After years of a population boom in The Bronx, the borough’s population appears to have dropped by 7,500 according to new census estimates via the American Community Survey.
Overall, New York City’s population dropped by 39,523 (from 8,438,271 back in 2017 to 8,398,748 as of July 1st, 2018) but Staten Island was the only borough to show growth with 663 new residents.
Officials with New York City’s Department of City Planning told the Wall Street Journal it appeared that “the city’s robust population expansion, fueled by new young residents, in the past decade appears to have begun its inevitable slowdown.” Overall, the number of residents in the five boroughs grew by 2.7% between 2010 to 2018. “You cannot maintain that level of growth forever,” added Joseph Salvo, city planning’s chief demographer.
Bloomberg adds some more interesting details about the population changes for the entire state: “From April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2018, domestic migration left the Empire State with 1.2 million fewer inhabitants, though foreign immigration cushioned the loss. Also offsetting the loss, births outnumbered deaths. The overall change from April 1, 2010 is a modest gain of 164,085.”
And just when we were just a few thousands away from the record population of 1,471,701 set back in 1970 before the great exodus as a result of the fires and planned shrinkage where our borough lost 20% of its population within a decade.
Love her or hater, America’s youngest Congresswoman in history is has been selected as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019.
The Bronx’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went from relative obscurity to one of the most visible faces of American politics to the point that even Fox News has developed an obsessionwith her (including many out of touch Republicans in the East Bronx, just check out the Bronx Community Board 10 and 11 groups on Facebook).
Whatever you may think of her, she is a force to be reckoned with.
Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts writes in Time:
“The year 2008 was a reckoning. While millions of Americans lost their livelihoods to Wall Street’s greed, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lost her dad to lung cancer, and her family fell off a financial cliff. She watched as our government bailed out Wall Street while it ignored families like hers. She learned the hard way that in America today, Washington protects the powerful while leaving hardworking people behind.
Her commitment to putting power in the hands of the people is forged in fire. Coming from a family in crisis and graduating from school with a mountain of debt, she fought back against a rigged system and emerged as a fearless leader in a movement committed to demonstrating what an economy, a planet and a government that works for everyone should look like.
A year ago, she was taking orders across a bar. Today, millions are taking cues from her. She reminds all of us that even while greed and corruption slow our progress, even while armies of lobbyists swarm Washington, in our democracy, true power still rests with the people. And she’s just getting started.”
A sign, photographed on April 6, informs passersby in the Westchester Square neighborhood that video surveillance is in use. Photo: Ese Olumhense/THE CITY
Over the last six months, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark’s office has quietly enlisted some 4,000 new eyes on the street: Surveillance cameras at private businesses, houses, apartment buildings and schools.
But not everyone is ready for their close up: Privacy and civil liberties advocates are on alert.
The program, dubbed “Computer Assisted Mapping System” (CAMS), launched in October and is described as an “intranet” for the thousands of cameras prosecutors have enrolled in The Bronx.
When a home or business owner signs their security cameras up, the location is added to a database that feeds an interactive map. Then, as prosecutors investigate a crime, they can enter an address and find nearby cameras that may have valuable evidence.
Prosecutors say handing over the footage is not compulsory.
“We are looking for camera evidence in a whole host of cases because we have an arrest in front of us, or we have an investigation in front of us and we have witnesses telling us how something went and we need to corroborate that, or at least discover if it’s true,” said Kerry Chicon, chief of strategic enforcement and intergovernmental relations at The Bronx DA’s office.
Many Details Remain Out of Sight
But there are some truths the public still doesn’t know about the program: Though Chicon said most of the cameras, as of mid-February, were in the southern parts of the borough, her office has declined to share any locations, citing confidentiality.
Officials also couldn’t cite any specific cases in which CAMS footage has been used – or say how frequently CAMS footage has been used as evidence.
“We don’t know yet,” a spokeswoman for Clark said in an emailed response to THE CITY. “It’s too new. We rolled out the program … in October 2018 and ADAs and paralegals have started to look at it on their cases.”
The spokeswoman said the system was built “in-house.”
Around 4,000 cameras are now enrolled in the six-month-old program, the district attorney’s office said. That’s up from the nearly 1,000 cameras The Bronx Times reported in late January.
Still, most Bronx residents who spoke with THE CITY had never heard of the program. Neither had The Bronx Defenders – which has a team of public defenders working cases in Bronx Criminal Court – nor the New York Civil Liberties Union, which monitors privacy and surveillance.
Security cameras at East 149th Street. The Bronx District Attorney hopes to enroll public and private cameras in the Computer Assisted Mapping System, or CAMS. Photo: Ese Olumhense/THE CITY
“We’re very curious ourselves!” a spokeswoman at The Bronx Defenders said in an emailed response.
