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Morning Matters 3/30/12

30 Mar

OK, we’re back with Morning Matters. Sorry to miss the last couple of days.

This photo by Ana Brigida is part of her exhibit on public housing conditions, opening tonight, at the Bronx Documentary Center in Melrose.

The Bronx Documentary Center, also in Melrose, has an opening tonight for an important exhibit called, “How the Other Half (Still) Lives: Bloomberg’s Legacy?” by Ana Brigida about conditions in public housing.

Speaking of Melrose, Legal Services is developing a building on a vacant lot near the subway station in the neighborhood’s southern end on Brook Avenue and East 149th Street.

Have you read the incredibly intelligent conversation taking place on Gregory Lobo Jost’s post on the Times declaring gentrification taking root in south Bronx? I’ve been meaning to mention that this isn’t the first time the Times has weighed in on south Bronx gentrification. This piece by the same reporter, Joseph Berger, focused on the artists and professionals heading to the Clocktower and other buildings in Mott Haven. The appearance of arugula in supermarkets and cafes is also a harbinger of a new scene in that piece. Hey, does arugula mean Kingsbridge is gentrifying? The revamped Foodtown on Broadway and 231st has it as well as a section of specialty beers. Speaking of food and drink, the recent Berger article quotes a resident who found a fantastic Mexican restaurant in the neighborhood, Xochimilco. But that restaurant, which I happened to be at a few days before that article appeared, is in the heart of Melrose, a whole other neighborhood (which has its own incredible story of rebound that I plan to talk more about here) at least a mile and a half away from the Concourse and 160s. (Incidentally, I had the best chicken mole I think I ever had in my lifethere.)

Though teen violence is way up at Riker’s Island, the Bronx DA’s office rarely prosecutes, according to an article in The New York World. The DA’s office says it’s hard to prosecute when victims don’t cooperate but critics say that wouldn’t be case in the world outside of prison.

A popular middle school teacher, Justin Bravo, was killed while riding on his motorcyle in the tunnel on Mosholu Parkway underneath Jerome Avenue and the 4-train. This tragic accident was virtually steps away from where a pedestrian died in December. Norwood News posted the funeral arrangements.

Hunts Point Express documents local efforts to battle the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy, including murals to educate youth on their rights at Rocking the Boat.

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How Can Future Palazzolos Be Stopped? City Limits Investigation Subject of Lehrer Show This Morning

30 Mar

The City Limits investigation into “Phantom Landlord” Frank Palazzolo is the subject of the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC this morning at 10 a.m. (93.9 FM and 820 AM). As I’ve previously written on Bronx Matters, this investigation began in 2002 when 8-year-old Jashawn Parker died in a building fire on DeKalb Avenue in Norwood. While the Norwood News (where I was editor) covered that and many related stories for almost 2 years back then, we only scratched the surface of Palazzolo’s impact on almost 100 buildings throughout the borough, not to mention his stifling of Bronx housing organizing via a lawsuit. I always kept the files on my shelf hoping that we’d have the time and staff to get back to it. Fast forward to last fall when Tom Robbins, his students at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and I embarked on the City Limits investigation. Tune in if you can. These are critical issues affecting hundreds of thousands of Bronxites who rent apartments, not to mention the rest of the city. If you have thoughts, questions, or concerns about your own building, please comment here. Thanks.

UPDATE: Here’s the link for the segment.

-Jordan Moss

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Morning Matters — 3/27/12

27 Mar

Good morning! It’s cold out there — kind of a more normal March day.

Quite a number of hits (a Bronx Matters record actually) on two of our posts yesterday by Gregory Lobo Jost on The Times’ controversial announcement of south Bronx gentrification and Bob Kappstatter’s take on Governor Cuomo appointing Assemblyman Peter Rivera to be state labor commissioner. If you haven’t read them they are worth a read — and a comment. Keep the conversation going.

Daniel Beekman continues his solid reporting of Bronx housing issues. Today, he tells the tale of a group of West Farms tenants who banded together to make repairs their absentee landlord has avoided. The want to form a co-op.

Sixteen Bronx schools are contaminated with PCBs leaking from light fixtures, NY1 has learned. Citywide 245 schools in 149 buildings are contaminated. To see the list of schools click on link on the left side of the NY1 story (X before a building number in the first column of the PDF indicates the Bronx.)

Speaking of school contamination, parents are still seeking answers on the conditions at PS 51/Bronx New School which drove them from their Bedford Park building to a former Catholic school in Crotona. Norwood News has the story.

An accountant testified in the Pedro Espada trial yesterday. Not a good day for the former senator.

Jeanmarie Evelly, a Norwood News reporter who is also a contributing editor at City Limits, has this important story in the latter about solitary confinement going way up in city jails.

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It’s Official: The Times Declares South Bronx Is ‘Gentrifying.’ But Is it True?

26 Mar

By Gregory Lobo Jost

This time it’s not even a prediction, but a bold declaration that the south Bronx has been gentrified. Based almost entirely on anecdotal evidence, Joseph Berger of The New York Times Metro section has painted a picture of an area of the south Bronx on the Grand Concourse as a new middle class hub where white folks don’t just go for Yankee games.

While the amazing housing stock along the lower Grand Concourse — mostly built in the 1920s and 30s and chock full of art deco gems — is no secret, the area has been largely working class/working poor with a smattering of middle class black and Latino residents (think public sector workers) for the past few decades. (Tip: Read Constance Rosenblum’s Boulevard of Dreams if you are looking for a great book about the housing on the Concourse and its fascinating history. I appropriately read it while on jury duty on 161st Street a few years ago.) Berger simplifies the complicated reasons behind the decline of the area down to “white flight and urban disenchantment,” though to be fair that’s not the point of the article.

