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Immigrant Helpers Won’t Let Proposed Law Stop Them

By Heather Haddon

Genoveva Torres, 34, heard about the English classes from a friend. Ana Lilia Perez, 20, learned about them from a cousin. Henry Flores, 36, now in the advanced level, is devoted to the training that might release him from long nights at an East Village bakery.

For the past 25 years, St. Rita’s Center for Immigrant and Refugee Services has never had to advertise its programs. Word of mouth, and new residents’ desperate need for assistance, has led roughly 25,000 participants to the University Heights center for English classes, counseling and other services.

But that tide could come to an abrupt end if Congress decides to dramatically tighten immigration to the U.S. Legislation recently passed by the House of Representatives would make assisting illegal immigrants a crime.

“We couldn’t exist, and who knows how many of us would be in jail,” said Sister Jean Marshall, St. Rita’s matronly founder. “The more I hear about it, the more upset I get.”

The House bill, which quietly passed in December, would make illegal immigrants and those who assist them felons, build a wall along the Mexican border, and make businesses report the status of their employees. A Senate committee swung to the opposite side, proposing a guest worker program and a road to citizenship for the approximately 12 million illegal immigrants now living in the U.S.

Senate negotiations collapsed before a two-week recess earlier this month. House members have indicated that they might back away from the felony charges, but hammering out a compromise bill will still be difficult.

Even if negotiations collapse, the debate has resulted in a groundswell of protest among immigrants, religious leaders and advocacy organizations. Local residents participated in a rally on Fordham Road earlier this month, and many joined a huge demonstration at City Hall last week.

“I support them 100 percent,” said Msgr. John Jenik, the pastor at Our Lady of Refuge Church in North Fordham. Church parishioners, many who are Mexican, have attended the demonstrations.

Rafeek Khan, a leader of the Masjid-Hefaz mosque on East 198th Street, went to Washington to lobby senators for immigrant amnesty. “We don’t condone breaking the law, but these people are here and they are serving this country,” said Khan, who is from Guyana. “Let’s not point our fingers at the people who are washing our dishes.”

Marshall started St. Rita’s out of a deep sense that many new residents needed help. In the early ‘80s, her main concern was for the many Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees coming to the area. “I’d see them picking through the garbage in their pajamas,” said Marshall, who started St. Rita’s by distributing clothing and baggies of rice.

The organization has grown tremendously. Tolentine-Zeiser Community Life Center adopted the program in 1985, setting them up in a modest two-floor office on Andrews Avenue. Over 750 people — from Central and South America to Morocco and Kosovo — now take part in free ESL classes, childcare, employment assistance and counseling at two Bronx sites and one in Brooklyn.

Torres, who is Mexican, a Morris Avenue resident who is struggling after losing a factory shift, and considers her English classes an absolute necessity. “You can’t find a job without it,” she said.

Students in the advanced class grow more ambitious. A young lady from Yemen is aiming to take her GED, an Albanian woman wants to be a nurse, and several others are considering attending Bronx Community College (BCC). Yolanda Villavicencio, from Colombia, works nights at a Fordham Road restaurant and takes classes during the day. Her efforts, however, haven’t yet translated into citizenship.

“I can’t go back,” said Villavicencio, 40, who was near tears over missing her 27-year-old brother’s funeral last week.

St. Rita’s English teachers prepare students for the citizenship exams, and over 160 of them have been accepted in the past five years. The organization also provides emergency services, like translation and domestic violence assistance.

All of this could vanish if Congress decides to criminalize immigrants and assistance providers. “They might as well put the handcuffs on us now,” said Jenik, whose church also serves many immigrants.

Marshall, who adorns her office walls with photos of her participants, says she is prepared to fight for those she has defended for decades. “They know I would stand up for them with my life,” she said.

Time to Unionize Communities

By Editorial

We New Yorkers live in a place where people identify themselves more often by the streets they live on or near than by the borough or the city they call home. That’s both good and bad — good because it reflects a very local sense of community, but bad because it can limit our connection to most of our fellow New Yorkers.

We were thinking about this during the recent Yankee Stadium debate. Last June, the City Council and the state legislature barely batted an eyelash before voting to allow a private company to take over more than 20 acres of public parkland. No public hearings were held. Then, when the city’s land use review process finally kicked in, and public hearings were held, local residents were at a severe disadvantage. Labor unions bused in their members to pack the hearing rooms.

It’s a strength of unionism that workers, acting together, can accomplish more than they can individually.

But the interests of labor unions, particularly the construction trades, don’t always coincide with those of neighborhoods.

Community organizations, however, rarely reach across geographic lines to offer a hand to groups facing similar challenges. But there’s no reason why they can’t.

What if every time parkland was threatened in the Bronx, concerned residents of Queens and Brooklyn showed up in solidarity? When the next poorly conceived development confronts say, Staten Islanders, what if Manhattanites and Bronxites took the ferry over to lend their support?

There are strong civic and grassroots groups in all the boroughs. We hope they begin talking to each other more to figure out how they can swap expertise and people power to stop ill-conceived projects like Yankee Stadium before they are rammed through by private developers and city officials.

Something sort of like this has begun to take shape. It’s called the 4-Borough Neighborhood Alliance and it started about a year ago when the borough historians of Queens and Brooklyn decided they had had enough of development devoid of community input.

