It’s a sunny spring afternoon, and a handful of residents are spending time on the stoop of Jasmine Court, on the corner of 138th Street and Bruckner Boulevard. Trucks rumble on and off the expressway. Pedestrians hurry past.

Laura Barksdale, 52, says she sits outside because she likes to watch the people go by. But she acknowledges Port Morris is not the most comfortable place to hang out outdoors.

“There’s nowhere to relax and sit around,” she said. “There’s nowhere to go.”

The industrial area at the borough’s southernmost tip is a place of trucks, factories and fumes, with little to offer humans who travel by foot or by bike, or want to sit a spell. But the proposed South Bronx Greenway could bring tree-lined paths and waterfront parks to Port Morris’ lifeless streets.

Work is already underway on the Randall’s Island Connector, the first step in implementing an ambitious plan that could eventually lace much of the South Bronx with safe and attractive places to exercise and enjoy the outdoors.

Once the Randall’s Island Connector is built, the plan calls for trees to be planted along Willow and Locust Avenues and 138th Street. Cyclists will get their own lane, protected from trucks by a curb.

Right now, the streets leading to the East River shore end in barbed-wire fences. The plan calls for access to the river from 132nd and 134th streets, where small waterfront parks will be built.

Plans for the South Bronx Greenway originated in Hunts Point a dozen years ago, when Majora Carter, then a program associate at The Point Community Development Corporation, wrote a $1.25 million grant proposal to make the waterfront more accessible.

Two new waterfront parks opened in Hunts Point in 2006, but the remainder of the plan remained on paper until this spring, when Mayor Bloomberg announced that $22 million in federal stimulus money would be used to move the greenway from the drawing board to reality.

Completion of the greenway would make it possible for walkers or cyclists to take a trail from Port Morris to Hunts Point Riverside Park, and to connect there with the Bronx River Greenway, leading all the way to Westchester.

“The greenway will offer a community that has had the least amount of park space per resident, compared to the rest of the city of New York, some breathing room,” said Miquela Craytor, executive director of Sustainable South Bronx.

Jasmine Court, an assisted living facility for the formerly homeless, is a rare place in Port Morris where people actually live. But the Port Morris section of the greenway will also benefit the tens of thousands people living nearby in Mott Haven, and waterfront enthusiasts from even further afield.

Forty-year-old Ozzie Morales, a delivery driver from East Elmhurst, likes to stop his van at the fence at the end of 134th Street and enjoy the view.

“I think it would be really, really great,” he said when told about the proposed greenway. “It’s a beautiful view, and this is wasted land. It has so much potential. I could see seating here, and a promenade, like they did on the West Side in the 20’s.”

There are also thousands of people with jobs in Port Morris. Vanessa Lloyd, 18, is a clerical worker at the World Vision distribution center in Port Morris. She thinks trees and bike paths would make the neighborhood a better place to work.

“We need something like that to make it look lively. To have people be able to ride their bikes instead of walking in all this trash,” she said. “It’d be nice to have some healthiness around.”

A number of Mott Haven community leaders are complaining that they have been left out of planning the South Bronx Greenway’s future.

At stake, they argue, is not only recreation but jobs.

“There’s a whole spectrum of economic development opportunities here, and we want to make sure this is as inclusive as it needs to be,” Arline Parks, the chair of Community Board 1’s economic development committee, said at a recent committee meeting.

A team of consultants is working with Hunts Point community groups to plan how businesses and residents can get the most out of the proposed greenway. They are developing a business plan for a new, home-grown non-profit organization that would manage the greenway, putting more effort into upkeep than city agencies would be expected to.

“It’s a difference of do you want it kept clean, or kept clean and also planted every year,” said Frank Randazzo, director of the Bronx Empowerment Zone, an arm of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation that provided $150,000 to pay the consultants.

According to Daniel Hernandez, one of those consultants, the new non-profit will most likely resemble Solar 1, the environmental education group that manages Stuyvesant Cove Park on the East River in Manhattan.

The management organization would hire other groups to run programs, organize commerce and maintain the greenway. Local residents would have priority in filling these contracts.

“There’s a lot of momentum and investment in the greenway, and implementation of this is critical,” Hernandez said. “People will see that.”

The completed plan will be presented to a steering committee assembled by Paul Lipson, Rep. Jose Serrano’s chief of staff. The committee, which includes representatives of the New York and Bronx Overall economic development corporations and several non-profits, will be in charge of turning the plan into a reality.

