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   Harry

   Great to be aware of this. Please mention the NYSDOT interest property at the end of Park Avenue we have been working to create a park at, you can help, they could make it a park tomorrow if they wanted.
   Also, this project was mentioned in the Lower Concourse Rezoning, which we rallied against. It was part of the rezoning plan, which, alas, passed the Community Board unanimously. Wish we could have gotten more people on board during that process, instead they voted for it and did not show up at the public hearings we announced and testified at. Other posts on this website will offer some background, or see our blog.
   Think some wanted the higher rents and gentrification that came with the condo rezoning along the river and chose to ignore this part of it all.

Harlem River Rezoning proposal City Council Hearing

Your voice counts.

High-rises and higher rents on the Harlem River?

Manufacturing jobs lost to lofts?

Or a public park at Park Avenue for the existing communities?

Zoning & Franchises COMMITTEE

Tuesday, June 23, 9:30 AM

Committee Room - City Hall

Be there, the public can testify. Tell them we want the Park Avenue site on the Harlem River to be made into a public park with resources now! No more studies and reports.

Email us for more information. Pass this on. Encourage our elected officials to be there.

***

Background:

Our testimony from previous hearings

motthaveherald article

Daily News Article

Stop by the Bronx Borough President’s Breakfast on May 15th, RSVP with Lucille at 718-590-3522. Find out more on Bike Month NYC.

They are meeting at E.A. Poe’s house on the Grand Concourse at 7am on Friday– then riding to the courthouse for the breakfast. I hope a lot of people come let’s all show Ruben Diaz, Jr. what a great bike community we have in THE BRONX.

Harlem River Working Group

AGENDA Below

 

To be a  Volunteer or to Table:

http://www.volunteernyc.org/org/opp/10310085220.html

Bronx Council for Environmental Quality

8th Annual BCEQ Water Conference & Membership Meeting

Wed., March 18, 2009 at 3:30 pm – 7 pm

Manhattan College, Leo Engineering Building, 3825 Corlear Ave @ W238th St, Bx, NY

 

AGENDA

3:30 pm      AUDITORIUM

4-4:50 pm   INTRO by Dart Westphal, Harlem River Working Group

This year’s conference will focus on helping Waterfront Stakeholders form a Harlem River Working Group to work toward restoring the Harlem River; reconnecting the waterfront with the people; recreating the water’s edge; and reinvigorating in-the-water recreational and commercial activities. 

 

Parks & Access Points along Harlem River: Spuyten Duyvil, Marble Hill, University Heights Bridge, Roberto Clemente, Bridge Park, Depot Place, Yankee Stadium Replacement Parks & Park Ave. Point.

Sponsors include: BCEQ, Manhattan College, Partnerships for Parks, Bronx Borough President’s Office, Friends of Brook Park, UDEC Harlem River Ecology Center, etc.  Corporate Sponsor:  Con Ed

                  Speakers  from each BREAKOUT – a 5 min pitch

                  BCEQ Recognition award

5:00 pm      Downstairs to Cafeteria for Breakout sessions

6:00 pm      Food and Tabling

6:30 – 7:00  Reporting on the three breakouts

 

  

   

   ————————————————————————————————

 Bronx Council for Environmental Quality (BCEQ) www.bceq.net

 “an aesthetic and unpolluted environment, with a natural and historic heritage.” 

      

 

http://www.friendsofbrookpark.org

646.641.5788

PO Box 801

The South Bronx, NY 10454 

Senator Ruben Diaz, is one of only 3 Democrats who oppose the plan to fund mass transit with bridge tolls. Photo by Joan Byron

Here’s the deal: The MTA needs money since the Pataki administration left them in a state where they have this huge debit. State lawmakers have a choice:

1) Service cuts and a fare hike.

2) Toll the East river bridges to pay for transit.

Now imposing a toll is always “unpopular” and I can understand that someone from a district where most people drive over those bridges to work might be scared to impose a toll. What I don’t understand is Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr. — He represents a part of the Bronx where more than 67% of households have no access to a car and most rely on public transit. More than 13,000 people in his district ride the Bx4 bus– a bus that will be CUT if he can’t man-up and support this toll and this budget plan. But he’s coming out against the toll… why? Because, get this, his staff member says many of his residents take car services or taxis in to the city! What?

“A sufficient number of people in this community take taxis across the east river bridges and it will impact this community,” said Luis Perez, the staff member.

Are you kidding me? Taxis!? I know it’s not 13,000 people taking car services. Thanks to Senator Díaz, the Bx4 bus will probably get cut. That bus is packed with people every day. Taxis… not so much. But is not just the service cuts that will hurt the Bronx. Not having the bridge tolls will be an missed opportunity for the South Bronx. The bridge tolls will cut down on the traffic in the Bronx which gives our children asthma (Highest rate in the nation!) and makes our streets unsafe. The cars that drive through our neighborhoods have a huge impact on our quality of life. Tolls are a fare way of putting some of the money back in to things that help the people of the Bronx– Like the BX4 bus.

The Bruckner Expressway which runs through the district and the 55,000 weekly truck trips along local streets and bridges associated with the Hunts Point Market alone have been documented as major contributors to the area’s poor air quality. The local asthma rate of one in four children, which has been directly correlated exposure to with truck and car exhaust, is among the highest in the nation. The Bx4 bus is the most heavily used local bus that is slated to be eliminated due to the transit crisis, with a daily ridership of more than 13,000 people. There are at least 7 senior citizen centers that are served by the bus line.

