Inner City Press' Bronx Reporter: 1.3 Million People, Redlining, EJ, Cultural Innovation,Invisible Money, Police Brutality, Housing Scandals

ICP has published a (double) book about a variety of Bronx-relevant topics -- a review in Commonweal magazine of Dec. 5, 2003, opines that "Predatory Bender... is as vivid an account of life in the Bronx as you are likely to read" -- click here for sample chapters, here for an interactive map, here for fast ordering and delivery, and here for other ordering information. See also, "City Lit: Roman a Klepto [Review of ‘Predatory Bender’]," by Matt Pacenza, City Limits, Sept.-Oct. 2004. CBS MarketWatch of April 23, 2004, says the the novel has "some very funny moments," and that the non-fiction mixes "global statistics and first-person accounts." The Washington Post of March 15, 2004, calls Predatory Bender: America in the Aughts "the first novel about predatory lending;" the London Times of April 15, 2004, "A Novel Approach," said it "has a cast of colorful characters." The Pittsburgh City Paper of Dec. 11, 2003, wrote that it "may, in fact, be the first great American lending malfeasance novel" including "low-level loan sharks, class-action lawyers, corporate bigwigs, hired muscle, corrupt politicians, Iraq War veterans, Wall Street analysts, reporters and one watchdog with a Web site." And all in The Bronx! Click here for that review; for more information, contact us.

The New York State Department of Labor recently reported that the unemployment rate in the Bronx was at 13.9 percent, making Bronx the county with the state's highest unemployment rate.

In the run up to soccer's World Cup in South Africa, German (and former New York Cosmos) star Franz Beckenbauer told AFP, "If you are alone in Soweto at night, then you could be in trouble, but then you would not walk into the South Bronx of New York alone at night." He was defending FIFA's decision to award the 2010 World Cup to South Africa after Bayern Munich boss Uli Hoeness said, "I was never a fan of the World Cup being held in South Africa, or anywhere on the African continent, as long as safety aspects are not clarified 100 percent," the Bayern boss had said. So in purporting to be progressive, Beckenbauer trashed the South Bronx. How... Cosmopolitan.

The owner of the American Diner on E. 204th Street paid $2,000 to have it burned down just before Christmas, it is now alleged. Arson is back... And so is slander: In Australia,

"Liep Gony, a 19-year-old refugee from Sudan, was brutally murdered in Melbourne on September 26, 2007. The killing became a pretext for an outpouring of racially-charged statements from politicians and media commentators about the involvement of African-Australian youth in violent crime, despite the fact that the only African involved in this crime was the innocent victim. On December 18, Clinton Rintoull was sentenced to 16 years for the killing. In passing sentence, Justice Elizabeth Curtain described the murder as “vicious, brutal and unprovoked”, according to the Herald Sun that day. She described how Rintoull was seen day with the metal pole he used in the crime shouting, 'These blacks are turning the town into the Bronx. I am looking to take my town back.'"

Pop quiz: so what's more "shocking" -- that two Bronx bodegas were pegged by a tabloid to be selling vodka to minors, that Stoli gushed on Twitter about it, or that the State Liquor Authority has eleven investigators for the five boroughs?

"NYPD Sgt. Reginald McReynolds, who is African-American, said he was a victim of racial profiling when he was stopped by two fellow police officers while in his girlfriend's apartment building in the Bronx on October 26. According to the official police report, the officers were responding to a domestic abuse call in the same building and mistook McReynolds for the suspect, handcuffing him."

Ask yourself -- if in the suburbs police were responding to a domestic abuse call in one house, would they handcuff a neighbor who was coming home?

In the storefront that housed the ill fate Belmont Cafe, a Japanese restaurant has opened. It's Sake II, advertising both sushi and hibachi. They don't have a liquor license yet, and the food is cheap, at least at lunch. Six dollars for hibachi chicken, with fried rice, vegetables, miso soup and the ubiquitous salad with thousand island dressing. The chicken is cooked on the griddle -- is it the one belonging to the Belmont Cafe? -- and for there there is 20 percent off. Whether this area of the Bronx is ready for a Japanese-only restaurant is not clear. We will continue to cover this.

From the Montreal Gazette of December 17, 2009 : "Although Montreal North might be 'bad' by Montreal standards, it's nothing at all like the South Bronx. I grew up in New York City and have been living in Montreal for five years. The officer who said 'Montreal North is like the Bronx' (Dec. 4) has obviously never been there." This is a double whammy: a Canadian cop compares a neighborhood to The Bronx, a reader says that the Bronx is worse...

UNITED NATIONS, December 11 -- Both the UN and New York's City Hall are covered by fewer and fewer mainstream journalists. At a December 10 event at Gracie Mansion, Mayor Michael Bloomberg joked that there were gatecrashers like at the White House, the proof being that they said they were with the New York Times Metro section, "clearly fake."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, at a similar event on December 4, did not joke about the increasing flight of the press from the UN. That was left for master of ceremonies Richard Roth of CNN, who joked that soon the UN would only be covered by "the bearded blogger."

At the Gracie Mansion event, the joke by the New York Post's David Seifman was that there were only eight reporters present, the rest being publicists. Inner City Press, which attended both events because it covers both beats, was pitched even during Bloomberg's jokes by a promoter of hotels, from Crosby Street to Eighth Avenue and 44th Street and even the Bronx' City Island.

A running joke throughout the December 4 event was that the already begun gut rehabilitation of the UN building is releasing not only rodents but asbestos. As it happened, by December 10 the UN's contractor was furiously testing for asbestos release right by the UN's gift shop, which is open to the public.

Bloomberg's sister, the City's liaison to the UN, has already barred public school children from touring the UN's Conference Building. One wonders if she knows of the suspected release by the UN gift shop: some gift.

CNN's Roth got laughs, for example by suggesting that outgoing spokesperson Michele Montas go on a vacation to Club Med in Sri Lanka with this publication.

Seifman's jokes at Bloomberg included a Bronx reference, a gift certificate for Kingsbridge Armory which he called the Ruben Diaz Junior Mall. Seifman said Bloomberg would need the Bronx Democrats' American Express, available from Reverend Ruben Diaz Senior.

While at the UN there is discussion of a law pending in Uganda which would criminalize homosexuality, one wonders what the Reverend Diaz thinks of it. Inner City Press asked for Ban Ki-moon's position, and the first line was, "we have no specific opinion about domestic legislation" -- not true in the case of the cap and trade climate change proposals in the U.S. Congress. We will have more on this.

While Mr. Ban stood next to a blinking disco ball and used a TV screen, Bloomberg handed out gifts, for example a "Spanish by Bloomberg" dictionary and a City University of New York football helmet for a reporter heading into academia at CUNY. Ban joked that as his spokesperson he has wanted this reporter, but ended up with Martin Nesirky.

Nesirky, during his speech, said he had brought a gift from Austria: Mozart's golden balls, which he awarded to your truth for having, well, balls. Bloomberg's spokesman Stu Loeser joked that both his boss and Sarah Palin said that if God hadn't wanted people to eat animals, He wouldn't have made them out of meat.

As he handed out gifts, Bloomberg joked that he can buy anything -- read, the election. Afterwards, a UN official to whom Inner City Press compared the two events noted that Bloomberg is a billionaire. Perhaps the jokes too were bought.

The Gracie Mansion event avoided at least one obvious topic, Dominick Carter. Until recently the go-to TV show for NY politicians, now with the host convicted of domestic violence / attempted assault, there's a pothole on the Road to City Hall. Why no reference? Why no jokes? We will try to find out, watch this site.

Whatever the dished being offered are, you can't see them through the steamed up glass.

Inner City Press, in candor, ordered a chicken empanada. While only one dollar, it was cold, strangely red inside, and an hour later there was a stomach ache. Calling the Department of Health....

One in every 1,767 homes in Bronx County received a foreclosure filing in September 2009, according to RealtyTrac.com ...

Thanksgiving question "what about the 150 workers at the Stella D'Oro cookie factory in the Bronx? They lost their jobs and their healthcare when a company owned in part by Goldman Sachs bought Stella D'Oro and closed the factory down."

What's called the Little Italy of The Bronx, Arthur Avenue between 188th and 183rd Street, is now festooned with red and black Albanian flags. They appeared suddenly on lamp poles. Actual Italian residents of Belmont have been in decline for years, residentially replaced primarily by Latinos, and by Balkan social clubs. Still, are the Albanian flags a turning point? So far, none of the Italian push back that would have followed any Hispanic nations' flags going up on the Little Italy strip...

The NYS Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) on November 9 held a public hearing at Hostos Community College on its plan to use eminent domain to widen the Major Deegan Expressway by two lanes between E. 138th Street and the Macombs Dam Bridge. Despite pollution and the displacement of small businesses, they aim to push it through. We'll see.

Bronx-based foster care agency Family Support Systems is closing and laying off 92 staffers. The move comes aside funding cuts from the NYC Administration for Children's Services, according to a filing with the New York State Department of Labor. It's called the WARN Act. But what more does it portend?

October 31 in the Bronx has full of kids and screams, stores handing out candy from joint compound buckets, horror masks marked down by 20% on the day itself. There were Barack Obama masks, and downtown Richard Nixon. Lazy revelers just got orange prison overalls.

The New York Times' foray last week into West Africans in Claremont / Webster Avenue not only mistakenly said French is spoken in The Gambia (the Francophonies could only wish) -- it also missed the African - Caribbean dynamic. Why, is not clear, since the article itself reports that there are more Latino than African residents in Claremont. Could it be because the two groups get along? Take the stretch of Webster, referred to in the article, with African videos on the east side, Spanish (and African) restaurants on the west: the two co-exist, competing only for parking spots. But that's not news...

Also on the restaurant front, we must now report that the innovative but short lived Belmont Cafe has gone belly up, a For Rent sign on its rolling metal gate. It had cheap burgers and fries and bubble tea, and an order-in-advance African chicken dish. But it never stuck to its hours, and ultimately no one could count on it. And now it is gone...

From Fordham, according to Douglas S. Massey, Ph.D., a new sort of separation is taking its place, with money taking the place of skin color. Massey, the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University, presented “The Changing Bases of American Segregation” at Fordham's Rose Hill campus on Wednesday, Oct. 14. His lecture was the first annual urban studies lecture, and coincides with the inauguration of Fordham’s Urban Studies Master’s program."

But right on Rose Hill on October 17, on Fordham's Bronx campus snaked a line of nearly entirely people of color, as nearly all white students walked by. Segregation indeed...

This week, again a new restaurant review. Michael Angelo's has opened in what used to be a bakery, on the now college claimed corner of 189th and Arthur. Its sign advertises wood burning stove pizza, but once inside the prices are decidedly upscale, in light with Roberto's and its wood burning affiliate with the little clown car in front, but still not authentic enough to justify it. It remains Italian American food, even with the "candle lit wine cellar" and Italian pop music. They either have to take the level of the food up, or drop the prices, a better plan given the location. We'll see.

From a comic book review: "the Bronx no longer looks the way it’s shown briefly in the comic. I’m not offended. It just made me chuckle that the creative team portrayed the Bronx the way it looked in the 1970s and not the way it looks now. I still wouldn’t raise my kids there, but it has gotten better." Thanks...

The U.S. Post Service, in the Bronx, is looking to close seven branches: Botanical, Clason Point, Crotona Park, Hillside, Melcourt, Oak Point and Van Nest. These are 17% of the Bronx' post offices and six of the seven are a full half mile from the "replacement" branches. If a bank make these cuts, one could protest to federal regulators. But when the Fed's themselves are cutting?

THURS, AUG. 27th, 11:40 p.m. – Belmont Ave. and East 189 St. Officials indicated that no one was injured as results of shots being fired in the Belmont community. Responding police officers checked the area, but were unable to local any victims. Police did recover evidence that supported the original report.

We wuz there -- the Emergency Services police pulled up the sewer grate while a mother with a baby in a stroller jaw boned the officers....

A recent trip down Southern Boulevard and across 149th Street found continuity -- for example the still abandoned building on Jackson Avenue just below 149th -- amid change, the proliferation of Children's Aid Society offices along Southern Boulevard around Jennings Street. The Gaseteria where Southern meet 149 is still vacant and burned out. Just north there's a coffee shop with a sign, "SUNKIN DONUTS," in a strangely familiar font...

What kind of New Yorker is "The New Yorker" (for)? In recent weeks, they've run a near 100% pro Bloomberg profile, and now a hit job on the teachers' union. On national politics, the r/mag is knee jerk liberal. But in New York?

Smaller picture in Belmont, The Bronx, we can report the inclusion of Salvadoran arepas on the menu of the Empanada Company on Hughes and 187. Meanwhile the Ecuadorean restaurant on Hughes and Crescent appears to have done belly-up. Maybe having a menu would have helped....

From the Department of "A Plague on Both Their Houses," we have this from Kingsbridge: some are pushing for a Community Benefits Agreement with the Related Companies for the Kingsbridge Armory which would prohibit a supermarket from going into the site. This is clearly to protect the smaller supermarkets on Jerome and Kingsbridge and Fordham. Then again, the Related Companies displaced many small businesses further south at the Bronx Terminal Market, inking like the Yankees a weak fig leaf of a Community Benefits Agreement. What's worse?

Click here for this week's CRA report: on Obama and Bernanke at the Federal Reserve

August 24, 2009 --On Iran and Vendex, Sudan to No Bid Contracts, NYC Comptroller Candidates Square Off

NEW YORK, August 19 -- Veering from issues of no bid contracts and corporate background checks, four candidates New York City Comptroller were asked by Inner City Press on Thursday morning if in investing City funds they would bar or penalize companies engaged in predatory lending, or which do business in Sudan, Sri Lanka, Burma or Iran. This being NYC, and all four candidates Democratic members of the City Council, the answers ranged from "yes" to "of course," with a few differences.

Melinda Katz said that seven years ago, she proposed such a ban on companies "having anything to do with Hamas or Hezbollah." She added that when current Comptrollers Thompson and DiNapoli proposed divestment regarding Sudan and Iran, she applauded them. All four which she named are Islamic, unlike Burma and Sri Lanka were which asked about but ignored.

John Liu also avoided mentioning the two Asian countries, along he answered generically about human rights violators. He expanded the question to companies with abusive human resources practices, and those which took Federal bailout funds and still pay huge bonuses to their executives.

David Weprin said he was an early proponent of divestment in Sudan and Iran, based on genocide and terrorism respectively. He cited the precedent of the campaign against apartheid. He also reminded the audience that under Mario Cuomo he was a deputy superintendent of banks for New York State, and required in-state checks to clear in three days.

David Yassky, who began the morning's debate by touting his endorsement by Felix Rohatyn, said he sponsored a ban on Sudan, and co-sponsored one on Iran. He said that the City should invest in companies whose profitability came from such places. As such, at least he admitted all moral decisions cannot be defended as economically best as well. Similarly, to an audience of human services professionals, he said that he is against member items in which Council members direct funds to specific groups.

The event, held in the auditorium of PricewaterhouseCoopers on Madison Avenue, was co-sponsored by the United Way and the Human Services Council, and the other questions were focused on how slow the City is to disburse contract awards to non-profits and how burdensome the City's VENDEX background check is. John Liu joked that the audience seemed tired because they'll stayed up the night before filling out VENDEX forms. There was polite laughter and then the event was over.

Footnote: back in December 2007, Inner City Press put a similar question to Adolf Carrion, who had just announced he would run not for Mayor but Comptroller. Carrion said he would "also take into consideration the return for pensioners" -- click here for that story.

A block south on 187, there is a new juice bar between Arthur and Hoffman -- we recommend the smoothie de mamey -- and the Empanada Factory on Hughes is coming along, with the manager cranking out new dishes while bragging of his 15 years in fine dining, mixing it with cheese steak flavor to bring the Fordham students in. He says they'll offer online ordering soon...

Once again, a new restaurant in Belmont, on 186th between the library at Hughes Avenue and Belmont Avenue: La Casita Poblana. The space used to be a garage. Now it has four tables, and a cooler full of Mexican sodas. There are Arabe tacos for $2.50, sopes and gorditas, a fine avocado salad for $4.50. The demographics of Belmont are changing, and the food along with it.

After the weekend's shootout between police and Sevilla Moran's on Southern Boulevard, the police "recovered a handgun near his body. 'This is as clean as it gets,' said a police source at the scene." Yeah -- except for all the blood...

The old and new Bronx coexist in Belmont. Example of the former is the fire in the building on the corner of 187 and Cambrelleng, apartment windows boarded up with plywood, Albanian grocery in the storefront closed down, at least for now. Meanwhile a much more expensive storefront is opening, out on Third Avenue and 189 -- the chain Applebee's has a spot in Fordham Plaza, and has a hiring center, but only for grill cooks with two years experience. So much for helping the neighborhood....

On 187th Street, there's the second street fair of the summer, complete with a ride called the Berry Go Round and a stand handing out Right to Life literature of the type found, in every season, in Borgatti's Ravioli. A new entry on Arthur Avenue is "Frankie's Franks," which serves up dogs on Addeo's pizza bread -- i.e. the loaf shaped like a donut -- with peppers, onions and potatos, all for less then four dollars, the price of eggs, toast, potatoes and coffee, all day long. We wish them well.

The asphalt playground and handball court on 188th Street and Bathgate Avenue has been padlocked in the middle of the summer as a crew of only four workmen slowly jackhammer holes in it. The park is usually daily used by both adults and children, from a youth club on 189th Street. Why the City scheduled this work at the height of summer, and chose a company that is sending such a small crew -- making the job take longer -- is not clear...

Last week the City Council rubber stamped a 30-block rezoning of the lower Grand Concourse in the Bronx, claiming it will bring as much as 841,000 square feet of new commercial uses and "facilitate the development of 3,100 new housing units, 520 of which will be affordable." -- a far too low a percentage of affordable housing for a development in the South Bronx. It it (and the nabe?) LoCo...

When Mayor Mike Bloomberg rolled up to the park across First Avenue from the UN on June 23, he had climate change on his mind. But the Press questions quickly turned not only to the lack of safety in the UN's buildings and their fix-up, but also to the Bronx. Inner City Press asked for his response to the declining business of Bronx merchants near Yankee Stadium, despite the massive city subsidy to the facility. Bloomberg said that they might want to start selling other merchandise. Just another modality of gentrification?

Not only is the new Yankee Stadium too expensive for Bronxites (and others), not only have they failed to replace the park land they took away -- now the small promises of small business benefits are turning out to be false. Store owners around the stadium complain that they get fewer customers than last year. The Yankees try to lure them into their branded maw of Hard Rock Cafe and "official" merchandise. Few venture even a half block south of 161st Street. Who will be held accountable?

Despite the rainy weather, the sign that summer has arrived in Belmont, The Bronx is the St. Anthony Street Fair. In the drizzle on June 13, a band played while from plywood stands in front of Mount Carmel church frozen drinks were sold, zeppoles topped with powdered sugar, goldfish could be won. Who can know who will come each year to this "Feast"? On the corner of Hughes Avenue, the Albanian restaurant has closed, replaced by Mexican, the New York Empanada Factory. It looked empty and forlorn behind its "Grand Opening" plastic banner, but we predict that won't be for long. Unless they're too white bread. In the Bronx, you can forget the cross-over audience. Make your business on your people -- other than the Chinese, of course. If others come, it's a bonus.

In Washington, in the wake of the predatory lending meltdown, there is a Community Reinvestment Act modernization bill. And in the Bronx, there are thos who woder why Eliot Engel is not listed as a sponsor....

The "South Bronx" was all over the news last week, not only because of the Yankees, but in the flurry of coverage of the nomination to the Supreme Court of Sonia Sotomayor, described as growing up in "a housing project in the South Bronx." Some here, however, note that the Bronxdale Houses are not in the South Bronx as it is often defined, as Community Planning Districts 1-6, stopping on the Western shore of the Bronx River. The Bronxdale Houses are on the other side of the river. But that's an inconvenient fact, and therefore ignored...

The Cross-Bronx Expressway, despite the local damage it has caused it apparently here to stay. But the fight to demolish the Sheridan Expressway is gathering force, and appears in PBS' "Road to the Future" show along with bicycle issues. Inner City Press, passing through Copenhagen, Denmark, finds the comparison with the Bronx and New York City striking. In Copenhagen there are bikes everywhere, and people even leave them unlocked. There are bike lanes that are respected. In the Bronx, Inner City Press has been harassed by police for momentarily riding a bike on an otherwise empty sidewalk. In Denmark, it's bikes that have the right of way....

In the run-up to reviewing the Yankees' new monument to greed, Inner City Press last week ventured to Citi – or TARP – Field in Queens, for the Mets against the Braves. Best is that you can stand behind home plate, even if your ticket's in the upper deck. The hot dogs are pricey, but the onions and sauerkraut are hot. From above right field you can see Manhattan. Soon we will compare the Yankees.

For now in the Bronx, there's a new Mexican restaurant on 186^th Street by Hughes, in a former mechanics garage. Go, Puebla

This week again a restaurant review: the Belmont Cafe on 187th and Beaumont has dollar fifty burger (well, mini-burgers) and, a first for Belmont, bubble tea. It promises African style chicken, but twice as failed to have it. It has photographs of Fordham, including when the Third Avenue El was still standing. It's well worth it, for a dollar fifty...

This week, a poem on immigration, datelined not the Bronx but across the river(s) in Astoria Heights:

In front of the paint store
two blocks east of Steinway
two dozen Mexican men with backpacks
stand waiting for work

Some are old and some are beaten
still when they order tamales
at Casilda's taco stand
the girl calls them “campeon” --

Champion, is what it means, champion of immigration
who braved the freight trains from Oaxaca
the muggers and rapists of Juarez and Chihuahua
arriving here in Queens to stand again and wait

The city's hardly building
the yuppies all tapped out
and so the wait is longer
and the tacos more expensive

We need an explanation: the 4 train, usually local late at night, says it's going express. But in The Bronx, it jumps from 149 Grand Concourse to Burnside -- then all the way to Woodlawn. What happened to Fordham Road?

And a citywide MTA beef: using an unlimited MetroCard, you're prohibited from using it in less than 18 minutes.But if you rode one stop, you could easily need to use the card again within 18 minutes. What gives?

Spin war: "We're surprised and disappointed that Curtis Sliwa is attempting to sell tours that capitalize on the worst stereotypes about the Bronx," said Rafael Salaberrios, chairman of the Bronx Tourism Council. Salaberrios said tourists should instead be pointed to attractions such as the Bronx Zoo, New York Botanical Garden and Yankee Stadium, as well as the borough's lesser-known museums, galleries and restaurants.

The Bronx Zoo closed down its tram service. Yankee Stadium is wildly overpriced and stole parkland -- but Yankee fans about to see them lose by twenty runs on April 18 poured mucho dinero into dining on Arthur Avenue before and after the game. Trattoria Zero Otto Nove, the Roberto's spin-off in what used to be McDonald's is, upon review, amazing, with a faux Italian street scene in the back complete with fake windows and brick arches with intentionally peeling stucco. Fusilli, rabbit and carafes of wine: what could be better? But very few local people go.

Let's compare, this week, the Bronx and Bushwick, Brooklyn. A recent visit to the latter found the previously burned-down Broadway still rough and tumble, from Fat Albert's on Flushing to cuchifritos further out on Myrtle. But two blocks north of Broadway are knitware factories turned into lofts. On Broadway itself, a white hipster with dreadlocks was ridiculed by local teens.

Back in the Bronx, other than in Mott Haven, no such influx has taken place. Is it the distance from Manhattan, or the reputation for higher crime? Do Bushwick's long-time residents benefit from the lofts, or only see their rents raised? We will continue to compare.

Facing off in debate for Bronx Borough Presidency at 1200 Waters Place on April 8 at 7 pm are Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr. and Anthony Ribustello...

March 30, 2009 -- annals of environmental justice: the president of the Sierra Club wrote in the New York Times, March 26, that "We offer at-risk young people in the Bronx their first wilderness experience." No, we have some wilderness right here in The Bronx...

We take note this week of the re-start of Columbia Journalism School's Bronx Beat publication. Before even getting to a substantive critique -- we'll get there, rest assured -- something seems to be wrong. From their website, clicking on an article seemingly about foreclosures leads to a page of ads hosted by Go Daddy and, as an aside, the hard copies mailed to Inner City Press now used the wrong PO Box - it's 580188. What's happened, over the winter? Our overall critique is that there's not enough follow up from year to year. But this is too much.

Some neighbor -- the Botanical Garden, which previously sued saying that a radio town across Southern Boulevant from it was an eyesore, now owns an eyesore of its own, a vacant lot on Webster and Bedford Park Avenues on which it said it would build a parking lot. But now the funding's in doubt, and the lot is sitting there. The Garden asks for understanding. But did the Garden show it?

Lies, damn lies and statistics: from the suburbs to the North, "Frederick Arnold, a resident of the Town of Mamaroneck since 1995, is a “numbers guy” and the newly elected president of the board of RAINN (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network), the nation’s largest organization working to prevent sexual assault and help victims of this crime. 'the incidence of crime is as high in Larchmont, per capita as it is in the South Bronx,'" he said. Some "numbers guy"...

Oh really? It's reported that "there were cheers in the South Bronx, where there is hardly an Indian-American to be seen, when Slumdog Millionaire won the best-picture Oscar." Funny, we didn't hear them...

Months ago we wrote on a practice of Metro North Railroad, in which trains from Connecticut stop at the Fordham Road station in the Bronx but announce that while passengers can get off, no one can get on. This is true even for customers who have paid Metro North for a monthly pass between Fordham Road and 125th Street or Grand Central. Inner City Press got on, and was told by a conductor to "go argue with the MTA big shots" about the policy's absurdity. And so we did.

At a public meeting of the MTA in its headquarters on Madison Avenue in March 2008, Inner City Press informed the board of directors of the policy, and of its impact on Bronx residents. Some members laughed, others expressed surprise. Then-chief Peter Cannito explained the practice in financial terms: the State of Connecticut pays 60% of the cost of the red New Haven line trains. Apparently, even within the MTA, they had and have found no way to transfer money from the New York State Harlem line, which also stops at the Fordham Station, and the Connecticut New Haven Line.

With even some of his board members shaking their heads at this inefficiency, Cannito told Inner City Press things were not as bad as its testimony described. You can get on the train, he said, and just pay the extra fare between Fordham and the previous stop on the New Haven line, Mount Vernon East. Inner City Press bought a ticket for just this purpose.

