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Schlein May Cash In with No Money Down on No-Bid Project

25 Aug

A Bronx community garden the city razed to make way for a housing development project looks like it’s going to grow some greenbacks for Stanley Schlein, a long-time Bronx Democratic political fixer with a rather controversial work history.

Sean Carlson, a CUNY Graduate School of Journalism student guided by veteran investigative journalist Tom Robbins’, wrote this piece for the Mott Haven Herald. It’s a must-read, particularly in a city run by a mayor whose biggest claim to accomplishment is he hasn’t had to abide by parochial politics as usual.

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Big News: Bronx Pols Get Behind Ice Center at Armory

22 Aug

Daniel Massey of Crain’s reported today that Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and other borough elected officials will announce their support for the Kingsbridge National Ice Center’s vision for the Kingsbridge Armory. The project is one of two under consideration by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, the other one being a small-business market like the DeKalb Market in Brooklyn owned by Young Woo. For more info on both prospects,  click here for a link to BronxTalk which featured presentations by both potential developers.

An interesting note: Almost 20 years ago, when I first began reporting on the vacated Armory, Oliver Koppell, now a Council member but then a state assemblyman, loved to talk about the possibility of the Armory being home to an ice complex. As I recall, he said his daughter had trained at such a facility in Lake Placid. No one really paid that much attention. But despite several other non-ice proposals in the mix over the two decades, Koppell never seemed to let go of the idea entirely. I remember him telling George Pataki about the ice center when the former governor came to tour the facility several years ago.

—Jordan Moss

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Must-See TV on Armory Redevelopment

16 Aug

The answer to what the Armory will become is near. (Photo: J. Moss)

OK, it’s not Mad Men, or Dancing With the Stars or Breaking Bad, but this recent edition of Gary Axelbank’s BronxTalk is must-see TV if you care about what happens at the Kingsbridge Armory — and being a vacant mammoth landmark in our midst, we all should.

In a few weeks we hear, the city’s Economic Development Corporation will decide on two very different, but interesting, proposals for the Kingsbridge Armory — an ice skating arena serving Bronx kids with eight rinks or a lively market of small businesses, recreation, and an innovative movie multi-plex featuring 4D films.

Both proposals have precedents. The market would be based on developer Young Woo’s DeKalb Market in Brooklyn. And the ice skating concept has roots in the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation in Philadelphia.

Axelbank gives each side equal time.

For all the controversy and obstacles littering the last 20 years since the state turned over the keys to the city, we’re finally close to the finish line here. What gets picked should be what the community wants. So take a look and see what you think. And comment here about which of these proposals you’d prefer.

John Liu on BronxTalk Tonight

4 Jun

Update: Here’s the link for the video of the Liu interview: http://www.bronxnet.org/tv/bronxtalk/viewvideo/1634/bronxtalk/bronxtalk–june-4-2012

Comptroller John Liu will be on Gary Axelbank’s BronxTalk tonight at 9 p.m. According to Axelbank: “He’ll talk about the Fresh Direct deal, the filtration plant, politics, and much more. BronxTalk is Monday nights at 9:00pm on Bronxnet’s channel 67 (Fios 33).”

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‘Best’ Living Wage Law Is in San Jose

30 Apr

The long debated and delayed living wage legislation, emanating from an epic land use battle at the Kingsbridge Armory, is coming to a vote today.

A press release drafted by the retail workers union and the Living Wage NYC Coalition, which we received from Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.’s office yesterday, states: “Culminating an historic two-year campaign that created a citywide living wage movement that sets the standards for nationwide policies, the final Living Wage Bill will be voted on by the New York City Council at the stated meeting this coming Monday.”

The ” sets-the-standards” language is consistent with Diaz and his staff repeatedly reffering to the legislation as the “best” in the country.

The Council legislation here initially affected retailers in developments receiving taxpayer subsidies. But it was eventually gutted to only include employees of the developer and then further whittled down by Council Speaker Christine Quinn exempting workers at a massive development on the west side of Manhattan. Estimates now indicate that about 400 workers will benefit from the NYC legislation and only if the Council can override the mayor’s vowed veto.

As far as we know, only Riverdale Press reporter Adam Wisnieski  has bothered to check out the claim that this bill is the “best” in the land. He found that through a 1998 law in San Jose, more workers receive higher pay  in a city about an eighth the size of NYC.

Approximately 600 workers were affected in San Jose, a city with less than 1 million people when a living wage law was passed in 1998, according to a study on living wage by the University of Washington. The subsidy threshold is lower than what will be required to trigger the law New York. The definition of “living wage” also changes with the cost of living.

Right now, any developer receiving $100,000 or more in taxpayer subsides in San Jose is required to pay $13.59 per hour with health benefits or $14.84 per hour without benefits, according to the city’s website.

Compare that to New York’s $1 million subsidy threshold and requirement to pay $10 per hour with benefits and $11.50 without, and San Jose has a stronger living wage bill than New York.

And, arguably, a measure in Los Angeles bests the bill here as well, Wisnieski reports.

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The Bronx in 1980

16 Apr

Assemblyman Jose Rivera posted this on his Facebook page yesterday, a video documenting the 1980 South Bronx People’s convention in the rubble of Charlotte Street. There’s footage of President Carter famously visiting the area in 1977 along with south Bronx activists joined by allies from around the country as they met in a makeshift conventional hall on Charlotte Street and marched to the official Democratic Convention site at Madison Square Garden in 1980.