The group is interested in changing how planning is done in the city. It favors a bill that Queens councilman Tony Avella will reportedly soon introduce, which would give more teeth to community district planning efforts — known as 197A plans — which are now mostly just advisory. “Our idea is to make the plans binding and to require the city provide policy input into them …,” said Robert Furman, a founder of the Alliance. “That way what’s produced is a policy document that everyone can live with and has some teeth, and will result in a development policy that’s consistent with the plans.”

The Alliance is also assisting communities around the city in their efforts to protect neighborhood character through rezoning.

But it is steering clear of controversies surrounding specific projects like Yankee Stadium for fear of alienating politicians whose support they need to enact systemic change.

That’s fine, but it leaves a clear opening for neighborhood-based grassroots and civic groups around the city to begin getting each other’s back on current boondoggles that don’t make good planning sense.

Unions have a right to organize and take action in solidarity with one another. But so do neighborhoods. They should exercise it.

•••

By the way, Furman says the Alliance is having trouble recruiting Bronx members. He welcomes e-mails at bobfurman1@juno.com

City Chief to Visit Armory

By Heather Haddon

Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, the city’s development czar, will tour the Kingsbridge Armory in two weeks. The visit, scheduled for Thursday, May 4, is a sign of the city’s growing interest in advancing the long-stalled project.

A spokesperson for the Economic Development Corporation, which is overseeing the development, said Doctoroff wanted to get a clearer picture of the structure. “As we’re moving forward, he’s doing a routine site visit to see for himself what’s there,” said the spokesperson.

The visit was scheduled after a recent community forum on the armory that city and EDC officials attended. Assemblyman Jose Rivera and the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, which is advocating for the redevelopment, pressed city officials and the governor for movement on the project after the event.

Coalition members and Rivera will accompany Doctoroff on the tour.
—Heather Haddon

Oval Entrance Unveiled

By Heather Haddon

Five years after it was first funded, a complete transformation of the Williamsbridge Oval’s northern entrance was officially unveiled last week.

City and state officials, advocates and school children gathered in the warm spring sun to cut the ribbon on the $530,000 remake, which includes new benches, fences, stonework and a gate for the Norwood park. The work is a small taste of bigger things in store for the Oval this year, with $13 million worth of improvements coming down the pike shortly.

“The best is yet to come,” said city Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, who jovially entertained the rows of children attending the event. “In three years, you won’t believe what this park will look like.”

The city is finalizing plans this month for the extensive renovations, which will include a new track, paths and erosion control. Once the blueprint is complete, it will be presented for final public input at the next Community Board 7 meeting.

Funding for the overhaul is part of the $240 million promised to Bronx parks projects over the next several years. The spending is remediation for the water filtration plant, which is now being built in nearby Van Cortlandt Park. Benepe made reference to the community opposition to the “controversial” tradeoff, but local officials sidestepped the issue.

“I’m delighted that this gem is being reclaimed,” said Council Member Oliver Koppell, who appropriated the $530,000 along with his predecessor, June Eisland.

Barbara Stronczer, CB7’s Parks Committee chair, also celebrated the borough-wide work. “This is a very happy time for parks in Community Board 7,” she said.

The city has spent an all-time record of $300 million on parks construction projects this year. St. James Park in North Fordham is also scheduled for an entire makeover. While several staircases were replaced recently, the restoration of the park house has been plagued by years of setbacks. Four separate contractors defaulted on the project since it began in 2003. Raymundo Gomez, who oversees Bronx capital projects, says Parks hopes to have the work finally completed this summer.

Work on the Oval’s entrance, in contrast, went remarkably smoothly. A small construction crew labored throughout the winter (they built a fire in a drum barrel to keep warm). Before the opening, a city crew did a thorough cleanup and tended to the flowerbeds. The entire project took about six months.

Kayla Davis, 7, was impressed by the results. “It’s nice and clean,” said Davis, who lives near Fordham Road. Later that day, families and young couples had taken to the benches, and teens gathered by the stairs.

Kayla attended the ceremony with a few dozen other kids from the Turn 2 after-school program at St. James Recreation Center. Other event attendees included Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera, CB7 Chair Greg Faulkner, Bronx Parks Commissioner Hector Aponte, and local community advocates like Barbara Stronczer, chair of CB7’s Parks Committee, and Dart Westphal, president of Mosholu Preservation Corporation and publisher of the Norwood News.

Potential Hotel Site on Webster Clarified

By Heather Haddon

A developer is considering building a hotel on Webster Avenue near PS/MS 20, though not in the location previously reported in the Norwood News.

The News reported in the previous issue on rumors that Holiday Inn might be coming to a large open lot just above Mosholu Parkway on the west side of Webster Avenue. But the site in question is across the street, just up the way from PS/MS 20.

A Long Island-based developer purchased 3070 Webster Ave., a warehouse located between East 202nd and 203rd streets, last year for $550,000. The 5,500 square foot structure is in the process of being demolished. The company filed plans with the Buildings Department earlier this month to erect a 5-story hotel at the site with 1,224 square feet of parking space, which could be constructed underground.

The owner, Sam Chang, says he’s now not sure about the hotel plans. “The spot might be too small for one,” said Chang. “We don’t have a 100 percent idea yet.”

Chang owns a hotel in Long Island, and has also developed condos in Queens and Manhattan. He’s not considering housing for the lot because it’s commercially zoned.

The site is flanked by 1- and 2-story homes. Virginia Hekimian, who lives just south of it, thinks a hotel would be intrusive. “You can’t even put a pencil between [the lots],” said Hekimian, who has lived in the house all her life with her brother. “We don’t want this.”

