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Community Center’s Big Night
May 18, 2006
By Jordan Moss
In the largest turnout since launching their annual fund-raising gala four years ago, 280 friends and supporters of the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center packed the Faculty Dining Room at Lehman College last week for the event known as “Bursting With Pride.”
Honorees included Andrew Berkman, who is from the neighborhood and has served on the group’s board since 1978, and Charles Balancia, a senior vice president at Montefiore Medical Center and native Bronxite, who got his start at Montefiore in 1958 as an assistant engineer shoveling coal in the boiler room.
Andrew Cuomo, who is running for attorney general this year, introduced Balancia. Cuomo got to know Balancia when he was mayor of Harrison, NY and Cuomo was pursuing an affordable housing project there. The project was unpopular, Cuomo, said but Balancia stood firm.
“I have never seen a truer test of leadership … than what Charlie Balancia taught me in Harrison,” Cuomo said. “Charlie Balancia stands against the wind.”
Balancia and his staff have helped the Center with engineering and building needs over the years.
The event netted $110,000 for the Center, which serves 25,000 people a year at 14 different locations in programs that range from Head Start to senior programs.
MMCC was founded in 1942.
Everyone Should be Told of Homeowner Assistance on 311
May 18, 2006
By Gregory Lobo-Jost
Foreclosures in the Bronx are on the rise. Many of the factors that contribute to these foreclosures are also increasing (i.e. interest rates, fuel prices, water and sewer costs, property taxes, sub-prime and predatory lending, and the age of the local housing stock). In 2004, the foreclosure rate for one to four-family homes in Bronx Community Boards 5, 6, and 7 was double that of the city. The Bronx also has the highest percentage of homeowners (20 percent) with a severe affordability problem, meaning their owner costs are greater than 60 percent of their income. And the percentage is even higher (22 percent) for owners of conventional homes (excludes co-ops and condos).
University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP) has worked to help prevent foreclosures in the northwest Bronx for the past five years by reaching out to homeowners in distress and setting up a hotline where homeowners can be referred to appropriate services that may be able to help them avoid foreclosure. The phone number is 1-800-261-7012.
At a forum we held on April 25 at Fordham University, we discussed the city’s new pilot program to provide homeowner assistance on the 311 information and service hotline. The pilot, known as PACE, is the city’s way of supporting an existing successful network of anti-predatory lending groups that have been extremely active in Brooklyn and Queens – namely South Brooklyn Legal Services, the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, the Parodneck Foundation, and the Queens Legal Aid Society. Homeowners in distress who call 311 are routed to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), which assesses the situation and refers the homeowner to the appropriate group for assistance.
Since the program is still a pilot, targeted outreach is only being done in a few select neighborhoods where foreclosures are very high, namely southeast Queens, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick. Plans are to eventually expand the advertising and outreach to the North Shore of Staten Island and the northeast Bronx (while the northeast Bronx has more foreclosures than in the northwest Bronx, the foreclosure rate is actually about 40% higher here, where there are fewer houses). Of course, it is difficult to advertise in only select neighborhoods, especially when homeowners in foreclosure are bombarded with mail from all types of groups offering “assistance” or “foreclosure bailouts,” most of which are scams.
If homeowner assistance on 311 were expanded citywide, not only would this become a moot point — as advertising could expand to radio, television, newspapers and subways — but all New York City homeowners would be able to take advantage of this service. The biggest problem, however, would be the capacity on the part of the city and the nonprofit groups involved to handle the volume of calls.
Chicago provides an excellent example of how to overcome this obstacle. Since 2003, Chicago has provided 24-hour homeownership preservation and financial counseling on their 311 non-emergency number. This has been instituted citywide by utilizing an outside nonprofit phone-based counseling group known as the Credit Counseling Resource Center (CCRC). Many situations are resolved on the phone in just an hour or two, while more difficult situations are referred to local housing nonprofits. Chicago’s program has been an incredible success.
At the April forum, we made clear our hopes for homeowner assistance on 311 to come to the northwest Bronx and the entire city – under the current model, using the CCRC, or a combination of both. UNHP will work to make this happen in our follow-up with the city and other PACE groups. Even though HPD told us that right now homeowners anywhere in the city can call 311 for foreclosure prevention assistance, they won’t advertise this service outside of a few pilot neighborhoods. In the meantime, foreclosure rates here in our Bronx neighborhoods will most likely continue to climb.
