You have two more days left to apply for brand new affordable apartments in the Melrose neighborhood of The Bronx.
Located across two separate buildings, one located at 451 E 159th Street and the second at 3120 Park Avenue, the 31 unit development has studios starting as low as $358 a month for residents making 30% of the Area Median Income which ranges from $14,812 to $23,880.
As far as amenities, given that the buildings are rather small in size, they’re only offering bike storage and on-site laundry.
451 E 159th Street
However, it should be noted that the truly affordable units are VERY limited and in fact are only 23% of total units with the rest of the 77% of the units at market rate.
DO NOT contact us regarding this or any real estate as we are NOT affiliated with this or any other real estate development. We are simply providing you with the news.
The New York City Department of Health is now releasing data indicating death rates per zip code due to coronavirus and shedding a light on just exactly what’s going on in The Bronx and across the city.
In The Bronx, the 10469 zip code, which covers Pelham Gardens, parts of Allerton, Baychester, and Williamsbridge, not only has the highest death rate per 100,000 residents for COVID-19 in the borough but also the highest number of deaths.
While the worst, for now, seems to be behind us, to date we have lost 3,386 residents with an additional 881 who probably died from the coronavirus.
During the peak, over 100 residents a day died from COVID-19 over the course of 12 days between April 3 and April 14 when 1,351 Bronxites perished with a high of 132 deaths on April 11.
For comparison, on May 17, only 2 people died from COVID-19 in The Bronx according to data from the department of health.
10469 also has the second highest number of deaths in the city and the death rate is the fourth highest citywide.
The information in the tables below is as of May 18, 2020 and has been compiled by NYCDOH.
Rate of death per 100,000 residents (highest to lowest)
Alpha Crawford, 97, died in a nursing home in The Bronx at the height of the coronavirus outbreak in New York City. She had campaigned for daycare access for low-income New Yorkers. Photo: Courtesy of Madelon Kendricks
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This story was co-published with the PBS series FRONTLINE.
Alpha Crawford started feeling sick at the end of March. She had a fever and pneumonia. As the coronavirus spread in New York, visitors were banned from entering her nursing home in the Bronx.
Doctors there put 97-year-old Crawford on antibiotics, but they didn’t seem to help. A nurse called her goddaughter and next-of-kin, and asked if she wanted to talk on FaceTime.
Armored in a gown and face shield, the nurse entered Crawford’s room and held a phone to her face. On the other end of the call, Madelon Kendricks could see that her godmother was struggling to breathe.
Crawford died on April 4. Kendricks said she didn’t find out until four days later. “She never got tested but she had all the symptoms,” Kendricks said. “They never mentioned the ‘c’ word” — COVID-19.
The nursing home didn’t respond to requests for comment. Official records say that she died from pulmonary obstructive disease, and pneumonia in both lungs.
Shortly after Crawford passed away, COVID-19 deaths reached a peak in New York City, with 799 people dying in a single day.
The Bronx has been hit unusually hard by the outbreak, with more COVID-19 cases per capita than any other borough in New York City. Residents there, the majority of whom are black or Latino, are dying at twice the rate of other New Yorkers.
The borough is home to the poorest congressional district in the U.S., where residents suffer from high rates of asthma, diabetes and hypertension — conditions that worsen outcomes for COVID-19 patients.
The story of Alpha Crawford’s life — and her god-daughter’s effort to preserve her dignity after death — highlights the extent of the disproportionate toll the disease has taken on this community.
‘People Being Discarded’
For weeks after Crawford’s death, Kendricks scrambled to find a way to put her godmother to rest. After being turned away by several funeral homes that were too full to take on new cases, Kendricks returned to Herbert T. McCall, a funeral home in the South Bronx.
McCall is where, in 1991, she held services for her mother, Dorothy Thomas, who was Crawford’s best friend. It’s also where she mourned her father and grandfather.
Sheila Newkirk, the funeral director, warned Kendricks that crematoriums in the city were backed up. She might have to wait several weeks for her godmother to be cremated, and the small, family-run funeral home didn’t have the capacity to store bodies for that long.
The Herbert T. McCall Funeral Home in The Bronx Photo: Anjali Tsui/FRONTLINE
Kendricks faced a dilemma: The nursing home set limits on how long they could hold the body. So Crawford was transferred to the medical examiner’s office, which could only keep her for another 15 days.
As the deadline approached, the medical examiner’s office called Kendricks and offered to bury Crawford in a temporary grave. The thought was horrifying.
“People need to be treated in death the same way that they are treated in life,” Kendricks said. “People are just being discarded. I’m wondering, is it only the poor? Or are the rich too going down like this?”
A Local Hero
Crawford was born in a South Carolina town called Little Africa in 1922. Her parents were sharecroppers, according to Kendricks, and the young Crawford worked alongside them. After graduating from a segregated high school in Rutherfordton, North Carolina, she attended Winston-Salem State University.
But there were few opportunities for a young black woman with a bachelor’s degree at home. In the 1950s, she moved to The Bronx, joining the waves of African Americans fleeing the violence and discrimination of an oppressive regime in the Jim Crow South.
There, Crawford ran a daycare and became a community activist, rallying for access to child care for low-income families. She fought for funding to turn an empty lot into a community playground. In 1988, then-New York City Mayor Ed Koch dedicated the park in her name: the Alpha Crawford Sunshine Park.
Crawford was also a member of the local Mount Carmel Baptist Church for about as long as it had been around — for more than 60 years. But in recent years, her health had kept her from attending regular services.
In 2018, she returned to the church on Mother’s Day with her goddaughter. “When she came in there, you would have thought the queen walked through that door,” Kendricks said. “They went nuts. They were so happy to see her.”
