Talk Bronx New York

Pizza makers Emmanuel Escamilla (foreground) and James Holmes (left) cranked out dozens of pies for the lunchtime crowd at Bronx Pizza in Hillcrest yesterday.

A Slice Today Costs Business Owners ‘Extra Cheese’ 

No matter how you slice it, making pizza is getting more pricey.

The culprit: the rising cost of cheese and wheat, two of the beloved pizza pie’s main ingredients.

In his nearly 30 years of business, Jim DiMille, co-owner of DiMille’s Italian Restaurant in Normal Heights, has never seen anything like the recent price jumps.

Cheese prices are up by more than half, and wheat prices have risen by as much as 80 percent. That has put DiMille and other local pizzerias in a tough position: Stand pat on prices and see profits evaporate, or raise prices on already-strapped consumers who may decide to stay home.

DiMille already increased menu prices by 10 percent at the beginning of the year and now is seeing his food costs rise further.

“It’s a footrace. We just did a menu increase,” he said. “Now we’re getting a second round of price increases. We’ll just have to swallow it. It’s tough. There’s really no keeping up with it.”

Corn prices have gone up as the crop is diverted to produce ethanol. So as the livestock feed becomes more expensive, milk becomes more expensive and, no surprise, cheese becomes more costly, too.

“Corn is really driving all of this,” said Jeff Davis, president of Sandelman & Associates, a restaurant industry consulting firm. “Corn is impacting beef, it’s impacting dairy, it’s impacting wheat.”

The price of block cheese closed yesterday at $2.07 a pound on the Chicago Board of Trade. A year ago, block cheese was $1.35 a pound. Wheat, which historically has traded in the $3-to-$7-a-bushel range, hit a record $13.50 on Wednesday and closed at $10.86 yesterday.

Matt Gardner, owner of Bronx Pizza in Hillcrest, said the price of cheese is really hitting his bottom line. He estimates that Bronx Pizza uses about a pound of the stuff on each of the 3,500 pizzas it makes a week. With the price of cheese up by about $1 a pound, that’s $3,500 less profit a week.

“That’s straight-up money that would normally be in your pocket,” Gardner said.

Nevertheless, he said he has no plans to raise prices this year because his business has higher volume and lower overhead than many other pizza places in town.

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Bronx’s Abbott House Gets New Director

Abbott House Executive Director and CEO Claude B. Meyers announced the appointment of New Windsor resident Hector Morell as director of the Abbott House Bronx Family Services Office.

A seasoned social worker with nearly 20 years of experience in the field, Morell obtained his master’s degree in social work from the Fordham University School of Social Work and received his bachelor’s from the State University of New Paltz where he was honored with the Outstanding Service to the Community Award. He is a licensed social worker and is fluent in both Spanish and English.

Morell was born in Brooklyn and raised in the Bronx.

Founded in 1963, the mission of Abbott House is to provide comprehensive and caring services for abused, neglected and abandoned children and their families.

SOURCE: PoughkeepsieJournal.com

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Winning The Lottery Could Mean Saving Thousands For NY Home Buyers 

MOST New Yorkers would greet the prospect of a $51,000 two-bedroom co-op in Chelsea with slack-jawed wonder, since the average price for an apartment in the city now exceeds $1.4 million.

They might react the same way to a three-story house in Park Slope priced at $255,000 or to a one-bedroom in a brand-new Harlem condominium for $147,500.

But these types of deals do exist. They are offered through city housing programs intended to provide affordable homes to middle-income New Yorkers. The programs set income restrictions for buyers, and most of the homes can be had only by entering lotteries, which carry odds that are barely better than those for most casino jackpots.

The people getting these homes include city workers, young professionals, growing families and empty nesters. Many of the apartments are in neighborhoods like Harlem in Manhattan, Jamaica and Far Rockaway in Queens, Fort Greene and Bushwick in Brooklyn and Mott Haven in the Bronx.

As part of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s 10-year housing plan, the city produced 1,676 new middle-income housing units in 14 different developments within the last two years, and there are 26 more in the pipeline. The ones that have been completed have been built by nonprofit organizations and private developers with the help of various city subsidies. Most have annual income restrictions that range from $56,700 to $124,075 for a family of four.

