Mott Haven Herald

Mercy Center throws lifeline to Mott Haven families

Posted on 09. Aug, 2010 by Toyin Adebanjo.

Heidy Rios knows what it’s like to be poor. Born and raised in the Bronx, for a time she had so little money that she and her children lived in an apartment that had no stove or refrigerator. She kept food cold by putting it on the windowsill during the winter.

She remembers being fearful and embarrassed when she went to job interviews. She didn’t know how to turn on a computer, let alone use one.

Then, one day when she dropped her children off at St. Pius V School on East 144th Street, Rios found a flyer advertising the services of Mercy Center, which was headquartered at the school at the time. (more…)

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Mott Haven firm pioneers green moving

Posted on 09. Aug, 2010 by Juan DeJesus.

A new patch of green is growing in Mott Haven–but it isn’t grass.  In the shadow of the Bruckner Expressway, a company called iMovegreen, is trying to transform the moving business.

What makes a mover green? Instead of Styrofoam peanuts, the company offers its clients shredded office documents and other biodegradable packing material. In lieu of throwaway boxes, it provides sturdy reusable plastic boxes. It uses soy ink to print its documents on recycled paper. (more…)

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In the news, July 26-August 1

Posted on 26. Jul, 2010 by editor.

Beginning a string of three homicides in seven days, 18-year-old Troynisha Harris was killed by a man who jumped from a Lincoln Town Car and plunged a knife into her neck on July 24. Harris and a friend were sitting on a stoop on 166th Street at 3:30 a.m. when the attacker struck. When Harris’s companion struggled with him, he stabbed him in the stomach, then fled. On Saturday, police released video of the attack in an effort to find the killer.

Shortly before 6:30 p.m. Sunday a man was shot and killed at 681 Courtlandt Avenue in Melrose, the Daily News reported. Police did not identify the victim, who was in his 20s, and whose bodies was riddle with bullets, they said.

A well-known resident died Wednesday, four days after he was beaten and stomped by thieves who stole his cell phone. Surveillance cameras caught the attack by four men, who beat and kicked Juan Lopez, 54, as he was returning to his home on Cauldwell Avenue. “There wasn’t one person in the neighborhood who didn’t know my father,” his daughter Melissa Lopez told the Daily News. “Nobody can believe that anyone could do such a brutal thing to my father.”

Former waitresses at a Mott Haven strip club have filed suit in federal court, charging that were groped, had to fend off sexual demands from their bosses and had their tips stolen. “They degraded us, they insulted us. They touched us,” Jasmine Felipe, 26, of the Bronx told the Daily News about working at Sin City, the club on Park Avenue and East 138th Street that bills itself as “New York City’s # 1 Strip Club!”

When Congress voted to spend $37 million Tuesday to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rep. Jose Serrano, who represents Mott Haven and Hunts Point, voted No. Serrano called for an end to the Afghanistan war, and said e U.S. forces should leave Pakistan unless Congress gives specific authority for them to be there. “I believe that sending forces to Afghanistan after 9/11 to root out the terrorists, their supporters and their training camps was the correct move. Nine years later, I believe that it is past time to end our involvement in that nation, because it is clear we are stuck in a quagmire and not on the road to peace or victory,” he said after the vote, which won approval for President Barack Obama’s policy 308-114 with many Democrats voting against the expenditure while Republicans voted with the White House. If military involvement in Pakistan were to be put to a vote, Serrano said, he would vote No again.

Every year, police forces across the country hold a one-day summer event called “National Night Out” to bring police officers and community residents together to discuss local issues and concerns outside the tense environment of precincts and meeting rooms. This year’s event in Mott Haven will take place in St. Mary’s Park on St. Ann’s Avenue on Tuesday, August 3rd, where officers from the 40th precinct will be present. Among this year’s featured events, high school students and adult volunteers from the United Playaz organization will stage an event to promote the need for peaceful conflict resolution among young people. The event is scheduled to run between 3 and 8 p.m.

