Inner City Press Bronx Reporter
Archive #4 2000: Sept. 25-Dec. 26, 2000
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December 26, 2000
During this holiday week, some slumlord notes, and stray quotes. In reverse order:
Heard on the bus (BX 9, near the Grand Concourse): "I paid for my tattoos with food stamps... The tattoo artist said, 'I've got to feed my family...'".
Heard waiting for the bus (BX 15, 183rd Street and Third Avenue): "My son, Chino, he's out in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas... You know, the federal penitentiary there... He'll be out in five or six years.... He's already got his GED, now he's using the Internet. They got that, out in Kansas...".
Back in the Bronx: Boiler off at 914 Hoe Avenue... Lack of heat and repairs at 625 Manida St., owned and managed by Townsend Management.... Rats have been sighted at 916 Southern Boulevard, which "property owner" (see how polite we are?) Barry Levites and a management company he hired to run it, Prime Realty, are battling over in court...
The corporatist chancellor of education, Harold Levy, is moving to turn over five schools to a private contractor, Edison Schools Inc.. In the Bronx, targeted are Public School 66, also known as the School of Higher Expectations, near Crotona Park, and/or the school (which includes a Community School District office), at 1001 Jennings Street. Who'll be making the pitch? Apparently, Queens' Rev. Floyd Flake, and/or his former chief of staff, Marshall Mitchell. We're sorry for all this "and/or," but the plan is ill-defined, and Edison's December 21 press release did nothing to clarify it. Big picture: this is going beyond corporate "sponsorship" of schools -- in this case, Edison would get to keep any funds it doesn’t spend. It's reminiscent of St. Barnabas Hospital's ill-fated contact to provide health "care" at the Rikers Island prison. Or of the International Monetary Fund's "structural adjustments" and enforced privatization in Latin America. We will be following this one...
Traveling, in a holiday spirit, beyond the Bronx: a recent visit to Williamsburg, Brooklyn found USA Waste's transfer station on Kent Avenue roaring away, at ten p.m., in the shadow of the Domino Sugar factory, whose workers are striking. Great use of the waterfront...
On the Bronx' waterfront, the state Power Authority, which is planning to site four electricity-generating turbines in the South Bronx, says that mentions of environmental racism are "troubling." Meanwhile, ABB, a Swiss engineering and technology firm, is moving ahead with plan to build a $1 billion natural gas plant next to the Oak Point Rail Yard. There a key concept, that will be elaborated in the months (and environmental review processes) to come: "cumulative impact"...
Times-Watch: the "paper of record," on Sunday, Dec. 24, contained 16 references to The Bronx. One was to a restaurant in Bronxville, another was a stray reference to the Bronx in an article about French "hipsters" on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The only substance? David Gonzalez' short piece on remembering the South Bronx, in Panama City a year ago. Also, a short report about a man found shot to death in the trunk of his car in Throgs Neck. Other than that, no substantive news of The Bronx, county of 1.2 million people in the Times' headquarters city. One classic mention: a Society Desk marriage report, stating that "[t]he bridegroom is the son of the late Pauline and Martin Barbash, who lived in the Bronx. His father was a furrier for Corbeau Furs, which was in Manhattan. " So, the news is Times-worthy: his father LIVED in The Bronx, but worked in Manhattan... More next week (meaning, next year...). Happy holidays!
December 18, 2000
The City Council's Land Use Committee last week voted for the demolition of ten community gardens in the South Bronx, to be replaced by middle-income housing built by the New York City Partnership, the Chamber of Commerce-affiliated group that has in the last decade covered much of the South Bronx with low rise homes, selling for as much as $200,000, -- in communities with median household income of less than $20,000 a year. Riverdale's June Eisland explained her vote (to demolish) as being due to the crisis of affordable housing. But the Partnership's developments are unaffordable, to the vast majority of South Bronx residents.
Meanwhile, another corporate-minded affecter of the Bronx, Schools Chancellor (and ex-Citigroup-er) Harold Levy, has vowed to "oust" the principals of Taft and Roosevelt high schools in The Bronx. Intermediate School 82 is supposed to be closed down.
Plans proceed for two new electrical generating plants, in Port Morris; the heavy winds last week blew down a vacant building on 132nd Street and Brown Place, not far from where the turbines are planned.
