In 1968, horror movies were never the same after Bronx born and raised George A. Romero released his zombie classic, Night of the Living Dead.
From that, the zombie genre has grown into one of the largest and most popular horror categories with recent shows such as The Walking Dead (a series he cared little about and actually snubbed after being asked to direct several episodes), video games (and movies) like Resident Evil and so much more.
Earlier today George A Romero passed away at the age of 77 due to lung cancer.
Romero leaves behind cult classic movies like the Night of the Living Dead franchise, Creepshow, Monkey Shines, Tales From the Darkside, and The Dark Half (based on Stephen King’s novel).
As a child, I was obsessed with any films by Romero for it was Night of the Living Dead that truly put the scare in me making me a young fan of the horror and zombie genre.
When I was much older and found out he was from The Bronx too, he became infinitely cooler in my eyes.
It’s a bit ironic to wish Romero to rest in peace considering he’s the godfather of zombies but, hey, he’d appreciate it more than anyone.
Located at 1060 Reverend James A Polite Avenue, these 26 units are located in a new 69 unit building in a development that will primarily house the formerly homeless, people with serious mental illness, chronic homelessness, disorders related to alcohol and or drug use.
These 26 units are not under that category but it should be noted that this is the expected population you will be applying to live with (the more you know).
12 studio apartments are available to individuals making anywhere from $26,229 to $33,400 with rents at $710 a month, 2 studio units for individuals making $31,440 to $40,080 renting for $862 and 12 two bedroom units for a 2-4 person household making $39,943 to $57,240 renting for $1,107.
The rents are well below market rates in the area but the catch is that you’ll have to fall within the income guidelines which is where many folks don’t make the cut.
E 138th Street at Third Avenue is buzzing with construction as 4 buildings are currently rising along this corridor where once stood single and two story industrial buildings.
With all the plans for rezonings being shoved down our throats, starting with Jerome Avenue and certainly not least of all, the Southern Boulevard plan, we decided to take a look and see exactly what happened in one area of the South Bronx.
In 2009, a 30 block area of Mott Haven, known as the Lower Concourse, was rezoned to accommodate new residential development, skyscrapers along the waterfront on the Harlem River, condos and the likes in what was then mostly light industrial (and vacant), auto shops, and storage facilities.
From 2002-2008 right before the rezoning, sales in the area were modest with an average sales price of $1,322,047 and an average of $132 per square foot.
Sales trends within the Lower Concourse Rezoning Area
But once the rezoning took effect, prices increased 258.2% to an average of $4,735,390 selling at an average of $289 per square foot (a 118.94% increase) from 2010-2016 as speculators began buying up properties in the hopes of cashing in on the real estate boom that was heading into The Bronx (including properties purchased by Somerset and Chetrit who plan on developing 1,500 units in their isolated “Piano District”).
When a rezoning is announced, developers and landowners salivate like dogs, foaming at the mouth at the prospect of huge profit margins; properties and vacant land are sold at speculative prices way above market value.
In 2014, the first development within the rezoning area opened: Morris Court, an “affordable housing along Morris Avenue and E 144th Street, directly across from Lincoln Hospital, containing 201 units marketed towards individuals and families making anywhere from $28,595 to $90,700 a year―significantly higher than the actual median income of an area where 56.4% of families make under $24,999 a year.
Since then, a flurry of activity has risen within the zoning area and blocks along its periphery.
221 E 138th Street, the first market-rate condos going up in the Lower Concourse Rezoning District
As of this writing, there are currently seven buildings under construction, including market rate condos on E 138th Street where the developer is hoping to get $399,000 for studios and upwards of $599,000 for two bedroom units.
This tally doesn’t include Somerset Partners and Chetrit Group’s 101 Lincoln Avenue demolition to pave way for their 1,300 units in roughly 7 buildings along the waterfront at the foot of the Third Avenue Bridge as groundbreaking still hasn’t occurred although the lots are being prepped as this is being written. (Note: These properties are within a block of the rezoning area).
101 Lincoln Avenue has recently been demolished to make way for 1,300 market-rate luxury apartments across two lots in 6 towers on either side of the Third Avenue Bridge
Almost 2,000 units of housing are in various stages of construction whether demolition of former structures on proposed sites or almost completed buildings like 530 Exterior Street.
Of these units, more than half will be market-rate housing leaving out the overwhelming majority of area residents and creating a further divide of haves and have nots and a tale of two cities within a borough and a community long plagued by extreme poverty.