The current permit does not specify the type of hotel it will be. Under city housing code, the development can be hotel, motel, lodging house or rooming house.

Hekimian received a letter last year about the proposed hotel, and has been worried about it since. She says demolition workers indicated it might become a rooming house.

Housing Groups Exact Concessions

By David Crohn

Two banks that loan to some of the city’s worst landlords have partnered with a tenants’ advocacy coalition to ensure that the slumlords clean up their acts.

It’s the culmination of months of outreach and protests on behalf of the coalition Housing Here and Now (HHN), said director Julie Miles.

Under the agreement, signed on to by Citicorp, New York Community Bank (NYCB) and HHN, the banks will review loan applicants’ track records — and see to it that repairs are made — before approving a mortgage. Past housing code violations, liens, litigation and input from tenants will all be considered.

Tenants will be able to take their complaints to NYCB, which will inspect the buildings and then forward repair requests to landlords. Tenants should prepare written complaints as well as photographs and other documentation.

“New York Community Bank appreciates the opportunity to work with various members of the communities where our extensive lending and community reinvestment efforts take place,” said NYCB CEO and president Joseph R. Ficalora in a statement.

The partnership represents a new way, besides the threat of foreclosure, for a lending organization to go after current mortgage holders who neglect what HHN has listed as the most troubled NYCB-mortgaged buildings. Nineteen can be found in University Heights, Bedford Park, North Fordham and Norwood. “The banks are taking real steps to require landlords to make repairs,” Miles said.

She described the agreement as “more political than legal,” but said she had “real confidence in the partnership.” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi and other local officials have expressed support for the deal.

HHN submitted a list of 20 of the most neglected NYCB buildings last week, and a tenant at one of those buildings said she has already seen progress.

Xiomara Mejias, who lives at 2654 Valentine Ave. with her husband and three daughters, said NYCB inspectors came last week to photograph the broken windows, leaky roof and scurrying mice and roaches that plague the North Fordham building.

“I do feel confident that changes are going to be made,” Mejias said. “If not, I’ll get right back on them about it.”

HHN first went after NYCB in November, when the group staged a protest in front of Ficalora’s Madison Avenue office building. HHN published a list of the city’s 10 worst landlords, three of which get loans from NYCB. Other protests — at a troubled Bronx building and Ficalora’s Long Island home — followed, as well as a report outlining hazardous conditions in buildings the bank mortgages.

In the report, HHN said the bank didn’t meet the needs of the communities in which it does business, and therefore violated the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977.

HHN’s campaign to get NYCB to act deliberately coincided with its impending acquisition of Atlantic Bank of New York. The New York State Banking Board approved the deal and the acquisition is expected to be completed this month.

Bedford Senior Center Suffers Funding Loss

By Heather Haddon

A shift in an obscure funding line has left the Bedford Park Senior Center struggling to stay afloat.

The center lost approximately a third of its budget last July when a city contract for community programs was shifted away from senior services. Most of the $530,000 destined for programs serving the Community District 7 area went to youth initiatives. The Center’s long-standing homebound senior program was abruptly terminated as a result.

“It’s devastating,” said Patricia Burlace, the Center’s director, about the $110,000 contract her agency lost. “It might as well have been $110 million.”

The grant, which is administered by the city Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), had funded case management and companionship services for homebound seniors in the area for over two decades. The Center was forced to end that service in July and fire four employees. Their current staffing level of seven is a stretch, with Burlace often answering the phones and the door. More tough decisions could be imminent.

“We may have to cut more staff,” said James Maistre, the Center’s board chair.

These tough cuts were not handed down by a city agency, but by the few dozen local residents and advocates who showed up at forums on the funding in 2004. Community Services Block Grants, which go to economic and social assistance programs in low-income neighborhoods, are doled out based on locally determined priorities. Opinion is solicited through meetings convened by Neighborhood Advisory Boards, which are comprised of up to nine members who live in the community district benefiting from the funds. Local elected officials and DYCD appoint the members for a three-year term.

Board representation is low across the Bronx. District 7’s panel has six vacancies and six members who also sit on Community Board 7 (CB7).

Appointees say they did their best to advertise the meetings, but attendance was low and viewpoints were limited to the agencies that showed up. “We tried to do outreach,” said Rafeek Khan, a CB7 member who chaired the group at the time. Khan has since stepped down from the leadership post, but thinks the current board is still “functioning haphazardly.”

The top priorities identified at the meetings were teen violence prevention, youth education, teen employment, economic development and housing assistance. For the teen programs, the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC) received three grants. The city Parks Department, along with the Tolentine-Zeiser and Kingsbridge Heights youth centers, each got one. The West Bronx Housing and Neighborhood Resource Center and the Citizens Advice Bureau were awarded the housing contracts.

Senior services lost out. The grant has traditionally helped local agencies provide elderly counseling, nutritional assistance and transportation. The Little Shepherds Community Services and Effective Alternatives in Reconciliation Services also lost contracts for domestic violence prevention and youth initiatives.

The reversal has had a huge impact on the Center, which moved into a state-of-the-art — and more expensive — facility on East 204th Street in 2004. “We are finding we have a lot of costs we never used to have,” Maistre said.

The Center was housed in the parish hall of St. Philip Neri Church until 1997, when a devastating fire destroyed the church. It took years of fund-raising and dealing with a series of bureaucratic roadblocks before the Center moved into the beautiful $2 million facility. Roughly 70 seniors a day visit the welcoming, two-floor space for computer classes, lunch and a smorgasbord of recreational offerings. Maistre said their St. Patrick’s Day party was standing room only.

