeded the first generation of gardeners who preserved this oasis at least one generation ago.  Hunts Point was largely a walk-to-work district 100 years ago when it was sometimes called “Little Pittsburgh” owing to its abundance of light and heavy industry.  Notice the brightly colored and richly ornamented townhouses across the street from the garden where earlier generations lived.  At that time, German was the Bronx’s second most common language.

Next we’ll see what may yet become Garrison Sculpture Park.  Continue along Bryant Avenue to the corner where it meets Garrison Avenue, then cross the street–while walking in the same direction–and look down-hill along Garrison.  Standing at this intersection of Garrison and Bryant avenues, you’ll notice a shabby patch of green with moderately tall trees just a few blocks away where land meets water.  Don’t be fooled by the residential tower in the visible distance; that’s the neighborhood of Soundview across the Bronx River.  While this park-in-progress has long since been declared official city land, no effort to improve it has been completed.  Many times, this waterfront site has been cleaned, composted, planted and re-designed.  Of the formal designs, including one by Pratt for a riverside amphitheater, none have substantially transformed the site and made it a destination for recreation seekers.  Over thirty years of planning and false starts have passed in the process.  Bronx River Restoration Project Incorporated (founded in 1974), predecessor of the Bronx River Alliance (founded in 2001), first envisioned a park here at the end of the 1970s.

In 2003, Alcoa Corp. proposed partial financing for a sculpture park here following on schematic drawings complete with an amphitheater developed by an out of state college.

Turn and walk in the opposite direction along Garrison Avenue to the busy commercial street with shops in the near distance.  That’s Hunts Point Avenue.  Find 889 Hunts Point Avenue across the street.  It’s a great location from which to appreciate the emerging South Bronx Greenway.  Check it out!  You are surrounded by the following relatively new amenities funded by your federal tax dollars (2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act): uniform tree guards, public benches, many new trees (the ones with small trunk diameters planted off the sidewalk), permeable pavements via Belgian blocked walkways curbside, new stylized lighting fixtures, and richly planted in-street medians.

Sharon De La Cruz and the Urban Art Program of NYC’s Department of Transportationprovide us with our final stop, Ruby Walks (Walking Series).  Please turn toward the busy Bruckner Expressway whizzing above street level one block away and walk toward it along Hunts Point Avenue.  If you’re walking this tour in 2014 or 2015, you’ll see Sharon’s group of paintings depicting a girl in multiples clasped to the wall of the bridge over the train tracks (between Garrison Avenue and Bruckner) here.  Read all about it in DNAinfo, theHunts Point Express and/ or Nilka Martell’s piece in the Bronx Free Press.

And this concludes Morgan Powell’s final tour which he published.

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