See: In 2014 we documented the Lower Concourse Rezoning Area before any major changes took place
Our borough and The South Bronx is quickly changing and some would argue for the better but for myself and countless others, the question becomes, better for whom?
All of this is happening in what is still the poorest congressional district in the nation. The city is quick to implement changes that are transformative to the social and economic fabric of a neighborhood but does little to actually work towards changing the economic outcomes and futures of its current residents so that they too may prosper and be uplifted with the coming tide.
Explore the map below to see what’s going on in and around the Lower Concourse Rezoning Area, let us know if there’s something we missed and should be included.
Watch us race on the Bronx River as we paddle in 5k Canoe Challenge raising funds for The Bronx River Alliance who have been such excellent stewards of our beautiful river which is getting cleaner with each passing year!
There will also be tours of the Alliance’s new home, River House, so make sure sturdy, closed-toe shoes to check out this beautiful new structure along the river!
Live music will be Consumata with a dance performance by Angela’s Pulse, and there will be a movie night with a screening of Moana.
All of this is free and open to the public so bring your family to the Bronx River at Starlight Park this Saturday!
There are currently 4 housing lotteries open to apply for “affordable” housing in The Bronx with one of the deadlines approaching on July 17th so act fast to make the cut off as there are zero exceptions made to the guidelines.
Some of the units are actually affordable to area residents but they are extremely limited in numbers so the odds are quit slim in landing one if you qualify.
The properties are listed in order of deadlines and are as follows:
255 E 138th Street aka The Graham Application Deadline: 07/17/2017 11:59PM
This 87 unit development in Mott Haven features studios renting from $368 a month to 3 bedroom apartments for $1,683 for qualifying incomes ranging from as low $14,503 for a household of 1 person to $110,700 for a 6 person household. Click for full details.
3475 Third Avenue aka La Casa del Mundo Application Deadline: 08/02/2017 11:59PM
The 101 units at La Casa del Mundo in Morrisania has studios starting at $368 a month to 3 bedroom units for $1,224 for qualifying income ranges of $14,503 for a single family household on the low end to $66,420 for a family of 6 on the high end. Click for full details.
530 Exterior Street Application Deadline: 08/18/2017 11:59PM
530 Exterior Street in Mott Haven has 124 units with studios going for $822 a month to 3 bedroom units for $1,224 for qualifying incomes of $30,069 for a single family household to $66,420 for a six person household. Click for full details.
This development does not feature studio units in the lottery, instead, the 62 units are 1 bedroom apartments starting at $882 to 3 bedroom apartments at $1,740 for qualifying families making $32,195 for a single family household to $110,700 for a 6 person household. Click for full details.
To apply online for any of these apartments, click here. If you do not have a profile in the system, you will be asked to do so.
Looking for something the entire family can do together or just with your friends? Then look no further!
Nicole Perrino aka BronxMama first learned about rock hunting from a family member down in Georgia who had posted about the activity. Perrino quickly realized this would be a great idea to bring to The Bronx.
Folks get together and paint rocks with whatever their hearts desire and on the bottom they add the hashtag #TheBronxRocks. Once they’re done, they hide them throughout their neighborhoods across The Bronx for people to find, enjoy, take a picture and tag them on social media to show folks that they found a particular rock.
People are asked to re-hide the rock for others to find and join in the fun.
Bronxite and owner of Confetti Kids in Pelham Bay Lourdes Melendez-Gamez painted these beautites
“I thought it would be a great idea to spread to the Bronx. The borough is no stranger to art, and I imagined all types of people getting in on the fun. Families, artists, local businesses.” said Perrino to Welcome2TheBronx.
She added, ” It looked like such a fun activity to bring communities together and have fun as a family”.
And indeed it has already been a hit with Bronxites across our borough immediately taking to the activity.
When Nicole set up #TheBronxRocks Facebook group a month ago, Bronxites jumped in on the fun and began painting rocks and offering up clues to where they’re hidden.
Oh where can this heart rock painted by Debby of The Bronx be? If you find it, you know what to do!
Hopefully you can come out to Virginia Park, bring your friends, family, kids, or just come solo and join in on the fun.
Someone’s excited to have found a painted rock! Briana, Perrino’s daughter is pictured here with her find.
“Not only is it exciting to see families spending quality time together, but it’s a fun way to get people out exploring the borough and meeting neighbors.” Nicole Perrino said.
