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.

Opponents were particularly incensed that the Deegan plan ignored the city’s desire to transform the Harlem River waterfront with a zoning plan passed last spring designed to attract developers to build high-rise apartments, new commercial buildings and a hotel.

Every speaker at a public hearing at Hostos Community College on Nov. 9 denounced the state proposal. Some speakers also expressed concern that efforts to ease congestion would simply attract more cars, and more pollution. Others criticized plans to use eminent domain to seize existing businesses in order to make room for the new ramps.

“We need more jobs, more affordable housing, more clean air, not more highway,” said Mychal Johnson, a member of Community Board 1 who initiated a petition campaign against the state plan. “The Deegan should be repaired, but not expanded,” he said in an interview.

Caro Samol, who heads the Department of City Planning’s Bronx office, said that the highway project would “cause a domino effect. It would severely hamper, if not outright preclude” healthy growth of the waterfront properties. She insisted that there were other alternatives that could both improve the highway and leave access to the waterfront open.

At the Nov. 9 hearing, Deputy Borough President Aurelia Greene insisted that while the highway needs work, “it cannot be at the expense of the surrounding community.” George Rodriguez, chairman of Community Board 1 and Arline Parks, who chairs the board’s land use committee, echoed the same cry.

The DOT capitulated at a meeting on Nov. 20 requested by the Bronx Borough President’s office, which brought together representatives of the state agency with staff of the city Department of City Planning department, members of Community Board 1 and local elected officials.

“We don’t want to be a bad neighbor in that area,” said Levine, the DOT’s director of public affairs. “What we heard from the community was that the widening would impede” waterfront development.

“They were very clear that at some point they will revisit the issue,” said Sam Goodman, a planner in the Borough President’s office, but not until the rezoning plan has a chance to spur development. Once the area has been built out, the state will consider its options again. In the meantime, said Goodman, other traffic-calming measures will be looked at.

Johnson, a long-time property owner in the neighborhood as well as a community board member, feels that all the work to inform his neighbors about the project and its implications paid off. “They actually listened to the community and public officials,” he said. “I feel wonderful.”

A version of this story appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald.

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

“We don’t have recycling here,” said Princella Jamerson, who has lived in the Mill Brook Houses for 35 years. “We had cans outside for recycling, but people put all of their trash there.”

How much is recycled in the area depends in large measure on the New York City Housing Authority, which operates 17 public housing projects, including Mill Brook, here.

“The Housing Authority tries,” said Andrew Jackson Houses Residents Association president Danny Barber. “But it’s also the people. You have to educate the residents.”

The law requires city residents to sort their trash, putting glass, plastic and metal, paper items and food garbage into separate containers.

Housing Authority spokesman Howard Marder said that efforts are being made to inform residents of their recycling duties.

“We distribute literature, we speak at resident association meetings, we speak with the staff so they know what to do,” said Marder. “If a location needs more receptacles and more signs, we want the staff to tell us and we will provide them.”

When a residential building does not recycle its trash, owners are punished, but tenants are not. For landlords of small private apartment buildings, fines serve as an incentive to recycle. Gregorio Sanchez, a landlord of three units on East 157th Street was once lax about recycling, but an enforcement agent prodded him to be more careful.

“I once got a ticket; it was a black bag kicked by a Sanitation agent,” said Sanchez. “He heard broken glass inside.”

For having glass mixed with his regular trash, Sanchez was fined $25. He could have challenged it, arguing that the glass vase inside was broken into pieces when disposed, but citing a busy work schedule, he paid the ticket.

To prevent future fines, Sanchez put up signs for his tenants, and sweeps his sidewalk. “If we don’t pick it up, they ticket us,” he said.

Even though the Daily News report is based on a Sanitation Department survey from July 2009, Robert Lange, director of the Sanitation Department’s recycling program disputes the recycling report. “It is accurate, but other factors need to be considered,” said Lange.

“No city, recycles everything,” Lange said. Inevitably, some paper, plastic and glass can’t be recycled because the items have been used to store food or clean up after pets.

