Talk Bronx New York

Bronx Residents’ Crime, Safety Concerns Lead Quality of Life Survey

A citywide survey has everyone raving about their ‘hoods, but Bronxites are apparently not so happy in theirs - when it comes to crime and safety.

The quality of life survey by the Citizens Committee for New York City found issues Bronx residents also rated as most important - but of the lowest quality - were clean sidewalks, streets and open spaces; clean air; public officials’ responsiveness to neighborhood needs; quiet neighborhoods and good public schools.

They were most satisfied with proximity to public transportation as well as shops, restaurants, parks and playgrounds. They were also happy with the borough’s diversity and having neighbors they get along with.

The survey questioned 340 Bronxites. While statistically a low sample, the Citizens Committee said it sought a broad range of respondents - in parks, on street corners, outside the Bronx Public Library and on the Grand Concourse.

“I think it is significant that everywhere else in the city beside the Bronx considers their neighborhoods relatively safe,” said Jemilah Magnusson, spokeswoman for the Citizens Committee, a nonprofit group that promotes civic engagement. “Even if it is just perception.”

John Robert, district manager of Community Board 2 in Hunts Point-Longwood, said he thinks the results are representative.

“All of the outer boroughs suffer from the stepchild thing, but we’re maybe the third stepchild,” he said. “The Bronx is on the back burner.”

Residents elsewhere gave their boroughs a fair-to-excellent rating on safety. Bronxites gave the borough’s safety a lower rating of poor to good. Read more..

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‘Park’ Pool Floats To Bronx

The Bronx has successfully stolen away the Floating Pool from Brooklyn.

After a hugely successful run on the Brooklyn Heights waterfront last summer, the so-called Floating Pool Lady barge will spend this summer moored alongside Baretto Point Park in the South Bronx, a Parks Department official told The Brooklyn Paper this week.

“Our intention was always to spread it around the city,” said Parks spokesman Phil Abramson.

No one was more pleased than Rep. Jose Serrano (D–Bronx), who fought to get the pool to his district.

“Our Community Board 2 is the only one in the city without a swimming pool — public or private,” Serrano said. “The Floating Pool will be a singular destination.”

The pool certainly performed that function for Brooklyn. From July 4 to Sept. 3, 49,494 people took a dunk — 72 percent of whom were from Brooklyn.

But Serrano was unmoved. “The Bronx is only a subway ride away!” the congressman crowed.

For its part, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy said it was saddened.
Brooklyn Bridge Realty

“While we are disappointed,” the agency said in a statement, “we’re pleased that our neighbors in the Bronx will get to enjoy The Floating Pool Lady.”

Less-polite Brooklynites offered a Bronx cheer.

“This is an abomination,” said Brooklyn patriot Ron Grossman, who was a regular pool user last summer. “For three months, there really was a Brooklyn Bridge Park. This summer, it’ll be just a bunch of old piers again. Thanks, Bronx.”

SOURCE: BrooklynPaper.com

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Growing Co-ops Where the Rubble Reigned 

EDUARDO RODRIGUEZ, a 51-year-old with an athletic build and a garrulous manner, used to play stickball amid the burned-out buildings in Hunts Point. He never dreamed that four decades later he would seek to return to live in Hunts Point, the South Bronx neighborhood of his youth.

“Are you kidding?” Mr. Rodriguez said the other day. “It was a horrible place. Much of it was abandoned. You’d see dope addicts on every stoop and rooftop.”

The story of the rebirth of the South Bronx has been slowly unfolding for three decades, but only in recent years have developers turned their attention and resources to this particular community.

In a sign of how far Hunts Point and neighboring Longwood have come since the early 1970s, when more than 100 murders a year were recorded in the local precinct, compared with 8 last year, construction on what according to the borough president’s office is the area’s first new cooperative apartment building is poised to begin this month. Mr. Rodriguez, who manages 80 parks and playgrounds in the South Bronx for the city’s Parks Department, plans to apply for one of the 50 apartments.

“Hunts Point has made a 180-degree turnabout,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who lives in Highbridge, a couple of miles to the west. “It’s much cleaner. The murder rate is way down. It’s completely different.”

The new co-op, a sleek, seven-story building sheathed in glass, is set to rise on the site of an abandoned park at Fox Street and Leggett Avenue. While the site is actually in Longwood, many residents and natives, among them Colin Powell, have long referred to the area as Hunts Point. The building, which is to open in the summer of 2009, will offer energy-efficient appliances along with a fitness center, a landscaped roof, a community room and parking.

With support from the city and the state, apartments will cost $89,000 to $242,000 and be available to families with annual incomes of $37,000 to $91,000. The first 25 apartments will be sold to neighborhood residents.

John Robert, district manager of Community Board 2, anticipates no lack of prospective local buyers, even though the median household income in the area is only $18,000, below the federal poverty level of $20,650 for a family of four.

“We’ve heard stories for the longest time of families moving out of the area because it’s all low-income and they earn too much to get subsidized housing,” Mr. Robert said. “This is perfect for working-class people who can afford a little more than the area average so they can stay in the community where they grew up.”

Les Bluestone, a partner in the company developing the co-op, envisions the new building as an encouraging signpost pointing to the neighborhood’s future.

“If this shows that there’s a market for units at these prices, it will encourage other affordable housing,” said Mr. Bluestone, whose Blue Sea Development Company built housing for moderate-income families in nearby Melrose and Morrisania. “We’re hoping this will be a catalyst for other projects in the area, showing developers that ‘Come on in, the water’s fine.’ ”

SOURCE: NYTimes.com Read more..

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Bronx Community Boards Schedule

COMMUNITY BOARD 1 (Melrose, Mott Haven) meets at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 24 at CB1 Office, 3024 Third Ave. Call (718) 585-7117.

COMMUNITY BOARD 2 (Longwood, Hunts Point) meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 30, at Urban Health Plan, 1065 Southern Blvd. Call (718) 328-9125.

COMMUNITY BOARD 4 (Highbridge, Mount Eden and Concourse) meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 22, at Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Murray Cohen Auditorium, 1650 Grand Concourse. Call (718) 299-0800.

COMMUNITY BOARD 5 (Morris Heights, Fordham, Bathgate and Mount Hope) meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 23 at St. Simon Stock School, 2195 Valentine Ave. Call (718) 364-2030.

COMMUNITY BOARD 9 (Soundview, Clasons Point, Parkchester, Bruckner and Harding Park) meets at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 17 at CB9 Office, 1967 Turnbull Ave. Call (718) 823-3034.

COMMUNITY BOARD 10 (Throgs Neck, City Island, Pelham Bay, Co-op City, Zerega, Westchester Square, Country Club and Edgewater) meets at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 17 at Preston High School, 2870 Schurz Ave. Call (718) 892-1161.

COMMUNITY BOARD 12 (Wakefield, Williamsbridge, Woodlawn Eastchester and Baychester) meets at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 24, at CB12 office, 4101 White Plains Road. Call (718) 881-4455.

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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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