Morris Court, which began construction two years ago after demolishing almost an entire block (only one property owner did not sell), is nearing completion as the first development to take advantage of the Lower Concourse rezoning approved back in 2009.
The $69 million complex, when complete, will include 201 mixed low & middle income units for families with incomes ranging from approximately $28,595 to $90,700 per year. 25% of the units will be set aside for families that were formerly homeless.
Morris Court is located directly across from Lincoln Hospital at E 144th Street and Morris Avenue and just a few short blocks to the 2,4, & 5 trains at 149th Street and Grand Concourse.
Nearby amenities include the bustling 149th Street Corridor with shops, restaurants, offices, and the HUB which has the highest concentration of banks than anywhere else in the Bronx. Also within walking distance is the The Mall at the Bronx Terminal Market which includes, Target, BJ’s, Bed Bath and Beyond among its stores as well as the beautiful Mill Pond Park on the Harlem River.
If the Special Harlem River Waterfront District Plan ever comes to fruition, Morris Court will also benefit from being a stone’s throw away from that section of the waterfront as well.
We chatted with Adam and he had this to say about being featured in the Daily News:
“If it wasn’t for you Ed, and Welcome2TheBronx – sharing ProjectBronx content 1st last year…most of this wouldn’t be possible. I’m humbled and grateful to my Bronx community for their continued support with ProjectBronx…and withoutJuneBaby Productions, we wouldn’t exist! Be on the look out for a fundraiser on May 30, at The Bronx Beer Hall er hall to raise money for China Exchange: 8 students from my high school get to travel to china for 2 weeks.”
With that said, we’d like to thank Adam Levine-Peres, ProjectBronx, and JuneBaby Productions for their excellent work in providing yet another avenue for Bronxites to be heard — in a positive spotlight.
Welcome2TheBronx encourages reader submissions for consideration for publication on our site. It is our mission to be able to provide a platform where Bronx residents can have their voices broadcasted to a wider audience.
To submit an article, email us at submissions@welcome2thebronx.com
Absolution: This class offers the perfect core strengthening solution. Concentrated ab-centric floor-work is paired with deep restorative stretching.
Belly, Butt and Thighs Bootcamp: Based on the popular DVD, focus on your lower half in this belly-busting, booty shaping class.
Bodyweb with TRX®: Hang from the durable TRX® ropes to push, pull, lift and lower your body through Spiderman moves for a total body suspension workout that also super-strengthens your core.
BOSU® Bootcamp: Integrated Balance Training on an apparatus that is a cross between a core board and a stability ball. It’s fun, it’s challenging and it’s a total body workout for any fitness level!
Cardio Tai Box: Tai Box is a high energy; high impact blend of kicks and punches set to upbeat music. This class is the perfect combination of martial arts, boxing and cardiovascular training.
Fat Burning Pilates: Calorie burning cardio and pilates based toning combine to maximize your fat burning potential.
Retro-Robics: It’s a blast from the past! Work up a sweat with a touch of nostalgia in this heart-pumping, traditional aerobics class. This time around, legwarmers are optional!
Tread n’ Shed: This badass cardio class will put you on the treadmill to melt away calories. In it, you’ll use sprints and slow walks with varying speeds and ramp heights to get a workout that’s got all the ups and
downs of a roller coaster.
Yoga Body Sculpt: This strength-building Vinyasa flow class focuses on sculpting your buns and thighs while flattening your belly and strengthening your core. This workout is based on Crunch’s latest hot video.
ZUMBA®: This class fuses hypnotic Latin rhythms and easy-to-follow moves to create a high energy, calorie blasting, total body dance based workout. Zumba® is a great mix of Latin flavor and international beats designed to tone your body from head to toe.
CRUNCH IS CURRENTLY HIRING CERTIFIED PERSONAL TRAINERS AT OUR NEWEST BRONX LOCATION IN THE HUB.THE CRUNCH PHILOSOPHY: There are no judgments here — No too much or not enough. No glares of disapproval. Here we keep open minds. We are nurturers. We seek only to encourage, empower and entertain. There is no one type. There is no one reason. There is no one way. What we are is a diverse community; what we have is a culture of fun; what there is, is room for everyone: all kinds of people with all kinds of goals who’ve chosen to come reach them with us. CRUNCH. NO JUDGEMENTS.CRUNCH perks:
• Great facilities with functional training areas, Premier Strength equipment, top-of-the-line cardio equipment and more
• Top compensation plan of any commercial gym
• Continuing education opportunities with in-house certifications and workshops offered monthly (i.e. discounted NASM-workshops, TRX-STC, TRX Rip Trainer, Kettlebell Concepts, Annette Lang, guest speakers/presenters and much, much more).