The best any city has achieved, Lange said, is to divert 55 to 60 percent of its paper, plastic, glass and metal for re-use, instead of burial in landfills.

That still exceeds the 16 percent recycled locally, and Lange believes that local residents have the potential to increase their recycling by a further 30 percent, bringing it closer to the citywide average.

Because private companies collect their trash, commercial properties are excluded from the Sanitation Department’s surveys, but local business owners who belong to The Hub Business Improvement District have their own street cleaners along Third Avenue and East 149th Street.

“My sanitation guys sweep and service the streets,” said Vinnie Valentino, the BID’s executive director. On the corner of Third Avenue and East 149th Street, there are two recycling containers, in a pilot program for recycling in BIDs.

Private housing developers have also taken steps to ensure a better environment. Nos Quedamos, a Melrose-based community development corporation, is the sponsor behind 12 projects consisting of multi-family townhouses and apartment buildings.

“We assisted homeowners along Elton Avenue in securing recycling receptacles from the Department of Health,” said Anna Vincenty, the assistant director of community relations at Nos Quedamos. “Among older buildings, there are special receptacles to keep rats out.”

Alongside its older dwellings, Nos Quedamos also manages recently-built apartment house for seniors and working families. The organization promotes recycling vigorously.

“This happens in all of our buildings,” said Vincenty. “People don’t know what to recycle, so we have seminars.”

Nos Quedamos buildings have recycling rooms with trash chutes on every floor of the properties it manages. NYCHA projects that predate the recycling law only have trash chutes in their hallways. As a result, in order to dispose of their recyclables, residents must go outside and look for special green bins.

“They should have indoor trash recyclables,” said Mitchell Houses resident Mark Scott, 22. Looking at the outdoor green recycling container, Scott said it was unrealistic to expect every resident to recycle, especially during the winter months.

Inside Scott’s apartment building, which was built in 1966, the hallways are too narrow to accommodate a new room for recyclable trash.

“The fire code prohibits storage of anything in hallways or interior entranceways,” said Marder. “Therefore in order to recycle, residents have to leave the building.”

Nevertheless, Marder said that residents can make a difference in improving their communities. In August, the Housing Authority announced the formation of “green committees” for each Housing Authority development. Thirty-eight projects around the city have them, including Mott Haven, Patterson and McKinley.

“It seems simple,” said Anthony Bonilla, 27, a lifelong resident of Mott Haven Houses. “More education needs to be done.”

A version of this story appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald.

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.

Aguirre, who lives in Melrose, helped start the Hostos Community College Veterans/Reservists Club to raise awareness about veterans’ needs and to create a community for student veterans.

“The fact is when they come back, reconnecting can be a challenge,” said her mother, City Councilmember Maria del Carmen Arroyo, at a gathering hosted by the club last month.

The transition to the classroom and to civilian life can be difficult, said Aguirre. She found it hard to focus on classes for her degree in liberal arts. Political discussions often meant she had to defend her role as a Marine. “Coming back to a school where there’s a very liberal mindset, you were fighting in class,” she said.

For some veterans, she said, it’s easier not to come back. “These are people with credits sitting in a college waiting for them,” said Aguirre, who is the club’s vice president.

Aguirre and her fellow club members, who now number 15, held their first major event, a meet and greet, in October. The club hosted veterans, reservists, recruiters and other students. Aguirre hoped the event would let other veterans do “recon” on the club, since they can often be shy about asking for help, she said.

The club formed in late September when several student veterans realized they needed help: They were still waiting for tuition money from the Veterans Affairs Department, and they needed it to pay for classes and books.

As part of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, veterans like Aguirre receive education benefits for tuition, books and some living costs. The New York State Veterans Affairs office was backlogged, with over 15,000 applications for benefits, said Charles Uwa, the Veterans Coordinator at Hostos. Meanwhile, some veterans were getting billed for their classes.

With Uwa’s encouragement, Aguirre and other student veterans formed the club to address the benefits problem. Ultimately, Hostos extended a tuition waiver for veterans until their benefits arrived, Uwa said.

