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Bronx’ seaside: Affordability on the water in Throgs Neck

The Bridgeview Estates in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx.

A view of the Whitestone Bridge from the pool.

Directly across the Long Island Sound from the multimillion-dollar Mediterranean villas in Whitestone Woods, the Throgs Neck neighborhood in the Bronx might offer the most affordable coastal living experience in the five boroughs.

At Bridgeview Estates, 21 two- and three- bedroom condominiums, some with direct waterfront access, are available starting at $475,000. Located at Schurz and Davis Aves. in a neighborhood known for families, water proximity and the shopping stretch of E. Tremont Ave., Bridgeview Estates is a newly built gated condominium complex with views of the Throgs Neck and Whitestone bridges.

“At night, these two bridges light up and make this area something magical,” says Robert Van Zandt, the longtime North Bronx real estate developer who built the property. “We tried to make this an alternative living option to what people are paying in and around Manhattan. They just have to come out here and their mind will be changed.”

With beach clubs and catering halls, bungalows, condominiums and small single-family brick and wood homes a block from the water, Throgs Neck bustles with entire families taking walks together while kids ride bikes and play sports on front lawns. Up the street, the community has asked the city for a long-planned public golf course on a former landfill cornering Ferry Point Park. Recent rumors suggest it might happen, making the neighborhood more attractive to homeowners.

“This side of the bridges is more laid-back than the Queens side, with lower price points and a less suburban feel,” says Maria Paleatsos, who owns MP Power Realty in nearby Pelham Bay. “I’m not sure you can find anything this price on the water where families can live so well.”

Completed and ready for move-in, Bridgeview Estates includes balconies for each apartment, two upscale homes for sale in the multimillion- dollar range with large decks and swimming pools and a development team that truly cares for the area. Van Zandt and colleague Richard Rodriguez funded and coach the baseball team for Villa Maria, a local Catholic grammar school. Their own children graduated, yet they still remain as coaches. Van Zandt also funds three scholarships for students from financially saddled families.

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Talks Focus on Bronx Golf Course

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. announced on Monday that the city had started talking with Sanford Golf Design to design and build a championship-caliber golf course over a former garbage dump at Ferry Point Park in the Bronx, potentially giving new life to a project that has been dogged by years of delay and problems. The project’s price tag has nearly quadrupled since it was proposed in 1998, to well over $80 million, by one estimate.

The proposed 18-hole, links-style Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course would be built using city capital funds, with an estimated completion by the fall of 2010. A public hearing on the proposal has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on June 26, 22 Reade Street in Manhattan. After construction has begun, the city plans to seek proposals from businesses to operate the golf course and make additional improvements, including a clubhouse and restaurant.

However, New York City Park Advocates, a community group that has often been critical of the Parks Department, quickly issued a statement criticizing the proposed deal. The group said that the city had not completed a study of the project’s environmental impact, noting that the site included a former landfill.

The project has a long and troubled history.

In 1998, during the administration of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the Parks Department announced plans to have a developer, Ferry Point Partners, build a golf course. It would have received a 35-year lease in exchange for financing the $22 million project, which was to be completed by 2001. The 222-acre site called for a driving range, a clubhouse, two playgrounds, a banquet hall and a restaurant overlooking the East River, as well as a waterfront esplanade.

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Efrain Velazquez at the wheel of the X32 express bus, making a morning run from Queens to the Bronx High School of Science. The fare is $5 a ride.

The X32 express bus takes students like Jeffery Gerage, in the front row, a 16-year-old junior, from Queens to the Bronx High School of Science.

02/12/2008

Getting To School For Some Students Is A Science 

Three bridges connect Queens to the Bronx. But if you are a high school student dependent on public transportation, the 10- to 15-mile trip can easily translate into hours on the subway.

So Rasheda Browne, a freshman at the Bronx High School of Science, takes the city’s X32 bus at 6:33 every morning from her home in Jamaica, Queens. The trip takes an hour and a half each way, and costs $5. For Rasheda, it is worth it.

“Our teachers would tell us the school was really good, but it’s hard to get to,” said Rasheda, 14, between bites of a flatbread breakfast sandwich from Dunkin’ Donuts one recent morning. “I had to decide whether I really wanted to go there to get a better education.”

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To build a prefab home, just stack the boxes.

02/10/2008 

Building Houses Like Legos 

THE social event of the season in Locust Point, a quiet enclave of tidy family homes along the East Bronx waterfront, took place just over a week ago when a crane lifted two 18-ton halves of a prefabricated house off flatbed trailers and stacked them like Legos on an empty lot.

The whole neighborhood came out to watch, sharing coffee and doughnuts while enjoying the daylong spectacle on Tierney Place, a two-lane street lined with manicured lawns.

“All the kids were amazed how that crane just picked it up and dropped it,” said Nick Virello, a contractor who lives down the street. “It went up like an Erector Set. It was extraordinary.”

Prefabricated homes made up of parts that have been produced in factories, then shipped in pieces and assembled on site, are hardly new to New York. But this prefabricated house on Tierney Place is believed to be the first in the modernist tradition to be erected in the city.

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Ferry Point Golf Course Finally Approved To Go From Dream To Reality

It was supposed to be a world-class golf course, designed by Jack Nicklaus, and best of all, it would cost the city next to nothing. Developers would pay for it all and recoup the cost of the city-owned course from greens fees.

But nearly 10 years and $15 million later, the Ferry Point golf course in the Bronx is still a duffer’s dream waiting to happen. And on Friday, for the first time, the city announced that it — not a private developer — would pay the unknown millions needed to complete the project.

The Parks and Recreation Department put out requests on Friday for proposal seeking a developer to build the course, at city expense, and another to operate it.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the city comptroller, William C. Thompson, announced the plans in a joint news release that heavily emphasized the bid for contractors, but made only glancing reference — one subordinate clause — to the fact that the city will pay for the project.

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