Burlace and the Center’s board are busily searching for grants and outside support. Sister Annunciata Bethell, the agency’s founder, has turned her 90th birthday party into a fund-raiser for the facility. Council Member Oliver Koppell appropriated $55,000 in additional funds for them back in September, but much of the money is only now getting delivered.

Eleanor Edelstein, a spokesperson for Koppell, said Department for the Aging and many city agencies were extremely slow in processing Council funds last year. “A lot of the [city] agencies have been holding up money,” said Edelstein, who indicated that Koppell will seek more funds for the agency during next year’s budget.

Center staff and supporters are trying to be optimistic but are still upset by the turn of events. “We can accept a cut, but don’t take off my whole left leg,” Maistre said.

Got Milk (The Healthy Kind)

By Editorial

Last September, when the city replaced most whole milk offerings in schools with one percent and skim milk in the public schools, little notice was paid. But it was a hard-won, homegrown victory for kids’ health that was led by a group of Bronx health advocates, educators and parents.

There’s eight less grams of fat and 54 less calories in a kid-sized carton of skim milk than in whole milk. Add that up over the course of a 180-day school year and you begin to get the picture.

Many kids eat three meals a day at their school; and most eat at least two. So, it’s an obvious place to have an impact on what kids put into their systems.

Interventions like this are critical if the city is going to have any chance of significantly improving its alarming child obesity and diabetes statistics.

The effort began small at PS 28 in Mt. Hope. A committee organized by Montefiore’s School Health Program, which runs a health center at the school, was focused on getting one percent and skim milk into the school. But in a re-centralized school system — where most decisions are made downtown at the Education Department’s Tweed headquarters — that’s easier said than done. (The positive side of that is that an effort that began at a single local school affected policy system-wide.)

Downtown, there was the predictable bureaucratic bridling whenever people try to get a system of a million-plus school children to make a wholesale change in policy, not to mention the dairy industry, which feared a sharp dip in milk consumption by kids who missed their chocolate milk. The city countered with a plan to introduce less fattening vanilla and strawberry milk, but that wasn’t good enough for the advocates. Those milks still had way too much sugar and calories.

But, in the end, the city did the right thing. A few months after they began working on the issue about a year ago, advocates sat down with David Berkowitz, director of school food, late last summer. Berkowitz asked each person to go around the table to make their case for the strict low-fat milk proposal. When they made their collective case, Berkowitz agreed to do it their way. The advocates were stunned and exultant. The new policy took effect immediately with the opening of school in September. Some Bronx schools still have low-fat chocolate milk on the menu for lunch a couple days a week, but whole milk has been totally banished from the system.

The program is a huge success. There’s been a 5 percent decline in milk consumption but no reduction at all in overall meal consumption, something some critics of the plan feared.

Megan Charlop, a Norwood resident who works at Montefiore’s School Health Program and helped lead the charge for the new policy, says the victory is an important one, but that it’s only one step in improving children’s nutrition.

Getting kids to eat well outside of school is, of course, key. To that end, advocates have launched the bodega campaign to get local markets to stock low-fat milk (see illustration at right).

They would also like to see those Snapple vending machines stocked only with water so that kids don’t drink the sugary juice.

Giving kids back their play yards, many of which are now occupied by portable classrooms, would be another huge advance in the cause of children’s health. This is, of course, tied in to the larger fight for securing the city’s fair share of state education funds.

In the meantime, we should all be proud that this initiative was hatched right here in the Bronx — by a variety of groups including Montefiore, Jacobi, St. Barnabas and Bronx Health Reach. It’s a victory that will result in healthier kids who will become healthier adults as they carry on better eating habits that began in school.

Stadium Project a Raw Deal for Bronxites

By Editorial

The Yankee Stadium project, which we oppose, has been poisoned by a total subversion of the democratic process. Though the proposal is headed for approval in the City Council as we write this, we believe it’s critical to document how public debate was consistently quashed and how poorly our elected officials have served their constituents.

The die was cast last June when the Yankees and their many political accomplices acted in virtual secrecy to award 22 acres of public parkland to the Yankees. The state legislature voted on a weekend without any public discussion, and community residents didn’t know what had happened until months later.

We are not opposed to development. But development by fiat is a bad thing. It produces bad decisions and this project is replete with them.

First and foremost, this project will take precious parkland for the stadium and parking garages. The city claims the parkland will be replaced, but most of the new parkland won’t be available for at least three years. Some of it will be in far more remote locations than the current continuous oasis of greenery that is the center of a vibrant community. And some of it will be on top of those parking garages. Asking people in one of the most asthma-prone zip codes in the country to exercise on top of a parking lot is obscene. It is also unclear whether these parks will even be available to the public on the 81 days the Yanks play at home.

The Yankees are building an additional 3,000 parking spaces, but their new stadium will have 4,000 fewer seats. Regardless of what they say, they are begging their fans to drive to the stadium and clog up neighborhood streets. This should be filed under “Urban Planning Nightmares.” It’s exactly the opposite of what should be happening.

We were staunchly opposed to the alienation of Van Cortlandt Park for the filtration plant, but at least that was a federally mandated public project. Giving away the parks (not to mention revenue from millions in tax free bonds) to the richest sports franchise on the planet is just lunacy.

For all the talk of the power of the Bronx Democratic organization, it does not know how to exact significant concessions that would benefit Bronxites.