Nearly 3,000 veterans and reservists attend school in the City University of New York system. Sixty-five veterans are students at Hostos, and for many of them, accessing benefits, managing coursework and adjusting to civilian life is difficult, said Uwa.

Though the school has had clubs for veterans in the past, this year’s club has been a dramatic change, Uwa said. “We were able to get people that were more concerned and more interested,” he said.

Any time the club can help a veteran, it does, said Michael Sterling, a National Guard veteran in his fourth semester at Hostos. The club is the starting point for veterans’ questions regarding college life, benefits and personal issues. “We’re trying our best to make sure the ones that we do know are taken care of and have a safe haven,” Aguirre said.

The club also offers a forum to help veterans cope with memories from their time in the armed forces. “We are able to talk to one another about what we’ve been through,” said Aguirre.

At their biweekly Monday meetings, veterans and reservists in the club discuss upcoming events, benefits and their mission: to raise awareness of veterans’ needs in the college community. Students considering the armed forces can get their questions answered there as well.

When Aguirre attended Hostos in the past, she felt that the school did not have a plan for dealing with veterans, she said. Now things are different. Hostos Community College President Félix V. Matos Rodríguez sat down with Uwa and club members in early November to hear their concerns and ideas. “The school has a genuine want to help out our vets,” said Aguirre.

As a result, said Aguirre, this time around she’s been able to focus on her studies. She plans to complete the credits for an associate degree by June. In the meantime, the club is planning to send money for USO care packages, and its members may take a trip together to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The club has made Aguirre’s first semester back since 2008 a busy one. “Hopefully it’ll slow down, because I have to start studying,” she said.

A version of this story appeared in the Winter 2009 issue of the Mott Haven Herald.

Community voices rang out in opposition to the plan to lengthen exit ramps, saying the new ramps would torpedo the city’s ambitious plan to build housing, parks, office buildings and a hotel on the waterfront, completed last summer when the City Council and the Mayor signed off on rezoning the Lower Grand Concourse.

In an hour of spirited discussion after state officials presented the proposal, every speaker denounced the plan.

“Blocking waterfront access would create a domino effect” that would “severely hamper, if not outright preclude” development on the affected plots of waterfront property, said Carol Samol, head of the Bronx office of the Department of City Planning.

She said the DOT had rejected alternative plans and charged that they had focused so narrowly on traffic issues that they had failed to consider the “public good.”

According to Syed Rahman, an engineer who presented the DOT plan, the short exit ramps cause extensive back-ups on the elevated highway. He said revamping the ramps from 138th Street to 149th Street northbound and from the Macombs Dam Bridge to 138th Street southbound would relieve traffic jams.

In addition, he said, a longer exit ramp would keep cars exiting onto Exterior Street from backing up traffic on the Deegan.

Arline Parks, chair of the land use committee of Community Board 1, noted that the planning department had worked diligently with her committee to come to an agreed-upon rezoning plan through “countless meetings.” In contrast, the DOT had emerged only recently, presenting a completed plan to the board.

“All our work will be lost if the DOT moves forward with the plan,” said Alice Simmons, a member of Community Board 1.

Speakers after speaker evoked the neighborhood’s history, recalling how Robert Moses slashed through whole sections of the Bronx to make room for expressways like the Deegan, which Moses began building in 1950 and completed in 1956.

Members of the audience were also incensed to learn that the state planned to use its power of eminent domain to buy out and eliminate businesses in the path of the new ramps.

Other speakers cited Mott Haven’s high asthma rates, and expressed concern that a rehabilitated highway would attract still more traffic, increasing air pollution.

In an interview, the DOT’s director of public affairs, Adam Levine, insisted that the community’s concerns were being taken seriously. While repairs to crumbling cement and support beams are essential, he said, the department wouldn’t go ahead with its plan to lengthen the exit ramps if it faced strong opposition.

“We won’t do it if we hear from the community and elected officials” that the expansion isn’t wanted, he said. “We’ll take the money elsewhere.”

The passage of time has not been kind to the former school building nicknamed the “Castle on the Concourse.”