THE CITY canvassed some of The Bronx’s busiest retail districts in search of business owners participating in CAMS. In conversations in the Third Avenue area, Westchester Square and on and around Fordham Road, dozens of owners, managers and workers at bodegas, pawn shops, newsstands, pharmacies, clothing stores, restaurants and more, said they knew nothing about CAMS.
“Nothing,” said Awilda Ortiz, manager of Zodiac Jewelry on Third Avenue, located steps from the heavily trafficked intersection of East 149 Street and Third, Willis and Melrose Avenues. “And I’m here seven days a week.”
Outreach is ongoing in the Third Avenue area, according to Michael Brady, executive director of the South Bronx’ Third Avenue BID, which includes one of the borough’s busiest commercial districts.
Giving prosecutors access to its cameras was the BID’s first phase of its CAMS rollout, Brady said. The BID plans to speak to area business owners about the program through the spring, he added.
“They are very open to it,” Brady said. “It comes down to public safety.”
Meanwhile, many Bronx residents had mixed feelings about the CAMS concept.
“Not for nothing, I can see why this is something the district attorneys feel they need,” said Christian Davis, who lives in Highbridge. “Things do happen out here…. I guess what doesn’t sit right with me is the fact that this popped off without people really knowing. I didn’t see it on the news, or hear about it from anybody. And I live here in The Bronx. It’s really some sci-fi s–t.”
‘Everyone is Being Filmed’
Civil liberties advocates are equally wary.
“There’s potentially a problem with how the DA’s office has gone about this, which is reliance on private businesses, private individuals, to basically perform a public function by handing over footage from these cameras,” said Michael Sisitsky, lead policy counsel at the New York Civil Liberties Union. “It’s essentially a way around external oversight if they’re relying on all of these private feeds to generate data for them.”
CAMS doesn’t provide officials with a live feed, the district attorney’s office said. And a spokeswoman said a list of participants has not been shared with the NYPD.
While CAMS has its critics, there are cheerleaders, too. Some business leaders say they’re are encouraging merchants to team with The Bronx DA’s office.
“When all the [business improvement districts] met with the DA’s office [to discuss CAMS], this was something we were in favor of,” said Lisa Sorin, president of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce. “Anything that makes the process faster and more efficient, we’re in favor of that.”
And while Sorin and Brady said they understood the concerns from some in the community, both noted that the cameras in the database were already there — the DA’s office is not installing new ones.
“Everyone is being filmed anyway,” Sorin said.
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.
Ok so Çka Ka Qellu in Belmont keeps getting media attention and each time we just wanna run over and check it out after seeing the delicious, Albanian food.
This time WABC featured them in a cool clip where the owner, Ramiz Kukaj, talks about why he decided to open the restaurant as well as some patrons on why they eat there.
Growing up in The Bronx, this Puerto Rican kid had the pleasure of eating authentic, home cooked Albanian dishes at friends’ homes so I’m glad that there are places like Çka Ka Qellu for others to try this amazing cuisine.
Now I just have to get over there and try it out for myself!
Watch the video below:
Çka Ka Qellu is located at 2321 Hughes Avenue in The Bronx’s Little Italy.
This year Bronx Commons and the 250 seat Bronx Music Hall in Melrose will finally open after years of delays and now the lottery is officially open for 288 residential units.
Due to the deep affordability of the 30% Area Median Income levels, this means that qualifying residents can snatch studios as low as $328/month, 1 bedrooms at $419 a month, 2 bedrooms at $509/month, and 3 bedrooms at $582/month.
Bronx Commons is nearing completion. Pictured is the entrance to the Bronx Music Hall.
These prices are literally unheard of especially in an amenity filled and important new building in The Bronx like Bronx Commons.
There are units available for a wide range of incomes to as high as 110% of the AMI making this a truly mixed-income development.
The building features a laundry room on each floor, 3 community rooms, 2 bicycle storage rooms, a fitness room, 2 outdoor spaces, and 2 public plazas.
Located at 443 E 162nd Street in Melrose, Bronx Commons is just a couple of blocks away from the Melrose Metro North Station and a 15 minute walk to either the 2 and 5 train at 3rd Avenue and 149th Street or the 4, B, D at 161st Street.
Your application MUST be submitted no later than June 14th, 2019.
Please note: We are NOT affiliated with the developer or lottery program so please do not contact us for further details as we cannot help you.
A swath of small businesses ranging from medical offices to automotive businesses have been displaced on the Grand Concourse in Mott Haven just a couple of blocks north of 138th Street.
They will soon be demolished to make way for two 14 story buildings with over 300 residential units.
310 Grand Concourse will have 157 residential units and 334 Grand Concourse will have 157 residential units spread across almost 350,000 square feet between both buildings.
No word on when construction will begin but this is just one of thousands of units that are either under construction or about to enter construction in the immediate area.
There is also no word on whether or not the development will have any affordability or if it will be market rate or a mix.