• Complimentary dotFIT Nutrition Certification
• Complimentary membership
• Semi-Annual Team Trips & Activities
• Discounts on services, products, and much more!
• Complimentary membership and discounts in club
• Semi-Annual Team Trips & ActivitiesEXAMPLES OF ESSENTIAL RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Ability to build clientele by administrating fitness assessments and safely conducting personal training sessions
• Ensures accurate administration of client programs, including dotFIT programs, supplement purchases, measurement tracking and workout programs
• Assists in all revenue generating activities, including but not limited to: complimentary workouts, supplement booths, body fat tables, seminars, and workshops
• Ability to sell the value and importance of personal training sessions to our members.
• Responsible for achieving personal monthly revenue objectives set forth by the company
• Organization skills and ability to maintain a neat presentation of the fitness floors at all times
• Ability to adjust and operate all fitness equipment
• Possess an enthusiastic, passionate, friendly and ambitious personality
PREFERRED EDUCATION/CERTIFICATIONS:
• Current CPR
• Current dotFIT certification (or must be willing to obtain)
• Certification from organization recognized by Crunch (NASM, NSCA, ACSM, NCSF, ACE, AFAA, NESTA, TRX)
• High school diploma or general education degree (GED)
• A degree in a related field is preferred (Exercise Science, Kinesiology, Sports Medicine, Physical Education, Nutrition, Fitness Specialist, etc.)
EXPERIENCE:
• Personal Training experience preferred but not required
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENTS:
• Physical effort required for daily duties include lifting heavy weights, squatting, bending, reaching, spotting & prolonged standing and walking. Must be able to frequently lift and /or moves up to 45+ pounds
TO APPLY: Please email your resume (ptresumes@crunch.com) with the subject heading “Crunch at the Hub Personal Trainer” and include in the body of your email:
1. Why would you like to be a Personal Trainer at Crunch?
2. Do you currently hold a Personal Training Certification? If so, please list all applicable certifications.
3. What hours are you available to work during the week?
4. Have you interviewed for Crunch or worked for our company in the past? If so, please provide detail.
Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
do NOT contact us with unsolicited services or offers
Bronx Community College (BCC)’s Run the Bronx race will be held on May 3. This annual event was founded in 1978 by former college president and Tuskegee Airman Dr. Roscoe C. Brown.
Now in its 36th year, the Run has become a signature event for the borough. And there’s so much more to the day than just a high-spirited, friendly competition. Run the Bronx promotes fitness and wellness, a crucial issue in a borough that has the highest rates of asthma, diabetes and obesity in our city. BCC would like to further expand the annual race to encourage healthier habits and lifestyles in our common community and turn around these alarming statistics.
Last year’s Run the Bronx was a huge success. Over 1,200 runners, walkers, and volunteers, ranging in age from young children with their parents to senior citizens, descended on our historic campus for the festivities. This was an increase of 300 percent from previous years, making us confident we can do even better in 2014.
Our goal at Bronx Community College is simple: education for all. We serve a predominantly Black and Hispanic student body, providing our dreamers, strivers and achievers with life-changing academic programs that lead directly to rewarding careers or to the next step in their ongoing education.
April is National Poetry Month so I decided to search for poems on the Bronx. Instead of finding poems, the first thing I came across was this amazing 13 year old girl from the Bronx named Kioni Marshall aka Popcorn.
Check out these two amazing videos that were featured in the Daily News last year:
Bronx 6th Grader Wows NYC Poetry Scene
The Greatest Poet You’ve Ever Heard (Is 12 Years Old)
This article in the Daily News clearly shows what a tale of two cities we are. Manhattan and Riverdale residents, along with elected officials are battling LG’s plan to build a 100+ foot tower in the Palisades that will tarnish the pristine views along the Hudson. Meanwhile in the South Bronx, residents are battling against the State of New York and FreshDirect, demanding that they deserve better than a 21 year old environmental impact statement which the company is relying on to move into the neighborhood.
Don’t get me wrong – Riverdale’s views are beautiful and are worthy of fighting for but what about something that actually impacts the quality of life and health of thousands of South Bronx residents? Where are all these politicians crying foul for us in our very own state and not something across the river and in New Jersey?
We should be getting as much support in the South Bronx as we are in Riverdale if not even more because we are talking about people’s lives at stake here. We should be united as a borough against environmental injustice being done in our own backyard.
