Mott Haven Herald

As pact with city expires, gardeners worry

Posted on 04. Aug, 2010 by Joe Hirsch.

Eight years ago, the city, the state and the creators of 500 community gardens on city-owned land reached an agreement that ended a long battle that began when the Giuliani administration sought to auction the garden lots to developers.

Now, that agreement is set to expire, alarming gardeners in Mott Haven and Melrose who fear that new rules drafted by the Parks Department threaten their green mini-utopias.
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Community gardens brace for new rules

Posted on 04. Aug, 2010 by Joe Hirsch.

Mott Haven and Melrose are home to about two-dozen community gardens, lovingly tended green spaces tended by residents, who plant and harvest food and flowers, play music, exercise or simply kick back under stately shade trees.

With names like United We Stand, La Finca del Sur and La Casa de Chema, some recall the Puerto Rican countryside with their casitas, miniature wooden huts where friends gather for conversation.

Most are on land owned by the city, and were left to gather trash and breed vermin before they were reclaimed by residents. Now, local gardeners and their counterparts citywide fear the city wants them back for development. (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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Proposed budget cuts threaten adult education

Posted on 27. May, 2010 by Joe Hirsch.

Pending cuts to the city’s budget threaten to derail long-running adult literacy programs across the five boroughs, taking some of Gotham’s poorest down with them, advocates fear.

The Mayor’s proposed budget for 2011 would eliminate over $5 million in funding for adult literacy services, which if combined with the Governor’s proposed $2.6 million reduction, would “cripple adult literacy programs at organizations” across the city, wrote Phillip Morrow, President and CEO of SoBRO, to supporters of that group.
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Mott Haven’s money isn’t in banks

Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by Hannah Rappleye.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, Leo Lendy, a 21-year-old Mott Haven resident, walked out of the Pay-O-Matic on 149^th Street and Morris Avenue clutching a wad of cash.

As an employee at the Hunts Point Fish market, Lendy typically gets a paycheck of more than $500 every two weeks. He spends about $40 of that to cash his check, wire money and pay his bills through the Pay-O-Matic check cashing store.

Lendy doesn’t have a bank account. He’s convinced that the way the economy is going, the banks are likely to crash.

“I’m willing to pay the $40,” Lendy said. “I’d rather have my money in cash.” (more…)

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South Bronx Action Group says “We’re still here”

Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by Juan DeJesus.

For 40 years the South Bronx Action group helped tenants who lived in Mott Haven, Melrose and Port Morris. Then in February, the organization lost its home.

Forced by cuts to its funding from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development to leave the offices on East 149^th Street where its staff had counseled tenants on housing and citizenship issues, South Bronx Action did what many individuals do—it moved in with a relative. (more…)

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Housing rises on reclaimed land in Melrose

Posted on 08. Apr, 2010 by Alex Green IV.

An eight-story apartment building rising on the Northeast corner of East 158^th Street and Third Avenue will complete the transformation of the intersection.

Dubbed La Terraza, the building will join two more apartment buildings developed by the Melrose-based non-profit Nos Quedamos in the last decade.

Offering 107 apartments for middle, moderate, and low-income families, along with new stores, La Terraza will occupy one of the last vacant lots in the Melrose Commons urban renewal area. Spills of chemicals from a drycleaner that once occupied part of the site had to be cleaned up before construction could begin.

Two more buildings are rising on another formerly contaminated site, on Courtlandt Avenue between East 160^th and 161^st streets. There, a gas station had polluted the ground.

Called “brownfields,” underutilized and often contaminated sites like these are found throughout urban areas, but are especially numerous in neighborhoods like Mott Haven, Melrose and Hunts Point where crime, poverty and a changing economy have led many businesses to close and many building owners to abandon their property. (more…)

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State won’t build new ramps on Deegan

Posted on 24. Nov, 2009 by Stephanie Rabins.

Pummeled by public outcry against a plan to extend the off-ramps on the Major Deegan Expressway, the State Department of Transportation has abandoned the project.

Much-needed repairs will be made to the aging roadway over Mott Haven, but the plan to extend the highway’s exit ramps in order to calm the traffic that backs up as cars merge onto Exterior Street is on hold indefinitely, said DOT spokesman Adam Levine. (more…)

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Mott Haven flunks Recycling 101

Posted on 23. Nov, 2009 by Sergey Kadinsky.

Glass, metals, apple cores: It’s all the same to Mott Haven residents, according to a report published in the Daily News on Oct. 4. Citing confusion and lack of space for recycling, the report, based on Sanitation Department figures, pegs the recycling rate for Mott Haven, Port Morris, and Melrose as the worst in the city.

Only 16 percent of what should be recycled is, according to the report, compared to the citywide average of 42 percent. (more…)

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Veterans fight new battles at home

Posted on 14. Nov, 2009 by editor.

By Erin McCarthy
NYCity News Service

Omi Aguirre was studying for her associate degree from Hostos Community College in 2001. Then the Twin Towers fell. Six weeks later, she joined the Marines.

This fall, when Aguirre, 31, resumed her studies at Hostos, she felt like an outsider in a community of civilians. Like many veterans, she found herself struggling to get her government tuition benefits. She couldn’t focus on her studies.

But in late September, a student club changed everything. (more…)

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