Here’s something we can be cool with not being in first place.

According to a new report by propertyclub.nyc, Brooklyn is the nosiest borough in New York City as per noise complaints filed between January 2019 and February 2020.

The Bronx came in right behind at number two with the top complaint being loud music or party being the reason people called in.

I mean, that’s not surprising given that The Bronx gave birth to hip-hop and salsa, no?

As for streets, the Grand Concourse not only came in as the nosiest street in The Bronx but it also topped out as the 4th loudest street in New York City with over half of the 2,119 noise complaints attributed to loud music or party.

The top nosiest streets in The Bronx are:

Only eight Bronx streets made the top 50 nosiest list in New York City which was dominated by Brookyn and Queens streets.

It’s not surprising to note that the nosiest streets in our borough are all in the West Bronx with the exception of Holland Avenue in the East Bronx.

What are your biggest noise complaints in your neighborhood?

Read the full report over at propertyclub.nyc.

The Bronx being The Bronx, has always been home to many groups of people and that includes our Irish family here in The Bronx.

In Woodlawn, which is one of the largest Irish communities in New York City is also home to many who have settled straight from the old country back in Ireland.

The Bronx has given the world many great individuals of Irish ancestry including:

• The late Mary Higgins Clark, born Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins, a prolific author with 42 books and counting and known as the ‘Queen of Suspense’
• The late Joseph Francis Shea, born to a working-class Irish-American family who became an aerospace engineer and NASA engineer
• ‘The Great Lady With A Camera’, otherwise known as Margaret Bourke-White was born to a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother in The Bronx and grew up across the Hudson in New Jersey
• Legendary comedian George Carlin, also born and raised in our great borough

Bronx Irish Americans: American Irish History in the Bronx

The following has been kindly reprinted from Irish American Journey and is an excerpt from the book “The Remarkable Life of Kitty McInerney: How a Poor Irish Immigrant Raised 17 Children in Great Depression New York” by Christopher Prince:

The Bronx is the only borough of New York City situated on the American mainland. Formerly a wilderness of forests, meadows, and streams inhabited by various Indian tribes, The Bronx was settled by the Dutch in the seventeenth century.

Marginally separated from upper Manhattan by the narrow Harlem River, The Bronx quickly became a convenient destination for migrants seeking to escape the overcrowding and high costs of Manhattan.

The Irish first came to the Bronx in the mid 19th century as gangs of laborers who constructed the New York and Harlem Railroad, the Hudson River Railroad and the High Bridge. Their back-breaking and highly dangerous work inspired the saying that American railroads had “an Irishman buried under every tie.” Later, Irish migrants filled the newly-built Bronx factories or commuted to jobs in Manhattan.

They settled their families in neat wooden frame houses within the Bronx neighborhoods of Mott Haven, Melrose, and Highbridge, where they tended to pigs, cows and chickens and cultivated vegetable gardens in the backyards.  

Bronx Irish Golden Age

Other waves of immigration in the early twentieth century brought Italians, Germans, and Eastern European Jews to the Bronx. At the same time, Manhattan subway lines extended north and attracted furious development. Brick walk-ups sprouted seemingly overnight, lining street after street, providing rental housing to the mostly working class residents and transforming the Bronx into its own city.

By the late 1920s, the Bronx was booming with over 1.2 million people, mostly first- and second-generation immigrants who worked as carpenters, brick masons, house painters, tailors, garment makers, store clerks, small shop owners, and salesmen.    

The Bronx community of the 1930s was self-sustaining for a majority of its residents, complete with new apartment houses, tree-lined streets, spacious public parks, good schools and ample shops. Social life blossomed on stoops and in apartment courtyards, weaving a tight fabric of community life.

Millions of Americans came to know the Bronx through “The Rise of the Goldbergs,” a popular radio and, later, television show depicting the lives of a Jewish family from the Bronx.  

Bronx Irish Depression

The Bronx that greeted Irish immigrants in 1930 was a hopeful place, but one that could not escape the growing despair of the age. Despite its charms, The Bronx was hit hard by the Depression. A Hooverville emerged on the Harlem River near Highbridge.

New construction dropped 75% from its 1920s highs. Evictions tripled throughout the city.Bronx Irish Catholics   Many Bronx Irish sought refuge from their dire circumstances in the predominant institution of Irish culture since the arrival of St. Patrick: The Catholic Church. Community life in Bronx Irish neighborhoods revolved around the Catholic Church. Catholic churches and schools were abundant in Bronx Irish neighborhoods and were commonly attended by the children of Irish immigrants.    