Kendricks said Crawford wouldn’t have wanted a solemn funeral. She would have wanted a spirited memorial service in her church, packed with friends, family and a full choir.
But none of that can happen now.
‘Uncounted in This Horror’
Two weeks after Crawford died, Kendricks, who works as a psychotherapist, was watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC when she saw a familiar name appear on screen: The Plaza Rehabilitation and Nursing Center — where her godmother had lived.
Thirty-five residents had died there, according to the New York State Health Department.
Since then, the Plaza has emerged as the nursing home with the highest death toll in The Bronx. According to new data released by the state, 60 residents have died — including 11 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Because Crawford was never tested, Kendricks is not sure if she is counted among those who presumably died from the coronavirus.
This week, Kendricks drove down from her home in Yonkers to McCall funeral home to check on her godmother’s arrangements. She put on a black fabric mask and stood by the threshold of the funeral director’s office, trying to maintain a distance.
“Hi, I’m here to find out what happened with Alpha Crawford,” she said.
“She was cremated, but her cremains aren’t back yet,” Newkirk said.
Crawford had been taken to Pennsylvania to be cremated. “New York is so backed up,” Newkirk said. “We sent some people to Pennsylvania so they wouldn’t be held for so long.”
Kendricks was shocked. Crawford had already been held for five weeks while waiting to be cremated in The Bronx. “It’s a whole bunch of mixup,” she said. “I’m not even sure that people are going to know what body went where after this is over.”
She doesn’t blame the funeral home. She is grateful that they found a solution and spared her godmother from being buried in the city’s potter’s field on Hart Island.
But there’s no sense of closure: She never got to say goodbye. She will feel better when her Crawford’s ashes are finally transported back to New York and buried next to her husband, a Korean War veteran, at Calverton National Cemetery on Long Island.
Kendrick also wants to ensure that Crawford is included in the coronavirus death toll. “There are so many people who are uncounted in this horror,” she said. “She has to be counted.”
This story was originally published by THE CITY, an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.
Bronx youth already faced an uphill battle economically in The Bronx but now with the coronavirus pandemic financially ravaging the borough things have been made far worse.
And nowhere is that more apparent than in the borough’s 15th congressional district where the impact doesn’t just hurt the teens but also their families that they struggle to support.
With people living in multigenerational housing in The Bronx, everyone that can work and finds it, helps to keep a roof over their heads.
According to a Bloomberg index, Bronx residents between the ages of 18 and 34 living in the 15th Congressional district, which covers the South Bronx and up to Fordham as well as the East Bronx communities of Soundview and Castle Hill, face 16.2% unemployment rate.
49.7% are living with a parent and 32.9% are below the poverty line. Making matters worse, 20.1% do not have a high school degree.
“Before the coronavirus closed most of the U.S. economy, Ginessi Ortiz was a cashier at a shoe store. Her father made deliveries for a construction company, her brother was employed at a community center and her mother had babysitting jobs.
“Now they’ve all been laid off. For Ortiz, 19, and her 24-year-old brother, it’s a setback for people already in one of the toughest places for young adults to advance: the Bronx.
“New York’s 15th Congressional District, where Ortiz lives with her family, offers the worst economic prospects in the U.S. for residents ages 18 to 34 years old, according to a new index compiled by Bloomberg. By contrast, the district with the second-best prospects is just a few miles away: New York’s 12th, which includes parts of eastern Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn.“
This simply highlights what we’ve always known: That New York City is a tale of two cities and opportunities don’t come for everyone the same.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve been reporting on how The Bronx had the potential to be one of the hardest hit boroughs during this health crisis.
Besides decades of disinvestment and income inequalities dominating our borough, we also have been living in a never ending health crisis that made the already vulnerable even more so.
Couple that with having the worst health outcomes in the state with the highest rates of diabetes, asthma, obesity, people with compromised immune systems, and highest rates of cardiovascular disease simply made The Bronx a dry forest and the coronavirus a lit match as these conditions made the population vulnerable to severe symptoms and cases of the virus.
Sadly our fears were realized as within weeks it became crystal clear that our borough was being hit hard with a mortality rate twice that of Manhattan.
In this video by Business Insider, they explore this and more on the literal life-threatening disparities that impact our borough.
“The Bronx is the poorest borough in the city, with a median income of $38,000, compared to Manhattan’s $82,000. Almost 60% of people in the Bronx are paying more than they can afford for housing, which has led to more multigenerational housing in the Bronx and more residents in public housing than any other borough.
“For every apartment in the Bronx, there are 2.8 people living in it. Compare that to the two people living in every apartment in Manhattan. More people at home likely means more people get sick.
“Overall, there’s 350,000 more housing units in Manhattan than the Bronx, and better-quality housing. See this map? Most residents in the Bronx are dealing with maintenance problems, like leaks, rats, cracks, plumbing, and broken toilets.
“These issues alone make it more challenging to live at home, not to mention having to work from home because of COVID-19. That is, if you can work from home.”
The New York City Department of Health has issued a fact sheet so that parents can learn the signs of the mysterious coronavirus-related illness that is striking children, particularly in New York State where over 150 cases have been reported.
According to some medical experts, Pediatric Multi-Syndrome Inflammatory Syndrome appears to be related to children having COVID-19, aka the coronavirus, “but the connection is still unclear.
The following, regarding this new health condition, has been issued by DOH and is dated as of May 9, 2020.
What is pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome? Pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome (PMIS) is a new health condition appearing in children in New York City (NYC) and elsewhere. Some doctors think the condition is related to having coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), but the connection is still not clear.
