I’ve been a resident of the Bedford Park/Bainbridge area for over 25 years.  I love this neighborhood for all the beautiful trees in this environment and the wonderful buildings and homes that we have. One thing that I’ve been doing some advocacy about is the situation with the underpass under the Grand Concourse at Bedford Park Boulevard that leads to the D train entrance. I’ve written letters to all our politicians. I’ve made phone calls to citywide government officials. I’ve reached out and spoken at Community Board 7 meetings. I’ve contacted the Sanitation Department, who referred me to the Department of Transportation, who told me that they cannot clean this underpass on a daily or weekly basis. For the past 10 years, the only thing that resulted out of all this was that we got huge clear bags strapped along the underpass, which overflow with garbage and are infrequently removed or emptied.  

Every day, twice a day, thousands of people who go to work, to schools in the neighborhood (Bronx Science, Lehman College, Fordham University, etc.), to the Botanical Garden, and shopping, are forced to go through this bird poop and garbage-infested underpass. In the winter, the snow is never shoveled! Why is it that the building superintendents are given tickets if they do not clean up their sidewalks and the Department of Transportation can ignore an entire community for weeks at end? That underpass is swept up, perhaps once every three weeks. We are a much bigger community than we were 25 years ago, and believe we are entitled to more cleanups than once every three weeks.

The message I get twice a day is that my community is insignificant, and that we, as a diverse working-class neighborhood, do not deserve the quality of life and cleanliness that other neighborhoods have. I’m also sticking up for the underpass on Kingsbridge Road. On the other hand, the underpass of East 161st Street, not only gets a brand new beautiful underpass, but all the streets above it, get brand new sidewalks. And that’s because there is a spanking new Yankee Stadium being created for all the people that are considered significant, and they don’t even live here! My last resort will be to take pictures of the underpass and take it to one of those news stations on TV that enjoy confronting issues to see if that would make a change.

Mimi Medina

Bedford Park