Is a large, suburban-style supermarket in Mott Haven’s future? The city Economic Development Corp. has just issued a call for developers to build at the Hub–on two lots between East 149th Street, Brook Avenue, Westchester Avenue, and Bergen Avenue–and it’s offering incentives for building a supermarket on one of them. Under the city’s FRESH program, enacted to bring more and better food options to under-served neighborhoods, the 58,000 square foot lot is eligible for zoning breaks and financial incentives if it’s developed as a supermarket.

A 26-year-old man was shot dead in the elevator of a building on 149th Street.

Police arrested an aide to Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, Wilfredo Nazario, and charged him with impersonating an officer and stealing $4,000 by flashing a badge and a gun to get into a Bronx apartment. The Assemblywoman defended Nazario, saying it was all a mistake.

The Bronx Community Pride Center at 448 East 149th Street is looking for volunteers to help it serve the area’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents. People who know bookkeeping and accounting are especially needed.

Third Avenue and 149th street would be the heart of many cities’ downtown. Shoppers crowd its sidewalks.

But many storeowners are worried that the Hub—as the neighborhood is known because its four streets intersect to resemble the hub of a wheel—will not remain the retail heart of the South Bronx. They’re afraid a new mall at the Bronx Terminal Market will lure customers away.

“The business community along Third Avenue feels they’re going to lose a significant amount of business,” said Mario Bodden of the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation. “It’s going to be very hard for them to compete.”

Their competition is the Gateway Center, 1.1 million square feet of retail space that opened in September at the Bronx Terminal Market. The mall features a number of brand name retailers and big-box stores like Target, Home Depot, Best Buy and BJ’s Wholesale Club.

“The smaller businesses, they don’t even realize it’s coming,” said Vincent Valentino, executive director of the Third Avenue Business Improvement District (BID), which promotes shopping in the Hub on behalf of storeowners.

“The bigger businesses know it’s going to be quite a change.”

On a Friday afternoon in September, much of Gateway’s six-story parking structure remained vacant. Rosa Pena emerged from Bed Bath & Beyond carrying several shopping bags. She’d taken the subway here, her third trip to the mall since its first stores opened in the spring.

“It’s the best thing they could do for the Bronx,” Pena said. “This is very convenient for me. Everything is kind of here.”

Pena, who lives on E. 198th Street, said she still goes to her local stores for small items, but she likes the option of having the mall nearby. If she needs paper towels, it just makes more sense to go to the new BJ’s and buy them in bulk, she said.

While several of the stores at the Gateway have been operating for months, Valentino believes it’s still too early to tell what the full impact of the new mall will be. But he predicts that many business owners, already reeling from the effects of the recession, might not survive.

A few local shops have already closed their doors this year, and several are asking their landlords to lower their rent.

“You can’t handle both of them at the same time,” Valentino said. “You can handle the recession, but not with a major shopping center opening up.”

Valentino, a retired NYPD officer, recalled working in the neighborhood during the early 1970s when many of the shops along Third Avenue stood vacant. He sees a thriving commercial street as a safeguard against the return of bad times for the entire neighborhood. The absence of a business and retail community makes the neighborhood more vulnerable to crime and drugs, he said.

In an attempt to keep residents shopping locally, the BID is petitioning Community Board 1’s Land Use Committee, asking for its support for a plan to build a parking lot on vacant land between Westchester, Brook and Bergen Avenues. Parking would be free.

Many business owners here think free parking is the key to competing with the Gateway Center, where parking costs $2.40 an hour. They also intend to launch a marketing campaign that emphasizes their low prices and the personalized experience of shopping with community stores.

“We’re proactively trying to go after this,” said Mario DeGiorgio, who runs Young Land Kiddie Shop, a children’s clothing store on Third Avenue. While he’s worried about the impact the Gateway will have, he’s hopeful his customers will remain loyal.

“Businesses like mine have been here for 50 years or better,” he said. “We don’t just have customers—they know us on a first name basis, and we know them.”

But supporters of the Gateway see the shopping center as a means to rejuvenate the borough. Most of the buildings of the Bronx Terminal Market were in a state of disrepair before the Related Companies took over to develop the shopping center.

The rebuilt site will “contribute to the resurgence of the Bronx and the revitalization of the immediate neighborhood,” Gateway’s website boasts.

