One of the lesser thought of means of getting to Melrose and the surrounding neighborhoods is via good ole fashioned sweat power – the bike. With its unparalleled access to Manhattan via FIVE bridges (Third, Willis, Madison Avenues, 145th Street and Macomb Dam Bridges) biking is one of the best options available to the community, employees and visitors alike.
The blog, Starts and Fits, just recently published two Google Maps of over 400 bike racks in the South Bronx in the area below Fordham Road giving you not only the exact location but also the type of bike racks you will find.
Next time you wanna visit and eat at Xochimilco, the best Mexican cuisine in the South Bronx, you may want to bike it to stave off the calories you’ll ingest!
“Chulito” a term of endearment in the latino community meaning little cutie, is the title of a book by Bronxite Charles Rice-Gonzalez – co-founder and executive director of Bronx Academy of Art and Dance and explores what it means to be gay and coming of age in the South Bronx.
Read what Maite Junco of the Daily News has to say about this exciting novel. It’s wonderful to know that Hunts Point is in the nation consciousness for things other than prostitution and poverty.
The 149th Street bridge over Metro North, between Lincoln Hospital, The Bronx Post Office, and Hostos Community College is currently a wasted potential.
Both north and south of the bridge, there is a great potential to do the same that is being done at the Hudson Rail Yards and possibly build much needed affordable housing on it with office towers on either side of the bridge.
This would fill in a gap that is heavily trafficked by both cars and pedestrians in this section of Melrose.
Furthermore, Metro North should consider a new Metro North station at 149th Street since this is where all 3 lines converge. With the Yankee Stadium 153rd Street station now open for several years, a new station at this location would widely open up access to passengers from the Harlem and New Haven lines heading to the games by simply transferring at 149th Street and going back up one stop with a special shuttle train to the stadium station.
A new Metro North station at this site would open up easy access to the area residents to their places of employment downtown and up north to Westchester County and Connecticut.
The Bronx blogosphere just got bigger! We’d like to welcome Bronx Matters, the latest endeavor by Jordan Moss, former Norwood News editor. This is exciting news as we have more and more voices joining the scene.
Looking forward to the possibility of collaborating in the future!
Our mothers are a bit more sensible here in the Bronx than those mothers in that other borough – you won’t catch these moms buying “babyccinos” for their wee ones.
Babyccinos are the latest hipster fad to hit hipster-infested Brooklyn…little cappuccinos for their toddlers. These Riverdale mothers speak out on the trend and let us know what they do with their kids.
My only question is, do these moms know about BronxMama?
Late last week, the Riverdale Press reported that Trader Joe’s will be joining BJ’S at their soon to be built second location in Kingsbridge at the site of the old Stella D’Oro factory.
Once the new mall is completed at the old site, Petco, the superstore for pet needs, will also open its first Bronx store.
Whilst perusing the morning digest of Bronx related news, this story made me do a double take. Someone is actually suggesting that the Middle East should look to the Bronx for inspiration on tolerance?
As the Jewish population of the Bronx dwindled to just under 50,000 from a high of over 600,000 when the borough was considered the most Jewish of the 5 counties that makes up New York City, many synagogues have closed and eventually reopened by various Christian sects.
Young Israel Congregation of Parkchester was one of the many that have lost their homes however, the story does have a happy ending thanks to the Muslim community of Parkchester.
Upon further research to locate the original article that the author was referring to, I found it in Tablet, a digital journal on Jewish news, life and culture.
Near the corner of Westchester Avenue and Pugsley Street in Parkchester, just off the elevated tracks of the No. 6 train, Yaakov Wayne Baumann stood outside a graffiti-covered storefront on a chilly Saturday morning. Suited up in a black overcoat with a matching wide-brimmed black fedora, the thickly bearded 42-year-old chatted with elderly congregants as they entered the building for Shabbat service.
The only unusual detail: This synagogue is a mosque.
Or rather, it’s housed inside a mosque. That’s right: Members of the Chabad of East Bronx, an ultra-Orthodox synagogue, worship in the Islamic Cultural Center of North America, which is home to the Al-Iman mosque.
After reading the rest of the story then it dawned on me that I shouldn’t be surprised that the other gentleman would suggest to look at the Bronx to see how it’s done. We are a borough of immigrants and many faiths, often times living in the same neighborhoods. People who back in their countries were taught to fear the different. Here in the Bronx they are exposed to each other and old prejudices begin to peel away like the layers of an onion.