The City Planning Commission, ostensibly moving to prohibit any more "hot sheet" motels on upper Boston Road, has released a re-zoning proposal that has many local businesses threatening to leave. The borough president showed up (as soon as the television cameras arrived), and vowed to push for a different re-zoning plan. How hot were those sheets, anyway?
A man blew his brains out in front of the 52nd Precinct over the weekend. Sunday's New York Times contained 18 referenced to The Bronx: three about Colin Powell, one about commuters on the Bronx River Parkway. For yet another week, there was no substantive Bronx story in the four pound excretion of the "paper of record," sometimes known as the "Gray Lady." On Dec. 15, the Times ran a nostalgic (and derivative) piece about the Hall of Fame at Bronx Community College. A 1947 graduate (back when the campus was New York University, before it fled) returns, noting that the Hall is now "forgotten... unknown to so many New Yorkers, especially those under 50" -- coinciding with the most active period of racial change in The Bronx, and the Times' self-perceived, self-fulfilling readership (the paper is not for sale in most parts of the South Bronx). We don't like to be critical of anyone named Mimi -- but here, it must be done. The author reviews BCC's cafeteria, gushing that "there are hot meals when classes are in session; choices like Jamaican beef patties and curried goat stew, pizza and tacos, salads and sandwiches testify to the diversity of the student body." Yeah, "salads and sandwiches" -- always a reliable proxy for diversity. And thus The Bronx is recorded, for posterity...
December 11, 2000
On Dec. 4, Loehmann's announced it is laying off 95 of its employees at its distribution center in the Bronx' Zerega Industrial Park. It'll be done in phrases: on Dec. 8, ten employees were dismissed; Dec. 22, ten more will go, with the rest being "let go on Dec. 29." And we ask: where are Bronx elected officials on this? The borough president's BOEDC claims, "we are trying to contact Loehmann's." A little late, isn't it?
Meanwhile, downtown, the NYC Partnership has announced that Kathy Wylde is returning as its CEO, while still retaining her job as the head of Henry Kravis "NYC Investment Fund." That Fund raised money from banks and others with the claim that it would support manufacturing and other jobs in NYC's outer boroughs. It quickly gave that up, in favor of Internet and media businesses. Now, it appears that the Partnership (which was behind the slew of middle-income, low rise houses built in the low-income South Bronx in the 1990s) is virtually merging with the leveraged-buyout king's investment fund. Hey, maybe they're trying to contact Loehmann's, too...
Relatedly, City Limits Weekly of Dec. 11 follows up on the pushing-out of woodworking businesses from the building at 79 Alexander Avenue in Port Morris. Manhattan-based Bradford N. Swett bought the building, and has closed the freight elevator, purportedly to install a fiber-optic T-1 line. Existing businesses in the building are being driven out. Neither BOEDC nor SOBRO is doing much to help them. City Limits quotes SOBRO's senior vice president that, "We want the Bronx to be part of this digital revolution." We do, too -- but as they're saying in San Francisco, you can't live in a Web site... Or make cabinets, either...
How low can you go? Most Sundays, the New York Times has twenty to twenty five referenced to The Bronx. On Dec. 10, the number fell to 16 -- and most are wedding announcements or obituaries. Apparently, despite the layoffs, the turf wars and the like, there was nothing to report in The Bronx, one of the five boroughs of the Times' headquarters city, with 1.2 million people... Then again, you can't really buy the Times in the South Bronx, either...
And so here's some news: Berkshire Bank, the Manhattan-based institution which claims that The Bronx is part of its lending community, filed a response last week to ICP's challenge to its application to acquire upstate Goshen Bank. ICP's Nov. 16 comment quoted from the New York Banking Department's most recent Community Reinvestment Act exam of Berkshire, which found "weakness in the institution's low and moderate income (LMI) area and LMI individual penetration when compared with the percentage of LMI census tracts in the assessment area. The institution is encouraged to improve this lending activities in LMI areas and to LMI individuals."
On December 4, Berkshire, using a White Plains law firm, filed a response. Berkshire's defense is "intense competition" that has "created a borrowers [sic] market." The fact remains that Berkshire's loan-to-deposit ratio is still abysmally low -- under 50%, as of October 31, 2000.