The Gateway Fast Track Unit, in charge of job referrals, has held a number of job fairs for the new stores. Omarro Benjamin, Business Development Officer at the Bronx Terminal Market, insists that most of those jobs went to local residents.

BJ’s Wholesale Club filled 250 new jobs, 150 of which went to Bronx residents, according to Benjamin. Numbers were similar for Target and Best Buy.

“Residents are eager in getting opportunities for employment,” Benjamin said, adding that the turnout for job fairs was overwhelming.

“That’s great,” Valentino countered. “But what about the people that are losing their jobs here when the stores close?”

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

Rosemary Ortiz was her own customer, the only customer on a recent morning at Genesis, the beauty salon she opened 12 years ago on East 138 Street in Mott Haven. With no other patrons to take care of, one of Ortiz’s employees was giving her boss a pedicure.

“I have lost 50 percent of my clients. It’s hard to pay the rent on time,” Ortiz said.

Alberto Martinez, owner of the nearby restaurant Rinconcito Mexicano, understands Ortiz’s predicament. He opened his eatery on the same block as Genesis, between Alexander and Willis avenues, six years ago.

His customers, too, are spending less. “Now, I have more employees than costumers,” he said.

The recession is hurting business everywhere, but small businesses in Mott Haven have been especially hard hit. All along East 138 Street from the Grand Concourse to the Bruckner Expressway they are struggling to stay open.

In the 20 years she has owned Camaguey restaurant between Brook and St. Anns avenues, Janet Greenberg has never seen an economic crisis like the current one. Everything she needs to run her restaurant costs more, she says, and she can’t keep up.

“My electricity bill is too high,” said Greenberg. “I’m paying $2,300 per month.”

Herminda Acevedo, owner of Cuchifrito, a restaurant between Willis and Brook avenues, said she is getting tired of struggling without seeing any improvement in sales.

“The taxes are too high. I can’t reduce the prices any more because I need to buy merchandise,” she said. So she’s ready to give up.

“The place is already on the market,” she said sadly of the restaurant she has run for more than four years.

Others restaurant owners are adapting to the economic downturn by making small changes in their menus.

Rafael Rozon, owner of Kanela Restaurant Bar on Third Avenue, modified the beer specials he used to offer every night. Now his specials include domestic beers instead of more expensive international brands.

“Food sales have gone down approximately 30 percent,” he said.

However Rozon is determined to survive. “I’m doing some marketing, handing out promotional fliers among the people in the area,” he said.

Jamila Diaz, the program coordinator at the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, a non-profit organization also known as SoBro, worries that residents around East 138th Street are going elsewhere to pick up their necessities. Her organization helps owners create plans to strengthen business and she is in the process of approaching local business owners to start a “buy local campaign.”

“They feel that on 149th Street there are more stores, more variety, when they actually have the potential of having it all at 138th Street,” said Diaz.

SoBro is planning a Team up/Clean Up next spring to make the area more appealing.

Not every merchant in the area is convinced a marketing campaign will bring in new customers.

“That doesn’t work for small businesses,” said Felix Guzman of Guzman Grocery, located between Willis and Brook avenues. “We would all have to agree on the subject, and here no one ever agrees, that’s the problem.”

Customers are pessimistic too. Jose Santana, who has lived on East 138th Street for more than 50 years, believes the economic situation is so bad that nothing will help.

“La piña está agria,” he said, which literally translates to “the pineapple is sour,” meaning things are not looking good.

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

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.”

It’s Tia Singleton’s first day at the South Bronx Food Cooperative and she’s been breaking down boxes and learning how to use the cash register.

Singleton will spend three hours working at the co-op’s recently-opened store on Third Avenue. Then she’ll become a shopper, filling her grocery basket with meat, produce and household products priced from anywhere from five to 20 percent lower than in a conventional market.

The South Bronx Food Cooperative’s mission is to make nutritious food affordable by cutting out labor costs. Instead of employees, the co-op’s members, who are also its main customers, run the store. They choose the food that’s for sale, stock the shelves, man the cash register and keep the place clean, among other things.

At first glance the co-op looks like an oversized bodega, with a hand-painted mural behind the register substituted for the usual cigarettes. Though the set-up is that of a small grocery store, instead of household-name goods, the shelves are stocked with brands like “Back to Nature” or “Made in Nature,” boasting “all natural” and “organic” labels.