Several weeks ago I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation to Daniel Hauben’s opening reception at the Andrew Freedman home for his latest exhibition: Expanding Views: The Art of Daniel Hauben.
The exhibition is quite breathtaking as I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing his works up close. The paintings capture the essence of the Bronx so clearly that it is no wonder why Bronx Community College commissioned 22 paintings by Hauben for their new North Hall and Library.
Daniel Hauben has recreated scenes from the wild cacophonous landscape and its people that is our beautiful borough for several decades now, including the “burning” days. The exhibition, although mostly Bronx-centric, does contain several other powerful pieces such as one based on 9/11 and also a towering masterpiece titled ‘The Fifth Crusade’ which was, “…Hauben’s passionate response to the US invasion of Iraq and the looting of the Baghdad museum…”.
Where in the Bronx did you grow up and which schools did you attend?
Until age nine I lived at 3458 Fenton Avenue in Hillside Homes (now Eastchester Heights), I attended PS 78. When we moved, it was towards the end of 3rd grade, and I finished the year at PS 95. We moved to Fort Independence Street in the Kingsbridge section of The Bronx and I suffered through 7th, 8th, and 9th grade at JHS 143.
What is it about the Bronx that calls to you as an artist to use it as the subject of your artwork?
It is the extreme density of the Bronx, its throbbing activity, multitude of cultures and the resultant visual explosion, that I find so captivating and challenging as a subject for my paintings. No conscious plan could have created this extraordinary layering of architectural styles, this visual arrangement of forms which is constantly being torn down and rebuilt again. The Bronx is changing before our eyes, yet vestiges of all its incarnations remain. Today I walked down a Bronx street and saw a row of track houses (hastily erected in the 1980s), next to a vacant lot with a solitary burnt-out building at its center. An old Jewish man wearing a black overcoat and top hat strolled by a Puerto Rican mango vendor and disappeared into a 99cent Store. These incongruities, these unpredictable juxtapositions – sometimes astonishing, sometimes amusing, and sometimes depressing, but always captivating and provocative – are the fuel for my art.
If you could choose one of your pieces, which is your favorite, and why?
(Urban Idyll, 33″ x 240″ oil on canvas, unfinished)
Happily, my favorite painting is almost always my most recent one. This is because I am constantly challenging myself to build on previous experience, and take my work to places it hasn’t been before. A painting that fits this category at the moment , is a large, 6-panel painting I have been working on for a year and a half, entitled ” Urban Idyll”. I am using an unusually strong color palette to animate this sprawling urban panorama. It has been very exciting for me to share this (unfinished) painting with the public in my current exhibit: Expanding Views at the Andrew Freedman Home.
What were some of the greatest obstacles you faced growing up in the Bronx?
My obstacles came later in life, in trying to develop an art career:
-No gallery directors would ever come up to The Bronx.
-When I invited my college-mates to my graduation party in The Bronx, their common refrain was
“I don’t do The Bronx”.
-When I had my first solo show at a Manhattan Gallery, the director took me out to dinner
the night before the opening, at which time he suggested that I start painting Manhattan.
-I have yet to be taken seriously by the Manhattan Art World.
How do you feel growing up in the Bronx prepared you for the world?
Growing up and making friends with children from such a diverse range of backgrounds was a wonderful thing. Until I travelled to other parts of the country where life is so much more homogeneous, I assumed that it was like this everywhere. Amongst my friends growing up were Italians, Irish, Jews, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Black Americans, Greeks, Japanese, Chinese, etc. When I visited friends, I was exposed to the different customs, languages, music, and especially the foods of so many cultures. This experience opened my mind to the richness of all cultures, and a life long interest in travelling, painting, and connecting to all kinds of people.
Any words of wisdom that you’d like to share with budding artists out there?
If you have to paint, paint! Find a way!
Make your way to the Andrew Freedman Home located at 1125 Grand Concourse at 166th Street to catch this wonderful exhibit. The exhibition runs through April 24th, 2014 and is open Mondays through Fridays from Noon to 10PM and Saturdays from 11AM – 4PM.
Check out the flyer below for more events where Daniel Hauben’s work will be featured!
“It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of Annabel Lee; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me.” – From Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
2. Edgar Allan Poe called the Bronx home and you can still visit his cottage. It was here that Poe wrote Annabel Lee and several other of his famous poems.
