Despite reassurances last week from the New York City Department of Health regarding two cases of Legionnaires’ disease within the past 12 months at Tracey Towers, DOH arrived again this week to disclose that two more cases of the potentially fatal disease were confirmed at the complex.

So far, the four cases have been contained to the 20 W. Mosholu Parkway N Tower with no cases at the adjoining 40 W Mosholu Parkway N according to the Norwood News.

Health officials are advising that tenants take precautions, particularly the elderly and those with compromised immune systems who are at greater risk to contract the disease.

Tenants are being advised to take baths instead of showers due to the fact that Legionnaires’ disease can be contracted through the mist and water vapor created while showering.

In the meantime, the Norwood News reports that shower heads are being replaced throughout the building as a safety measure.

This isn’t the first time that the deadly disease strikes The Bronx.

Back in August 2015, our borough was the epicenter of New York City’s largest outbreak of Legionnaires’ which infected 120 people and killed 12 in the Melrose/Morrisania area of the South Bronx.

The following month in September, 13 new cases were found, this time in the Morris Park section of The Bronx.

Two years later, 2017 was declared a record year for Legionnaires’ in New York City with a 38% increase over the previous year with with 1,009 reported cases.

In 2018 two separate clusters were reported: One in Co-op City which sickened 3 with one fatality and two cases in a NYCHA development in Kingsbridge with no reported fatalities.

We will keep an eye on this situation and report on any further developments.

Here’s another thing we can add to the list of things that ails our borough: Restaurant Health ratings.

According to an analysis done by Renthop, The Bronx has highest rates of restaurants that only received a B or C rating.

Our borough is also the only borough that is below the NYC average with 9.1% of our restaurants having received lower than an A rating with over 200 getting a B or C.

Highbridge placed the worst neighborhood in The Bronx with 24.3% of restaurants receiving B/C grades followed by Kingsbridge Heights with 22.6% of restaurants receiving such grades.

Meanwhile, Co-op City had the best ratings with only 3% of its restaurants having received below an A rating followed by the Soundview/Bruckner corridor at 3.6%.

Check out the interactive map below to see how your neighborhood did.

So what else did Renthop dig up?

According to their report:

• In Manhattan, 9,188, or 92.9% of the food establishments were given the top grade. StuyTown comes out on top, with all 10 food establishments graded A. Washington Heights North lands the bottom, with 15.7%, or 19 restaurants out of 121, graded B or C.
• In Brooklyn, West Brighton tops all other neighborhoods to be the best place in terms of restaurant health, with 17 Grade A food establishments. Rugby-Remsen Village is the least healthy neighborhood, with 15.8% or 12 of its restaurants graded below A.
• Restaurant health in the Bronx, unfortunately, falls below the city average (92.7%). Of the 2,059 food establishments in the Bronx, only around 90% of them are Grade A restaurants. Among all neighborhoods, Highbridge has the highest percentage (24.3%) of Grade B/C restaurants. Fordham South is not doing so well, either. Of the 56 restaurants operating there, 17.9%, or 10 of them, are below Grade A.
• The number of restaurants failing their cycle inspections went up in the past couple of years. In 2018, 894 food establishments were closed by the Health Department, compared to 500 in 2017. As of September 5th, 654 restaurants have been closed due to violations found during cycle inspections.
• What’s more alarming, though, is that the number of restaurant Health Code violations related to mice and roaches has gone up in recent years. Queens saw the biggest jump, with in total 3,138 violations in 2018, 70.5% higher than in 2017.

Needless to say, after that last bullet point: GROSS.

One lucky person in The Bronx purchased the single-winning ticket for the New York State Lottery this past Wednesday, September 11th.

Worth $10.7 million bucks, the lucky buyer got his ticket at TS Stationary in Norwood according to PIX11 News who also said the new millionaire hasn’t come forward.

A big congratulations to the winner and if you’re reading this, let us know if you need help figuring out which local organizations to make donations to as we have a bunch you can support like The Bronx River Alliance, The Bronx Documentary Center, The Point CDC, Rocking the Boat just to name a few.

What would YOU do with $10.7 million?

Next stop: Rita Moreno!

Called City of Women, the New York City subway map was recreated to honor women across the city by renaming every single 424 stations for important females in local history.

In The Bronx, women either who either lived in our borough or worked here were selected to rename each and every station.

And the beauty of it is that the names are a diverse reflection of the beautiful mosaic and tapestry that is The Bronx.

From Mary J. Blige to Mary Higgins Clark and Linda Lovelace to Sonia Sotomayor, the map beautifully captures the gamut of powerful, Bronx women including the late Evelina Antonetty, the Hell Lady of The Bronx.

The names are matched as best as possible to where they either lived, worked, went to school or spent a considerable amount of time.

According to Untapped Cities, the map was created”…by Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro with cartography from Molly Roy, a new updated version of the map will be revealed at the New York Transit Museum this month. “

The map itself is important to highlight the dearth of place names after women.

Check it out below and let us know what you think!

PS: Shout out to Bronxite Brennan for the tip!

Last year saw tens of thousands of pizza lovers descend upon New York City’s REAL Little Italy in the Belmont section of The Bronx for the first ever New York Pizza Festival which was billed as the first of its kind in the country.

Attendees were able to taste some of the best pizza from around New York City and the country and even straight from Naples, Italy as well.

Now the event returns for its second annual festival for two days on Saturday October 5th and Sunday October 6th along Crescent Avenue in Little Italy and is hosted by The Belmont Business Improvement District.

The event itself is free but in order to get your slices and drinks you need to purchase tickets.

