Wi-Fi, Libraries, Holiday Lights, & Homelessness

Here’s a round-up Bronx related news for Monday:

It’s a Tale of Two Wi-Fis.

Free Wi-Fi is coming to NYC but not all will get the super fast speeds.

A mayor who won office citing inequality between rich and poor New Yorkers has approved a citywide wireless Internet system that gives superfast service to Manhattan and upscale Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods, but puts everyone else in the broadband slow lane.

Mayor de Blasio’s “five-borough Wi-Fi Network” will operate 10 times slower in Staten Island and poorer neighborhoods of Brooklyn and the Bronx, a Daily News examination found.

via EXCLUSIVE: De Blasio’s Wi-Fi plan slower in poor nabes – NY Daily News.

Bronx Library May Get a New Neighbor: Another Library

The Huntington Free Library and Reading Room in the Bronx. The building at left is where a New York Public Library branch will be built. Credit Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

The red brick library in the Bronx was built in the early 1880s with a $15,000 bequest from Peter Van Schaick, a wealthy tobacco merchant who wanted to honor his late wife with a free reading room.

Only his gift was refused not once, but twice, by local taxpayers who worried it would be too costly to operate and maintain. So it languished, unwanted and unloved, until a railroad magnate, Collis P. Huntington, bought it, and opened it to the public in 1891 as the privately run Huntington Free Library and Reading Room.

Now more than a century later, it is the Huntington that is being courted as part of a larger effort to revitalize Westchester Square, a once-thriving commercial hub around an elevated No. 6 subway station. Under an $18 million plan, New York City and the New York Public Library would take over part of the Huntington’s one-acre site on Westchester Square, and replace a storage building that adjoins the library with a modern glass-and-steel structure that would be the new public library branch for the neighborhood.

via Bronx Library May Get a New Neighbor: Another Library – NYTimes.com.

File photo Last year’s holiday lights on Morris Park Avenue. / Bronx Times

Morris Park Community Association works to fund holiday lights • Bronx Times

Holiday lights are going up in Morris Park, but the effort to pay for them is just beginning.

The Morris Park Community Association has recently started its annual canvassing for contributions to the holiday light fund, which has gotten increasingly difficult over the years.

Although the lights will go up about a week before Thanksgiving, MPCA president Tony Signorile said the fundraising still has a long way to go.

via Morris Park Community Association works to fund holiday lights • Bronx Times.

More Homeless Get Public Housing in New York City, but Shelter Population on Rise – WSJ

Marta Vargas hangs holiday decorations with her daughters at their home in the Patterson Houses in the Bronx. The family moved to their apartment this year after living in a shelter for 18 months. ANDREW HINDERAKER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Marta Vargas hangs holiday decorations with her daughters at their home in the Patterson Houses in the Bronx. The family moved to their apartment this year after living in a shelter for 18 months. ANDREW HINDERAKER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Every New York City public-housing apartment set aside for homeless families this year was quickly filled, officials said, but the homeless-shelter population keeps growing despite the city’s renewed efforts to tackle the problem.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is facing criticism from homeless advocates and Democratic elected officials who say the administration’s policy of giving the homeless preferential status in public housing is insufficient. Some conservatives, however, warn the policy may inadvertently increase the number of people in shelters.

via More Homeless Get Public Housing in New York City, but Shelter Population on Rise – WSJ.

 

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Ed García Conde

Ed García Conde is a life-long Bronxite who spends his time documenting the people, places, and things that make the borough a special place in the hopes of dispelling the negative stereotypes associated with The Bronx. His writings are often cited by mainstream media and is often consulted for his expertise on the borough's rich history.