We are far from perfect, that we know, but it’s stories like this that makes me proud to be from the Bronx. If we can overcome such obstacles, there’s no limit to what we can do when we are united.
Last week Bronx residents, including myself, were caught off guard by the announcement in the New York Daily News that “Fresh Direct will receive $130 million in grants, tax breaks and tax credits from the Cuomo and Bloomberg administrations and Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.” Why were we so surprised? Simply put, we were left out of the process regarding the future of our public lands (almost 100 acres on the waterfront) and $130 million of our tax dollars. I would like to ask you why, Mr Diaz, was this done so sneakily behind our backs? Why weren’t we part of the process as is our right? Sadly, had this been 100 acres in Manhattan, Brooklyn or any other borough we would not be having these issues because it would NEVER have been done behind the residents’ back.
You recently called the opposition out (which includes myself) on your personal page on Facebook as well as the group created by your office, “Bronxites for FreshDirect“, and asked us “To those people who continue to say that they don’t want Fresh Direct here, my question to them is, ‘do we say no to the potential of 3,000 jobs?'”–Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.” That is a poor and cheap tactic pandering to the heartstrings of Bronxites who already suffer from the highest employment rate in the city. What potential of 3,000 jobs? There are already almost 2,000 employed at FreshDirect and the estimates are that 1,000 jobs will be created by 2020. That’s pretty far into the future when Bronxites need jobs NOW. Not 8 years from now. The first of the jobs wouldn’t even begin until 2015. Again, that is 3 years away and 3 years too late for people who need jobs right this minute.
But it doesn’t just end there. We also need QUALITY jobs. You have been quite an outspoken proponent of living wage jobs for Bronx residents and even wrote an editorial for the New York Daily News. Remember that? I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting and boldface type the pertinent quotes from your eloquent letter as a fighter for fair wages for Bronxites.
What the Kingsbridge Armory needs for a successful redevelopment is a considerable public-private funding partnership, similar to those at the High Line and other city armories. The High Line got more than $100 million in taxpayer support; that kind of investment could surely help lift up my borough.
In December 2009, the City Council voted to prevent the development of a retail mall at the Kingsbridge Armory, a former military outpost with a footprint larger than two football fields, near Fordham Road.I supported that decision because the developer didn’t ensure that employees would’ve been paid a living wage.
I have approached the discussion on the future use of the armory with only one aim: to expand access to opportunity and upward mobility through a responsible, community-focused investment and development strategy that yields a much higher rate of return for the taxpayer dollar. My critics have stated that my work to defeat the proposed retail mall was irresponsible, but I know we made the right decision.
A mall would have devastated local businesses – at taxpayer expense. And we cannot say that the project would have created the number of jobs promised, anyway.
When the Related Companies constructed the Gateway Center Mall near Yankee Stadium in 2005, executives promised that the mall would employ more than 2,300 full-time workers. As of last year, the mall has created the equivalent of just 986 full-time jobs, less than half of what was proposed. We cannot accept at face value the claim that Related would have created 1,200 new retail jobs at Kingsbridge, given its disappointing track record.
The Gateway Mall is the hallmark of Mayor Bloomberg’s approach to job creation: provide developers with city land and/or public assets at deep discounts, then subsidize site conversions with millions of taxpayer dollars in cheap financing, tax breaks and far-below-market rents in order to create poverty level jobs.
The growth of the local retail industry is a driving force for these jobs. More low-wage workers in New York City are employed in retail than in any other sector of the economy. Three in five retail workers earn an hourly wage of $13 or less and 44% earn less than $10 an hour. The prevalence of low-wage jobs and the retail sector’s fast growth, make these projects poor candidates for public subsidy.
What we need is redevelopment that would not just awaken the empty hull of the armory but also create new business and social activity throughout the neighborhood. The space could be used for a sports arena, a recreation facility, a film studio or a number of other options. With the help of City Hall, we will solicit proposals that meet those requirements.
Such redevelopment will likely require a significant public-private partnership, especially given the poor shape of the building and the inability of most interested parties to finance such a large undertaking.
Other armories in the city – Park Slope, Fort Washington Ave. and Park Ave. – have seen significant taxpayer investment in their redevelopment in addition to private fund-raising. Rather than becoming malls in competition with neighborhood merchants, these armories were developed with recreational use in mind. Each has become a cornerstone of its community.
It is inconsistent to presume that a public-private partnership would be unfeasible for the armory, given the extent of public dollars invested in relatively smaller projects around the city.