Entire sections of the roof have collapsed. Plastic tarps cover the holes. Rotted wooden planks shield the windows and cover gaping holes in the walls.

PS 31 was once one the top schools in the city and was housed in a building that was judged worthy to be a New York City landmark. Now it is a wreck.

Removing asbestos and modernizing its facilities wasn’t worth the price, the Board of Education decided 15 years ago. The “Castle on the Concourse” has steadily crumbled since the decision was made.

“We didn’t only lose a beautiful building. We lost a great school,” said Grizel Cabrera, a former school aide who worked at PS 31 from 1989 to 1997.

Despite plans to rezone the area to invite thousands of new residents, officials from the Department of Education have no plans to restore the treasured building that still stands on 144th street and the Grand Concourse.

“We are not currently doing any construction and there are no plans for reconstruction in the near future,” said Department of Education spokesman William Havemann.

The scaffolding and supportive beams wrapped around the building are in place to prevent it from collapsing, according to Wilhelm Ronda, the director of planning at the Bronx Borough President’s Office. When Ronda toured the building over a year ago, he noted extensive water damage and found that the facade on the North end of the building had crumbled.

“Clearly there is a need for funds to do more than just prevent it from collapsing,” he said. Emergency repairs would cost up to $30 million according to Ronda.

Ronda hopes the building can be adapted for a new public use, such as a performing art space or even a children’s art museum.

“I would like to use up as much of the building as possible. I hope at some point the administration will provide additional funding to do so,” Ronda said.

PS 31, named the William Llloyd Garrison School in honor of the great opponent of slavery, was designed and built over 100 years ago by architect Charles B.J. Snyder, the superintendent of school buildings who presided over the city’s Golden Age of school construction. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1986.

Under the careful watch of retired principal Carol Russo, PS 31 had blossomed into one of the top performing schools in the city. A New York Times article from 1987, headlined “Bronx School Excels Academically, Despite the Odds,” reported that 61 percent of students from kindergarten to sixth grade tested at or above their grade level in mathematics. Almost 88 percent tested at or above their grade level in reading.

“It was a wonderful school. They were given little in terms of resources, but Carol tapped into the enthusiasm of the teachers. She was a diamond of an educator,” said Irving Gikofsky, the television personality widely known as “Mr. G.”

A former teacher, “Mr. G” sent his daughter to PS 31 and took part in 28 consecutive graduations.

“When Carol retired, nobody could take her place. The giant left and nobody could fill her shoes,” he said.

The Department of Education closed the school soon after Russo retired in the mid- 1990s. PS 31 and its students were transferred to a new building on E. 156th Street near Morris Avenue.

Students and teachers still refer to the school’s former home building as the “Castle on the Concourse” because of its size and design.

“I loved everything about that school. I remember on rainy days when we couldn’t go outside, we got to watch cartoons or educational movies in the auditorium,” said E’Toyi Lucas, 29, a former student.

Lucas, like many of his fellow alumni fondly remembers the sheer size of the building, its winding stairs and long hallways.

“I always thought that it was so big and scary at times. It really saddens me that they allowed such a historic place to deteriorate. I pray that they would rebuild so that other children can experience the beauty of PS 31,” wrote Shemeka Gibbs in an email about her time as a student at PS 31 in 1983.

Herman Francis, a member of Community Board 1’s Municipal Services Committee, said that in light of city plans to rezone the Grand Concourse, the area needs a new school.

“We don’t have enough schools as it is, and what we have there is a beautiful empty building that should be a school again,” Francis said.

The “Castle on the Concourse” remains under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education and will not be opening its doors to greet eager students next fall or anytime soon. Shingles will crumble and water damage will continue its destructive march through the once stately walls.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is responsible for promoting economic growth throughout New York City, has promised to “evaluate the feasibility of an adaptive reuse of PS 31” as part of the lower Grand Concourse zoning plan. It offered no timetable.

“I think we all have a connection and a passion for PS 31 and we would all hate for that school to disappear,” said E’Toyi Lucas.

A version of this article appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of the Mott Haven Herald.