PMIS is like other serious inflammatory conditions such as Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome. Children with PMIS can have problems with their heart and other organs and need to stay in a hospital to receive support in an intensive care unit.
PMIS is a rare condition. However, because it is life-threatening, it is important that parents know the signs and symptoms, so they can get help right away.
What are the signs or symptoms of PMIS? Most children have fever (temperature of 100.4 degrees F or 38.0 degrees C or greater) lasting several days, along with other symptoms.
Common symptoms include:
• Irritability or sluggishness • Abdominal pain without another explanation • Diarrhea • Vomiting • Rash • Conjunctivitis, or red or pink eyes
• Enlarged lymph node (“gland”) on one side of the neck • Red, cracked lips or red tongue that looks like a strawberry • Swollen hands and feet, which might also be red
When should I call my child’s doctor or get emergency care? You should call your doctor immediately if your child becomes ill and has had continued fever. Your doctor will ask about any signs or symptoms your child has and use that information to recommend next steps. If your child is severely ill, you should go to the nearest emergency room or call 911 immediately.
Is PMIS contagious? PMIS is not contagious. However, it is possible your child has COVID-19 or another underlying infection that may be contagious. Until we know more, hospitals in NYC that are treating children with PMIS are taking the same precautions they take for patients with COVID-19.
Is there a treatment for PMIS? Currently, children with PMIS are being treated with different therapies, including intravenous immunoglobulin and steroids. These drugs help reduce the body’s immune response that causes the inflammatory syndrome. Children are also being given other medications to protect their heart, kidneys and other organs.
How can I prevent my child from getting PMIS? Although we do not know yet if PMIS is related to COVID-19, taking steps to prevent your child from being exposed to COVID-19 is important. Face coverings, hand hygiene, and physical distancing are the best way to prevent COVID-19.
New York City neighborhoods home to public housing developments logged a 30% higher rate of recent coronavirus hospitalizations than surrounding areas, according to THE CITY’s analysis of new state data.
On average, 14 people per 100,000 residents were hospitalized in ZIP codes with public housing, compared to 11 hospitalizations per 100,000 in other neighborhoods, at some point between May 2 and May 5.
As hospitalizations from COVID-19 decrease in New York, state and city officials have begun to focus on where New Yorkers are still getting sick from the virus and how.
Public health researchers say longstanding disadvantages that include poverty and limited access to health care, coupled with the city and state’s belated moves to safeguard residents, made the city’s roughly 400,000 public housing residents especially susceptible to the virus.
“NYCHA housing is almost a petri dish,” said Beverly-Xaviera Watkins, an epidemiology professor at NYU School of Global Public Health. “Everything about the NYCHA population makes them more vulnerable.”
During the three-day period in early May, residents of East Flatbush and Brownsville in Brooklyn, the South Bronx and East Harlem landed in the hospital because of the virus at rates twice as high as the city’s average, the newly released data shows.
These neighborhoods are home to a heavy concentration of NYCHA residents — a total of 62,000.
The state this month began to require hospitals to report more detailed information about patients, including their addresses and occupation.
The resulting snapshot of hospitalizations that occurred between May 2 and May 5 offers the first glimpse of where the virus still has a foothold — and where health officials will need to target efforts as they seek to stamp out COVID-19.
Four residents of Tawana Myers’ building in Brooklyn’s Linden Houses passed away from COVID-19 in mid-April, Myers said. All but one of the people who died were in their 50s.
“It’s really devastating. These are residents that you know and you can’t even pay your respects,” said Myers, who is 58. “And it’s scary. We’re fighting an army we can’t see and it’s gunning people down.”
Linden Houses resident Tawana Myers. Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Roadblocks to Testing
On a typical day before coronavirus, Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center saw about 10 new patients admitted to its East Flatbush campus, according to a physician there who spoke to THE CITY on the condition of anonymity.
By mid-April, the hospital had 90 patients backed up waiting for a bed, virtually all for confirmed or suspected COVID-19 cases. In retrospect, the physician noted, that was the likely apex of the illness in the community.
“It was very chaotic. There were admitted patients all over,” the doctor said. “We had double rows in the hallways, a row of beds on each side.”
The hospital would log 340 deaths that month — an average of 11-plus per day — with roughly 95% of those related to COVID-19, he said. Under ordinary circumstances, the hospital would record 25 deaths in a month.
Kingsbrook — which had begun moving to shut down several of its non-emergency services this summer only to stop as the pandemic hit — primarily serves residents of East Flatbush and Brownsville, home to two of Brooklyn’s largest black and West Indian communities.
The doctor noted that many of his patients lived in multi-generational homes, large-scale private apartment buildings and public housing complexes.
Residents of the area’s close-knit public housing communities were devastated last month when 10 people died in a single week at the Van Dyke Houses. Around that same time, six seniors died at the nearby Woodson Houses.
Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn set up a tent to treat coronavirus patients. Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Councilmember Alicka Ampry-Samuel (D-Brooklyn), whose district includes Kingsbrook, said that longtime neglect of the community paired with a lack of accessible testing ignited a tinderbox. Until mid-April, only hospitals were testing for the virus in the area, and even then, only admitted patients had access, she said.
“In the beginning, only people with a fever or difficulty breathing were admitted to the hospital, and only people who were admitted could get tested — so you basically had to be dead or near death to get tested,” Ampry-Samuel said.
“And even though the city was telling people without serious symptoms to stay home and tell their doctor, the reality is that the emergency room is the primary care for a lot of our neighbors. So of course we are seeing these numbers,” she added.
Testing sites sprung up in mid-April, with the opening of a controversial state-run drive-through testing operation in Flatbush on April 14. Two days later, an additional testing site opened in the Brownsville Multi-Service Family Health Center operated by the state.