If the organization was any good at dealing, why would Council Members Maria del Carmen Arroyo and Maria Baez, who will undoubtedly fall in line and vote for the plan, have to badger Yankee executive Randy Levine and city officials from 30 feet away in a City Council hearing room about unfulfilled requests for information about parking issues, traffic patterns, and more money to restore the unaffected portion of Mullaly Park? Why didn’t they demand those things a year ago, when they could have used their vote on the resolution that enabled the state legislature to give away Mullaly and Macombs Dam parks to get something substantial? Like keeping parking out of their constituents’ parks.

In all his public comments, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión talks like his dreams of a hotel/convention center, a skating rink and a high school will be poured from the same concrete truck that backs up to the stadium site. But these amenities are not a part of the plan he has shepherded through the land use process. When we asked him about this, Carrión pointed to various plots of land that could accommodate these things, both south and north of the project site. “But is that a plan?” we asked. “There’s plans for it because we say there’s a plan for it,” Carrión said. “That’s how everything starts … These are all things you work to make come together. And I hope that we can make that happen.”

Unfortunately, the Land Use Committee isn’t voting on these hopes.

The sad thing is we’ll probably never know how things could have turned out if our elected officials knew how to bargain. They could have insisted that the Yankees build the new stadium on the site of the old one. Yes, the team would have had to play at Shea for three years, but they survived Flushing just fine in the 1970s. And why is it OK for the neighborhood to be without its parks for that long but such a hardship for millionaires to play baseball 15 miles away?

The Yankees trotted out all-star Reggie Jackson to help make their case at the Council hearing last week. Mr. October admitted the Yankees had a poor record in the community, but absurdly claimed that they could now be trusted.

Council Member Helen Foster, who represents Highbridge and other neighborhoods adjacent to the stadium site, was not impressed. She predicted that as soon as Randy and Reggie left the building, that the bank of television cameras would leave with them. And so they did, leaving community residents, who had waited patiently through three and a half hours of testimony from the city and the team, to listen to themselves talk while Council members flitted in and out of the hearing room.

That’s just one example of how the community has been literally and figuratively airbrushed out of this entire debate.

In a Yankee ad that appears in this newspaper, there is no sign of a community other than Yankee Land. The neighborhood of Highbridge has actually been erased from the picture.

It’s not just the Yankees, though. By his actions and in his words, Carrión has pushed his own constituents to the margins. He had nothing to say when most community residents were locked out of a hearing he held in his own office building. Union members who were bused in early took up most of the seats.

Even more disappointing are Carrión’s comments about the plant’s opponents. He called them “outside liberal agitators” on BronxTalk last month and repeated it on Brian Lehrer’s WNYC radio show this week.

Was he talking about people like Joyce Hogi, a leader of Save Our Parks, who has lived on the Grand Concourse for 30 years? Or what about the 6,000 residents who have signed the group’s petitions, or the dozens of people in the beautiful art deco apartment buildings across the street from the parks who have put “Save Macombs and Mullaly” signs in their windows?

Meanwhile, a March 27 press release faxed from Carrión’s senior policy adviser David Golovner’s fax machine on the letterhead of the New Bronx Chamber of Commerce stated, “The Bronx based community organizations will testify in support of the stadium plan that will bring jobs, business opportunities and much needed new parkland to the neighborhood. This group of organizations TRULY represents the Yankee Stadium neighborhood and the entire Bronx. The real community will stand in solidarity for a new stadium and against outside organizers with agendas that are not beneficial to the Bronx community.”

We called Lenny Caro, the spokesman named on the press release, at his 914 number, and asked him what community groups were supporting the project. “Community Board 4,” he said. But, as everyone except Mr. Caro knows, CB4 voted against the project.

It may be too late to derail this ill-conceived stadium project. (The City Council will have already voted by the time you read this, though another committee still has to sign off on the financing.) But the federal government may slow it down considerably, giving residents more time to sue over issues such as the lack of public notice on park alienation. The two parks were renovated some years ago with federal funding, and the National Park Service will not allow them to be used for something else without a thorough review. That could take months.

Maybe that delay will be enough for the Yankees and the city to take residents’ concerns seriously and begin negotiating in good faith. We’re not holding our breath, but, like the borough president, we can hope.

One last thing. The fact that Oliver Koppell, the Council member who represents Norwood and Bedford Park, supports this project confounds us. All his arguments against the taking of public parkland in the case of the filtration plant ring hollow now. It seems that it’s OK for the city to take public parkland and ignore reasonable alternatives as long as the project is not in his district. Helen Foster was one of the very few lawmakers to vote with Koppell on the filtration plant. You’d think he’d want to return the favor.

We hope that by the time this comes up for a vote in the full Council, he will realize how hypocritical his position is and change his mind.

North Central Hospital Fears Aired at State Hearing

By Heather Haddon

Protecting North Central Bronx Hospital was a prevalent concern among local elected officials and advocates testifying at a Bronx hearing on possible reductions in state medical facilities last week. The Norwood institution does not appear to be under an immediate threat, but some worry that prior downsizing makes it vulnerable to closure.

“The possibility of closing NCB would amount to an attack on the people of the northwest Bronx,” said Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, in testimony read by a staffer.

The three-hour session was the Bronx’ chance to respond to a state commission charged with examining New York’s hospitals and nursing homes. State lawmakers are hoping to reduce costs by whittling down the system’s capacity. The governor is also intent on curbing the growing cost of Medicaid — the public insurance system that is the lifeline for many hospitals — by keeping reimbursement rates flat.

