Talk Bronx New York

 A Library With a Past Ponders Its Future

TWO years ago, a lanky teenager named Adolfo Abreu who lives in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx got involved in a campaign to turn the shuttered Fordham Library Center into a youth center. Unhappy about the dearth of activities available to him and his friends, he spent months rallying support for the cause, only to learn in late May that the city was eyeing the former library for use as an animal shelter. 

“I felt like, wow, they care more about animals than us?” said Adolfo, a high school freshman who serves as the president of Sistas and Brothas United, the youth branch of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, a local organization. “We’ve been fighting for this for years. That part of the Bronx is like a wasteland, and having an animal shelter isn’t going to improve it.”

The former library, a handsome three-story red brick building with arched windows, sits on a downtrodden block of Bainbridge Avenue near Fordham Road’s bustling retail corridor. It has been locked since 2005, shortly before the new $50 million Bronx Library Center opened one block to the west.

Adolfo Abreu isn’t the only one with grand visions for the building. Members of local community groups have envisioned the nearly 30,000-square-foot former library as outfitted with a computer lab, a boxing ring and an art studio, and accommodating activities like after-school tutoring.

The city’s health department is working to open animal shelters in Queens and the Bronx, which currently have only pet receiving centers. The agency has a contract with New York City Animal Care and Control, a nonprofit group, to operate shelters.

Jessica Scaperotti, a department spokeswoman, confirmed that the agency was considering the former Fordham Library as a site for a shelter, but said there was no timetable for the plan. The issue was reported in The Norwood News, a local newspaper.

Despite potential obstacles, leaders of the effort to turn the old library into a youth center said they would soldier ahead. Among them is Fernando Cabrera, the pastor of New Life Outreach International in Kingsbridge Heights.

“There are plenty of other places an animal shelter would be suitable,” Mr. Cabrera said. “The community isn’t going to stand for that here.”

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Bronx Residents Are Joining WHEDCo and The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene In Stepping Up and “Taking the Stairs!”

Kick-Off Event at Urban Horizons Focuses on the Health and Environmental Benefits of Stair UsageThe Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation (WHEDCo), a community based non-profit organization dedicated to building a more beautiful and prosperous Bronx, is partnering with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to host a kick-off event at Urban Horizons today as part of a campaign to promote stair usage in buildings across the City. The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene selected WHEDCo’s flagship building containing 132 affordable apartments, Urban Horizons, to implement and evaluate a program to encourage residents of multi-family apartments to “Take the Stairs!” in an effort to improve fitness levels and conserve energy.

“Taking the stairs is great example of how staying fit can be a simple part of your everyday life,” said Dr. Karen Lee, the Health Department’s Deputy Director for Chronic Disease Prevention and Control. “Based on their commitment to community health initiatives and environmentally-friendly housing development, WHEDCo emerged as an ideal partner for us to explore ways to encourage stair usage and promote physical activity among residents in multi-family buildings.”

Calling on residents to “Burn Calories, Not Electricity”, the campaign addresses the current obesity epidemic in NYC and promotes environmental conservation simultaneously. As part of the program, stair prompt signs have been posted throughout Urban Horizons encouraging tenants to utilize the stairs instead of energy-wasting elevators. At today’s kick-off event residents will receive information on the health benefits of stair usage and other health and fitness resources. Fun fitness giveaways, including pedometers, coupons for free food at local farmers markets, and children’s bike helmets courtesy of the New York City Department of Transportation, will be available.

“WHEDCo believes that all families deserve a healthy and prosperous future and that all New Yorkers should support cutting back consumption of both calories and electricity.” said Nancy Biberman, WHEDCo’s president and founder. “We are thrilled to collaborate with The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to promote health and fitness initiatives throughout Urban Horizons.”

WHEDCo staffers are joining Urban Horizon tenants in taking the stairs.

The NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene will provide stair promotion signage, free-of-charge, to any NYC building willing to mount the signs. Signs can be ordered by calling 311.

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Push in Bronx for H.I.V. Test for All

Dr. Donna Futterman, left, with Rosita Gonzalez and colleagues at Montefiore Medical Center, helped the city shape the plan.

The New York City health department plans to announce on Thursday an ambitious three-year effort to give an H.I.V. test to every adult living in the Bronx, which has a far higher death rate from AIDS than any other borough. The campaign will begin with a push to make the voluntary testing routine in emergency rooms and storefront clinics, where city officials say that cumbersome consent procedures required by state law have deterred doctors from offering the tests.

“Routine would mean if you came into the emergency room for asthma or a broken leg, we test everyone for H.I.V., if they’re willing,” the health commissioner, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, said in an interview on Wednesday.