The city also seeks to preserve existing middle-income apartments, like the thousands in Mitchell-Lama complexes and similar affordable-housing projects that were built from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. These have been dwindling in number as many have been converted to market-rate apartments in recent years.

As for new construction, there seem to be as many types of housing and variations on rules and restrictions as there are projects. They range from single-family houses to 38-story glass towers where only about 20 percent of the apartments are set aside as affordable housing. Income limits may apply for several decades, which can limit resale value. Or the restrictions may run out after as little as five years, after which homeowners can sell at market rates.

Martha Nadell, an English professor at Brooklyn College, part of the City University of New York, moved into a three-story town house in Park Slope last July that cost her $460,000. It has two rental apartments, which she must let at affordable rates for at least seven years.

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Pump Your Brakes! Auto Theft Ring Taken Down

The Westchester County District Attorney’s office announced that after an investigation conducted by the Westchester County District Attorneys Auto Crimes Unit with assistance from New York City Police Department, the New York State Police, Westchester County Police and Yonkers Police, five individuals have been charged in connection with an auto theft ring stealing vehicles in New York City and transporting them to Westchester County for sale.

In total thirteen vehicles were stolen.

Funds for the “purchase” of the vehicles by the undercover officers were supplied by the NICB (the National Insurance Crime Bureau), Nationwide Insurance, and Auto One Insurance.

Charged are:

Milton Delacruz A/K/A Jose Pichardo, 24, of The Bronx, New York with one count of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, In the Second Degree, and with four counts of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, In the Third Degree.

Jean Ramirez, 21, of The Bronx, New York with one count of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property in the Second Degree, and four counts of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, In the Third Degree.

Steven Gil, 20, of The Bronx, New York with one count of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, In the Second Degree.

Julian Rosario A/K/A Platanito, 22, of The Bronx, New York with five counts of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, In the Third Degree.

Raphy Polanco, 19, of The Bronx, New York with one count of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property, In the Third Degree.

They are members of a Bronx car club called “The Black Knights.”

On December 6, 2007 at about 1:50 p.m., Julian Rosario, a/k/a Platanito, Milton Delacruz, a/k/a Jose Pichardo, a/k/a King Snow, and Jean Ramirez sold an undercover officer a stolen 1996 black Acura Integra at the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers for $800.

On December 8, 2007 at about 1:47 p.m., Julian Rosario, and Milton Delacruz, sold an undercover officer a stolen 1999 gray Honda Civic at the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers for $500.

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Frozen Meals On Wheels Leave Some Salty 

A controversial proposal to dramatically change the City’s Meals-on-Wheels program is in poor taste, according to those fighting the plan.

In 2004 the City implemented a pilot program in The Bronx, called Senior Options, and drastically changed the face of Meals-on-Wheels across the borough. Before the change senior meals were prepared locally by a neighborhood non-profit, and were delivered hot and fresh the same day. Senior Options replaced those fresh meals with a standard issue food from a single provider and removed the local non-profits from the mix altogether, placing deliveries in the hands of larger, centralized organizations.

But the lasting effect of Senior Options has been the introduction of frozen meals to Bronx seniors. Before the changes seniors received a hot meal everyday. Now, they can opt for a hot meal each day or to receive the same meal as part of a frozen delivery twice a week. The Department for the Aging (DFTA), in an effort to modernize senior centers across the five boroughs, is proposing to mimic the Bronx pilot program across the City.

Bronx City Councilman G. Oliver Koppell, a staunch opponent of Senior Options from its inception, is fighting DFTA’s expansion plan. Though concerns have been raised about the actual cost benefits of the frozen meal switch and the critical role that delivery persons play in checking the health and safety of citywide seniors, Koppell is urging his colleagues to reject the plan because the meals, simply put, suck.

In a letter to other City Council members Koppell cites complaints from his constituents regarding the “poor quality of the food” provided by the Long Island-based Whitsons Culinary Group, adding that they have “complained bitterly about the tasteless, salty and generally low quality frozen meals.”

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