The Bronx faces incredible challenges, struggling with high unemployment, poverty and some of the worst health statistics in the state. But as we address those issues it’s important to remember what Bronxites have already overcome on Charlotte Street and devastated neighborhoods all over the borough.

Anyone out there take part in the South Bronx Peoples’ Convention? Would love to hear from you.

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Morning Matters — 4/10/12

10 Apr

The New York World reports: “The state Office of Court Administration will reverse the controversial 2004 merger of the Bronx Criminal and Supreme courts, which attorneys have blamed for lengthy delays that infringe on the rights of criminal defendants.” Read more.

Vince Morgan, a former staffer for Congressman Charlie Rangel who challenged his former boss in the 2010 Democratic primary and planned to do so again, has ended his bid  and endorsed Adriano Espaillat.

Community Board 1 residents voted unanimously late last month to condemn the process that led to the approval of the deal that paved the way for Fresh Direct to create its new factory in the Harlem River Yards. The board’s district manager, Cedric Loftin, disagrees.

“Mama’s Boys of the Bronx,” the new TLC reality show that follows a bunch of 35-year-old Italian men who still live at home with their mamas and apparently aren’t shy about reporting and discussion their sexual exploits under the same roof, premiered last night. (Video)

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was a critic of stop-and-frisk when Giuliani was mayor, Michael Powell reports.

Woodlawn Cemetery now has a tour of gravesites foodies will love.

A sculpture installed in West Farms, called “For Closure” is “meant to represent the fragility of the housing market.” (Video)

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Morning Matters — 4/9/12

9 Apr

Lots of young art enthusiasts were at the Andrew Freedman home over the weekend for a fabulous exhibit on two floors of the reimagined buildings and the mobile unit of the fledgling Bronx Children's Museum. (Photo: J. Moss)

Good morning … well, afternoon (At least I started this in the a.m.:-) Lots to catch up on. Bronx artists and their advocates say the borough is undergoing an unprecedented coalescing of efforts to make an already interesting art scene more robust and visible to a larger audience. The expansive art show at the long-empty upper floors of the Andrew Freedman Home, where I took the picture above yesterday, signals a turning point, say some artists and enthusiasts.

As Bob Kappstatter surmised a couple of weeks ago on Bronx Matters, when Gov. Cuomo appointed Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera to be state Labor commissioner he probably was acting on the certainty that an investigation into his dealings with a failing nonprofit no longer had legs:

“Gov. Cuomo’s appointment also apparently quashes once and for all a dark legal cloud Rivera’s been living under involving his pumping major state funding to the just about moribund Neighborhood Enhancement for Training Services (NETS) non-profit.”

But that doesn’t mean the tabloids got the memo. This morning the Daily News highlighted four lawmakers with ethics issues who Cuomo has appointed to important positions, including Rivera. As attorney general, Cuomo began the investigation into Rivera and NETS ,but after he was elected he appointed Rivera to a transition committee on labor and economic development. More background on Rivera and NETS from the Bronx News Network here and here.

Our post on Friday about The New York Times’ coverage of Heritage Field, the new baseball diamonds built on the footprint of the old Yankee Stadium, started a little bit of a chain reaction in the blogsphere. After Neil deMause in Field of Schemes (the pre-eminent source on up-to-date information on stadium projects and financing nationally) and Norman Oder in Atlantic Yards Report linked to Bronx Matters, starting a comment conversation on the latter about the the Times’ overall coverage (or lack thereof) of the entire Yankee Stadium controversy. Later on, Oder posts a letter that Geoffrey Croft of New York City Park Advocates wrote him with a blow-by-blow account of how reporter Winnie Hu went about covering the story and Croft’s critique about what he feels she glaringly left out.

The latest HuntsPoint Express, a terrific print & web monthly produced by former Riverdale Press editor/publisher Buddy Stein with his students at Hunter College, is out with some critical articles, especially on the DOE’s plans to close Banana Kelly High School and the ensuing protests. There’s also a follow-up web-only article about a DOE official meeting with teachers and parents on April 4 in the school’s cafeteria.  The DOE’s Panel for Educational Policy will decide at a meeting on April 26 whether it will go ahead with plans to close 33 schools.

The Norwood News has an update on the city’s process for choosing a developer for the Kingsbridge Armory, including a report on the rally held by the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance late last month. Community and labor activists are calling for “wall-to-wall” living wage jobs at the Armory regardless of who develops the facility. Contenders include a group calling itself the Kingsbridge National Ice Center and the a partnership between the National Cycling Association and the New York Gauchos youth basketball program.

Also in the Norwood News, Gregory Lobo Jost, expands on his recent piece on Bronx Matters picking apart assertions of south Bronx gentrification, explaining why a few hundred white people over a decade, not to mention arugula, yoga studios, and farmers’ markets (which Norwood is home to) do not equal gentrification, and why its reckless to assert that they do.

Capital New York takes a detailed look at the complications for racial coalition building that are brought by Bronx/Manhattan state senator Adriano Espaillat’s challenge to Congressman Charlie Rangel. The latest reality TV show “about oversexed thirtysomething bachelors who still live with their mommies” takes place in the Boogie Down but is probably not an image that will please Bronx boosters.

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