As for the goal for the program? She said, “…to bring the Bronx community together and have beautiful rocks all over the borough!”
This Sunday July 2nd from Noon to 5PM at The Third Avenue Business Improvement District in The Hub at Melrose, the 1 Bronx Festival will kick off a festival celebrating the beautiful diversity of The Bronx along with Bronx LGBTQ Pride and simply fun for the entire family regardless of your walk of life!
The event will feature performances by Grammy nominated Bronx native Latin Jazz superstar Bobby Sanabria, dancers from ‘We’re Muslim, Don’t Panic’, singing sensation Jeannie Sol, It’s Showtime NYC! street performers, Bronx born and raised singer, actor Christopher Estrada and many more!
There will also be over 150 vendors and organizations throughout the 4 blocks of the festival on Third Avenue from 149th Street to 153rd complimenting the stores in the shopping district with the performance stage on Westchester Avenue (150th Street) between Third and Bergen Avenues.
Gothamist just reported that thousands of rent stabilized apartments in New York City―the overwhelming majority which are in The Bronx―are in danger of being deregulated as NYC continues to phase out the notorious cluster site homeless shelter program that enticed landlords with on average double the average rents in order to house homeless families.
The average price per unit that the city was paying? $2,451 a month and yes, these were rents being paid in The Bronx too well above what the rent regulated rents were for these units.
At the peak of the program in January 2016, the city had 3,658 cluster units spread across 314 buildings throughout the city and of those, a whopping 2,877 units in 268 buildings were located in The Bronx representing 79% of such sites which turned these residential buildings where multi-generational families lived into living nightmares as landlords greedy with the promise of doubling their rent rolls began pushing those long time tenants away.
Whether it was done through neglect of the properties or the overall lack of safety that existing families felt, the results were the same: Entire buildings were turned into shelters.
I have friends in Hunts Point in one particular building who went through living hell as his landlord tried every means to evict him from his apartment as the building was slowly being turned into a full cluster site. Ultimately my friend won and stayed but at a great emotional toll and a significant drop in quality of life as conditions in his building continued to deteriorate and the landlord’s pockets got fatter.
Things began to change this year after a scathing report from the Department of Investigation in 2015 called, “…clusters the worst-maintained, least-monitored type of shelters, the city was paying landlords and nonprofits $2,451 a month on average per unit. Because cluster site shelters are overwhelmingly in poor and working-class neighborhoods, that figure was more than double the average rent the apartments would have fetched on the market,” according to Gothamist.
By last month, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Dr Hermina Palacio and Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks announced that the use 842 cluster units at 83 buildings had ended of which 474 units in 48 buildings were located in The Bronx.
But Gothamist points out a big problem:
“Early last year, Mayor de Blasio announced he was going to phase out the cluster site scheme by 2018. He has since extended the deadline to 2021, but in May the mayor touted the removal of more than 800 apartments from the program, saying, “Our homeless families deserve better and we will continue to take aggressive action in closing down the remaining sites and replacing them with better, safer shelters to help them get back on their feet and into permanent housing.”
There’s a wrinkle, though. Data obtained by Gothamist shows that of 3,300 cluster apartments in use at one point in fiscal year 2016, 3,167 were in rent-stabilized buildings. A combination of lax state oversight and landlord-friendly carveouts in the rent laws could make such apartments ripe for deregulation as the city pulls out. And responses to public records requests by the relevant city and state agencies suggest that despite the mayor’s plan to create and preserve 200,000 below-market apartments by 2024, little has been done so far to prevent this.”
Gothamist also points out a story out of many of what Bronxites have gone through:
“It’s too late for Shanae Yates and her onetime neighbors on Vyse Avenue. A Virginia native, Yates has lived in the Bronx since she was a young girl, and has spent most of the past 20 years on the same block near East 174th Street. When she first looked at apartments in the big brick building in 2000, it was fully rent-stabilized, and she was pregnant with her second daughter. The landlord at the time was Wolf Posalski—everybody knew him as Willie—and tenants remember him as exceedingly accommodating. For Yates, he arranged to speed up renovations on a first-floor one-bedroom, so she wouldn’t have to climb stairs.
The building “was always clean,” Yates said. “All of the issues were addressed immediately. They didn’t prolong things.” She recalled that once, when her refrigerator stopped working, she called Posalski at home and, “He said, ‘Don’t worry. Go buy some new bags of ice and we’ll have a new fridge in the morning.'”
