The future of Van Cortlandt Jewish Center (VCJC), as well as the many programs it provides, continues to remain in jeopardy as its representatives negotiate with a developer to sell the property, along with a private home the center owns on the block. Simultaneously, community residents, congregants, and users of VCJC are hoping the center’s management will listen to their concerns and how its potential closure would leave a void in the community.

 

According to its website, VCJC was established in 1927 and for the past 60 years has been located at 3880 Sedgwick Avenue, between Stevenson Place and Van Cortlandt Avenue West in the Van Cortlandt Village section of The Bronx.

 

Besides being a house of worship for VCJC’s Jewish congregation, the building also serves as an older adult center operated by the nonprofit, JASA, and as an early childhood education center run by Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC). News of the prospective sale was previously published in The Riverdale Press and The Bronx Times.

 

Retired architect Petr Stand, a longtime Sedgwick Avenue resident, who for 30 years has worked with community development corporations to curb gentrification and to preserve other Bronx neighborhoods like Melrose, said, “fighting the city’s development plans” is now another battle in the northwest Bronx.

 

Stand was approached by members of the local community about the issue, telling Norwood News, “They’re appropriately terrified of what’s going to be put there.” He added, “Some people are afraid of affordable housing for instance. Some people are afraid of market-rate housing.”

 

According to Stand, the developer in question, Innovative Construction, LLC, based in Miramar, FL., is currently in negotiations with VCJC to purchase two parcels of land. Stand said the developer, “does not want to discuss their plans with the community,” and alleges Innovative Development plans to build housing in the form of market-rate apartments.

 

He continued, “The Van Cortlandt Jewish Center is a really important cultural institution to many people in the neighborhood. They’re really concerned about the loss of this building and everything else, the services the building provides.”

 

Stand says that because VCJC is a religious organization and a non-profit, in order to save it and the programs it offers, “a number of us feel that they kind of have this ethical obligation to open up discussions.”

 

In reference to the Van Cortlandt Village neighborhood, Strand said, “This has been a changing but ultimately a very stable neighborhood that has been a nurturing place for many generations of working people.”

 

According to Jack Spiegel, a VCJC board member, the members decided to sell the building in 2019. He added that VCJC congregants in the 1960s numbered about 700, whereas today, they stand at about 60.

 

Spiegel said there have been discussions with the community but also maintained VCJC is selling the building. He said the congregation will remain intact, however. He said JASA has informed them they would be moving out of the building, and that MMCC pre-school’s lease of the space needed to run their program expires on Aug. 31. Of the pre-school’s future, he added, “I’m not sure what they will be doing.”

 

Steve Bobker, a longtime resident of the area, recalled growing up during VCJC’s heyday when both his grandmother and aunt attended the center, when it had a thriving congregation. Today, he said the congregation has dwindled as many Jewish people have moved from the area.

 

Bobker called the current development in the neighborhood “bittersweet,” adding, “I walk around The Bronx and every little piece of land is now these ugly complexes.” He said such housing complexes have been “jammed” into small parcels of land.

 

Norwood News reached out to VCJC and Innovative Development for comment to ask if there was any change regarding the negotiations with the developer and the community. We did not receive an immediate response from Innovative Development. Spiegel responded saying the negotiations were continuing. “In my experience, negotiations usually take a long time,” he said.