The Community Reinvestment Act requires an insured depository institution to be serving the credit needs of its current community, before it is allowed to expand (in this case, into other communities. Berkshire's Dec. 4 response confirms that Berkshire's current community includes "eight counties: Queens, Kings, Bronx, Richmond, New York, Westchester, Putnam and Rockland." ICP's Protest noted that in 1999, Berkshire had not made a single HMDA-reported loan in The Bronx. Berkshire's response states that in 2000, Berkshire has made ONE loan in The Bronx. As best as ICP can make out, this was a loan in Census Tract 307.00, which is in Riverdale. In 2000, Berkshire has not made a single mortgage loan to an African American or Latino, anywhere in New York City. ICP has reiterated its request the denial of Berkshire's expansion application.
As reported elsewhere on this Web site, ICP is currently engaged in other Community Reinvestment Act campaigns, at least two of which -- Fleet and Chase / Morgan -- relate to The Bronx. And, as a footnote, ICP took part in a mock caroling in front of Citigroup's headquarters on Dec. 8, from 2 to 3:30. To the tune of Silent Night, the carolers sang: "Slee-ee-zy loans, Cut to the bone," and so forth. And so it goes...
[Some archival material cut to save server space - with questions, contact us]
Speaking of banks, in response to protests to the Chase - J.P. Morgan merger proposal, Chase's lawyers at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett have responded, in a November 14 letter to the Federal Reserve, that "Chase and Morgan have discussed the Merger with dozens of community leaders, including Chase Bank's Community Advisory Board, and have sought their input and ideas for the merged institution. These community leaders have raised no major issues regarding the Merger."
Since Chase's own application acknowledges that in 1999 and the first half of 2000, in the New York City CSMA, Chase closed 24 branches, and opened only one, ICP has reviewed the "roster" of Chase's Community Advisory Board. As is relevant to the South Bronx, it includes the past head of the New York Housing Partnership (now working for leveraged buy-out king Henry Kravis), and the current head of the NYHP, Veronica White. Chase is a major funder of the NYHP's middle-income housing projects, many of them in the low-income South Bronx; it's not surprising that the NYHP would not "raise major issues" about Chase, the Merger, or anything else. There's also the director of MBD Community Housing Corporation, which is the co-sponsor of most NYHP development in the Crotona Park East section of the Bronx. MBD's office is in an old bank branch that Chase's predecessor Chemical Bank closed down, and then donated to MBD. Despite Chase's massive branch closures, "no major issues were raised." Chase hears what it wants, from the Bronx, apparently...
ICP has e-polled certain other, more grassroots members of Chase's "Community" Advisory Board, and has learned that this Board, which meets four times a year, has met only once since the merger was announced. Chase's and Morgan head CRA officers made a little dog n' pony show, admitting that details about the merger were few, since it had only recently been announced. Based on this meeting, Chase tells the Federal Reserve that "these community leaders raised no major issues about the Merger." And the Fed apparently takes this at face value. The issue was raised (by a Bronx resident...) to Federal Reserve governor Edward Gramlich on November 17; he just nodded, and declined to even jot it down on the pad he held in front of him. Review of major mergers has apparently been delegated to the "advisors" / grantees that the (big) banks themselves select. And so it goes...
Some say, well, if the big banks are pulling back from the Bronx (to investment bank, in Chase's case; to predatory lending, through Associates First Capital, in Citigroup's case), there must be small banks stepping in to fill the void. Well, ICP is been reviewing a small bank, Berkshire Bank, which includes the Bronx in its Community Reinvestment Act assessment area. The most recent CRA exam of Berkshire says that Berkshire offers mortgage loans in Co-op City in The Bronx. But in 1999, Berkshire did not originate a single mortgage loan in The Bronx. Even in Brooklyn, Berkshire did not make a single loan to a Latino or African American applicant. The CRA exam report noted that during the time frame of the exam, "the bank extended no loans to low or moderate income [LMI] individuals," and stated that "[t]his result indicates a weakness in the institution's LMI area and LMI individual penetration when compared with the percentage of LMI census tracts in the assessment area. The institution is encouraged to improve this lending activities in LMI areas and to LMI individuals." Well, it hasn't happened. So ICP has opposed Berkshire's application to acquire Goshen Savings Bank...