Pinnacle Tenants Unite …In Manhattan
May 18, 2006
By Editorial
Tenants in Pinnacle buildings from three northern Manhattan community boards gathered for a joint public hearing Monday night. It was the culmination of months of activism by tenants fed up with rent increases based on falsified repair reports, unlawful rent increases and baseless legal actions.
As we report in this issue, Pinnacle’s tactics in harassing tenants have deep roots. The lesson from this quarter-century old tale at Vinmont Houses in Riverdale is that the only thing that will hold Joel Wiener and his company accountable is a united and tireless front.
But the Bronx tenants of today are far behind the activism of their Manhattan counterparts, who have formed vocal, focused tenant associations to fight Pinnacle. Two grassroots groups — Mirabal Sisters and BRUSH — staged a demonstration in front of Pinnacle’s Penn Plaza offices earlier this year.
We’re a little perplexed that the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, which practically pioneered the kind of building-based organizing that saved our neighborhoods in the 1970s and ‘80s, has, so far, been silent on this issue.
It makes sense that two tough Bronx women were among those at Vinmont houses who led the successful charge against Wiener. It’s also not surprising that they are both terrific educators. We hope their Bronx neighbors can learn from their lessons.
Development, Subway Rehabs Covered at Board Meeting
May 18, 2006
By Heather Haddon
Subway renovations along the No. 4 line and some controversial developments projects were discussed at the Community Board 7 (CB7) District Service Cabinet meeting last week. Agency representatives gave local updates and statistics during the session, which takes place every other month.
Subway Renovations. The MTA has begun a structural repainting of the No. 4 line at the Mosholu Parkway stop. Begun in March, the work will travel up to the Woodlawn stop, and is expected to take a year to complete. Fire Department representatives at the meeting said they were concerned about reaching Knox-Gates and Jerome Avenue in the event of a fire, as traffic has been blocked off at the intersection between Jerome Avenue and Mosholu Parkway North during the painting. Jackie Carter, an MTA representative, said she would provide a work schedule to the Fire Department.
The overhaul of the actual Mosholu platform will begin later this year. The station’s north-bound platform will be closed from Oct. 30, 2006 to Jan. 26, 2007. The south-bound side will shut down from Aug. 4 to Nov. 4, 2007.
Renovations to the Bedford Park stop on the No. 4 line will begin soon. Both sides of the station will be closed from June 17 to Oct. 16. The MTA will provide shuttle bus service from neighboring stops and the D line. The Burnside No. 4 station will also shut down during that time for repair.
Renovations to the Kingsbridge Road and 183rd Street No. 4 stops will begin in 2007, according to Carter. There are currently no plans to rehab the decrepit D line.
The same company employed for the renovations to the Fordham Road No. 4 stop will be used for the other local rehabs. “They complete their projects on time,” Carter said.
Development Projects. Rita Kessler, CB7’s district manager, reported that a homeless shelter has been proposed for Villa Avenue. The site, which is on the corner of East 204th Street, falls adjacent to a large affordable housing development now under construction.
Kessler said the shelter’s developer has not been forthcoming. “He hasn’t returned any of my calls,” she said.
Kessler also said that a juvenile detention facility might move into an existing property on Bainbridge Avenue and East 192nd Street. The building was owned by the city Administration for Children’s Services, but was sold to another agency three years ago, according to Kessler.
“It will house kids ages 7 to 15 who would be going to jail if they were an adult,” she said. Kessler has not been successful in contacting the developer.
Kessler also had concerns about construction projects in the works for Webster Avenue near PS/MS 20 (see p. 3). She was pleased that the development of a five-story, secured parking facility is moving forward. The site is across the street from the new Bronx Library Center on Bainbridge Avenue.
Crime Update. Deputy Inspector Joseph Hoch, the commander of the 52nd Precinct, reported that shootings are up this year. The precinct has begun an investigation into three locations where many of the recent and past incidents, which are narcotics related, have taken place. Hoch would not disclose the locations.
Manpower is down 15 percent at the precinct, mostly from rookie cops moving to better paying jobs in surrounding upstate counties. “We’re not going to be able to continue like this,” Hoch said.
The precinct has made more graffiti related arrests this year. Hoch said a few individuals are responsible for much of the damage. “We’ll arrest one person one day, and the next day he’ll be right back doing it,” he said.
The precinct recently received a power washer, and Hoch encouraged residents to call in requests for graffiti cleanup. The city, which has its own graffiti initiative, hit a long list of local spots last week.
