Tucked away on Arthur Avenue in The Bronx, New York City’s REAL Little Italy, is Madonia Bakery.
This Bronx Italian institution has been baking bread for over a century, including their signature olive bread using the same recipe and techniques as when they started back in 1918 when Mario Madonia arrived from Sicily.
Madonia Bakery, baking delicious breads in The Bronx for over 100 years.
One of their most famous breads is none other than the olive loaf which people line up for especially during the holidays. You’d understand why people flock to their bakery if you had some of their delicious breads before.
Take a look at the video below on this amazing Bronx business and family! Now I feel like getting on my bike and picking up a loaf or two!
Tanya Denise Fields, founder of Black Joy Farm in the Longwood neighborhood of The Bronx is making sure that her community doesn’t get left out when it comes to open spaces.
But Fields isn’t simply about just providing access to open spaces, which, now more than ever are more important to safely practice social distancing due to the coronavirus pandemic.
She’s also making it her mission to create spaces that cultivate joy.
Fields tellsPix11 News’ Greg Mocker, “Our mission is a place that cultivates radical joy for community residents and folks of color.”
Last September, local community members gathered to help throughout the urban farm.
She also discusses what we already know to be true: That not only availability of open spaces across communities aren’t equitable but that the policing of such spaces are drastically different in communities of color.
She further states, “In hyper-micro areas like Hunts Point and Longwood, we are not within walking distance of Van Cortlandt or Crotona, and some of the local parks have been shuttered. It leaves people who are already suffering to not have the ability to enjoy greenery and that’s really important.”
Watch the full interview below and if you want to reserve some time at the garden, you can reach out to them at info@theblackfeministproject.org.
Also known as The Grand Boulevard and Concourse, the 5.2 mile boulevard of dreams in The Bronx is one of New York City’s great streets steeped in history.
It is one of those streets that everyone in The Bronx knows but, do they know its history?
The former Concourse Plaza Hotel at 161st was where the Grand Concourse began (or ended depending where you were coming from) when it opened to traffic in 1909.
An address on the Grand Concourse, at one point known as the “Park Avenue” of The Bronx, was once the most sought after address in the borough.
With one of the largest collections of Art Deco apartment buildings in the world and large apartments, many with sunken living rooms and more than one bathroom, it was a place that signified to many that you had made it in New York.
One of the many art deco beauties along the boulevard.
While the apartments remain largely untouched, unlike in Manhattan where they were chopped up into smaller apartments, the Grand Concourse has gone through some changes throughout the over 100 years since its opening.
Early History
The idea of the Grand Concourse came from a French immigrant named Louis Aloys Risse who conceived it in 1890 as a way to connect Manhattan to the northern Bronx, which back then was known as the Annexed District.
Risse envisioned a wide boulevard stretching for miles that would rival the Champs-Élysées in Paris which was his inspiration in designing the Grand Concourse but it would stretch miles longer.
Mott Avenue, what would become the Grand Concourse south of 161st Street / Image via Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, The New York Public Library. (1915). Bronx: Grand Concourse – 153rd Street (East)
You may notice that most streets that cross the Concourse rise and fall as they approach it or go underneath it. This is because it was constructed on a ridge so that the boulevard would be elevated above all.
Construction began in 1894 and lasted 15 years. Finally in November 1909, it was open to traffic but it initially stretched from 161st Street to Mosholu Parkway just south of Van Cortlandt Park It wasn’t until 1927 that it was extended south to 138th Street when Mott Avenue was widened and renamed.
Nowhere is the location of the Grand Concourse atop a ridge more apparent than at the Cross Bronx Expressway and the Clifford Place Step Street pictured above
This is why you’ll notice that the roadway becomes considerably narrower below 161st Street.
But it wasn’t until the Jerome Avenue Line, aka the 4 train, was completed in 1917 people began flocking to the Grand Concourse as a construction boom took place following the subway.
The Andrew Freedman Home which takes up several city blocks.
Shortly there after some of the most iconic buildings opened like the Concourse Plaza Hotel in 1923 as well as Yankee Stadium that same year, the Andrew Freedman Home in 1924, Loew’s Paradise Theater in 1929, and the Bronx County Courthouse in 1933.
First Residents
The first residents were mostly Jewish and Italian residents, many with professional backgrounds from doctors to lawyers and just the average American upwardly mobile middle-class family.