As testing sites opened, so did “roadblocks” — such as not having a car for drive-through testing — “that didn’t lend to it being a very accessible experience,” said state Assemblymember Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn).
Since Brownsville Multi-Services Family Health Center opened its site a month ago, 20% of the 1,100 people swabbed there have tested positive for COVID-19, according to a spokesperson for Metro IAF, a nondenominational social justice advocacy group working with the state to open testing centers. That’s lower than most testing sites have seen until recently.
Hospitalizations and deaths in his facility have been steadily declining, said the Kingsbrook physician. Internal hospital data shows that just 10% of newly admitted patients this week are in care for confirmed or probable COVID-19 related illness, he said, compared to 95% at the apex.
A Vulnerable Population
More than one-fifth of NYCHA’s residents are 62 or older — and so particularly vulnerable to COVID-19’s lethality. But that’s far from residents’ only risk factor.
“When you just think about the population in public housing, like every other low income community, you have a lot of comorbid disease that’s already associated with COVID,” said Watkins.
“High rates of asthma, you have cardiovascular disease, you have diabetes. The things that would increase susceptibility. But then low-income communities of color also have a lot of environmental exposures, and this is particularly true around NYCHA complexes,” Watkins said.
A vendor sells fresh produce on Church Avenue in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Residents of public housing are more likely to be in the service industry as hourly workers who are not able to work from home during the pandemic and rely on public transportation to get to work, Watkins added. In addition, people need disposable income to buy things like masks and hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the virus.
New York State distributed gallons of hand sanitizer in late April, in a manner that left residents feeling inhuman. Residents had to line up and wait as tenant leaders poured the allotted amount for each person.
“I hate the way they gave out sanizatier,” said Karen Blondel, a Red Hook public housing resident of 37 years, “After waiting that long to get it, it was almost like — we didn’t count.”
Beverly MacFarland, the tenant association leader at Taft Houses in East Harlem, said she and a few others pooled together some money in early March to buy supplies for the “vulnerable seniors” in the complex just as news of the virus’ landfall in New York was beginning to spread.
The roughly 100 “Corona to go bags” distributed contained Lysol, hand sanitizer, gloves, soap and masks, MacFarland told THE CITY while distributing food to residents.
Taft Houses recently received an infusion of masks and hand sanitizer for its residents from Cuomo’s office, she said. The resident association also purchased gloves to distribute.
MacFarland said two residents of the development have died from COVID-19. “Not a high number of people in Taft” were affected by the virus that she knows of — but with testing difficult to reach, it’s hard to get a handle.
Taft Houses residents seeking testing can travel to a hospital, or to two other area NYCHA complexes, St. Nicholas Houses or, in East Harlem, the George Washington Houses. “Each is a bus ride away,” MacFarland said.
‘We All Knew it was Gonna Get Hit’
The East Harlem ZIP codes of 10035 and 10029 — home to 20 public housing developments and more than 30,000 NYCHA residents — reported more than six times as many hospitalizations as the 10128 and 10028 ZIP codes on the Upper East Side.
And within the 10459 ZIP code in the Longwood area of the South Bronx, home to eight NYCHA developments, residents were hospitalized at one of the highest rates in the borough, at 36 per 100,000 residents.
“The larger issue remains the decades-long inequities in the borough, specifically in the South Bronx,” said Councilmember Rafael Salamanca (D-The Bronx), who represents the area. “Underlying health issues, disparate access to health care, density and poverty play a crucial role.”
Add to this years of disinvestment in the city’s public housing stock and the consequences were predictably disastrous, said Tomas Ramos, former program director at NYCHA’s Bronx River Houses and current candidate for Congress.
Before the pandemic struck, visits to NYCHA apartments in the area brought Ramos face-to-face with mold, peeling paint and other “uninhabitable” conditions.
“On top of that,” he told THE CITY, “we’re talking about poverty. NYCHA was gonna get hit regardless — we all knew it was gonna get hit. Why didn’t people act accordingly? We’ve been let down for so long.”
Advocates with Metro IAF hand out free masks in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, May 13, 2020. Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
In mid-February, the union that represents roughly 8,000 NYCHA employees had already begun discussing with management how to prepare for the virus.
“We knew about the virus coming. We had many meetings with NYCHA pertaining to social distancing, how to perform the job, how to send maintenance into apartments, what type of (personal protective equipment) would be needed. We met with them about many things,” said Carl Giles, the housing director for Teamsters Local 237.
“Long and the short — NYCHA works on crisis, so they ignored us,” he said. “They didn’t pay attention to anything we stated. By mid-March now people are getting sick. NYCHA is not prepared.”
Residents of NYCHA complexes have noted that staff at their complexes have been calling out sick, making it hard to properly sanitize communal spaces adequately.
Giles said more than 100 of his members have contracted COVID-19 and five have died.
Representatives for NYCHA said its most recent verified data shows staff attendance rates at 71% between the April 5 and April 18 pay period. It referred all other questions to the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which did not respond.
Counting Every Case
In recent weeks, the Cuomo administration and City Hall have increased efforts to test for COVID-19 in public housing.
On Saturday, Cuomo announced a plan to set up additional testing sites “in churches in lower income communities and communities of color,” which will help with community outreach.
“As the governor has said since the beginning, it is the poor and minority communities that are suffering the most. it’s unfair, it’s unacceptable, and has been an issue of great concern for us,” said his senior aide, Rich Azzopardi. “We’ve been and will continue to take any action we can to correct this inequity and fight back this virus wherever it rears its head.”