No trip to Belmont is complete without going to The Bronx Beer Hall in the heart of the Arthur Avenue Market / Image Credit: Richard Perry/The New York Times
Lewis Morris, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence of our country, was born in the Bronx. / by Ole Erekson, Engraver, c1876, Library of Congress
Laverne DeFazio, played by Bronxite Penny Marshall / LAVERNE & SHIRLEY – Gallery – Shoot Date: December 18, 1975. (Photo by ABC Photo Archives/ABC via Getty Images) PENNY MARSHALL
6. Penny Marshall, better known as Laverne DeFazio from the hit comedy show, Laverne and Shirley was raised right here in the Bronx and lived on the Grand Concourse. Marshall attended the former Walton High School. Besides her acting career, she has directed such hit movies like, Big, Jumping Jack Flash, A League of Their Own, and Awakenings.
Span of Lenape Territory / Wikipedia
7. Before our borough’s namesake, Jonas Bronck, set foot upon the our land, it was known as Rananchqua by the Siwanoy, a group of Native Americans of the Lenape Tribe. It was a land divided by the Aquahung River (Today’s modern-day Bronx River).
The Bronx and its towns and villages before it was the Bronx and was still part of Westchester County. / Wikipedia
8. Did you also know that The Bronx was once part of Westchester County? The Town of Westchester, which was to the East of the Bronx River was the first town established in Westchester County and was its county seat. In 1874, the towns west of the Bronx River became part of New York City and the lands to the east of the Bronx River were annexed to New York City in 1898.
Woolworth’s Mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery / Flickr / https://www.flickr.com/photos/starik39/
9. Woodlawn Cemetery is perhaps the final resting place of more famous people than any other place in the world. Among the most notable names are: Rowland H. Macy, founder of Macy’s Department stores, James Cash Penney, founder of, you guessed it, JC Penney, legendary latin artist Celia Cruz, FW Woolworth of Woolworth Department Store fame, composer, Irving Berlin, Jazz musicians such as Duke Ellington, Miles Davis.
As we continue to celebrate throughout the year the 375th anniversary of Jonas Bronck’s arrival to our borough as the first European settler and the 100th anniversary of the creation of Bronx County, we will continue to provide you with these little fun factoids and trivia. Have any suggestions for future postings on this topic? Send them in to submissions@welcome2thebronx.com !
Thousands of of people have read the article and have shared it through their various networks, now we’re asking you to please sign the petition to Mayor Bill de Blasio, Public Advocate Letitia James, and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito asking them to help in this cause.
Unfortunately this is isn’t news to Bronx residents and in particular, the people of the South Bronx: Schools located in lower income neighborhoods are severely lacking in Arts Education or do not have any arts-based programs at all.
A new report issued by New York City Comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, shows that The Bronx and Brooklyn account for nearly 50% of schools without an arts program. The report, which identifies schools throughout the city that suffer the same fate is a first step in rectifying the situation.
“The benefits of arts education are many: in addition to higher GPAs and test scores cited in the Comptroller’s report, studies from the National Institutes of Health and Americans For The Arts have shown that arts education helps with motor skills, language development, decision-making, visual learning, creativity and inventiveness, and cultural awareness.”
Yankee fans came out today to bear witness for an historic moment – Derek Jeter’s last opening day at the stadium and the beginning of the end of his almost 20 year career.
Jeter began playing for the Bronx Bombers in 1995 and since his debut, he’s been a one of the most popular players ever. Known as a consummate ball player, ESPN wrote about Jeter last year,
“The Yankees’ Derek Jeter has defied the impact of the two most influential elements of his time: the institutional shift toward quantitative analysis and the cynical lust for home runs, fueled by performance-enhancing drugs. For now, he’s stuck at 3,304 hits, sidelined until after the All-Star break with an ankle injury. But with Jeter, the visual has always been better than the numerical — and there’s never been a better time to appreciate that than in his absence, which only underscores his longevity.
For years, most stats guys never liked him as much as his All-Star rivals at shortstop: Alex Rodriguez, Nomar Garciaparra and Miguel Tejada. Jeter, now 38, has outlasted them all at the position and created a more compelling legacy. (Rodriguez and Tejada will always be drug-tainted, and Jeter likely will finish with twice as many hits as Garciaparra’s 1,747.)”
As I was taking my morning walk with my dog around Melrose, I noticed that several cherry blossoms and other trees are starting to bloom.
Have you noticed Spring forcing its way through? We’d love to see your pictures and feature them on a future post showing the beauty of our green borough in bloom!
Use the hashtag #bloomingbronx or #welcome2thebronx in Instagram, Twitter, and all other social media or you can simply send your pictures to: submissions@welcome2thebronx.com
Make sure to let us know the location / neighborhood of the image as well as how you would like us to credit it!
