We want to apologize to our subscribers who may have received dozens of emails from us that were inadvertently sent during upgrades to the site.
We have been working on trying to offer a better experience and during our upgrade, due to a glitch with the themes we’re working with, dozens of dummy articles were sent to our subscribers.
This is truly unacceptable but we hope you can accept our sincerest apologies for this error!
Sincerely,
Ed Garcia Conde
Editor and Founder
Welcome2TheBronx
Bally’s is seeking to expand its gambling empire into The Bronx, hoping to snag one of up to three downstate casino licenses that New York State may issue in the near future.
The corporation, which has over 15,000 slot machines and 600 table games across 15 casinos, among other assets such as over 5,000 hotel rooms, is seeking to snag 17 acres at the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point Park in Throggs Neck.
According to an agreement between Bally’s and the Trump Organization, 10 of the 17 acres at the failing golf course would be for the actual casino, and the remaining 7 acres would be for staff housing and green space.
The endeavor would create over 3,500 jobs as well as 15,000 construction jobs, according to an article in The New York Post but besides Bally’s actually getting the license for the casino from New York State, they would have to get approvals for such usage at the location given the fact that it is public parkland.
While The Bronx could undoubtedly use the jobs and potential economic benefits from such an endeavor, these types of venues always bring concerns and controversies along with them. However, people will still gamble, so perhaps we might as well have a place within the borough for them to do so rather than losing the thousands of Bronxites who go across the border to Yonkers at the Empire Casino and Raceway.
Ultimately, local residents in the immediate area should have a voice in what they would like to see in their own backyard and if this makes sense for them, given the fact that they will have to live with the consequences of having a casino in their own neighborhood.
So far, the proposal has been met with a warm response from local elected officials.
Assemblymember Mike Benedetto and State Senator Nathalia Fernandez, who both represent the area at the state level, told Politico in separate statements agree that, while the proposal could be a tremendous economic boom for the neighborhood, local input from area residents on the matter is a must.
New York City Council Member Marjorie Velazquez also signaled that the proposed casino would be a good fit for the borough in a statement to The New York Post and that it would open up the golf course to local residents that currently cannot utilize it due to the high costs associated with golfing at the course.
You may recall that last year when the New York State budget was enacted in the previous year, it provided for the addition of three new casinos, and Assemblymember Amanda Septimo and New York City Council Member Rafael Salamanca, Jr both floated the idea of bringing a casino to the Hunts Point waterfront, but eventually, nothing ever came of it.
Samantha Maldonado, The City
This article was originally published on Jan 31 11:00am EST by THE CITY
Public housing residents who traded their gas stoves for electric induction ones saw improved air quality compared with their neighbors, according to the new results of a pilot program across 20 apartments at a complex in The Bronx.
Run by the nonprofit WE ACT for Environmental Justice, in partnership with the New York City Housing Authority, the Association for Energy Efficiency, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Berkeley Air Monitoring, the experiment involved switching out gas stoves for induction units in 10 apartments at 1417 Watson Avenue, as THE CITY reported last February.
After a 10-month run, the air quality in those households was compared to 10 apartments still using gas stoves.
The households with electric ovens showed a 35% decrease in daily concentrations of the pollutant nitrogen dioxide and a nearly 43% difference in daily concentrations of carbon monoxide, according to the study results released Tuesday.
The findings come on the heels of a national frenzy over possible federal regulations of gas stoves.
Shavon Marino, 34, received an induction stove at the start of the experiment and although she had to learn how to control the heat without knobs, she quickly grew to appreciate the oven. Marino said she was particularly impressed with how fast it cooked her food and the ease of cleaning the flat stovetop.
And as the mom of a 7-year-old, she didn’t take the air quality improvements for granted, either.
“It cooks better and just for the safety of my daughter, that’s why I like the stove,” Marino said. “As she gets older, I think this stove would be a great teaching tool for my daughter.”
