Talk Bronx New York

Horace Mann Yields Surge as Schools Stuck By Auctions

Horace Mann School, the $29,000-a- year preparatory school in the Bronx, and dozens more New York educational and cultural institutions just got stuck between the collapse of auction-rate bonds and an expired New York law.

Rates on $60 million of the securities sold by Horace Mann in 2002 rose to 5.4 percent last month from 3.4 percent. At nearby Riverdale Country School, where tuition is $35,250 for grades six through 12, interest jumped to 11 percent from 3 percent.

Interest costs almost doubled for borrowers in the $330 billion auction-rate bond market this year after banks stopped buying unwanted securities for the first time since they were created in the 1980s. Unlike local governments across the country, the New York institutions can’t convert the bonds into other types of debt after a state funding law expired Jan. 31.

“It’s a horrible situation,” said Andrew Alper, former chairman of the New York City Economic Development Corp. and a board member at Riverdale. “The only solution is to pay the bonds off or to pay a higher interest rate.”

Horace Mann officials declined to comment. Graduates of the 121-year-old school, located on 18 acres overlooking Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, include venture capital investor Alan Patricof, founder of private equity firm Apax Partners, and Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer, who in 2004 received the Alumni Council Award for Distinguished Achievement when he was attorney general, resigned as New York’s governor this month amid allegations that he patronized prostitutes.

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Students from the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation hear a talk by zoo employee Linda Corcoran.

Hands on: Students Aber Hajdarmataj (l.), and Yuliana Hernandez take measurements from a miniature ecosystem they created in class.

Wildlife on Top List of Studies For One Bronx School 

At the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation, the zoo is more than a field trip

When Elijah Maderon attended a class at the Bronx Zoo in January, he and his fellow sixth-graders gave presentations on how they might protect peregrine falcons from the pesticide DDT if they were conservationists on a tight budget.

Inspired by the activity, Elijah quickly prepared a proposal afterward. With the silver tongue of an experienced entrepreneur, he described a video game to an intrigued teacher. Called Zoo Tycoon, the game allows players to work within a budget to build and maintain a zoo with the goals of ensuring its animals’ health and happiness while still turning a profit. The game, Elijah maintained, would fit right in with his school’s curriculum.

That kind of thinking is encouraged at the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation (UASWC) in the Bronx, where Elijah and 148 other students represent the inaugural class. This is one of 19 themed-curricula public schools throughout New York City funded partly by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Famed Arthur Ave., the ‘Little Italy of the Bronx,’ would be spruced up under BID plans.

Little Italy Gets ‘BID Guys’ To Take Care Of The Neighborhood 

The “Little Italy of the Bronx” may soon have its own little Renaissance.

Efforts are underway to create a Business Improvement District in Belmont that would include popular shopping and restaurant stretches like famed Arthur Ave.

“There are so many positive things taking place in this neighborhood,” said Community Board 6 District Manager Ivine Galarza. “This BID would really enhance the whole area.”

The effort, which is being led by the Belmont Small Business Association, has been in the works for two years.

The community board will hold a special hearing on the proposal at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13, at the Belmont Library, 610 E. 186th St., to get local business and community input. The board meeting also will include an update on the redesign of the Fordham Mall Plaza.

The Belmont BID plan, which needs approval from the community board, City Council and Mayor Bloomberg, would allow for additional sanitation, security and marketing services.

Merchants, business owners and commercial property landlords would be charged various fees expected to total $340,000 annually.

The BID would be home to more than 300 businesses spread across 37 blocks bounded by Fordham Road to the north, E. 183rd St. to the south, Lorillard Place to the west and Southern Blvd. to the east.

More than 50 similar BIDs exist throughout the city.

“Every single one of them has brought increased shopping, increased foot traffic, and safer and cleaner conditions for everyone,” said Frank Franz of the Belmont Small Business Association.

One major proposal under the BID would be to expand parking in three popular shopping districts: on Arthur Ave., 187th St. near Beaumont Ave., and Fordham Road near Southern Blvd.

Other possible projects include steam-cleaning sidewalks, video surveillance, facade improvements and promotional events such as street fairs and boccie tournaments. “There are a lot of opportunities here,” Franz said.

SOURCE: NYDailyNews.com

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 Shoppers look for bargains outside stores in new business improvement district along Southern Blvd. in Longwood.

Southern Blvd Gets BID To Help Residents & Businesses Living

A major shopping strip in the South Bronx has become the city’s newest business improvement district - joining such BIDs as Times Square and downtown Brooklyn’s Fulton Street.

On New Year’s Eve, Mayor Bloomberg signed into law a plan by business and property owners in the Southern Blvd. area of Longwood that will increase their property taxes to pay for additional sanitation services, security, graffiti removal, marketing and Christmas lights.

Owners in the new district, which runs from 163rd St. and Hunts Point Ave. to Westchester Ave., also hope to create a parking lot to both raise money and make shopping more convenient, and to add extra lighting on the streets, which will allow businesses to stay open later.

They hope the improvements will attract new and bigger retailers, reduce crime in the area, and make it a more pleasant place to shop.

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