The city should look at its success at the High Line, which has become a major amenity to the West Side of Manhattan largely due to considerable public investment and replicate that model at the armory, emphasizing the redevelopment of the surrounding neighborhood over direct job creation.
Taken as its own entity, the High Line has created a mere handful of jobs – not enough to justify more than $130 million in taxpayer investment in a small strip of parkland. At such spending levels, one has to wonder what, if any, was the city’s direct return on its investment.
The real benefit of the High Line is the significant investment it has spurred in the surrounding community, investment based on the draw of the High Line as an attraction to not just New Yorkers, but to visitors from across the globe.
There is no reason that a similar model could not be implemented at the Kingsbridge Armory. I am ready to work with Mayor Bloomberg to put forward a new request for proposals, one that not only focuses on the need for community-minded redevelopment but also does not shy away from significant public investment. If such investment is appropriate for the High Line, then it is appropriate for the Bronx.
Diaz is the borough president of the Bronx.
So after reading the beautiful letter which you wrote I ask you, what is so different from the FreshDirect deal that is so deserving of our $130 million in grants and tax subsidies? These jobs, that you are touting as if we should be grateful, are jobs that are barely above minimum wage. 38% of FreshDirect employees make less than $25,000 a year which is far below what is necessary for a single parent with one child to survive in the Bronx. What of our waterfront? Is it not worthy of protection as Manhattan’s waterfront or any other borough? As you know from personal experience in the Bronx as you stated in the above editorial, promised jobs are just that: Promises.
We all know too well that as the old adage goes, promises are made to be broken.
Check out this story from the Daily News on a family business that outgrew its old headquarters and moved to the Bronx – without having to burden tax payers with a sweetheart deal of $130 million deal in city and state tax breaks and subsidies.
A victory for citizens in New York City, who’s First Amendment rights have been repeatedly violated by the NYPD, has been won in court.
New York’s laws prohibiting loitering, pan handling and “cruising“, a popular way that gay men hang around at various known places to meet other gay men for the purpose of sex, have once again been declared unconstitutional. Thousands of gay men have been arrested since the courts first declares the anti-loitering laws illegal almost 30 years ago in 1983. According to the New York Times, Katie Rosenfeld, one of the lawyers who filed the suit, said it had brought accountability. “All of the people who got charged under these statutes had not very much power: homeless people, gay people, marginalized people, vulnerable people,” she said.
“The pattern was repeated around the country. As a result, America’s prison population, like New York’s, rose fivefold from 1980 to 2009. The impact has been particularly strong in poor and minority communities: one in 11 black adults are under correctional supervision, compared with one in 45 whites. And 25% of children in much of Harlem and the South Bronx have had one of their parents imprisoned.
This does not indicate a violent-crime problem: in the South Bronx, only 3% of convictions are for felonies. The most common arrests are for loitering, vagrancy or drug use or possession. Collectively, these low-level, “quality of life” crimes account for nearly half of all arrests.”
The review of the book goes on further discussing the myriad of problems that this leads to and particularly how mothers can lose custody of their children. (Make sure you read the review)
The laws had been repeatedly declared unconstitutional between 1983 and 1993 but the NYPD kept on with their illegal harassment of this segment of the population. What else do you expect from a police force who has a history of going after the disenfranchisedor the killing of our youth?
When it was announced yesterday that FreshDirect will stay in New York City by moving from their cramped Long Island City facility to a state-of-the-art building to be constructed in the Bronx to the tune of approximately $130 million deal in city and state tax breaks, grants and subsidies as well as monies from Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr’s office, some Bronx residents reacted with concern and anger.
“Why do we have to add more trucking to a neighborhood with the highest asthma in the state? Why do they get tax breaks when our residents pay the highest percentage of taxes?” said Lily, who lives in the neighborhood. She also goes on to state her concerns about FreshDirect snatching up prime Bronx waterfront property and how it will block access to the Greenway.
Her sentiments were echoed by others who feel that the administration ignores the residents of the Bronx and makes decisions without community input. How is it possible that all major media outlets trumpet this deal yet fail to analyze that a public community hearing has yet to occur?
LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
The hearing, which is scheduled for Thursday, February 9th at 10am, furthermore exhibits how the administration of the city surreptitiously operates. This neighborhood – as is the rest of the Bronx – is a working class neighborhood where residents cannot afford the luxury of taking time off from work to attend such critical hearings concerning the ongoings that affect their daily lives. To say that it is unfair to do so is an understatement. The administration needs to step up their game and do what they’re elected to do: To serve their constituents.
