Talk Bronx New York

New York promotes the Bronx’s parks and gardens

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is blooming!

Despite its urban image, the Bronx has 7,000 acres of park land, about 25% of its total area. In addition to Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo, the borough’s green spaces include the New York Botanical Garden; a 19th century garden overlooking the Hudson River called Wave Hill; and Van Cortlandt and Pelham Bay parks, where you can bird-watch, play golf and ride horses.

New York City is touting the Bronx’s green attractions in a new promotion. “Most people don’t think of the Bronx like that. We want to open their eyes to the actual physical beauty of the Bronx,” said George Fertitta, CEO of NYC & Company, the city’s marketing and tourism organization.

CITY GUIDE: Where to sleep, eat and shop in New York

It’s quite a turnaround for a place that once symbolized urban decay. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning,” sportscaster Howard Cosell famously said during a 1977 Yankees game, as footage aired of a building in flames near the stadium. An epidemic of arson plagued the city at the time.

New York is a different place now, billed as America’s safest big city and attracting a record 46 million tourists last year. Many of those tourists are repeat visitors, and “their appetite for something other than Times Square and the Statue of Liberty is enormous,” said Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr., who got an enthusiastic reception talking up the Bronx at a recent tourism conference in Berlin.

Green spaces only comprise part of the Bronx’s attractions. There is also Italian food on Arthur Avenue, a hip-hop music tour, a bed-and-breakfast called Le Refuge Inn, and saltwater swimming at Orchard Beach. For more information, visit the Bronx Tourism Council website at www.ilovethebronx.com or NYC & Company at www.nycvisit.com/bronx. Meanwhile, here are some highlights.

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News 12 The Bronx Celebrates 10 Years Of Local News Coverage

The borough’s first and only dedicated news channel marks its 10th year on cable television; The cable-exclusive channel made its debut in 1998 as the first 24-hour local news channel completely dedicated to covering news of the Bronx.

Bronx, NY (PRWEB) June 30, 2008 — News 12 the Bronx is celebrating 10 years as the first 24-hour local news channel completely dedicated to covering news of the Bronx. The cable-exclusive channel began bringing local news to the borough of the Bronx in 1998. Ten years later, News 12 continues to serve the Bronx community with its 24-hour news channel, and has expanded to multiple distribution platforms including an on-demand channel (News 12 Interactive, channel 612 on iO TV), a cell phone service (News 12 to Go), and on the world-wide-web (www.news12.com). All services are provided at no additional cost to Cablevision subscribers.

“It was a very easy decision to start up a News 12 franchise in the Bronx”, said Patrick Dolan, President of News 12 Networks. “It was clear that Bronx residents were interested in news coverage that reflected the borough they were so proud to call their own. Most news coverage in the area up to that point was focused on crime stories. When News 12 the Bronx launched and showed the real people of the Bronx on television - from the teachers to the firemen to the community leaders and more - we were embraced. We’re proud of our involvement in this incredible area.”

“The Bronx is an interesting place to live and work. It’s diverse. It’s dynamic. It has a wonderful sense of community,” said Leesa Dillon, News Director of News 12 the Bronx. “News 12’s commitment is to provide fair and unbiased coverage of the news that the residents of the Bronx need and want to know. It’s been so for the last 10 years and will continue to be so into the future ”

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New York Real Estate: Morris Park, Bronx

MAP/BOUNDARIES

Morris Park is defined by Pelham Parkway to the north, the Amtrak/Metro-North tracks to the east and south and Muliner Avenue and Bronxdale Avenue to the west.

INTRO

Morris Park’s thriving Italian community is often compared to the better-known Little Italy centered on Arthur Avenue, but that doesn’t mean the locals are any less proud of their neighborhood.

The number of pasticcerie, salumerias, and pizzerias crammed into the area is spellbinding, Italian is spoken in the shops, and even the parking meters are striped with the colors of the motherland’s flag.

But at the turn of the century, Morris Park was famous for something else: its racetrack, which was built by John Albert Morris.

Local development picked up in 1910 when a streetcar line was installed on Morris Park Avenue, and construction of new roads and housing continuing well past World War II. Soon, droves of Italian immigrants began settling in the area.

Though the area’s Italian qualities are prominent, some locals claim there’s more to Morris Park than the Italian community.

“It’s always been a family area, and that’s stayed the same, but now all types of people live here,” said Angela DaBenigno, who moved to Morris Park in 1992. “People move in, people move out, but the area constantly adapts to the changes.”

The neighborhood is now home to significant populations of Albanians, Latinos and Chinese.