The store carries local, conventional and organic produce, natural household products and grass-fed and free-range meat, as well as soy-based meat alternatives.

Being part of the co-op “feels productive, like I’m doing something for the community,” said Singleton, who lives in Coop City but joined the food co-op to get the kind of groceries she would normally have to pay more for and travel further to get.

In November 2007 the co-op opened at the Nos Quedamos community center on Melrose Avenue, but was only open once a week on Saturdays. Now, in its new location, it has an actual storefront and regular hours to make it accessible to more people.

Zena Nelson, a Bronx resident and one of the main co-op’s main founders, started it for personal reasons. People in her family suffer from high blood pressure, and she knew people who died as a result of obesity.

Health organizations cite the scarcity of fresh, nutritious food in the South Bronx as one of the causes of the obesity and diabetes epidemics that its residents face. Mott Haven and Hunts Point have the highest proportion of diabetes in the New York City—double the citywide average. Twenty-five percent of adults suffer from obesity, according to the latest community health survey by the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

“I understand the health issues that are involved with it,” said Nelson, “but in addition to that, as an MBA student, I understood why people couldn’t afford good food here—the prices, the markups.”

The co-op is housed in what used to be a pharmacy. For the past two months members have worked to get the new store ready to open. The old counter had to be torn out, new floors laid and renovations to the stock room area. Additionally, the walk-in refrigerator needed to be assembled and installed. There’s still more work to come, including the addition of a juice bar in the coming months.

“It’s nice to have a good place to get food in neighborhood,” said Hollie Webb, 23, who works at a bank in Manhattan and lives four blocks away. She used to drive to Westchester to go shopping, or shop at more expensive stores in the Manhattan, she said.

Now she knows she’s saving money because she uses a financial website to track her spending and can see the difference when she shops at the co-op compared to stores like Whole Foods, which also specializes in organic food.

Webb believes that one of the hardest things is getting people unfamiliar with what a co-op is to understand how it works.

Part of the reason the co-op can offer lower prices is that its members are the workers, and the more members they get, the lower prices will be, said Erin Axelrod, 21, an intern. She added that since the co-op is run by its members, they have a say in everything. If there’s something they want the store to carry, the co-op will try to get it. She thinks that’s one of the best things about a cooperative business.

Members pay a one-time fee and are required to volunteer three hours each month. There are many different ways people can put in their time in besides just working in the store. “One female doctor had a ball with a nail gun,” when a crew of cooperators installed the new floor, laughed Isaac Purdue, a co-op member who lives in Manhattan.

While volunteering is work, it’s not exactly like a regular job. In slow times members chat and joke together, and people do their grocery shopping at the end of their shifts. Webb said met a lot of great people there she was glad.

Linda Carela, who lives nearby says she used to feel that she “slept in the Bronx, but didn’t live there.”

Now, she says, she feels like part of the community. She even met people who live in her apartment building but whom she didn’t know before joining the co-op, she said.

Because it’s new, the co-op is still figuring things out. One woman who works nearby came into the store to buy juice, but left because the amateur staff couldn’t locate its price. And the co-op hasn’t yet done much community outreach. “Everything’s not going to be perfect-looking because we’re not corporate,” said Nelson.

While they strongly encourage people to join, the co-op isn’t just for members. Each price tag lists two prices, and the less is expensive one is for members. One breakfast cereal is labeled $3.99 for members and $4.99 for nonmembers, and a deluxe mac and cheese dinner is $4.09 and $4.49, for example.

Mott Haven resident Brenda Gomez, 37, shops at the co-op but hasn’t joined because she thinks it too expensive. She’s a single mom, but doesn’t qualify for public assistance, which lowers the membership fee. Nevertheless, she says she pays less for the organic milk she buys at the co-op than other places charge, and it’s the only place she’s found organic products in her neighborhood.

Now that the shakedown period is ending, Nelson hopes both membership and the co-op’s services will expand. In addition to the juice bar, plans call for cooking and nutrition classes. Yoga classes taught by co-op members are scheduled to start in the next month. They will be offered at a discount to members.

“It’s a popular myth is that people in this community don’t want this stuff, and we’re proving that wrong,” said Purdue.