Talk Bronx New York

Greening the Bronx, One Castoff at a Time

 

Omar Freilla, center, started a cooperative to recycle building supplies with, from left, Julie Falu Garcia, Yasin York, Gloria Walker and Carlos Angel.

 Carlos Angel, left, of ReBuilders Source solicits construction materials at an Upper West Side building under renovation.

No one would mistake Timpson Place in the South Bronx for the cradle of a new environmental movement. This short street wedged between Bruckner and Southern Boulevards and East 149th Street is lined with small homes and a couple of brick warehouses. The largest tree — or, more accurately, what remains of it — is a Beetle-size hunk of roots and trunk that was yanked out of a construction site and dumped onto the sidewalk.

Give Omar Freilla a chance, and he might find a use for that trunk. Inside a green-and-white warehouse on Timpson Place, he has been helping a small crew of urban recyclers arrange rows of doors, stacks of tiles, pallets of gravel and gallons of paint as they prepare for Monday’s official opening of ReBuilders Source, where used and overstocked building supplies will be sold at deep discounts. He believes it is the nation’s first worker-owned cooperative for reused building materials.

“The stuff you see here, if you look at it for what it is, is a toilet or a cabinet, it’s not garbage,” he said. “If you put it in a Dumpster, then it becomes waste. Context is everything. All we’re doing is changing the context.”

He intends to do the same for his neighborhood, Hunts Point, which for decades has held the dubious honor of being the city’s dumping ground. Wastewater treatment plants, smelly sludge processing facilities and riverside scrap yards outnumber parks. Mr. Freilla figured that if he could get people to see the value in things others tossed away, he might also change how they look at the out-of-the-way neighborhood, too. Read more..

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Pope concludes US trip with Mass at Yankee Stadium in Bronx

Pope Benedict XVI arrived in storied Yankee Stadium on Sunday for his final Mass in America, cheered by a joyous crowd after making a solemn stop at the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Tens of thousands of Roman Catholics filled the stadium, chanting, clapping and waving white and yellow handkerchiefs in the Vatican’s colors as the white popemobile pulled in.

Outside the stadium, two yellow dump trucks filled with sand blockaded 161st Street before the Mass, an extra level of security along with the heavy police presence. Pilgrims without tickets pushed up against metal police barricades, hoping to get a glimpse of the arriving pope.

Inside the stadium, ad-splashed outfield walls were draped in white with purple and yellow bunting. A white altar perched over second base, and the papal seal covered the pitcher’s mound, suspended by white and yellow ribbons.

“I have never seen Yankee Stadium so beautiful, and I have season’s tickets,” said Philip Giordano, 49, a tax attorney from Greenwich, Conn., who won seats in the loge section behind home plate through a parish lottery. “It sure beats sitting in my local church.”

Added his wife, Suzanne: “I’m hoping to feel something from (Benedict). Everyone who has seen him says they crumple, their knees buckle. You come away just feeling different.”

The New Orleans crooner Harry Connick Jr., on the pre-Mass concert program, remarked that he is often asked if he’s a practicing Catholic.

“Practicing?” he said. “I’m playing for the pope today.”

Earlier, on a chilly, gray morning, the pope blessed the site of the terror attacks and pleaded with God to bring “peace to our violent world.”

The visit by Benedict to ground zero was a poignant moment in a trip marked by unexpectedly festive crowds anxious to see the former academic who for three years has led the world’s Catholics.

Benedict was driven in the popemobile part-way down a ramp now used mostly by construction trucks to a spot by the north tower’s footprint. He walked the final steps, knelt in silent prayer, then rose to light a memorial candle.

Addressing a group that included survivors, clergy and public officials, he acknowledged the many faiths of the victims at the “scene of incredible violence and pain.”

The pope also prayed for “those who suffered death, injury and loss” in the attacks at the Pentagon and in the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa. More than 2,900 people were killed in the four crashes of the airliners hijacked by al-Qaida.

“God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world,” the pope prayed. “Turn to your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred.”

Benedict invited 24 people with ties to ground zero to join him: survivors, relatives of victims and four rescue workers. He greeted each member of the group individually as a string quartet played in the background.

In his prayer, he also remembered those who, “because of their presence here that day, suffer from injuries and illness.”

New York deputy fire chief James Riches, father of a fallen Sept. 11 firefighter, said the pope’s visit gave him consolation.

“We said ‘Where was God?’ on 9/11, but he’s come back here today and they’ve restored our faith,” Riches said.

The site where the World Trade Center was destroyed is normally filled with hundreds of workers building a 102-story skyscraper, a memorial and transit hub. It bears little resemblance to the debris-filled pit where crews toiled to remove twisted steel and victims’ remains.

The remains of more than 1,100 people have never been identified.

Benedict was joined by New York Cardinal Edward Egan, along with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Gov. David Paterson and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine. The land is owned and managed by the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.

Benedict has addressed terrorism several times during his six-day visit.

In a private meeting with President Bush, the two leaders “touched on the need to confront terrorism with appropriate means that respect the human person and his or her rights,” according to a joint U.S.-Holy See statement.

Benedict has been critical of harsh interrogation methods, telling a meeting of the Vatican’s office for social justice last September that, while a country has an obligation to keep its citizens safe, prisoners must never be demeaned or tortured. Read more..

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