Sanitation Tickets. Cyrus Manley, a city Sanitation Department representative, said the agency issued several summonses last week for garbage along Poe Place and Coles Lane. The two irregular streets in North Fordham are perpetually strewn with trash.
Sanitation is also monitoring cleanliness issues along Mosholu Parkway and Jerome Avenue, where the subway renovations are taking place. They recently addressed a rodent problem at the Bronx High School of Science.
Speaking Out: Fans Protest BronxTalk Cancellation
May 18, 2006
By Jordan Moss
Supporters of Gary Axelbank’s public affairs talk show on BRONXNET, the borough’s public access television network, put on a show of their own last week. With cardboard signs hanging around their necks, they marched from Kingsbridge Road and filed into the station’s studio on the Lehman College campus to protest BronxTalk AM’s cancellation on the day of its final broadcast.
Organized by Anthony Rivieccio, a Bedford Park resident and member of Community Board 7, the orderly march included small cardboard coffins with humorous messages on them like “RIP Bob from Riverdale,” a reference to Robert Press, a perennial caller to the show.
The demonstration attracted a small but spirited crowd that included Axelbank’s mother, Muriel, and his wife, Suzanne. Joyce Hogi of Save Our Parks, a south Bronx group that fought the new Yankee Stadium project, said BronxTalk provided a vital forum for spreading the word.
“It gave us a lot of exposure, a lot of chance to air our views,” Hogi said, adding that once she discovered the show, she was hooked. “I really became addicted to it because you learn so much about the Bronx.”
Joseph Thompson, an east Bronx community activist who ran for Assembly in 2004, said he came out to show “support for the format of the show.”
Most of the protesters filed two-by-two down to the BronxTalk studio in the basement of a Lehman classroom building to be Axelbank’s final guests.
Since its premiere in 1999, 1,450 episodes of BronxTalk were broadcast, with approximately 8,700 interviews, according to Axelbank’s calculations.
The two-hour show, which aired from 10 a.m. to noon, has been replaced by a one-hour show called OPEN, which features two new hosts. Axelbank may host the show two days a week, but he is still in negotiations with the station. He will remain the host of his weekly evening show, BronxTalk PrimeTime.
Axelbank said he has been told by station officials that that OPEN is scripted and that there will be “no extemporaneous talking or editorializing on the new show,” a prominent feature of BronxTalk. BRONXNET’s executive director Michael Knobbe said that the show has just begun and that there would be many opportunities for opinion sharing, such as reporters’ roundtables. The show now airs only a couple of days a week but will eventually broadcast daily.
Suzanne Axelbank, who had never been on the show before, was among the first marchers to enter the broadcast booth for a stroll down memory lane. She presented her husband with a cake and homemade cookies to share with the show’s staff. The couple met at Lehman’s radio station in 1975.
Montefiore Nurses Rally to Demand Better Pay
May 18, 2006
By James Fergusson
Registered Nurses (RNs) rallied last Friday for a better pay increase than they have been offered by Montefiore Medical Center. The nurses, represented by their union, the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), have been without a contract since January 2005.
Standing in front of Montefiore’s Moses Division on Gun Hill Road, about 70 nurses turned out to hear union representatives demand a pay increase more in line with inflation, estimated at 4.5 percent by the union. In April, nurses rejected, by eight to one, the Medical Center’s latest offer of a three-percent pay increase on base salary, which is $60,528, according to NYSNA. There are about 2,300 RNs at Montefiore.
Tomas Darby, a NYSNA labor representative, was particularly concerned that the hospital’s offer only applied to base salary. In this way, he said, more experienced, higher paid nurses, are being shortchanged, because their percentage raise would be less than newcomers to the profession.
Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, a Montefiore nurse and president of NYSNA’s Montefiore/Moses division, charged that the hospital is trying to break the back of the union. “We concerned they want to silence us,” she said. Sheridan-Gonzalez pointed out that instead of trying to negotiate, the Medical Center, in preparation for a strike, is hiring non-union nurses and housing them in a Westchester hotel. Some are already working, and earning, Sheridan-Gonzalez said, close to $1,000 a shift. “Clearly [Montefiore has] the money to reach our modest offer,” she said.
Lola Fehr, executive director of NYSNA, is worried that Montefiore’s position could affect staff morale. “If you lose morale,” she said, “you lose energy… and all the things that make a successful hospital.”