East New York’s St. Paul Community Church, nestled between NYCHA’s Linden Houses and Boulevard Houses, will reopen on Monday as a walk-in testing site for the community.
Rev. David Brawley, the church’s pastor, declined to say how many of his congregants have passed away from the illness, noting simply that the virus “has taken a toll on the community.”
St. Paul’s is among churches that pitched themselves as potential testing sites to the Cuomo administration, with help from Metro IAF.
“We knew we had space, so we asked ourselves, ‘What can we do to contribute this space and do our part in this fight?’” Brawley said. “I’m just delighted to know that the governor saw the validity of this plan and has been willing to strategize and partner with us.”
As officials figure out how to relax restrictions and begin opening up sectors of society, getting hospitalizations and new infections down is a crucial part of the reopening equation, in which every case matters.
As of Thursday, New York City had only met four of the seven criteria set by the state to begin reopening. The five boroughs haven’t gotten the number of new hospitalizations down to under two per 100,000 residents, nor do they have the required 30% availability for hospital and ICU beds.
New York State’s regional reopening dashboard. New York City still fell short of the criteria as of May 13. Photo: New York State
The chief of the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on Wednesday emphasized the overall decline in the number of new infections, rather than areas with rising cases or hospitalizations. On Tuesday, the department reported 886 new cases, the lowest daily increase since March 16.
“What we’re seeing recently isn’t particularly different than what we have been seeing all along in terms of the distribution of cases,” said Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot.
This story was originally published by THE CITY, an independent, nonprofit news organization dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York
Applications are now being accepted for a new senior affordable housing development in the Longwood neighborhood of The Bronx.
Located at 909 Beck Street, 30 one bedroom apartments are up for grabs via lottery at St. Vincent de Paul Senior Apartments which is being constructed by Catholic Homes New York.
St Vincent de Paul Senior Apartments
The development also features a card-operated laundry room, community room, a lounge with a warming kitchen, outdoor recreation space including a garden, and bike storage. All units feature roll-in showers, “…to accommodate the aging in place”.
According to the Housing Connect, there will also be a full-time social worker on-site to, “…assist residents with social services, care coordination, and wellness promotion.”
Rendering of the rear yard and outdoor elements.
Rents for the units vary as eligible tenants pay 30% of their income and will have to qualify for Section 8. Also, qualifying individuals or households MUST have at least one person who is 62 years of age or older.
Income requirements for a 1 person household ranges from $0 to $39,800 a year and for a 2 person household from $0 to $45,500 a year.
The building is also located around the corner from Bill Rainey Park and the Hunts Point Branch of the New York Public Library system is just around the corner. The closest subway station is the 2 and 5 at Intervale Avenue about 4 blocks away.
In order to apply, go to housing connect here and the deadline for applications is May 22, 2020.
Remember, Welcome2TheBronx is NOT affiliated with this or any real estate development so please do not contact for further information as we cannot help you.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the opening of Parkchester in The Bronx—one of the largest condominium projects in the country today.
As a child I was always fascinated by taking shopping trips with my mother to Macy’s and the many stores there. The architectural elements of the development kept me entertained for hours.
Early History
From 1861 to 1938, the 129 acre site that would become the world’s largest condominium development, was owned by the Archdiocese of New York and was the home to New York Catholic Protectory—an orphanage for boys and girls which, by 1904, housed 2,500 children under the care of the Protectory.
An undated aerial photograph of the New York Catholic Protectory. You can see the 6 line along Westchester Avenue and note that the neighborhood is still whole without the scar of the Cross Bronx Expressway./Image via The Bronx County Historical Society.
In 1938, Met Life purchased the 129 acre site from the Archdiocese for the grand sum of $5 million. Soon after, Met Life began construction of the massive development which would take 3 years to complete.
The name Parkchester came from the two neighborhoods where the development site was located: Park Versailles and Westchester.
By 1940, the south quadrant was completed allowing for the first 500 families to move in. The rest of development and was completed by 1941 and by 1943 all 12,271 apartments were rented.
But not everyone was welcomed.
Parkchester’s Racist Beginnings
When the development opened in 1940, it was a “whites only” development and for 28 years Blacks and people of color could not rent in this beautifully planned community and city within a city.
The fountain at Metropolitan Oval aka The Oval at Parkchester.
Despite denials that they never restricted rentals to white-only tenants, according to Parkchester: A Bronx Tale of Race and Ethnicity written by Jeffrey S. Gurock, Frederick Ecker, president of Met Life said in 1943 that, “Negroes and whites do not mix. Perhaps they will, in one hundred years, but they do not now.”
Ecker went on to further say that, “…if we brought them to the development it would be a detriment to the city, too, because it would depress the surrounding property” making an indirect reference to the now illegal practice of redlining where banks would deny loans to property owners if a Black family lived on the same block.
Typical car-free street scene in Parkchester
Banks would draw a literal red line around that block on a map and anyone seeking a mortgage would be denied due to “negro infiltration”.
This is the same policy that eventually would lead to the decline of The Bronx.
It wasn’t until 1968 that Metropolitan Life finally agreed to allow non-whites to rent in Parkchester after having been directed by the New York City Commission on Human Rights.
One of several statues at the rear of the old theater.
Metropolitan Life Insurance had no problem taking money from African American families and people of color but then went ahead and used those same funds to build a development that would exclude blacks and people of color.
Decline
Shortly after integration, that same year, Met Life sold Parkchester to real estate titan, Henry Helmsley who became a slumlord letting the property slide into decline as a result of not maintaining the development.
In 1974, Helmley began converting Parkchester into condominiums beginning with the northern quadrant which is known as Parkchester North and the remaining southern quadrant became Parkchester South in 1986 thus fully converting what was once 12,271 rental units into condos.