Traditional indoor gas stoves burn methane, a planet-warming greenhouse gas more potent at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. But beyond the larger climate concerns, gas stoves can pose immediate health risks to people in a household.
Previous research has shown that the pollutants released when turning on a gas stove are associated with causing or worsening respiratory illnesses.
An alarming December 2022 study estimated that 18.8% of childhood asthma cases in New York might be prevented if households didn’t have gas stoves.
A Bloomberg News report following that study indicated that the head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission was considering banning gas stoves across the country — but the agency later said that they were only looking into slight regulation.
In the Bronx, in addition to continuous air monitoring, researchers measured pollutants while preparing a “standardized” meal of steamed broccoli, spaghetti with tomato sauce and chocolate chip cookies. They made the meal three times each in six households — two with gas stoves and two with induction.
The researchers found that, while cooking using a gas stove, nitrogen dioxide concentrations were nearly three times as much when using an induction stove. In fact, measurements of nitrogen dioxide concentrations in the kitchens with gas stoves reached levels above what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”
During the cooking tests, “an induction cooking household’s pollution didn’t change at all,” said Michael Johnson, technical director at the Berkeley Air Monitoring Group. “It’s another data point we’re seeing that reinforces this narrative that cooking with gas increases levels of NO2 [nitrogen dioxide] and other pollutants in your home to levels that are often unhealthy.”
Beyond stoves, other sources of pollutants like nearby gas boilers and cars also affected the levels of pollutants in the apartments studied, researchers said.
Misbath Daouda, a PhD candidate at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who worked on the study, noted the health benefits of overhauling an entire building’s worth of fossil fuel-powered appliances.
“The transition would need to not only focus on gas stoves as a single appliance, but look at other systems that need to be replaced or improved in those homes to improve air quality and also meet carbon emission reduction goals — and that would include heating systems,” Daouda said.
A full-building transition would greatly decrease the risk of fires and accidents from people using their gas stoves to heat their homes in the winter, she added. Newer electric stoves with batteries would still be usable if the power failed.
NYCHA is preparing to install heat pumps in all apartments in the 96-unit Bronx, as well as a new electrified hot water system.
“The collaboration with WE ACT has helped NYCHA steer its decarbonization commitments, recognizing the clear air quality benefits of electrified cooking,” said NYCHA spokesperson Nekoro Gomes. “We continue to strive for wider implementation of this technology and we are thrilled to see the residents of 1471 Watson enjoying their new induction stoves.”
Switching to electric appliances can raise some concerns about expensive utility bills. The researchers estimated that operating an induction stove would cost about $6 more per month on electricity bills. But households that only pay for cooking gas would see their gas bills zero out, allowing for a monthly cost saving of about $11, the study found.
“Everyone deserves to live in a healthy home, regardless of your income, and regardless of the kind of housing that you live in,” said Sonal Jessel, WE ACT’s director of policy. “It’s ultimately really important that we’re finding pathways to ensure that as we are transitioning, it’s affordable and attainable for all populations.”
Now that the pilot program is complete, residents in the 10 control apartments can have induction stoves installed.
“They were impatient to get them,” Daouda said with a laugh. And no one who received an induction stove as part of the program asked for their old gas stove back.
THE CITY is an independent, nonprofit news outlet dedicated to hard-hitting reporting that serves the people of New York.
The Bronx has quite the image in many people’s minds, whether locally or across the world, but there are many actual real things, people, facts, and history about the northernmost borough of New York City that many people don’t know.
Since Welcome2TheBronx was founded almost 14 years ago, we have been exploring such things about the borough and sharing it with our readers, much to their delight (and ours, if we’re being honest).
So today, we’re going to revisit a few as well as update the list with some more.
Now while you may already know some of these, others will come as a surprise to even the most die-hard lover of all things Bronx.
In no particular order, here we go!
In New York City, there are just over one hundred step streets that are pedestrian-only streets at points where it’s too steep for vehicular traffic, and it just so happens that The Bronx has the most step streets in New York City where more than half are located. Sixty-four step streets, to be exact!