As always, stay tuned for more info.
In the meantime, we’re still wondering how the 149th Street and Grand Concourse station on the 2/4/5 line as well as 138th and Grand Concourse on the 4 and 5 line is supposed to absorb all these new tenants when you can barely walk on the platform during rush hour.
PropertyShark has released its newest foreclosure data and things aren’t looking well for The Bronx as foreclosures surged by 28%.
This is in contrast to most of the city which saw drops in foreclosures.
The 10469 zip code in The Bronx, which covers Pelham Gardens, parts of Allerton, Baychester, and Pelham Parkway North, saw the most foreclosures during the first quarter of the year with 27 properties entering the process.
See how your zip code did using the map below:
PropertyShark writes:
With foreclosures gradually decreasing last year in the borough, they went back up in the first three months of 2019, increasing 28% year-over-year and marking the largest increase among the 5 boroughs. The Bronx also saw the largest quarter-over-quarter increase, a staggering 67% spike.
A total of 150 unique cases were registered in the first three months of the year. The 10469-zip code had the highest number of residential homes (27) entering the foreclosure process in the Bronx.
Lis pendens dropped 28%, with 279 cases entering the pre-foreclosure process for the first time.
“We are in close contact with the NYC Department of Health,” a hospital spokeswoman said in a statement. “We strictly adhere to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local public health guidelines. We are reaching out to anyone who may have been exposed, and are providing information about measles, including how to monitor yourself and when to contact your doctor. We are setting up special locations for post exposure treatment and care as needed.”
The latest string of outbreaks in the metro area has been closely linked to the ultra-orthodox Jewish communities in Rockland County, and Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
According to physicians, it appears to have begun with an unvaccinated child who visited Israel and caught the illness there thousands have been sick from the disease.
Parents need to vaccinate their children. Frankly, we don’t care about your silly conspiracy theories about vaccines. Science has proven that they are necessary and save lives and you’re just being flat out ridiculous if you haven’t vaccinated your children yet.
You are literally killing them so stop being dumb and vaccinate.
The Bronx lost a giant last month with the passing of Mike Greco of Mike’s Deli on Arthur Avenue.
He had been a staple of the community for over half a century and despite having passed away, his legacy will live for a long time here in our borough through the lives he came in contact with and all those he touched.
A Calabrian immigrant, Mr. Greco arrived in New York in 1947 with his 17-year-old twin brother, Joe, each sporting a new suit and carrying $50. Mike went to work in a Bronx butcher shop, married the boss’s daughter and, in the early 1950s, opened a delicatessen nearby in the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, a building housing an array of merchants. His brother became the chef and owner of Joe Nina’s restaurant in the borough’s Pelham Bay section.
Mr. Greco started work at 6 a.m. seven days a week and made Mike’s Deli a place of pilgrimage in the heart of the Bronx’s Little Italy, roughly bounded in the Belmont section by Fordham Road on the north, East 181st Street on the south, Third Avenue on the west and the Bronx Zoo on the east. (The neighborhood’s most famous alumnus is probably Dion DiMucci, whose group, Dion and the Belmonts, plaintively sang in 1959, “Why must I be a teenager in love?”)
Mr. Greco became a fixture in a Bronx enclave that stubbornly resisted change in the second half of the 20th century, when much of the borough, especially to the south, was plagued by crime, white flight, housing abandonment and arson.
Back in 2011, City Island resident Alex Schibli purchased Rat Island in an auction for a mere $176,000.
Now Schibli wants to turn the 2.5 acre rock, nestled between Hart Island and City Island into a yoga, canoeing, or fishing retreat (why choose one when all three would work perfectly).
Renderings by Jendretzki Design + Archipx
The New York Post reports that since the purchase of the island 8 years ago, Schibli and his family has used Rat Island for family picnics and the likes.
In the renderings and video you can see 10 cabins and Schibli wants it to be eco-friendly (bonus points for that).
“We are in the process of designing ideas for possible structures,” says architect Pablo Jendretski, who has teamed up with Schibli to produce renderings for the project.
The drawings show 10 self-contained wooden cabins dotted around the island and a small jetty.
Jendretzki Design + Archipx
“We designed the pods with no windows on the side for privacy, but then you have the magnificent views to the front and back,” says Jendretski, adding that the buildings would be solar-powered. Rainwater would need to be harvested for toilets and showers as there is no running water on the island.
Jendretzki Design + Archipx
As of right now there are no concrete plans to make this come to fruition but they’re hoping an investor shows up to make this project a reality.
Personally, we’re on the fence with this as we’d love to just leave the beautiful Pelham Islands as they are BUT this design is quite thoughtful and blends in with the landscape naturally so we’re not opposed to the idea.
In fact, if it were to become a reality, we know exactly where we’re going on our next staycation.
I mean you can just row over to one of City Island’s many great restaurants for some good grub!