By Lindsay Lazarski

lindsay.lazarski@motthavenherald.com

Elected officials and the Parks Department describe Randall’s Island as an invaluable resource, and boast that its waterfront pathways provide scenic views and “increased access” to recreation “for the neighboring communities of East Harlem and the South Bronx.”

But the island, only a stone’s throw from the Bronx, has been reachable only from Manhattan or by driving over the Triborough Bridge–until now.

In two years the South Bronx Connector; a 1.5 mile pathway for pedestrians and bicyclists, will open under the historic Amtrak trestle on Randall’s Island making  newly- renovated fields, a new tennis center and Icahn Stadium easier for South Bronx residents to reach.

But a controversial decision to restrict use of the fields to private schools on school-day afternoons will keep the facilities off-limits then, despite the new route from Port Morris to the island.

And boaters have complained that the footbridge and Con Edison utility cables underneath the bridge will make navigation at high tide difficult.

Nevertheless construction of the connector nearly a decade after its conception wins applause from local advocates.  

“The South Bronx Connector is long overdue,” said Arline Parks, chair of the Land Use Committee of Community Board 1. “For the first time, we are seeing the kind of development that reshapes our area of the Bronx and gives us an opportunity to have a better hold on the community.”

The connector is part of the South Bronx Greenway project, a network of green streets and waterfront trails and parks in Hunts Point and Port Morris, which has gotten a boost from $22 million in federal stimulus funds and is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2012.

Phase 1 of the connector, a footbridge over the Bronx Kill, located just south of 132^nd street in Port Morris, is nearly done. 

  Construction of the bridge is expected to be completed by the end of the summer, but the pathway will not be open to pedestrians and bikers until the full project is completed in the fall of 2011, said Janel Patterson a spokeswoman for the New York City Economic Development Corporation. 

Con Ed will incorporate new electrical equipment on the underside of the connector to upgrade power for Icahn Stadium, the Fire Department training center, and a water treatment plant on the island, said Con Ed spokesman Chris Olert.

“Con Ed hijacked the bridge project,” charges Harry Bubbins, director of Friends of Brook Park, which is threatening a lawsuit over the obstacle to boaters.

The cables on the South Bronx Connector are not the only source of controversy.

 The Randall’s Island Sports Foundation, a public-private partnership, and the parks department are building new sports fields and renovating existing ones. They will almost double the number of fields on the island, to 66.

But local residents may be barred from using those fields some of the time.

To pay for the maintenance and upkeep of the new fields, the parks department has proposed a concession agreement with 20 independent private schools in Manhattan.

In exchange for $2.2 million, the private schools would receive guaranteed permits for half the fields from 3-6 p.m. during the spring and fall.

Public schools and community-based organization would receive 40 percent of the permits and the remaining 10 percent would be left for other applicants.

The proposal is a second effort to fund the ball fields project through concessions to the private schools.

In 2008, State Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich ruled the plan had not followed the proper public review process and overturned the agreement.  

Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, whose district includes part of Mott Haven and Randall’s Island, said the new proposal has made some progress, but added she still has philosophical concerns over the privatization of public parkland. 

“It is an issue of access and equity in my eyes,” said Mark-Viverito at a public hearing. “We believe in public-private partnerships, and that is important in this city, but we have to ensure that those public-private partnerships don’t create inequities within our communities.”

Hear Geoffrey Croft's take on the process and environmental impact of the plan

 Geoffrey Croft, the president of New York City Park Advocates, said he did not see much of a difference between the initial proposal and the latest one.  

“The whole definition and purpose of public parkland is that they’re supposed to be public, and not be able to be bought by any group, rich or poor,” said Croft.  “Everyone is into making deals and concessions, but that is not what the purpose of a public park is. They are supposed to be open to everybody.”

But Lou Schlanger, athletic director at the South Bronx Campus high schools and director of the Randall’s Island Kids Summer Camp, defended the arrangement.

“Everybody is not satisfied and wished they had more time, but nobody would have anything without the foundations initiatives.  The island still would have been a sand box with broken glass and everything.” 

“Whatever the deal is,” he added, “It is a win for everybody.”