The longest of these streets is W 230th in Riverdale between Netherland and Johnson Avenues!
Did you know that The Bronx has the world’s most extensive collection of Art Deco architecture? That’s right! According to Bronx historian Lloyd Ultan, it’s The Bronx and not Miami Beach, as many people think, and the bulk of the collection is located on and around the Grand Concourse.
The Bronx has always been home to many immigrant groups that have left their mark on our borough. Woodlawn is considered the Irish capital of New York City, and Arthur Avenue in Belmont is the most authentic Little Italy in New York. Over the past decades, we’ve been home to more African diaspora than any other place in the city. At one point, we were also the most Jewish borough, with over 50% of the population in that demographic. Seventy years ago, you were more likely to hear Yiddish than Spanish on the streets of the Bronx.
We’re home to most of the state’s 250,000 Albanians and most Garinagu (the plural for Garifuna) are believed to live in the Bronx.
Okay, so #3 on our list had a bit more than just one fact, but overall it pretty much paints a picture of The Bronx that most outsiders don’t know. It shows the ever-changing face of the borough, and that’s one of the things that makes us such a vibrant place: our people.
Another fun and exciting fact that sets The Bronx apart from the rest of the boroughs of New York City is that it’s the borough with the most connections by way of bridges to Manhattan.
There are a total of 13 spans connecting the two boroughs, of which two are exclusively for rail (Metro North and Amtrak) and one pedestrian-only bridge, aka The High Bridge, which also happens to be the oldest bridge in New York City.
No other borough comes even close, and the second runner-up is Brooklyn, with only three bridges.
As of the 2020 census, The Bronx’s population has finally surpassed its original high of 1,471,701, which was set in 1970 just before the great decline where over a quarter million Bronxites fled the borough, and the population dropped by over 20% in just a decade.
By 1980, the population was just 1,168,972, leaving neighborhoods and blocks across the South Bronx just shells of their former selves.
Now, the population is 1,472,654, and if The Bronx were a city, it would be the 7th largest city in the United States based on population. Not too shabby for 42 square miles, huh?
While many may already know that The Bronx is the greenest borough of New York City, with just over 25% of the land in the borough dedicated to parks, did you know that we also have the largest park in New York City?
It’s not just visitors to New York who assume that Central Park is the city’s largest park, but many who live within our own city don’t know that that honor actually goes to Pelham Bay Park, tucked away in the northeast corner of The Bronx.
At 2,765 acres, it’s more than three times the size of Central Park!
Also, besides Pelham Bay Park, three of the top ten largest parks in New York City are right here in The Bronx, with Van Cortlandt Park coming in the 3rd spot and Bronx Park, which includes The Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden, coming in at 7th place on the list.
One of the best ice creams out there, at least according to us, started right here in The Bronx. Back in the 1920s, Häagen-Dazs® made its debut here in our borough and was sold out of horse-drawn wagons!
So as you can see, this is just a small list of the many things that make The Bronx a special place. There are many more, but we’ll save that for another day!
As another phase of construction is nearing completion at a controversial and gentrifying development along the Harlem River Waterfront in the Port Morris neighborhood of the South Bronx is nearing completion, a wave of online ads have been released touting the number of units that have been set aside as “rent-stabilized.”
Known as Bankside, the 1,500 units of luxury living across seven buildings buildings at the foot of the Bronx side of the Third Avenue Bridge, has been under construction for several years with the first buildings becoming available to renters just over a year ago.
With market-rate rents as high as $5,300 a month for a two-bedroom apartment with a terrace, almost 100 apartments remain vacant since leasing began 14 months ago at the first phase of the development known as Third at Bankside.
Now, a second wave of units in another phase of construction at Bankside will soon be available this year, with 145 of those units set aside as “affordable” under New York City’s Housing Connect lottery system but those units are anything but affordable, especially to area residents.
