Talk Bronx New York

 It’s not unusual to see skunks outside the city. But to see them at an apartment complex in the Bronx is quite unusual. And it has some people who live there keeping a close look every time they go outside.

In the Throgs Neck Houses, police patrol on mounted horses. Seeing a sleeping cat is normal. A squirrel is normal. And even a nest of green parrots is normal.

“It’s like a wildlife preserve here,” resident Bruce Ruiz said.

And now, unfortunately for residents, skunks are normal too. Ruiz has to be careful when he walks his dog at night.

“In the night, when the sun goes down, they come out,” he said. “You can smell them. You can smell the spray of the skunks.”

The black and white menaces showed up in the housing development a few years ago. Since then, they have reproduced. Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

Maxi Phalone (right) reacts after her sister was pulled alive from the rubble of a collapsed building in Port-au-Prince on Monday, January 18. Bronx residents have responded to Haiti’s earthquake with donations but more help is needed. Photo by Julie Jacobson

In two decades as a clergyman, Rev. Nathanael Saint-Pierre has never worked so many hours, consoled so many congregants, seen so many tears. Saint-Pierre heads the Haitian Congregation of the Good Samaritan Episcopal Church on E. 219th Street in the Bronx and has led the borough’s response to the earthquake that devastated Haiti on Tuesday, January 12.

“We Haitians in New York City are sad and frustrated,” he said. “I have never had to face such hard issues.”

Saint-Pierre was fortunate not to lose any family members in the disaster but many of his congregants did. More have struggled to contact family members and friends in hastily constructed shelters amid the ruble. Good Samaritan has gathered food and donations for those trapped on the impoverished Caribbean island and Haitians trapped here in New York City as well.

“One of my [congregant’s] families lost six people,” Saint-Pierre said. “One man who lost his sister was unable to find a funeral home in Port-au-Prince and there are no commercial flights to Haiti. He had to have someone there transfer the body to the Dominican Republic [to be cremated]. When commercial flights start again he’ll get the ashes. He needs to grieve but to grieve is not easy.”

The daughter of one congregant brought her daughter to the United States for Christmas. Her home in Haiti has been destroyed and she has no way to return but no job or legal status here. Saint-Pierre hopes to raise money and help the woman gain legal status.

“Unfortunately, we cannot only focus on those in Haiti,” Saint-Pierre said. “There are also crises here.”

Although the Bronx boasts hundreds of thousands of Caribbean immigrants, many from the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti, the borough is home to only 4,196 people of Haitian heritage and 2,455 Haitian immigrants, census records reveal. In comparison, the Bronx is home to some 143,000 Dominicans and nearly 49,000 Jamaicans. Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

 WHOSE ARMORY? Northwest Bronx residents rally outside the Kingsbridge Armory in October

Members of the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA) watched in hushed suspense from the visitors gallery above the City Council chamber on Dec. 14.

After four years of building a grassroots movement to advocate responsible development in their community, they looked on as councilmembers voted on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plans to turn the Kingsbridge Armory, a 575,000-square-foot fortress-like structure in the northwest Bronx, into a lowwage shopping mall. When Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera (D-Bronx) finally announced the project’s defeat by a vote of 45-1, cheers rang throughout the chambers.

“This is a historic moment in the City Council,” said councilmember Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn). “I can’t remember any big project like this that the mayor initially wanted, that the council would go against in support of the people.” Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

If you want to get a last-minute tax deduction in for 2009, or just want to get a jump on your 2010 return, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Bronx News Network by clicking here. After the jump is a letter we just mailed out to some of our friends and supporters. It lays out our accomplishments in 2009 and our plans for 2010 (including making this blog bigger and better!).
We’re trying to raise $15,000 from individuals by Jan. 30. If you value hyper-local Bronx news — if you’re reading this blog you obviously do — please make a donation today! We’ll keep a running daily count of how much we raise. So far, we’ve raised $500. Help us get to $1,000 today. Thanks! (If you’ve already responded to our e-mail appeal, thank you!!!)  — Jordan Moss Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post

 Artist’s rendering of Gate 2 entrance to Heritage Park, which would preserve part of old Yankee Stadium and put it to use for the new park

 Despite the opposition of baseball romantics and some Bronx residents, the city plans to dismantle the classic Gate 2 from the old Yankee Stadium.

“I think saving it is a good idea,” Sandra Mullen, 33, of the Bronx, said of the majestic entrance opposite the new Yankee Stadium.

“I like the old stadium from when I was a child. The new one is beautiful, but the old one was a classic.”

Boosters of the effort to save Gate 2 want it incorporated as the front door to the new Heritage Park, a 10-acre park slated to fill the footprint of the House That Ruth Built.

They’ve established a pro-Gate 2 Web site, featuring a 2-1/2-minute video presentation with their vision of the structure as a gateway to the new park.

Critics of the plan say Gate 2 is undeserving of rescue. Stabilizing and restoring the gate would cost $10 million, they say.

The “historic” gate was significantly changed when the Stadium was renovated in the mid-1970s, they note.

The Parks Department said there are plans to use other aspects of the old stadium - at least those pieces not peddled as pricey collectibles. Read more..

(No Ratings Yet)
 Loading ...
 Email This Post