Mott Haven Herald

In the news, Aug. 29-Sept. 5

Posted on 01. Sep, 2010 by editor.

Mott Haven’s Mychal Johnsonand Hunts Point’s Tanya Fields and will be among the panelists discussing reporting on last spring’s international conference on climate change at the People’s Council on Climate Justice on Sept. 18. Both attended the conference in Bolivia. The discussion at the Brecht Forum, 451 West Street, between Bank and Bethune, will begin at 6 p.m. Admission is on a sliding scale of $6, $10 or $15.

Classic New York school buildings have a family resemblance for a reason: they were designed by the same man– C.B.J. Snyder. The Bronx has preserved a much higher percentage of its Snyder schools than Manhattan, and on Sept. 4, the Bronx Historical Society will conduct a tour of eight of them, built from 1897 to 1922, ending with Snyder’s 1904 masterpiece, Morris High School. The tour will meet at 11 a.m. at the Brook Avenue stop of the #6 train, on the northwest corner of East 138th and Brook Avenue (in front of a discount beauty supply store). The fee is $10 for members of the Society, $15 for non-members. Call 718-881-8900 to RSVP.

Hunts Point Riverside Park will host the Bronx River Alliance’s annual fundraiser, the Upstream Soirée will be on the evening of Thursday, Sept. 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. Longwood resident Roberto Garcia, the outgoing chair of Community Board 2, and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe will be honored. Tickets are $100, or $200 for a patron ticket that includes a listing in the program. Tickets may be purchased online at www.bronxriver.org or reserved by calling 718-430-4665.

SoBRO’s South Bronx Leadership Forum will introduce local business to the services of the Small Business Administration at a breakfast at 9 a.m. Sept. 14 at Betances Community Center, 465 St. Ann’s Avenue. Pravina Raghavan, who heads the New York office will be the speaker. A $5 donation is requested. Reserve by contacting Linda Yantz, 718-732-7522 or lyantz@sobro.org.

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Mott Haven immigration festival mixes culture and politics

Posted on 11. Aug, 2010 by Joe Hirsch.

Immigrants and U.S. citizens filled Brook Park on July 24, defying record heat to celebrate Latin American heritage and to voice their anger over Arizona’s controversial law aimed at finding and punishing undocumented immigrants.

At the second annual Festival of Immigrants in the South Bronx’s biggest community garden between 140th and 141st Streets on Brook Avenue, over a hundred came to feast on quesadillas, see and hear Latin American music and dance, and to share their opposition to the Arizona law.
(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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In the news, June 21-28

Posted on 21. Jun, 2010 by editor.

A Book Fair on the sidewalk in front of the Bronx Museum on the Grand Concourse at 165th Street this weekend has been organized to call attention to the absence of bookstores in the Bronx. The fair, on Sunday, June 27, from noon-5 p.m., will feature books, magazines and comics, along with authors and artists.

SummerStage Dance 2010, will be in St. Mary’ Park this weekend. Rennie Harris RHAW and Le Soul Afrique with Special Guest Akim Funk Buddha will perform on Friday, June 25, at 7 p.m. Abakua Afro-Latin Dance Company and Areytos Performance Works will be on stage on Saturday at 7.

One of the culprits in a scandal that has cast a shadow on Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo and City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo is headed to a federal pen for the next 10 months. Margarita Villegas pleaded guilty to embezzling $50,000 from a non-profit housing corporation that manages low income apartments. Next up, Richard Izqierdo Arroyo, who admitted stealing $115,000, some of which prosecutors say went to the assemblywoman and councilwoman, his grandmother and aunt, respectively.

Friends of Brook Park has a plan to create oyster and mussel beds in the Bronx Kill, which separates Mott Haven from Randall’s Island. The organization is awaiting word from the feds about a $50,000 grant for its proposal to clean up the polluted water nature’s way.

Assemblyman Michael Benjamin won’t challenge Congressman Jose Serrano this year, but won’t rule out a run in 2012, when new district lines are drawn. Benjamin is giving up his seat in the State Legislature.

A refugee from Sierra Leone, who attended International Community High School in Mott Haven was stabbed to death in Washington Heights Sunday. Police said 18-year-old Mohamed Jalloh, who lived in the Highbridge section of the Bronx, was seen arguing with a group of men in a McDonald’s.

Mott Haven has a new landmark, the seven-story Haffen building in the Hub. The Landmarks Preservation Commission also began considering creating a Grand Concourse Historic District stretching from 153rd to 167th Street.

Thirty-three-year-old Tamar Brown was killed on Courtlandt Avenue near the Melrose Jackson Houses Sunday. Police said he had been shot several times.

A soldier who grew up in Mott Haven was murdered on an Army base in Georgia. Master Sgt. Pedro Mercado, 47, a father of three was shot several times. Police have not identified the shooter, who turned himself in and is in custody.

Thieves broke in to St. Rita’s Shrine Church in Mott Haven and stole chalices and communion plates, some jewel-encrusted.

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Green jobs, green city: a special report

Posted on 06. Jun, 2010 by Bernard L. Stein.

The economy may be recovering, but you wouldn’t know it in Mott Haven, Melrose and Port Morris, where, officially, one of every five adults is unemployed, a number that overlooks many undocumented immigrants and ignores those who have given up on looking for work or taken part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time employment.

But the neighborhoods of the South Bronx have an edge: experienced community-based organizations devoted to an idea whose time may have come—green-collar jobs building a more energy-efficient, less polluting economy.

Green jobs have become a buzz word, embraced by the Obama administration as a way out of the economic downturn. It has provided $4 million to a union-backed education organization, which will parcel it out to local organizations.