On February 20, with the 9:16 Harlem line train running late, a red New Haven line train pulled into Fordham Station. Inner City Press got on. The conductor announced over the public address system, "This train takes no passengers." Those in the bar car in which Inner City Press had sat down rolled their eyes. Inner City Press started walking toward the front car with the conductor in it, but the train pulled out of the station. Inner City Press returned to the bar car.

The conductor came through the train and said, "I told you to get off." Inner City Press explained what the head of the MTA said at the public meeting. "Do you got that in writing?" the conductor demanded. No, the head of the company said it. "What was his name?" The last Metro North chief, the Italian guy.

"I'm the conductor. I'm supposed to enforce the rules. If I don't they crack down on me. I was out on the street for twenty days, supposedly assaulting a customer. They give us these hand held computers that freeze up all the time, then write us up if we don't collect fares with them, even when they're not working." He paused, looking like he might throw the hand-held computer, somehow reminiscent of the model in the NYC Parking Violations Bureau scandal, also with Bronx connections, years ago. "You tell me the big shots said you could do this. Do you have a letter that says that?"

It seemed fair to assume that what the head of Metro North said was the policy was in fact the policy.

"Oh, Cannito. His son in law made this software for this stupid computer that freezes up all the time. Great. Cannito told you." The conductor stormed out of the car. Welcome to Metro North.

Footnote: while a half dozen people in the car spoke against the Metro North practice, after the conductor left, one working man pointed out, you put him in a tough spot, you should have gotten off the train and put in for a refund, or get a letter from Metro North. Suggestions and reactions welcome.

At Inner City Press, we usually review restaurant on the affordable or even sidewalk side. But we're compelled to note Zero Otto Nove, a so-called trattoria on Arthur Avenue where the ill-fated McDonald's used to be. For some months, seeing a near-empty bar in the front behind a light blue clown car on the street outside, one assumed the restaurant was having trouble. Dead wrong. Inside, down a long corridor, is what resembles a side street in an Italian village, complete with fake windows and perspectives, a staircase up to a second floor, all under a skylight. At night candle come out, adding to the flicker from the wood pizza oven. There's light-fried zucchini, pasta with chick peas and bread crumbs, rabbit stew and more. Beware of what they call a carafe of wine: it's really a pitcher, costs $25 and leaves one staggering out afterwards. The lemon sherbet is tart, the coffee strong, Roberto's restaurant a success. The main thing lacking was Bronxites, something we hereby try to address.

2-1, 12:30 a.m. – 2407 Beaumont Ave. Police were alerted that a man had been shot numerous times. The unidentified victim was admitted to St. Barnabas Hospital in stable condition. Local sleuths will conduct the inquiry.
2-1, 1:35 p.m. – 922 East Tremont Ave. A search was conducted for a middle aged Hispanic male. Victims believe that the male Latino is in his 50’s who robbed a store at gunpoint. An unknown amount of money was taken, but no injuries were reported.

As the Bronx Zoo opens a Madagascar-themed exhibit, in the real Madagascar, security forces fired into crowds of protesters, killing 25... And the Skyfari has been discontinued forever.

New York Magazine reviews city restaurants in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens -- only.

"You nak buat kondo di slum area?" (You want to build condominiums in a slum area?). Raised eyebrows accompanied those words when real-estate developer Datuk Abdul Rahim Mohd Ibrahim told a friend of his plans to build a block of condominiums in Kampung Baru, a Malay settlement located at the heart of the city... Abdul Rahim's friends had labeled Kampung Baru in the same mould as Bronx, a slum area in the north of New York populated mostly by the colored communities and they were skeptical whether there would be buyers for the condominiums. Today, they have to eat their words as the condominium units are selling like hot cakes. The public knows that Kampung Baru is not a squatter settlement as the area was carved out as a Malay settlement in 1899 and known as the Malay Agriculture Settlement."

As we reported last spring, Key Food, in the mall at Bruckner Blvd. and White Plains Road, announced that landlord Vornado Realty was increasing its rent. DN: "The rent increase was scheduled to take effect in December, when the lease expired. But Vornado has not begun any eviction action, which Purcell and others speculate is because of the souring rental market." Yep...

In the wake of the US Air flight from LaGuardia to Charlotte driving into the Hudson River by a flock of geese, the Bronx connection slowly becomes clear. The day of the crash, a girl from Belmont in The Bronx called in to say she'd seen the plane's engines explode. It seemed incongruous, since the plane landed off the shore of midtown Manhattan. But later it emerged that as the plane curved over The Bronx, reported over the Zoo, it hit a flock of geese and began falling. There's been talk of hunting down geese in the area to avoid a repetition.

On Saturday, January 24 on Fordham University's grass circle a flock of geese lazed around on the snow, with nary a hunter in sight....

JPMorgan Chase will be closing a slew of Washington Mutual branches, click here for Inner City Press' January 23 article...

The new pizzeria on lower Arthur Avenue, with the garlic knots and free Internet, has already failed. In its place is a sign to look out for Frankie's Frank, the "Italian" hot dog. Will it fare any better?

Meanwhile in the same nabe, a recent arrival asked in the Mount Carmel post office on January 17 how to get his mail. Go to Tremont, he was told. Where's that? And the person working at the window, and the supervisor on duty, said they didn't know. Welcome to The Bronx...

As the Bloomberg Administration tries to gentrify the South Bronx, a recent visit to Bushwick in Brooklyn found both the brutality and banality of what has happened in the often similar place. Take the L train seven stop in, to Jefferson and Wyckoff. Competing the restaurants like Las Palmas on the corner of Starr are chic cafes like the North East Kingdom -- apparently named after the top part of Vermont -- and a music venue known as the Bushwick Starr, in the second floor of a former factory building at 207 Starr Street. Inside on a black-painted stage four youth men are thrashing; the band is called Drew and the Medicinal Pen. In front an entirely white crowd of young twenty-somethings jump up and down. Generally, their rents are paid by parents. Perhaps some of them will be artists, many however will not. But the impact on rent levels, on the economist ecosystem of Bushwick, will stay long after they leave. To Bloomberg, this may be progress. To locals it is harmful, it is unfair, it is reason against a third term.

This week Mayor Bloomberg said that if someone attacked you or your family, he'd want the NYPD to respond with everything they had. While in the South Bronx, NYPD officers beat up the Serrano family on Brook Avenue, Bloomberg flew to the Middle East in a "show of solidarity." Click here for Inner City Press' January 3 coverage of that region.

Click here for Inner City Press' review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate

WED, DEC. 10th, 9:00 a.m. – 1003 Woodycrest Ave. In the Highbridge section, local police arrested a city worker. A sanitation worker was taken into custody after a civilian informed officers that the city worker struck the victim with a stick after they had a verbal dispute.

TUES, DEC. 16th, 11:00 a.m. – Tiebout Ave. and East 183 St. Another city worker was taken into custody by patrol officers. This time a city Sanitation employee was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated.

We've done it before, and we'll do it again -- the Ecuadorian restaurant on Hughes Ave and 186th Street stands alone, both for refusing to have a menu, and for ultimately serving up cooking that makes up for it. Most recently the dish of the day was bistek with papers, yellow rice with a friend egg on top, and French fries. The quesadillas were spicy, with chicken. The "sopa de bolas" was, in fact, dominated by a ball made of green plantains, peas and boiled egg, sort of like a stew made of pastelles. Outside, they sold steaming tamales on the icy sidewalk.

Of Bronx and NYC housing officials slated to move on to DC, we'll have more over the holiday. Happy holidays! Viva Ecuador!

St. Barnabas Hospital is bragging that even in the face of the financial meltdown, it still plans to spend $30 million building a parking garage. Of course, in the past this project was blocked because St. Barnabas could not even spring for lights for kids who use the sports fields on Quarry Road behind the hospital. But the activist who led that community fight-back has since passed away, and now St. Barnabas says it's ready to move forward. We'll see.

Given the difficulty that long-time South Bronx residents are facing in keeping up with rising rents, how could an executive of a non-profit purportedly working for the interest of such people offer unqualified praise for "upscale" real estate investment in area? Oh but it has happened, in the December 5 Daily News: "Peter Cantillo, president of SEBCO Development, a group that has been building affordable housing in the neighborhood since 1968 [said] 'The Bank Note is exactly the kind of upscale draw this neighborhood has worked toward.'" Speak for yourself...

Metro North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders was quoted last week that "Metro-North would love to run some of its Hudson Line trains across the Spuyten Duyvil and down the Amtrak rails on the West Side to Penn Station, not to mention running some New Haven Line trains on Amtrak rails through the underserved East Bronx to Penn Station... Metro-North has had a feasibility study for such a project partly done for some time."

Hey, if Metro North so badly wants to serve the "underserved" Bronx, why does it persist in having its New Haven Line trains stop at Fordham Road only to discharge but not pick up passengers? This outrage continues, the book-keeping and other excuses have not been addressed...

Two other 'Net notes: the Detroit "Campus Martius conservancy hired Egan Acres Farms in the Bronx, which specializes in jumbos. The tree is donated from a private home in New Paltz, N.Y. near Poughkeepsie." So what, a Bronx-business providing Poughkeepsie trees to Michigan?

An Ethnic Food Examiner says "Bronx: in all fairness, I don't think I've been to the Bronx more than 10 times. It's got a fabulous zoo. (is that considered ethnic?). According to my sources, you can hit a double in the Tremont area of the Bronx: Ecuadorian (and other Hispanics), and Ghanan." But the link to Ghanian is hardly limited to that country; the link to Ecuador is in fact about bachata, and says of
Claridad Restaurant, 373 E. 188th St.Bronx, NY, "Occasional local acts; call to find out; seedy atmosphere." Seedy is in the eye of the beholder...

The New York Times of November 18, aiming now at the commercial gentrification of Port Morris in the South Bronx, reported that "part of the area’s appeal is its access to transportation. Neil Pariser, a senior vice president of the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, a nonprofit group that has renovated factories and apartment buildings in the area, said, 'Port Morris has unusually excellent vehicular access for trucks and even good mass transit' — the No. 6 and No. 2 subways." But the Number 2, a West Side train, hardly serves Port Morris...

Every single Bronx Councilmember voted to roll back the twice publicly-enacted term limits...

It's not just that the New York Times promotes gentrification -- it's that they don't even mention that it exists. That is, they just don't care, even about basic journalistic balance. From last Sunday's Times:

Leila Abdoulaye sublets a friend's loft in an old piano factory in the South Bronx, and she need never worry about repairs. Her building, called the Clock Tower, has a 24-hour superintendent.

Ms. Abdoulaye, a 25-year-old student and model who also works as a restaurant office manager, pays $700 a month for her room. She shares the apartment with a rotating stream of models. Ms. Abdoulaye minds the store, as it were, between work and classes.

''It's the quality of the place, the price of the apartment, and the social life,'' Ms. Abdoulaye says. ''It's a nice place to live. A happy place to live.''

Daniel Lundby, 32, an out-of-work designer from Iowa, also lives in the Clock Tower, sharing a bright, open space with a roommate.

When he moved to New York City, he lived in a tiny sublet on the Upper East Side. ''Now,'' Mr. Lundby said, ''I have three times the space for the same price.'' His rent has risen about $100 a year since he moved in more than four years ago, but he says he is satisfied. ''I think I'm still getting a decent deal.

Not for long... And the November 9 Times mentions The Bronx, a county of over 1 million people in the Times' home city, only 11 times, and even these are oblique: mentions in Mount Vernon, from "Snarky Gulch" and Riverdale. For shame...

As New York City set up for the Marathon on November 2, cars along First Avenue in East Harlem were getting towed, and the Bx 15 bus to the Bronx was radically re-routed, turning north on Lenox and leaving Park, Lexington and Avenidas Tres, Dos y Uno unserviced. The runners barely touched The Bronx, despite all the hype about its fix-up.

Meanwhile in Belmont, we return against to Estrellita Poblana III on lower Arthur Ave, where the caldo de chivo, goat soup, is well-worth its six dollar price. The tortillas are hot and at noon on the day of the marathon, it was full of duos of Mexican men in their Sunday best, some drinking Tecate and others Mexican Coca-Cola, with the pure cane sugar, taking digital photos of each other to send back south of the border. Look, mama, I'm making it in New York. Even during the financial crisis...

Staying small bore but indicative, on Belmont above 189th a new store has opened, with baseball caps including multicolored camouflage, hip hop T-shirts and, as one Inner City Press source puts it, Ed Hardy hoodies for women and for men. The owners, who wear the caps they sell, built all contents of the storefront, but for the glass display. It's called E & J's, and just before a recent midnight, both E and J were there. We wish them well.

In the Bronx we traipse around, for example on October 18 and 19, from the 4 train at Yankee Stadium over to the D, and thereafter north under the Concourse.

Never say we don't follow-up: Angel's Ecuadorian Restaurant on Hughes Avenue and 184th has continued to improve, now with grilled tuna with platanos and avocado salad. Still no menu, and Angel hard of hearing -- but plaintains and tuna like this is not to be found elsewhere.

We return because we must to the New York Times' misrepresentation of The Bronx. The October 12 Sunday paper mentions the Bronx 18 times, but entirely from the perceived POV of Times readers: Riverdale real estate, sculpture and cider in the Botanical Garden, two obituaries, "Kosher Wars," and oh yeah, a reference to hip hop. That's keeping it real...

Click here for Inner City Press in Wash Post and Miami on CRA, here in Charlotte on the mergers, and here even praising the FDIC (on other grounds)

There were Wanted posters up along East Tremont and Bathgate Avenues on October 4, about an armed robbery in Harrison, New York, offering $15,000. Some of the posters were torn down, but other were there. By Webster Avenue, there were no more. Call it narrow-casting.

Also in terms of insular communities, now the "Bangladesh Plaza" neighborhood in Queens is echoed on a corner of The Bronx, 158 and Melrose, the Dkaka Discount, with the "Lotto" on the sign crossed out...

The closing of R&S Strauss, we now surmise is related to the loss of parking created by the mad "Bx 12 Select" bus plan.

Finally, new and second-time-around restaurant reviews: the new Arthur Avenue Pizza Co between 186 and 184 has high ceiling and free Internet but doesn't have beef patties...

Meanwhile, a second visit to Angel's Ecuadorian restaurant on Hughes Avenue and 184th Street found the food still excellent, if not better, juice goat and rice, ceviche, tamales Ecuadorian style in a banana leaf -- but still no menu, and major communications problems. There few things more striking in a restaurant than one that doesn't produce the food you order, or that refuses to take an order, both of which happened here. A co-reviewer is hoping it's just a communications problem. Time will tell. But better goat and rice cannot be found in the Bronx...

Fengwang Chen, 31, was ambushed as he tried to deliver a $22 order on E. 229th St. Saturday - what was supposed to have been his last day as a deliveryman for New China Garden, his wife said Sunday.

"He never picks a fight with anyone," Chen's wife, Yan Dong, said through an interpreter at Jacobi Medical Center, where he remains in critical condition.

The bullet that hit Chen, a father of two young children, entered behind his ear and lodged in his jaw. He is expected to survive.

More annals of Fordham Road -- while still awaiting local powers' spin on the closing of R & S Strauss, a reporter's recent pass-through the White Castle found, far from fast food, no one talking orders for foot traffic. Everything is directed at the drive-through customers. Some suburb...

For some years, Inner City Press has noted the lack of a Fed Ex / Kinko's in the Bronx. Now last week, it was explained, thusly: "The primary factor in choosing locations is customer demand," said FedEx Office spokeswoman Jenny Robertson. "We look at the density of small and medium-size businesses. And there's never been a 'ruling out' of the Bronx. We are just looking at those communities that have greater customer penetration." So, over 1 million people is not dense enough?

At deadline, we're told there is an explanation for, and even controversy around, the closing of the R & S Strauss auto parts on Fordham Road. If received, we will run it on this site.

This year's Ferragosto street fair on Arthur Avenue had, as before, peaches and red wine, plums and white wine, $1.50 Italian ices from Artusos, free samples of mozzerella -- and a cheesy and probably fraudulent presentation of "Florida Properties" complete with cartoon depictions of swampland. Like something out of the 1950s...

An Ecuadorian restaurant has opened on Crescent Avenue in The Bronx, with ceviche, goat and rice and that country's apple soda. The owner used to work for Arthur Avenue Catering and saved up cash. He's dubious about President Correa but attentive to the customers in his five-table storefront. To chicken soup he'll add white rice to thicken it. The hot sauce is made of radishes and there is not yet a menu. But we are wishing them well.

Meanwhile, gone from Fordham Road is the R & S Strauss auto parts store. What happened?

On the corner of Webster and 188th, there are flowers and prayers surrounding a street lamp, marking where a driver with crumbling brakes crashed and killed a pregnant woman and, days later, her child who had initially been saved. There is a music store and a playground. Another area resident was nearly beaten to death by the side of this playground, in the course of a robbery. One block up there is a Carvel's ice cream store, and then the under renovation and expansion Sears. Life, death and development continue in The Bronx.

Talk about nitty-gritty. The MTA has announced, regarding the 149th Street Hub, that

The Bx55 will have a new turnaround when changing from southbound to northbound: traveling south on 3rd Avenue, east on East 146th Street, north on Willis Avenue, and then north on 3rd Avenue. This will eliminate the bus stop on Willis Avenue at the far side of East 148th Street and replace it with a new stop on 3rd Avenue at the near side of East 149th Street. All other stops remain the same.

The Bx15 northbound will remain on the current route to Willis Avenue, then travel north on 3rd Avenue and return to the current route. Southbound, it will travel south on 3rd Avenue (passing 148th Street), then east on East 146th Street, south on Willis Avenue and onto the current route.

The Bx41 will leave its terminal on East 147th Street traveling west, head north on 3rd Avenue, west on East 152nd Street, north on Melrose Avenue, then resume the current route. Southbound, the bus will travel south on Melrose Avenue, east on East 154th Street, south on Elton Avenue, then south on 3rd Avenue and continue on its current route.

So what, no more Third-to-Melrose crosscutting by the Bx 41? How 'bout having the busses run on time?

So the NY Times has whipped up dissatisfaction with how Hunts Point is described in WikiPedia, quoting one non-profit head as unwilling to make edit to the entry, another calling WikiMedia and asking them to make changes. What happened to empowerment? And what of the use of the term Bronx for rough regions everywhere on else, for example in Jamaica?

The pizzeria that opened earlier this year on Fordham Road across from White Castle, in a space formerly occupied by a club that was closed for under-aged drink, has itself already been shuttered. We hardly knew ye...

Sadly we report that the oddly-placed Argentine coffee shop on Webster Avenue just north of the Cross Bronx Expressway has gone under, cut its name off the fabric awning, no more beef sandwiches...

Now the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation "is inviting public comments" on

The New York Organic Fertilizer Company's plant began operations in 1993. Over the years, repeated complaints have been made about odors emanating from the facility. It has been the subject of two major DEC enforcement actions during that period. In recent months, DEC has developed a new strategy to address the odor issues associated with the plant, and it is inviting public comments on its plans.

July 21, 2008 A Bronx Juror's Eye View: Gypsy Cab Whip Lash Crash 9 Years Ago Gets 1-Day Trial, by Matthew R. Lee of Inner City Press

The word now in the jurors' waiting room in The Bronx is that things are getting worse: the duty more frequent and each time for more days. There are at least two reasons, those who work there say. First, more and more cases are filed in The Bronx, because the county perceived as having poor and angry residents who award big damages. So for example when McDonald's was sued for making people obese -- and there are obese people all over -- The Bronx was chosen as the venue. Second, you have to be citizen and speak English to serve on a jury. These two characteristics have become less prevalent in The Bronx, as a clerk diplomatically puts it, even as the population has grown in the last decade.

Put these two together, and those eligible for it have jury duty more often, and for more days. Unless you luck out, and can get selected for the jury in one of the new one-day trials.

On a recent morning, this option was offered to early arrivals, and a long line quickly formed. Twenty two people were selected, and shuttled into a side room to fill out questionnaires. Have you ever sued anyone? Have you or a family member ever worked in a law office? Then the 22 took elevators upstairs to Justice Yvonne Gonzalez' courtroom on the fourth floor. They sat on one side of the courtroom, reading, lounging, complaining about the too-strong air conditioning even on this hot day. Ms. Gonzalez came in and smiled, went into the back. Five minutes later she re-emerged as a Justice, in black robe wearing glasses. "All rise!" the court officer said.

"You don't have too," Justice Gonzalez said. "We're going to pick 12 of you and ask you some questions. The rest of you can wait."

The first 12 were selected. Your witness was not, and cursed his luck. The questions got personal. What do you do, for work? What does your wife do? What exactly is a nutritional consultant? You choose patients' menus? Have the patients filed lawsuits? Do they talk to you about them?

Two of the twelve admit they want to go to law school. They will not be chosen. An Asian woman tells a long story about a customer in the nail salon where she works, who hurt her shoulder in a car accident and constantly complains about it. She too will be asked to leave, as this case is about a car crash, which injured a Ms. Filartiga -- not her real name.

Now the two lawyers are getting to ask the questions. Really, they are trying to put ideas in potential jurors' minds, things they couldn't say once the trial begins. If a person doesn't look injured, can you accept that they are still in a lot of pain? I guess so. Good, because that's Ms. Filartiga over there, and she's in pain. It's a sad looking old woman on the far side of the courtroom. "She's doesn't speak English," we're told. They why do we have to? Even if you speak Spanish, you have to focus on what the interpreter says. And in this one-day trial, to save money no court recorder is present. There will only be your memory, and that should be focused on the interpreter.

As jurors are stricken, your witness is called into the jury box. Questions are asked, to catch up with the others. Potential grounds for being stricken are disclosed. But the witness makes it, as Juror Number Seven, the alternate. The others are thanked for their service, and return to the jurors' waiting room for four more days of limbo. Those lucky seven of the 22 who remain are told to order lunch, to be paid for by the court system. The alternate may or may not get fed, therefore the dollar tip does not have to be paid at this time.

Triple decked roast beef and a diet Coke. Pickles? Why not. But how was the diner that gets all these court house orders selected? Was this to low bidder? The case begins, with opening statements. A taxi has been hit from behind, at University Avenue and McCombs Dam Road. The plaintiff was wearing a seat belt, but still be whipped back and forth. She has lost work since then, she has gone to many doctors. She will never be the same. She needs money.

That's the plaintiff's lawyer's story. The defense lawyer, for two New Jerseyites who are not here, tells a counter tale. The plaintiff knew the cab driver, that's why he hasn't been sued. The cabby stopped short and with no notice, causing the crash. The plaintiff's own doctors reports, which will be distributed at the end, will show that her injuries are not serious. Okay, let's get it on.

There is only one witness, Ms. Filartiga the plaintiff. It looks like she hasn't been prepared. She keeps interrupting her lawyer, staring off into space. Unprompted, she says she wasn't in fact wearing seat belt. Does that make her negligent? Let's at least quantify and get some damages, her lawyers seems to decide. When did she work, after the accident? There was the perfume factory... But only in the summers... She's not sure. But after March 1999, when did she work?

That's how it emerges, that this terrible important fender-bender took place more than nine years ago, and is only getting its one-day trial now. Why? How can it take nine years to hear this meager evidence? Did the defendants delay things hope Filartiga would die or move back to Santo Domingo? Did the plaintiffs' lawyer put the case to the back of the line as a small damages dog? The jury is never told. But no wonder no one can remember what happened that day, or afterwards.

The lunch has arrived, and the case is still not over. Juror Seven will have roast beef after all. The seven are led up a staircase to a room with peeling paint. "Don't talk about the case," they're told. "Sports or fashion is okay." Out the window is Yankee Stadium, where the All-Star Game's Home Run Derby is to be held that night. The youngest juror, now wildly thumbing his Sidekick, says even the tickets to Home Run Derby are expensive. The sandwich, though free, is not good. Perhaps they really were the low bidders. A Hispanic woman, maybe in her 50s, calls her boss and says she'll be back at work tomorrow, she lucked into the one-day trial. After that the silence is deafening. The one African-American on the jury, a large woman, gets up to go to the bathroom.

Juror Seven, to pass the time and drown out the sound of flushing, says Major League Baseball is screwing The Bronx by having the parade in Manhattan, and the memorabilia show too. There's no response. Oh really. He tries again, saying how in his jury pool, everyone one wanted to get on the jury. In most cases, people are trying to get off, saying, "I can't be fair" or "I hate the police." There are a few nods. Okay then, read the newspaper. In the corner of the room there's a stack of police accident reports, with drawings of automobiles and arrows for direction of impact. Could Filartiga's be in there?

Okay it must be time to go back down. No, says a large woman who used to be a school principal. "They come up and get us, I know this, I've done it before." She is white, and almost everyone else is Hispanic. She is ignored. Six of the seven creep down the stairs, where have metal mesh because criminal defendants are led this way too. They peer into the empty courtroom. Hey, the security officer says. "Go back upstairs." The principal was right, looks vindicated. Are they settling the case? Ten more minutes pass.

Finally they are led back into the courtroom, Juror Seven told to pick a spot in the second row. This is easy, this is fun. It will end today, they've said. The jury is told the Ms. Filartiga was 53 when the crash happened. She's 62 now and it is estimated that she will live to 84. "That's an average, of course," the plaintiff's lawyer said, adding the word "actuarial." She says, "You can decided how much each of her years will be worth." But can we? How?

The plaintiff's lawyer has forgotten to make photocopies of her exhibits. There will be only one copy in the deliberations room. The defense has copies, which are passed out to each juror including Number Seven. The exhibits are pretty damning. A doctor says the pain is fake. The police report on the accident says the taxi stopped too fast. Then again, that was only what the Jerseyites said. But only they spoke with the police. Why hasn't the cabby come to the trial to testify? Why didn't the plaintiff's lawyer try to address this hole in her case? Is the hope simply that six Bronx jurors, told a tale of a possible-hurt factory worker, will award millions of dollars?

Why didn't someone -- say for example, the Jerseyites' insurance company -- simply give Ms. Filartiga 40 or 50 thousand dollars, back nine years ago, and leave it at that? Did Filartiga ask for more? Did the insurers refuse to pay, then made her wait nine years? This is the background we need, to weight the equities. But none of the jurors get that information, much less the Alternate, your witness, who is now told to go. There is no closure, as in real life. Good luck Ms. Filartiga, hope you make it to 84 or more.

