The New York World has taken newly released NYPD data on stop-and-frisks and created a map illustrating which blocks in the city had the most stops. Five Bronx blocks had between 612 and 1179 stop-and-frisks in 2011. Three are in Mott Haven and the other are alongside Jerome Avenue and the Grand Concourse just north of East 170th Street. You can hover over any block to get the number of stop-and-frisks for each. Nice work.
Powell No Bronx Hero
23 MayYesterday, on National Public Radio, Colin Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state in the Bush Administration, talked about how his famous speech to the United Nations about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction came to be (starts around 1:18). In a calm tone devoid of anger, or even regret, Powell recounts how the intelligence community assured him that the “information I had was correct” and then concedes “some of it turned out not to be.” “Some” being the fact that Hussein had WMD when he didn’t. If you listen to this, you wonder why Powell wasn’t highly suspect of the case for war when someone on Vice President Dick Cheney’s staff — Scooter Libby — was given the responsibility for preparing the original document rather than a member of the intelligence community. Powell was certainly aware of how hell-bent Cheney was on taking the country to war in Iraq.
Maybe this will remind us that fame and professional success aren’t honorable in and of themselves. Powell, who grew up on Kelly Street in Hunts Point and was honored by his induction on the Bronx Walk of Fame several years ago, exhibits no remorse or regret in this interview about his speech, even though it helped pave the way for an unethical war that killed 4,477 American service members. He just calmly lays the blame on others.
Bronxites tend to be proud of the famous Powell who rose from humble roots to become the most powerful military officer in the land.
We shouldn’t be.
Powell shouldn’t be lionized in our classrooms or on our boulevards. He, and the immoral war he helped bring about, should be studied and discussed thoroughly and honestly. Simply being influential and powerful shouldn’t be the characteristics by which we determine who to honor, praise and respect. How influence and power are used should be.
—Jordan Moss
Why Diaz Will Enshrine Fat Joe on Walk of Fame
17 MayPatrice O’Shaugnessy seems to have figured out why Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. will be honoring rapper Fat Joe — he with the misogynist and violent lyrics — on the borough’s Walk of Fame this weekend. Let us know if you think she’s on the right track.
We’ve been kind of surprised that no one has written about this issue since the Hunts Point Express raised it in a critical editorial.
More Trials Ahead for the Espadas, Post Reports
15 MayThe New York Post reports that, despite being convicted on four federal counts yesterday, former state Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. will be hauled back to court to face charges on alleged crimes the jury couldn’t come to a decision on. Espada’s son, Pedro Gautier Espada, will also be retried, according to an unnamed Post source, after the jury failed to decide on a single count facing him. The elder Espada faces up to 40 years in prison on the four counts.
The do-over trial is reminiscent of the hung jury that couldn’t come to a verdict on the corruption charges brought against Council Member Larry Seabrook. Prosecutors also plan to retry Seabrook
Espada Found Guilty
14 MayAfter 11 days of deliberation, a jury announced today that it found former Bronx state Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. guilty of embezzling more than $600,000 from the Soundview Healthcare Center, which he founded and ran. He could receive up to 10 years in prison when sentenced. The jury was deadlocked on a verdict for Espada’s son, Pedro Gautier Espada, but was sent back by the judge to continue deliberating.
Kappy’s Back!
11 MayBob Kappstatter, the veteran Daily News bureau chief and gossip-loving political columnist, is back in the game after being downsized last year after 40+ years at the tabloid. Now the editor of the Bronx Times (owned by Rupert Murdoch like so many other outer-borough weeklies these days), here’s the second edition of his revived Boro Beat column (couldn’t locate the first one — maybe Rupert can help upgrade the site:-) Kappy was good enough to cool his heels in between gigs on Bronx Matters contributing a couple of juicy, exclusive items (here and here). We’re glad he’s back on the weekly hunt and shining his unique spotlight in Boogie Down’s back rooms.
Remembering & Honoring Meg Charlop at Street Renaming This Morning
10 May
Megan Charlop, the Bronx advocate, activist, cyclist, friend and so much else who died in a tragic bike accident two years ago, is being remembered this morning at 10:30 at 167th Street and Fulton Avenue, which will be renamed in her honor.