Many entryways are adorned with medallions and statues.
But Parkchester continued to decline and suffer despite the conversion.
It wasn’t until the late 1990s when the Parkchester Preservation Company was created through investors led by Community Preservation Corp which pumped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of upgrades and repairs after having purchased Helmley’s remaining stake which included just over 6,300 apartments and over 80 stores, including Macy’s location.
By the early 2000s, things began to turn around for Parkchester and its residents and along with everything else, property values increased for the brave home owners who purchased their units when conditions were bleak.
Parkchester Today
Parkchester was and still remains a place where one can shop, work and live without ever having to step foot outside of the development although most commute outside of the area for employment.
It was built to be a city within a city.
In 1941, Macy’s opened its store in the complex making it the second Macy’s in the world. The complex has its own post office and up until recently it even had its own movie theater which sadly has been converted to a cheap Marshall’s store.
Another one of Parkchester’s iconic statues.
It was constructed with over 100 stores and commercial spaces and all 12,271 apartments are spread across 171 buildings the tallest of which are 12 stories and the shortest 7 stories.
Now all of that might sound quite dense but in reality a little over 50% of Parkchester is actually open spaces and recreational areas with the rest dedicated to its roadways and about 27.5% are actually buildings according to Parkchester’s website.
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Unlike its sister developments of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan, also built by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company a few years later, Parkchester was built with beautiful architectural embellishments like medallions above entryways into the buildings, and terracotta statues both atop the corners of the buildings and below.
One of the dozens if not hundreds of statues you’ll find around Parkchester.
Divided into four quadrants, Parkchester’s center of life revolves around the Metropolitan Oval or simply ‘The Oval’ which residents know it as. The beautiful landscaped area sits in the middle of the 4 quadrants of development and features a gorgeous water fountain that was designed in 1939 for the World’s Fair by Raymond Granville Barker.
Metropolitan Avenue, the main street of Parkchester.
Converting to condominiums actually wasn’t a bad idea for it created 12,271 units of quite affordable housing for purchase for families at market rates thus allowing people to invest their money into real estate rather than waste away on renting.
Last year Parkchester was listed as the most affordable neighborhood in New York City according to PropertyClub, with a median sales price of $180,000 which is far below the Bronx median sales price of $450,000 and NYC’s median of $675,000.
But with the coming Metro North Station directly north of Parkchester which will provide direct access to Penn Station and north into Westchester and Connecticut, that affordability may shrivel up.
Parkchester train station on the 6 line is an express stop during rush hour. In 3 stops, when its running express, you’ll find yourself at 125th and Lexington in Manhattan.
The Parkchester of today, when you walk around the neighborhood, is a beautifully integrated community of people from all ethnic backgrounds; white black, Latino, Asian, South Asian of which many are Pakistani and Banlgadeshi (Muslim and Hindu alike), you name it. A beautiful reflection of the people of The Bronx.
It’s also where Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, better known as AOC, first lived as a child and moved back to as an adult before winning the primary election which knocked down a party boss and elevated her to not just the national spotlight but the world’s stage as a leader. (Oh, don’t forget to watch the video of AOC giving Desus and Mero a tour of Parkchester).
Next time you’re in Parkchester, remember its history but don’t forget to enjoy the architecture. Look everywhere. Just when you think you’ve seen every medallion and statue, you find one that you didn’t see before.
Click an image below to check out the gallery:
Another one of Parkchester’s iconic statues.
The fountain at Metropolitan Oval aka The Oval at Parkchester.
Metro Optics still in Parkchester after over 40 years! Although not in one of the development’s buildings it still sits in the greater Parkchester community. This particular building went up after Parkchester was built.
One of several statues at the rear of the old theater.
One of several statues at the rear of the old theater.
One of several statues at the rear of the old theater.
One of several statues at the rear of the old theater.
One of several statues at the rear of the old theater.
One of several statues at the rear of the old theater.
One of several statues at the rear of the old theater.
Back in August we took this picture for an article on Parkchester and we wrote, “Zaro’s is still there after all these years!” Now, the store will be gone in just 6 days after 56 years.
Metropolitan Avenue, the main street of Parkchester.
Many entryways are adorned with medallions and statues.
Many entryways are adorned with medallions and statues.
Many entryways are adorned with medallions and statues.
Many entryways are adorned with medallions and statues.
A cheap Marshalls is now occupying the old movie theater at Parkchester
Another statue outside what used to be the theater.
One of the statues outside what used to be the theater.
Some of the statues you’ll see along the way.
Typical car-free street scene in Parkchester
Parkchester train station on the 6 line is an express stop during rush hour. In 3 stops when its running express you’ll find yourself at 125th and Lexington in Manhattan.
The fountain at Metropolitan Oval aka The Oval at Parkchester.
Macy’s opened its second store right here in The Bronx in 1941 at Parkchester.
In a nearly unprecedented decision, the MTA has elected to periodically shut down service, closing it’s stations daily to the city that never sleeps for deep cleaning in the early hours of the morning.
Though these precautionary measures will only affect New Yorkers commuting from the hours of 1 A.M. to 5 A.M., a time slot hand picked by government and transit officials in an attempt to accommodate the many essential workers that still brave the subways, there are many for whom the change will prove more than just a minor inconvenience.
It’s long been known that New Yorker’s have a lengthy commute. Chances are, if you’re not one of the 4% of straphangers graced with the luck of getting to work in 30 minutes or less, you’ve felt the substantial blow of increased wait times that have plagued the MTA’s service across the five boroughs in the last few years. Yet now such problems seem extraneous.
