Talk Bronx New York

 Bronxite John Melton checks out audio equipment at Bronx Speakers Store on Boston Road and says he likes to blast car stereo, to the chagrin of many.

 You wouldn’t know it from all the noise, but the Bronx has gotten quieter this year.

Bronxites logged almost 8% fewer noise complaints to the city’s 311 hotline during the first six months of this year than they did over the same period last year.

There were 28,915 noise complaints from Jan. 1 to the end of June, compared with 31,411 last year.

“I have to give some credit to the weather,” said Councilman James Vacca (D-East Bronx). “We’ve had a mild summer so far and a lot of rain and those are both circumstances that are detriments to noise. That’s got to be a contributing factor.”

“I’m not surprised. It seems to be less noisy,” said George Dallas, 72, of Morris Park. “It’s just people blowing their horns. But that’s New York drivers. You have to live with it.”

For the second year in a row, Community Board 7, which includes Norwood, University Heights, Jerome Park, Bedford Park, Fordham and Kingsbridge Heights topped the list with the most noise complaints in the borough.

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An engraving of the opening race at Jerome Park on June 8, 1868. For 135 years, New York City has been dutifully paying 7 percent annual interest on bonds which financed construction of a road to the park, now a reservoir in The Bronx. On March 1, the owner of one of them is entitled to come forward and collect its face value: $1,000Anyone who has failed to keep track of a winning lottery ticket for all of 12 months may want to consider the efforts of 39 bondholders who have been safekeeping valuable, tissue-thin, New York City securities since shortly after the Civil War.

Next month, one of the bonds, issued in 1868 and thought to be one of the oldest active municipal bonds in the country, will come due. And the city stands ready to retire the debt incurred when Winston Churchill’s grandfather came up with the idea of building a road to one of the nation’s first racetracks, which he had opened in what is now the Bronx.

For 135 years, New York City has been dutifully paying 7 percent annual interest on the bonds, which financed construction of the road. On March 1, the owner of one of them is entitled to come forward and collect its face value: $1,000. Read more..

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What a great year. What a rotten year.

Okay, so maybe somewhere in between, even with the economy sliding into 2009.

It was that kind of year for the Bronx, with the highs hopefully edging out the lows. And let’s wish for it to be onward and upward in 2009.

Economy: Boom and bust

# On the upside, there was the new Yankee Stadium going full steam ahead - steamrolling over the local community in the process with a big loss of centrally located parkland - and the new Gateway Center mall to its south, both due to open in 2009. And the city finally chose a developer to turn the giant Kingsbridge Armory into a mall.

# The downside: the Bronx had the highest jobless rate in the state, registering 7.7% in October, while continuing to be the poorest urban county in the nation.
It was reflected in growing lines - with many turned away - at struggling local food pantries.

# A report in September by the Center for an Urban Future titled “Attack of the Chains?” found the Bronx has the fewest chain stores of any borough, with many not in the Bronx at all. Read more..

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Ears Cocked for the Sound of Blasting

KAREN ARGENTI, a 57-year-old environmental consultant who lived on the west side of Jerome Park Reservoir in the Bronx for 20 years, still remembers how the music from concerts in Harris Park, on the reservoir’s east side, used to carry across the water.

That sound carries over water so well is one of many reasons Ms. Argenti can’t believe that for at least three weeks and possibly longer, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection plans to do blasting along the 94-acre reservoir’s eastern edge, near Goulden Avenue and 205th Street.

“The blasting is going to be just like the music,” she said. “People are going to hear it everywhere.”

The agency has long intended to build shafts near the reservoir to connect tunnels, which are part of the Croton Water Filtration Plant project, a treatment facility that the agency is building beneath Van Cortlandt Park. But a few weeks ago, the department announced that instead of drilling to make space for the shafts, it would blast.

According to Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, this plan is significantly different from the one laid out in the 2004 environmental impact statement that outlined the scope and effects of the project. “The fact is when the D.E.P. was trying to sell this to the community, we were specifically told there would be no blasting,” Mr. Dinowitz said, adding that he would like to see a revised environmental impact statement before the work goes further.

But with blasting scheduled to begin in early September, residents have little time left to voice their objections.

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Bronx community boards to meet

Community boards are the little City Halls of the city, dealing with local issues involving city agencies, and serving an advisory role in zoning and other land-use issues.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 1 (Melrose, Mott Haven) meets at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26, at CB1 Office, 3024 Third Ave. Call (718) 585-7117.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 4 (Highbridge, Mount Eden and Concourse) meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 24, at Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Murray Cohen Auditorium, 1650 Grand Concourse. Call (718) 299-0800.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 5 (Bathgate, Morris Heights, Fordham and Mount Hope) meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, at South Bronx Job Corps - Auditorium, 1771 Andrews Ave. Call (718) 364-2030.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 7 (Norwood, Jerome Park, Kingsbridge Heights and University Heights) meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 17, at the Botanical Gardens, Mosholu Gate Entrance, Visitors Center Café, E. 200th St. and Kazimiroff Blvd. Call (718) 933-5650.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 9 (Soundview, Clasons Point, Parkchester, Bruckner and Harding Park) meets at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 19, 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, June 19, at Middletown Senior Center, 3035 Middletown Road. Call (718) 892-1161.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 11 (Morris Park, Pelham Parkway, Laconia and Van Nest) meets at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 26, at 1200 Van Nest Avenue, Lubin Hall, Mazur Building. Call (718) 892-6262.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 12 (Wakefield, Williamsbridge, Woodlawn, Eastchester and Baychester) meets at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26, at CB12 office, 4101 White Plains Road. Call (718) 881-4455.

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