According to the marketing website for Lincoln at Bankside, as this part of the development is known, monthly rents for the “affordable” units will be as follows:
Income requirements for these units range anywhere from $86,572 to $138,840 a year for studio apartments up to $149,932 to $215,150 a year.
For comparison, the median household income within Community Board 1, where the development is located, is just $27,158 per year.
While the official housing lottery has yet to be launched via Housing Connect, the marketing website for Lincoln at Bankside is anticipating a Spring/Summer 2023 move-in date which means that the lottery should be launching any day now as it generally launches 60 days before residents can begin to move in although this isn’t necessarily written in stone. [update: lottery was launched February 23, 2023]
And what about the remainder of the units at Lincoln at Bankside that are market-rate and won’t be offered as “affordable”?
With almost a hundred market-rate units already sitting vacant within the development at Third at Bankside for over a year now and now hundreds more coming online and with asking market-rate rents upwards of $4,000 for two-bedrooms, will hundreds more units be sitting vacant for years to come in an area that has one of the highest rates of homeless students in the city?
At what point do developers end their greed and instead focus on truly solving the housing crisis faced by our city? At what point do elected officials end the farce of the affordable housing program, which allows such luxury units to be rented under the program, especially in one of the most economically disadvantaged districts?
First the beavers arrived and made the Bronx River their home—the first time the critters called New York City home in over 200 years.
Now, this week not one but two dolphins were spotted in the Bronx River at Starlight Park near Bronx River House, home of the Bronx River Alliance.
According to NYC Parks Twitter account, they confirmed the sightings of the dolphins and provided a video by a local named Nick Banko who first reported their presence in the Bronx River on his Instagram account.
The Bronx River Alliance posted about the dolphins saying, “Did you know dolphins were spotted at Starlight Park this past Monday? There seems to be more dolphin pods swimming near NY Harbor! We are not sure why but authorities are further investigating their presence and we will keep you updated as we get more info.”
Meanwhile, State Assemblyman Kenny Burgos who’s district covers the area where the dolphins were spotted said he was going to cancel his entire schedule to go dolphin sighting in the district.
The fact that dolphins are in the Bronx River is a testament to the hard work of local residents and organizations like the Bronx River Alliance that have helped revive what was once one of the most polluted waterways in the city. At one point, it was filled with abandoned cars, car tires, and tons of garbage until local residents organized and said enough was enough.
It’s true—dolphins were spotted in the Bronx River this week! This is great news—it shows that the decades-long effort to restore the river as a healthy habitat is working. We believe these dolphins naturally found their way to the river in search of fish.
— NYC Parks (@NYCParks) January 19, 2023
(Video: Nick Banco) pic.twitter.com/40ZNgBjJZs
Through their hard work and sweat equity, the river is the cleanest it’s been in over a century and wildlife, as evidenced by the beavers, and now,, dolphins, have returned and are flourishing in the once polluted waters.
The Bronx River is also periodically restocked with alewife fish that use a fish ladder system within the river to return to their spawning grounds much like salmon hence why the dolphins are here since there is a food source for them thriving in the river’s ecology.
While we all may be excited that we have dolphins in our own backyard, NYC Parks reminds us to please make them feel welcome by not disturbing them and giving them space. It’s ok to go see them but please keep that advice in mind for their sake!
We would love to continue hosting dolphins for generations to come so please keep them safe!
The Bronx may have a new mega-millionaire!
A ticket worth $20 million bucks for this past Tuesday’s mega-million drawing was sold in The Bronx at 170th Street Grocery in the Mount Eden neighborhood of The Bronx.
This isn’t the first time a winning ticket has been sold in The Bronx but it does appear to be the largest winning in recent memory.
The last large sum won in The Bronx was in 2019 when a single ticket worth $10 million was sold at TS Stationary in Norwood.
Last summer, a $1 million ticket was sold in Kingsbridge Heights, also for the Mega Million drawing, and in 2021, another $1 million ticket was sold in the borough.
