Good Morning Readers – Thanks for checking out Bronx Matters. I’m going to try to post links to a few Bronx things that matter every morning, say by 11 a.m. or so. So, here we go!
Visitors to the Point CDC take a look at an interactive model of the Sheridan Expressway and its surroundings. (Photo: Kimberly Devi Milner/Hunts Point Express)
It’s long been the dream of many activists, citizens and environmentalists in Hunts Point (that’s in the southeast Bronx for those of you reading this beyond the borough) to decommission the 1.25-mile Sheridan Expressway in order to make way for parkland, affordable housing and more waterfront access. With a federal Department of Transportation grant of $1.5 million, city agencies are studying the future of the Expressway and surrounding arteries. Hunts Point Express reports that an interactive model of the Expressway is making its way through the borough to engage citizens in planning for its future. For more background on the community’s efforts to eliminate the Sheridan, and an illustration of what could replace it, check out this Express article from last year.
The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development targets 200 crumbling buildings a year in its Alternative Enforcement Program, and it has just added another batch of them with 56 in the Bronx, reported Dan Beekman in yesterday’s Daily News. Through the program, HPD makes emergency repairs and bills the landlords who neglected the critical work in the first place. Want to find out what HPD has on record for the condition of your building? Just plug in your address at HPD Online and you’ll find out that and a lot more.
The battle over Congressional lines is heating up, pitting Bronx Democratic chief Carl Heastie (who represents the northeast Bronx in the Assembly) against fellow lawmaker Keith Wright, of Manhattan, who wants a chunk of the Bronx for Charlie Rangel’s district. Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. issued a statement yesterday placing himself firmly in Heastie’s corner and arguing against the use of the Bronx as spare parts for Manhattan’s legislative districts. “We will not stand for any plan that would slice the Bronx into many small pieces,” Diaz said. “For decades, the Bronx has had at least one Congressional district entirely within its borders, and this should not change.” The district he is referring to is Jose Serrano’s.
—Jordan Moss
Bronx Matters 
Again with the Sheridan expressway? Everytime its brought up in Community Board Meetings the general grumbling is “more waste of time and money” Now that the Hunts Point Market has locked in a new lease those trucks need that highway to get to the crossbronx, they aren’t gonna go around as some suggust. Build around it and stop wasting millions that can go else where.
Spoken like someone who doesn’t live in the neighborhood and wants to cater to trucks? Really? How about we shift the highway to your neighborhood…and ink a deal with the market. You will then, of course, smile, shut up and breathe deeply the truck exhaust spewed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, right?