The nurses, who sometimes struggled to hear the speakers since organizers were denied a permit for a sound system, said the dispute goes deeper than money. “It’s more than the salary,” said Andrea Williams, a Montefiore nurse for the last six years. “I think it’s about respect. We are the backbone of this place and we don’t have the staff and we don’t have a contract that covers the cost of living. We’re professionals, not children.”
“A lot of people don’t realize how hard we work,” said nurse Juany Ramirez, who has worked at the hospital for the last 15 years. “It’s gotten worse and worse,” she continued, adding that nurses are responsible for more patients than ever. Ramirez is hopeful that an agreement can be reached, but she’s prepared to take the dispute further. “I think I would do it,” she said sadly, when asked if she’s prepared to strike. “We don’t want to because of the patients, but when push comes to shove we might have to do it.”
Officials of the city’s Transit Workers Union, which went on strike at the end of last year, spoke at the rally to show solidarity with the nurses.
Montefiore would not respond to the specifics of the nurses’ charges but issued the following statement:
“We respect and value our professional nursing staff and the exceptional contributions they make to patient care every day. Because of that, we have offered them [the nurses] a very competitive labor package that we even enhanced with recommendations made by a federal mediator in order to bring this contract to closure. We look forward to our next bargaining session on May 17.”
Ed. note: The Norwood News is published by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center.
Battle Against Pinnacle Group Resembles ’78 Riverdale Row
May 18, 2006
By Heather Haddon
Deirdre Burke and Laura Spalter thought something was fishy when their rent checks went uncashed and new leases weren’t issued after their Riverdale complex was sold. Those warning signs led to a protracted legal battle waged by tenants of the Vinmont Houses against their new landlord, Joel Wiener.
That was 28 years ago. But today, Wiener and his current company, the Pinnacle Group, has been using many of the same tactics to push out long-term tenants, as the Norwood News has reported in a series of articles.
In 1978, Wiener bought Vinmont, a small complex of 1- and 2-family homes along Mosholu Avenue and West 255th Street. The 30 units were the brainchild of Robert Weinberg, a prominent city preservationist and architect. He nestled Vinmont into a wooded area, constructing a series of affordable rental homes where residents did much of the maintenance work themselves. The charming houses, with front and back yards, are attached with shared utilities. They were a renter’s dream.
“People loved them,” said Burke, the principal of PS 340 in North Fordham, who moved into the complex in 1975. “I paid $194 a month for … an apartment with a fireplace, with trees around it.”
Wiener purchased Vinmont, and two neighboring complexes, after Weinberg’s death. The two did not share the same vision. Wiener’s goal was to sell off the homes for about $100,000 each within roughly six months, according to tenants. The ensuing battle lasted for over three years.
(Wiener did not respond to questions for this story, but a spokesman for his company issued a statement. “It is absolutely ridiculous and unfair to ask Pinnacle about something from more than a quarter-century ago,” said the statement, released by the Marino Organization, a public relations firm retained by Pinnacle.)
After the deal, tenants noticed that they stopped receiving rent increases, and rent checks weren’t even cashed. “At the time, we thought it was cool,” said Spalter, a longtime MS 80 teacher, who was then in her late 20s.
Tenants eventually grew suspect, and started talking and meeting together. They were alarmed when Wiener fired the property’s longtime caretaker. And they were further angered when they realized Wiener intended to separate the houses into individual properties, sell them and evict those who couldn’t pay.
His attitude was, “I’m an owner. I can do it and I will do it,” as Spalter put it.
That didn’t sit well with tenants, even among wealthy residents who could have bought the complex outright. They stuck together and formed an association, first successfully moving to get Vinmont recognized as a rent stabilized property. Wiener brought in bulldozers to begin separating the connected sewer and water lines. Tenants went to court and got a restraining order to stop the work.
The cat and mouse game cycled on. Wiener filed paperwork to carve out the different parcels later in 1978. Residents would sneak out in the middle of the night and dig up the pipes being installed. And in one of the most important victories, not one resident would let Wiener into their homes to shut off their water connection.
“He intimidated the 80-year-old senior citizens, but they still said no,” Spalter said.
The war escalated. Residents hired Sheldon Lobel, a lawyer specializing in zoning issues, and Spalter began a letter writing campaign. Burke mastered the pipe blueprints, and searched for permit irregularities at the Buildings Department. Wiener sent eviction notices, but never acted on them.
Residents were relentless. “He was so afraid of us,” said Spalter, a lifelong Bronxite who has fought many civic battles. “One day he came to my door and [my husband] yelled out, ‘If he’s bothering you, I’ll go get the gun.’”
