Talk Bronx New York

 A Library With a Past Ponders Its Future

TWO years ago, a lanky teenager named Adolfo Abreu who lives in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx got involved in a campaign to turn the shuttered Fordham Library Center into a youth center. Unhappy about the dearth of activities available to him and his friends, he spent months rallying support for the cause, only to learn in late May that the city was eyeing the former library for use as an animal shelter. 

“I felt like, wow, they care more about animals than us?” said Adolfo, a high school freshman who serves as the president of Sistas and Brothas United, the youth branch of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, a local organization. “We’ve been fighting for this for years. That part of the Bronx is like a wasteland, and having an animal shelter isn’t going to improve it.”

The former library, a handsome three-story red brick building with arched windows, sits on a downtrodden block of Bainbridge Avenue near Fordham Road’s bustling retail corridor. It has been locked since 2005, shortly before the new $50 million Bronx Library Center opened one block to the west.

Adolfo Abreu isn’t the only one with grand visions for the building. Members of local community groups have envisioned the nearly 30,000-square-foot former library as outfitted with a computer lab, a boxing ring and an art studio, and accommodating activities like after-school tutoring.

The city’s health department is working to open animal shelters in Queens and the Bronx, which currently have only pet receiving centers. The agency has a contract with New York City Animal Care and Control, a nonprofit group, to operate shelters.

Jessica Scaperotti, a department spokeswoman, confirmed that the agency was considering the former Fordham Library as a site for a shelter, but said there was no timetable for the plan. The issue was reported in The Norwood News, a local newspaper.

Despite potential obstacles, leaders of the effort to turn the old library into a youth center said they would soldier ahead. Among them is Fernando Cabrera, the pastor of New Life Outreach International in Kingsbridge Heights.

“There are plenty of other places an animal shelter would be suitable,” Mr. Cabrera said. “The community isn’t going to stand for that here.”

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A Friendly Bustle, With Oases Nearby

IT was either the Bronx or Queens.

Jason Velez, 32, a financial adviser, and his girlfriend, RoseAnn Monterroso, 28, a consignment shop manager, had decided to move in together. He owned a one-bedroom in Bedford Park and worked nearby in Belmont. She owned a one-bedroom in Jackson Heights and commuted to Midtown.

They looked in Queens but decided they would get more for their money in Bedford Park — whose proximity to public transportation and major highways provides easy commuting to both Manhattan and Westchester.

“There’s the Bronx stigma,” said Mr. Velez, who grew up in Parkchester. “I thought it would be hard to convince her, but the more she saw, she started liking it.”

She sold her place, he sold his, and they bought a two-bedroom in his co-op on East 201st Street for $178,000. They plan to redo the bath and closets with a custom job, not prefab units.

“We’ll take the extra money,” Mr. Velez said, “and instead of buying something we don’t like, we’ll create something we do like.”

But Bedford Park is about more than affordability to Mr. Velez. It’s about friendliness. For instance three weeks ago his broker, David Abreu, who lives next door, visited a Manhattan comedy club to witness what Mr. Velez had billed as his first foray into stand-up. (In fact, Mr. Velez is no comedian: halfway through his “set,” he pulled Ms. Monterroso onstage, dropped to one knee and proposed. She said yes.)

Once heavily Irish and Jewish, Bedford Park in the 2000 census was 58 percent Hispanic, 17 percent white, 13 percent black and 7 percent Asian. There is a large mix of new arrivals, among them Guyanese, Albanian and Vietnamese. A Korean commercial strip occupies a block of East 204th Street.

John Dhauraj, a Guyanese immigrant who has owned a three-bedroom house on East 203rd Street for 19 years, was chatting one recent afternoon with a neighbor, Cholelle Miranda, who grew up locally and rents a place in a six-story brick apartment house two doors down. Their block is typical: tree-lined and backing up to the woodsy Mosholu Parkway, with early 20th-century single-family and multifamily houses sandwiched in among apartment buildings.

“This block is still a community,” Ms. Miranda said, and Mr. Dhauraj added, “We look out for each other.”

Like many in this middle-class area, both feel pinched by the economy.

“Let me put it to you this way,” said Mr. Dhauraj, 63, who used to work in building maintenance. “Since I retired, I got to look at the pennies. When I was working, I never looked at pennies.”

Fortunately, Mr. Dhauraj bought before the wave of subprime lending. The Bronx is the seventh-ranked county in the nation for foreclosure-related decreases in home values, according to the Center for Responsible Lending.

But several factors insulate Bedford Park. Rental apartment buildings, which constitute a majority of housing here, are mostly immune. Typical homeowners have lived in their homes for a long time, so are less susceptible to the recent proliferation of risky loans.

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