Almost five years ago, Transcon International Inc. leased space in a nearly empty former manufacturing building in the Port Morris section of the South Bronx.

The needle trade businesses had for years been leaving the neighborhood, which was a symbol of urban blight in the 1970s and 1980s, and the building, on Rose Feiss Boulevard just east of Bruckner Boulevard, had at one time been scheduled for demolition by New York City.

Now, Transcon, a warehouse and shipping company, occupies four of the building’s six floors — the other tenant is a military uniform manufacturer — and its executives could not be happier with this neighborhood, which seems to have hit its stride.

“This is a phenomenal little peninsula of extraordinary abilities,” said Michael Blodget, the chief executive of Transcon, referring to an area that stretches roughly from 149th Street south to the Harlem and East Rivers and the borough’s southern border.

Covering about 40 square blocks and encompassing Mott Haven, Port Morris, named after a port created along the East River by Gouverneur Morris, one of the writers of the Constitution, is one of the few industrial areas of the city that are flourishing. Read more..

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WASHINGTON — Randy Levine, the president of the Yankees, told a Congressional hearing Friday that if the city had not issued tax-exempt financing for the team’s new stadium, it would have left town.

“It’s been no secret for many years” that the team would move if it could not save tens of millions of dollars on financing with tax-free bonds, Levine told the House subcommittee on domestic policy. He added: “There was no shortage of suitors. We see ourselves as a paradigm in professional sports.”

Levine refused to be specific about the other suitors, but when asked after the hearing if New Jersey has wooed the Yankees in recent years he said, “Absolutely!”

He did not say if the interest had emanated from the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, the landlord of the Meadowlands complex. But Carl Goldberg, a board member since 2002 and chairman since 2003, said by telephone, “I’ve never had conversations with any representatives of the New York Yankees about them relocating to the Meadowlands.”

George Zoffinger, the former president, confirmed the history. Read more..

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Todd Heisler/The New York Times

CONVERGENCE Shoppers navigate the intersection of Southern Boulevard, Boston Road and 174th Street, a business hub in Crotona Park East. New construction has replaced blight in many parts of the neighborhood.

After being eviscerated by highway projects, poverty, public health crises and crime, this square-mile South Bronx neighborhood took its final blow in the form of arson, both by tenants and landlords, which helped to reduce rows of tenements to rubble.

The ruined streets conjured fear when used as film locations, whether for horror movies (“Wolfen”) or police dramas (“Fort Apache the Bronx”). They also served as a different type of media backdrop when, 31 years ago this month, President Jimmy Carter  paid a visit, describing the area as America’s “worst slum.”

In the intervening decades, much has changed. Once-desolate lots now have housing, whether rebuilt two-families or luxury condominiums.

One lot that Mr. Carter visited is now the site of Interval Green and Louis Nine House, a $46 million complex with 173 moderately priced apartments, built with planted roofs and leafy courtyards by the nonprofit Women Housing and Economic Development Corporation. It is to open to renters next month.

Some new homes in the area make use of materials that are sensitive to Crotona high asthma rates. In fact, 28 new brick-and-stone two- and three-families with nontoxic rugs and paints built by the Blue Sea Development Company, won a city environmental award in September.

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