As it is, city public hospitals are struggling financially. The Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC), which oversees the city’s public facilities, is estimated to be running a $510 million budget deficit, according to an analysis the city’s Independent Budget Office released last month.

“If current trends continue and the additional state and federal resources are not available, HHC will soon be unable to cover its expenses,” stated the report.

The governor and state legislature established the task force (officially called the Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century) last year to study how the hospital system can be downsized. Possibilities include “consolidation, closure, conversion, and restructuring of institutions,” as their Web site states.

North Central Bronx (NCB) faced some of those options in 1999, when the city reportedly sought to close the hospital. NCB never shuttered its doors, but it did go through an extensive downsizing. Its inpatient pediatrics and rehabilitation units were closed, beds were shed, and staffing levels were cut roughly in half.

Today, NCB is the Bronx’ third smallest hospital. It employs 1,200 staff, contains 190 beds and made 7,237 discharges in 2004, according to state figures. In comparison, Montefiore Medical Center saw almost 36,000 patients and maintained 706 beds in just the division that neighbors NCB.

But NCB is still a valuable local resource. The facility’s sexual assault response team provides services throughout the Bronx, and other city hospitals have replicated its award-winning work. NCB offers comprehensive psychiatry and addiction programs, special adolescent pregnancy services and a trauma unit. And as a public hospital, it cannot turn away the poor or uninsured.

“We need a public hospital for our community,” said Elizabeth Thompson, an NCB employee for the past 23 years and a Kingsbridge Heights resident. “[Officials] kept saying they weren’t going to close it, but now we’re faced with it again.”

Arthur Wagner, NCB’s executive director, said he felt “absolutely” secure about the hospital’s fate. “I am very comfortable with the state we are in,” he said. Wagner thinks the state should see the hospital’s prior downsizing as a model of resource restructuring.

But advocates believe prior efforts to shut NCB make it more vulnerable. “The same politics that have been there for years is the same politics that will be there now,” said Judy Wessler of the Commission on the Public’s Health System, a city advocacy group.

Beyond NCB, speakers repeatedly cited the borough’s rapidly growing population and extensive healthcare needs as reasons not to close facilities. The Bronx has one of the city’s highest rates of diabetes, HIV infection and obesity. “The Bronx’ high incidences of disease makes its service needs higher per capita than any other in the city,” said state Senator Jeffrey Klein, in testimony read by a staffer.

Speakers also repeatedly criticized downsizing for its ramifications on Bronx employment. A third of Bronx residents currently work in the health care sector.

Congressman José Serrano, state Senator Efrain Gonzalez and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión also submitted testimony, but Council Member Oliver Koppell was the only elected official who spoke in person. Plenty of union representatives, but few residents, were in attendance.

Wessler thought the low numbers were due to a hearing on the Yankee Stadium development that day, and poor publicity. “The commission hasn’t made a serious effort to get people there,” she said.

The City Council has also formed a task force to study the possible closures. They held their first public meeting at Fordham University on April 3, and will solicit opinion throughout the boroughs. They will issue a report in September.

All five boroughs have now given testimony to the state commission, which will make final recommendations in December. Wessler thinks the hearings sent a strong message against closures, but she’s worried that it won’t reach the final decision makers. “How much of it will make it up there is unclear,” she said.

Harlem River Planning Moves Forward

By Heather Haddon

A coalition of Bronx community groups, elected officials and the city Parks Department is progressing with plans to transform the underutilized Harlem River waterfront into an accessible and amenity-rich open space.

Stakeholders gathered last month at Manhattan College to brainstorm goals for a 162-acre stretch bordering the river, which flows past the Bronx’ western border. The area runs from Highbridge to 225th Street, and is a patchwork of parks, railroad lines and privately owned parcels. Much of it is now unusable because of environmental contamination.

The conference was the latest step in a growing movement to redevelop the Harlem River through the state’s Brownfields Areas Opportunity (BAO) program. Beginning in 2003, the state has funded community groups to plan new uses for designated waterfront areas. The program also awards lucrative tax credits to developers who clean up and build on contaminated properties in line with community priorities.

The Bronx Council on Environmental Quality, an advocacy group, was awarded a $100,000 state grant last March to determine whether the Harlem River can be designated as a BAO. If so, groups will move forward with further assessments and designate priority areas for redevelopment. The Bronx borough president’s office, the Gaia Institute and Manhattan College, along with local residents and Community Boards 4, 5 and 7, are also collaborating on the effort.

Top ideas generated by conference participants were making the Harlem River more accessible, and creating parkland and recreational facilities. “We want redevelopment that will draw people to the river,” said Hilary Kitasei, who is overseeing the project for the Council.

A key component is connecting the waterfront to a larger Harlem River Greenway, which has been in development by the Parks Department for several years. The greenway would connect the Old Putnam Trail — a 1.5-mile path flowing from Westchester through Van Cortlandt Park — with the waterfront at 225th Street. It must cross Metro North railroad tracks through some type of overpass before continuing all the way down to Robert Clemente State Park and the High Bridge.

The Parks Department recently made a breakthrough in the project through successful negotiations with a cargo railroad company that owns parcels along the Putnam. The city obtained rights over two stretches of an abandoned railroad corridor that starts in Van Cortlandt Park at 237th Street, and travels to roughly 230th Street. Before they can become parkland, the acquisitions must go through the city’s land use review process. That step can take an additional one to two years, according to Ashe Reardon, a Parks spokesperson.