We devote our Bronx Watch footnote this week to an anti-Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation win, NWBCCC vindicated against landlords which claimed that tenant organizers interfered with their relationships with Washington Mutual bank. On July 7, Justice Sallie Manzanet denied the landlords' claim, triggering 11 days later a press release by the victorious lawyers. Hats off. But the press release doesn't saying anything about legal fees and costs...

With the hype starting to swirl around the July 15 All-Star game at Yankee Stadium, Major League Baseball did not respond to repeated inquiries from South Bronx media about covering the game. Of course, the parade, concert and other events are all in Manhattan...

In front of Mount Carmel Church on July 13, the John Duke / Newark Symphonic Band played tuba music as a priest led a march down 187th Street past frying sausages and bubble tea.

In Belmont, now it's the Dolce Amaro restaurant, next to Modern's supermarket, that's been closed by inspectors, health and mental hygiene. The previously but only briefly closed Arthur Avenue Bakery is back open, this time seemingly legal, with a new inspection report in the window.

Of the new BX 12 "Select" service, these negative reviews: the moving of the Local stops in fact makes trips longer for many riders, as they can no longer take local or Select, whichever one comes first. Some local stops have muddy sidewalks, and no disabled access. Lawsuit, anyone?

And then there is the case of the hijacked banana trucks, stolen from Delaware and dumped, fruitless, in The Bronx...

The Empowerment Zone last week announced 11 awards, eight in Manhattan and three in The Bronx:

* $200,000 loan and a $50,000 grant to help Project Enterprise Inc. establish a micro-loan program in the Bronx Empowerment Zone. Since its creation in 1996 as a US Tressury-certified Community Development Financial Institution, Project Enterprise has served more than 1,300 entrepreneurs, disbursing more than 350 loans totaling over $1.2 million.
* $250,000 grant to help Rocking The Boat Inc.'s $960,000 project to consolidate and renovate its educational facilities. The project will help the company establish its first permanent home at 812 Edgewater Road in the Bronx. Rocking the Boat used traditional wooden boatbuilding and on-water education to help middle- and high school-age youth develop into empowered and responsible adults. Its programs serve nearly 2,000 students and community members, mostly from the south Bronx.
* $150,200 grant to help the New York Gauchos and Teamwork Foundation renovate its main gymnasium and entranceway at 478 Gerard Avenue in the Bronx. The Teamwork Foundation, founded 40 years ago, serves as the general business administrator of the New York Gauchos basketball program that has served approximately 11,000 young people ranging in age from 5 through 18. Fifteen Gaucho alumni have played in the National Basketball Association (including Stephon Marbury of the New York Knicks).

Nomination for worst bus line in the city: the Bx 41 along Webster Avenue. A recent evening at 149th Street, people waited for an hour. Later, up the line, the schedule was ignored, all busses stopped at Fordham Road, leaving those heading further north stranded again.

The week of the City's announcement of plans for "Third Avenue / Melrose Commons" on the real Third Avenue and 157th Street, Flynn Playground was entirely ripped up, while overpriced "luxury condos" were advertised between 156th and 157ths. Is this serving actual Bronx residents? Further south on Willis, at 145th, Peter Goodwine founded Fort Motte Baptist, and on 142nd there is Abraham House. More gentrification on Lincoln Avenue, beyond the Clocktower at 112, a whole new crowd. Again, is this helping those who've long lived in The Bronx?

It's street fair time again in The Bronx. On a rainy Saturday night on 187th Street, an old grinding machine sounding like African drumming chewed through sugar cane fed in by a man in a skull cap, in his pickup truck, sign calling it Bahar Fruit Juices. On Arthur Avenue in a Parks Department trailer, the band Streets of the Bronx played on, for only those under Palumbo's Caffe's awning.

The blues they played could be for the Hunts Point Market, which is threatening to move to New Jersey, just after the City moved the Fulton Street Fish Market up near it. Great planning...

Trolling the Federal Register, we learn that DOJ has sued and settled about illegal underground storage tanks, for gas, at 1303 Webster Avenue and 4090 Boston Road in the Bronx...

Leave it to the New York Times to gush about gentrification of the South Bronx without once mentioning its impact on affordability for the people who live here. While some of "Sobro's" new residents mean well, they should start thinking harder how to not only raise the rents. Here's hoping...

This week, media-watch at home and abroad. Now we know who the New York Times writes for -- in a piece about a factory fire in Mott Haven in the Bronx, the Times of May 28 wrote " People walking around East Harlem and the Upper East Side this afternoon may have noticed black smoke billowing in the air, visible from quite a distance." Apparently, no one in The Bronx saw the smoke, or is reading the Times....

Now is The Independent of London of May 27 snarking about the South Bronx: "Belgravia and the Upper East Side would be looking like swathes of Croxteth and the South Bronx already do with people; vegetation sprouting through the tarmac, litter blowing down the streets like tumbleweed, derelict dwellings with broken windows, dogs running wild, and not a policeman in sight." Wild dogs on the tarmac!

Now it's become clear that the parkland promised in exchange for that taken for the new Yankee Stadium will open, if ever, long after at the stadium does. So who's to blame? The Parks Commissioner won't talk, and the local pols who supported the deal continue to claim, against all evidence, that it is on track. And now it looks like the news stadium won't get an outdoor hockey game, either.

Meanwhile, MLB.com has placed the East Harlem restaurant Rao's north in... the Bronx. Click here.

From the department of "It Don't Mean a Think If It Ain't Got that Swing" -- We agree it's ridiculous that the renovated playground of Public School 138 in Soundview has no swings. According to the Daily News, the explanation is that NYC recently paid $3.5 million to settle a case brought by a woman named Daisey Vega who was injured in a swing accident in 1999 at Noble Park in the Bronx." Mayor Bloomberg is quoted that "you have one accident, everybody screams, 'More safety, another level of backup,' and then somebody sues. A lot of the old things that we did because there are some risks involved and people have sued . . . are no longer things that we do. Sad, I mean . . . you know . . . anyways." This in the same month he told a reporter asking about Sean Bell, "some nerve.. talk to my press secretary." And so it goes.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg has announced that the Yankees and Major League Baseball will donate $7 million to city institutions such as the Grand Concourse branch of the public library, Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club, and Bronx Lebanon Hospital's pediatric diabetes program. "There's no way to put a value on the free advertising that we get out of something like this," he said. The July 15 game will be preceded by a five-day fan-fest at the Javits Center with autograph sessions, memorabilia displays and batting cages. But the Javits Center is in Manhattan... Derek Jeter said, "with the addition of the new stadium, they're really building up the area around it." We'll see.

We are back on the Bronx-watch including watching how the term is used. No less than the BCC (okay, its Welsh service) used "South Bronx" as a generic insult in an article, here, about biking. Also in the UK, the Andover Advertiser of May 16 quotes a local pol that "We are in danger of scoring an own goal because the way we talk Tidworth is like living in the Bronx." And what's wrong with living in the Bronx?

While the Bloomberg Administration loudly claims concern for the lack of supermarkets and fruits and vegetables in lower income neighborhoods, the gentrification it has fueled is part of the problem. In an example of commercial gentrification, Vornado Realty Trust is jacking up Key Foods' rent 500% on Bruckner Boulevard and White Plains Road, driving out the store in order to demolish it and leave residents of high-rises with a ten block walk to the store. Only in New York...

Cinco de Mayo was celebrated on 187th Street and Crescent Avenue on May 3, with no even as much fanfare as last year. The sponsor was Health Plus, which ran nearly every booth. Even by five o'clock, there were no tacos, no Mexican sodas, nothing. Que pasa?

The next day, May 4, six police cars, a fire department 4 by 4 and two ambulance converged on the same corner. Police engaged in a manhunt, while people stood in front of the mostly-Albanian social clubs gawking. A social club on 186th Street has a sign, Welcome Home, Ramush. But were the police working for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia?

Finally the scandal of the 700 teachers in NY Board of Education "rubber rooms" has hit the tabloids, with the Daily News following-up on filmmakers' work, and saying it costs the City $65 million a year. But what of the scandal of "District 75," to which a mix of violent and learning disabled kids are sent, without notice or due process?

Spring has sprung in The Bronx, and the buildings are coming down. On 163rd Street and Third Avenue, the Powerhouse Church is down. The second courthouse has disappeared; there is a sign by Procida Construction advertising the chance to "join Dunkin Donuts and Popeyes" in a strip mall on the site. Whole streets are closed off to traffic. But we're back looking into it -- watch this site, and, on international issues, this streaming video http://www.bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/10560#

On the sidelines of Inner City Press' first-hand coverage of the Pope's visit to the United Nations on April 18 -- click here for that -- the venture to Yonkers involved telling residents of the Dunwoody neighborhood that they could not go out of their houses for hours on end. There was no reporting about hot sheet motels in the area...

Arthur Avenue Bakery update: even with two governmental "Closed" signs on the window, the bakery is still stocked, and a handwritten sign promises wholesale bread as special prices. Neighbors often wondered what took place in the half-finished cinderblock building above the bakery...

And now, a new restaurant review in the form of a cautionary tale. On Fordham Road across from White Castle, in the storefront formerly occupied by a bar that got closed for serving under-aged drinkers, the "Il Ponte Vecchio Pizza Restaurant" has opened. The space is long and narrow, like a railroad flat. On a recent visit, two reviewers walked through to sit in the back, next to an open door. The back yard has green Astro-turf, making it seem like a place to sit. But in fact there is a large refrigerator in the yard, into which restaurant staff disappeared several times during the 20 minute wait for fried calamari. One, the manager, reappeared carrying a head of lettuce in ungloved hands. "Sorry for the wait," he said. "It's that we make everything fresh." The next, a cook, came out with vegetables. On the menu, one can design a salad: walnuts 50 cents, cheddar cheeses 75 cents and the like. It is confusing and could, it appears, result in a $22 dollar salad.

There are pipes across the ceiling. One is for sprinklers -- safety is always a plus -- but the other pipe made noise during the visit. The decor includes vaguely Roman tiles, an incongruous chicken, and witch hats. There is a hole in the ceiling next to the light fixture, and another in the brick wall.

On the positive side, the Cuban panini came with fresh-made potato chips. "Those only come with the panini," the manager said. Oh well. He said they own nine other restaurants. These, we gotta see...

To be constructive, this restaurant can make money from Fordham students. But it will need to stay open later than 9 p.m., and otherwise raise its game, and/or lower its prices. The catering has promise, the hot chips should remain. And maybe the fridge should come in from the back yard...

Belmont journal: what do you say about a public library -- say, one on the corner of 186th Street and Hughes Avenue -- that doesn't have tax forms in the week that taxes are due? Why is yet another small grocery store opening up on 187th Street, between Beaumont and Cambrelleng, making it a total of eight in a three-block strip? Three of these are open 24-hours a day; whether the new one will be is not yet known. If you combined these eight, you could have a good-sized supermarket... This are back to morning, post unilateral declaration of independence in Kosovo, at the Albanian social clubs in the area. A strangely flashy place named Planet Wings has opened up in the same stretch, already offering franchise opportunities along with slightly overpriced wings. Cheapest item is a taco, at $2.16, but it is cold, cannot hold a candle to the little stands that have cropped up in Belmont. The sign says, best wings in the Hudson Valley. But this is The Bronx.. The area was filled with police this week, searching for suspects, throwing people up against the pharmacy's rolling metal gate. But the only "raid" that got publicized was of the Arthur Avenue Bakery, click here for that. Welcome to Belmont...

Metro-North follow-up: a week after defending his railroad's exclusion of riders at Fordham Station in The Bronx, and saying inaccurately that a center platform could be built for more express trains to stop at Fordham, Metro-North president Peter A. Cannito was quoted in a press release about a center platform -- for Yankee Stadium. It's a $91 million project, and according to Cannito, "Everyone is pushing to get it open as close to opening day 2009 as is safely possible." The press release continued, "The four tracks of Metro-North's Hudson Line pass just west of the stadium. The tracks are being relocated about 50 feet west to allow for construction of two center-island platforms." It's all where your priorities are...

In 2007 in its headquarters Metropolitan Statistical Area of New York City, Citigroup confined Americans to higher-cost loans above the rate spread 2.61 times more frequently than whites. Citigroup's disparity to Latinos was 1.90.

JPMorgan Chase, in what is also its headquarters MSA of New York City, was even more disparate, confining African Americans to higher-cost loans above the rate spread 2.92 times more frequently than whites. Chase's disparity to Latinos was 2.50. More here.

And now predatory lending has slowed the market: home sales volume in Queens dropped by 25 percent from February 2007 to February 2008, 31 percent in Brooklyn, 36 percent on Staten Island -- but fully 50 percent in the Bronx...

BRONX, N.Y., March 30 -- As New York government officials consider imposing a tax for driving into lower Manhattan, many of the Metro-North Railroad trains which stop to let off suburban riders in the Bronx refuse to take Bronx passengers on board for the last leg of the trip into Grand Central Station. When these trains stop at the Fordham Road station in the Bronx, the public address system announces that they are "discharge only" and that anyone who insists on getting on will be charged the highest possible fare. Among those excluded or over-charged are Bronxites who have paid over $140 for a monthly pass from Fordham to Grand Central.

This longstanding policy was questioned on March 26 at a public hearing of the Metro-North Railroad president Peter Cannito. Along with questions about allowing more bicycles on the MNRR trains and better policing late-night drunken riders, Inner City Press asked Mr. Cannito to explain why the company he runs, at least until later this year, denies its services to pre-paid customers in the Bronx. While several of the other MNRR board members present seem surprised that this takes place, Cannito said it is a product of an operating agreement between the states of Connecticut and New York. He said that since Connecticut pays 65% of the New Haven line's costs, they have requested that no passengers be allowed on the New Haven lines trains which stop to discharge passengers in the Bronx.

When Inner City Press questioned the social, racial and environmental justice logic of keeping paying customers from The Bronx from riding the suburban commuter trains even when they have paid, Cannito said, even if "you don't accept it," he had explained it. Another board member interjected that what Inner City Press had raised showed the "regionality of service" which is "something we are keenly aware of and working toward."

Further inquiry by Inner City Press has revealed as an explanation of the exclusion of Bronxites that the Connecticut and New York lines of the Metro-North system don't have in place a system to invoice each other for riders like Bronxites riding New Haven line trains south into Manhattan. The bureaucratic fix appears simple, unless an implicit selling-point of the New Haven line is the exclusion of more "urban" riders. While some intrepid Bronxites have found a way around the MNRR's policy of exclusion -- by buying a holding a ticket from Westchester to Grand Central, as if they had gotten on further north -- these games are not accessible to everyone, cost more and should not be necessary, particularly with congestion pricing looming.

Cannito offered a single, illusory concession. He said that MNRR is considering whether having a middle platform at the Fordham station would allow additional express trains from White Plains to stop at Fordham. But a cursory visit to the station shows that there is no room for a middle platform, and little chance of expanding the station outward, either into Fordham University where a dorm is being constructed, or out onto Webster Avenue.

Also at the hearing, a bicycle enthusiast derided late night drunken riders who, he said, often vomit in the cars. Just as a designated quiet car had been proposed, he suggested what he called a "designated pukers car."

Bronx news watch medley -- note to News 12: the Latin music legend who just died was named Cha-chow, not Cock-Hayo... And to report at length about the fight-back of a Bronx high school football coach without even mentioning why the principal banned him from the campus is not respectful, it's mystifying...

Last week in honor or search of La Francophonie, Inner City Press had to venture beyond the Bronx, first to DC then Manhattan then finally the Borough of Kings. Monday in DC, the Press' travails with the UN and Google were discussed. Monday night at the CUNY Graduate Center on Fifth Ave, an eclectic band played, saxophonist from Quebec, bass from Mali, keyboards from Japan. The M de C Paul Holdergraber from the NY Public Library is, despite his name, French. Who knew? The week was capped, however, by the surreal performance of a quintet called La Laque at the Luna Lounge west of Bedford, east of Lorimer in Brooklyn. Energetic drums, ethereal singing in French, vaguely Germanic keyboards. One of the few song-explanation said that Tuesday is French for weekend. "C'mon, that's funny," the singer deadpanned. Mardi, get it?

And while not French at all, we're compelled to note, across the street from Luna Lounge, the upscale-downscale meat emporium Fette Sau, faux Southern pork shoulder $15 a pound, we recommend the broccoli salad and sweet black chili sauce...

The day after news of the Federal Reserve's murky bailout of Bear Stearns through JPMorgan Chase, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch filed with the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a petition, complaint and series of requests, portions of which are available by clicking here. ICP has now made a similar filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Meanwhile, it's reported that Bear Stearns' CEO recently paid cash to buy two apartment in the former Plaza Hotel in New York, without a mortgage...

So how did Eliot Spitzer get caught? North Fork Bank, recently re-branded Capital One, filed a Suspicious Activity Report last July. Like most SARs, it went nowhere. Until HSBC filed its own, about transactions with shell companies QAT International and QAT Consulting Group, connected to Emperor's Club VIP. Now investigators took an interest, tracing back to Spitzer. Why was he banking with North Fork, of all places?

So why is the courthouse at 161st and 3rd being given to Imagine Schools, which in 2005 lost its charter for a Syracuse elementary school for having low test scores and high turnover among students and staff members?

Foreclosure tale from New York, by a charter-bus driver in the East Bronx who has a mortgage payment that went from $2,482 to $3,500 a month. I had a two-year teaser rate, now going up every six months to a maximum of 13.2 percent, "I spoke to Wells Fargo. I tried to get them to keep the rate at the teaser rate, 6.8 percent... I'm in a home that cost us $35,000 in the sixties. We refinanced three times, and we owe $400,000."

It appears that the UN is considering relocating some of its trees, including gifts from the Japanese mission, to keep them safe during construction. Inner City Press asked Capital Master Plan spokesman Werner Schmidt if he could confirm that the Bronx-based NY Botanical Garden, where the CMP's Michael Adlerstein used to work, is coming to check out and even price relocation of the trees. "There are tree issues," Schmidt replied. "We are talking to a number" of entities, "including the Botanical Garden." Watch this site. And see, on Inner City Press and free speech, www.bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/9329#

As you cruise past Cardinal Hayes High School, let's say on MetroNorth watching a new building rising where once the Police Academy was to have been, who would have guessed what the principal had on his hard drive -- or would that be his zip(per) drive? Also on the porn front, Inner City Press last week ran a three-story series that CUlMinated in the quiet removal of Smooth and King, replaced by Elle and Vogue. Click here. And now, to the Bronx...

A snowy Saturday night in Tremont, club-goers line up in front of the Jet Set Cafe on Webster, across from the deadly White Castle outlet, just south of where Popeye's Fried Chicken has moved in. If you need a selection of hundreds of hubcaps and rims, this is your area.

Across the world but related, In Kazakhstan, Ministry of Emergencies head Vladimir Bozhko last week warned ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steel company, that it could be forced to close one of its coal mines it if does not improve safety conditions after an explosion last month killed 30 people. The company was given one month to draw up a plan to introduce 41 safety reforms at the Abaiskaya mine in central Kazakhstan. ArcelorMittal is making steel for New York's Freedom Tower...

Also high in the New York City sky is the multi-million dollar penthouse owned by Lichtenstein, on 40th Street and 2nd Avenue. It was put into a different light by the story this week of Germany's payment for a CD-ROM of its citizens with money in Lichtenstein. Enabling tax evasions as an act of war? Also about the UN, see this sample editorial.

Meanwhile, the NY Attorney General's office last week sent Inner City Press a letter about a years-old Freedom of Information Law request about predatory lending, responsive documents to which have still not been provided...

In the streets of the Belmont neighborhood in the Bronx, lined with Kososar social clubs selling burek, cars honked their horns, flying red flags emblazoned with the Albanian black eagle. "Times Square one o'clock," a men in front of one of the social clubs told cars that slowed as they passed. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting for 1 p.m. as well, announced to the press not by the UN but by the French mission. What could the Security Council accomplish? Click here for Inner City Press' story from the UN on Kosovo, and also on " Death on UN Lawn Leaves Questions Unanswered, Photos Unexplained."

By Fordham Plaza, where every morning now a long time snakes down the sidewalk, patrolled by guards who cause a break in the line for certain overpriced storefronts, the environmental outrage recently occurred. The tall trees fronting the Metro North railroad tracks were unceremonious cut down. In any other borough, this would have triggered protest, probably before, and saving the trees. But this is the Bronx, where institutions do whatever they want and the people are made to wait endlessly in line...

Last week, Hudson Valley Bank's CEO said in a press release that Bronx landlord Barry Levites has been named to the board of New York National Bank, which sold out to Hudson Valley Bank. The press release mentions, only once, Hudson Valley Bank's Business Development Board, and that Levites was already serving on it. So Hudson Valley Bank's impact on NYNB has been to name a controversial Bronx landlord to its board. The missed j.a. lobbia wrote in the Voice during the 2001 mayoral campaign of donations from "Levites Realty, which has made headlines for its decrepit Bronx buildings, including one that had to be vacated in 1994 after the walls began to shake and crack." Welcome to the new New York National Bank...

Now this was innovative-- Luis Fernandez, 30, was arraigned last week on charges that he sold illegal drugs while making deliveries for Schmuger's Hardware Store on Third Avenue, including a sale last month to an undercover cop near E. 178th St and Third Ave...

Bloomberg's state of the city speech last week, delivered while still toying with a presidential run, took credit for rezoning the South Bronx, but not for closing schools and daycare centers, and presiding over the increasing unaffordability of housing to people who have long lived in The Bronx. Then in his canned radio address, Bloomberg equated fighting poverty with monitoring those getting out of prison, while saying that "another key priority of my second term [is] fighting poverty." We'll see.

From an Inner City Press correspondent in the North Bronx we have this -- Saturday January 19 near 241st Street, on an elevated train stopped between stations, police lay in wait to issue tickets to riders who walked between cars. Feeling it was a set-up, our intrepid correspondent got off at the next stop and stood telling entrants what the police were up to. And soon enough, the police left...

As protests continue of Bloomberg's closing of the day care center on 140th Street between Willis and Alexander Avenues, now the state Office of Children and Family Services is moving to shutter the Pyramid Reception Center in the Bronx.

Now slated for the Bathgate Industrial Park, which has had a weedy lot just below the Cross Bronx Expressway for more than a decade, is a warehouse for Pearlgreen Hardware, which claims it will add about 60 new jobs in addition to the 60 workers Pearlgreen currently employs. We'll see..

Dion DiMucci, formerly of the Belmonts, is moving back to New York, to... Wall Street.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has filed an administrative action against Rosenthal & Klein Inc., Bronx, N.Y. The action alleges that the company committed willful, repeated, and flagrant violations of the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA). In the action, it is alleged that the company failed to make full payment promptly to 16 sellers of the agreed purchase prices, in the total amount of $927,459.76 for 208 lots of perishable agricultural commodities. Food wars...

While trying to create buzz for a presidential run, Mayor Bloomberg is moving to close the Lucille Murray Child Development Center in the South Bronx by January 11. Not only is the Center being de-funded -- the building will no longer offer daycare of any kind. Great...

On the fight against the proposed take-over of Commerce Bank, including its drive-thru branch on Fordham Road, see, e.g., "Activist fights TD-Commerce Bancorp deal, citing racial gap," by Richard Newman, Bergen Record, Jan. 1, 2008, Pg. L7

In the Daily News' December 28 Pollyanna piece about crime drops in The Bronx, there's a quote from Augie Aloia, a professor of criminal justice at Monroe College in the Bronx, the "the new numbers as a sign that the Bronx is 'turning the corner...Because of the demographics, the Bronx is a tough borough and it always has been.'" But what demographics does he mean? If the reference is to income, that should be spelled out. By the way, grand larceny is up, and shootings and injuries have not declined as much as homicides: meaning that the decrease may largely be attributable to advances in emergency medicine...

Click here for Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch's challenge to the proposed take-over of Commerce Bank by Toronto Dominion. In the New York City MSA, TD Banknorth strikingly excluded African Americans from its marketing, outreach and lending. For home improvement loans, of which TD Banknorth made 126 loans to whites based on 266 applications of which it denied 115 (43.2%), TD Banknorth processed only 46 applications from African Americans, denied 35 of them (76.1%). For refinance loans, of which TD Banknorth made 10 loans to whites, TD Banknorth received nine applications from African Americans, and denied ALL of them. While strikingly excluding people of color from its offers of normally-priced, prime credit, TD's Banknorth has continued funding and enabling predatory / fringe financiers such as high-cost pawnshops... And see, "Advocacy group in challenge of TDBank-Commerce Bancorp deal," by Carrie Tait, National Post (Canada), December 29, 2007; "Advocates for poor protest bid to buy Commerce," by Harold Brubaker, Philadelphia Inquirer, December 29, 2007

Christmas in Belmont is not the same this year. What's missing? Well, the farm animals and horse-drawn carriage ride, from in front of Mount Carmel Pharmacy. There's said to a sickness in the family, so this year there's only a Santa in front, $5 a picture, small candy bars handed out free. To the side of Santa on Sunday, the neighborhood's ghost-like bootleg DVD seller greeted an African-American teen with an off-color salutation. "What'd you say, man?"

As Carrion Downshifts to Race for NYC Comptroller, Human Rights Disinvestment Balanced by Returns

BRONX, NY, December 13 -- As Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrion spoke at the Grand Hyatt Thursday morning, quoting from James Joyce and Emma Lazarus' poems on the base of the Statue of Liberty, he seemed inexorably to be moving to declaring himself a candidate for Mayor. In the audience were generations of Bronx elected officials, Jose and Joel Rivera, the Yankees' Randy Levine and a table bought by the Bronx Zoo, Herman Badillo at a table of lobbying firm Tonio Burgos and Associates. The real estate industry was making introductions, and filling the ballroom. There was no talk of rising rents, only of rising hopes. And then Carrion declared for... Comptroller.

In the media scrum that immediately followed, he was asked "why not run for Mayor?" His answer was "I've got kids," and that there are other young talents running for Mayor, two on whom he said he would call with the news: Christine (Quinn) and Anthony (Weiner). He shifted to say that New York's economy is doing well, even with the subprime lending crisis. He said there are "ten to twelve thousand families with subprime mortgages," an estimate that readily-available Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data calls into question. But he's not yet Comptroller.