Her starting rent was $585, and “when it came time to renew your lease, [Willie] would always work with you.” Sometimes, Posalski didn’t raise the rent at all. “He’d say, ‘I’d rather have people I know living here,'” Yates recalled.
Posalski died in 2007, and his daughter Rochelle took over, making his monthly Sunday rounds, collecting rent personally from each tenant. Within a few years, Posalski’s business partners gained control, and according to public records and seven former tenants, that’s when everything started to change.
The repairs got sloppier, managers began offering buyouts, and bills and legal threats started appearing in the mail, demanding late rent. This occurred even, tenants said, when they had paid on time. Around this time, in the early 2010s, then live-in handyman David Forbes recalls that David Green of the new owner RRW Realty told him, “I could make this a homeless shelter and get $97,000 a month.”
Green is one of 13 cluster site owners on Public Advocate Letitia James’s 100 Worst Landlords list for 2016. Together, the 13 men owned 76 of 300 buildings in the program at one point in fiscal year 2016. City records obtained by Gothamist indicate that a cluster shelter building on Intervale Avenue that is 15 units smaller brings in about $83,000 in rental income a month.
As longtime tenants moved out, shelter residents moved in, and the building deteriorated. There were mice and roach infestations. The building lacked security, according to Yates, and some of the shelter people came with their own problems. Tenants recalled stepping out to find people sleeping on the roof and under the stairs, people drinking, and smoking cigarettes, marijuana, and crack in the hallways.
“You’ve got to watch your kids a lot closer,” former tenant Alicia Galasso said of that time. Prior to that, she trusted her neighbors so much she didn’t lock her door. That changed. “You don’t know people now,” she remembered. “You don’t trust people.”
Tenants say building managers warned them that they couldn’t guarantee their safety if they stayed. In February 2013, the building’s renters received a letter that read, “Please be aware that the landlord is not renewing any leases in the building, at the present time. If you would like to terminate your lease, you will not be penalized.” It was signed, “The Management.” Outside of a handful of heavily regulated processes and taking over apartments for one’s family, landlords are legally barred from withholding renewal leases from rent-stabilized tenants.
Nevertheless, the tenants on Vyse got the message.
“Towards the end people had started just leaving quickly,” Galasso recalled. “They were evicting people, saying people owed rent that they didn’t owe, late fees built up on what they were claiming.”
Faced with the constant pressure and growing chaos, as well as a family illness, Galasso moved out of state, no buyout necessary.
The story doesn’t get any better but this is excellent reporting from Gothamist highlighting one of the many problems with the housing crisis we’re facing.”
Artist Dominque Paul wears a dress the measures air pollution. Nexus Media
She looks like a club kid walking through the streets of the South Bronx but she’s not going dancing.
Dominique Paul is on a mission to use her art, a light-up dress, just how dirty the air is thanks to pollution from traffic and other sources and what better place to show it off and help educate folks than the South Bronx neighborhood of Mott Haven which has one of the worst air qualities in New York City.
Collectively, the South Bronx has some of the highest rates of asthma in the nation at nine times the national average.
According to Popular Science:
“Paul debuted the dress as part of a residency funded by IDEAS xLAB, a nonprofit that uses art to raise awareness of public health issues. She has taken the dress out for walks in the South Bronx, which has some of the poorest air quality in New York City. Her goal is to spark conversations about air pollution.
Paul recently joined a walk organized by South Bronx Unite. The group’s president, Mychal Johnson, led a crowd through Mott Haven and Port Morris, neighborhoods in the South Bronx. They stopped every few blocks to talk about economic and environmental issues facing residents. Paul explained how the air monitor attached to her handbag measures fine particulate matter, microscopic bits of dirt and soot floating through the air. Vehicle exhaust is one source of particulates, which are small enough to enter the bloodstream and have been linked to lung and heart disease.
As she walked, Paul explained the Air Quality Index to those assembled. “Green is good,” she said. Yellow is worse. Orange means children and the elderly are at risk, and red means everyone may experience health effects. When it’s red, Paul said, “you might want to consider wearing a mask.” She raised her makeshift breathing mask like a flight attendant miming a safety demonstration.
“Right now, it’s fairly good,” Paul said, pointing to the lights on her dress, which oscillated between green and yellow. It was a weekend morning, she pointed out, with no rush-hour traffic, and the wind was blowing.