But the city has less leverage over the waterfront’s many private developments. They range from a Baptist church’s dog kennel near West 167th Street, to acres of dormant property surrounding the University Heights bridge. Tax credits from the BOA program, which are up to 22 percent of remediation and pre-construction costs, are intended to encourage private owners to fix up their properties. “It’s very lucrative,” said Justin Bloom, an environmental lawyer involved in the project.

Cleaning contaminated sites is costly and labor intensive. The Harlem River waterfront contains fill made of unknown materials that was dumped there in the early 20th century. That type of contamination, as opposed to sites with chemical spills, is easier to remedy.

Advocates will have a better sense of the extent of the contamination if the project qualifies as a state BAO. After issuing a report on their initial goals, the Harlem River coalition will apply for additional state funding for more site assessment and community outreach. The program’s third phase involves detailed planning for specific locations along the waterfront.

The multi-year process is laborious, and participants say the state isn’t helping matters. The BOA has gone through numerous revisions, and the Harlem River group still hasn’t received any of the funds allocated to them last year. The technically complex undertaking has required intensive volunteer labor. “The organizations are leading the state agencies on this,” Kitasei said.

But advocates are heartened by the growing excitement over transforming broken piers and jagged rocks into esplanades and jungle gyms. The Council hopes to finish its initial report in May, and have an established blueprint in the next few years. “There will be a solid plan in place … that can be a mechanism to get movement on these properties,” Bloom said.

VC Park Renovation To Resume Soon

By Heather Haddon

As the weather warms and people return to local parks, the city is also getting on track with several improvement projects.

Work is slated to resume on the southeast corner of Van Cortlandt Park in the next few weeks after it stalled during the winter. The Parks Department held a groundbreaking in November on the $2.3 million renovation, which includes a new playground, comfort station and benches. Since then, the only evidence of work is fencing around several trees.

The holdup was due to delays in permits for sewer excavation and other applications filed with the city Department of Environmental Projection and the Buildings Department, according to Ashe Reardon, a Parks spokesperson. He said opening a full construction site is also difficult in the winter, though the season was unusually mild this year.

The rehab is slated to conclude in the fall, and the Parks Department is keeping to that timeline. “A lot of planning and paperwork has been moving forward,” Reardon said.

Paul Sawyer, director of the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, said he was looking forward to work resuming. “The Friends and the community hope it’s finished as soon as possible,” he said. “We are glad they are building it.”

The project, which is officially known as Sachkerah Woods Playground, was funded out of remediation monies from the controversial filtration plant now being built on adjacent parkland just to the north.

The $240 million in remediation monies are funding projects all over the borough, including a $13 million remake of the Williamsbridge Oval. The Parks Department held a public scoping meeting in December to generate initial ideas for the project. Hector Aponte, the Bronx Parks commissioner, said his agency is in the process of developing a schematic design, which should be completed by the end of April. It will then be presented for a final round of public comment during an upcoming Community Board 7 meeting.

MS 80 students, some of whom attended the scoping meeting through the school’s Norwood Action Club, think the final public presentation is crucial. “The community should have a feeling of what’s coming to them in the future,” said Michael Salas, 12, who lives near the Oval.

A makeover of the Oval’s northern entrance, made possible by a separate City Council allocation, is almost complete. A ribbon cutting ceremony will be held in the next few weeks after the final inspection, according to Aponte. The $450,000 renovation includes new stairs, benches, landscaping and stonework.

Other local park improvements are farther off. Designs for sorely needed renovations to Aqueduct Walk in University Heights are slated to begin next summer, according to Reardon. Construction will begin in 2008.

The design process will start next fall for pathways and green space around the Jerome Park Reservoir, with work beginning in 2008.

Troubled Norwood Intersection Worries Merchants, Residents

By David Crohn

Crime can happen anywhere. And it does, everywhere. But why is it worse near 205th Street and Perry Avenue in Norwood?

The NYPD doesn’t track crime statistics for areas that small, but anyone who’s passed through recently has seen the graffiti covering the walls there. (The Norwood News featured the block in a story about graffiti removal efforts about a month ago. A week after the story ran, vandals returned with a fresh assault.) Business owners and residents familiar with the intersection and the surrounding area can attest to the drug transactions they see on a daily basis, often in broad daylight.

“It’s starting to look like the South Bronx,” said Allan Freilich, of Freilich Jewelers on East 204th Street. “If you’re a resident, there’s a certain pride about where you live and this kind of thing ruins the neighborhood.”

It’s getting so bad that residents and business owners are taking notice, and starting to mobilize. About 50 people met March 18 at St. Brendan’s Church — at the corner of 206th Street and Perry — to address quality of life in the neighborhood. Co-organizer Julio Paneto said parishioners were prepared to take their concerns directly to the 52nd Precinct and to area elected officials. He also said a graffiti cleanup day was tentatively planned for the block. “It’s such a large area with so much graffiti — it sticks out and we want to make it an example,” said Paneto, a local resident.

In the past month, 205th and Perry has seen arrests for vandalism and armed robbery, according to Lt. Jerry O’Sullivan of the 52nd Precinct. Because the vandals were under 16, their names haven’t been released.

But for every arrest, there are many incidents in which the offenders escape, free to attack again along one of their favorite stretches of the neighborhood.