Looking ahead, Inner City Press asked Carrion for his views on using the city's pension fund and investment to advance human rights. "It's one of the strongest instruments municipalities have," Carrion said, "to go to enterprises, to multinational corporations or funds, and say we are uncomfortable with practices in parts of the company, in countries, the treatment of workers."

Inner City Press asked if he would divest from specific countries, and from companies doing business in them, using as examples what other government subdivisions have targets, Sudan and Syria. "Anywhere human or workers rights are violated, we need to rethink strategy," Carrion said. He went on to say he would "also take into consideration the return for pensioners." So if human rights violators are profitable? We'll see.

Footnotes: A study cited last week found that in Jamaica, Queens, a mainly black suburb of New York with a median income of $45,000, 46 per cent of mortgages were sold by sub-prime lenders; while in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, a mostly white area with a median income of $50,000, 4 per cent of mortgages originated from sub-prime lenders... With Citigroup giving its CEO and chairman jobs to investment banker, now pundits speculate that the branch bank may be sold, saying Citi's "share in New York is way down from five years ago, when it had nearly 21% market share and 375 branches, because it moved a large amount of deposits from New York City to Nevada." Is that why Citi has felt comfortable doing less and less under the Community Reinvestment Act?

So Mayor Bloomberg, preparing to fly to Beijing and to Bali, announces without consultations that P.S. 220 in the Bronx will be closed. His canned quote was "We just can't sit here and let a school that does not do what it's supposed to do continue on its merry way" -- he said as he headed on his merry way to cut ribbons in China with Hank Paulson, and to resorts in Indonesia...

A Bronx tale, from last week's New York Sun, about Gloria Davis' successor Michael Benjamin: "He first saw her when he stopped by the William Hodson Senior Center on Webster Avenue... by his third visit to the center, he won a date with Ms. Benjamin, who accepted a lunch invitation at a nearby Albanian-run Italian restaurant." Okay, that'd be on Arthur Avenue. But which one? Noticed on Cambrelleng: a 4 by 4 with diplomatic plates, "Consul." Albania, anyone? In the run-up to the December 10th Kosovo (non) decision?

Subj: Belmont and e187th incessant Xmas music
From: Distracted
To: mlee [at] innercitypress.org
Date: 11/27/2007 5:51:50 PM Eastern Standard Time

Matthew: Do you have any idea who is controlling the two speakers on the pole next to Mt. Carmel Church on the corner of Belmont and 187th street. Xmas music is constantly blaring and the church says it is not them that does this? The music runs until 11pm at night - we need to sleep sometime. Thanks.

BRONX, November 24 -- "American Gangster" by Ridley Scott spent much money getting the visuals of 1970s New York, including The Bronx, down pat. There's a canyon of abandoned buildings, a foray to the Bronx under the elevated train (flash of a 176th Street Station sign), and incongruous street scenes on the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. There are wide-windowed breakfast spots in Harlem, and housing projects like jails, with fencing on their breezeways. There is the growing heroin empire, and the dogged cop on its trail. No judgment is passed, no conclusion offered. It seems like a waste of money -- and, concretely, the Chelsea Clearview, after taking in $12 a ticket, makes sure that no other movies can be seen. Boo hiss.

Bloomberg Repeats Threat to Cease School Visits as UN Backslides on Fix-Up Commitments -- Does Real Estate Explain? Bronx Footnote

UNITED NATIONS, November 13 -- While the UN on Tuesday claimed that it had agreed to New York City Mayor Bloomberg's timeline for minimum safety repairs of the UN Headquarters building, the City's response to the UN notes two items as "not satisfactory," and reiterates the threat to prohibit public school visits to the UN. The City's letter, obtained by Inner City Press and put online here, accuses the UN of backsliding on previous timeliness for "compartmentalization" and for installation of smoke detectors.

"Building separation" was to have begun on January 8, a date that the UN's November 5 letter ignores. The City's Commissioner for the UN, Consular Corps and Protocol, Marjorie B. Tiven -- who is also Mayor Bloomberg's sister -- writes that "in previous meeting with the UN we had been told these dates were attainable. Your letter states only that a contract will be awarded by mid-December... That is not satisfactory."

On smoke detectors, the City required that 50% be installed by January 8 "and 100% by March 31, 2008, dates the UN had previously agreed were achievable." Commissioner Tiven writes that the UN's November 5 letter "states that the contract would be signed by the end of November 2007 and work completed 24 months after the signing of the contract. That is not satisfactory." Then Commissioner Tiven reiterates the threat: if the deadlines, including those listed above, are not met, "the City will have not choice but to direct the cessation of all public school visits to the United Nations, and if warranted, the City will take additional action as well." The letter is copied to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Secretary of State Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad, and the Mayor.

How then to explain the following statements, questions by Inner City Press, at Tuesday UN noon briefing? From the transcript:

Deputy Spokesperson: The Secretary-General and the Head of the Department of Management, Alicia Barcena, are in complete agreement with the Mayor in terms of concerns for the safety of visitors and staff and others who occupy this building, which I mentioned to you yesterday... I think we are moving along, and the city and UN continue to address these measures as expeditiously as possible.

Inner City Press: Yes, one follow-up on that. There seemed to be this very concrete issue of compartmentalization, which I guess means fire doors and also something to do with the fan system, which the city seems to think should be repaired by January. Is this...

Deputy Spokesperson: There is a benchmark date set for that and we've agreed to that. [Video here]

But the City's letter notes that the UN has not agreed to the benchmark dates, has in fact backed away from previous commitments. How these problems develop will be reported on this site.

It might also be attributable to not knowing or having been told of the letter -- also on Tuesday, receipt of a letter from biofuels trade associations could not be confirmed, and a question earlier in the week about submission of evidence of alleged corruption in UN's Kosovo mission UNMIK has still not been answered. Still...

On the UN side, some real estate-minded pundits speculate that beyond a concern for safety, the Bloomberg Administration may also be seeking to gain some leverage and influence over upcoming UN decisions that can impact the City's economy. Pending General Assembly approval, the UN will eventually be moving thousands of employees out of its headquarters to repair it. Where these employees go will impact local real estate markets. The City is also said to have its eye on the two building across First Avenue from the Headquarters, thrown up by the UN Development Corporation (UNDC). Could the UN help stoke up real estate values in Long Island City, Queens? Inner City Press asked the chief of the UN's rehabilitation project, Michael Adlerstein, who the UN's real estate broker is. After some hesitation, in halting transparency, he answered: Newmark. In New York, real estate is a major game in town.

Question: has the UN ever placed anything in the Bronx? (There was a half-ass link between UNDC and Melrose Commons). Has the UN ever done anything for the Bronx?

There is, upon reflection, at least one further angle. If Bloomberg does through his hat and money into the Presidential ring, without having a foreign policy beyond a private jet, having publicly tiffed with the UN could be of use. This is not lost on the November 14 New York Post, nor in the release of the second letter to CBS and others. Watch this site.

As the administration hires PR firms to drum up support for congestion pricing in the Bronx, already underserved by mass transit, downtown the diplomats are making sure they wouldn't have to be the "congestion tax."

UNITED NATIONS, November 8 -- If New York drivers find themselves paying tolls to enter midtown Manhattan, under Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing scheme, guess who will not pay them? UN diplomats. A little-noticed section of the barely-read "Report of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country," recounts that the representatives of Indonesia, Malaysia and Russia all expressed "concerns" about "the 'congestion tax' plan recently announced by the Mayor and whether it was intended to apply to the diplomatic community." The representative of the United States replied that "the actual wording was 'congestion pricing'... it was too early to discuss the matter as it was unclear whether the plan, which had yet to be finalized, would receive approval in Albany."

Forget for a moment the centrality of Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver. The U.S. representative's deferral on the question does not take into account that the U.S. State Department, in London where congestion pricing is already in place, argues not to pay it.

So here in New York, Ambassadors and their staffs even from oil rich countries will cross on bridges and in tunnels without paying. But only from some countries -- the report also contains the complaints of delegations from Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Sudan and Russia, about being barred from traveling more than 25 miles away from Columbus Circle. Wanting to attend a meeting at Princeton about the UN International Criminal Court, two delegates from Cuba were refused permission to travel that far south, whether by car or New Jersey Transit. The U.S. responded that its "obligations as host country" of the UN "arose only in respect of official UN meetings." Sometimes restrictions are tighter than 25 miles. When Radovan Karadzic came to the UN, he was limited to 42nd Street, between First Avenue and the Grand Hyatt on Lexington. No need to pay congestion pricing for that commute...

On parking tickets, the one topic in the Host Country Report that is periodically covered, Mayor Bloomberg's sister Marjorie Tiven, NYC Commissioner for the UN, recounted that "between October 2006 and January 2007, 2400 civilian vehicles had been summoned and 79 towed... Civilian vehicles received seven times more summonses than those of diplomats." The report says Ms. Tiven "announced that... a new telephone line had been established which was available 24 hours a day, 7 days a wekk, for diplomats to address their parking problems: 718-383-7596." There's only one problem: the number has been disconnected, and no further information is available about it...

Visions of the Bronx while leaving New York by Amtrak heading north -- over Randall's Island and the Bronx Kills, east past Murray Feiss with glimpses of the Brother Islands, Typhoid Mary's prison. Still mountains of rubble at 149th Street, Oakpoint Yards and the scam of Brite Star Homes, never cleaned. Hunts Point cross streets, Garrison and 156. Parkchester and Sizzler, from whence the DMV was relocated to Belmont. Soon Coop City and the bridge to City Island. High rise condos of New Rochelle and then you're gone...

From last Thursday's New York Times, a double South Bronx screw-up: "An article on Sunday about environmental and economic development projects in the South Bronx financed by Citgo Petroleum, the American subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, gave an incorrect amount in some editions for discounted heating oil delivered to Americans last winter, and the amount it expects to deliver this winter. It delivered 100 million gallons, not 100,000, last winter, and plans to deliver 110 million gallons, not 110,000, this winter. Picture captions in one edition misidentified a man shown watering a rooftop garden in the South Bronx and standing with other members of a community group that received financing from Citgo Petroleum. He is Stephen Oliveira, not Henry Lajara." Off by a power of a thousand, and wrong caption in photo. What's next?

Well in the Sunday Times of October 28, the word Bronx was listed only 14 times, including "Bronx cheer." The substantive stories involved the autopsy of the 7 year old who died in P.S. 205 on Southern Boulevard, a piece on the Kingsbridge Armory, a review of the Bronx Museum on the Arts, and a breezy Halloween piece mentioning Pelham Bay and Riverdale. Typical...

The Hillary Clinton "where are the donors" story last week had at least two Bronx referents: a "one-table" Chinese restaurant (we call that a take-out, here, what the Brits call a talk-away), and "a man named Liang Zheng was listed as having contributed $1,000. The address given was a large apartment building on East 194th Street in the Bronx, but no one by that name could be located Census figures for 2000 show the median family income for the area was less than $21,000. About 45% of the population was living below the poverty line, more than double the city."

The Chronicle of Higher Education of October 19, reporting on possible merger of NYU and Polytechnic, mentions a professor "at NYU's Bronx campus when the university closed it and the engineering school in 1973." As we've previously dug into, still without satisfaction, NYU then sold the campus to the City at an inflated price for what is now Bronx Community College...

This week, Bronx and books. On Arthur Avenue, the long-delaying opening of the trattoria to replace the fake-Italian McDonald's that rented half of Teitel Brothers and caused a merchants' rift is now finally at hand. Workmen putting in final touches on Roberto Paciullo's Zero Otto Nove on October 13 said if not Monday, Tuesday it should open up. We'll have a review. Sooner or later. Further east on 187th Street, where the Korean liquor store closed down, a chicken wings place is moving in, claiming to have the best wings in the Hudson Valley. But this is The Bronx...

Downtown in Manhattan, on the Mexican tip, ex-president Vicente Fox was bloviating about his book "Revolution of Hope" and about Jesus at Barnes and Nobles in Union Square when he got asked a question about the murderous crackdown in Oaxaca. The questioners were hustled by security out of B&N, while Fox offered faint protest about freedom of expression. So now a bookstore chain is ejecting those who ask public policy questions...

Grant and rants: On October 4, the Bloomberg administration made much of a grant to, among others, Hendrickson Custom Cabinetry, a custom cabinetry and architectural millwork manufacturing firm located in the South Bronx. Bloomberg said-in-a-state that "We should spend our money helping those that have committed to job creation and promotion to train their entry level workers, instead of simply training New Yorkers with the hopes that jobs that match those skills will be available." Meanwhile, responding to sex discrimination case case against Bloomberg L.P., on which he has spoken with the company, Bloomberg at a South Bronx news conference said, “I am the majority owner, and I’m absolutely entitled to talk to the senior people and am entitled to know what’s going on." So if you know what's going on, you're responsible, right?

Click here for Inner City Press' October 5 encounter with ex-Governor Pataki at the UN.

For the NYC street food vendor award, there were four finalists -- four in Manhattan and only one in the "outer boroughs." To this location, Inner City Press ventured last week. On 30th Street and Broadway in Astoria, one block from the elevated train, you'll find the stand of Farez "Freddy" Zeideia, the King of Falafel. Meats are frying on the griddle, customers sit in white plastic chairs just inside the parking lot of a C-Town supermarket. The falafel sandwich, at three dollars, is crisp and saucy. Halfway through, Inner City Press interviewed Zeideia. The subject of the competitor brought a quick response. "The judges were all from Manhattan," Zeideia said. "So of course they picked a winner from Manhattan" -- in this case, dosa in the West Village. Zeideia, a 42-year old Palestinian, brings his cart every morning from Woodside, Queens. During the blackout, he and his generator kept serving shawarma and spiced chicken, without raising their prices. Nearby on Steinway Street in the hookah smoke-filled storefront of Cafe Beirut and others, the falafel is six dollars and not as juicy. Then again, they have backgammon boards and Arabic satellite TV. Le roi est mort, long live the King (of falafel).

This week, from dry to wet and wag-like. Who makes money off supposedly middle-income housing in the current NYC? Bear Stearns and Citigroup, both involved in predatory mortgage lending against this same population. From The Bond Buyer: the NYC "Housing Development Corp. last week began pricing $60.3 million of federally taxable and tax-exempt bonds to finance the construction of and permanent mortgages for four buildings in one development. HDC anticipates that the deal will close on Friday. Boricua Village will feature 452 apartments reserved for low- and middle-income families in the Melrose section of the South Bronx.... Bear, Stearns & Co. is underwriting the bonds and Hawkins Delafield & Wood LLP is bond counsel. The two stand-alone bond series are backed by project revenue and are secured by a letter of credit from Citi."

A politically-incorrect wag on a recent stroll down Arthur Avenue remarked, "These days in Belmont you can't tell the different between the prostitutes and the college students. To whit, the crowds on 189th Street in front of Mug-Z's and Howl at the Moon, mini-skirts and cell phones ablaze, compared to the streetwalkers further east toward the Zoo -- what's the difference?" But their trajectories diverge, in the woods of the Botanical Gardens and elsewhere...

The Mayor's Management Report acknowledges that only in The Bronx did response time to fires get worse:

"Citywide response time to structural fires was 3 seconds faster in Fiscal 2007, continuing a downward trend that began in the second half of Fiscal 2006. Structural fire response time improved in four of the five boroughs and increased by 1 second in the Bronx."

And now a review of a diner that calls itself the best in the city, just over the Triborough Bridge in Astoria. It's too fancy for its own good: it's a diner with a bar, which doesn't allow customers to sit at a table and have only a coffee and a bagel -- while charging over three dollars for a bagel. On the other hand the bagel is good, and the view can't be beat. Cheaper and funnier are the bagels doled out at Fordham Plaza, like out of a skit on Mad TV....

Last week the centennial of Engine Company 82 and Ladder Company 31 was celebrated at a ceremony at the headquarters on Intervale Avenue. We note the prose stylings of John Ficayune in a preview of "When the Bronx Burned"--

"Luke and Jimbo, dragging their lengths of hose, were on their way to the building when they were joined by Mulligan, Juan, Lt. Bannon, Copper, and Bull. A hostile voice from a nearby group of young militant types shouted at them, 'Kiss my black ass, you white asses.'"

Something about that quote lacks verisimilitude. Still, should be interesting. As summer nears its end, we venture over the Triborough Bridge to Astoria, specifically to the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden on 24th Avenue. The sound of the elevated N train competes with oom-pa music, Czech pilsners flow, to a crowd increasingly of hipsters. There are tall trees and sausages, a dance floor, mediaeval tall swinging doors as if this were a walled city. What of the neighbors? And isn't there a beer garden like this in Throggs Neck?

This year's Ferragosto on Arthur Avenue had less freebies than usual. Calandra's Cheese, for example, which previously had a stand making and giving samples of mozzarella (even if they did glare at you if you came back too many times) this year had no stand outside, at least not at the 4:30 p.m. peak when "The Streets of the Bronx" launched laboriously into their rendition of "Good Love" and on Hughes and 186 Italian folk musicians played mandolin for an older crowd. There were the masked clowns and the roasting pig, sure, and the new restaurant on the block, Dolce Amaro, had a half dozen oversized motorcycles in front, including a three-wheeled named "Boss Hog." The police barricades were up on Hoffman and Belmont, 188 to 186. Mount Carmel Church had its stand and the library sold bags of book for two dollars, made to look like two hundred (200) on the sign in front. All in all a groovy time, as summer comes to a close...

In potentially less positive New York news, the New York State Banking Department has named as its new first deputy superintendent of banks hired Patricia Meadow, who has held positions at HSBC Holdings PLC and Citigroup -- both of which have settled governmental charges of predatory lending...

Could Michael Bloomberg -- "Mayor Mike" with the give-away, one-station-only radios given out during his campaign -- be to the right of George W. Bush? On predatory lending and credit discrimination, he appears to be, if last Friday is any guide. While Bush in Washington outlined some few reforms to help homeowners facing foreclosure, Bloomberg implied that lending discrimination cases are a perversion of justice, and that borrowers are to blame for being defrauded.

During his weekly radio address, Bloomberg said that "what happened here is a bunch of people who really didn't have the wherewithal to get mortgages got mortgages. If they didn't have access to those mortgages, the elected officials would scream you're discriminating against them. Some of them lied about their incomes," he added. "Now they said the salesman convinced them to do it. OK. But we live in a world where, when you put your signature down, you're supposed to know what you're signing, and we have to take responsibility."

The most offensive aspect, from our point of view, is bringing in the specter that "elected officials would scream you're discriminating against them." Who exactly is Bloomberg playing to with this screed? So, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and its enforcement are to blame for predatory lending?

This week we look north to Mount Vernon, just over the Westchester line. Mayor Ernest Davis, nothing if not a hipster, may also be more than that. Sources say that during his mayoralty, his income has soared -- there's a talk of Bentley luxury automobile, and of Davis wearing an ankle bracelet transponding to law enforcement. Mount Vernon, then, is above The Bronx, but just like it...

Also Bronx-like is the park in Red Hook were tacos and Salvadoran pupusas are sold. First the Parks Department said they'd put the concessions up for bid; now the Health Department says the vendors can't bring home-cooked food for sale anymore. But home-cooked is part of the point. And what about those selling tamales out of coolers, and corn on the cob with mayonnaise and grated parmesan cheese? Note to City: just leave these people alone...

Rather, the City should be looking into real hazards, such as in Belmont, the slap-dash leaving of a hole in the street at Third Avenue and 183rd Street by "SMC," which left metal plates so loose that a car, or bicycle, could easily fall into the hole in the pavement beneath...

On a Cablevision "public interest" show, Bronx BP Carrion said he aims to become a Met fan in 2009, for now he's just trying to "create a conversation with New York." But when asked about whether all Bronxites really benefit from these developments, many of which are unaffordable, Carrion was dismissive, saying that all projects have critics, "just like Westway." No, taking a public park, and displacing Bronx businesses for a subsidized mall, we are not fish but Bronxites....

This week, why doesn't the Bronx have venues like this? Traveling Saturday to the Africa Fest in Prospect Park, the 2 train for a full hour to Grand Army Plaza then the walk, one first came up Panamanian music on a hill behind the Brooklyn Public Library. A man stood rapping in front of a wall of speakers, a crowd undulated and clapped and food was for sale under at least a dozen awnings. A half-mile away, fronting Park Slope, a more formal stage with ads for Bud Light and the Village Voice, and on stage the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars, celebrating the day of that country's landmark election. The mix, one undulator mused, was surprisingly heavy with reggae. The left-handed lead guitarist played fast and high-pitched West African riffs, and sang accompanied only by drums. The suggested contribution to enter was three dollars. Why doesn't the Bronx have venues like this?

UNITED NATIONS, August 11 -- As New York City's Bloomberg administration ratchets up pressure on the UN to fix the 866 violation found in the most recent inspection, Bloomberg's Fire Department has denied access to the report of inspection, even to accredited media who work in the UN headquarters.

Bloomberg's sister and commissioner for the UN, Marjorie B. Tiven, has written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that he is "putting at risk the lives of the people who work and visit the United Nations."

But when a formal request for the list of violations was made by Inner City Press under New York's Freedom of Information Law, it was denied in full, ostensibly because releasing the report could endanger the safety of persons.

This correspondent filed an appeal, emphasizing in part that as a person working inside the UN, knowing and reporting the specifics of the violations could help promote, and not endanger, safety. In this case, ignorance is not bliss -- it simply compounds the danger.

On August 8 the Fire Department's FOIL appeal official informed Inner City Press that no portion of the inspection report will be provided. Asked for the basis of the denial, the official said it's contained in a formal ruling which has yet to be received (but will be sent to the NYS Committee on Open Government).

While Inner City Press may challenge the withholding of the UN report in New York Supreme Court, which it has previously prevail in other FOIL litigation, one should not have to sue to get access to the City's safety inspections, particularly when the City is making loud claims about the reports.

The Bloomberg administration previously sought to withhold safety information about the 9/11/01 attacks, until sued by the media and families of the victims. One hopes that is not necessary here.

In recent days, UN fire team personnel have been much more visible in the headquarters building. Patrols by themselves, however, do not resolve the safety problems. Trying to explain the UN's basis for leaving violations, the Department of Management's Lena Dissin told the Washington Post, "If we install a fire sprinkler system in the entire building and they will have to be torn out, this is not something the members states will be happy about."

But earlier this year, knowing even then of the UN Capital Master Plan for gut rehabilitation, the UN paid over $130,000, begrudgingly disclosed to Inner City Press, to install over its basement Vienna Cafe a ventilation system to remove cigarette smoke. (Since the UN is on international territory, it is argued that Mayor Bloomberg's anti-smoking ordinance do not apply in the UN.)

Ms. Dissin's boss, Under Secretary General for Management Alicia Barcena, has three times this year said that the UN will be enacting a Freedom of Information procedure, if not law. If these promises had been carried out, the inspection report could be requested and obtained from the UN itself.

In higher profile safety and secrecy news, on August 10 Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's spokesperson's office to confirm or deny that in connection with the UN's plan to expand in Iraq, the Secretariat told the UN's Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions that it wants to spend $130 million on a new UN headquarters in Baghdad, and that ACABQ responded negatively. Video here, from Minute 9:27.

The Associate Spokesman said he did not think any dollar figure had been made public. Now could he say what the UN will do to dispose of such Iraq-related items as a Scud missile engine and target-seeking gyroscopes, held on 48th Street and First Avenue, click here for that Inner City Press story.

Beyond "a plague on both your houses" for withholding information, those most impacted by lack of safety precautions should not be kept in the dark. Safety in Iraq may be a long way off, but on the East Side of Bloomberg's Manhattan, safety and the public release of information about safety should be the rule. Watch this site.

As reported by the Daily News, "The state Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services was about to sign a lease to temporarily move the Mount Sinai Narcotics Rehabilitation Center to 105A Bruckner Blvd. while the clinic's Harlem site was being renovated. Borough President Adolfo Carrion and Community Board 1 requested the plan be ditched because the area, already home to six clinics, is overburdened by drug treatment centers. OASAS has agreed to find a location outside the Bronx. The methadone clinic 'would not be economically, environmentally or socially compatible with the surrounding community,'" wrote Carrion -- who, Inner City Press notes, used to work for OASAS-licensed drug treatment center PROMESA....

This week we report a Bronxy business opening. Tuff City Tattoos has hooked up the previously-cursed storefront on Belmont Ave. and Fordham Road with mock subway cars, in which tattooing is performed in private. There's graffiti on the wall, behind a chain link fence. While for-profit, it's reminiscent of the defunct Fashion Moda gallery on 146th Street, reborn in 2007 as body art. Also reflecting the incipient gentrification and suburbanization of The Bronx, Tuff City is across the street from a low-rise Commerce Bank branch, complete with parking lot and lawn and sprinkler system on timer. Tattoo-seekers, watch out for those automatic sprinklers -- they turn on at 2 a.m....

From the Department of No Sleight Is Too Small, we point to this, a bike shop closing its (North) Bronx location, on the rationale that "to better serve our customers, we've decided to consolidate all our efforts on the Manhattan location." Sounds like a bank...

Below is Inner City Press' piece about the steam pipe explosion, reported from the UN, with a Bronx quesion later answered, at the bottom, with an update:

From the UN, the World's Most Famous Steam Pipe Incident Raises Underlying Questions

UNITED NATIONS, July 19 -- As far East as First Avenue, in front of the UN, the sidewalks were full of people, pointing their cell phone cameras down 42nd Street at the smoke. Rumors circulated. A building had collapsed. Grand Central had been attacked. And, of course, terrorism.

Inside the UN, the loudspeaker system carried a security announcement, "Avoid 42nd Street, there has been an incident." It was reminiscent of the crash of the small plane, with the Yankees pitcher aboard, on the Upper East Side. World news because it happens in Manhattan. Some international correspondents ran into the street, flashing police press passes to get ever closer. Finally a police woman on 3rd Avenue said, "Get the hell back!"

Because it was a steam pipe, it led the turned-back UN correspondents to muse about what lies beneath... the UN. It has been confirmed to Inner City Press by a well-placed (that is, low down) source that beyond the publicly-reported three sub-basements, there are two more floors underground. There are pipes, there are leaking boilers, and yes there is asbestos. If a similar incident occurred on the UN's campus, which is international territory, how would the City's access be? The City for now denies those who work at the UN access to records about their own safety. And the UN, of course, is not talking...

