Put on your dancing shoes and head over to the Roberto Clemente Plaza in the Hub on 3rd Avenue and 149th Street!
Tonight at 6PM, the Bronx born and raised Puerto Rican salsero, Willie Colón, will perform at a free outdoor concert to the delights of many.
Sounds like a good event for our neighbors at the recently opened Opera House Hotel, just a block and a half away, to come by or send their guests over to absorb some our local culture.
The Hub is easily accessible by public transportation with the 2 and 5 express trains stopping right at 3r Avenue and 149th Street.
From DNAinfo: “The new hotel is decorated with old posters and playbills from the building’s past life as a theater.” DNAinfo/Patrick Wall
Yesterday Patrick Wall of DNAinfo reported that the Opera House Hotel had no vacancies this weekend proving to one set of critics that folks will stay in the heart of the South Bronx in a luxury boutique hotel that may seemingly look out of place.
Unfortunately the article wasn’t full of good news as you would think considering such excellent news.
Several guests were interviewed for the article and it is completely understandable that they, along with potential future guests, would be a bit apprehensive about the neighborhood and the Bronx. Mainstream media has done an excellent job in the destruction of our image and still continues to do so.
One particular guest seemed to live in some alternate universe. Shawana Simms of Cincinnati was staying at the Opera House Hotel with her mother who, “…was terrified.” Later in the evening, she went to the local Checkers just 2 blocks away but only did so because she was escorted by a hotel guard.
New York City is the safest largest city in America. Crime in the Bronx has plummeted to historic lows making it safer than even Boston. The most recent statistics via neighborhoodscout.com which analyzes FBI criminal date indicates that Cincinnati is listed as one of the top 100 most dangerous cities in America – something which neither NYC as a whole or the Bronx is listed under. Such perceptions as the Bronx being this extremely dangerous place is simply based on decades old images and data of the Bronx and not one of the current state of affairs in our borough.
All things considered, still the reviews on Trip Advisor are flowing in and have been extremely positive. Nicholas L, Rudersberg of Baden-Württemberg, Germany said that, “The Opera House Hotel is a superb oasis amidst one of the few remaining culturally vibrant and lively neighborhoods of the NYC ”Aug 31, 2013
Now the big concern in the article was also whether or not guests staying at the Opera House Hotel would contribute to the local economy of the Bronx by spending time in the area.
“I appreciate them building this hotel here,” said Vincent Valentino, president of the Hub Third Avenue Business Improvement District. “But I really don’t see how it’s going to affect my shoppers or merchants.”
Is it not the responsibility of the Hub BID President, along with his organization to give tourists an incentive to spend time here? Perhaps if there was more focus on bringing in more diverse businesses to the district, it would eventually have an impact but let’s face it, The Hub BID has been pretty stagnant for as long as they’ve been in business (The BID was founded in 1990) and other than signs indicating that there’s a BID in the area, I haven’t seen much done to spruce up the area.
Then we have the Bronx Tourism Council of which Olga Luz Tirado is the executive director. Patrick Wall mentions that she came to the hotel last Friday to, “drop off some Bronx brochures” which until then they had none on our borough. I contacted Olga Luz Tirado and asked what they are doing to to try and encourage tourists to spend time in the Bronx but no replies have been received from her office as I write this.
We’ve known that the hotel was going to open for about a year now and during that time the Bronx Tourism Council could have been working hard along with the hotel to come up with concrete plans and solutions but instead, the BTC squandered all that time only to come up with a few brochures 3 weeks AFTER the hotel opened.
On a brighter side, Alexandra Maruri of MCNY Tours has added yet another Bronx based tour – every Friday from 4:00PM – 7:00PM she will provide a Distillery Tour of Port Morris which is home to the 2 first distilleries in the Bronx in 80 years since Prohibition. That, coupled with the other excellent tours in the Bronx that are offered by her company, guests of the Opera House Hotel have a perfect starting point to learning more about the Bronx!
No sooner than reading an article in the Daily News that a Bronx judge rules that people can drink alcohol in common areas of buildings, the moral panic began on the internet.
Folks immediately began to decry the ruling saying that, “Now NYC will only get worse” and similar sentiments.
But did they actually READ the article?