On the night of March 10, Nasir Mia, a cab driver who lives in the area, was attacked as he left a store on 205th and Bainbridge at the end of his shift. The muggers took his money and left him in the hospital with head injuries and broken teeth. They were never caught, said his uncle, Mohammed Hussain.

“We used to have more officers there and crime was really down—now you see no one,” said Hussain, who has owned a grocery store on Perry near Bainbridge since 2001 and has lived around the corner for 12 years.

Hussain, like other people from the neighborhood the Norwood News spoke to for this article, said police don’t patrol the area. He says Mexican gangs such as the Locos and the Bainbridge Boys have made the intersection their own. “I’ve complained so many times,” he said. “Bloomberg is a good mayor but he is taking cops off the street.”

Bill Curran, who has owned McKeon Funeral Home on Perry for six years, said, “Gang influence has run rampant over here.” The writing is literally on the walls nearby, where the word “LOCOS” is featured prominently in much of the graffiti near 205th and Perry. The walls are prime real estate for spray painters looking to mark their territory.

(Police differentiate between violent gangs and rowdy cliques; they consider the Locos to be the latter.)

“Something needs to be done,” Curran said. “It’s a horrible feeling to walk around and think you are going to get jumped.”

According to O’Sullivan, the immediate area surrounding the intersection is one of the few that is still patrolled by officers walking a beat. “We’re out there, but I recognize their frustration,” he said.

But another business owner, who preferred not to give his name, said he sees almost no police presence there, especially after dark. In the past year, he said, “People don’t feel safe. Drugs have moved here to Perry Avenue.”

Some Progress on Stumbling Blocks At Armory Forum

By Heather Haddon

A packed community meeting on the Kingsbridge Armory last month has spurred movement among city and state leaders on the long stalled project.

Officials in the mayor’s office and the city Economic Development Corporation (EDC) have shown new signs of engagement in the project, and a potential developer has identified a possible site to house the two National Guard units based in the landmark’s annex. Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, the mayor’s development czar, is slated to tour the building soon, and Governor Pataki has promised to designate a staff liaison for the project, according to Assemblyman Jose Rivera.

“We’re not going to back off on this,” said Rivera, in an interview last week. “Something has to give.”

The new developments, which are the first tangible ones since the governor visited the armory last summer, arose out of the March 22 forum. The meeting, which was organized by the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, drew nearly 200 Bronx residents, merchants, union members and church leaders. Felix Ciampa, a senior EDC staffer, and Matthew Wambua, from the Mayor’s Office of the Empowerment Zone, were in attendance, as were Rivera and a representative from the Richman Group, a city developer advancing a proposal for the armory.

Attendees rallied behind seven specific goals for a future development, including constructing four small schools, providing a mix of retail, entertainment and recreational space, and creating local jobs. Twelve community organizations and churches, along with Rivera and the Richman Group, endorsed the resolution and many of them have joined to form the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance.

Father Joe Jerome, the pastor at St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, which hosted the meeting, said all the goals are important. “We know there is inadequate space for schools and recreation,” he said.

Fazila Deen, a nearby merchant, thinks the agreement will bring needed amenities and more foot traffic to the area. “It would be good for the business people,” said Deen, an owner of J & F Auto Parts on Jerome Avenue.

The Richman Group’s proposal, which the Coalition collaborated on, includes these amenities. They are now looking to ensure they will be met regardless of the developer, as the city has said that it will open up the project to a bidding process. The Richman Group is the only developer known to be openly interested in the project, but that could change when a request for proposals (RFP) emerges.

Ronn Jordan, the Coalition’s president, said city officials seemed positive about the principles, and, more importantly, the sense of unity behind them. “They had heard rumors that not all the elected officials were on board with it,” said Jordan, who met with Ciampa, Wambua and Rivera to further discuss matters the next day. “They see that this project has come a long way.”

But EDC is still sounding a note of caution. “While we are impressed and appreciative of the enthusiasm and support shown by the attendees of last weeks’ meeting … we also need to work with other stakeholders,” including the borough president, local City Council members and the community board, said the agency in a statement.

The EDC does seem supportive of the Coalition’s general development goals. “[The proposal should] meet as many of the criteria of the residents, local businesses and alliances and elected officials as possible,” said the statement.

Advocates hope that mix doesn’t include a police academy, which has been among the ideas the city has been considering. That concept is locally unpopular, and reportedly doesn’t have the police commissioner’s support. “I think they are revaluating that suggestion,” Rivera said.

There also seems to be progress in finding another home for the armory’s two National units, which remain in the building’s annex on West 195th Street. The Richman Group is in the initial stages of exploring an alternative Bronx site for the Guard. The company came upon the undisclosed location with help from Peter Fine, a big city developer allied with Rivera.

“We’re trying our best to be proactive,” said Christopher Cirillo, Richman’s vice president. The EDC has repeatedly said that the state must approve a site for the units before moving forward with an RFP. They also want the state to identify funds for the “acquisition, development and maintenance of the new site,” the statement said.

The governor and the city have made little visible progress in these areas. While meeting together, city officials asked Rivera to help get the state to put more energy and money behind the process. Rivera called Pataki and got him to agree to assign a close staff member to liaison on the project. “I told the governor we need some leadership here,” Rivera said.

At press time, Jordan said he was nailing down a date for Doctoroff’s armory tour. Mayor Bloomberg has yet to see the massive complex himself.

Armory advocates think the project is a natural for an administration drawn to big development projects, including controversial ones like Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Terminal Market. “This is the only project that no one is fighting over,” Jordan said. “Not doing it would be foolish.”

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