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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Mayor Bloomberg lays out multi-agency economic plan for South Bronx

Mayor Bloomberg came uptown Tuesday to tout his South Bronx Initiative, a multi-agency effort to knit various private projects and city improvements into comprehensive economic development.

But one major player - the borough president - was notably absent.

“The South Bronx - long known nationally as the area Howard Cosell was talking about when he said, ‘The Bronx is burning’ and once known locally as an area of underinvestment and decay - is undergoing an extraordinary transformation,” said Bloomberg.

In recent years, nearly $3 billion in public and private investment has poured into the borough, Bloomberg said, including the $300 million Gateway Center Mall, almost $300 million for local schools, more than $900 million for transportation improvements, as well as the new Yankee stadium.

While the mayor credited Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión and his office for major input into the initiative, Carrión was a no-show at the event on the steps of the Bronx County Building.

Sources in the borough president’s office said Carrion was annoyed at “the last-minute notice - not the first time - from City Hall for the event.”

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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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Bronx Hospitality, Unnoticed by the Tourist Guides

The folks who published AAA’s 2008 New York tour book had a hard time recommending any hotels in the Bronx. They could only find one, in fact, a rather bland-looking building a mile north of Yankee Stadium by a service road to the Major Deegan Expressway

Hey, the hotel fared better than restaurants, since the automobile club’s guide does not list a single place to eat in the Bronx. As far as the guide goes, Arthur Avenue, Morris Park Avenue or City Island do not exist.

This 45-room Howard Johnson is the only hotel listed for the Bronx in AAA’s 2008 New York tour book.

It is an odd distinction for that lone hotel, a Howard Johnson of no particular architectural distinction. And given the borough’s long battles against hot sheet motels that rent rooms by the hour, a casual observer might assume this place was no different.

But it is a real hotel catering to real tourists. One day last week, the parking lot was filled with cars from out of state, most belonging to guests who had come to see the Yankees play Cleveland. Retirees from Oklahoma and families from upstate New York eagerly hauled suitcases upstairs as they prepared to change into baseball jerseys and take in a game.

Chadd Morris and Brandon Bebout had driven eight hours from Cleveland to score game tickets. They asked a local police officer for the nearest hotel and were directed to the HoJo.

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One Bad Apple Won’t Spoil the Whole Green Bunch

To mark Earth Day on Tuesday, the Natural Resources Defense Council issued its second annual “Green Apples and Bad Apples” report, which identifies five promising environmental developments and five things or places that aren’t so good for the environment. One of the biggest complaints: businesses that leave the doors open while running the air-conditioning at full blast. Our colleague Clyde Haberman has complained about this phenomenon in his NYC column, in 2006 and 2007, but it was interesting to see a leading environmental advocacy group take up the banner.

The Natural Resources Defense Council said in its report:

Whatever benefits it may have as a customer lure, this practice has significant adverse energy and air pollution impacts. According to the Long Island Power Authority, retailers increase their electricity consumption by 20 percent to 25 percent when they leave their doors open. And increasing power demand on the hottest summer days also leads to increased air pollution, as the auxiliary backup power supplies are called upon to meet peak demands. Unnecessarily boosting summer peak power demands can even make occasional brownouts more likely. In short, this is a practice that places personal business considerations over societal needs.

Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer, a Manhattan Democrat, has proposed legislation that would forbid businesses from leaving their doors open while air-conditioners are running. It is hard to say what the bill’s prospects are.

The defense counsel listed these other “bad apples”:

* The M.T.A.’s recycling program. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority does not provide separate recycling receptacles for paper and for metals, glass and plastic, as the transit systems in Chicago, Washington, Boston, Montreal and San Francisco do. The M.T.A. does perform “post-collection separation” — picking through the trash, after collection, to cull out recyclables — but that process, in which recyclables are mixed in with food waste and other trash before being separated, “inevitably leads to higher levels of contaminated recyclables,” according to the council. (The M.T.A. has provided large paper recycling bins at Grand Central Terminal for Metro-North Railroad riders.)

* The New York Organic Fertilizer Company and Hunts Point Wastewater Treatment Plant, both in the Bronx. Under a city contract, the fertilizer plant, which opened in 1992, treats several hundred tons a day of sludge from city sewage plants, drying the sludge and turning it into “pellets” for eventual use as fertilizer. The wastewater treatment plant, a few blocks away, treats raw sewage from parts of the Bronx (and from Rikers Island and City Island) before discharging it into surrounding waters.

* The former site of the Ridgewood Reservoir in Queens. The Ridgewood Reservoir was a major source of drinking water for Brooklyn in the middle and late part of the 19th century and into the 20th century. After 1900, as city relied more on its Catskill and Delaware system, the Ridgewood Reservoir was used and less; its last use under regular repair service was in 1959. The complex was transferred in 2004 to the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, which wanted to turn much of the area into recreational like bike paths and artificial-turf ball fields. “But the Reservoir’s water storage basins, empty for decades, now provide a unique area for observing the process of urban reforestation,” the council said. Read more..

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