The above is a photo of Megan and her eldest daughter, Sarah, in 1979 at what was then called the Roots Garden, now Estella Diggs Park, the site of the renaming.
For a little more background on Megan’s incredible life and work in the Bronx, click here and here and here.
I’m biking down there in a little while. Hope to see you.
—Jordan Moss
Adolfo the Republican?
9 May
While running for Bronx borough president in 2001, Adolfo Carrion, Jr. joined a protest against the U.S. Navy bombing of Vieques Puerto Rico and landed in Brooklyn federal prison. It wasn’t a reliable indicator of his actions once he took office. (Photo: Jordan Moss/Norwood News)
By Jordan Moss
Is former Bronx Borough President Adolfo a Republican?
Seems absurd on the face of it, but Carrion invited speculation when choosing to not deny the possibility when asked by The New York Times last week if he would consider running for mayor as a Republican as some city bigshots are recommending. The Post had some more to say about it yesterday.
Carrion rose as a loyal member of the Bronx Democratic machine (who eventually tussled behind the scenes with party boss Jose Rivera after ascending to the borough’s top job).
He left in the midst of a second term to work for Democrat-in-Chief Barack Obama as the first director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs. He left in May 2010 to become a HUD regional director.
Hardly a typical Republican pedigree.
But some Carrion comments in February to Capital New York reporter Azi Paybarah sounded a bit like a Dem trying on some GOP training wheels.
On public housing:
Carrion, the former Bronx borough president who is eying a run for Congress or citywide office, also sought to distinguish himself from “the noise on the left” when it came to public housing.
In the same interview last week, he told me, “The whole notion of subsidy is that you’re in a financial difficulty, and the intent was never that you create permanency.”
Carrion stressed that he was committed to helping the elderly, veterans and families that “have a set of circumstances that will require them to stay” in subsidized housing.
“But the notion that able-bodied people who ultimately can go to work are being fully subsidized for their entire lives, I just think it kills the spirit of reaching for opportunities that we want in every single American,” Carrion said. “And you know, that sort of lifts me out of the noise of the left.”
On paying retail workers more:
“When I left the borough presidency, the project was ready to go,” Carrion said, speaking about [the] Kingsbridge [Armory]. “And my successor, who I think is doing a good job representing the Bronx, decided that this was an important issue, that he should try to carve out a deal for the workers. The problem with that was always that there is no precedent that I know of, of national retailers carving out special wages for markets around the country.”
Carrion, who is an urban planner by training, said it’s not realistic to demand retail stores pay workers salaries that enable them to lead their household.
“I think what they do generally is they pay a rate that is whatever the market will absorb and with the understanding that retail jobs go to relatively young people, semi-retired people, students; that they are not really career positions,” said Carrion. “You don’t grow up in Kingsbridge and aspire to be a retail worker at, you know, Modell’s. You just, you know, you don’t.”
He said, “You do it as a way to complement your family’s income as a participant in that household, as a student, as a young person, or because you’re transitioning out of a difficult situation. Temporary, in a bigger sense of the word.”
Carrion almost never lines up in front of or alongside pushes from the grassroots, as say his successor, Ruben Diaz, Jr. did in championing the Living Wage efforts of community activists and unions or as a young assemblyman taking a lead in demanding police accountability following the killing of Amadou Diallo. Carrion did get arrested for protesting the Navy bombing of Vieques while he was first running for borough president, along with Rivera, but following that early aberration he mostly favored backing corporations taking on big controversial development projects — like Yankee Stadium and the Related Companies’ Gateway Mall — which received significant public subsidies.
But still, a Puerto Rican Bronx Democrat turned Republican? It’s happened before. The first Puerto Rican borough president, Herman Badillo, did become a Republican, but only very late in his career when he sought the Republican nomination against Mike Bloomberg. So, while not unprecedented, not too successful either.
But some political consultants see a potential opening, maybe because candidates running as Republicans have now ruled the Big Apple for almost 20 consecutive years.
“There is a space for an Hispanic to run for some citywide office,” veteran political consultant Jerry Skurnik told the New York Post. “If Bloomberg could run as a Republican, why can’t he?”
Bronx Matters 