As of this morning, a winner hasn’t been identified but according to information provided to The New York Post by the New York State Gaming Commission, they’re currently verifying someone who came forward claiming to have been the winner but we’re hoping it’s a lucky Bronxite in the area that woke up $20 million richer.
To the new winner, if they need help spending the money by donating to non-profit organizations, we know a few here and there that they can make contributions to like the Bronx Documentary Center, or, perhaps the Bronx Children’s Museum which recently opened to the public.
There are also places like The Point CDC, Rocking the Boat, and The Bronx River Alliance, which do so much work to help our residents as well as the environment within our borough and we’re pretty sure that any donation will go a long way but, however you choose to use your new found wealth, may you use it wisely and it lasts you a lifetime.
A new report by RentHop, a real estate listing website that also provides various annual reports in the markets they serve, compiles heat and hot water complaints across the five boroughs of New York City and shows that, once again, The Bronx has by far, the most such complaints.
According to the report, which pulls data from complaints filed to 311, Bronxites filed 42,050 individual complaints out of the 117,315 complaints filed in New York City between October 1, 2022, through January 10, 2023, accounting for 35.84% of the city’s total.
Brooklyn, the borough with the second-highest rate of such heat-related complaints, accounts for 27.9% of the city’s total, with 32,733 complaints filed during the same period.
But the disparities don’t end there. The report also looks at the top twenty neighborhoods in New York City with heat-related complaints, and 16 Bronx neighborhoods made the top twenty list accounting for a whopping 80% of the list.
And among those neighborhoods, the Pelham Parkway area of the borough is the coldest neighborhood in the city, with 1,293 unique complaints filed during the same period. According to RentHop, Pelham Parkway also saw an increase of 10.7% of such complaints from last year.
Of the top twenty, the first seven neighborhoods are all in The Bronx and are as follows:
Meanwhile, in Highbridge, 957 Woodycrest Avenue, a 53-unit apartment building, has the distinction of the building with the most registered heat and hot water-related complaints during the study period. The building was the site of a fire in March of 2021 that started in an apartment on the fifth floor that quickly spread up to the sixth floor.
Luckily, despite nine injured in that 3-alarm fire, there were no reported casualties.
According to public records, 957 Woodycrest was purchased for $9,300,000 on July 12, 2019 which was more than twice what it sold for in 2012 when it sold for $4.3 million.
Speaking of fires, this report comes almost exactly a year after the deadly Twin Parks Towers fire in The Bronx, which claimed the lives of seventeen residents, including eight children, and was the deadliest blaze in New York City since the 1990 Happy Land Fire, also in The Bronx.
The tragic Twin Parks blaze was also the third-worst in the country in 40 years, and it was traced to an electric space heater as the cause of the deadly fire.
Such space heaters are used due to insufficient heat, and although there were no active heat complaints at the time of the fire, many residents stated that the constant cold was an issue.
During the New York City “Heat Season,” landlords must maintain an indoor temperature of at least 68 degrees between the hours of 6 AM and 10 PM if the outside temperature drops below 55 degrees and between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM, the indoor temperature must be maintained at no less than 62 degrees regardless of the outside temperature. These requirements for the city’s heat season are in effect between October 1st and May 31st of the “winter” season.
But there is a loophole that is exploited by landlords who place any heat sensors in common areas such as hallways versus monitoring actual temperatures within individual units since there are no regulations that the units themselves actually be monitored unless mandated by New York City’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development for buildings that have had multiple violations and heat complaints in the previous years.
So without actual monitoring within apartments, the current heat laws as they are, can lead to tragedies such as the Twin Park blaze which leaves desperate tenants without sufficient heat to utilize such dangerous methods like space heaters to provide needed heat within their apartments.
It’s 2023, and with all the modern technology at our disposal, there’s no reason that individual units can’t have heat sensors to monitor the heating within living spaces to gauge better what’s happening.