“It seemed to me it was more Hunts Point than Mott Haven centered,” said Parks, after a presentation at Board 1’s office.

“They talked about vendors, concerts and other activities. You’d want to make sure our community members could be vendors, and host activities, and participate in the economic development opportunities. You’d want to make sure it’s going to represent Mott Haven and Hunts Point,” she said.

Mott Haven has almost twice as many residents as Hunts Point, but Parks said Hunts Point has gained an advantage because of its activist organizations. “Mott Haven doesn’t have the kinds of organizations that Hunts Pont has,” she said. “Hunts Point has been ahead of the curve in that regard.”

Harry Bubbins, the director of Friends of Brook Park, said he was glad work was being done on the greenway.

“We were leading bike tours to promote the idea 10 years ago, so we’re very pleased to see some progress on this project,” he said.

But Bubbins was disappointed that he hadn’t heard anything about plans for a new organization to run the greenway. And he was worried that a planning process that doesn’t involve the whole community might seem efficient in the short-term, but ultimately fall short of its goals. “There’s a consolidation within Hunts Point groups at the expense of larger community building,” he said.

The Port Morris Industrial Business Zone promotes economic development in the area immediately surrounding a portion of the proposed greenway. Stephane Hyacinthe, who runs the program, said he thinks the greenway sounds like a wonderful idea, but no one has contacted him about the plan.

“It’s an initiative I’d be more than willing to work on and give my expertise and knowledge,” he said, “but I don’t know who’s spearheading the project.”

Maryann Hedaa, who heads the Hunts Point Alliance for Children and is a member of the steering committee, said the perception that Mott Haven and Port Morris groups were being left out of the planning for the management of the greenway was probably correct.

But, she added, “I don’t think the right people from Hunts Point are on the committee either.”

She is less worried about the geographic makeup of the committee than she is about its collective expertise.

“The trouble is there’s no real business leadership involved,” she said. “It could be a whole lot of money going down the drain if you don’t get the right people managing it. I’m worried the people on that committee will maintain the status quo, and the status quo in the South Bronx isn’t sustainable.”

In addition to the Hunts Point Alliance for Children, the steering committee includes representatives from The Point CDC, Rocking the Boat and Sustainable South Bronx.

Randazzo also said Mott Haven and Port Morris may have been overlooked. While much of the work is already done, he said there is still time for additional input on how the greenway should be managed.

“Is there room for another opinion? I would say sure. Is it going to have the same effect as if you’d been there since day one? Probably not,” he said. “Sometimes it’s tough to remember everybody.”

Local non-profits, government agencies and environmental activists provided hands-on activities and information on everything from paddling the Bronx River to conserving energy in your home at the second annual South Bronx Earthfest on April 25 in St. Mary’s Park.

Click in the slide show to see the captions for each photo.

But this may change.

The city has a plan that could bring new life – and new investment – to the lower Concourse and Harlem River waterfront.  The Department of City Planning has envisioned a new future for this 30-block area.

In the next few years the neighborhood’s first large supermarket may replace factories. The stately apartment buildings that line the Grand Concourse to the north could be mirrored in the south.

And the Harlem River Waterfront could be transformed within a decade to a Battery Park City of the North, with towering apartment buildings as high as 40 stories overlooking a waterfront promenade laced with open-air cafes and patches of green.

The government is not going to build any of this itself.  But, through a process called rezoning, it can change the rules that govern how people who own property in the area develop and use their land.

“We want to create a place where people can live, work, shop and play,” said Carol Samol, head of the city planning department’s Bronx office.

Current zoning rules keep buildings small in this area–just blocks away from Mott Haven’s towering housing projects–and prohibit their use as homes.  By changing these rules, the city hopes to encourage property owners either to convert vacant manufacturing lofts to housing, sell their land to developers or build something new themselves.

Community Board 1 unanimously approved the plan at its February meeting, though some board members voiced misgivings.

Board member Mychal Johnson said he’s worried that rising rents could eventually drive out the area’s long-time residents. The proposed new rules would encourage developers to build affordable housing in the district along with higher-rent housing.  But Johnson is concerned that that might not be enough, because the definition of “affordable” is pegged to the average income of people living in New York City as well as Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties.

“Sometimes that doesn’t help people here,” Johnson said, “because this community is on the lower end.”

Based on the most recent income calculations, a family earning as much as $55,000 would be eligible for a subsidized two-bedroom apartment, and the rent could be as high as $1,237.