The Lewis Morris, one of the premier addresses on the Concourse.
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission wrote:
“During the 1920s, the Bronx, anointed as “the wonder borough,” emerged as New York’s fastest growing borough, absorbing half-a-million new residents. As noted by Rosenblum, the vast majority of the newcomers to the Bronx in this era were Jewish, and for several decades the Grand Concourse and its surroundings were one of the city’s five most heavily Jewish communities.
“For nearly half a century the Grand Concourse was considered one of the city’s most prominent Jewish neighborhoods, and having a residential address on the Grand Concourse, or in proximity to that thoroughfare, was a powerful indicator of success. To this end, the modern and sophisticated new buildings were often marketed for upper-middle class tenants in the tradition of the grand apartment houses of Manhattan.
Former Temple Adath Israel now the Concourse Seventh Day Adventist Temple. Many former Jewish synagogues are now Christian houses of worship.
“The Franz Sigel (aka Alexandria) and the Virginia (774 and 780 Grand Concourse, 1926), for example, were touted in real estate brochures as “a bit of Park Avenue transplanted to the Bronx.”
But there was an unspoken rule not to rent to Black and Puerto Rican families, at least during the early years. Even as recently as the 70s, in the midst of the decline, there were many families of color who were simply turned away from obtaining an apartment on the famed boulevard.
By the 1960s, white flight had taken root with many of the South Bronx white family fleeing deteriorating conditions and moving to other parts of the borough like Co-op City which had just opened. Others fled to the suburbs which were rapidly expanding during this period as a result of this outward migration.
Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge
But despite deteriorating conditions from the 60s through the 80s, the Grand Concourse held on. The fires that ravaged the South Bronx seemed to have left the boulevard relatively unscathed and intact.
However, inside many buildings, that wasn’t the case. Many were left to rot with slumlords not taking care of their properties now that they were occupied by tenants of color. The once grand lobbies were a shell of their former glory.
Recent History
It wasn’t until the early 2000s, when crime began dropping, that things started to turn around. Interest in preserving the history of the Grand Concourse grew and in 2011, a large portion stretching from 153rd Street to 167th Street was designated as the Grand Concourse Historic District by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
Executive Towers, currently the tallest building on the Grand Concourse.
Sadly, one of the most beloved landmarks, PS 31, was left to rot by the city and eventually demolished. In its the tallest building on the Grand Concourse is rising.
Today, the Grand Concourse is a reflection of The Bronx and the faces you see are a beautifully diverse representation of the diversity that is the people of The Bronx. Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, Black, African, Muslim, Christians, Jews—you name it.
The “Fish” Building
And interest in the famed and historic boulevard is once again on the rise as more and more people are buying co-op apartments as the area quickly gentrifies. Apartments are shattering records as median sales prices along the Concourse have seen a 68% increase since 2014 and the apartments have sold above $600,000 breaking records.
We can only hope that future generations can enjoy the beauty of the Grand Concourse from all walks of life and not just a select few as was during its beginnings.
Check out the picture gallery below for m
The beginning of the Grand Concourse…or the end depending where you’re starting. The industrial portion of the Concourse at 138th Street is undergoing rapid changes with hundreds of apartments under construction at this site.
Hostos Community College
The landmark Bronx General Post Office
Cardinal Hayes High School
The portion of the Grand Concourse south of 161st narrows as it was added in 1927 by the widening of Mott Avenue.
The historic old Concourse Plaza Hotel
The landmark Bronx County Courthouse which replaced the main Courthouse on 161st and 3rd Avenue as The Bronx was rapidly growing.
Art Deco beauty on the Concourse.
The Bronx Museum of the Arts
Looking south from 165th Street
More Art Deco beauty
The former Temple Adath Israel is now the Concourse Seventh Day Adventist Temple
The architecture on the Grand Concourse is simply…grand.
Gorgeous apartment buildings abound.
Berger Court
The Lewis Morris was once one of the most sought after addresses on the Concourse.
More Art Deco beauty
Similar shapes yet different façades
Grand Concourse and Kingsbridge
Another former Jewish synagogue turned Christian house of worship.
The northern end of the Concourse at Mosholu Parkway
Although most of the Art Deco buildings on the Concourse are in the South Bronx, the north end of the Boulevard has its share.