In this special report, the Herald examines how much of that money will be spent, analyzing what it may mean for residents and for the Bronx and taking readers to the workplaces and classrooms that will share the $4 million to teach new skills. We visit:

• The Osborne Association, which helps people who’ve done time in jail or prison to become gainfully employed.

• Project H.I.R.E. at Bronx Community College, where trainees learn construction practices

• And an after-school program run by SoBRO, where young people get an early start at thinking green.

A version of this article appeared in the June 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.
(more…)

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Homeless advocacy group holds rally in Brook Park

Posted on 27. May, 2010 by Joe Hirsch.

The city should be moving people out of homeless shelters and into vacant apartments built during the real estate boom that now stand empty, advocates from the community organization Picture the Homeless said at a rally in Brook Park on May 19.

The Morris Avenue-based group chose the anniversary of Malcolm X’s birthday to hold the rally and a march to a branch of Chase Bank on East 137th Street. The aim was to draw attention to the plight of the city’s homeless population, and what it says is the Bloomberg administration’s indifference to growing numbers of people without a place to live.
(more…)

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Earth Fest reaches out with music and games

Posted on 12. May, 2010 by Nick Loomis.

Legendary emcee Grandmaster Caz has been packing parties in the South Bronx since 1974, but none quite like the one at St. Mary’s Park in Mott Haven for this year’s Earth Day on April 24. .
 

Soundslide by Nick Loomis

By noon on the beautiful spring day, the crowd was already dancing to the Staple Singers’ “I’ll take you there”–courtesy of DJ Jazzy Jay on the wheels of steel.
 
“Aw yeah, that’s what we’re gonna do,” boomed Caz’s amplified voice. “We’re gonna take you to a greener planet!”
 
One of the founding fathers of hip-hop, Caz said he was honored to be the emcee for the third annual GetGreen South Bronx Earth Fest in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.
 
On the first Earth Day in 1970, few would have imagined that the South Bronx would not only celebrate environmentalism, but, in many ways be taking a leading role in the green revolution.

Among the organizations represented at the Earth Fest, were Melrose-based Nos Quedamos, which has led the way for Melrose Commons to become the first neighborhood in New York State to be honored by the U.S. Green Building Council for its environmentally-sensitive business practices.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has just honored another participant, the Hunts Point-based Sustainable South Bronx, which pioneered the creation of the South Bronx Greenway. When it is completed, it will be a recreational trail dotted with new parks extending from the Bronx River to the Port Morris waterfront and a bridge to Randall’s Island.

More than 40 other local organizations and businesses set up tables at the event. To encourage children to visit and learn, each child who came by got a stamp that could be cashed for prizes like reusable water bottles, pens and plants for community gardens.

Four live birds attracted crowds throughout the day to the Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy table. The birds, all found near the city’s waterways, drew flocks off children.

“The idea here is to try to inspire kids to think about nature a little bit,” said Ludger Balan, the conservancy’s executive environmental program director. “There’s nature in our urban environment, and we’re teaching them a way to appreciate it, learn about it, and hopefully inspire them to become some of the future stewards of this environment.”

“We think that children are at the prime age to absorb this information and teach their parents,” said Andrea Schaffer principal of CityMatters LLC and the event’s chief organizer. “But you have to start young so that it becomes ingrained, second nature to recycle and reuse materials instead of consuming and throwing out.”

Jehlani Bowers, 6, of Mott Haven got the message. She attended GetGreen for the second year in a row with her mother, Nedra Bowers. Jehlani bounced from activity to activity with a painted face, accumulating enough stamps for a plant for their community garden.

“It’s actually helping her out in school because they’re going through, with Earth Day, how we recycle and how we save and how we reuse. So she’s making that connection with being here today,” her mother said.

Participants in a SoBRO after-school program climbed on stage to compete in a “Music Gets Me Green” contest, performing a song they wrote accompanied by a music video. “I like music and I found the opportunity,” said Lenny Nivar, 14, who is in the 10th grade at Green Dot New York Charter School. Along with Ricardo Korsah, 16, Nivar, who came to the United States from the Dominican Republic when he was 9, performed a rap song with some verses in English and others in Spanish.

SoBRO provided the prizes, as well—four cardboard trophies in the shape of trees. It took 30 students in its Education for Life program two weeks to make the trees, said Evalina Ruiz, a 22-year old who is working toward her GED at the community organization. “You have to cut, you have to paste, you have to just really be dedicated to it,” she said.

As the Bronx Borough President’s Office and the city’s Office of Recycling Outreach and Education teamed up to hold a recycling drive to collect old cell phones, computers, printers, TVs, used clothing and sneakers, the music continue on stage.

One group in the music competition ended its performance with a variation of a chant as old as hip-hop itself, and almost as old as Earth Day.

“When I say ‘get,’ ya’ll say ‘Green.’”

“Get.”

“Green.”

“Get.”

“Green.”

Alex Green IV contributed reporting to this story.

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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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Politicians’ kin admits to embezzlement

Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by Bernard L. Stein.

The head of a Bronx non-profit has admitted that he embezzled $115,000 intended to help low-income tenants and funneled some of the money to Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, his grandmother, and Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, his aunt.

Carmen E. Arroyo

Arroyo, who was indicted in June for stealing from SBCC Management Corp., a housing agency he headed, spent $20,000 of the embezzled funds to pay for a trip to Puerto Rico for the assemblywoman and councilwoman, to pay the salaries of interns in their legislative offices and their political club, to make contributions to their campaigns and to buy new flooring for the assemblywoman’s office, according to the indictment. (more…)

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