Brook Park in Mott Haven was the scene for the second annual Festival for Immigrants on July 24, as hundreds gathered to hear activists speak out against Arizona’s controversial new law, which many feel discriminates against Latinos. There were musical and dance performances, including the Mexican traditional dance troupe Cetilizli Naucampa, which performs dances based on the Nauhatl traditions. Speakers called on the public to join a planned protest against the Arizona Diamondbacks when they visit Citifield in Queens to play the Mets on Friday, July 30.

The Bronx Culture Trolley will make its next run on Wednesday, Aug. 4, with a number of stops in Hunts Point and Mott Haven, including 52 Park, The Point CDC, Bronxartspace, LDR Studio Gallery and the Bruckner Bar and Grill. The free ride begins at Longwood Art Gallery, Hostos Community College, 450 Grand Concourse at East 149th Street.

Cecil Joseph, who was briefly the interim Bronx Borough President when his boss Stanley Simon was indicted for corruption in the mid 1980s, has opened a new McDonald’s across from Lincoln Hospital. After heading the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, Joseph, who grew up in the Patterson Houses, turned entrepreneur, forming a company to acquire fast food franchises.

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SoBro gets students ready for green economy

Posted on 04. Jun, 2010 by Alex Green IV.

The adage “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is being given new meaning by a group of high school seniors working with SoBRO, the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation.

The students are starting a fashion business that will recycle hand-me-down clothing and plastic soda containers to make handbags, pencil holders and change purses.

The project, called Green Goes Greener 2010, is an add-on to SoBro’s In-School Youth program—a year-round after-school program that provides career planning and work-readiness training to low-income students. (more…)

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Will city pull plug on help for Port Morris business?

Posted on 03. Jun, 2010 by Emily Lavin.

The city is moving to eliminate funds for a program to help manufacturing businesses in Port Morris, leaving their proprietors worried that in the midst of an economic downturn they are losing an important source of support.

The cuts proposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg would eliminate the staff members of non-profit organizations who help businesses train workers, navigate city regulations and apply for loans, permits and tax breaks.

Each of the city’s 16 industrial business zones now employs these advisors, called Industrial Business Providers. In Port Morris, the help is offered by SoBRO, the South Bronx Economic Development Corporation at a cost of $100,000.

When his administration created industrial business zones in 2005 to keep manufacturers from moving from the city, the mayor made “an ironclad commitment to maintain manufacturing zoning in key industrial areas and not permit residential use.” He announced tax credits for companies that moved to the zones. And he offered the support of advisors to help cut red tape.

Noting the flight of manufacturing from the city, taking thousands of jobs with it, the mayor said, “We believe that our new industrial initiatives will stem this tide and grow our manufacturing sector.”

Now, though, he says the city can’t afford to continue to pay for the Business Solution Providers.

The incentives of industrial business zones will still be offered, but without the
Solution Providers, they’ll be much harder for businesses to obtain, business owners say.

SoBRO’s experts are “like my day-to-day person to go to,” said Stacy Seecharan, who owns B&S Ironworks on East 134th Street. “If I have a problem, they respond as to what I should do.”

“We’re a link in the chain,” said Stephane Hyacinthe, the coordinator of the Port Morris IBZ, which is bound by Bruckner Boulevard and the Major Deegan Expressway. “We help businesses find incentives that they usually don’t know are out there.”

Even when they know what incentives are available, applying for and receiving them without guidance can be confusing, said Giorgio Palmisano, the director of business development for Minerva Bunker Gear Cleaners, which inspects, cleans and repairs the protective clothing worn by the city’s firefighters, on East 134th Street.

Palmisano recalled spending hours trying to find accurate information online about whether his business was eligible for an environmental credit for limiting the amount of water it discharged into the city’s sewer system.

He found the information because “it was Stephane and that office who guided us and who took the time and effort to follow up on things,” he said.

Many of the area’s businesses are family run and have few employees, said Palmisano—and the tedious process of filing paperwork with the city intimidates them.

“It’s viewed as a bureaucracy that takes too much time,” Palmisano said.