“Of course we don’t want our sky blocked with skyscrapers,” Johnson said. “One of the reasons I love the Bronx is that we’re not boxed in.” But he voted to support the plan because he thinks community will benefit from a better mix of incomes.

The warehouses and parking lots of the Harlem River waterfront may be replaced within a decade by modern development

Commercial investment would also bring needed jobs, he believes, along with real estate tax payments that might help improve local schools.  In addition, he hopes that economic incentives will pressure local polluters like the waste transfer station in the Oak Point Yards to clean up their acts.

Other concerns arise because more apartment buildings would mean more riders on the subway, more cars on the road, more kids in the classrooms and more patients in the hospital.  In its environmental study of the project, the city planning department estimated the plan could bring over 10,000 new residents within 10 years.

Board member Alice Simmons said development should be an ongoing dialogue. “We’re talking about a 10-year goal,” she said.  “It’s not going to happen overnight.”

Community Board 1 Chairman George Rodriguez said residents had reason to worry about such a big change, and acknowledged that he himself is worried about protecting local small businesses.  But rezoning is an important part of revitalizing the South Bronx, he said, and worries should not be an excuse to do nothing.

“You might open a Pandora’s box, but then, you might not,” Rodriguez said.

The small conference room at the community board office was overflowing with people on the evening of the vote.  The planning department showed PowerPoint slides with maps, photos of buildings in the areas that would be rezoned and renderings of potential new development.

Board members and members of the audience expressed their concerns during a question and answer period.

One board member said that Mott Haven needs a state-of-the-art public library.

Pamela Smith, the president of the Mitchel Houses tenants’ association, worried that increased traffic and taller buildings would create and trap air pollution in an area where asthma is already epidemic.
Two representatives of the community group Nos Quedamos asked about churches in the plan, and how the plan would address the influence of Sin City, a strip club on Park Avenue.

Samol said the new zoning rules would not prevent the construction of churches or libraries. She also said that car technology is becoming cleaner, and developers would plant street trees to help clean the air.

Business that are currently operating will not be forced to move, she said, but once the area has a residential zoning new adult establishments will not be allowed.

The City Planning Commission is currently reviewing the proposal.  The City Council is expected to vote on the plan sometime this summer.

Anti-authoritarian radicals occupied Brook Park for the first-ever Bronx Anarchist Fair on April 4. The park’s regulars didn’t seem to mind.

The fair featured workshops, bookstalls, movie screenings, food vendors and something called a “really, really free market,” all focused on the theme of far-left-wing politics.

Aazam Otero, 24, lives in the neighborhood and helped plan the fair. He said that anarchism is about people working together outside the mainstream.

“We wanted to create a space where we can connect with other people who organize in the area,” he said.

Workshops covered a range of themes, including the relationship between the police and the public, consensus decision-making, and hip-hop dance.  A panel discussion on the history of squatting –as in, living in a building without permission from its owner–featured historians and activists, including Fordham University professor Mark Naison, a student leader in the 60s, and neighborhood activist Hetty Fox.

Almost a dozen kids joined in a hip-hop dance workshop led by Billy Martin, a 30-year-old South Bronx native who now lives Brooklyn and works as an M.C. under the name Spiritchild.

He said he doesn’t have a political definition for himself, but he likes the idea of community leaders coming from within communities.

“You look at how we’re living today, and electoral politics in general hasn’t really benefited black and brown people,” Martin said.

The day of the fair was windy, overcast and cold, but Angie Spitzer, 25, was happy with the turnout.

“We’ve had a fair number of community folks come through,” she said.

She said the food vendors from the women’s health center Casa Atabex Ache and the squatting discussion were both particularly successful. The “really, really free market”—a kind of garage sale with no prices –attracted participants as well.

Otero explained that the “free market” wasn’t a swap meet, but an opportunity to share.

“It’s a free exchange that has kind of an anti-capitalist bent to it,” he said.

Elliot Liu, 27, said the economic downturn is making anarchism more relevant.

“People just aren’t going to have the resources they once had,” said Liu, another resident who helped organize the day’s festivities. “People are going to have to work together to solve their problems, and I’ve always just looked to anarchism as a great way to do that.”

Spitzer said planning the fair started with an idea for a “satellite site” to the annual Anarchist Book Fair in Manhattan.

“We decided we wanted to have our own event focused on the Bronx, instead of having a bunch of Brooklyn and Manhattan anarchists come up here,” she said.