Talk Bronx New York

Nadau Lavergne Architects, Antony, France

Nadau Lavergne Architects reimagines the Grand Concourse as a linear urban forest in one proposal in this show at the Bronx Museum of the Arts

Decaying freeways, high-speed trains, levees, bicycle lanes — ever since Hurricane Katrina, infrastructure has been the hot topic among architects and architectural curators across the country. The chatter only grew louder after the Obama administration unveiled its economic stimulus package, igniting hopes of a major national transformation. “Intersections: The Grand Concourse Beyond 100,” which opened at the Bronx Museum of the Arts on Sunday, is the latest show to pick up on this trend.

A result of a nine-month competition sponsored by the museum and the Design Trust for Public Space, the show focuses on seven visions for the future of the Grand Concourse in the Bronx that range from urban farms to high-tech sound barriers for a nearby freeway. Much of the work is by students, and it reflects the kind of earnest idealism that has always been a staple of graduate studios.

However naïve these proposals may seem at first glance, though, they are all conceived at a manageable, human scale. And the more time you spend among them, the more you become aware of both the faded beauty of the Grand Concourse and the remarkable potential for revitalizing this century-old boulevard modeled on the Champs-Élysées. Eventually you begin to feel that the problem is not so much the innocence of planners and architects, but our own indifference and lack of political will.

A highlight of the show is a series of big, glossy photographs by Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao. These are the first things you see, and a revelation: a startling illustration of the insensitive planning that contributed to the boulevard’s decay.

One side of an image taken from the rooftop of a housing project radiates with the vibrant green treetops of the Mosholu Parkway. A thick band of train tracks carves diagonally through the other side of the image, disrupting the calm. The Concourse looks lost and isolated between the two. Read more..

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Teenagers in an urban gardening program tearing up the asphalt at Brook Park in the Bronx. They’re planning to plant more vegetables to donate to local residents

 A symphony of dull thuds and sharp clanks heralded — what else? — the planting season at Brook Park in the Bronx. Teenagers took turns swinging sledgehammers and pickaxes as they tore up the remains of an ancient basketball court inside the Mott Haven park, where they have already planted eight large boxes now bursting with tomatoes, peppers, greens and other natural goodies.

“This used to be a parking lot,” said Raymond Figueroa, a program coordinator with Aspira, the youth group sponsoring the urban planting. “We’re opening up the asphalt so we can plant some more.”

And before you could ask, he launched into a list of the stuff they had already planted earlier this year.

“We got tomatoes,” he said. “We got eggplants. We got peppers. We got collard greens. We already did one harvest, which we donated to a food pantry that feeds 500 people.” Read more..

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The Bronx Culture Trolley rolls again on Wednesday, July 1, along South Bronx Cultural Corridor with an evening full of family activities. The evening features six art exhibitions at: Longwood Art Gallery at Hostos, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Synthetic Zero Art Space, LDR Studio Gallery, and Bruckner Gallery at the Bruckner Bar & Grill. The evening will also include a book signing at the Bronx Museum, a visit to the outdoor Tree Museum, a trip to the Alexander Avenue Art and Antiques District, an outdoor literary reading at St. Mary’s Park, and a karaoke after-party at the Bruckner Bar & Grill. The Bronx Culture Trolley is a program of the Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA). Admission to most activities is free and all are welcome to hop on board and enjoy them. Read more..

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A Garden in the Bronx

How a small urban farm is helping one community eat well without leaving the neighborhood.

Along Third Avenue in the center of the South Bronx, the street is filled with McDonald’s and commercial fried chicken joints that fit neatly among rows of low-income apartments. Though the fast-food enterprise rakes in billions of dollars each year in the U.S., it has a particularly overwhelming presence in poor communities such as the South Bronx. The neighborhood boasts the highest rates of asthma and diabetes in the city, according to the city Department of Health’s 2006 Vital Statistics Summary. Growing up on greasy hamburgers and high-fructose soft drinks, residents often find themselves with little understanding of healthy eating and where to find better options.

Just around the corner, on 165th Street and Boston Road, there is something surprising for this area: A once abandoned lot overwhelmed by rubbish and drug dealers has been converted into a community garden called the Jacqueline Denise Davis Garden, or the JDD. This community garden is part of an initiative called Learn it, Grow it, Eat it, started in 2006 and funded by the Council on the Environment of New York City to educate teens about their health and their community.

“Community gardens are becoming a trend,” says David Saphire, the project coordinator of Learn it, Grow it, Eat it, or LGE. The venture was partially based on other urban farms that have experienced great success, such as Added Value in Red Hook, Brooklyn and East New York Farms in East Brooklyn.

While there are over 600 community gardens in New York City alone, Saphire says that LGE is one of the only initiatives that incorporates health education in high schools. The JDD, Wishing Well Community and the Model T gardens in the Bronx are all part of LGE.

In Saphire’s office, on the opposite end of New York City, located just across the street from City Hall, he explains how the idea developed. Saphire was teaching a nutritional program in local high schools in the South Bronx, touting healthy alternatives to the common fast-food pitfalls. Saphire, a self-educated nutrition guru who has been an environmental educator and researcher for the last 10 years, is a thin man, one who looks like he practices what he preaches.

Working in the South Bronx, it didn’t take long for Saphire to notice a gap between what he was teaching in his nutrition lessons and what foods were readily available to his students. The solution Saphire proposed: Teach the kids about healthy alternatives by having them grow their own fruits and vegetables. And, as an added bonus, make it free.

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Lawsuit challenges NYPD stop-and-frisk policy

A civil liberties group filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging the NYPD’s practice of stopping hundreds of thousands of people each year for questioning, saying it is racially biased.

The New York Civil Liberties Union lawsuit lists New York Post reporter Leonardo Blair as the sole plaintiff, saying he was stopped and frisked by police officers as he walked from his car to his Bronx home last November.

He was taken to a police station, where officers expressed surprise that though he was black, he was not from “the projects,” the lawsuit said. Blair, 28, has a master’s degree from Columbia University.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan said the NYPD has stopped people in New York nearly 1 million times over the last two years. It said more than half of the people targeted were black, and some 90 percent were either black or Latino.

U.S. Census Bureau statistics show 25 percent of the city’s population is black, 28 percent is Hispanic and 44 percent is white.

The lawsuit asks that the stop-and-frisk practice be declared unconstitutional and that Blair be awarded unspecified compensatory damages.

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