Meanwhile, the "New Economy" marches on, even into The Bronx. At 79 Alexander Avenue, on the corner of Bruckner Boulevard in Port Morris, Bradford N. Swett Management has bought an industrial building, and is re-wiring it with T-1 Internet lines. The company also appears to be trying to drive existing tenants out, including several woodworking shops. There's a lot of talk about keeping small manufacturing in New York City, but here, the city's Economic Development Corporation is driving them out, under the banner "Wired to the World." There are other empty buildings that could have been rehabilitated and re-wired. And one wonders: where is SOBRO, which for years has been taking journalists to the small antique district on Bruckner Boulevard, as one of the few antique restoration shops in the area is now being driven out? Many large non-profits jump from fad to fad, and there's little follow-up on the fortunes of the previous poster-children of that decades' old siren song, "The Bronx Is Back." You see, The Bronx was never gone: people have always lived here. But there's more money and political futures to be made with the narrative of desolation and resurrection, than from the real story, of bodegas and auto repair shops. And the machine, or well-meaning but selective visitors like Jonathan Kozol, largely control the narrative. And so it goes...
The saddest part is when non-profit "executives" from The Bronx misrepresent the borough and its residents. In ICP's view, this is exactly what happened when, at a November 10 public meeting on Citigroup's proposal to acquire the much-sued high interest rate lender Associates First Capital, the executive director of the Hunts Point Economic Development Corp., Josephine Infante, spoke not only in favor of Citigroup, but added, "Maybe we can get an Associates [branch] in the Bronx." Ms. Infante has just heard dozens of witnesses, from legal services offices and grassroots community groups in New York and beyond, detail how Associates takes advantage of low-income borrowers, often resulting in the loss of their homes through foreclosure. Questioned after her testimony, Ms. Infante demonstrated a lack of knowledge of The Associates, or controversial subprime lending in general. "If they're that bad, competition will just drive them away," she said. If that were true, the U.S. Justice Department wouldn't be suing Associates for discrimination against Latinos (which it is); Associates wouldn't have hundreds of consumer lawsuits pending against it (which it does). While the need for accountability is great, at all levels, ICP chooses to blame Citigroup for this: the debasement of the local development groups it gives grants to, by asking them to come testify in support of deals to buy companies which take advantage of other low-income people. This issue will be revisited...
Another controller of the (Bronx) narrative, at least for the "outside world," is the New York Times. On November 12, the Times' "City Section" ran a series of Bronx restaurant reviews. Amazingly, five of the six selections were Italian restaurants; the sixth was a Jamaican restaurant by Yankee Stadium. Given the predominance of Latin restaurants in The Bronx, and the excellence of many of them, the Times' selections ("Worth A Detour In The Bronx") are more reflective of a cultural, rather than gastronomic, framework. Try The Mexican Palace, 180th and Third Avenue, previously reviewed on this web site. Or the two Latin restaurants on Prospect Avenue and 163rd Street. These are just examples. And note that a huge pool hall / restaurant has just opened up in the previously vacant supermarket on the corner of 178th Street and Third Avenue. We wish them luck. Wired to the world! [Nov. 17, 2000 note: for more on this, see the forthcoming edition of City Limits magazine].
November 6, 2000
There is a nuanced story here in The Bronx (beyond ICP's just-filed protest to the Chase - Morgan merger application), on one of ICP's main focus issues. The Bethex credit union has reached an agreement with Rite Check Cashing of New York, and will pay Rite Check Cashing a fee for every check it cashes for a credit union member. Bethex' manager said, "To build a branch, no matter how small, costs a lot of money, but there are check cashers on every corner." (Credit Union Journal, October 30, 2000). But there are liquor stores on every corner, too. Why not open a credit union branch in there, too? We like innovation, but this seems a step too far to us, a deviation from credit unions', particularly self-described "community development" credit unions', mission... Note that many banks in New York have gotten Community Reinvestment Act credit for their support of Bethex. What's next -- CRA credit for banks for working with check cashers? Actually, that's already happened, with Union Bank in California...