3rd Avenue/149th Street Station on the 2 and 5 line hours before the historic MTA subway overnight shutdown began on May 6.
For the scores of New Yorkers working from home, no longer forced to endure the mounting perils of their ever-deteriorating public transportation, the reduction in service is negligible; a minor stain on the white collars of our metropolis.
In reality, for most middle and upper class New Yorkers, the shutdown doesn’t hit close to home. But as is the case with many other aspects of the pandemic, the story is quite different in the margins.
For workers in The Bronx, the MTA has proven more essential than ever. As thousands across the county embark on the subways to their respective jobs, many will now be presented with yet another problem: how to get back home.
The schedules of essential workers in the concrete jungle are far from predictable, and those in the Bronx are no exception. With much of its workforce in fields with irregular hours, such as construction, the service industry, and healthcare, the borough’s largest employer, as the MTA makes the largest cut in service in over a century, The Bronx is bound to bite the lion’s share of the bullet.
While city and transit officials take aim at the myriad of problems brought forth by the virus, they’ve forgotten that residents of the city’s poorest borough, more likely to be employed in positions that cannot be done from home, are caught in the crossfire. Though the time frame of the MTA shutdown takes into account the schedules of a variety of commuters, the plan falls short for the workers to whom the subways matter most.
Though the work day of many Bronx residents is far from typical, the unequal treatment they face is nothing new. Much like during preceding decades of deteriorating infrastructure and declining health conditions, as citizens of the city’s most ethnically diverse borough perish at rates twice those observed in the crowned cultural jewel of Manhattan, public officials turn a blind eye to The Bronx once more.
Now, as thousands from Wakefield to Mott Haven, from Kingsbridge to Throggs Neck suffer the second longest commute in the nation still, a commute now made even longer by staggered train times, many will be given the short end of a stick that barely reaches across the Harlem River.
When faced with crisis, there is no rulebook, no comprehensive list of instructions tailored by those before us that have seen it all before. Indeed, with the crisis we now face, such predecessors do not exist.
But as the Big Apple navigates the uncharted waters of the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling to keep its people afloat, it’s lost sight of those who were destined to sink from the start.
Anchored by the weight of historical disadvantage, the needs of essential Bronx workers have long been neglected, pushed far beneath the rug with those of countless others who inhabit the outer boroughs.
Now, as officials of the city they call home deny the simple accommodation of a daily commute, it’s become clear that such needs hardly mattered to them in the first place.
While the virus continues to shed light on disparities in the minority communities of New York, disparities more systemic than viral in nature, my fellow Bronx residents and I can only wonder, when will our voices be heard?
Matt Surface works in public health and biomedical research and lives in The Bronx.
Disclaimer:Comments, views, and opinions are that solely of the author and should never be misconstrued as that of Welcome2TheBronx or any other authors of this site. Welcome2TheBronx only edits articles submitted by readers for grammar and spelling leaving fact checking up to the author.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 broadcast to a wider audience.To submit an article, email us at submissions@welcome2thebronx.com
Applications are now being accepted for 255 brand new affordable housing units in the South Bronx on the Grand Concourse and Concourse Village West.
The 255 units are spread across three buildings, 741 Concourse Village West, 702 Grand Concourse, and 180 E 156th Street and features indoor and outdoor recreation areas, bike room for storage, on-site laundry rooms, and on-site parking (additional fees applicable).
180 E 156th Street is one of 3 buildings at the Concourse Village West development in the South Bronx.
Rents at Concourse Village West are as low as $426 for 1 bedroom units for households making 30% of the area median income (AMI) with income requirements as low as $17,075 a year for these 1 bedroom units.
The development is located between the 2/4/5 line at 149th and Grand Concourse and the 4/B/D at 161st Yankee Stadium as well as the BXM4 express bus and walking distance to the Bronx Terminal Market, Franz Sigel Park, Concourse Plaza Mall, just to name a few.
702 Grand Concourse
The chart below shows the various rents for all units according to income requirements per AMI category.
As you can see, roughly 20% of units are set aside for the 30, 40, and 50% AMI category which is more in line with the real local median income level.
This particular development is accepting households as high as 110% to 130% of the AMI with incomes ranging from $44,503 on the lower end for a studio to as high as $183,300 a year for a family of 7 for a 3 bedroom unit.
741 Concourse Village West
These units account for over 40% of this development and once occupied, will surely shift the demographics of an ever changing area even further.
While this development does afford deep affordability, in an area that desperately needs it, it’s not enough.
That being said, check out the full details here (pdf) and if you want to apply, go to Housing Connect and good luck!
Remember, do not contact us at Welcome2TheBronx regarding this development as we do not have anything to do with this or any real estate development. We’re just reporting the news.
As unemployment continues to reach record highs due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic shut down which has paralyzed the city, state and most of the country, many Bronx residents have been unable to pay their rents as their incomes disappeared overnight.
Currently, New York State unemployment is at 13% up from 3.7% which was the lowest on record for New York State since 1976.
And it has been exacerbated by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s refusal to simply cancel the rent during this period.
Mortgages need to be canceled as well during the this crisis, not just rents.
Now the eviction moratorium enacted by Cuomo on March 20th for 90 days will end on June 20th without further protections of tenants.
Below is a press release from tenant leaders and organizers involved with the Housing Justice for All campaign which calls out Governor Cuomo for misleading the public on this issue:
New York – On Friday, May 7, Governor Cuomo falsely claimed he would extend the existing eviction moratorium with a new executive order.
Here’s the truth: Cuomo actually ended the current eviction moratorium.
Today, outraged tenant advocates and leaders involved in the Housing Justice for All campaign called out Cuomo’s lie, and condemned him for ending rather than extending the current eviction moratorium.