The suit charges that the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation violated state law when it decided that a full environment impact statement was not necessary to carry out the plan.

Melrose-based Nos Quedamos is among the plaintiffs. “New Yorkers should be concerned greatly by the increasing privatization of public parkland, particularly when it benefits the wealthy to the detriment of other New Yorkers. This is fundamentally an issue of environmental justice,” said Yolanda Gonzalez, the organization’s executive director.

The lower section of the Grand Concourse is almost entirely dedicated to the auto industry. The road is lined with busy auto repair shops, a gas station, a newly revamped car wash and a car dealership.

Apartment houses and a hotel may replace these businesses, if a rezoning proposal for the area passes. But although opposition has been muted, it has critics among policy-makers and planners who say the city should preserve manufacturing jobs.

When the plan was first proposed, former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, said that the zoning could jeopardize more than 230 jobs in the four-block area between E. 144th street and E. 138th street on the Grand Concourse.

Amy Anderson, the Project Associate for Sustainable Initiatives at the New York Industrial Retention Network, testified at the April 1 New York City Planning Commission hearing and reiterated Carrion’s concern.

“Manufacturing business located in such areas face increasing real estate pressures associated with nearby real estate development, resulting in displaced companies and jobs. Now is not the time to be displacing businesses and risking job losses,” she said.

Business owners have chosen to focus on their work, rather than worry about city plans that may or may not threaten their future on the Concourse.

“I have heard rumors that the city is planning to relocate us. Whatever happens, happens,” said Epifanio Aybar, the owner of Bonanza Auto Repair Shop near 140th street on the Grand Concourse.

His small shop has remained afloat despite rising rent. He says his secret for success is two-fold. His recycled tires sell rapidly and he knows how to get female customers to trust his mechanics with their cars.

“Women feel comfortable leaving their cars here, because we explain the different parts of the car and show them where the problem is,” he said.

Aybar’s lease expires in 2016, at which point construction or no construction, he plans on retiring.

The zoning proposal encompasses a 30-block area that surrounds the lower end of the Grand Concourse below 149th street. The plan would change some of the streets where only manufacturing is now permitted to a residential area.

Today 57 percent of the four to 12-story loft buildings and waterfront lots are vacant, according to the Planning and Development unit of the Bronx Borough President’s office. Even during the day, the streets along the lower Grand Concourse are nearly empty. Trash lines the gutters and the only sounds come from passing trains and the high-power hoses used to clean out garbage trucks at a nearby Department of Sanitation facility.

“It’s quite dead at night. After 7 you can scream and no one will hear you,” said Jose Orta , 40, the warehouse manager at Baya Movers Company near 144th street on Canal Place. Unlike Epifanio Aybar’s business on the other side of the Metro North railyard, which splits Mott Haven, Baya Movers Company is not jeopardized by the zoning plan.

Orta welcomes the idea of residents moving into the area, saying it will mean better access to food. With only two delis in the area and a diner, he says, the neighborhood will need more eateries.

Despite the empty streets, in recent years the neighborhood has seen a dramatic decrease in crime. In 1995, the 40th Precinct on 138th street, which covers all of Community District 1, reported a total of 1,116 robberies. That number dropped to 541 last year. Break-ins, however, remain a concern for local workers.

Igor Gladkov, the president of Astra Town Car Corporation, had to install video cameras and alarms around his car dealership near E. 140th street on the Grand Concourse. Two homeless men broke into the small offices on the car lot in January 2008, used the microwave to heat up food and took off with a supply of pens.

Pilfering is the least of Gladkov’s worries. The proposal threatens his business.

Gladkov, however, says he isn’t too concerned. His lease ends in seven years and in that time he suspects there won’t be much construction in the area.

His office rattled as two trains passed by in the rail yard below the dealership. He had to shout to be heard. “If they build a hotel on this strip, the guests will check out after one day and never come back. No way anyone can get any sleep around here with the trains.”

However, if a hotel developer does take over his car lot, Gladkov says he’ll deal with the situation the best he can.

He said, “Moving the business will be hard on us and our customers. But if we have to move, then we move.”