Youngsters descended daily from apartment stoops around Bronx Irish neighborhoods and paraded up the avenues to the school grounds, filling the morning air with shouts and laughter. Mobs of parishioners filed through church doors for mass on Sundays and holy days, or to celebrate a wedding or bid farewell to a loved one.

The highlight of spring featured First Communion processions down major thoroughfares, followed by graduating eighth-graders in the early summer. Irish American boys played pool, ping pong or boxing in school recreation rooms and joined girls at church dances on Friday nights. Catholic priests walked the neighborhoods, mingling with parishioners and keeping the children out of trouble. Nuns sold carnations outside churches every May to celebrate motherhood.

Bronx Irish Community Life

Beyond church grounds boys played in the streets — games like stick ball, hand ball, kick the can, pitching pennies, Johnny on the pony, and marbles. Girls played jacks, hopscotch and jump rope. Kids raised pigeons or flew kites on rooftops and raced gleefully through alleys and courtyards. Adults congregated and watched over neighborhoods from stoops and fire escapes.

In summer, kids opened fire hydrants or flocked to sprinklers and wading ponds of nearby parks for relief from the sweltering heat. They rented bikes for 25 cents, jumped on a mobile merry-go-round for a few pennies, and sat on blanketed fire escapes after sundown to unwind in the cool night air. Villagers traversed Bronx Irish neighborhoods on trolleys for a nickel and children hitched on the back for a free ride.

The downtrodden sang in courtyards and alleys for coins and bottle caps. Saturdays were scored by sounds of the Metropolitan Opera streaming from radios and reverberating through windows and alleyways of Bronx Irish neighborhoods. Holidays lured block parties and parades to crowd Bronx thoroughfares.

The carnival set up once or twice a year by Jackson Avenue station, casting a nightly glow over the South Bronx. Small shops lined sidewalks and thrived on abundant foot traffic. The South Bronx portion of Westchester Avenue from Wales to 152nd featured Dolan’s Irish Food Store, Olympia Florist, Cushman’s Bakery, an ice cream parlor, a drugstore, a Jewish baker, a candy store and two newsstands.  

Bronx Irish Charity

Many shop owners offered store credit to poor Irish families in need of bread, milk or meat for their children. Other neighbors and friends offered support when they could, providing small loans or passing along used clothing to needy families. For a few weeks every summer, thousands of New York’s poor children, including many Bronx Irish, were given a respite from the strains of poverty and city life through the New York Herald-Tribune Fresh Air Fund.

Wealthy families welcomed poor children into their summer homes in Upstate New York and Connecticut, providing these young Irish Americans a rare experience to roam the rolling mountains and lush fields outside the Great City, just as their ancestors had roamed the Irish countryside in bygone years.    

MELROSE — Permits have been filed for La Central’s final two buildings in the massive five building affordable housing development

671 Brook Avenue will rise 25 stories once completed and will have 254 apartments from studios to 4 bedrooms and a rooftop astronomy lab which will be run by Bronx Science.

Once completed by 2023, the development will have almost 1,000 apartments across 5 buildings and 1.1 million square feet.

BronxNet Television studios and a massive YMCA will also be a part of this development as well.

No date has been scheduled for groundbreaking as of yet.

Read more on our coverage of La Central here.

Here’s a wonderful historical post by Olga Luz Tirado, executive director of The Bronx Tourism Council on US Presidents who visited The Bronx. Our borough has a rich presidential history that you may not be aware of!

17 U.S. PRESIDENTS WHO VISITED THE BRONX
By Olga Luz Tirado

On February 12th we celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and a week later on the 19th George Washington’s. Both presidents have some tie (albeit a little bit of a stretch for Lincoln) to The Bronx. We decided to ask some of our favorite Bronx-centric folks, historians, and tour guides and counted 17 presidents who had visited The Bronx.

Not only was General GEORGE WASHINGTON the first President of the United States, he was also the first Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. It was in this capacity that he visited Van Cortlandt House, first in October of 1776, according to Laura Myers, the Van Cortlandt House Museum’s Executive Director. Washington’s final documented visit to Van Cortlandt House took place in November of 1783 when he and his entourage stopped overnight on their way in to Manhattan to take possession of the island back from the defeated British Army. This was a considerably more festive occasion than his first visit.

Traveling south on Boston Post Road from his estate in Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, President JOHN ADAMS learned that a yellow fever epidemic had broken out in Philadelphia, which was then the temporary site of the nation’s capital. Angel Hernandez of the Bronx County Historical Society, tells us that Adams decided to stay at the farmhouse of his daughter and son-in-law, Abigail and Col. William Smith. The property was located in the area we now know as Conner Street and Boston Road. The 2nd U.S. President corresponded with officials, governing the country. Thus, for two weeks in October 1797, the center for the executive branch of the U.S. government was in The Bronx. Today car dealerships and auto repair shops occupy this historic site.