And anything that makes it difficult for industrial businesses to stay in New York City is simply not a good idea right now, said Sarah Crean, the deputy director for the New York Industrial Retention Network, a non-profit economic development corporation that works to promote blue-collar jobs in the city.

“It defies reason to remove certain supports for small businesses when the city is losing jobs,” Crean said. “Manufacturing provides entry level jobs to people and the opportunity to move up and advance in the company.”

That’s especially true in the South Bronx, Hyacinthe said. He estimated that about 80 percent of the people employed by companies in the Port Morris zone live in Port Morris or nearby Mott Haven or Hunts Point.

While he doesn’t expect businesses to pack up and leave because of the budget cut, he is concerned about the long-term outlook.

“It won’t be like a fire sale; they’re not all going to get up and leave in one moment,” Hyacinthe said. “But small businesses already feel like the government doesn’t assist them, and this is just going to add to their discontent.”

A representative for the department of Small Business Services, which oversees the city’s industrial business zones said the department is committed to making sure the zones run smoothly.

“Contracts are in place until September 30th and in the meantime, we are working to address the budget situation and remain hopeful that we will achieve a positive outcome for the program,” a spokesman said in an email.

While they wait to see what happens, Hyacinthe is connecting with other IBZs in the city and asking business owners to write letters to Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to encourage them to find the money to preserve the program.

“We should know in June what’s going to happen next year,” Hyacinthe said. “And we’ll fight tooth and nail up until that point.”

A version of this story appeared in the May 2010 issue of the Mott Haven Herald

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Melrose eatery is more than a restaurant

Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Carla Candia.

A Puerto Rican man in his 60s stormed into Coqui Mexicano, the restaurant on Brook and Third Avenues recently. He was offended by eatery’s name. “That is wrong,” he said. “The Coqui is not from Mexico; it is from Puerto Rico.”

Indeed, the coqui is a little frog commonly found in Puerto Rico, and the visitor’s reaction when he saw the name of the place is not the first of its kind that Diego and Nazario have witnessed. “Puerto Ricans feel offended because the coqui is from Puerto Rico,” said Danisha Nazario, 35, who owns the restaurant along with Alfredo Diego, 39.

Offended national pride aside, however, Melrose residents as well as those who work in the area have adopted the little restaurant, which opened two years ago. And as far as its owners are concerned, the name is a symbol of the fusion of cultures represented on the restaurant’s menu. (more…)

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A taste of a Mexican city on a Mott Haven street

Posted on 26. May, 2010 by Carla Candia.

Whenever Sabino Sanchez feels homesick, instead of boarding a plane to Puebla, Mexico, he goes to La Fiesta Mexicana in Mott Haven and has a Cemita.

The Cemita, a sandwich filled with avocado, chipotle chili, an herb called Papalo, Oaxaca cheese and chicken or meat, is one of the Mexican city’s typical treats. (more…)

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In new home, Per Scholas creates opportunity

Posted on 06. Feb, 2010 by Stephanie Rabins.

When Torrey Hopkins got out of jail in 1999, it was easy for him to find a job. Hopkins, who had done time for a non-violent offense he committed as a teenager, had done well in high school and had good references that landed him a job in information technology.

He worked in the financial sector, installing computer workstations for a big company that was acquiring smaller firms.
(more…)

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Will old Bronx courthouse find new life?

Posted on 10. Dec, 2009 by Jeanmarie Evelly.

The former Bronx Courthouse, the enormous, stately building at the corner of East 161st Street and Third Avenue, has been empty for 31 years.

Now, there’s been a flurry of activity, as its owner seeks a tenant. He’s enlisted a local blogger to help publicize the effort, and says he’s ready to rent part of it to a health club, if more grandiose ideas for the entire building don’t come to fruition soon. (more…)

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Mott Haven’s pioneer of gentrification makes no apologies

Posted on 16. Oct, 2009 by Lindsay Lazarski.