At least until the November 7 election, the corruption scandals swirling about Bronx State Senator Guy Velella are in the news. Beyond having taken a $150,000 part time job with an insurance company, Group Council Mutual Insurance, while voting for legislation that favors the company, the Daily News of November 1 reported that the Manhattan District Attorney "has been presenting evidence to a grand jury since spring against Velella... over allegations that he took bribes to get millions of dollar in bridge-painting jobs for a Bronx contractor [Keystone Construction] plagued by worker deaths and serious injuries." Ouch. Here are Velella's comments in Pedro Espada Jr.'s recording of his conversation with Velella, in the spring of 1998:
Velella: I'm the last of the... inaudible Johnson's had complaints... inaudible
...the school board stuff, but he never got on my case.... inaudible With Johnson you've
got to go through Ramirez.
Espada: Ramirez has juice?
Velella: He doesn't want trouble from you inaudible . With me, I'm friends with auto
dealer and Democratic Party big Dick Gidron and even Freddy Ferrer . I'm a county leader.
It all helps with Johnson.
Espada: Well, Ramirez wants me to announce my retirement and inaudible Johnson will then
go away. But the feds inaudible .
Velella: inaudible The Southern District is Senator D'Amato. Mary Jo inaudible . Manhattan
district attorney Robert Morgenthau is another story. He made my life hell here....
inaudible My office. They wanted this and that.... inaudible My phone records and my
father's.
Espada: The feds have been reviewing us.... inaudible It's been two years.
Velella: It never goes away.... inaudible Out of Albany district they wanted to indict me.
Espada: Yeah. I heard about that.
Velella: Some woman they said I did legislation for.... inaudible But the most they did
after... inaudible ...years was give me a letter....(Emphasis added).
This, of course, was the transcript that the Bronx Borough President called "just nutty" (see Reports below). Velella's admission of D.A. Morgenthau's investigation would seem to confirm the essence of the Daily News' November 1 story, if not the status of the grand jury proceedings. Morgenthau, after the News' November 1 article, released a statement, stating: "People should remember that we receive many allegations which may require investigation. In the end, some allegations turn out to be true, while others do not." Morgenthau also denied a report in the Post of November 2, that he'd subpoenaed records of the state Senate bipartisan ethics committee relating to the insurance contract. Velella said, "I stand on my statement. I'm a big boy, and I'll take my hits."
And he IS a "big boy." On November 2, Mayor Giuliani traveled to Morris Park in The Bronx, to "support [his] friend" Guy. Governor Pataki said, "Here we are six days before an election, and they're talking up charges, and I just think to do that this close to an election is extremely unfair to Senator Velella and unfair to the people he has represented extremely well, and should not have happened." Velella has been running television ads directed at Cablevision viewers in The Bronx. Velella has raised $1.45 million for the campaign, according to state Board of Election campaign finance reports -- $220,000 of it from the insurance industry. Velella has said he will spend "as much as it takes" to keep his seat. Not pretty.
Nor this: Israel Martinez, a Bronx assemblyman from 1988 to 1990 (and before that, according to the Daily News, a staffer to our current Borough President) pled guilty to threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend Priscilla Delgado in 1999. On November 2, Martinez was sentenced... to "counseling."
It's time for an update on education, particularly corporatizing Trojan Horse Chancellor of the NYC Board of Education Harold Levy. Members of Queens School Board 29 are outraged that Levy's tried to intervene in their search committee for a new district superintendent. Levy has already vetoed the committee's choice, JHS 226 principal Rhia Warren. Levy wants his hand-picked candidate, Michael Johnson, to win. This is nothing new: school board members in Manhattan's District 1 state that Levy dangled an offer of forgiving the district's nearly $2 million in debt if they'd name his candidate as superintendent. There are the "structural adjustment" techniques that Levy's previous (and probably future) employer Citigroup uses to such profit in the Global South...
Meanwhile, quirky New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser, in an October 30 piece in the post, recounts how the idealistic do-gooders that Levy's has urged to come and teach are being treated: not well. A woman "with a master's degree in business administration and a Wall Street career on her resume," identified only as Carolyn, switched last school year to teaching. At the beginning of this school year, she was fired, or "excessed." Peyser covered this, and Levy (ever attuned to the media) quickly tracked Carolyn down, to get this one poster-woman rehired. But now she'd just a substitute teacher, "waiting for somebody to be absent." After Peyser's October 30 column, what will Levy do? Intervene again in the case of this one poster-woman, while leaving the larger problem unresolved?