The point, rather, is that “more middle-class professionals, many of them white, are … buying co-ops with sunken living rooms and wraparound windows for under $300,000 in Art Deco buildings that straddle a boulevard designed to emulate the Champs-Élysées.” While this is likely true, the question is whether the numbers are significant enough to declare something so controversial as gentrification having already occurred.

Continue reading →

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Link to Inside City Hall Segment on Palazzolo Investigation

24 Mar

Errol Louis, host of Inside City Hall, interviewed Tom Robbins, former CUNY J-School students Tamy Cozier and Paul DeBenedetto, and former HPD official Harold Shultz, about the City Limits investigation of Frank Palazzolo’s real estate operation. It’s short and informative. Take a look.

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Housing Issues Raised in City Limits the Focus of ‘Inside City Hall’ Tonight

23 Mar

Norwood News coverage of the death of Jashawn Parker, 8, in his DeKalb Ave. building in 2002, and other reporting related to the property's owners, led to the investigation in the current issue of City Limits magazine.

The housing issues raised in the current edition of City Limits, which I worked on with veteran investigative reporter Tom Robbins and his class at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, will be discussed on Inside City Hall tonight. Robbins, along with former HPD official Harold Shultz and two students will appear on the show, which airs at 7 p.m. and is repeated at 10 p.m.

The package of stories stemmed from a series of articles that ran in the Norwood News beginning in 2002, while I was editor, when eight-year-old Jashawn Parker died in an electrical fire in his building on DeKalb Avenue. The tenants there had been in housing court for two years trying to get an outside administrator appointed because of dangerous conditions in the building. But that didn’t happen until after Jashawn died.

The investigation explores how the man most associated with 3569 DeKalb and dozens of other problem-plagued Bronx buildings,  Frank Palazzolo, managed to escape scrutiny or punishment.

The story about the fire can be read here, and click here for links to the entire investigation.

I’m pleased that the project has begun to spur discussion about how the city, along with Housing Court, and banks who too often make loans without looking, can reform the system so that preventative action can be taken against landlords who let their properties disintegrate into danger zones.

If you watch the show on NY1 tonight, and you have any thoughts, please comment here. Thanks!

-Jordan Moss

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Morning Matters — 3/20/12

20 Mar

Good morning, everyone.

Here’s some video documenting this year’s annual painting of the giant shamrock on the 231st Street near Broadway for St. Patrick’s Day.

Tenants and advocates will really outside Bronx Housing Court today in support of a bill, sponsored by Council Member Fernando Cabrera, that will require landlords to post a tenants’ bill of rights in their buildings. The legislation has been stalled for a year.

All that redistricting politics was like a big dose of castor oil for most New Yorkers, but now it’s a hard reality, at least in terms of the Congressional lines. Want to see what district you have landed in? Just plug in your home address here.

Congressman Jose E. Serrano tweeted this morning that it was 20 years ago today that he won a special election for his Congressional seat.

Speaking of anniversaries,  not Bronx related (though I heard he once appeared in a folk festival at Hunter College, now Lehman, in the 60s): Bob Dylan celebrates 50 years since he first recorded with Columbia Records.

The opposition to Fresh Direct is ramping up with the group South Bronx Unite launching a boycott against the grocer which is planning on building a factory in the Harlem River Yards. For more on the fledgling South Bronx Unite and a recent gathering in Melrose with veteran foes of the Atlantic Yards development, check out this Bronx Matters exclusive story.

For Bronxophiles this is kind of a must-read. Artists have converged on the stately but empty rooms of the Andrew Freedman home on the Grand Concourse to create installations related to the building and what was left in the areas that the Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council does not occupy. The creations won’t be permanent tenants but organizers hope to draw attention to the property and the possibilities of it being a business incubator. There are already plans, the Times reports, to fills some of the empty space with a bed-and-breakfast.

The Center for Public Integrity gave New York a grade of D for its predilection for corruption. Believe it or not, New Jersey got the best grade.

Speaking of corruption, alleged we should say, Pedro Espada’s defense attorney infuriated the judge yesterday.

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Morning Mattters, 3/19/12

19 Mar

Spring may be a few days away but with a high of 72 today that doesn’t seem to matter. Here are some news items Bronx Matters finds interesting/important today.

Lead paint violations are still a big problem in the Bronx.

Residents at 1055 Grand Concourse have been without heat and hot water for two weeks.

The new lines for the 29th Senate District, which replaces the 28th and is currently represented by Jose M. Serrano, takes quite the circuitous journey through the Bronx and the east and west sides of Manhattan. (Print version of this article seems to have mistakenly included the photo of Serrano’s dad, Congressman Jose Serrano.)

A Bronx high school near Yankee Stadium isn’t going to get to take any swings this season at the baseball fields that replaced the old stadium.

Tired of waiting for good food and fresh produce to come to the neighborhood, the Mary Mitchell Family and Youth Center on Mapes Avenue in Crotona has started its own fresh food delivery service.

Developers have just a few more days to submit a Request for Proposals for the redevelopment of the Kingsbridge Armory, and the borough president isn’t that happy with what he’s seen so far. [link includes RFP]

State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. is standing up for his aide who allegedly embezzled $75,000 from a nonprofit Diaz helped to found and assailing Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

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