Concourse House
The historic Dollar Savings Building in Fordham
The Wagner Building at Fordham Road was once a gorgeous art deco masterpiece until it the owner let it fall into disrepair and then parts of its façade was replaced with a horrendous glass exterior. The building was supposed to be much taller but never reached its intended height.
During the decline of the 70s and 80s, non-conforming storefronts appeared on the ground-floor of many buildings as landlords looked for ways to make money. Before then, there were very few stores as they weren’t permitted on the Concourse.
The Bronx “Flat Iron” at East Tremont.
Art Deco on the Concourse
Not all properties on the Concourse are in decent condition. The old Pilgrim Church at 175th is supposed to be demolished to make way for a homeless shelter.
Currently the tallest building on the Grand Concourse, Executive Towers is undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation including new lobby and balconies.
A step street just north of the Cross Bronx shows just how high on a ridge the Grand Concourse is.
The landmarked Andrew Freedman Home takes up several city blocks.
The “Fish” Building
Mott Avenue at E 153rd St before it was widened and turned into the Grand Concourse.
After years of escaping accusations of fraud, the law finally has caught up with Assemblywoman Carmen.
The New York State Court of Appeals has overturned a ruling that would have allowed Arroyo to remain on the ballot for the upcoming democratic primary due to fraud.
Earlier this year, Amanda Séptimo, who is running against the incumbent Arroyo who’s held the seat for 26 years, had charged the assemblywoman with fraudulent collection of petition signatures which are needed to appear on the ballot.
Arroyo’s signatures were found to be full of dates that had been altered as well as signatures dated days before it was permissible.
Séptimo released the following statement regarding the decision:
“I am heartened by the New York State Court of Appeals’ decision to remove my opponent, Carmen Arroyo, from the ballot due to widespread fraud.
“Insurgent candidates often see the election process weaponized against us. Yet this was not a case of technicalities —but rather what happens when people believe the rules of our democracy no longer apply to them. With this decision, the court has made clear that every candidate must campaign honestly.
“For years, the South Bronx has been stuck in cycles of poverty and stagnation because of leaders that could not see behind their own interests —and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on our community makes this clearer than ever. Our community deserves leadership that is thoughtful, compassionate, and willing to do what it takes to reform broken systems.
“I look forward to continuing a campaign that centers conversations about how to do the work that moves us all forward!”
Arroyo has yet to release a statement but we can certainly say this is a new day in the South Bronx and finally some new blood can represent its people.
This article was updated on May 22, 2020 at 9:12PM EST to add Amanda Séptimo’s statement.
I’m a data scientist at the University of San Francisco and teach courses online in machine learning for fast.ai. In late March, I decided to use public mask-wearing as a case study to show my students how to combine and analyze diverse types of data and evidence.
Much to my surprise, I discovered that the evidence for wearing masks in public was very strong. It appeared that universal mask-wearing could be one of the most important tools in tackling the spread of COVID-19. Yet the people around me weren’t wearing masks and health organizations in the U.S. weren’t recommending their use.
I, along with 18 other experts from a variety of disciplines, conducted a review of the research on public mask-wearing as a tool to slow the spread SARS-CoV-2. We published a preprint of our paper on April 12 and it is now awaiting peer review at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Since then, there have been manymore reviews that support mask-wearing.
On May 14, I and 100 of the world’s top academics released an open letter to all U.S. governors asking that “officials require cloth masks to be worn in all public places, such as stores, transportation systems, and public buildings.”
Currently, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that everyone wears a mask – as do the governments covering 90% of the world’s population – but, so far, only 12 states in the U.S. require it. In the majority of the remaining states, the CDC recommendation has not been enough: Most people do not currently wear masks. However, things are changing fast. Every week more and more jurisdictions require mask use in public. As I write this, there are now 94 countries that have made this move.
So what is this evidence that has led myself and so many scientists to believe so strongly in masks?
Droplets ejected from people’s mouths during coughing or talking are likely the most significant source of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Image via Pixabay
The evidence
The research that first convinced me was a laser light-scattering experiment. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health used lasers to illuminate and count how many droplets of saliva were flung into the air by a person talking with and without a face mask. The paper was only recently published officially, but I saw a YouTube video showing the experiment in early March. The results are shockingly obvious in the video. When the researcher used a simple cloth face cover, nearly all the droplets were blocked.