For those readers who question our more fundamental critique of Levy and his "invite the corporations into the schools" approach, we have a book suggestion: No Logo, by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein (Picador USA, 1999). Chapter Four's entitled "The Branding of Learning: Ads in Schools," critiques the Levy-like "reasoning, which baldly equates corporate access to the schools with access to modern technology, and by extension the future itself, [a]s at the core of how the brands have managed, over the course of only one decade, to all but eliminate the barrier between ads and education... In this context, corporate partnerships and sponsorship arrangements have seemed to many public schools, particularly those in poorer areas, to be the only possible way out of the high-tech bind. If the price of staying modern is opening the schools to [corporations and] ads, the thinking goes, then parents and teachers will have to grin and bear it."
The difference in New York is that the corporations have managed to get their own man in as head of the schools, to request, on their behalf, access. That Mr. Levy's candidacy was portrayed as somehow big-D Democratic, even progressive, is all the more troubling. Klein in No Logo also notes that "credit card companies... solicit [college] students from the moment they receive their orientation-week information kit to the instant after they receive their degree; at some schools, diplomas come with an envelope stuffed with coupons [and] credit offers." As ICP has noted elsewhere on this site, Columbia University puts the logo of Levy's former (and future) employer, Citigroup, on the back of all student identification cards. Some students have begun to "redact" it, with black magic marker. "If only we'd started with them younger," the thinking seems to be. More on Levy (and Citigroup) in coming weeks. The beat goes on...
October 30, 2000
This week: Velella chaos, school overcrowding, rats and... a (nuanced) positive view.
Things got worse for long-time incumbent Bronx State Senator Velella last week. It's not just that he stepped down from chairing the State Senate Insurance Committee to take a $66,000 a year part-time job with an insurance company, Group Council Mutual. It turns out that he voted for a special bill that prohibited the state Insurance Department from seizing Group Council Mutual, despite it being insolvent. Velella's responded that the bill he voted for applied to ALL medical malpractice insurers -- but benefited only Group Council. With whom, prior to his vote, Velella was discussing his new job.
The Bronx Democratic County Committee, after years of supporting the Republican Velella (including, in the September primary, by funding an opponent to the more credible Democratic challenger, Lorraine Coyle Koppell, has now announced its (better-late-than-never) support for Koppell. "I think Lorraine is going to win this," the borough president said on October 24. What was that about rats off a sinking ship?
Speaking of rats (literally), their presence in the Bronx is increasing. Infestations has been reported at 1881 Grand Concourse, 333 E. 176th Street, and numerous other locations. The owner of 333 E. 176th Street, Frank Cioli, tries to blame the residents: "We stay on top of the maintenance, but it's very difficult in terms of what happens in the neighborhood. There's a lot of debris in the area, people throw trash everywhere - we try to maintain things as best we can." Hey -- no one said you had to own real estate here. If you can't comply with the law, you can always... get a job at Group Council Mutual Insurance Company. Or maybe not.
At a recent hearing, the overcrowding of Public School / Middle School 95 in Community School District 10 was highlights. PS/MS 95 principal Doris Budow said that the school now has an enrollment of 1,827 students, despite an official "capacity" of only 900. A teacher at PS/MS 95 said she's "taught classes of 37 in second grade... I've taught in a bathroom and a vestibule. Our school is bursting." She said that it's difficult for students to enter the computer age when the school barely has enough room for desks. We thank the Norwood News for reporting this testimony, and for crusading on this important issue more generally.
Now, the above-referenced "nuanced positive view." Recently, a bicycle tour of the Bronx was held, and good time was had by all. The cyclists had white flags unfurled from the back of their bikes; they passed through the YMCA at the end of Castle Hill Avenue, Crotona Park, Tremont Avenue, and other beautiful and/or historic parts of The Bronx. The organizers are to be congratulated. One sour note, however: cyclists were given little purple vests to wear, with a slew of corporate sponsors on the back. Among the sponsors was... Citigroup, a bank which has closed numerous of its branches in The Bronx, and now seeks to buy a predatory high-interest rate lender, Associates First Capital Corporation. Congress members from Rep. John LaFalce (D-NY), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) to Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) have spoken out against Citigroup's deal. What standards, for corporate sponsorships, do the organizers of such events as the Tour de Bronx have? We think that sponsors of events like this should ask more questions, before slapping corporate logos up on people just out for a nice bike ride around our beautiful borough...