Lamont Barkley, 42, has lived in Mott Haven his whole life and has witnessed the devastation that overtook the neighborhood, and its rebuilding.

But that does not mean he’s ready for the latest change: the city’s plan to replace gritty industrial buildings with high-rise waterfront apartments and retail businesses.

“Development is always a good idea, as long as you don’t try to move people out of the projects,” he said.

Barkley lives in the Patterson Houses, the 15-building Housing Authority complex that occupies the land between Morris and Third Avenues from E. 139th to E. 145th Streets. The city’s plan calls for creating “a lively mixed use, mixed income neighborhood” along Morris Avenue, across the street from the housing project.

While by some estimates it could take as long as a decade for the Lower Concourse rezoning to accomplish its goals, many residents are leery of the changes.

“They’ve been trying to push people who have been here for years out,” said a local resident who would only give his first name, Poochie. “I’m 54 years old, I grew up here and most of the people who are still here, they wouldn’t be able to afford it now.”

But Thomas Carswell, who said he has been a resident for 52 of his 57 years, said he would welcome the changes.

“This particular area—Mott Haven—these projects, they’re a breeding ground for drugs, violence, STDs,” he said. “Anything that’s coming to this area to improve it, I’m all for it.”

Even though construction worker Billy Meister, 47, makes his living from development, he said he worried that Mott Haven would lose some of his favorite qualities if developers moved forward in the way the city hopes they will.

“There’s a lot of construction going on, but nothing is favorable to the people,” said Meister, who lives in Orange County but works on construction projects in the Bronx. “You can’t build a high-priced neighborhood and keep us here.”

For Charlie Brice, 35, a waitress at the Sweetwaters Café at Third Avenue and 138th Street, the idea of encouraging new businesses to locate in the area is a welcome one. Since she lives near Yankee Stadium and does not own a car, she said she would appreciate it if more grocery stores were added in the area.

But she, too, expressed concern about the impact of the changes. Growing up in Dorchester, a Boston neighborhood that has attracted higher income residents in recent years, she said she has seen the good and bad sides of gentrification. She especially lamented the loss of small “mom and pop” stores.

But while Brice, who is African-American, said she liked the diversity of Mott Haven, she worries about just who will be moving into those new apartment buildings. “It’s fine to be multicultural and all; just don’t kick us out, ”she said.

While many of the residents interviewed were at best ambivalent about the plan, the area’s elected officials have fewer qualms.

Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, Jr., the frontrunner to become Bronx Borough President, said he wanted to make sure residents would not feel they are being pushed out of the area. “Obviously, we’re going to continue to push business, but we want to keep the character of the neighborhood,” Diaz said.

Similarly, State Senator José M. Serrano said in an email response to questions that he supports the Lower Concourse rezoning, as long as city officials work with community members.

“The key here is not about when it will be completed, but whether it will be achieved with the proper community input so that the citizens of the South Bronx and its adjacent areas may benefit from the changes,” he wrote.

Barkley, the Patterson House resident, said he remained skeptical, especially after going to a ballgame at the new Yankee Stadium with his son. The stadium turns its back on the residents who live near it, he said, and he worried that a similar thing would happen if the Lower Concourse plan succeeds.

“You’ve got to remember people live here,” Barkley said. “They’ve been living here their whole lives.”

A version of this article appeared in the Spring 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald.

All that is required is moving the southern boundary “a mere 100 feet to the South along the Harlem River” Harry Bubbins, the director of the Friends of Brook Park, told the City Planning Commission at its April 1 hearing.

While he applauded the plan’s vision of a waterfront promenade and new parks elsewhere along the Harlem, he noted that the city planners have acknowledged that it would be some time before those projects are built, and said even when they were, they would not provide a launch for small boats.

Brook Park, on the other hand, is “shovel ready,” he said. It is already used informally for boating, and could achieve immediate access to the river at little cost, he continued.

Friends of Brook Park was formed in 1999 and has been working ever since to create a park at 141st Street and Brook Avenue. It calls for removing asphalt, uncovering an underground brook, planting trees and creating a natural labyrinth.