At stake here was something quite simple. A young man was given a summons for having a half full open bottle of vodka in a building’s elevator where his aunt lived.
Read that again.
He was ticketed for being on PRIVATE PROPERTY for having an open container. Summonses of this kind clearly state having open container in public and although a building’s common areas might appear to be public, in fact they are not.
Anything public ends at the street entrance of a building or development and anything beyond that within the confines of the property is private.
NYPD has no right or jurisdiction to come onto the premises and issue nonsensical citations that are in clear violation of an individual’s right.
From reading the article, the individual wasn’t being disorderly nor was someone reporting a quality of life crime: He was in an elevator on private property.
Readers online immediately began saying that now this is a free-for-all for folks to go out of control but the fact of the matter is that no it does not.
In the decision, the judge said this:
“There is simply no basis to conclude that the interior common areas of residential apartment buildings, often separated from the streets by locked doors, intercoms and ‘No Trespassing’ signs, are part of the public streets, whether the interior area is a rooftop garden, gymnasium, laundry room, hallway, lobby or elevator,”
It is up to each individual landlord to come up with its own rules about conduct in common areas. Many buildings have it in their leases that drinking in common areas is prohibited.
So before you jump the gun and say NYC is going downhill and this is one of the many reasons, do yourself the favor and READ the articles not just the headlines!
Drink to this: A Bronx judge gave the thumbs up to people who want to drink booze in apartment building elevators, gyms, lobbies and laundry rooms.
“It’s a victory for everybody. It’s a victory for the community,” said Steven Chavez, whose November 2012 arrest led to Judge Shari Michels’ ruling.Chavez was in his aunt’s apartment building on Rogers Place at 1 a.m. when two cops said they spotted him “inside an elevator holding a half-full, open bottle of Ciroc vodka.”The cops slapped Chavez with a summons for drinking in public, then arrested him for allegedly shoving the officer who tried to give him the ticket.
In a decision made public Thursday, Michels tossed the resisting arrest charge, finding the officer shouldn’t have given Chavez a ticket because he wasn’t drinking in a “public place.”
“There is simply no basis to conclude that the interior common areas of residential apartment buildings, often separated from the streets by locked doors, intercoms and ‘No Trespassing’ signs, are part of the public streets, whether the interior area is a rooftop garden, gymnasium, laundry room, hallway, lobby or elevator,” the judge wrote.
As it turns out, cops could have given Chavez a ticket for underage drinking — he told the Daily News he is 17 years old.
Steven Reed, a spokesman for the Bronx District Attorney’s office, said they’re reviewing the decision and haven’t decided whether they will appeal.
For several days I’ve been walking by this building under construction and wondering what it was going to be since it’s architecturally pleasing to the eye. It looked like perhaps a club or a bar of sorts but alas my hopes were dashed.
Today I ran into the construction workers and they informed me that it will all be one giant liquor store right there in 149th Street between Morris and Courtlandt Avenues.
Even they were baffled at the sheer size of the edifice.
Judging by the exterior and size I’m assuming that it will be the first liquor store in the neighborhood without the bulletproof plexiglass which makes even Fort Knox envious.
Well we’ll see once they open up but for now – and probably for the foreseeable future – I’ll continue shopping at Melrose Liquors on Melrose Avenue between 152nd and 153rd. Why? Because the owner lives right in the neighborhood and it’s important that we support our own residents whenever possible.
Marty Glickman, a son of the Bronx who was often referred to in his youth as the Jewish kid who could run faster than anyone in the neighborhood, is the subject of a documentary which premiers tonight on HBO.
From the streets of the Bronx, to being pulled from competing in the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Nazi Germany, Glickman eventually became a famed sportscaster.
By Chris Michaud
NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Barred from competing in the 1936 Olympics, the Jewish kid from the Bronx who could run faster than anyone in the neighborhood went on to forge a career as a pioneering sportscaster who was the voice of two pro franchises, but never forgot his roots.”
I don’t ever remember walking as a young person,” Marty Glickman, the subject of the documentary “Glickman” which premieres on Monday on HBO, says in the film’s opening.”
I always ran. It was my nature to run.”But at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, then under the grip of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis, Glickman was one of two Jewish runners on the U.S. relay team pulled by U.S. officials at the 11th hour.