The eviction moratorium currently in place protects all tenants, commercial and residential, from eviction across New York State. Until June 20, no tenant can be evicted for any reason, period. But Cuomo’s new executive order issued this past Friday ends the current eviction moratorium on June 20th. Indeed, it forces thousands of tenants to face lawsuits and risk their health in order to fight for their homes.
“While Governor Cuomo’s public remarks on Friday gave the impression that he extended the moratorium until August 20, his new executive order offers tenants very limited protections. It allows landlords to bring cases against renters who cannot pay rent, while offering limited protections to a limited number of households. By opening the door to all these new eviction cases and evictions, Cuomo’s new executive order will quickly take us back to overcrowded housing courts and families facing homelessness. Cuomo is endangering thousands of New Yorkers, and public health,” said Cea Weaver, campaign coordinator of Housing Justice for All.
“This non-extension of the current eviction moratorium will unconscionably force thousands of New York tenants into housing court and further dehumanize them to prove their financial hardship. But New York’s billionaires, Wall Street bankers and their shareholders are always bailed out and forgiven off the backs of the working poor and the people’s tax dollars,” said Anita Long, Tenant Leader with Community Action for Safe Apartments. “Landlords will still be allowed to sustain their incomes off the backs of their tenants who have lost all or some of their income, are dying and are hungry.”
“Instead of keeping a roof over tenants’ heads during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Governor’s new executive order opens the door to new eviction cases and marshals executing eviction warrants,” said Marika Dias, Managing Director of the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project. “This order will put lives at risk, by forcing thousands of tenants into housing court eviction cases and potentially into homelessness. The Governor’s order is not the protection for tenants he made it out to be, and it is not the protection New York tenants need right now.”
Here’s How Cuomo’s New Executive Order Fails to Protect Tenants:
· From June 20th to August 20th, only tenants who can prove they didn’t pay rent because of a COVID-19 related financial hardship or who qualify for unemployment insurance, may be protected from eviction.
· From June 20th-August 20th, landlords are prohibited from starting new cases against tenants who have been financially impacted by COVID-19, but as this will be incredibly hard to enforce, thousands will be sued who shouldn’t be.
· This order puts the onus on tenants to show they are entitled to not be sued or evicted. This means thousands of tenants will still be sued in non-payment eviction cases and they will have to face intrusive inquiries into all their personal financial information, just to get dismissal of an eviction case that should never have been brought in the first place.
· Many tenants who have currently suspended eviction warrants are at great risk of being evicted come June 20th, because they won’t know how to stop the eviction, even if they do qualify for the moratorium.
· It does not protect tenants who are sick with COVID-19, who have lost loved ones to COVID-19, or who have been impacted by COVID-19 in any other non-financial way. All of these tenants can be sued by their landlords and evicted.
· It does not stop marshals and sheriffs from evicting tenants who faced eviction for reasons other than non payment (holdover cases). This means many tenants can be evicted as of June 20th, if they have a pending eviction warrant that was issued in a holdover case.
· It does not stop landlords from filing new holdover eviction cases against tenants after June 20th. So landlords who want to evict tenants for anything that isn’t about non-payment of rent, will be able to. This will undoubtedly lead to a rise in new holdover eviction cases.
“I have a friend from the islands without a green card. She watches 2 children, 1 school age and the other a toddler. With school closing she watched both kids until the parents started working from home so they no longer needed her to watch the kids. She was always paid in cash so she has no pay stubs. She lives in a basement apartment and still needs to pay her rent. How can she prove she was affected by Covid?,” askedAvril Haynes, Tenant Leader with Flatbush Tenant Coalition.
“Sadly, the Governor’s recent so-called extension of the eviction moratorium opens the door to the potential eviction of thousands of New York City tenants at the precise moment when they are most in need protection from losing their homes,” saidRaun Rasmussen, Executive Director of Legal Services NYC, the nation’s largest provider of free civil legal services. “We need real solutions that keep tenants in their homes and out of court during the COVID-19 crisis, not a confusing order that will increase fear and potentially start a flood of new evictions at a time when courts, tenants and their advocates need to keep doing all we can to protect against the spread of the virus. Too many low-income tenants and their families have already been devastated —now is not the time to increase their vulnerability and threat of homelessness.”
“Allowing evictions during a public health crisis and sending people into overcrowded and unsafe homeless shelters makes no sense. We urge Governor to rethink this shameful policy and ensure that people can continue to shelter in place in their homes,” saidJudith Goldiner, Attorney in Charge, Civil Law Reform Unit, The Legal Aid Society.
“Governor Cuomo: there’s a large number of people who haven’t got their unemployment or stimulus checks yet. In addition to paying rent, we are trying to keep food on the table with limited funds,” said CASA Leader Kim Statuto. “Most can’t pay rent or utilities and giving landlords a loophole to file eviction cases will hurt innocent people. You say you won’t put lives over opening up the economy yet you are not helping tenants who could become homeless to no fault of their own. Why?”
“We know that people don’t have enough to feed their children or pay their other expenses. I think a universal moratorium will be the best thing at this point. How can people prove that they need shelter over their head? What about undocumented people? What else do we have to prove to him? There are food lines all over the place. Also, Cuomo should just cancel the rent and it must be universal, so people don’t have to stress over their rent balance. If he doesn’t do this, New Yorkers will suffer even more financially after the health crisis is over. He talks about flattening the COVID19 curve, but if he doesn’t do something about rent, he will raise the financial crisis curve,” saidPaulette James, Tenant Leader with Flatbush Tenant Coalition.
People wear protective masks at Brooklyn’s Marcy Houses. Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