This will not only hold landlords accountable, but it may also prevent future tragedies such as the Twin Parks Towers fire that claimed the lives of almost two-dozen innocent victims.
When it comes to single-family home sales prices, the landmarked Fieldston neighborhood in Riverdale in The Bronx continues to be the setting for the most expensive single family home of the year in the borough.
After an extensive search of public records for sales of such properties within The Bronx between January 1st, 2022 through December 31st, 2022, 4731 Fieldston Road was found to have been the highest such sale and sold in July of 2022 for $4,400,000.
According to public records and an old listing, the landmarked-tudor home is a 5 bedroom, 4+ bathroom property spread across 2,374 square feet set on generous lot that’s a massive (by New York City standards for single-family homes) 0.4 acre site.
The area, which has some of the largest estates and lot sizes for single-family homes in New York City, is actually home to the top five highest sales of such properties in The Bronx for 2022.
The other properties topping the list are located in the Estate Area of Riverdale and are as follows:
2. 5250 Independence Avenue / $3,625,000
This 7 bedroom, 7.5 bathroom massive 3,516 square foot home sits on .45 acre and is right around the corner from the beautiful Wave Hill.
3. 5445 Palisade Avenue / $3,300,000
With stunning views of the Hudson River and the Palisades, this 6 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom home is one of the largest at just over 4,000 square feet and sits a massive .48 acre lot.
4. 4911 Arlington Avenue / $3,200,000
This property is the largest of the list and is a 5 bedroom 5.5 bathroom home coming in at 4,776 square feet set on a private cul-de-sac lot but it also has the smallest lot at just 0.2 acre.
The fifth most expensive home sold in 2022 in The Bronx sits on the largest lot of the top five coming in at over half an acre and is a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom home spread across 3,836 square feet.
While the condo and rental market in the South Bronx may be hot, the general Fieldston and Riverdale area of The Bronx continues to be the home of the most expensive single family homes in the borough.
With increasing interest rates, sales may cool down a bit but it’s our prediction that this particular area will continue to lead the borough in terms of highest sales in The Bronx for single family homes.
For almost a decade now, Welcome2TheBronx has joined activists calling for the creation of the TriboroRx line that would stretch from Co-op City, The Bronx to Bayridge, Brooklyn connecting its over 6 million residents—roughly 75% of New York City’s population—without having to go through Manhattan as public transit commuters must do so now.
Now, a year after New York State Governor Kathy Hochul directed the Metropolitan Transit Authority to begin the environmental review of the project by only looking at connecting only Queens and Brooklyn, Hochul has announced that the plan will move forward using light rail has been to create a new light rail line to make transit between the two boroughs easier.
When the announcement was made last year, Welcome2TheBronx decried that The Bronx was left out of this transformative transportation project with the hopes that state officials would come to their senses to include the borough to make the most significant impact.
But unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case, nor have officials indicated that The Bronx will be included in any future expansion plans or if there are any intentions of perhaps expanding on the proposed light rail project.
While, yes, residents of The Bronx will significantly benefit from the Penn Station Access Project, which will extend the New Haven line into Penn Station and is bringing four new Metro North stations to the East Bronx (which broke ground last month), it’s still a heavily Manhattan-centric transit project.
We know that Manhattan is the traditional “heart” of New York City, but since 2014, more than 50% of jobs created have been in The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. Hence, with reason, it stands that there should be some direct connectivity by way of public transportation outside of buses between these areas.
As for a timeline for construction and cost, no figures or dates have been firmed up or mentioned, but the original proposal by the RPA estimated the entire TriboroRx line could be constructed for between $1 and 2 billion dollars.
In the meantime, Bronx elected officials need to step up and demand that the project live up to its original full potential by linking the three boroughs and not to leave The Bronx out of something that will make life easier for the residents of the borough.
For the first time in South Bronx real estate history, condominium apartments have cracked the $1 million price tag.
The two units are located in the Bronx Bricks condominium at 305 E 140th Street, the first condo loft conversion in the South Bronx back in 2008.