By Lindsay Lazarski

lindsay.lazarski@motthavenherald.com

When people compare Mott Haven to Williamsburg or call it “SoBro” or otherwise tab it as the next up-and coming-place to live, they almost always follow by mentioning the bars where artist and yuppies congregate. There is G-Bar on the Concourse, Alexander’s Café south of the Major Deegan Expressway, and tucked below two overpasses that merge onto the Third Avenue Bridge, the pioneer of them all, the Bruckner Bar and Grill.

Part restaurant, part art gallery and part karaoke spot, the Bruckner Bar and Grill which opened 10 years ago, has become a hangout for local artists, city workers, and young professionals in business suits and heels on their lunch break and after work. 

A glass garage door that opens during the summer and a woodstove that burns in the winter keeps patrons cozy as they sit at mismatched tables on mismatched chairs and survey the latest art on the walls. With the hum of Coldplay in the background, customers order grilled salmon with mixed greens or the Mediterranean platter with eggplant salsa and Israeli salad. Dressing comes on the side.

At the bar, European soccer plays on one of the televisions and Sports Center plays on the other.  A friendly blue-eyed bartender in a t-shirt that reads “Bronx” greets each guest by yelping hello from across the restaurant as he wipes the wood counter or pulls from one of the six beers on tap. 

“If it feels like downtown, then I accomplished my mission,” says owner Alex Abeles, who plans to expand the restaurant to include an outdoor seating café during weekend brunch.

At the cost of $10 for a specialty cocktail and the “downtown-like” atmosphere, the Bruckner Bar and Grill represents change and gentrification in Mott Haven.

“It used to be a real drug-infested area,” said Christopher Garcia, who has worked at the air-conditioning company next to the Bruckner for seven years.

“You would have homeless people sleeping under the bridge and a lot of drugs and prostitution going on,” Garcia said.  Now, he says, the area has been cleaned up dramatically.   

But with a “for sale,” “for rent” or “for lease” sign affixed to the outside of nearly every building in a three-block radius, the Bruckner Bar and Grill remains a lonely outpost, in its own isolated corner, disconnected from the larger part of the community.

Its menu and its prices make add to the feeling.

The Bruckner charges $10 for a salad, while at La Familia, a Latin restaurant down the block,  $6 buys a plate piled high with homemade stewed chicken and mashed potatoes, but customers and the bar’s owner say the prices make sense.

“It’s different from what’s usually in the area,” said James Skinner, a first timer at the Bruckner who grew up in the Bronx. “This is the South Bronx: there is a lot of ethnic cuisine, Latin, Caribbean, African-American cuisine. Traditionally, you would have to go into the city to go to a bar like this.”

Abeles, who formerly managed, the Coffee Shop, a restaurant in Union Square, does not apologize for the “downtown” atmosphere or the downtown prices. 

He said he took a huge risk in 2006 by investing in a place with zero foot traffic. He needed to make many changes to attract the professional crowd from the Bronx Courthouse and Lincoln Hospital, he added.

He started with a fresh coat of paint on the walls and improved service, and added more options to the menu than just a burger.  The original owners “brought in the wrong crowd,” he said.

“We raised prices, not Manhattan high, but out of certain people’s price ranges.  We lost a lot of the crowd – troublemakers, but it was replaced by other people,” said Abeles.  

“Its nice to see that most of the tables are filled,” said William Jordan, a physician who was coming from a friend’s gallery exhibition.  But he added, “It’s hard for me to say how many of the people who are eating at these tables here actually live in the numerous housing projects that are within a few blocks of here.” 

Steven Gallegos, a regular who owns Sobro Studios, a recording and rehearsal space for bands a few doors away from the Bruckner Bar and Grill, eats at the restaurant three to four times a week. Gallegos, a New Rochelle resident, said he was first attracted to the industrial feel of the neighborhood and patronizes the Bruckner because of the family atmosphere. 

“SoHo gets a name, NoHo gets a name, why not here?” asked Gallegos. “Things have to change at some point. But I would hate to see this place turn into condos and high rises.”       

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