Glickman, who died in 2001 at 83 and was known as the voice of the NBA’s New York Knicks, the NFL’s New York Giants as well as Paramount Newsreels, recalled being frustrated and angry.”
I wanted to show that a Jew could do just as well as any other individual, and perhaps even better,” he said in the film.
“He never really became a national broadcaster, which bothered him,” said the film’s director, James Freedman, who worked at age 17 for Glickman producing the broadcaster’s late-night WNEW radio show, and was treated “not as a high school kid, but as a producer.
“Freedman, a successful television writer for hit TV shows such as “Cybill,” recalled that “people in Hollywood would say ‘Who’s Marty Glickman?’ So I hope this film will bring him the national recognition that he so deserved,” he told Reuters.”
He was the first jock-turned-broadcaster in the history of the medium.”
“Glickman,” which had Martin Scorsese as executive producer, features interviews with leading sports figures such as Bob Costas and Marv Albert, both of whom he mentored, Larry King, Red Auerbach and Frank Gifford. It intercuts those with archival footage of his youthful athletic feats in track and football and his legendary broadcasts.
“There was an almost orchestral quality to his vocal inflection … a texture to it that only a tiny handful of broadcasters could ever match,” Costas says in the film.Said King: “He invented the one best term ever in sports broadcasting – swish,” used to describe the ball passing quickly and without resistance down through a basketball net.
“Nobody framed a basketball game like Marty Glickman,” King added. “I saw the game.”
Scorsese reflected that “You don’t need to know about Marty Glickman to appreciate the film. I am certainly not a sports enthusiast.” But the Oscar-winning director was intrigued by Glickman’s “intense commitment, one that fought through adversity and bigotry. There was no other option for him besides the games.”
Freedman said that despite having known and worked with Glickman since his youth, he learned more about the man through making the film.
“I had no idea how great an athlete he was,” said the first-time director. “He was once the third-fastest man in the world,” one of the two faster being the legendary Jesse Owens, another member of that 1936 U.S. Olympic team which struck down the Nazi myth of Aryan supremacy as Hitler watched.
“Also, I never knew just how deeply ’36 hurt him,” Freedman said, adding that he was deeply moved by “what happens when an 18-year-old kid’s dreams are crushed by prejudice.”
For his part, Glickman said it was not until he returned to Berlin’s Olympic stadium in 1985 that he became dizzy with rage, saying “I had maintained this pent up anger and hatred for 49 years.”
Glickman said he was asked about that dark time every four years during the Olympics. “I do not at all hesitate to tell the story, so that it won’t ever happen again,” he said.With the film, the story will win an even wider audience.(Editing by Vicki Allen)
Image credit: Center for Constitutional Rights - http://stopandfrisk.org/about-this-project/
The propaganda machine is working overtime.
Ever since a judge declared a key component of stop and frisk unconstitutional and ordered the NYPD to cease and desist the controversial program, the NY Post and city officials have been working around the clock to instill fears in our hearts.
All this fear mongering that NYC will return to the horrible days of criminal activity is just baseless. How quickly we forget and immediately start believing garbage journalism such as what the NY Post churns out.
Fact: Long before stop and frisk became an official and overused tool, crime was dropping at a phenomenal rate with each year becoming safer than the last. Merely the presence of beat cops walking around their assigned neighborhoods is just as effective of a deterrent.
The very foundation of our country’s judicial system has been based on innocent until proven guilty by a jury of one’s peers. Stop and frisk assumed guilt only to come up overwhelmingly empty-handed in almost all recorded stops.
A police officer’s time should be directed towards community building and engaging our citizens in a positive.
This is purely speculation of course but have you ever wondered how many crimes perhaps were committed because of stop and frisk? Why do I ask this?
Well it’s quite simple.
Say there are 2 or 3 cops walking a beat and they stop someone because he “looks” suspicious. Now you have these officers essentially offline as they are questioning this innocent suspect when instead they can be walking their districts.
A couple of blocks away, an actual crime is being committed; vandalism, a mugging, breaking into a car, or worse yet – a shooting. All of which had a greater potential of being prevented had these officers been walking their beat.
Again, that is all merely speculation but remains food for thought. After all, stop and frisk is based on speculation and racial profiling.
Can we all agree to stop the panicking and listening to fear mongering journalism like the NY Post?