The firearm was fictitious, but the tenants’ unified resistance was a real source of consternation for Wiener. Franklin Illfelder, a resident who was a teenager at the time, refused to let Wiener inspect his family’s garage. Illfelder, 50, who still lives at Vinmont, says Wiener shoved him in response.
Finally, Wiener offered the 1- and 2-family homes to tenants for $50,000 and $60,000, respectively. With $20,000 in fees and a difficult legal road ahead, residents went for the offer, but not before making sure all tenants had a route to ownership.
In 1981, Wiener sold them the properties. It was a huge, hard-fought and immensely satisfying victory. “This was the whole basis of our being,” Burke said.
The fight was chronicled in a New York legal journal, according to Spalter, but tenants shied away from local reporters’ inquiries for fear it would distract them from their objective. As some of the original residents died or moved away, the story went untold.
While the Vinmont battle is long over, thousands of other tenants in buildings bought by Wiener’s current company, the Pinnacle Group, are now facing an uphill contest against him. A growing number of tenants citywide are complaining about the same issues — harassment, eviction notices, the removal of existing building staff — since Pinnacle purchased over 400 rent stabilized buildings beginning in 2002. They fear that Wiener plans to convert their homes into condos.
Burke’s and Spalter’s advice to these tenants is to stick together and fight hard. “If you are unlucky enough to live in a Wiener building, form a tenants association and get a lawyer right away,” Spalter said.
We’re Ready to Get Rolling!’
May 18, 2006
By Jordan Moss
Dan Doctoroff, Mayor Bloomberg’s go-to guy for development projects, said a request for proposals (RFP) would be issued in August during a May 4 tour of the Kingsbridge Armory.
That would, for the first time, take the project to the level where developers could formally offer their visions for the landmark’s redevelopment.
“I know what you’ll see over the next couple of months is a real burst of activity, ultimately to the issuance of an RFP, which we’d like to do by mid-August,” Doctoroff, a deputy mayor, told the Norwood News after the tour. “We’ll work together over that period of time to define the parameters of the RFP.”
Doctoroff, who appeared upbeat about the project, announced that the city would form a task force to craft the RFP.
While he didn’t forecast precisely what elements would end up in the final redevelopment, he did say that the two top priorities were school space and recreation facilities, according to participants in the tour (press were not invited). Those match the priorities favored by the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, which has developed its own proposal for the facility, and many other community residents and elected officials.
The people who took part in the tour, which was organized by Assemblyman Jose Rivera, want to participate in the process of crafting the RFP.
“Because [the task force] has the responsibility to decide what the guidelines are, we want to make sure we’re involved in the process [and] make sure that the community benefit principles fit into the RFP,” said Wendoly Marte, 17, a college student who lives a couple of blocks from the armory and has long been active with Sistas and Brothas United, a youth group affiliated with the Coalition.
Those principles, developed last year by the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA), an umbrella group of community groups and institutions organized by the Coalition, include the construction of four small schools, creating local jobs, and providing a mix of retail, entertainment and recreation space.
Marte said KARA and the Coalition want to meet with Doctoroff and Bloomberg before the RFP is issued.
Meanwhile, a first meeting with the city to prepare for the RFP was scheduled to take place on May 17, Coalition leaders said.
Finding a suitable site for two National Guard units that still occupy two buildings on the site was widely considered to be the primary stumbling block to an RFP being issued.
But Doctoroff did not indicate if identifying a site needed to precede the release of the RFP. Coalition organizers say they’d like whoever gets the job of transforming the facility to find a new home for the Guard.
Asked if moving the National Guard is the responsibility of the state rather than the city, Doctoroff said, “We have better access to potential other sites, so we’re going to have to do it together.”
This week, two developers, Bill Traylor of the Richman Group, a firm that has worked closely with the Coalition on its development proposal, and Peter Fine, who has close ties with Rivera, met with members of Community Board 7. Fine may be interested in developing the new Guard site. Board 7 chair Greg Faulkner said a site in the Zerega section of the Bronx was raised as a possibility at the meeting.
Faulkner said that that he has not yet heard from the city regarding the creation of the task force, but that he expected the Board would play a significant role.
Thirteen years have passed since the state first vacated the Armory and ceded it to the state. Residents hope they can take the city at its word and that real action may be on the horizon.
“We’re ready to get rolling!” Doctoroff announced at the end of his tour.
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