Wednesday at dusk, traffic was turned away at 35th Street, Second Avenue was jammed. Later, after dusk, Mike Bloomberg and entourage showed up to hold a press conference amid the sirens. Each of his commissioners addressed him as, "Yes, Mayor," "thanks, Mayor," not a Mister Mayor was said. Clearly an internal order. Would this be his Giuliani moment?

The commission for busses and subways referred to Woodlawn Road in The Bronx. Con Ed's man contradicted the Mayor's 24 inch pipe with a twenty. There was questions about asbestos. "Take precautions," people were told. But what precautions?

The City later bragged that "three NYPD helicopters monitored the incident, including one with FD personnel on board providing live TV feeds to operations on the ground."

On cable television's NY1, a hype poll was held. Would you stay in New York if there were another terrorist incident? Yes -- but not if steam pipes keep breaking. Although a woman died, of a heart attack, some calling in to NY1 joked. "I was so scared," a woman began," that I had to scream... let's go Mets!"

By 1:30 a.m., still access to Grand Central was blocked except from the north, from 45th Street through the Met Life building. To its credit, Metro-North railroad was running, after having been subject to delays all morning due to rain. (A flier left on train seats said that three of the four tracks running through Fordham Station in The Bronx had been flooded. Why was not clear -- see below)

"sidewalk sheds must be installed before the sidewalks are reopened to the public. The addresses of the buildings are 360 Lexington Avenue, 369 Lexington Avenue, 370 Lexington Avenue, and 380 Lexington Avenue. Buildings forensic engineers have determined water collected in the basements of two nearby buildings will need to be removed. The addresses of these buildings are 369 Lexington Avenue and 375 Lexington Avenue."

Oh, plywood. The e-mail press release, repeated at 6:30 a.m., instructed the media to "emphasize to their viewers, listeners, or readers that people who work between 40th and 43rd Streets and between Vanderbilt Avenue to Third Avenue zone will not be permitted to enter the area on Thursday morning."

Consider it done. Turning full circle to the UN, staffers along First Avenue wondered if their colleagues in the Chrysler Building, UNFPA and UNOPS and others, would get or take the day off. One mused that today's logistics is the kind in UNOPS' mandate, an opportunity missed, again.

July 22 update -- Only in Connecticut to suburbites did Metro-North explain itself:

"Metro-North Railroad officials noticed the flooding at about 7:15 a.m. at the Fordham, N.Y., station, which services the New Haven and Harlem lines, railroad spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said. 'There was water running over the rails on the two outside tracks at Fordham,' Anders said. 'So we couldn't make any stops at Bronx stations.'"

Inner City Press annotation: what then about those metal walk-ways that reach to the middle tracks? They chose not to stop at Bronx stations...

"The flooding caused a bottleneck, forcing all morning rush-hour trains into Grand Central to run on two of the railroad's four available tracks, Anders said. While the railroad waited for the flooding to recede on the other two tracks, it suspended service out of Grand Central for about an hour, affecting mainly reverse commuters, Anders added."

Like the ones in The Bronx, trying to get to jobs in Westchester. And what about the red Connecticut trains which stop in The Bronx, but don't allow on any passengers -- even if, due to Metro-North, the commuters are already half an hour later? To be continued.

Another update: the Vincent Ciccarone playground at 188th and Arthur Avenue, which was fenced and locked up all last summer and all of this spring, finally re-opened. The handball and basketball courts are gone. But little kids like it. Was the year and a half closure worth it? Most people say no. There's a small grassy knoll, with a sprinkler on it. What's done is done...

Next in a series, 'cause summer only comes once a year: in the current street fair on 187th Street in The Bronx, there's the three story high Monkey Maze, between Belmont and Cambrelleng Avenues. Further west, there's been a fire, at Lucy's Zeppoles. Some wondered: the outbreak of a pastry war? Bad karma from doling out cold zeppoles even as hot ones come out of the grease? The investigation continues.

More seriously, long-time Bronx (and Chilean) activist Victor Toro, founder in 1987 of La Pena del Bronx, was recently detained by immigration in upstate Rochester. As they say in Soundview (and elsewhere), "let the brother go! Let the brother go!"

Summertime, summertime. This week let's compare downtown Brooklyn and environs at night with the midnight streetscape of The Bronx. Just off Fort Greene Park there is Habana Outpost, a lot with tables and lights and even movies, near restaurant of South Africa and Senegal, and even New Orleans. Bluppy, is a word that comes to mind. What's to compare in The Bronx? Take the D train for an hour from DeKalb to Tremont and look: old men in beach chairs with dominos, the sirens screen, the hip hop club on Webster is closed, the jumping-est corner now is 180 and Third, dueling clubs with drunken patrons smashing bottles in the street. On Fordham Road summer session means that bars are once again open. But there are no outdoor movies, or Senegalese restaurants, anywhere in sight...

Tales of the City Hall press corps, we report, you decide: l'affaire Viola Plumber, her assassination threat, might have gone unreported. After the Sonny Carson-Gate(s) vote, Ms. Plumber made the comment in front of three reporters: Rivera of the Times, Newsday and the Staten Island Advance. The Times, which elsewhere named a whistleblower without notice or consent, decided to not report Ms. Plumber's comment. But the reporter from Staten Island told an Observer blogger, who put the item online, where Murdoch's Post picked it up. What were the ethics, of reporting or not reporting? Discuss...

Last week we headed south (see letter below). This week, north -- bike up Southern Boulevard and past French Charlie Park, where the Millennium Little League plays and cocito is sold, barbeques fry and motorcycles fly by. Bike up to Gun Hill Road, where there's an impromptu Nascar-like track for remote controlled cars. There's also, up on 212th Street, a Jamaica health food store with sweet carrot juice for four dollars, on the expensive side but good. Summer's here...

Thanks ! The Gardens down here from East 152 - 161st street are but a memory to those of us that held them. Once a gardener myself. I remember the Bradleys proposal back when it came in to Planning Board #1. This was in the Land Use Committee and then-Senator David Rosado fielded the meeting. The District Manager then Bob (Robert) Crespo said the Senator got furious with the reps from Bradley and kicked them Out, telling them to never return (he was very irate) apparently they tried to blow off the Stipulated Requirement to hire a percentage of Local Bronx Residents stating they bring their own staff & employees with them., well that wouldn't do - and thus we have a Staples, et al there today instead. Thanks again for your news reports and continued interest in The Bronx - It's fun & refreshing reading ...

From emptiness to overbuilt, Third Avenue south from 180th Street, gardens gone between 178 and 179, Mastermind's office space waiting, even as the Dunkin Donuts is hardly ever in use. Across from the police station which stood in for Fort Apache, another building looms. Where once Bradley's was promised, there's a sign for Forman Mills. Even a Staples. The Bronx, they say, is back. Copy and print...

An inconvenient question that it seems no one has asked: with private businesses including Ridgewood Savings Bank and (Capital One's) North Fork Bank paying for TV ads which feature the sitting borough president, who aim to run for mayor, aren't these in essence campaign contributions?

More fireworks: Police seized 3 1/2 tons of illegal fireworks worth $50,000 last week. They pulled over an 18-foot rig containing more than 7,000 pounds of fireworks at East 181st Street and Belmont Avenue. Meanwhile six blocks north, the street fair goes on...

Summer has arrived, and with it, street fairs. On June 9, 187th Street between Arthur and Cambrelleng was jammed with celebrants. There was Whack a Mole and nuns selling popcorn. There were old school rocking cover bands by Arthur, and merengue-fueled "Dunk the Freak" on Belmont. There were spice sausages and calzone, but also tacos and corn on the cob. The playground on Arthur and 188 was still closed; throughout the week a handful of workers putter around. Thanks, Parks Department, this "improvement" project has really been working for us...

On behalf of the Fair Finance Watch and its affiliates (collectively, "FFW"), this is a timely comment opposing and requesting public hearing on, and complete copy of, the applications by New York Commercial Bank to acquire 11 branches of Doral Financial. Notice was published in the Weekly Bulletin of May 18, with comment period to June 18, and this is still the notice, as of this submission, on http://www.banking.state.ny.us/wbemail.htm

Application pursuant to Section 601-a of the Banking Law, for the prior approval of the Superintendent, to acquire certain assets and assume certain liabilities of Doral Bank, to acquire First Republic Bank, R1-2007-0134.

FFW is puzzled to see, and hereby requests a detailed explanation of, the fact that the NYBD at some subsequent time tried to partially change the comment period -- in a notice which Inner City Press has only now seen, and which even when partially posted, provided less than 10 days.

The result of this unexplained is to try to exclude public comment on this proposed acquisition. In any event, this comment must be considered timely.

The 2005 HMDA data of New York Community Bank for the New York City MSA shows, for conventional home purchase loans, 17 loans to whites, and only one to an African American. For refinance loans, 49 to whites and only five to African Americans; 3 of 9 applications denied for African Americans, versus only 10 of 70 from whites. FFW is requesting public hearings on these disparities.

It is particularly important that NYCB's data be subject to public scrutiny in that NYCB has previously sought to make its own HMDA data unanalyzable by providing it only in pdf format. See, on this topic, American Banker of April 11, 2005

There is more to say, including on NYCB's multi-family lending and on Doral's situation, but FFW is filing this as soon as it saw the changed comment period date, and well within the comment period of the initial, accurate notice (and still the comment period leading to the comment form). FFW requests an explanation as quickly as possible.

While we're fans of the library, we also report: Susan Kent has resigned as
director and chief executive of the Branch Libraries at the NYPL. This was announced by email to staff on May 2 from NYPL president Paul LeClerc and Kent herself, with no reason given. We remember the hoopla when she was hired from LA, and when the Bronx Library Center on Kingsbridge Road, opened in January 2006. David Ferriero, head of the Research Libraries, will oversee the branches on an interim basis. LJ says she and NYPL execs have been criticized by union officials for cutting tuition assistance; a grievance is ongoing. Oh yeah, reading is good for you...

Here's a question for Metro-North Railroad President Peter A. Cannito: why do so many of the trains that stop at Fordham Road not take on passengers? Bronxites pay good money to get faster to Grand Central. Then they are not allowed to get on trains that their money helps pay for. On some trains, they threaten that if you do you on, you'll have to pay as if you got on at the beginning of the run -- even after you've paid MetroNorth for the Fordham - Grand Central run. So what's the answer, Mr. Cannito? Or maybe Dan Doctoroff, who shared a press release last week with Cannito, about a planned new Yankee Stadium stop, can answer it...

The killing of Fermin Arzu has given rise to protests, but still very little has been said by the police.

On May 18, a 40-something man stole a chair and crucifix from Dreams jewelry store at 651 Elton Avenue, rode on a bike west on 153rd Street and got hit by a bus. As he lay dying on Melrose Avenue, someone stole the chain from him. The jewelry store owner Lakhwinder Singh still called the bus-hit "justice".... Despite the too-expensive Melrose Commons development, the neighborhood was also the scene on May 13 of the kicking to death of Fernando Maldonado outside the Melrose Houses on 154th Street...

The speaker slated for Bronx Community College's June 1 graduation has reminisced about Dr. Richard Izquierdo in the South Bronx: "Often my mother or grandmother did not have the money to pay him for his services, but he never turned us away and on more than one occasion accepted arroz con pollo instead of cash."

Now that it has warmed up, the outrage on Arthur Avenue has grown worse. All of last summer, and now into this Spring, the Vincent Ciccarone playground on 188th Street has been fenced off and unusable. With much fanfare, the City announced that the playground, which was fine and much used, would be fixed. One whole summer of use was lost, and now with Spring here, still it is fenced. Weekdays, there are a handful of workers putting in paving stones and puttering around. It seems the City gave the contract to a company too small or too distracted to do it. And of course this was called an improvement for the neighborhood -- a playground of a use for more than a year, for an unneeded fix up. The contact is # X102-105M and the contractor if Total Construction of Brooklyn...

In happier news from the same neighborhood, Saturday saw a Cinco de Mayo shindig on Crescent Avenue and 186th Street, at which Goya Foods gave out free tostadas, Le Fe gave out peace and guava nectar, and a domino set was auctioned off. Springtime is here (except in the playground, of course).

An update to last week item about concerns about the fair lending record of Ridgewood Savings Bank, which seeks to acquire City & Suburban's branches in The Bronx and elsewhere: on May 3, Ridgewood's CRA officer sent a letter to regulators saying that Ridgewood "shares the concerns of FFW for fair lending." But then Ridgewood has not a word to say about the disparities in its 2006 lending data....

There is a local bank merger proposed that ICP Fair Finance Watch has just opposed -- the applications by Ridgewood Saving Bank to acquire City & Suburban Federal Savings Bank. FFW has received the 2006 and 2005 HMDA LARs of both institutions. Ridgewood, the proposed acquirer, orginates many more mortgage loans, but in a seemingly disparate manner. In 2006, Ridgewood originated 618 loans to whites, and only 21 to African Americans and only 20 to
Latinos. Ridgewood’s denial rate for Latinos (30.8%) was more than double its denial rate for whites (14.6%); for African Americans, Ridgewood’s denial rate was 23.7%.

City & Suburban makes almost no mortgage loans. As Ridgewood has acknowledged to FFW, “there are only 21 files for 2005 and 19 for
2006.” The LARs provided show no loans to African Ameicans or Latinos.

Comparing Ridgewood in 2006 to 2005, its record got worse. While its overall mortgage origination volume declined, it declined more for African Americans than for whites, and more for Latinos than for whites. On the current record, FFW has requested that Ridgewood’s applications be denied

From the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, Inner City Press on April 21 received a copy of Bank of New York's heavily redacted application to acquire Mellon. BONY revised its still-too-extensive redactions to its application on April 16; ICP has a right to comment on this material. BONY, which initially did not respond as other banks did to FFW's request for 2006 HMDA data, finally provided its data on April 20.

In the most recent year for which HMDA data is (now) available, 2006, Bank of New York confined residents of The Bronx, the most predominantly minority county in New York State, to higher cost loans over the Federal Reserve-determined rate spread TWENTY FIVE times more frequently than residents of Manhattan, and 2.92 times more frequently than residents of Westchester County. As the FRB will remember, Bank of New York initially fought to exclude The Bronx from its CRA assessment area. Now BONY has a disparate lending record in The Bronx -- and Brooklyn too, where BONY in 2006 confined borrowers to rate spread loans 10.7 times more frequently than Manhattan.

This is much worse, particularly in The Bronx, than in 2005, when BONY confined its Bronx borrowers to higher cost loans over the rate spread 7.87 times more frequently than in more affluent and less minority Manhattan. Bank of New York's disparity-ratio between borrowers in Brooklyn and Manhattan was 6.5. Both got worse in 2006. FFW demands public hearings, including on BONY's multi-faceted enabling of other predatory lenders, its admissions of money laundering, its secretiveness and anti-competitive effects. ICP contends that this proposed combination would be anti-competitive. BONY apparently disagreed, but the bases of its argument are still being hidden, with entire pages of its antitrust memo blacked-out. BONY repeatedly cites the case Inner City Press v. FRB, then redacts even portions of its argument. FFW has contested these redactions and withholdings, and requested an extension of the comment period until the information to which FFW and the public have a right is released.

Downtown -- Predatory Lending in NY Compared to S&L Crisis, As Subcrime Disparities Worsen

Investment banks on Wall Street have been facilitators of the shady loans that have the subprime lending industry in crisis. This message was delivered on Wednesday April 11 by the ex- Wall Street banker nominated as Superintendent of the New York Banking Department, Richard Neiman.

Delivering his first speech in that capacity, Mr. Neiman had comparisons to the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, and harkened back to the 1970s for the lending discrimination called redlining, which he implied was a thing of the past. Now, he said, there is reserve redlining, in which African Americans and Latinos are targeted for high cost loans.

Eliot Spitzer, now hitting his 100th day as New York's governor, picked as his Banking Superintendent a long-time bank lawyer with Citigroup and more recently part of the Toronto Dominion conglomerate. Some community representatives who spoke to Inner City Press on condition of anonymity, because they have to deal with the Banking Department, expressed concern that despite the speech Mr. Neiman may based on his resume be too close to industry, or unwilling to consider that his previous employers have engaged in abusive lending practices. Citigroup, for example, is noteworthy for having twice settled predatory lending charges, with the Federal Trade Commission for $240 million and with the Federal Reserve Board for $75 million in 2004.

More recently, just-released 2006 data distinguishing which loans are over a federally-defined rate spread of three percent over the yield on Treasury securities of comparable duration on first lien loans, five percent on subordinate liens show that Citigroup in its headquarters Metropolitan Statistical Area of New York City, confined African Americans to higher-cost loans above this rate spread 4.41 times more frequently than whites. Toronto Dominion's U.S. mortgage data in 2006, while generally not subprime, reflect that African Americans were confined to higher cost loans over the rate spread 16 times more frequently than whites, and Latinos 12 times more frequently than whites.

Perhaps because of his background, or also because his nomination still awaits action by the State Senate, Mr. Neiman on Wednesday thanked the many industry representatives in NYU's Lubin Auditorium, as well as other regulators. Click here for more.

Promesa Inc., Bronx non-profit whose bookkeeper was killed execution-style in the 1990s, is now embroiled in a dispute with its staff. A work stoppage was planned for April 10, following an earlier one-day stoppage on March 28. The dispute concerns among other things Promesa's insistence in paying 5% of workers' salaries into a 401(k) plan rather than 6.65% into a pension in the style of Local 1199. Following the March 28 walk-out, the parties met at the office of Bronx Borough President Carrion, who used to work for Promesa. According to sources, a schedule for further negotiations was set, but has not been kept to. Promesa CEO Ruben Medina has mysteriously been in Florida, which Promesa previously lent its non-profit status to a local politician who wanted to develop a for-profit mall. These sources also say that there are once again bookkeeping irregularities within Promesa -- on paper, millions of dollars in the black, in reality, the red is flowing.

In what some Promesa staff find a creepy (non) coincidence, Louie Morales, a SEIU union organization at Promesa died in November 2006, by a rare two-shot suicide. Click here for more. We'll be following both of these items.

Consider Westchester Avenue, from Jackson to 149th. The elevated stop at Jackson was closed to train traffic from 10:30 to 3 on Good Friday, with no real replacement, just the regular 4 bus. A crowd gathered in front of the token booth. The turnstiles all said, "No Entry." Some passengers stood halfway down the stairs, to see which would come first, the first post-3 p.m. train, or the jammed-full Number 4 bus. There has to be a better way...

Meanwhile in The Hub, the hot dog vendors are out, including the couple who stake out Westchester and 3rd. They've upgraded their van, to a white one with a sign on the side, "Hot Dog Vendor," Parkside Place, Bronx NY. We wish them luck.

Last week's scaffold collapse on Southern Boulevard and Home Street, on the other hand, is the result of bad karma...

Citigroup was most disparate in the lowest-income borough its headquarters city. Citigroup in 2006 confined borrowers in Bronx County to higher cost loans 19.6 times more frequently than borrowers in Manhattan. The disparity between Manhattan and Brooklyn at Citigroup in 2006 was 14.77.

Parts of the old Sears on Fordham Road and Webster are now being demolished. The largest part of the building has been swathed in black netting. A sign has gone on top, Fordham Place, with telephone numbers to call to lease space in the new building. Across the street at Planchette, in the morning even for breakfast they serve crushed plantain mangu, with onions on top, and fried cheese. Later at night, psycho bus drivers rule. Three teens got on, saying they had no money. For at least five minutes the driver bantered with them. Sensing he was going to go Bernard Goetz, some riders started getting off. Big money maker for the MTA...

Continuing on the Bronx transit theme, who among us hasn't taken MetroNorth from Grand Central and fallen asleep, only to wake up at Mount Vernon West at past 2 a.m., no gypsy cabs in sight, and walked back along the Bronx River to the sleepy last outpost of the Bronx, end of the 2 train, 241 Street where the homeless sleep in trains until at 3 am they head south? Who?

Late Saturday March 24, a four train rolled into 149th and Grand Concourse and announced it would now go express up to Burnside. It opened its doors to let passengers off -- on the wrong side. An announcement urged people to get back on the train and wait for the doors on the other side to open. When the did, people missed the next train, by ten or fifteen seconds. Thanks, MTA...

Now St. Barnabas Hospital is trying to track down 300 people it exposed to tuberculosis. The city Health Departemnt's Dr. Sonal Munsiff said that "People who have been near the hospital do not need to worry about it. Only the people we have identified need to be evaluated." So you and St. Barney's screwed up and allowed exposure, and now people are supposed to believe your statement that those " near the hospital do not need to worry about it." Why not?

Bronx schools added to the SURR school list, in danger of being closed: Intermediate School 232; I.S. 339; J.H.S. 22 ; and Middle School 203 in Mott Haven.

In the New York media scene, Channel 7's embattled Steve Bartelstein has been cut loose, this time for sleeping through an assignment of covering the aftermath of the fire on Woodycrest Avenue.

This week, it's film, from a Bronxite and downtown. Former police officer Billy Lappe shot "Even Steven" for $4000 in Tremont and Pelham Bay. It is a revenge fantasy, in which a cop turns a child molester over to the parents of the child-victim. Lappe now wants to make a full-length version. Perhaps the below is a cautionary tale:

Malian director Abderrahmane Sissako's ''Bamako" was gushed over in the New York Times of Feb. 14, and a month later was still playing at the Film Forum on West Houston Street in Manhattan, "held over" as they say. Arriving from the United Nations at 9:45 for the 9:40 screening, the ticket-taker said, "Don't worry, the first ten minutes is just a court proceeding." She could have said, the whole movie is a mock court proceeding. From speeches about the World Bank delivered in a courtyard with stand-up electric fans, the film cuts into a parody of spaghetti westerns, this one starring Danny Glover. People sit fanning themselves, listening to the trial over loudspeakers. Review: one wants to like the concept, and it would work for 15, maybe 30 minutes. But as a feature length film?

The Bronx Borough President has said there's a plan and even negotiations afoot to put a cultural center in an existing "historical" building on the Grand Concourse "somewhere in the 160s." Very cloak-and-dagger...

Downtown, much of the UN press corps has been in a frenzy tracking the foreign minister of the Kim Jong Il government of North Korea, from San Francisco to New York, where he's slated to meet with Christopher Hill at the U.S. Mission. In San Francisco, Japan's NHK television is said to have rented five motorcycles to try to find Minister Kim. In New York, reporters flocked out to the airport, awaiting a certain (or uncertain) United Airlines flight, and then camped out in front of the Millennium Plaza hotel, in the same structure at UNDP, and awaited him. They got a wave, and not much more. Inner City Press, meanwhile, reported on UNDP's suspension of operation in North Korea - click here to view.

Entry of the insiders? On Feb. 21, NYS governor Spitzer announced his pick to head the NY Banking Department. Might it be a consumer advocate, or public interest lawyer, or even a bank banker? No, an executive from Toronto Dominion Banknorth's TD Bank and Citibank before that, Richard H. Neiman. During his tenure at TD, the bank tried to claim that -- five b's alert -- buying bonds backed by Battery Park City satisfied the Community Reinvestment Act's requirement of low- and moderate-income lending. Battery Park City, low-income? That was some lawyering. Of Citigroup, click here.

At Inner City Press, we try to be judicious in our use of the authenticity and / or nativist cards. In the Belmont neighborhood of The Bronx, there used to be an ad hoc group called "Quality of Life." It met in the library on 186th and Hughes and discussed such things as street crime. Maybe the groups is still around. A new Qualify of Life issue has emerged: the glut of talkative tourists who fill the neighborhood and its stores on weekends. It's fine to drive in from Westchester or Long Island for bread and ravioli. Just decide in advance what you want, and then buy it. Don't stand around asking questions, compare, luxuriating in the "old world charm" of what for locals is just a store. This is not a mall, not a theme park...

Webster - Fordham update: behind the now-closed Sears, a fence is going up, jutting far out into Fordham Plaza. Whose sidewalk? Their sidewalk, apparently...

The Bronx is frozen, and the Sears on Fordham Road is boarded up. The "Store Closing" signs are gone. The store is now closed. This week, two reviews: Las Orquideas and the re-begun Bronx Beat.

Opening recently is a new Latin restaurant on 187th Street, between Beaumont and Cambrelleng Avenues. We say Latin because, despite the awning referring only to Mexican food, inside there are alcapurias and pastelillos, and the jukebox is top-heavy with salsa. Inside, the brick walls are lacquered and plastic curtains swing in the back of the storefront. Order tacos, chicken and beef, and take a seat. At least in this early period of Las Orquideas, many of those who enter are unsure what to expect. One a recent Sunday -- okay, Feb. 18 -- a family came in, looked around for menu and couldn't find one. They went back outside. The grill man followed, then said in a bitter tone, "They've crossed the street." The sing-song lure of takeout Chinese food. But for those who stayed, the tacos were quite good, if dry. Ask for crèma to be brought. It comes, in small quantities, on a glass sauce bowl. The tacos cost $2.50 each. We suggest adding a menu on the wall, and making clear from outside that Puerto Rican food is also sold. With these slight changes, we think Orquideas can make it.

The Bronx Beat is a 12-page weekly published each spring by the Columbia School of Journalism. It has often been suggested to the Beat that more follow-ups could benefit the Bronx. Unavoidably, each spring has new student-reporters. But do they reach the last years' issues? The recent first edition of 2007 has color photos on four of the 12 pages. The front page story, on Bronx politics, has no balance at all. No opponents were sought out. The other page 1 story derived from the 12 worst slumlord story already done by all the dailies. On the positive side, an article following up on a business displaced from Bronx Terminal Market was something not seen elsewhere. Follow up is king. To be continued.

From the New York Post of February 6: "During the recession of 1991, The Bronx recorded just 22 residential housing permits. Last year, it registered more than 200 times as many... Carrion noted that property values in his borough spurted 75 percent in five years. 'It's a little scary,' he said. But he added: 'The positives far outweigh the negatives.'" That's a cost-benefit analysis that we'd like to see, and see debated, from the perspective of most Bronxites, who are renters...

We're glad to see that even the tabloids could see the scam of FedEx's "groundbreaking" on 132nd Street and St. Ann's Avenue. In exchange for traffic and fumes, FedEx will bring employees from its Manhattan location. What's in it for The Bronx? A sidebar to the story: as Inner City Press was first to report, FedEx has previously dissed The Bronx, by closing its location in Fordham Plaza and leaving central Bronxites with nowhere to send from...