The collective of 6 Nuyorican photographers known as Seis del Sur have graciously donated several prints for a fundraiser tonight at 6PM at La Casa Azul in El Barrio on 103rd and Lexington Avenue for the award winning documentary, El Barrio Tours.
The documentary is a labor of love by Andrew J Padilla and chronicles the impact gentrification is having on Spanish Harlem, aka El Barrio and he is taking it across the country to open up a national dialogue on gentrification.
As you recall, Seis del Sur exhibition opened to standing room only opening night at the Bronx Documentary Center back on January 19th of this year. For the following 6 weeks, the exhibition continued to remain standing room only for the weekly screenings and panel discussions that followed.
Tonight’s events at La Casa Azul include bomba dancing by renowned Milteri Tucker with live drumming by local Bronxite Elena “Mamarrazzi” Marrero and others.
There will be a benediction by Jesus-Papoleto Melendez who is a phenomenal poet and also provided an amazing benediction for the Seis del Sur exhibition that left the crowd in standing ovation.
Please join us tonight at 6PM for this wonderful cultural event.
A couple of weeks ago a debate began on my Facebook page regarding the old CSX lines in the Bronx which are no longer in use and many individuals indicated that they’d like to see them put to use for a triboro train to connect the outer boroughs without Manhattan.
This idea has been floated for decades but either the money hasn’t been there or enough brass at the MTA with vision to push for such a project.
Look at what the 7 train extension to the Jacob Javitz Convention Center is already doing to the neighborhood, adding millions of square feet in mixed development.
Not that any development in that scale will happen in the outer boroughs but development nevertheless.
Such a transit line will open new employment opportunities for millions as commuting times will be cut drastically. As it is now, folks working and living at either end of such a line waste over an hour in just one direction.
The MTA is worried about ridership but I guess they haven’t heard of the old adage, “If you build it, they will come.”
Immediately there was an uproar to save not just the idea of the post office but the actual grand lobby along with its historical treasure of murals by the late and famous muralist Ben Shahn and his wife, Bernarda Bryson Shahn.
Many edifices throughout New York City receive landmark status but generally only applies to the exterior, leaving the inside, oftentimes equally beautiful, architecturally significant, and historically significant, unprotected and vulnerable to a developer’s whims as they try and squeeze out every dollar per square foot possible.
As someone who grew up just behind the post office and fondly remembers the opulence of it all amid the charred ruins of the South Bronx in the 70s and 80s, I am glad that preservation is that much closer.
While it might seem as an impedance to a developer considering purchasing the building, a visionary prospective owner will only see the grandeur that such a lobby can lend to any development that takes place within the cavernous building.
They only need be reminded that the building’s overwhelmingly vast 180,000 square feet or so is ripe for developing with just the lobby off limits.
For the better part of the year, Crunch Fitness has been in negotiations with the Opera House Hotel in Melrose and have officially signed a lease for 18,000 Square Foot space in the landmark building.
According to the Opera House, Crunch is already paying rent and is expected to be up and running in the beginning of next year. No exact date in 2014 has been set.
Melrose, once home to mom and pop fitness centers and Lucille Roberts, received its first major gym when Planet Fitness – the popular no-frills national chain –opened in December 2011. Apparently this was the watershed moment for the fitness industry and 6 months later in June 2012, Blink Fitness opened up in St Ann’s Terrace on 156th Street.
The new locations proved so popular that Blink Fitness opened yet another location in the Melrose area on the opposite side of the neighborhood in Concourse Plaza to better serve that neighborhood.
18,000 square foot space which will be occupied by Crunch Fitness at the Opera House Hotel.
Now with Crunch coming to the neighborhood, Bronxites will have the option of higher tier of gyms as memberships typically run from $69 – $99 a month, however there is an unconfirmed rumor that this location may be offering a much more affordable membership competitive with those of Planet Fitness and Blink.
So, Bronxites, what do you think about this? For years, locals have been asking gyms like New York Sports Club to open up in our neighborhood since many of us would have to schlep to Manhattan for a good, full service gym – only to be told that the market could not sustain them.
Now, everyone seems to want a piece of the action as we continue to prove them wrong.