This evidence is only relevant if COVID-19 is transmitted by droplets from a person’s mouth. It is. There are many documented super-spreading cases connected with activities – like singing in enclosed spaces – that create a lot of droplets.
The light-scattering experiment cannot see “micro-droplets” that are smaller than 5 microns and could contain some viral particles. But experts don’t think that these are responsible for much COVID-19 transmission.
While just how much of a role these small particles play in transmission remains to be seen, recent research suggests that cloth masks are also effective at reducing the spread of these smaller particles. In a paper that has not yet been peer-reviewed, researchers found that micro-droplets fell out of the air within 1.5 meters of the person who was wearing a mask, versus 5 meters for those not wearing masks. When combined with social distancing, this suggests that masks can effectively reduce transmission via micro-droplets.
If only people with symptoms infected others, then only people with symptoms would need to wear masks. But experts have shown that people without symptoms pose a risk of infecting others. In fact, fourrecentstudiesshow that nearly half of patients are infected by people who do not themselves have symptoms.
This evidence seems, to me, clear and simple: COVID-19 is spread by droplets. We can see directly that a piece of cloth blocks those droplets and the virus those droplets contain. People without symptoms who don’t even know they are sick are responsible for around half of the transmission of the virus.
We should all wear masks.
Asking the wrong questions led to a misunderstanding of the medical literature around masks.
Against the tide
After going through all of this strong evidence in late March and early April, I wondered why mask-wearing was controversial amongst health organizations in the Western world. The U.S. and European CDCs did not recommend masks, and neither did nearly any western government except for Slovakia and Czechia, which both required masks in late March.
I think there were three key problems.
The first was that most researchers were looking at the wrong question – how well a mask protects the wearer from infection and not how well a mask prevents an infected person from spreading the virus. Masks function very differently as personal protective equipment (PPE) versus source control.
Masks are very good at blocking larger droplets and not nearly as good at blocking tiny particles. When a person expels droplets into the air, they quickly evaporate and shrink to become tiny airborne particles called droplet nuclei. These are extremely hard to remove from the air. However, in the moist atmosphere between a person’s mouth and their mask, it takes nearly a hundred times as long for a droplet to evaporate and shrink into a droplet nuclei.
This means that nearly any kind of simple cloth mask is great for source control. The mask creates humidity, this humidity prevents virus-containing droplets from turning into droplet nuclei, and this allows the fabric of the mask to block the droplets.
Unfortunately, nearly all of the research that was available at the start of this pandemic focused on mask efficacy as PPE. This measure is very important for protecting health care workers, but does not capture their value as source control. On Feb. 29, the U.S. surgeon general tweeted that masks “are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.” This missed the key point: They are extremely effective at preventing its spread, as our review of the literature showed.
The second problem was that most medical researchers are used to judging interventions on the basis of randomized controlled trials. These are the foundation of evidence based medicine. However, it is impossible and unethical to test mask-wearing, hand-washing or social distancing during a pandemic.
Experts like Trisha Greenhalgh, the author of the best-selling textbook “How to Read a Paper: The Basics of Evidence Based Healthcare,” are now asking, “Is Covid-19 evidence-based medicine’s nemesis?” She and others are suggesting that when a simple experiment finds evidence to support an intervention and that intervention has a limited downside, policymakers should act before a randomized trial is done.
The third problem is that there is a shortage of medical masks around the world. Many policymakers were concerned that recommending face coverings for the public would lead to people hoarding medical masks. This led to seemingly contradictory guidance where the CDC said there was no reason for the public to wear masks but that masks needed to be saved for medical workers. The CDC has now clarified its stance and recommends the public use of homemade masks while saving higher-grade masks for medical professionals.
Many countries were quick to adopt public mask-wearing while others, including the U.S., still haven’t enacted nationwide rules.
Results of mask-wearing
There are numerousstudies that suggest if 80% of people wear a mask in public, then COVID-19 transmission could be halted. Until a vaccine or a cure for COVID-19 is discovered, cloth face masks might be the most important tool we currently have to fight the pandemic.
Given all of the laboratory and epidemiological evidence, the low cost of wearing masks – which can be made at home with no tools – and the potential to slow COVID-19 transmission with widescale use, policymakers should ensure that everyone wears a mask in public.
Jeremy Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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
People wear protective masks at Brooklyn’s Marcy Houses. Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