There is no evidence that the 16th President ABRAHAM LINCOLN visited The Bronx, but the Lincoln Memorial located in Washington, D.C. has roots in the borough. Sculpted by a family of renowned marble carvers who emigrated from Italy to The Bronx, the Piccirilli brothers played a role in the design and development of the impressive sculpture.

On October 1, 1870, the 18th President of the United States, ULYSSES S. GRANT, visitedThe Woodlawn Cemetery. Grant, a hero of the Civil War, was among the distinguished guests who rode the funeral train that transported United States Navy Admiral David Glasgow Farragut’s remains to his final resting spot. Some Bronx historians have rumored that it was one of the largest funeral processions of that time.

Jacob Lorillard was a very wealthy leather merchant and owned land in the Belmont section of The Bronx, according to Susan Birnbaum of Susan Sez Walkabouts. As the land was being developed he needed to designate streets with names. Of course, Lorillard Place was a given, but his niece, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, was a big fan of CHESTER A. ARTHUR, so she implored her uncle to name one of the streets Arthur Avenue after the 21st president. Today Arthur Avenue is synonymous with “the real little Italy” and was named Best Street in America by the American Planning Association in 2016.

A very curious twelve-year-old known as TR or “Teedie” among his family members, was already a young naturalist and taxidermist, collecting specimens for his own “natural history museum” when they summered at Wave Hill, according to a historian there. He would pay children from the neighborhood to bring him interesting specimens and when he wasn’t on the premises, one of his sisters had to accept the offerings, something she didn’t particularly enjoy. Little TR, or THEODORE “TEDDY” ROOSEVELT grew up to first become Governor of New York State then the 26th President of the United States of America.

Financier and philanthropist Cleveland Dodge lived in the Riverdale section of The Bronx and was very active in politics, according to Bronx historian Lloyd Ultan in his book “The Northern Borough”,published by The Bronx County Historical Society. On October 12, 1918, Ultan writes, 28th PresidentWOODROW WILSON attended a rally and parade in New York City when he received a note from Germany indicating it was willing to accept peace terms based on the president’s Fourteen Points. The next day, he and the first lady rode to Riverdale to have lunch with Dodge and the two drafted Wilson’s reply to Germany. It was the first step to ending World War I.

In 1959 31st President HERBERT HOOVER threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. The Bronx Bombers went on to beat the Kansas City Athletics 3 – 0.

Among the other presidents that have been awarded an honorary degree from Fordham University, (Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and John F. Kennedy) was FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. The 32nd U.S. President came to deliver a speech at the college campus in October of 1940. Roosevelt also campaigned in The Bronx.

While on the 1948 campaign trail, HARRY S. TRUMAN came to The Bronx to appeal to supporters in his successful bid to be elected the 33rd president of the United States.

Although his Bronx residency was short, when running for the presidency in 1960, JOHN F. KENNEDY followed a proven path for success which brought him to the Concourse Plaza Hotel located on 161st street and the Grand Concourse, according to Sam Goodman a city planner with a penchant for Bronx history and who hosts walking tours of the area (see tours). To be sure, the Concourse Plaza was a “must stop” for any Democrat, given the borough’s staunch support for Democrats and the fact that in those days every Bronx voter made it their business to participate. As he would often do, the 35th president knew how to appeal to his audience as he remarked, “I said up the street that I was a former resident of The Bronx. Nobody believes that, but it is true….Now Riverdale is part of The Bronx.” He lived on 252nd Street and Independence Avenue.

On October 5th, 1960, then Vice President RICHARD M. NIXON gave a speech at the Bronx campus of Fordham University. He had already received an honorary degree from the institution. Nine years later he became the 37th President of the United States of America.

In 1977, President JIMMY CARTER made what he called a “sobering” visit to The Bronx in the aftermath of the devastating fires. The 39th U.S. President’s motorcade toured the rubble-strewn streets of the South Bronx. The president walked along the route meeting and greeting people along the way. There was a lot of optimism from the communities after this visit that Federal funding would come through to help rebuild.

Three years later almost to the day, RONALD REAGAN made his rounds and, as not much had changed, was not received well. The community blamed the White House for inaction and the 40th President accused Carter of breaking his vows to the borough.

It would be nearly another 20 years before a sitting president visited the borough, and the story was much different than the ’77 and ’80 visit. In 1997 President WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON lauded The Bronx as a model for urban renewal. By that time the urban blight Carter and Reagan witnessed a decade prior gave way to tree-lined streets and landscaped homes. The 42nd president was quoted as saying “Look at where The Bronx was when Ronald Reagan came here…look at The Bronx today.”