“Diaz, don’t betray our trust / Our people ride the bus”

These tolls are a good thing for the Bronx any way you look at it. So, that’s why I went to this protest yesterday. I really hope Senator Díaz gets the message! If you live in the Bronx give him a call: (718) 991-3161.

Photo by Joan Byron

WRITE TO YOUR COUNCIL MEMBER/S and The Mayor today!

This letter pertains to the Lower Concourse Rezoning Public Review process now underway.

(viewed at: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/lower_concourse/lower_concourse4.shtml)

Through the South Bronx Initiative, a Mayoral effort to identify community priorities and create a coordinated economic development strategy for the South Bronx, the Lower Concourse rezoning proposal Public Review will continue through the environmental review and ULURP process.

The City Planning Commission, as environmental lead agency, issued a Notice of Completion for a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the proposal, on January 30, 2009.

The proposal began formal public review on February 2, 2009 with the Department of City Planning’s certification of the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) application (C 090303 ZMX) and referral of the related zoning text amendment (N 090302 ZRX).

While we are encouraged that the Harlem River and this area are getting much needed attention, we must highlight in particular one aspect that needs to be included before you should support this.

One, waterfront access.

The proposed inclusion of a vision for parkland and waterfront access is a small step to rectify historical inequities.  But, with the location of the CSX railway along the Western border of the Bronx, any park space that is blocked by the raised rail in the Harlem River is not really “waterfront” space.  The proposed space below 149th Street suffers from this rail barrier.  In addition, the proposed park space there is contingent on highway development and building development, which would likely not occur until some time in the unknown future.

RECOMMENDATION:

The proposed zoning footprint should be expanded south to include the Park Avenue location that the community has been advocating for use as a park space for over ten years.  As it stands the proposed map stops mere feet from including this obvious and natural site for a community park, waterfront with water access. 

This existing green-space is ready to use as a park already and would serve the Lower Grand Concourse area and beyond, without delaying a much needed resources until the distant future.  This is an ideal opportunity to map this location as parkland for the existing community and for residents and businesses to come.

Thank you for your time and attention.  We look forward to your response and to support your advocacy to leverage the Public Review process to gain substantial benefits for our community.

An update from a recent Parks Department public meeting on the New Yankee Stadium replacement park.

The new park to be built atop the gigantic 7.33-acre “Parking Garage A” will now be bisected by a vehicular ramp that emerges from “below ground”.  While the ramp does not separate this new park into two entirely separate pieces, it will segregate the western half of the park into two pieces, each on the opposite side of a ramp, which will essentially be an open cut.  Yes, kids could fall into the cut, or errant footbals or soccer balls could also conceivably fall into this cut, if not properly fenced.  Once again, the needs of cars trump the needs of pedestrians and park users in this neighborhood.  The principles of  PlaNYC do not apply in this case.

This trailer has been left in this bike lane for two days. When they first added these bike lanes some people said that no one would use them, but a fair number of people use them. I bet even more people would use them if they did something to make the Madison Avenue Bridge more accessible. It’s not a welcoming place for pedestrians right now. Not at all!

This guy was crossing the street when he got chased out of the crosswalk by a honking truck. If if you wait for the walk signs you still get honked at when you cross this intersection!

This same day I saw a traffic cop watching this intersection. I asked him why and he said it was to see why the cars were getting back up here. I told him that pedestrians and people on bikes find this intersection very dangerous. I asked him if there were any plan to do anything about that. He said he didn’t know– Location: Madison Ave. Bridge, Bronx side intersection. At Gerard Avenue. I called 311 about the blocked bike land and I’ve written letters about the intersection in general to the Borough President and the DOT.

The Friends of Brook Park in the South Bronx are removing the asphalt so there will be even more space to grow things. Today was “tear up the pavement day” and a lot of people showed up to help out. City council woman Melissa Mark-Viverito stopped by to cheer us on. I think we got about a third of the asphalt up– so, there’s still more work to be done.

You have no idea how much fun it is to expose the soil a take back a little patch of the earth from all of the pavement. Today the South Bronx got a little more green space for once.

Here’s to the Friends of Brook Park for making this happen!

David Gonzalez, a proud South Bronx native, had two really terrific articles in the Times recently about our part of the borough.

The Bronx Transformed, Through One Artist’s Lens ­

This is about a new book of photographs by Lisa Kahane that document the Bronx in the 1970s and 1980s.

There are images that today seem like warnings from a parallel universe: bricked-up doorways and gouged-out windows, lots filled with smashed-up televisions, open-air apartments whose floors are studded with charcoal-black beams. The mosaic tiles of apartment lobbies peek though the dirt and garbage like volcanic ruins.

Then there’s Gonzalez’s essay on the last game at the soon-to-be old Yankee Stadium:

Melancholy in the Bronx, but Not Because of the Stadium

To love the Bronx is to love it when it is down, and yes, it was battered and staggering 20 years ago. But the beauty — yes, beauty — of that era was that people decided to stay and make it work. A generation of grass-roots leaders had stepped forward to spur the borough’s turnaround.