No job too small: Cablevision's News 12 The Bronx went back this week to the scene of a storefront fire on 183rd Street, reporting breathlessly that the 99 Cent store was still closed and quoting an unnamed neighborhood resident that this was no big deal, "there are a lot of other dollar stores two blocks away." Breaking news, that...

Last week HSBC issued a profit warning heard 'round the world. Its purchase of the predatory lender Household International is now bringing the whole company down. The Times of London called Inner City Press to say, "Guess you guys were right, when you wrote to the HSBC board of director that Household was unsafe and unsound." Yep... See, e.g., "Sub-prime lenders fear defaults after costly HSBC fallout," Times of London, Feb. 10, 2007.

In the wake of last week's City Council report on the rent-to-own industry, we're reminded of when LISC wanted to locate a Rent-a-Center in its subsidized mall on 174th Street, click here for that, and on more recent fringe finance issues, see "Protest filed against BofA's deal for U.S. Trust," by Rick Rothacker, Charlotte Observer, Jan. 27, 2007

Speaking of reports, according to the Daily News, Weiner's says that "The Bronx has the highest density of registered sex offenders. Its Morrisania and Tremont neighborhoods also have the highest percentage of offenders living within a tenth of a mile of a school, followed by Bushwick, Brooklyn." The News then quotes a canned expert, "It is unfortunate but unsurprising that poorer neighborhoods have the most sex offenders because that's where the cheapest housing is." So there *is* at least one benefit of the continuing attempt, including by elected officials, to gentrify The Bronx...

From last week's Newsday: "Wrigley Field also blows away Yankee Stadium, especially if you compare the neighborhoods that surround both ballparks." And the solution is to spend over one billion dollars to build a new, unneeded stadium?

Bee-line we have awaited thee: the bus line, with routes in Westchester County and the Bronx, says it will start accepting MetroCards on April 1. Mount Vernon here we come!

This week we review... The Bronx on the web. In Georgia, they don't think much of the Bronx -- "the Bronx, it was like, 'Oh. Oh. Watch out.'" But in Minneapolis, they like the Bronx' Afrika Bambaataa. On Long Island, they raise funds from Bronxites in a shelter that's run by the ex-Ramon Velez empire. And in Greenburgh, NY, a Bronx-based cop is caught trolling for troubling on, where else, the Internet.

Also on the 'Net, Inner City Press' Fair Finance Watch has filed a timely challenge to Bank of America's application to acquire U.S. Trust, click here for Charlotte Observer article...

The public radio station WNYC is the outlet for, among other things, On the Media and BBC Radio. [Click here for a recent BBC piece on Inner City Press' reporting from the United Nations.] But on Jan. 17, WNYC ran a report, about there being too many bank branches in New York, which exposed its various biases, including as regards The Bronx. Correspondent Lisa Chow joked that in New York -- she didn't say, Manhattan -- there are bank branches on every corner, too many of them.

Note to Ms. Chow and to WNYC: come for example to the neighborhoods around the Morris Houses projects in the Bronx. Around the perimeter there are pawn shops, check cashers and the like. But there is not a single bank branch. Rather than take a single two dollar train ride, WNYC gave air time to the head of North Fork Bank, recently cashed-out as a multi-millionaire to the subprime Capital One, who agreed there are branches "everywhere" in New York City. He is a confirmed redliner, so the spin is less surprising. But from public radio?

Chicken war mysteries: last week's arson of Twin Donuts in Hunts Point by the owner of the Kennedy Fried Chicken next door gave rise to coverage on News 12 then the Daily News, which said of suspect Kabeer Ahmad, 32, that his "court-appointed attorney, Timothy Bennett, could not be reached for comment." Why would the owner of a fried chicken franchise have a court-appointed lawyer? Unless Twin Donut's chicken pricing really was undercutting Ahmad's shop...

Bad Gateway karma: last week construction worker Carlos Reinoso from Ecuador was killed during the ongoing demolition of the Bronx House of Detention, to be given away for mall construction.

Big picture, small picture: in the week of multiple bi-coastal funeral of ex-president Gerald Ford, in the Bronx on the sidewalk of Kingsbridge Road across from the Edward Allan Poe cottage there was a small funereal shrine, plastic milk crate and candles. Doctor Leandro Lozada was killed in his suburban home. Which memorial was more heartfelt?

At Inner City Press we're not always big fans of elite media. But this week's New Yorker magazine has a simile we're compelled to note, that the "new" New York is like a lover whose facelift leaves them unrecognizable. Hat's off. Or, heads off -- because in some sections of The Bronx, it's been more than a facelift, it's been a decapitation...

In the week between Christmas and New Years, a visit to West Farms Square found not only screeching birds and trains but the excellent garden on the banks of the Bronx River. A duck looked out through the fence. Down in the river, three ducks dove to eat bananas and, troubling, a frozen chicken someone had thrown over the fence. Bronxites, many waiting for the Q44 to Queens, watched in horror. Ducks eating chicken?

On Southern Boulevard and 182nd Street, police hang around for apparently no reason. Perhaps to protect the holiday Zoo visitors?

Scenes from a funeral: during the viewing of James Brown at the Apollo Theater, people lined up outside to be sure to get a view. Ever entrepreneurial, some ran to McDonalds and bought slews of Dollar Burgers, returning to sell them (congealing, to be sure) to this captive audience for three dollars apiece.

New York 1's end-of-the-year Bronx round-up praises the sell-off of Highbridge, then notes that some are angry at the forces allowed to " rip up and build on Maccombs Damn Park." Damn, that's mis-spellings in two consecutive words...

While still 50 degrees outside, the annual miniature ponies showed up in Belmont, and the sleigh-like horse-drawn cart. Speaking of wheels, the new bike lanes on Park Avenue in The Bronx are appreciated, but there are serious pot holes and deep gashes in the asphalt in the bike lane, for example in front of the 48th Precinct, just under the Cross Bronx Expressway...

Bronxites were surprised to see the big "Store Closing" signs go up on the Sears at Fordham Road and Webster. Not long ago it was announced that the building would be rehabbed, with Sears staying as a tenant. Without fetishizing commerce, the site has some history, back to Rodger's Department Store, and the pharmacist's symbol on the corners of the building, with wings and snakes. Though time the store got rundown. Most recently there has been no changing room to even try-on clothes. Still people went to the basement to buy Craftsman tools and overpriced big-screen TVs. And now the end is near. Despite the hype about Fordham Road as retailer heaven, the biggest store on the strip is closing. Where are the politicians now?

A Bronx tale: a newborn baby with the umbilical cord still attached was found dead outside the Eastchester Gardens housing complex. The 14 year old mother was then arrested at her JUNIOR high school...

While it's still 50 degrees outside, the annual miniature ponies have shown up in Belmont, and the sleigh-like horse-drawn cart. Speaking of wheels, the new bike lanes on Park Avenue in The Bronx are appreciated, but there are serious pot holes and deep gashes in the asphalt in the bike lane, for example in front of the 48th Precinct, just under the Cross Bronx Expressway...

Predatory lending takes place on a nation- and worldwide scope. Just from last week, ACC, the parent of Ameriquest and Argent which paid a $325 million fine for predatory lending, , announced a plan to sell its subprime auto lender Long Beach Acceptance Corp. for $282.5 million to AmeriCredit.

From Singapore, consider the recent case of helpless car buyers caught between dealers and financiers. A company repossessed five cars from people who did not buy the vehicles from the company and had not defaulted on repayments. GE Money financed two car buyers, who found - to their horror - that their cars had been towed away by Kenso Leasing in October. These buyers thought they had no relationship with Kenso. But as elsewhere with GE Money, the consumer is left in the dark until they get foreclosed on...

And in the Bronx, according to statistics compiled by SheriffSalesOnline.com, the number of lis pendens filed in the Bronx has risen 21% -- from 1569 in the first 10 months of 2005, to 1891 in the first 10 months of 2006.

Died last week in Taji, Iraq -- Jeannette T. Dunn, 44, of the Bronx, who was assigned to the 15th Sustainment Brigade, 1stCavalry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas. R.I.P....

According to last Sunday's Daily News, a "proposal picking up support involves building low-income homes above aging public libraries. 'Up until now, we had plenty of housing sites in New York, so no one had the impetus to look at libraries,' said Kirk Goodrich of Enterprise Community Investment. The group has earmarked a handful of libraries in each borough that could be rebuilt with housing above them, such as the Grand Concourse branch in the Bronx."

Around that branch, you already have the high-rise for Bronx Lebanon's nurses' housing. But how about the library on Washington Avenue on 176th Street? Or above Erico Fermi on 186 and Hughes, where yuppies increasingly tread? Or is the idea to let developers make market rate housing, in exchange for rehabbing the libraries?

Unlike the usual police blotter, here's a business (shipping) skel: For alleged violations of the Shipping Act, the Federal Maritime Commission last week fined Willy Express Shipping, NVO, Bronx, N.Y. $20,000 for allegedly operating without license, tariff or proof of financial responsibility...

Here's another New York crime story that has it all, at least from our point of view. Last week police found that "a Citigroup executive turned his fancy 38th-floor penthouse apartment overlooking the United Nations into a crystal meth lab... [Named] was Michael Knibb, a vice president for information technology for Citigroup. He was tracked ordering 100 grams of meth's component chemical, court papers allege. When the feds checked his penthouse on E. 39th St., they discovered beakers, solvents and heating elements in his living room and bedroom." And no sale scripts for predatory loans?

Years ago, it was, that the Melrose Commons plan threw its shadow over Melrose. A recent visit finds boarded-up buildings that once were vibrant, empty and awaiting demolition. From the corner of 163rd, the old COGIC church is busted, at 3233 Third. Then the two auto parts, once late-night staples, now empty. The apartment building at 3221 is still occupied -- but for how long? ACE Mechanics, 515 East 162, now has plywood on the windows. Tracey's Body Building Gym is no more. The long-abandoned courthouse now has three windows, after being sold thrice at auction. The piano store across from the precinct is gone. There, they're building. While they've spread blight further north...

The famous Fordham Foot Locker fire of some weeks ago is still the main presence on the corner of Valentine and Fordham. Jimmy Jazz and Child World are still closed. On a recent morning the plywood door of Foot Locker was open and the smell of charred wood and plastic wafted out of the darkness inside. A stapled-on flier advised sneaker-seekers to "go around the corner" to "Foot Action!!!" which was said to be "the same store!" Then why a different name?

Going beyond the Bronx, quite slowly, by bus -- the Q44 runs from West Farms Square to Flushing, Queens. When you get there, at the corner of Main Street and 41st Avenue, you'll see smoke wafting from the side street, a cart called Traditional Xinjiang Barbeque, with lamb kebabs for one dollar and a generator humming on the sidewalk. The more traditional venders, with rolling carts and Sabrett's umbrellas, charge $1.75 for beef kebabs not nearly as good. Under the Long Island Rail Road overpass you'll find a watch repair, and another food stall, with scallion pancakes for a dollar, with pork skin and white radish and a hawker pitching "arroz! Arroz frito!"

On Northern Boulevard and Union you'll find the CyberLand loft, where most of the users are gamers, but where immigrant men speak by video Internet hookup to their wives and families in China for three dollars an hour. "No food," the signs say, but all you hear are corn chips being crunched...

Last week Inner City Press sat down for an interview with the president of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Arkady Ghoukasyan, and asked him about the fires, about the United Nations and other matters. Click here for the footage, on Google Video.

The Bronx is up and the Battery's down, as the song goes. But how to get from one to the other? On a recent Saturday morning, every subway station around Battery Park was shut down. No 1 train by the ferry. Up by the bankruptcy court, which houses the National Museum of the Native American since it decamped from Harlem, the 4 and 5 trains were shut down. There was talk of a shuttle bus, but no signs to say where to catch it. "It's open at City Hall," a construction worker said. And so north on Broadway, where signs in the sidewalk remember those who've been paraded. Astronauts and dictators of African countries, largely. Several signs are obstructed by yet more construction fencing. New York is being rebuilt. But for who?

An example in The Bronx, which we've written on before, is the playground on Arthur Avenue and 188th Street. Month ago Inner City Press skewered the absurdity of closing the playground for all of the summer. Now the New York Times wades in, with a different critique, comparing 188th and Arthur "Playground and Belmont Playground a[s] four blocks and a world apart" (Nov. 5). In the Times article, the head of Community Board 6 says the elimination of handball is racist. Could be, rabbit. At the same time, there are largest and better handball courts just two blocks west on 188th Street. And is CB6's district manager saying the board had no imput into the Parks Department's work?

this week Deutsche Bank announced it has hired outgoing UN Under Secretary of Management Chris Burnham. Wednesday Inner City Press asked Kofi Annan's spokesman whether any post-employment restrictions apply to Mr. Burnham and now Deutsche Bank, and to address the issues raised by a senior UN official going to the main private banker of the leader of Turkmenistan, portrayed as a human rights abuser in a recent UN report. This report describes the "gross and systematic violations of human rights continu[ing] in the country." A/61/489.

Policies are being "elaborated on," the spokesman vaguely said. Inner City Press has obtained a copy of the draft post-employment policy. It proposes that "a former staff member of the [UN], at the Assistant Secretary-General level or above is prohibited from making, with the intent to influence, a communication to or appearance before any staff member [for] two years."

Strikingly, the only "sanction for violation" of this proposed policy would be to "have a note placed in the individual's official status file indicating the nature of the violation and the recommendation against any future employment by the Organization."

And this was the "gold standard" of post-employment restrictions? And as to Mr. Burnham new master, Deutsche Bank - Turkmenbashi, what about the "mainstreaming of human rights" which Kofi Annan has called for?

He's baaack. A week after the New York Post predicted that Fernando Ferrer is now in line for a job in Albany, he cashed out to lobbying firm Fleishman-Hillard, which WCBS notes works for many Republicans. Sort of like John Kerry?

More seriously, Ferrer faces bribe-taking allegations, in connection with the Oak Point yards. Where, informed sources wondered, did the files left in the burned dentist's office over Claremont Parkway and Third Avenue get to?

Last week's studies put the Bronx's Bx41 bus line among the least reliable, 24% off-schedule. Actually the percentage feels higher. People wait for up to a half an hour, then three Bx41 busses come in a cluster...

Speaking of delay, during Friday night's rain storm, an Inner City Press correspondent sought for nearly an hour the Bx19 or Bx17 bus on 149th Street and Southern Boulevard. There's now a Popeyes Fried Chicken across from the long-there White Castle. But there were no busses...

Back to the Bx41, which plies up and down Webster Avenue -- a new entrance on Webster, just north of 173rd Street and across from the taxi driver-populated B.B. Restaurant, is West Africa Movies, offering DVD burning under a Ghanaian flag. Good luck!

Now that the 145th Maintenance Company is moving out of the Kingsbridge Armory two hours south to Staten Island, it's time for an experiential review of the area around Jerome and Kingsbridge Road, where the 4 train roars and the 9 and 22 busses roam. The Dunkin Donuts on the corner charges a whopping $1.61 for a medium sized tea. Regardless of their witty ads, this is too much for tea. The Associated supermarket is large, but was mysteriously closed down for an entire day recently. Both bus lines sit idle, as if to recalibrate their schedules, on the east side of the Concourse. Monroe College has spread, now butting up against Lehman. It's education central and one hopes the Armory is put to good use...

Our ongoing watch for dissing mis-uses of the word "Bronx" usually takes us to the UK and Australia. But this week, to New England, where Rep. Bernie Sanders' Brooklyn roots gave rise to a gratuitous potshot at The Bronx: "Bernie Sanders and his Sandernistas can go back to taxi-driving in the Bronx of New York City where they came from," Rep. Charles Bass said at a Republican event in Fairlee, Vermont. Sandernistas? Until next report, for or with more information, contact us.

The Oct. 11 fire on Valentine Avenue and Fordham Road, that destroyed Foot Locker and smoked out Jimmy Jazz, was noteworthy not only for the noxious smoke it produced, but also for the decision by the Fire Department to fight it only from outside. This appears related to the deaths in late August of two firefighters in a similar fire on Jerome Avenue. In that fire, there was dark talk of indicting the building's owner. While that seemed opportunistic, one wonders why not Foot Locker?

On the transportation beat, some Bronxites try to use Metro North to commute into Manhattan. The off-peak fare of $4.75 from Fordham Road to Grand Central is more than double the cost on the subway. But the ride is shorter and one can get more work done on it.

But waiting at the Fordham stop one can't help but notice that a number of trains stop at the station, discharging suburbanite when the conductor announces, "No passengers, wait for the Harlem line." This is absurd. The train has already stopped at the station. It does not further delay the suburbanites within to allow the handful of Bronxites to board the train.

Worse still, sometimes a Fordham student will talk to the conductor and be let on the train, while everyday working Bronxites remain on the platform, told "no passengers."

It's time that passengers be allowed on trains, if they stop at the station. No?

Heard on the Bx 15 bus, one homeless shelter guard to another: "Yo, at Wards Island they pay ten dollars an hour, but it's only 37 and a half hours a week. You can bug out all day, though. It's DHS that does all the screening. One crazy f*ck last week jumped up and humped on a female guard. DHS beat that sucker down. Ya take the bus on 125 over to the shelter. It's a good gig, bro. You should transfer."

At the cusp of two beats -- Bronx gentrification and NY Times misreporting -- we note the October 8 Real Estate Postings column, 500 words in length, which calls "forlorn" the neighborhood of Longwood, previously described as revitalized, vibrant, lucrative...

Now let us curse the MTA. Try traveling out from The Bronx on a weekend. Under the Grand Concourse you'll find that the downtown D train is bypassing many stops. So continue west to Jerome, past El Rincon food cart, to Mount Eden on the 4 line. Where you'll wait for nearly an hour for the next train to come. Then past the hole in the ground for the unneeded new Yankee Stadium, stall at the hardly-used stop at 138th and Third Avenue. More than an hour, and hardly out of The Bronx...

We note the passing, or at least the covering-over of the sign, of Kosovo Grocery on Third Avenue between 169 and 170 Street. Former Yugoslavia indeed...

From the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's craven September 15 approval of JPMorgan Chase Bank's application to acquire branches of Bank of New York: Fair Finance Watch

"noted, regarding JPMCB's lending in the NYC area, that 10.78% of borrowers in the Bronx received higher cost loans, while in Manhattan, only .73% of borrowers received higher cost loans."

During the United Nations' General Debate last week, The Bronx came up at the Wednesday press conference of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez -- raised by, you guessed it, Inner City Press. Video here, Minutes 39 to 43.

Just east of Bronx Park, across wide Pelham Parkway and highway ramps paved with broken glass, the White Plains Road shopping strip is jumping with business. There are shoes for $20 -- only the old timers remember the multiple murder in a shoe store here by a kid who turned out to be crazy -- and there are now DVDs, both legitimate and pirate. Here's a Hallal food cart with pictures of falafel, if no chick pea nuggets in the flier. Just off the strip is a sit-down Hallal place, with lamb and chicken curry and musicals from India on a big screen TV. The subway stop is bleak and under repair, but under it Ganzo's is still open through the night, along with the Papi Nice bar and El Compai restaurant. The vibrancy is not due to gentrification. We live here, we persist. And on a sunny Fall day, the beauty of it is clear.

So too in Belmont, from which we offer this up-to-the-moment update: on the door and windows of the Europa Cafe on 187th between Belmont and Cambrelleng there are signs, Closed by Order of the Department of Health. But the cafe remains open...

Down Belmont Ave at 186th, in the Moonlight Cafe on Sunday afternoon, women in white head scarves met. Up Crescent, what was once a cheesy sports bar for students is now a church. And on 184th across from St. Barnabas, there's a Jamaican restaurant just about to open. We guess we'll wait until then to review it...

In Bronx-related business news, After a U.S. Labor Department investigation, Cablevision has agreed to pay $400,000 in back wages to settle claims that the Bethpage company failed to pay nearly 2,400 temporary call-center workers for all the time they worked, the department said last week.

Cablevision, which has the cable monopoly in The Bronx, provides truly horrendous service. "Free" on demand is intermittently turned off. Telephone calls result in circular madness. It's time for the contract to be re-bid...

The Times of London of September 11, 2006, reported on the Manchester neighborhood "Moss Side's regeneration. The inner city suburb became notorious in the early 1990s as Britain's Bronx, a place of lawlessness and gun violence. Its reputation was responsible for Manchester's "Gunchester" image... But the death of 14-year-old Benji Stanley 13 years ago, as he stood in a queue outside a fast-food takeway, galvanised central and local government, community leaders and residents. It brought about the most dramatic change to Moss Side and Hulme since the slum clearances of the late 1960s and early 1970s.The Alexandra Park estate, where Jessie's family live, was remodelled a decade ago. The redevelopment of the site of Manchester City's old Maine Road stadium, now in its final planning stages, promises 500 new homes for sale."

A little Melrose Commons... Until next report, for or with more information, contact us.

We're compelled to review this year's Ferragosto, which took place September 10 on Arthur Avenue and two blocks of 187th Street. By 11 a.m. there were tacos dorados for sale in front of Mount Carmel Church. In the library on Hughes and 186 there were photos of a fire at the church... back in 1936. On 186 and Arthur was the best deal of the feast, courtesy of Teitel Brothers, still remembered for renting their space to McDonald's. Perhaps still in penance, Teitel offered eggplant sandwiches for a dollar, along with free fresh mozzarella. Calandra Cheese further south on Arthur also had free cheese, though smaller and drier. Note to Calandra: you have to spend money to make money. Whole pigs were roasting, and clowns frightened kids up and down the street. A dressed-up sausage like the ones in Milwaukee handed out free samples. We at Inner City Press know the name of the one inside the sausage, but given his age, 15, we'll hold off on naming him here, except to say: well done! An artistic highpoint was the musical group I Guillari di Piazza, together 26 years to preserve southern Italian culture. The self-declared leader, Alessandra Belloni, quickly introduced the group, including guitarist Ivan Thomson. And then they played, violin and guitar and two singers, and later dancers too. Politics reared its head, with Joe Ciucciu introducing candidate Savino, who came in his bus with t-shirts. Is it proper? Who knows. All in all, one of the best Ferragostos in years. Hats off!

Now back to a wider Bronx-watch. From London's Mail on Sunday of the same September 10, this headline and lede:

"BMX BOY, 15, SHOT DEAD IN THE BRONX OF BRITAIN
"A 15-YEAR-OLD schoolboy died in a hail of bullets yesterday after being ambushed as he cycled home from a party. Police said Jesse James ñ who shares the same name as the American outlaw gunned down in 1882 ñ was deliberately targeted in Manchester's Moss Side area, dubbed 'The Bronx of Britain.'"

The Bronx of Britain? You wish... Closer to home, the New York Post's September 5 "expose" of homeless shelters with "kill neighborhoods" included two in the Bronx, 1218 Hoe Ave. and the Webster Hotel, 1930 Webster Ave., which have been here for years -- until of course they were discovered by the New York Post...

Voting rights, anyone? It has been announced that for the September 12 primary and November 7 general elections, some Ballot Marking Devices will be deployed in all five boroughs. There will be a total of four BMD machines in The Bronx, all in 1780 Grand Concourse. Meanwhile less diverse Staten Island, when well less then 75% of The Bronx' population, will have three BMD machines. And they say the purpose is to comply with the Voting Rights Act...

Our review of last month of Palombo's Caffe on Arthur and 187th, we must in fairness amend. On two recent visits, the service left much to be desired. In one case, servers flocked around the head priest from Mt. Carmel. But during another, disinterest had set in. After a senseless wait, head one block east to Egidio's, now emptier than before, where they greet you and ask what you want. Ah, competition. There yet another similar place opening on Arthur Avenue. As with the cluster of three primarily Albanian clubs on 187th between Belmont and Cambrelleng, when it rains it pours.

While it's been the New York Times leading the unqualified praise of gentrification in The Bronx, now the smaller New York Sun has jumped on board. An August 24 article contained not a single cautionary voice, even while covering developments that have been protested. As if to replace those voices, the head of Phipps Community Development Corporation is quoted, bragging about his CDC's thousands of units in the pipeline. CDCs, of course, don't represent the interests of the people who actually live here: this one is a developer first, and secondly... whatever.

The article's of interest, however, in re-reporting Boricua College's ongoing 161st plan, without specifying if the two abandoned courthouses are involved. A hotel plan is noted: "McSam Hotel, is planning to construct a five-story, 80-room Comfort Inn Motel at 3070 Webster Ave. between 202nd an 203rd streets. McSam purchased the former 5,500-square-foot warehouse last year for $550,000." And why, unlike on Jerome Avenue and further out on Boston Road, is there no "hot sheet motel" allegations? While waiting to see, we recommend the Hallal restaurant south of there on Webster, between 200th and Fordham Road, which has African food on a steam table, and French TV playing in the half-light. Bonne sante!

More micro-praise: the repaving of Fordham Road around Crotona Avenue has finally smoothed over the old waves of asphalt in the uptown side of the street, long a bane to bikers...

From last week's breathless press release about Bronx Terminal Market, this: the "center's tenants will include Target." When Target opened on 225th Street, it was said it would bring great jobs to Bronxites. But those employed speak of shoddy treatment, shifts that end just after the BX9 bus leaves, no benefits, harassment and arrest of employees on trumped on charges. And in Bronx Terminal Markets? We'll see.

On 187th Street and Arthur Avenue, in the large storefront recently vacated by an eyeglasses and eye-checking business, Palombo's Caffe has opened. The proprietor notes that they have other locations, including in Allerton, as he scoops chocolate Italian ice and invites customers to return. Already the place is filled. Can the area bear another business of this kind? Apparently yes...

Random grassroots transit review: moving south on Jerome on the BX 32 bus is surprisingly slow. But with the Burnside Avenue 4 train stop closed, if you're going to Burnside, hop on that bus. Between 182 and Buchanon you'll see a live poultry place with a painting of the World Trade Towers in front. It's unclear if it was painted before or after 9/11/01. On Burnside just west of Jerome, a re-opened African restaurant, and a Spanish restaurant specializing in hot bread and butter - $1 for a bread, $1.80 with butter, that's some expensive butter, one wag was heard to say. Back east on Webster Avenue just north of 173rd Street in the cuchifritos, you'll find truck drivers at 10 a.m. having sancocho soup with lime, while their rigs idle outside. Only in The Bronx...