43rd President GEORGE W. BUSH threw out the first pitch in game 3 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium. The New York Yankees beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-1, but ended up losing the Pennant. It would have been their 24th World Series win. They finally achieved 24 in 2009.

It would be nearly another decade before a sitting president would come to The Bronx. In May of 2015 President BARACK OBAMA arrived by helicopter and much fanfare, landing on Harris Field. The 44th president was giving a speech at Lehman College to announce the formation of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a non-profit organization established to address issues faced by boys and young men of color.

This article was originally published February 16, 2015.

While many of us are off today for Presidents’ Day, do you know the connections that The Bronx has to Washington and Lincoln?

Some of you may already know your Bronx history, especially if you’ve read our Bronx Facts we’ve been compiling since last year but since today’s a holiday why not talk a little more about our borough’s place in history.

Let’s start with our nation’s first president, George Washington.

On October 12, 1776, the British landed in Throgg’s Neck with 4,000 troops who were later met with the resistance of 350 Americans who were able to hold them off at Pell’s Point in Pelham Bay Park.  This allowed Washington and his troops to safely reach White Plains.  Think about that.  350 Americans against 4,000 British troops!

But it wasn’t until 1783 that George Washington left Van Cortlandt House in The Bronx with his troops in what is considered the final act of the American Revolution which was the recapturing of New York City.  Known as ‘Evacuation Day‘, November 25th, 1783 was that historic day when Washington triumphantly left The Bronx, crossed the Harlem River into Manhattan and headed down the island to New York as the last bit of British Authority fled the shores of America.

Then we have president Abraham Lincoln and while he never set foot in The Bronx, his most famous likeness was created right here in The Bronx.

The Piccirilli Brothers of Mott Haven, master sculptors who lived on 142nd Street, sculpted Lincoln’s statue at his memorial in Washington DC.

Not too shabby for our wonderful little corner of New York City and history, huh?

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New Yorkers who work the late shift could get an unexpected boost to their commutes by June — through partnerships between the MTA and ride-hailing companies, THE CITY has learned.

The MTA recently began seeking proposals to more easily connect riders outside of Manhattan to the subway during overnight hours — potentially cutting commuting costs and time.

The plan could partner the transit agency with the ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft that, in recent years, have been blamed for cutting into subway ridership and revenue.

“They are trying something, I’m glad that they are,” said Grant Bradley, a registered nurse from The Bronx, who works two different late shifts at the NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan. “Even if it doesn’t work out, they are at least thinking of us.”

The specifics of the “Late Shift” pilot program — including how much commuters would pay per ride — are yet to be determined. But the test would aim to ease commuting burdens on folks from The Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island.

“With increasing numbers of people moving away from the traditional 9-5 Manhattan-centric work schedule, we want the MTA to best support New York’s continually diversifying economy,” Mark Dowd, the MTA’s chief innovation officer, said in a statement.

Transit Deserts Eyed

Citing Census figures that show a growing number of residents outside of Manhattan commuting between midnight and 5 a.m., the MTA will explore starting the pilot program in areas that are at least a half-mile from the nearest “transit station” or have limited or no overnight bus service.

“Expanding transportation access during these hours will provide an opportunity to improve transit equity and support late-shift workers,” notes the request for proposals the MTA issued Jan. 24.

The document doesn’t specify where the Late Shift pilot program would be launched or how many riders it would serve. Those details will become clearer during a two-phase process, with the goal of starting a “scalable and sustainable” as well as “affordable” pilot program by June, the document says.

The MTA projects it will pick a partner by the end of March, when the agency will have determined the location, timeframe and economic terms of Late Shift.

The service is touted as vital for workers in the health care, food service and hospitality fields, which the MTA says are expected to grow faster than overall employment within the next five to 10 years.

‘Hellish Commutes’

Joe Volpe, a registered nurse, told THE CITY that when he worked late-night hours, he often drove to NYU Langone from Staten Island rather than contend with a lengthy commute via mass transit.

“I would have to be up by 5 in the morning for work, I wouldn’t even be getting a full night’s sleep,” he said. “So I think as far as shuttling people to mass transit points, is an excellent idea.”

“So many of these folks have it much worse than the average New Yorker when it comes to the commute,” said Jonathan Bowles, executive director of the Center for an Urban Future. “They’re taking two buses in many cases and sometimes these connections take upwards of half an hour late at night.”

In 2018, the think tank published “An Unhealthy Commute,” a report that found health care workers have the worst commutes in New York — with a median of 51.2 minutes — and even more challenges tacked on during the overnight hours.

“There are some really hellish commutes out there,” Bowles said.