As Melrose and the surrounding areas continue to become more attractive to outsiders, will longtime residents be displaced or will we continue to make this neighborhood a successful story of a neighborhood with mixed incomes and socioeconomic backgrounds?
Stay tuned as we get more info! Oh and remember, you FIRST heard it from Welcome2TheBronx!
Smack dab in the heart of the South Bronx on one of its main streets and adjacent to one of the busiest subway stations in the city, The Opera House Hotel is open for business in Melrose on 149th Street between Brook and Bergen.
A work in progress for about 4 years now, the luxury hotel opened this past Sunday in the former Bronx Opera House and guests were already streaming in from across the country and even overseas.
According to the hotel’s management, on opening day they had 16 of the 60 luxury rooms booked and have been pleasantly surprised by bookings for the month of August – a notoriously slow month in the industry.
The Empire Hotel Group which owns and runs the Opera House Hotel is no stranger to the business as they own and operate 7 other hotels along Manhattan’s West Side stretching from the West 30s and we’ll into the Upper West Side in the West 80s.
The Opera House is their first venture outside of Manhattan and has the distinct honor of being the borough’s FIRST luxury boutique hotel. The rooms are all quite spacious and beautifully appointed with tall windows making them very bright and sunny.
Since it is a boutique hotel, the amenities are somewhat limited, however, guests who tend to lodge at such establishments are not typically noted to have a need for them. Nevertheless, the hotel features a conference room, complimentary continental breakfast for guests. A small fitness center and business center are being set up as well. The hotel's conference room which will be available for rent to non-guests as well.
Perfectly situated and located at 436 East 149th Street, the Opera House Hotel is just steps away from the 3rd Avenue / 149th Street subway, providing guests easy and quick access to Manhattan and Bronx attractions.
The subway station sits along the 2 and 5 express trains into Manhattan and you can reach the great museums such as the Guggenheim, El Museo del Barrio, The Metropolitan Museum of Art all along Museum Mile on 5th Avenue in the Upper East Side under 12 minutes.
Central Park and Upper West Side attractions are also accessible within the same time frame.
Even midtown Manhattan, again both East and West sides are within easy reach and under 20 minutes since the trains run express.
In the Bronx, adventurous tourists can walk to Yankee Stadium or along the architecturally important Grand Concourse both which are world renowned and the latter housing the largest collection of Art Deco buildings in the world.
Guests can also soak up the local and vibrant culture at one of our many great restaurants in Melrose or Mott Haven.
They can visit one of many art spaces such as Pregones, Longwood Gallery of the Arts, the BronxArtSpace or the Bronx Documentary Center which in a short time has become the premier destination for photographers, documentary journalists and filmmakers outside of Manhattan and attracting those in the industry from around the globe.
Better yet, guests can contact MCNY Tours which offers excellent historical tours of the Bronx and is a run by Bronx resident Alexandra Maruri.
In a community which has been on the rise for over a decade now and home of dozens of award winning developments such as Via Verde and the Eltona, a hotel – and one of such caliber as the Opera House – is one of the many types of businesses desperately needed in the neighborhood to provide a balance between our diverse residents. Hotel guests are greeted by the logo which is derived from elements of the Old Bronx Opera House.
Rates are moderately priced and are seasonal as well as according to major events such as the World Series. Rooms currently begin in the $120s to $180s per night and are subject to change.
Personally, I’m glad to have the hotel as a neighbor and welcome them with open arms and look forward to a long and prosperous relationship for them and the community at large.
They took a leap of faith in our neighborhood where others have told us no. Although we’ve had a steady stream of businesses coming in such as Planet Fitness and 2 Blink Fitness locations in the neighborhood, this type of establishment will indeed provide the confidence other retailers need to come in and provide desperately needed and wanted services.
It’s the video everyone’s talking about and it’s no wonder.
Broadway actress and impressionist, Christina Bianco is dazzling millions with her talent of singing well known songs in the voices of famous divas like Barbara Streisand, Adel, and Shakira to name a few.
Not only does she have a phenomenal voice but her stage presence is infectious as you can see in the video below to and her interview on PIX11 NEWS (link below).
This is the video which has gone viral with almost 2 million views.
But this video had me in TEARS with her impersonations – and not all of them are of singers!
She’s just one of many talented individuals from the Bronx!