In a parallel universe, we concur with the calls to close down the New York Organic Fertilizer (NYOFCO) plant in Hunts Point for repeated violations of its solid waste permit. See this week's Global Inner Cities report for information on ship-breaking, particularly in Bangladesh....

On August 9, the lights went off at Fordham University in The Bronx from two to six p.m.. They closed down the library and did not reopen it that night. Meanwhile, the bodega on 187th Street and Cambrelleng Avenue complained that its power's been so low it had to throw out crates of ice cream and ice.

We're staying experiential. Take for example the grueling stakeout at 149th and Grand Concourse, where passengers try to see which will come first, the 5 train downstairs or the 4 on the upper level? It's impossible to see both platforms at once, so one relies on the body language of other passengers. The metal in the station is rotting - Mott Avenue, indeed...

In last week's heat wave, MTA "Limited" busses continued to drive by local stops, even if those waiting were senior citizens who could not, if they wanted to, walk to the next express or Limited stop. It seems simple enough to change this policy...

Downtown at the UN, on Friday at 4 p.m., the new president of the Security Council emerged. He apologized for not summarizing the meeting, saying he feels a need to tell the other Council members before telling the press. He mentioned he lived in Westchester and Inner City Press asked, where? New Rochelle. Do you go to New Roc City? With a look of surprise he said yes, "I am a New York boy."

South Bronx, from Hollywood to the real. Variety last week reviewed the U.S.-Italian documentary Urbanscapes, quoting photographer Mel Rosenthal that he remembers seeing wild dogs running through the streets of the South Bronx, pursued by men brandishing lassos. Rosenthal found himself thinking: "Could this really be a city in the United States?" Yes -- and Inner City Press was there.

Flash forward, gentrification watch, on NPR's News and Notes with Ed Gordon on July 25, this was Mary Frances Berry:

Prof. BERRY: I think that since Clinton moved to Harlem and these prices have gone up as a second option, what he should now do is move to the Bronx. And he should go move into different neighborhoods so that they can become gentrified in his wake. I may suggest that to him.

With the Burnside Avenue station on the 4 train line closed down, Bronxites find themselves walking, from Mount Eden and Jerome, or up to the D train Tremont station on the Concourse. Commercial rents have risen and spaces are more flashy. Not necessarily better, but more flashy. Case in point is the new fried chicken joint on 173rd and Clay Avenue. Every chicken dish comes with a generic roll. Two chicken wings recently sold for a dollar. Cheap, but...

With belated media focus in New York falling on the failure to restore electrical power to neighborhoods in Queens, Inner City Press offers this first-hand account of power loss on Webster Avenue in The Bronx. It was, as they say, a rainy night. The BX 41 bus was lumbering up Webster Avenue when, between 169th and 170th Street, there was the sound of an explosion, and smoke pouring out of a grate in the street. Soon the lights in housing projects were out, and the street filled with the sirens of fire trucks and police. The bus and other traffic was not allowed to proceed. The darkened housing project tower was silhouetted against a sky lit by lightening. Across the street the all night groceries blinked.

Later in the week, digging went on as thick cabled snaked over the sidewalk toward the project. Step on one of those and it's sayonara, said a passerby...

Always on the lookout for slanders of The Bronx, we offer this, from Australia's Gold Coast Bulletin of July 20, 2006:

Burleigh the next Bronx
BURLEIGH Heads residents say the beautiful beachside suburb is becoming a 'Bronx' as teenage gangs continue to rampage through the area on violent drunken sprees. The Caltex service station and McDonald's food outlet, both along the Gold Coast highway, were forced to lock down over the weekend as violent gangs spilled into the shops. On Friday night, more than 50 youths, who were fighting in the McDonald's car park, spilled into the building after a customer accidentally opened the doors. The youths returned on Saturday night to the Caltex service station which was forced to close for several hours until they had moved on.

One resident compared it to the Bronx, the New York borough noted for its historically high crime rate. Fifth Avenue resident Jenny Hammersley, who lives across from the McDonald's, said teenagers regularly congregated there. 'Every Friday and Saturday night between 11pm and 3am angry, out-of-control teenagers are harassing and verbally abusing residents, traffic and anyone walking past,' she said. 'It is frightening listening to the vicious behaviour and abuse, while hoping no innocent person is injured or property and cars wrecked.' Ms Hammersley said the teenagers also appeared to be using drugs stronger than alcohol. 'It really is an explosive situation as these hooligans are charged with something stronger and more mind-blowing than alcohol, they sound as if they are delusional,' she said. 'It is like living in the Bronx and needs attention now.'

Hmm... Y que viva la salsa, on the Bronx's Orchard Beach. For planning purposes only, as they say":

August 5: Ricky Castro, Benny y Sabel, Fragancia and Raulin Rosendo, and dominos (which we hope will not be filmed for any reality TV show);

these events will reportedly take place at Orchard Beach in August, from noon to 5 -- officials are still running scares from the dust-up in 2002, so you never knew...

It's mid-July, it's 90 degrees, it's time for street fair reviews. The fair on Clay Avenue and Webster on Bronx Dominican Day was booming, filling to standing-room-only the McDonald's park lot and slowing Webster Avenue traffic as dusk fell on The Bronx. Since that's the slowest McDonalds in the city, taking a recent thirteen minutes to prepare a "take out" premium iced coffee, that's saying something....

Fifteen blocks north, the fair on 187th Street is rather lame this time. The Knight of Columbus are selling religious items; there are air brush tattoos on the corner of Hughes. Still the police keep the barricades up until 2 a.m.. We note again that the strange decision to tear up and render useless the 188 and Arthur playground in the middle of the summer. These are improvements for The Bronx?

Construction, however, goes on apace. The parking lot on the corner of Washington and Tremont Avenue has been torn up for construction. The old Jaritza's Bar on 167 and Webster is now being stucco-ed. On July 15, a scaffolding allowed less than a foot's passage space in front of the bus shelter. Still people tried...

Barrio to barrio: this week's Bronx Report travels some 12 miles south to another historically salsa neighborhood, the Lower East Side. How much has changed. First, what's the same: the band Latin Vibe played Friday night in the Parkside Lounge on Houston Street between Avenues B and C. It's a sextet, or septet if you count the lady shaking maracas. The vibes player, it's said, is not Latin but rather Irish. But he rocks, from Manteca onward. At five bucks for three sets, you can't beat it. They'll be at Brooklyn's Prospect Park on July 29.

Outside, gentrification's run wild. On 2nd and C, where The World club used to be, there are condos. On 4th Street all the way to D, the vacant lots have been built one, expensive housing all. Nightclubs line Avenue C, Avenida Loisaida. One positive addition is a cheap falafel restaurant on 14th Street called Chickpea. When asked if they'll open in The Bronx, they answered about the West Side. Of Manhattan.

Returning to The Bronx these days is a nightmare. Friday at midnight the 5 train stops, at least at 14th Street. The transfer at 149th and the Concourse, broken up last week by death, this time involved a forty minute delay. The Bronx as Bantustan. And then the long wait for the bus.

Daytime travel reveals that not only is the ex-Jaritza's Bar on 167 and Webster gutted out -- so to the diner south of 167th. Dumpsters everywhere, and Bronxites on the run. It's a different kind of displacement, not necessarily yuppies but for those who're priced out, it's a distinction without a difference. Who will speak for the poor, for the real longtime Bronxites? That remains to be seen.

Sunday evening after Italy won the World Cup in Berlin, cars drove in circles around Belmont honking their horns and waving Italian flags. In front of Mount Carmel Church, the priest smiled broadly, standing next to a 4x4 with the license plate "KOSOVA 1." From a third floor apartment window across 187th Street, a Mexican teen waved his flag, very Italian except for the center of the band of white in the middle. Arthur Avenue had more foot cops from the 48th Precinct than usual, observing the traffic and the honking. Speaking of the 4-8, they've been asked to at least protect children from a church on 188, put at risk by having been used by the police as witnesses to a stabbing, without their parents' knowledge or consent. The call now is to at least provide protection. We'll see.

This week we stay experiential. Returning to The Bronx on Friday, June 30, at 149 and the Concourse a crowd gathered underground. "The Two and Five are out," a uniformed cop announced. "A guy got hit by the train and they turned the power off."

A teenager, bandana tied on his head, demanded his two dollars back. The cop said no, hand now on his gun. The crowded backed up. "There's no shuttle bus?" No. A gaggle set off walking east on 149, over the MetroNorth train tracks and up to Morris Avenue. These days, or night, the homeless sleep in front of Lincoln Hospital. Up ahead on the corner of Third and Melrose, there were police and fire truck sirens. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, one in the gaggle said. Hours to get home, through all this madness.

Meanwhile in daytime, sweating on the platform under 149 and Third, one wonders why the Four, Five and Six under Grand Central has air conditioning, but not the stations in The Bronx...

And the Daily News of June 29 praised without analysis overpriced condos on 156th Street. How many South Bronxites can afford them? Click here for Inner City Press' report on late night June 30 action at the United Nations, including interview of John Bolton before late night Bronx train action...

This week we sing the Bronx' grassroots song, Webster's spine from Bedford Park to 149. In the south-most storefront of Botanical Square there's the Daddy Style barber, where reggaeton blared from Monrovia-like speakers. Two blocks down there's the dim-lit Webster Hallal, with a big screen French TV and rice with meat and fish on a steam table whose lights are turned on only when guests arrived.

"Un peu," he answered. So why Canal 5, the French language TV? Only for the World Cup.

On Fordham Road the cocito is still for fifty cents. The ancient Sears, once Rogers, stands tall, soon to be encased in glass and expanded. Carvel's, too, has a 1950s feel. Further down on Tremont, night clubs proliferate, culminating in the Jet Set Café, previously of 180 and Third, in front of which Llego La Loca sells her chimichuri wares.

The real estate sleaze of Kathy Z. has risen, announcing itself across from the housing project just south of Claremont. There are empty storefronts and lots where cars are sold. A vivero with live chicken, the closed down Jaritza's bar where the cops shot dead a man. The old milk plant is now a smaller self-storage, its smokestack like an amputated limb, gone but not gone. How the housing towers over the MetroNorth lines stand is a marvel of science. The vacant lots of Melrose have been getting cleaned by hand, perhaps as community service. The BX 41 goes two blocks past 161 before it will stop. Always those getting off scream out, hey don't forget my stop. There's a mis-numbered storefront where se busca y renta cuartos. There's the enormous Cookies now echoes even larger on Fordham. On 149 there are cheap electronics, subject to the hard sell, but a serviceable MP3 player for less than thirty bucks. From there through dark tunnels to Manhattan...

Click here for Inner City Press' expose of the United Nations Development Programme's undisclosed involvement in Uganda disarmament abuse.

While the print press barely touched it, News 12 covered the arrest of two dozen people in a "crack house" at 1182 Fox Street in Community Planning District Three. News 12 reported that police said the warrant and arrests were based on "complaints by neighbors." Why say that? Since it's a block of small homes, this seems to violate the anonymity the NYPD promises...

In macro-economic news, reported unemployment in Bronx County stands at 6%, higher than the NYC-wide 4.1% and the NYS- and nationwide percentage of 4.6%... In micro-economic (and party) news, Artuso's Pastry of 187th Street and Crescent Avenue is celebrating its 60th anniversary on June 19, check it out...

Media-hype note: in the documentary "Street Fight," candidate Booker says that Newark has a murder rate "two times The Bronx"...

"Parallel Products announced today the purchase of Container Recycling Alliance, L.P.'s (CRA) beverage container recycling business located in Bronx, New York. CRA's Bronx facility is a great addition to Parallel Products' network, since both excel in secure processing of empty and full beverage containers, recovery of aluminum, PET, HDPE, cardboard and glass commodities; and logistics management. The existing management team and staff in the Bronx facility will continue to operate the business as employees of Parallel Products. Parallel Products President and CEO Gene Kiesel stated, 'The strategic acquisition of CRA's Bronx facility will enable us to offer Parallel's trusted and secure recycling services to our East Coast and Mid-Atlantic customers in a more cost-effective manner.' Parallel Products, Inc. provides environmentally friendly brand protection and commodity recovery services to the beverage, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. These services include secure destruction of pre-consumer products; management of post-consumer beverage containers. Parallel has traditionally produced ethanol from sugar and alcohol waste streams; and managed glass, aluminum, and plastic commodities. Parallel Products holds bonds as a brewery, winery and distilled spirits producer, and is authorized to claim tax refunds for unsaleable alcoholic beverages from the Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB, formerly ATF). According to Joe Gries, Director of Alcohol Operations, 'Parallel Products converts sugar-based and/or alcohol-based consumer and industrial waste streams, that would otherwise be destined for landfills, incinerators or waste treatment facilities, into ethanol for automotive fuel and industrial markets. Therefore, Parallel Products provides an environmentally friendly recycling solution that produces a useful product from waste.'"

While in the big picture this may be environmental, its effect on The Bronx is less certain... Finally for this week, with rumors growing that Wal-Mart will try to come into The Bronx, see this Inner City Press report. www.innercitypress.org/wal-mart.html

With the World Cup now begun, and the local papers running copycat stories with interviews of partisans in bars, we're compelled to praise Mount Carmel Pharmacy for placing a big screen TV in its window in front of white plastic chairs, selling hot dogs and espresso for a dollar, and national T-shirts for five. A proprietor is headed to Germany once group play is over. He foresees some ups and down in attendance on 187th Street, with spikes for the games of Mexico, Italy and perhaps the USA. In '94 in Belmont, Mexicans and Italians each held parades during their match. Now the demographics have further changed. Who will fill the white chairs remains to be seen.

The New York Times' June 6 story about the abandoned courthouse on Third Avenue and 138th Street strangely missed a prior fight that even the Gray Lady covered: the attempt by Nos Quedamos to get the building, turned back by the City which said it would cost $42 million to fix. That was in the 90s. What is the price tag now? And how could a charter school afford it? The paper of record reports without question that the rehab, years after the City's $42 million estimate, will cost $20 to $30 million, for a gym, and auditorium and a green roof. We'll see. The article mentions in passing that the proposed renters still require state approval for a charter school. Somebody has an active public relations department, to get this type of story in the paper...

When last Saturday night we noticed holes in the sidewalk around the Arthur Avenue playground, we wondered: who would fence off a park right at the beginning of summer? The question was answered in a midweek press release, announcing the renovation of Ciccarone playground. By then the asphalt was being broken and the fence was up, including around the basketball court, the chess tables and where the sprinkler is in summer. The city's given the job to Total Construction; the sign says it will be completed in Spring 2007. There's one major problem. This playground did not need renovation. It already has rubber flooring by the swings, and a much-used sprinkler to cool off. While we at Inner City Press love to see investment in The Bronx, in this case the money's being wasted. It seems that the blood money that's supposed to replace the parkland being eliminated for the new Yankee stadium has to be spread around, even if the playgrounds being fixed don't need it, and the fixing itself will make for a hotter, more explosive neighborhood this summer. To paraphrase, no Thonx...

Our first (one-line) street fair review of the season: there's zeppole on 187th Street, a bit soggy, but long-awaited as the summer begins.

The Afghan - Bronx fried chicken connection: last Saturday night on 149th Street, in front of the Lincoln Fried Chicken that he co-owned, Rehmatullah Azezollah was drenched with lye and later died. Mr. Azezollah's ex-partner in Florida Fried Chicken further south on Willis Avenue, also an Afghan, opined that Azezollah's temper and "smart mouth" with women customers may have led to his demise. Azezollah had moved out of his family's house in Flushing, and was preparing to take on a new wife in Afghanistan. And so the chicken money flows. (Although, one Belmont note: the Kennedy Fried Chicken on 187th Street between Belmont and Cambrelleng has now been closed for weeks, with a sign about a renovation that never seems to start).

Bronx Media Watch: A line that caught our eye, in the New York Observer's May 29 article about ex-Timesman Al Siegal: " in the 70s, he moved from editing to reporting, covering the Bronx during one of the paper's 'periodic cyclical rediscoveries of the boroughs,' he said." Might be time for just such a rediscovery - don't even try claiming that such a rediscovery is underway, as to The Bronx. The NYT's May 22 send-up of NYC-TV, Channel 25, made it sound like the station covers all of New York. But the Bronx is rarely seen, and when it is, it's rushed and disjointed. In the series "Cool in your Code," zip codes in Manhattan and Brooklyn just across the river are given whole episodes. A recent Bronx "cool in your code" said it was about City Island, but then inter-cut footage of fancy stores in Manhattan, and jumped to Hunts Point and elsewhere, as if no zip code in The Bronx could merit 30 minutes. We beg to differ, starting with 10455. Or 10458. NYC-TV indeed...

Turning beyond The Bronx, but still in NYC, we were asked to look at JPMorgan Chase's lending in Brooklyn and so we have. In 2005 in Brooklyn, JPMorgan Chase confined African Americans 3.32 times more frequently than whites to higher cost loans over the federally-defined rate spread of 3% over Treasury securities on a first lien, 5% on subordinate liens. JPM Chase confined Latinos 2.84 times more frequently than whites to loans over the rate spread.

Also in Brooklyn in 2005, JPMorgan Chase denied 42.14% of mortgage applications of African Americans, and 36.78% of applications from Latinos, compared to only 29% of applications from whites.

Simultaneously JPM Chase seeks to buy 338 branches from Bank of New York and close 50 of them, including at least four in low- or moderate-income census tracts in NYC, without even disclosing at this stage the locations of the branches.

The lack of follow-up on the late-ambulance scandal of May 17 is striking. The Daily News' May 18 article on the shooting death of 16 year old Dominick Hanley says only, "It was unclear if Dominick was the shooter's intended target. Police sources said witnesses were being uncooperative." At the scene on Prospect Avenue that night, dozens of people were talking about the crime, then about the failure of an ambulance to come. The gap between the city's claim -- seven minutes from call to arrival -- and witnesses' accounts has not been bridged. Elsewhere in the city things would not play out like this -- nor in difficult circumstances. Case in point, exactly four days after the shooting and late-ambulance events on 183rd Street:

On Sunday, May 21 at 6: 40 p.m., a police officer took off on foot from the corner of Webster and Tremont Avenues, chasing an African American man in a blue t-shirt north on Webster. The officer's partner in the squad car turned north as well, and soon the lights of other police cars and vans could be seen both ways on Webster. They converged in front of the five story building at 1938 Webster, into which the suspect had run. In less than four minutes there were not only ten police cars, but also two ambulances: one FDNY, the other Bronx Lebanon Hospital. Presumably, these were in case an officer got hurt. At 6:47, the man in blue was brought out in cuffs, complainting: "My arms! My arms!" He was loaded in the back of police car 1853, and driven south on Webster, east on Tremont, and south again on Washington to the 48th precinct.

Since this was the same time of time as the shooting of Dominick Hanley, it is striking that in the latter case, two ambulances were on-scene in less than five minutes. What happened on Prospect? Did the first officers on the scene not call for an ambulance? Or do they show up automatically if they think officers are at risk? These questions should be answered.

In the NYC Parks Department announcement last week about wireless internet services in (some) parks, the Bronx locations are north of Fordham Road: Van Cortlandt, Pelham Bay and Orchard Beach. What about Crotona Park? What about St. Mary's?

Conde Nasty? In the May 15th New Yorker magazine, film critic Anthony Lane opines of Mission Impossible III, "And the grand finale? A fistfight, after which somebody gets run over. Listen, if I want to see that kind of action, I don't go to Shanghai. I don't even go to the movies. I go to the South Bronx and stand outside a bar." Inner City Press wants to know: exactly what South Bronx bar is it that Anthony Lane stands outside of?

Prospect Avenue Ambulance Was Slow, and Chase to Close Four Branches in Low and Moderate Income Tracts

On Prospect Avenue just south of 183rd Street, near-riot conditions existed between 6:20 and 7 p.m. on Wednesday night. Shots rang out, and 16-year old Dominick Hanley was shot in the chest. A crowd formed; a police car came. Some ran toward the scene, and some ran away, north on Crotona Avenue. Dozens of teenagers gathered inside the jail-like fence that surrounds the housing project at 2311 Prospect Avenue. A police officer shouted at them to move back. A white t-shirted teen yelled back, "We have a right to be here!" Others in the crowd began to scream about the lack of an ambulance. Finally, officers were seen carrying the shot 16-year old to a squad car.

In the day since, city officials including Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scopetta have stated that the ambulance arrived about seven or eight minutes after the call came in. This reporter was on the scene just after the shots rang out; well over eight minutes elapsed and still no ambulance came. More and more police cars came, speeding up Crotona Avenue with sirens wailing, and still no ambulance. The detailed questions being asked -- including here -- about the timing of calls for an ambulance, and its actual arrival, should be answered forthwith by the Fire and Police Departments. The mood on Prospect Avenue was raw, even before seven p.m. when Dominick Hanley was pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. But the events by the fence of 2311 Prospect are among the reasons for the rawness, and must be addressed.

An architectural aside: why is there a tall, jail-like fence in front of this and other housing projects? It was part of the problem on Wednesday evening in The Bronx.

Over the past weekend, 18-year old Samantha Guzman was shot and killed in front of 1240 Washington Avenue in The Bronx, a new housing development during the construction of which a workman fell to his death on the sidewalk below. In 2006 New York, Bronx life is too cheap...

In economic news, JPMorgan Chase has today for the first time specified that it has identified in low- and moderate-income census tracts four of the Bank of New York branches it seeks to acquire "which are located close to a JPMCB branch." This is essentially code language that these four low-income branches would be closed if the acquisition is approved. JPM Chase's statement, in a May 18 letter responding to Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch's April 17 and May 6 comments to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, declines to provide the addresses of these four branches and the 46 other branches, some surely adjacent to low-income tracts, which the letter projects would be closed. Also, the figure "four LMI branches" is qualified by the statement "in New York City." Since many of Bank of New York's branches are outside of the five boroughs, might even more than four low- and moderate-income census tract branches be closed? ICP is reiterating its call for public hearing, including on JPM Chase's admission in its response that it still funds payday lenders. Developing...

Where are failure's parents? Reported in the Jersey press but nowhere in New York is the June relocation of Star Candle and its 200 jobs from NYC to Hackensack. In the move, The Bronx lost out. Star Candle owner Stan Gurewitsch said the company initially planned to move to the Bronx. The New York City Economic Development Corporation offered the usual corporate welfare, but not enough space. And so the jobs went to Jersey. While this surely has nothing to do with recent departure(s) from EDC, again we ask: where are failure's parents?

Just the facts / glad it fit to print: until the May 9 NYT, few knew that at the Andrew J. Freedman Home on the Concourse and 166, only the basement of the four story building is in use. Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council hadn't mentioned it -- now what will be done with the building?

Likewise, down the hill at 167 and Webster, Jaritza's Bar, recently in the news for a shootout, last week had its signs taken down, and sheet plastic on the roof.

But here it must be said: the May 11 NYT, under the heading "About New York: In a Bronx Italian Food Enclave, It's So Long, Mac," makes much of the closing of the Arthur Avenue McDonald's. But what of the franchise chain across the street, Umberto's? While many authentic restaurants sit half-full, the Umberto's sports bar is full, especially after Yankee games. Will they patronize Roberto's II? Here's hoping. But the article's claiming to have discovered a trend is bogus. What about the closed-down status of Enzo's Café, just down the block? Or three blocks east, the replacement of Café Margharita by a Mexican restaurant? The About New York-er also missed the success of the non-Italian diner across from Modern Foods, and the beyond-Robertos (and below, on price) new opening of Tino's, just north of 187th Street. About New York, indeed... On or in New York Times see also, "Court to Rule on Delaware Public Records Law," by Rita K. Farrell, New York Times, May 12, 2006, Pg. C10, about Inner City Press' litigation against the citizens-only provision of Delaware's Freedom of Information Act.

"The South Bronx is the last housing frontier close to New York City. It lost 57 percent of its population in the 1970s; now people are coming back. Public money is flowing in, and developers are really starting to lay their bets. Most importantly, it's attracting creative energy — artists and musicians are moving there — which can really revitalize an area....Track the number of classified ads selling property each week. They should double every month. Second, assess an area at night. A night life -- like clubs and cafes -- is a good sign that a neighborhood is on the rise. Third, look for the price of a cup of coffee to rise. Up-and-coming neighborhoods draw expensive coffee sellers."

We note, with some hope, that the Starbucks that opened on Fordham Road subsequently closed... Last week, a joker named Heydt at Citi-Habitat's spammed out this description:

"The South Bronx: A little “rough around the edges” with a hopeful growing gentrified edge that indicates a hopeful future (think SoHo in 1974 and Williamsburg in 1992). Warehouses closing, dumpsters in the street and major plans for construction all point to signs of a hot new area. Three small historic districts—tucked between 133rd and 144th Streets, off Alexander and Brook Avenues—comprise about 250 turn-of-the- century, single-family townhouses and a growing parade of antiques stores line the streets. Why South Bronx is up and coming: Artists moving in - McDonald’s moves to the main street - Empty warehouses offering cheap rent - Old structures torn down for new ones - Cleaning up of public eye sores - Pot holes being filled."

On a better and more grassroots note, in early May, the street fairs begin. On May 6 on Crescent Avenue between Belmont and Cambrelleng, Goya gave out free cups of pozole, next to sample cups of Jarritos soda from Mexico. Music pumped from speakers, and not from Mexico. One block west, the Belmont Public Library is inexplicably closed for a full month, for the replacement of lights. As the month proceeds, the light bulb jokes (how many does it take to screw in) will only grow in strength.

Scams behind the scams: beyond the questions raised by having given away the Bronx House of Detention to Related Companies, and now proposing to spend $350 million to buy junk yard land to build another jail, there's the story of the Oak Point Yards. As reported by the April 26 NYT, "the land in the Bronx is one of the largest privately owned pieces of undeveloped commercial real estate in the city. In 1988 it was bought by Britestarr Homes Inc., which proposed creating a modular-housing factory that could revitalize the area. Instead, the site was used as a garbage dump and, in 1991, Britestarr was investigated for possible ties to John A. Gotti, son of the reputed Gambino crime family boss. By May 2002 the company had filed for bankruptcy, leaving the property with more than $60 million in claims against it, including $17 million owed to the state for environmental cleanup costs and fines, and $10 million more in back taxes claimed by the city. Oak Point Energy bought the land later that year."