October 16, 2000
From the experiential to the activist, to the ongoing political corruption so endemic in The Bronx:
Experiential (in a sort of Cindy-Adams-in-the-ghetto style): Sunday on Third Avenue, in front of the abandoned buildings across from St. Barnabas Hospital. The sidewalk is covered with garbage, which includes a hypodermic needles, and rubber medical gloves. Someone's not disposing of medical waste properly...
Midweek, in the bowels of the subway system: an undercover police woman stops a mother and her eight-year old daughter, as they pass through the turnstile. Demands to see both Metrocards used; accuses the mother of trying to use a student Metrocard. Refuses to show police badge, much less identification number. While downtown, much is said of the importance of police-community relations...
"Only in The Bronx, kids, only in The Bronx" (the Post's Cindy Adams has, we kid you not, trademarked her sign-off phrase, paraphrased here for the hell of it. So sue us already...).
More seriously: a march against police brutality will take place on Sunday, October 22, starting from 14th Street and Broadway in Manhattan at 1 p.m.. Sadly, there are too many Bronx connections here: participants will include Iris Baez , Margarita Rosario and Juanita Young, all of whose sons were killed by police officers. And (again): downtown they continue to speak of the importance of police - community relations...
The irregularities with the September 12 primaries continue to mount. In the primaries for the Democratic and "Independence Party" lines to oppose Republican State Senator Guy Velella, Lorraine Coyle Koppell surprisingly lost the (obscure) Independence Party line, 58 to 15. The line ("C" on the ballots) may be obscure, but at least it's ON the ballot (which, by order of the NYC Elections Commission, the Green Party and Ralph Nader are not). The winner of the Independence Party primary, Michael Daly, is the treasurer of something called "Young Americans for Good Government," to which, according to Bronx.com, the Bronx County Republican Committee, controlled by Velella, donated at least $12,000. Congratulations to Bronx.com for its reporting; the Bronx Times' failure to sufficiently disclose its relationship with Michael Benedetto (who FOUNDED the Bronx Times Reporter) is less worthy of praise. And the beat goes on...
* * *
October 9, 2000
We'd prefer to move beyond the sleaze factor that was at work in the recent Democratic primaries in The Bronx. But the follow-up stories come streaming in, raising numerous unanswered questions. County boss Roberto Ramirez repeatedly denied that he endorsed Larry Seabrook over Eliot Engel as any sort of deal with Rev. Al Sharpton. But now Sharpton's been quoted in the Village Voice (9/26/00), confirming that precisely this deal was made. And, after incumbent State Sen. David Rosado, endorsed by the boss and borough president, lost to the under-indictment Pedro Espada, the borough president now (too late, we'd say) calls Rosado a "dunderhead." Id. If so, why was he so often endorsed by the party machine?
While this revisionist carnival proceeds, the state is preparing to spend $420 million to fix up the stub of highway that is the Sheridan Expressway. It runs only from below the Bronx Zoo to the Bruckner; it is a monument to powerbroker Robert Moses first lost (sadly, after he'd crammed the Cross Bronx Expressway through, displacing more than 50,000 Bronxites). Community residents have been calling for years to turn this underused Sheridan Expressway into parkland. But the powers that be favor this boondoggle repair, which will cost more than $5,000 an inch. Ah, public works -- for private gain...
The Sunday New York Times (10/8/00) ran a story about 35 newly-built houses in Melrose, reporting that they each cost $226,000. The median family income in the area is less than $20,000 a year. And yet the Times makes no mention of affordability, and accepts at face value that the project follows in the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt... Are we saying that NO middle income homes should be built? No. What we're saying is that when the question of affordability isn't even asked, for subsidized housing, the average Bronx resident is ill-served...
And we must follow up on our recent story on WebVan, the online grocer, and its (leaked) plan to open a warehouse in Hunts Point. As reported two weeks ago, local officials jumped the gun with the announcement, and took credit for jobs that may or may not be created, in the future. We now understand better WHY they jumped the gun. WebVan's stock has fallen 88%, from $34 a share a year ago, to $2 today. WebVan is indefinitely delaying its plan to open another warehouse, in Bergen County, New Jersey; it's not at all clear when, or even if, the Hunts Point warehouse will open. Hence the amateurish "leak" of the (perhaps moot) WebVan plan: "better take credit now, before the plan officially dies." Ouch!