“There are a lot of different ethnic varieties, different colors,” said DaBenigno. “Years ago it was much more Italian, but times change.”

Though Morris Park’s population has become more diverse in recent years, residents still have certain things in common.

“It’ll always be a good, regular crowd–down-to-earth, working class people,” said DaBenigno. “No matter how much it changes, it’s still a gem in the Bronx.”

TO EAT & DRINK

Morris Park’s restaurant scene is comprised largely of Italian eateries, with the pizza places considered among the best in the Bronx. Try Emilio’s (1051 Morris Park Ave.); Luciano’s Pizza (1005 Morris Park Ave.); Pasta Pasta (2023 Williamsbridge Rd.); and Federici Ristorante (980 Morris Park Ave.).

• Patricia’s

This extraordinarily popular brick pizza restaurant gets so packed during peak hours that squeezing through to your table can be quite trying indeed. The atmosphere’s unbeatable, and so is the food: sandwiches made with slices of rich and oily focaccia, breadbaskets accompanied by garlicky dips and arguably some of the best pizza in the Bronx (some even say the city).

1080 Morris Park Ave. 718-409-9069

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The Bronx Is More Than Just Yankee Stadium

THIS season is your last chance to catch a game in the old Yankee Stadium, before the House That Ruth Built is replaced by its modern cousin across 161st Street, the House That Steinbrenner and Taxpayer Subsidies Built.

That means a lot of first-timers will be heading into town and up to the South Bronx, and they might have no idea what else there is to see and do around the stadium. They shouldn’t feel bad: most lifelong Yankees fans who have been up there hundreds of times don’t know, either.

That’s in part because the area still suffers the hangover of decades of bad press. But Howard Cosell is dead, the Bronx isn’t burning, and sticking around after the game does not have to mean crowding into beer-soaked bars across the street from the stadium.

You don’t even have to go very far; you’re only three blocks away from the Grand Concourse, the once-stately, still-impressive thoroughfare that in its day was a most desirable address. It’s working-class these days, but you can still sense the grandeur in the sheer width of the 11-lane road and the architecture that lines it.

Not far from the stadium, at the intersection of 161st and the Concourse, are the Bronx County Courthouse (a handsome but imposing fortress), Joyce Kilmer Park (a spot to picnic on jerk chicken from the nearby Feeding Tree restaurant or a bresaola panini from the Press Cafe) and the former Concourse Plaza Hotel (once full of Yankees and politicians).

But the Concourse is best known architecturally for what is often called the biggest concentration of Art Deco buildings outside Miami. Walking north from 161st Street you’ll find at least one gem every few blocks, but be sure you walk at least the half-dozen blocks to 1150 Grand Concourse, the apartments known as the Fish Building for its aquarium mosaic. It’s enough to make you think (for a moment, anyway) that you’re in South Beach, not the South Bronx.

Ambitious Art Deco buffs could keep going for miles (on foot or by bus), all the way to Fordham Road past the old Loew’s Paradise, and cut east to eat in the Bronx’s Little Italy. Or keep going to the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, the slightly relocatedoriginal house where the poet retreated in what was, in the mid 19th century, bucolic hinterlands.

Your other option is to head south from the stadium down to Mott Haven, home to an ever-growing artists’ colony. (The closest train from Manhattan is the 6 train to 138th Street, but from the stadium take the 4 to 138th and walk east to Alexander Avenue.) The area has long been known for its antiques shops, which attract visitors from Westchester County and beyond, but now there are also arts spaces to check out, places to eat and even a new place to party.

Art makes its way into weird places in Mott Haven. Haven Arts recently moved into a 2,500-square-foot space in a former linoleum store (check out the freight scale built into the floor) and is currently showing “NY Press,” an exhibition of New York photojournalists from The New York Times, The Daily News and other publications. It also holds free painting classes from 5 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays, usually with a nude model.

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In the pizzerias, cafes and delicatessens along Arthur Avenue in the Bronx yesterday the flags - American and Albanian - were much in evidence as news of Kosovo’s declaration of independence resonated in this ethnic enclave.

The area just south of Fordham Road in the Belmont area of the Bronx still is a heavily Italian-American neighborhood. But for the past three decades it has absorbed a significant influx of ethnic Albanian emigres from Kosovo and elsewhere in the Balkans.

Buoyed by the news, it was a day for Albanians to shine. “I think this is the best day for all Albanians,” said Gentrit Dedushi, 18, a worker at Gurra Cafe. “It is our independence day. I think this is going to help our [Kosovo] economy.”

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