$130 million is no chump change when doling out corporate welfare and as residents and taxpayers we need more transparency in the process and say how the monies will be used. We need the city to hold a meeting in OUR neighborhood which will be impacted by the deal at a time that is convenient for our residents. 6 or 7PM is ideal since the majority residents will already be home from work or school.
HAVE WE NOT LEARNED FROM OUR PAST?
Just last week it was reported that a recent sweetheart deal for $217 million was about to go bust – The Yankee Stadium deal for 9,000 space parking lot which hasn’t been able to make money and is on the verge of defaulting this year in what will be one of the worst financial disasters in city administration history in decades. In light of that recent fiscal irresponsibility it is imperative that the community has more input in the FreshDirect process. What will the deal do for our community besides place a fancy grocery delivery service – that caters to the affluent communities – in the poorest congressional district that ignores the poor and communities of color in the Bronx and will pollute our roadways and lungs with their army of delivery trucks? Do we not already have the distinct displeasure of having the highest asthma rates in the country? As Bronx resident, Ari Feliz, Vanguard at The X Collective says, “They are asking to build but yet they still hold discriminatory practices towards where and subversively to whom they deliver to… I can’t help but think of the Stadium deal in which the highest paid labor jobs went to contractors outside of the Bronx that employed non Bronxities, and only the low-wage jobs were reserved for our residents.” Ari makes an excellent point about the low-wage jobs which Good Jobs New York goes into more detail and states that, “nearly 40% of current Fresh Direct employees earn less than $25,000 a year”.
Will FreshDirect do good by the community it plans on becoming neighbors with? What of the much needed Bronx Greenway? Will we be able to compromise a deal that will not block the Greenway? Only time will tell if they will take the role of good neighbor vs. a community scourge. Let your voice be heard and attend the hearing if you can and spread the word. The Industrial Development Agency Public Hearing will be held Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 10AM at 110 William Street in Downtown Manhattan.
Why You Should Sour on Fresh Direct’s Proposed $80 Million City Subsidy for Expanding at Harlem River Yards in The Bronx
Let your voice be heard: Industrial Development Agency Public Hearing Thursday, February 9, 2012 at 10:00am 110 William Street in Lower Manhattan
Fresh Direct has engaged in a greedy race to the bottom policy by pitting New York and New Jersey against one another for a subsidy package. In 1999, Fresh Direct agreed to a $6 million deal with the city to operate its Queens facility through 2025. Its success and need to expand is due in part to its NYC customer base, the city’s infrastructure including access to northern suburbs and its New York City based workforce. Why is Fresh Direct holding taxpayers over a barrel?
The New York City Industrial Development Agency’s cost/benefit analysis is misleading because it does not take into account the existing subsidy package; Fresh Direct has used over $2.5 million in city subsidies.
The neighborhoods surrounding the proposed facility are dubbed “asthma alley” because they have some of the highest asthma rates in the country. Fresh Direct relies on a legion of trucks to move its merchandise and to deliver its goods. Yet, the IDA documents don’t indicate plans for the company to utilize the existing rail at the site.
According to the company’s application, numerous complaints have been filed with city, state and federal agencies regarding its labor practices.
The company’s description of wages and employment is confusing and fails to provide taxpayers with enough information to gauge the quality of jobs either by salary or how many jobs would be part-time or full-time. Unless this information is provided more clearly, how can taxpayers be sure further investment in Fresh Direct is wise?
The proposed site at the Harlem River Yards in The Bronx is owned by the state, but there are no details on its provisions. How can we be sure this won’t be a sweetheart lease?
Ironically, Fresh Direct only delivers to the northwestern Riverdale and Kingsbridge sections of the Bronx ignoring the neighborhoods surrounding the proposed site. Will neighbors and low-income employees at the company only have access to Fresh Direct food from local soup kitchens?
The company’s business practices of delivering exclusively to the far Northwest Bronx neighborhoods and refusing to accept Food Stamps not only ignores Bronxites who can’t afford their food, but subjects residents to a massive fleet of asthma-producing trucks driving through their neighborhoods everyday without getting a direct benefit.
There is no expectation that Bronx residents will be hired or will be paid enough that they won’t have to rely on a variety of taxpayer subsidized safety net programs: Medicaid, food stamps, subsidized child care, etc. According to employment reports, nearly 40% of current Fresh Direct employees earn less than $25,000 a year.
The company plans to only purchase 12% of it machinery and equipment for the new facility locally (New York City and New York State.)