While Manhattan has long been the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in New York, with the highest incidence of both AIDS and H.I.V., the virus that causes it, the Bronx, with its poorer population, has far more deaths from the disease. Public health officials attribute this to people not getting tested until it is too late to treat the virus effectively, thus turning a disease that can now be managed with medication into a death sentence.

Several AIDS experts said on Wednesday that the Bronx campaign was the most aggressive testing effort they could recall in the nation. Two years ago, Washington, D.C., made a high-profile push to test 450,000 residents, enlisting celebrity endorsements and distributing 80,000 free testing kits, but the campaign resulted in only about 45,000 people being tested.

“What’s new here is that we are implementing it on this large a level,” said Dr. Donna Futterman, director of the adolescent AIDS program at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, who helped New York develop the new program. “The Bronx has 1.3 million people. It’s bigger than most cities, bigger than Boston, bigger than Washington. We’re talking about a significant urban population.”

City officials estimate that 40 percent of the 830,000 people ages 18 to 64 in the Bronx have been tested for H.I.V. in the past year. Half of the remainder, about 250,000 people, have never been tested, and the goal is to test them first. Tests would be given at 40 designated sites, including clinics, community centers, churches and emergency rooms. Dr. Monica Sweeney, an assistant health commissioner for H.I.V. prevention, said the city had not set aside money specifically for the program, but would absorb the $12 cost of each test.

In organizing the campaign, which formally begins on Friday, Dr. Frieden has enlisted support from elected officials, health care providers and clergy members in the Bronx. But the proposal is raising some concerns.

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Farmers markets, Fresh Direct have fruit and vegetables pouring into the Bronx

In a borough typically cited for its lack of access to fresh produce, fruits and vegetables abound with the onset of summer.

The Bronx has more than 20 local farmers markets and Fresh Direct, a Manhattan luxury food delivery service, is offering groceries and produce to the entire South Bronx at a discount.

Health experts say the benefits of the fresh produce are endless.

“We’ve all heard ad-nauseum about the skyrocketing rates of diabetes, obesity and other diet-related diseases, and the farmers market is an enjoyable place to live a more healthy lifestyle,” said Gabrielle Langholtz, spokeswoman for Greenmarket, a program of the Council on the Environment of New York City, which runs three markets in the Bronx.

And through city funding for wireless card-swiping stations, the produce at most markets can be bought with food stamps.

Even better, while supplies last, folks who use food stamps at the farmers markets are given an extra $2 in Health Department “Health Bucks” to spend on fresh fruits and vegetables for every $5 they spend.

At Drew Gardens, on E. Tremont Ave., east of Boston Road, shoppers can go ultra-local and buy food grown in the Bronx, along with the produce from area farms.

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Bronx Beaches Are Mostly Private

A member of the American Turner Club had the place all to herself last week.

It may not be Miami, San Diego, or even the Rockaways, but the Bronx - yes, the Bronx - has 10 beaches where visitors can enjoy a summer swim.

While most people know about Orchard Beach along the sprawling shoreline of Long Island Sound in Pelham Bay Park, there are several lesser-known and less-crowded spots to take a dip in the waters of the northernmost borough.

Six of the sandy shores are side-by-side private beaches along a stretch of Clarence Ave. from Throgs Neck to Country Club. They accept new members, but require applicants to be sponsored by a current member in good standing.

“It’s a strip of heaven that we try to keep secret,” said Carol Richardson, who has been working at the American Turner Club, the largest club on the strip, for almost 20 years.

“Oh, wow. This is the Bronx?” she said people exclaim when they see the view from their 180-seat dining room, and from the beach for the first time.

The private club’s 200-foot-wide beach has brownish sand, a pier and a small lawn. There are rocks and some cigarette butts in the sand, making it an entryway to the water, not a spot for sunbathing.

All the beaches on the strip look out on City Island, and the smell of salt water makes the borough’s air pollution problems seem like they belong to another, distant place. The Health Department checks the water almost weekly and assures it is healthy for swimming.

The Danish American Beach Club down the street has a bar, dozens of picnic tables and a sun deck. It is only accessible to its 400 members, but the club accepts new members.

“I don’t think anyone realizes there are beach clubs like this. In the summer, you have to watch where you step because there are a million little children running around,” said Matt Curry, 32, the caretaker of the club, who lives on the property and was a member as a child.

Next door, a member of the White Cross Fishing Club said most people do not know about the strip and “that’s the way we like it.”

He said prospective members must be recommended by two members in good standing to join the 100-member club.

“Strictly private, for members only,” says a sign outside.

The Morris Yacht and Beach Club on City Island also has a beach -its waters are tested regularly for swimming - as do Locust Point and the Schuyler Hill Civic Association.

Orchard Beach is the largest Bronx beach, at 1.1 miles, and the only one run by the Parks and Recreation Department.

SOURCE: NYDailyNews.com

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