Unit 5A, a 1,981 square foot, three-bedroom loft sold for $1,135,000 last year in March. The unit was originally purchased in 2008, when the building was converted to condominiums from a former paint shop, for $789,144.
And just two months ago, on November 10th, unit 5B, a 2,045 square foot 3 bedroom unit, sold for $1,190,000, becoming the most expensive condo in South Bronx real estate history. It was originally purchased during the conversion in 2008 for $712,775.
Condo sales prices in the South Bronx have been slowly creeping towards the $1 million mark since 2019 when a brand new construction condo development opened in 2019 on E 138th Street just a couple of blocks from Bronx Bricks.
In that year, the two penthouse condos at the Joinery, as the condo development is known, sold for $911,334 and for $926,608.
The Joinery was the first new construction condominium development in the South Bronx since Melrose Commons in the 1990s (as mentioned before, Bronx Bricks at 305 East 140th Street is a condo conversion and not new construction).
These rising and record sales prices are all happening as thousands of luxury rental units are being constructed just a few blocks south along the Harlem River Waterfront in Port Morris, where two-bedroom units are renting for well above $4,000 a month at developments like Bankside.
Many records are breaking in the South Bronx real estate market, but it is an area that is still mired in poverty for decades.
The median household income in the immediate area is just $27,158 a year, and these sales and developments within one of the poorest districts within the city and state continue to perpetuate a tale of two cities within the same neighborhood.
As the neighborhood continues to rapidly change in terms of real estate offerings, residents are faced with fewer and fewer options to stay within the very neighborhoods they’ve called home for decades.
With life slowly returning to a post-pandemic reality, will these trends in the real estate market continue to rise and push more long-time residents out?
Only time will tell but unfortunately, many old-time residents do not have the luxury of time.
The Bronx will soon be home to one of the most beautiful libraries in New York City.
Renderings have been revealed for the new Westchester Square Library Branch of the New York Public Library which, once complete, will replace the current branch located a few blocks away over on Glebe Avenue.
The new, 12,000 square foot building will be a tribute to not just the obvious knowledge and learning but to The Bronx’s place in New York City as the greenest of the five boroughs.
According to the Snøhetta, the architects for the new library, the building, “…will come wrapped in a pastoral print fritted glass façade in reference to the Bronx’s status as NYC’s greenest borough“.
Besides its façade, the building will actually be constructed utilizing “green” practices and will include solar panels, rainwater recycling, and numerous energy conservation systems.
The two-story building will also be flooded with natural light bringing the outdoors in with its huge, wraparound glass façade celebrating the borough’s open spaces.
It will be constructed adjacent to the landmarked Huntington Free Library and Reading Room—which houses an impressive collection of historical Bronx documents and accounts long before the borough was annexed to New York City—and will replace a building that was being utilized as storage.
The new library is almost 20 years in the making and the plan to work with the Huntington Free Library to acquire part of its land and property for the endeavor came from former New York City Councilman James Vacca who represented the district then.
“For years, the Westchester Square Library has been dedicated to providing critical resources and programs for community members of all ages. Through this new construction, the New York Public Library will have the opportunity to enhance library operations, including programming and services, bringing the Westchester Square branch to a new level,” said Council Member Marjorie Velázquez who currently represents the district.
Construction is expected to begin at some point this year, however, no official date has been set for its completion.
“I am excited to see what is in store for the newly designed space, and I look forward to our community benefiting from this investment,” added Velázquez.
Since 2009, Welcome2TheBronx has been a popular online platform dedicated to highlighting the vibrant culture, history, and ongoing developments within New York City’s northernmost borough. Founded by life-long resident and community advocate Ed García Conde, the site features local news, personal stories, and in-depth coverage of issues such as gentrification, community empowerment, art, and real estate. Through its engaging content and active social media presence, Welcome2TheBronx has become a trusted resource for residents and visitors alike, shining a spotlight on the unique identity and rich heritage of the Bronx.
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