Pizza only tickets are $25 bucks for 3 slices or $35 bucks for 6 and beer and wine tickets are $20 for 3 drinks and $30 for 5 drinks (not a bad deal at all considering you’ll be sampling some of the best pizza the country has to offer).

There are a limited number of VIP tickets for $100 bucks which will get you 5 drinks and 10 slices not to mention going straight to the VIP line at each booth. This, by far is the best deal and bang for the buck for pizza enthusiasts.

You can check out the list of participating pizzerias here.

Grab your tickets now because you don’t wanna miss out on this amazing event! See you there!

169 newly constructed apartments in the Fordham Manor area of The Bronx are up for grabs via New York City’s Affordable Housing Lottery program.

Located at 2519 Creston Avenue, across from Saint James Park and a block from the Grand Concourse as well as Fordham Road, the development has apartments for a wide range of incomes from those making 40% of the Area Median Income to households at 110% of the AMI.

The units come with hardwood floors and the development itself has a fitness room as well as a recreation room for residents.

You MUST apply by October 30th and you can do so by following this link.

Please note: Welcome2TheBronx is NOT affiliated with any of these listings so please do not contact us regarding this or any apartment as we cannot help you. Instead, follow the links we provide and good luck!

For the first time in 7 years, overdose death rates in New York City have dropped.

According to New York City Department of Health, NYC saw a 3% drop in such deaths in 2018 compared to 2017 however, The Bronx continues to see a rise in overdoses.

In 2018, our borough saw an increase of 9% leading the city in overdose deaths with 391 fatalities last year making it not just the borough with the highest rate of overdose death in New York City but also the borough to record the most deaths as a result of overdoses.

During that period there were 1,444 overdose related deaths recorded in New York City, a drop of 38 deaths from 2017.

The Crotona – Tremont area of The Bronx, comprised of the 10453, 10457, and 10460 zip codes) saw the highest rate of overdose deaths in the borough and placed second in New York City with a rate of 49.5 deaths per 100,000 residents more than twice the average of 20.5 deaths per 100,000 for the entire city.

Only East Harlem in Manhattan was worse with a rate of 56.1 deaths per 100,000 placing the area on the top of the list.

Of the top 15 of the 42 neighborhoods in New York City in the report, six are in The Bronx making the borough by far the center of the opioid crisis in the country’s largest city.

The Bronx neighborhoods with the highest rates of overdoses, in order, are:

According to the report, fentanyl accounted for 60% of the opioid related deaths and cocaine was involved in 52% of such cases.

Other key statistics from the data showed that Latinos had the highest rate of overdose death at 24.8 per 100,000 residents; a 5% increase from 2017.

Overdoses are also increasing in females which saw an increase overdoses in 2018 of 7% compared to the previous years.

Also, unsurprisingly, neighborhoods with very high levels of poverty had a much higher rate than areas of high, medium, and low poverty.

The crisis is far from over in The Bronx and we must continue to pressure our elected officials to provide more resources to battle this scourge that is destroying the fabric of our communities.

You can view the full report here.

Last year NYC Ferry kicked off its service in The Bronx at Clason Point in Soundview offering relief to a transit-starved community and cutting commute times by as much as half in many cases.

For people who worked downtown, they saw their commutes go from as much as 90 minutes to as little as just over 30 minutes: The time it takes to get from Soundview to Wall Street on the ferry.

Several weeks ago we asked the New York City Economic Development Corporation about how the new service has fared in the past year and all indicators point to a resounding success.

According to the EDC, the Soundview route, which stops at Clason Point in The Bronx, 90th Street, 34th Street and Wall Street in Manhattan, was expected to carry 410,000 riders during the first year.

In less than 12 months, it carried over 670,000 riders, 63% more than expected.

Even more impressive is that the ferry stop at Soundview accounted for a third of that ridership with 223,634 riders at the Soundview landing according to data that the EDC provided us which translates to an average of 620 people a day.

An EDC spokesperson told Welcome2TheBronx exclusively, ” “NYC Ferry has transformed commutes for hundreds of thousands of Bronxites over the past year. The Soundview ferry landing has surpassed our expectations and has provided people living and working in this community with a fast, affordable option to travel around the city. Our ridership is only getting stronger by the day and we encourage all New Yorkers to hop on board and explore all the routes NYC Ferry has to offer.”

But it’s not all roses, at least for many locals who now have to put up with extra traffic coming in even though buses have been added and extended to the ferry.

Parking woes for locals have continued since the launch of the ferry service with many upset that parking wasn’t a consideration when implementing the service in the area.

This is a sentiment that is also echoed by commuters who drive to the ferry and don’t live in the immediate vicinity.

Future Service Expansion in The Bronx

In January, NYC Ferry announced that it would expand its ferry service across NYC, including adding Throggs Neck as a stop (starting in 2021) on the Soundview route at Ferry Point Park answering the wishes of many locals in the East Bronx.

While this is excellent news and we have been pushing for a Throggs Neck stop since day one, the city and NYC Ferry MUST expand direct service into Queens and Brooklyn, bypassing Manhattan.

Manhattan is no longer the center of the universe for the outer boroughs. At one point, traveling to employment centers in Manhattan was a necessity which is why the vast majority of our subway lines are Manhattancentric to begin with but that is no longer the case.

Job growth and share has declined in Manhattan whereas it has grown in the outer boroughs by 48% between 2009 and 2018 according to a report issued by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

That same report indicated that the outer boroughs accounted for 60% of all job growth in New York City.

A ferry route from The Bronx to Brooklyn and Queens would connect millions of residents in the outer boroughs without having to waste time going through Manhattan.

At least we can have a ferry connecting us if the Triboro Line connecting The Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn never materializes.