Last week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Bronx resident Irma Morales, 51, was awarded $3 million in damages against the City. Police Officer Anthony Leone arrested her on 183rd Street and Prospect Avenue in the Bronx two years ago, without identifying himself as a cop. The jury was shown photograph's of Ms. Morales bruises, to her arms, legs and torso. The verdict? $2.75 million for excessive force, $250,000 for wrongful arrest. And the beat goes on...
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October 2, 2000
New NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has declared victory over crime in The Bronx. On September 26, Kerik told reporters that the "shake up" he instituted in The Bronx three weeks ago (most notably, reassigning head of Bronx Patrol, Joanne Jaffe) is responsible for a ten percent drop in (reported) felony crimes since. While we always like a "the buck stops here" approach, we question the wisdom of a Police Commissioner taking credit for week to week declines in crime statistics. If the numbers spike up, with Mr. Kerik take responsibility? Apparently yes...
Similarly, numerous Bronx elected official like to take credit for the expansion in the number of housing units in The Bronx in the past decade. Though our answer to ex-Mayor Koch's question "How'm I doin'?" was never without nuance, it must be noted that most of the funding for most of the housing rehabilitations in the Bronx in the past decade was allocated all the way back under Koch. There has been a significant slow-down in housing production in the Bronx since then. Most recently, elected officials hyped up a meeting last week about plans to spruce up the 149th Street and Third Avenue shopping district. One problem: very few merchants attended the presentation, at which the Borough President said that the store owners themselves are responsible for fixing up the area. Fine. But then why SHOULD they attend this type of government presentation, only to see politicians later claiming credit for having "encouraged" the merchants own investments?
Ramon Velez, founder and long-time throne-man -- oh, sorry, chairman -- of the Hunts Point Multi-Service Center, has been deposed. El Diario/La Prensa broke the story, with a quote from the borough president approving of the removal. The Post followed up, with a Sept. 28 story quoting "sources" that at a Sept. 21 board meeting of Multi-Service (as local residents call it), Velez was voted out, and put on permanent sick leave, with Alzheimer's disease. The Daily News (which you'd expect to get these stories first) fired back with two separate articles on Sept. 29: a Bronx page piece, and a Juan Gonzalez column. Gonzalez's piece made clear the split within the Velez family: Ramon Jr. supported the vote; Ramon Sr.'s wife Caroline, and daughter Marisa, opposed it. Rep. Jose Serrano opposed it as well: "That's no way to treat a man who was responsible for so many of us being where we are today." Gonzalez follows the quote with the names of five Bronx politicians, including the recently deposed State Senator David Rosado, and the disgraced ex-Councilman Rafael Castaniera Colon. The News' Bronx piece, by Jose Martinez, caught some other details: Ramon Sr.-loyalist Federico Perez was ousted, and Marisa was demoted. Ramon Jr., it seems, is in line for the directorship...
A few vignettes from the Velez empire in the 90s: the city's housing agency, HPD, had a big contract with Ramon Jr.'s operation, South Bronx Community Management, to run apartment buildings that had been gut-rehabilitated in Mott Haven. The Section 8 certificates, which would have allowed Velez Jr. to collect the difference between one-third of each tenant's income and what he set as "fair market rent," hadn't come through yet. So Velez Jr. tried to convince local people, many of these recently "relocated" (that is, evicted by HPD) to pay the full "fair market rent" -- $900 a month, when no other apartment in the area was renting for more than $600.
The Velez clan also ran HPD's relocation shelter on Fox Street, getting paid nearly $100 a day to put up families in studio apartments with little more than a kitchenette. When a "grassroots" march was called, along 138th Street, clients of the Velez empire, including its methadone clinics, were told to participate, or find themselves cut off of benefits, including methadone. And all the while Ramon Sr.'s for-profit entity, Ravel Associates, got sole source contracts to "supply" the Velez non-profit ventures...
What changes Velez Sr.'s removal will bring, in the Multi-Service empire, remain to be seen...
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