But, as the crowd paused on a walkway over the Major Deegan Expressway, Paul’s dress started to flicker between yellow and orange. The South Bronx is surrounded by freeways and overrun with diesel-powered garbage trucks. The asthma hospitalization rate among children living in Mott Haven and Port Morris is around three times the city average.”
Watch the video below and then read the rest of the article over at Popular Science!
We have received a bit of exciting news: Welcome2TheBronx has been selected by Columbia University Libraries for their Web Resources Collection Program, “…for inclusion in its Avery Library Historic Preservation and Urban Planning web archive to ensure its continuing availability to researchers.”
Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library at Columbia University is the world’s largest architectural library and we are honored that one of the most prestigious universities in the world has found our writings worthy of preservation for current and future scholars.
The following is an excerpt from the email we received:
“Dear Mr. García Conde,
The Columbia University Libraries Web Resources Collection Program has selected your website, http://www.welcome2thebronx.com, for inclusion in its Avery Library Historic Preservation and Urban Planning web archive to ensure its continuing availability to researchers. The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library collects books and periodicals in architecture, historic preservation, art history, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, city planning, real estate, and archaeology–and now makes archival copies of important web resources for preservation and access purposes.
Columbia University Libraries plans to collect your website at regular intervals using a web crawler (requiring no effort on your part) and to provide public online access to the archived version(s) of your website to ensure its availability to researchers. Please note that the web crawler will not affect the performance or accessibility of your website. We will also create a cataloging record for your website in the international online library catalog Worldcat and the Columbia University online library catalog, increasing the visibility of your website to the scholarly community.
When I started writing almost 8 years ago, never did it ever cross my mind that I would be creating a repository of Bronx history, current events, and information that would lead Welcome2TheBronx to be quoted and cited in the media over 400 times (and counting) or that we’d receive Historic District Council’s Friend in Media Award in 2015 and let alone be acknowledged by New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito last year for Pride Month and receive a proclamation citing, among many accomplishments, Welcome2TheBronx.
But the last thing this kid from The Bronx ever thought was that his writings and passion would be selected for archival purposes at Columbia University and it’s a validation of how important our stories are and by OUR stories I don’t mean my writings but the narratives of the borough we love and the people who live here.
This journey has been an exciting one where I have learned so much about The Bronx I love, its people. I’ve gotten to meet so many amazing Bronxites from all walks of life, from all religions and lands spanning the globe in all their technicolor glory.
None of this would have happened without all our readers support, the media who turn to us for quotes as a reliable source of information.
Most of all, this wouldn’t have happened without the never-ending support and love from my parents who put up with this crazy idea I had to start writing about our neighborhood and eventually our borough.
Thank you all and thank you Columbia University Libraries for this honor.
Bronxite Giacomo Francia has a documentary project called ‘Who Makes The Bronx’ and recently had a beautiful segment published in The New York Times which you can watch right here.
The series takes a look particularly of workers along Jerome Avenue, an area of our borough that is threatened by displacement as a major rezoning looms over the area.
Giacomo’s work is critical in not only examining the local cultures and people who are threatened by New York City’s poor judgement in destroying our neighborhood but sadly as a way to preserve the histories when the city eventually gets its way.
We’ve seen this grotesque piece of “architecture” going up at the far end of Morris Park just below Pelham Parkway and next to the Hutch and for many of us Star Trek fans, we can’t help but see a giant Borg cube ship instead of the life-saving building that it is.
Borg Cube added for reference
Now, we get to see a little more inside (but not completely due to the sensitive nature of the facility) this 450,000 square foot 24 story monstrosity so out of character with the neighborhood.
The $800 million (yes, you read that correctly, almost $1 billion…) building is finally complete after being under construction since 2010 and test calls are being routed but it won’t be officially operational until some time later this year.
Driving along the Pelham Parkway or Hutchinson River Parkway in Pelham Bay you might notice a silvery, somewhat monolithic structure along the road. That recently completed structure is New York City’s Public Safety Awareness Center II (PSAC II) otherwise known as the center where 911 calls are answered by emergency response workers from three different agencies: the police department, the fire department, and emergency medical services.
The 450,000-square-foot building was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) as a perfect cube. To avoid that monolithic feel to a structure that is supposed to prioritize safety and privacy above all else, the architects on the project developed a serrated facade for this building with aluminum panels.
The few windows that do exist are mostly centered around “the 50,000-square-foot, L-shaped call room, which has 30-foot ceilings,” the New York Times described, when it stopped by at the building last year.