The Britestarr proposal was itself full of irregularities, many of which were left in a file cabinet in a second floor office of the building on the southeast corner of Claremont Parkway and Third Avenue, when that building had a fire. (Some of those paper were recently in yet another dumpster.) Meanwhile, at an event last Tuesday at the Time Warner center, a report was ejected after being told that anyone without permission from Related Management could be tossed out, despite the retail stores and many public promises of this Related project. And Bronx Terminal Market? Another scam in the making, apparently...

Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch has just released a study of the 2005 mortgage lending data in New York City and The Bronx, finding worsening disparities by race and ethnicity in the higher-cost lending of some of the largest banks operations in NYC. 2005 is the second year in which the data distinguishes which loans are higher cost, over the federally-defined rate spread of three percent over the yield on Treasury securities of comparable duration on first lien loans, five percent on subordinate liens.

Citigroup in 2005 confined its borrowers in The Bronx to higher-cost loans above this rate spread over 35 times more frequently than in Manhattan, worse than Citigroup's record in 2004.

Redlining and continued disproportional denials to people of color are also evidenced by the new 2005 data. Citigroup denied applications from The Bronx 4.62 times more frequently than applications from Manhattan; the disparity at Wells Fargo was nearby as bad, at three-to-one.

Last April, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch found similar but less extreme disparities; ICP's studies were reported on in the English and Spanish-language press. El Diario reported for example that "at Citigroup, Latinos borrowers were 3.92 times more likely to receive the higher interest rate loans than were white borrowers." Soon thereafter, the NYS Attorney General (NYAG) requested information behind the data from four large national banks: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and Wells Fargo. Less than a week later, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the New York Clearinghouse trade association both sued to block this inquiry.

Now the 2005 data has become available, with a few exceptions, allowing a comparison to the previous year and that degree, identification of trends. Focused initially on the NYAG-targeted banks, a review by Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch of the New York City data of these four shows that not only did a higher percentage of borrowers overall receive loans over the rate spread, but also the disparities between races grew more stark. The banks have tried to blur the two issues, in strikingly similar cover letters they sent along with the data.

Citigroup's senior vice president Eric Eve, for example, wrote in a March 30 letter to Inner City Press that "Citigroup, as we expect will be the case with most other lenders, will show a greater percentage of loans above the threshold for 2005 than 2004... The issue is the narrowing gap between short- and long-term interest rates, a phenomenon known as the 'flattening yield curve.' This is not an indication that borrowers were treated differently in 2005."
Based on Citigroup's 2004 disparities reported, for example, by El Diario, merely denying that practices in 2005 were different that in 2004 might seem to be a strangely limp defense. In fact, Citigroup's 2005 data show worsening disparities. In the state's poorest and least white county, The Bronx, for example, Citigroup confined 7.39% of its borrowers to higher cost loans over the rate spread -- 35.19 times more frequently than in more affluent and less minority Manhattan, where only 0.21% of Citigroup's borrowers were confined to rate spread loans. While of the five boroughs, The Bronx had the highest percentage of loans from Citigroup over the rate spread, Citigroup's percentage of higher cost loans in each of the four outer boroughs was higher than in more suburban, and less diverse, Westchester.

Citigroup's CEO Charles Price and chairman emeritus Sandy Weill were each questioned by Inner City Press about these patterns on April 18 at the company's annual shareholders' meeting at Carnegie Hall on 57th Street. Mr. Weill referred the question to Mr. Prince, who said that the issues are "too complex to be addressed in this forum," adding that the disparities were clearly not so bad that the Federal Reserve would continue to block Citigroup from large mergers. His reference, repeated throughout the shareholders' meeting, was to the Federal Reserve's recent lifting of its year-old ban on significant expansion, which took place before Citigroup's 2005 mortgage data was released.

Mr. Prince's claim that the Federal Reserve has implicitly condoned the disparities in Citigroup's 2005 mortgage data is dubious. In any event, federal regulatory laxity is one of the problem that allows the disparities, from most grassroots communities' perspectives. Bank of New York, from which Chase is applying to buy 338 branches in the New York metro area, confined its Bronx borrowers in 2005 to higher cost loans over the rate spread 7.87 times more frequently than in more affluent and less minority Manhattan. Bank of New York's disparity-ratio between borrowers in Brooklyn and Manhattan, at 6.5, was almost as pronounced.

In The Bronx, HSBC was the largest subprime lender of the NYAG Four. HSBC's March 29 letter to Inner City Press accompanying its data is nearly identical to Citigroup's, concluding that "had the yield spread between short term and long term interest rates stayed at the 2004 levels, far fewer longer maturity loans would have exceeded the thresholds in 2005. Consequently, a meaningful comparison of the rates at which loans exceeded the rate spread between 2004 and 2005 cannot be made."

While it may be true that a comparison of the raw percentages of a lender's 2004 and 2005 loans that exceeded the rate spread should also take into account "the effect of monetary policy" (as Citigroup's March 30 letter puts it), there is no reason that the disparities between white and African Americans and Latinos cannot be compared year to year. In this comparison, the NYAG Four were more disparate in 2005 than in 2004.

And the 2005 disparities extended beyond this quartet. Strikingly the largest lender, both prime and subprime, to African Americans in NYC in 2005 was Ameriquest and its affiliates including Argent, which made 6394 loans in NYC in 2005, 4656 (or 72.8%) of them over the rate spread. Ameriquest recently settled charges of predatory lending for $325 million, while leaving its Argent affiliate entirely unreformed. In NYC in 2005 Washington Mutual and its higher-cost affiliate, Long Beach Mortgage, together confined their borrowers in The Bronx to higher-cost loans above this rate spread over 35 times more frequently than whites, worse than their record in 2004. ICP's analysis of other NYC lenders continues. Some lenders are trying to avoid such comparisons by only providing data to the public in unanalyzable form, an evasion it's proved surprisingly difficult to get regulatory guidance on. Evaders for now include New York Community Bank, North Fork / Greenpoint, Lehman Brothers and AIG, down through the NYAG-sued subprime lender Delta Funding Corporation. Each federal regulator has an evader in its midst; none of the agencies has yet acted on this issue.

In New York, the NYAG is now focused on running to become state governor; in any event his inquiry has been blocked for now by the courts. So who will take action, on the disparities in the 2005 data? Given preemption and inertia at the federal bank supervisory agencies, it must be regulation from below. As to JPMorgan Chase, the issues can be raised to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, on Chase's proposal to buy 338 branches from the Bank of New York. Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch filed such comments on April 10, as reported on Associated Press and elsewhere. Now that Citigroup is no longer explicitly blocked from large acquisitions by the Federal Reserve, its pent-up M&A hunger may soon trigger the Community Reinvestment Act lending reviews that accompany merger reviews. Wells Fargo is embroiled in fights about its environmental record, with no reforms in sight. HSBC is buying, but in Mexico for now. Everything is growing, including the disparities in the data. And what of 2006, the loans being made today? More scrutiny and enforcement actions are needed, to cut through the fogs of the banks' excuses.

Three weeks ago we questioned the plan to close St. Martin of Tours school on East 182nd Street. Today we can report that the Archdiocese will now not be closing the school. But in Van Nest, Our Lady of Solace school is still slated to close. Some solace...

This week's Bronx Report is in the nature of an update. A recent visit to the Bathgate Industrial Park found security guards blocking the entrance to what used to be Clay Park Labs. That company last came to our attention as initially denying having released toxins into Public School 64 across Third Avenue, then more quietly pleading guilty to violating the Environmental Conservation Law and trying to buy its way out with $35,000 in computer equipment. Well, now the signs have been changed to Perrigo, a Michigan-based company that bought Clay Park's previous parent, Agis. The Clay Park Lab web site has not be updated about it new owner, and the whole scene smacked of secrecy and paranoia, or perhaps that was projection...

As Spring arrived in The Bronx, on Crotona Park South sod was being rolled out around a baseball infield, while in the north of the park the Stations of the Cross were re-enacted by a crowd from St. Joseph's Church. On that same Good Friday, on Arthur and 187th Street a gang of teenagers beat and mocked an old man in front of a discount store. Just around the corner, in front of De Lillo's Pastry, a police officer stood chatting at length with the driver of a Con Edison truck. The officer was ninety feet from a presumptive hate crime in progress, and did precisely nothing. Lucky it didn't turn out like in Harlem...

But always bright and chipper! On that same sidewalk, a mere three stores down, on Easter M&G Restaurant at 2390 Arthur Avenue was dishing up omelets and Philly cheese steaks to families dressed mostly in white; a waitress wore bunny ears. On 180th and Mapes, the (Little League) baseball was serious, and the trees by the projects in bloom. One even wished that the Mapes pool might open soon. But it will be some time.

Click here to view Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch's challenge to JPMorgan Chase's proposal to buy 338 branches from Bank of New York (and to close at least 50 of the branches)....

We're compelled to sing in minor key regarding the April 6 press conference by Citigroup, New York Community Bank and others. The New York Times' often well-informed Janny Scott reported it as "Banks Pressure Landlords for Repairs" -- when the story was and will remain really about pressure brought to bear on banks. The Daily News similar praised the banks. Newsday noted that New York Community Bancorp's chairman Joe Ficalora wouldn't make himself available for comment, instead wheeling out Joe Miele who, although not reported in the article, used to be on the NYC City Planning Commission -- NYCB hired the lobbying firm of Al D'Amato earlier in the slumlord fight. These two banks have not improved in any wider way. New York "Community" Bancorp has refused to even provide its 2005 lending data in analyzable form. We all like (to report) a victory, but in this case, it's the banks who are getting over. Citigroup continues its discriminatory subprime lending, a line of business much larger to it than multi-family lending.

Click here for Inner City Press' new study of the just-received 2005 mortgage lending data, with an emphasis on widening disparities in New York City.

Annals of environmental justice -- a member of Inner City Press / Community on the Move contacted Cardinal, about a little-publicized public hearing on its nuclear pharmacy application. Much later, this terse reply:

To: [] [at] innercitypress.org
Sent: Thu, 6 Apr 2006 10:01:02 -0500
Subject: Response to email inquiry
Please be advised that all documents pertaining to the NYSDEC permit process, including the public forum meeting that was held, are now available at Community
Board 10.
John A. Miano RPh., BCNP
Pharmacy Manager
Cardinal Health Nuclear Pharmacy Services
Loc. 95, Bronx, NY

No street address for the location, either. Hey, thanks... Click here for InnerCityPress.com's UN report last week: Unexploded remnants of war and the great powers (including... paparazzi).

In the plan to close 14 schools and 15 parishes in the Archdiocese of New York, the example we'll focus on is St. Martin of Tours school, at 695 East 182nd Street. Asking for a reprieve is Father Flynn, who for years has run programs and driven a van, To Save a Generation. It's not the school to close, we think. Nor does fifth-grade teacher Luisa Valentin, quoted that "I went here when I was a kid. A lot of the teachers here went here and came back to teach." And what would Mother Theresa, who visited it, think of the slated closure of St. Rita's parish on College Avenue and 145th Street?

Speaking of memories, the small park on Southern Boulevard and Tremont, Happy Land memorial, was nicely cleaned up for last Sunday's ceremony. There was a sign with 87 angels. Who however has the key to the park?

Advocate(s) in the sky: speaking of the fix-up delays on the 4, 5 and 6 subway lines, Newsday of March 30 said the Straphangers Campaign "advised switching to the local No. 6 or telecommuting in the mornings if possible." What percentage of Bronxites in the workforce can telecommute, due to subway delays or at all? And what if you live on the already-delayed number 5 line?

Tabloid war: while the Daily News last week made fun of the New York Post trucking bundles of newspaper from its Bronx printing plant directly for recycling -- to build numbers for the Audit Bureau of Circulations period -- down by Grand Central, the New York Post being handed out on Lexington Avenue. Three blocks east on First Avenue in front of the United Nations, copies of the Wall Street Journal were being offered up for free.

This week, in remembrance of the 16th anniversary of the Happy Land fire on Southern Boulevard and East Tremont, we offer the beginning of an Inner City Press text, a récit, with all names changed, you be the judge:

...She must have fallen asleep. Still lying on the couch, Catalina Sanchez saw that the sky outside her window was getting light. She decided to wait, as she did most mornings upon awaking, for the next train to clatter by, making the decision for her. It was time to get up. That she was still on the couch confirmed one thing for her: Mariano hadn't come home last night. She expected another story, whenever he did come in, asking for breakfast, or even to make love. A job had come up, a moving job in some mysterious place on Long Island. She'd ask to see the money he'd earned; he'd claim he'd get it later in the week, and come on now, didn't she want to go into the bedroom, before their son Raymond woke up? She might even do it, this morning. That's what she was thinking.

There is was: the train. A low clatter, as it pulled out of the 174th Street station, down the hill from their building. Faster, lower, then further away. Next stop, Tremont. She'd woke up there a few times, coming back from her job, on the midnight shift, cleaning the offices of a law firm down on Water Street. The women she worked with her almost all Caribbeans. Hondurans like her, or from the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua. Some lived in The Bronx, and knew of the social club on Crotona Avenue that Mariano and the other husbands and boyfriends went to, on the weekends, after their soccer games in the park. It was a Puerto Rican who ran it. He made good money, putting cheap liquor in bottles labeled "Johnnie Walker," selling it for three dollars a shot. Catalina'd gone to the Home Country with Mariano, the Saturday after New Years. She hadn't liked how the women there were dressed, how loud the music was. Jamaican, most of it, and not even soca. Mariano walked her home that night, over the Cross Bronx Expressway, and around the park, to their building on Crotona Park East. Then he went back to the club, supposedly to plan for the next day's soccer game. Was he being unfaithful? She didn't think so. He just liked to dance, and pretend he was younger than he was. And she didn't mind, really. Two Saturday nights a month; she'd use her time alone to clean the kitchen, set up the clothes to take them to the laundromat down on Boston Road, prepare the family, even little Raymond, for the week to come.

The train has slowed again, barely audible, at the Tremont station platform, when she stood up. She walked down the hall, opening the door to Raymond's room a crack. He was so beautiful... She'd given him a haircut last week. She imagined he looked that like basketball player, the famous owe, suspended in the air over the basket, his tongue stocking out of his mouth. Raymond was their future. He'd be a real American, a citizen. Born here, at Lincoln Hospital, which people said was no good, but had a modern-looking brick building down on 149th Street, and never pursued the money she owed them, even though she didn't have health insurance. They charged it off to the state, she figured. It was a rich country. They'd asked her to sign forms, when she was still groggy from the anesthesia. Indigent, homeless, bankrupt - whatever it was, she'd signed it.

Mariano hadn't been able to get off work, but he came that night, and slept in a chair next to her, woke three times during the night, to go and feed their baby, from a glass bottle the nurses gave him. Catalina had had a Caesarian; the umbilical chord had gotten tangled around Raymond. She remembered the Asian obstetrician's face going blank, the sudden rushing around, her bed being wheeled through swinging doors, the liquid hammer of the anesthetic, like an eclipse of the sun, then darkness. Mariano had seen the baby before she did. "Esta tan lindo," he'd told her. And she'd known it was a boy. They'd already decided on the name: Raymond. A name that even sounded American. At home, they'd teach him Spanish, even the Garifuna language of their hometown of Ceiba, in northern Honduras. But all schooling would be in English. Raymond would be an American, their hope.

She closed Raymond's door behind her, and continued down the hall, into their bedroom. Of course, the bed was empty, freshly made, from when she'd changed the sheets on Saturday afternoon. The digital clock said 6:48. Which was strange, about an hour too late. The Home Country, illegal social club that it was, still had a schedule, so it wouldn't be noticed by the churchgoers arriving for Sunday Mass at St. Timothy Evangel, further up Crotona Avenue. They usually closed at five, and Mariano'd get home twenty minutes later, with his lies about moving jobs, that coy look in his eyes... "Mi reina," he'd whisper: my queen. Raymond slept deeply. They could make love, then eat fried eggs on plantains, listen to salsa and news bulletins on WADO, said just that way, wah-dough, on the clock radio they kept on the kitchen counter. He was an hour late. Was he playing her dirty? She didn't think so.

She went back out to the kitchen, and turned on the radio, as if Mariano was here. Immediately, she knew something was wrong. The announcer's voice wasn't joking. It was hard news, for once. "El incendio occurio a las cuatro de la manana" -- the fire took place at four in the morning. They were interviewing a woman, who was sobbing. Where was it? Catalina had moved the television into the kitchen, too, last night, while she made dinner for Raymond. She turned it on, to the English language channel, the first one she found news on. She'd learned the language, from cassette tapes, the two years she was at home with Raymond. Mariano still didn't speak it. "No time," he said, "a man in this country is like a slave." It was the same story as on the radio: a fire. She reached around the set to turn the horizontal control, to stop the flipping. And she let out a scream --

She recognized the street, the Chinese restaurant -- the camera panned in, from across Crotona Avenue, over a chaos of firemen, and she saw that stupid smiling face, the sign, charred now, mocking. She couldn't breathe; she couldn't swallow. It was the Home Country that had burned, that they were screaming about on the radio. The camera cut to the Bronx Borough President, a white man with a little mustache, like Charlie Chaplin -- she'd always thought he was a faker, showing up at scenes of tragedy with empty words. He was saying: "It makes me so Goddamned angry... I'm going to find out who owns this building." The caption was "Bronx Social Club Fire;" next to it they flashed, "Dozens Believed Dead." It was like a cold hand was on her back. She knew. She'd say she didn't, as she ran down the hall to get dressed, planning already to drop Raymond with Clara, her friend on the first floor, and run up Crotona Avenue to the club. But she knew. And the thought that came into her mind was that she wished she'd gone with him, that if he died, she died. There was Raymond... Should he have died to? They were thoughts: Mariano hadn't come home, and now she knew why. That charred smiling face. It was like she was already dead, walking as fast as she could, without setting off her asthma, around the park, and north on Crotona, the street strangely without traffic, the whole avenue blocked off, a chaos of ambulances and politicians, a congregation of Garifunas, like her, wailing, mocked by the charred yellow smiling face...

All the city's dailies last week covered the groundbreaking on 156th and Third Ave, the long vacant lot which for a time hosted carnivals, then the fated Bradley's plan. As swaths of the South Bronx are given away to the Related Companies (also in line for the Bronx Terminal Market and Bronx House of Detention, see next item below), the paper of record's more-nuanced-than-usual report quotes the head of Community Board 1, without noting either his history or the fact that Community Board 1 is, for all its stated concern, scheduled to move from 149th Street up to 156th to be a tenant of Related...

Not to say we told 'em so, but... Now that the city wants to reopen a local jail in The Bronx, what sense did it make to give the Bronx House of Detention to the Related Companies? None...

Follow-up to petty complaint of two weeks ago: while the numbers remain erased from the front door, the post office at St. Ann's and Westchester Avenues is in fact still open on Saturdays, albeit only until 2 p.m., rather than 4 (as the scratched-off number said).

Not petty but nitty-gritty: why is it that while the walkways over the Metro North trains on Park Avenue are sheathed in fencing to prevent things from being thrown, the El train platform at the Mount Eden station, right over the Cross Bronx Expressway, has no fencing at all?

Speaking of the Cross Bronx and also of Park Ave., why can't the city's online 311 system accept a complaint about the long-broken street lamp on the southwest corner of Park Avenue and the Cross Bronx Expressway service road?

Why was the rolling gate on the abandoned courthouse at 161st Street and Third Avenue up and open last week? Mysteries...

Just asking: at press time on March 12, the NYC Parks Department sent out a media advisory that "[t]o help promote lifeguard recruitment, the Parks Department has set up six lifeguard chairs covered in banners in parks across the City, including in Hoffman Park in Queens, Columbus Park in Brooklyn, and in Union Square Park, Foley Square Park and Central Park in Manhattan." Since they only name five parks, it's possible that the sixth is in The Bronx. But why not name it then? And if it's not in The Bronx, why not? And by the way, why does it take the Los Angeles Times (of March 8) to cover immigration in Norwood in The Bronx?

From the Department of Anything-for-a-Buck in this city we have this: ex-mayor Rudy Giuliani, leading in some polls in the 2008 presidential race, has been paid to put his name on an "independent" report backing the bid for Soverign Bancorp and Brooklyn-based Independence Savings Bank by Banco Santander, an institution which just last week restated its earning and features in the US Senate's money laundering reports, as refusing to tell even its own U.S. affiliates who owned the offshore accounts into which it wired money. Despite the old saw about not judging a lawyer by his clients, one might expect that a candidate on hiatus, one whose candidacy is based on being perceived as tough on crime, terrorism and money laundering, would more closely consider representing such a bank. But reading the report, co-authored by ex-Comptroller of the Currency Robert Clark, it's clear that nothing was closely considered. The second on what the Federal Reserve will consider does not mention the Community Reinvestment Act; nor is the money laundering issues addressed. How much was paid, for this report? Developing...

And from the Department of petty complaints / complaints against pettiness: last week we noted the Saturday closing of the Hub Station post office by means of just scratching off the Saturday hours on the door. This week, a library: while the New York Public Library did, after years, invest in its new "green" (well, glass) building on Kingbridge Road, at the other branches they have a ways to go. A recent visit to the Belmont branch on 186th Street, to renew a book that no other library patron had put on hold, resulted in a stonewalling, and the suggestion that the book had to be turned in, travel down to Manhattan, and then perhaps back up to The Bronx to continue to be read. Why not just renew it? It appeared to a matter of pride. But if you want to abuse your power, the NYPL seems a strange employment place to choose...

Speaking of the UN, the local New York reporting on its impact on the city have usually focused on unpaid parking tickets and "diplobrats," a term made for tabloid front-pages, referring to the unruly teenage children of some envoys to the UN, who benefit from their parents' diplomatic immunity. But last week Secretary General Kofi Annan released a series of proposed reforms, including steps for "relocating work to lower-cost duty stations and for outsourcing."

If another large employer in New York City made such an announcement, they'd be asked for specifics as relates to job losses; perhaps the city and state governments would step forward offering tax breaks. Since the UN is already tax exempt, that won't happen. But surprisingly little was said of the local implications of Annan's proposals. When the issue was raised at a press briefing by an individual who insisted on being identified as "a senior UN official," this official laughed and said, we know what type of newspaper you report for. He went on to ask rhetorically, why should the UN mostly be benefiting "the richest city in the richest country in the world?" A question is, are the jobs that would be outsourced or offshored those of the UN's upper echelon? The UN's briefer has confirmed paying $10,000 rent, to New York-based philanthropist whose foundation appears to have cancelled its New York fellowships this year (until mid-March still qualifies as the "early 2006" in which the public was directed to check back). This item may soon become unblind.

Tales from the Hub: While 149th Street is jumping, there are chances up and down the strip. On the corner of Courtlandt, the long-time fried chicken place is gone, replaced by the fancier 149 Grill, which at least for now is not open on Saturdays. Also not open on Saturday, at least March 4, was the Hub Station Post Office on St. Ann's Avenue. It has always been open on Saturdays, until 4 p.m.. But now the "4" has been scratched off with a razor blade. The rolling gate was up, but no one could get in. There was nearly a riot out on the sidewalk -- and not a cocito seller in sight, due to the cold…

For our restaurant review we'll stay in the Hub. On 148th and Courtland stands the Ecuadorian restaurant Lucho Barrios. Inside there's a small bandstand for musicians. While there are posters of bikini-clad women, it's just an ad for Pilsener beer. They specialize in soups and vinegary ceviche. The soup called sausage and rice is more than a little misleading: it includes liver and heart and pig stomach lining. A sign on the wall says "Hay flan," and it's worth trying. All in all, we're glad that Lucho Barrios is hanging in there.

Also still there but under different ownership is the bakery on Third Avenue between 147th and 148th, now called Delicias. The hot bread has changed: doughier and the butter not melted. This is the block that once houses Fashion Moda. How times change…

Those voters who like the old-time feel of casting their ballots by pulling the long metal lever can breathe easier. New York State missed the January 1, 2006, deadline in the federal Help Americans to Vote Act (HAVA) to move to more modern technology. This Fall, there will still be the metal sounds of levers being pulled behind equally retro curtains.

Another way in which voting in New York has been problematized, the bar on voting by felony inmates and parolees, may however be susceptible to solution with HAVA funds. Under New York State law, convicted felons are not allowed to vote during their incarceration, and in most cases until they complete their period of parole. Then they become eligible again. But many county Boards of Elections are incorrectly requiring additional paperwork in order to allow eligible ex-felons to register and vote. In November 2003, the state Board of Election issued in internal memo to the county Boards, instructing them to stop requiring paperwork and to instead use the Department of Corrections web site to check parole status. One of the most non-compliant was the Bronx Board of Elections.

More than two years later the problem is still not solved. At a public forum on Feb. 21 at Demos on felon disenfranchisement, a preview was given a follow-up study to be released in mid-March, finding that the Boards of Elections in at least 15 of New York States’s 63 counties (and three of New York City’s five boroughs) have continued to demand paperwork that shouldn’t be required. Until mid-March, when it is said that the report will be released in conjunction with state legislator(s), the counties and boroughs are not being named.

The impact of New York’s voting prohibitions and how they are implemented fall, public data make clear, along racial and ethnic lines. According to the most recent statistics on the NYS Division of Parole website, those on parole in 2004 were 52% African American and 29% Latino. Civil rights litigation against felon disenfranchisement has yet to be successful, and at the Feb. 21 panel, it was noted that in any lawsuit this year against the state Board of Election, attorney general Elliot Spitzer would be in position to defend the state agency and its practices.

Interviewed in the lobby of Demos’ 26^th Street building after the panel discussion, the Vice-Chair of the NYC Voters Assistance Commission Jane Kalmus expressed her interest in the use of HAVA funds to solve this problem in a manner more systematic than a single internal memo. Currently, notice of felony conviction is sent to county Boards of Election, for the purposes of blocking voting. Given the technology in 2006, it should be equally easy to automate the sending of notices to the boards when the period of parole has been completed. This obvious solution will only take place with follow-up, given that New York is still using the lever voting method first demonstrated in 1892.

Beyond civil rights, the issue of ex-felon disenfranchisement is one of human rights. A 1999 ruling by the South African Constitutional Court, August v. Electoral Comm’n, 1999 (8) SALR 23, noted that “in Denmark, Ireland, Israel, Sweden and Switzerland, all prisoners can vote.” That is also the law in the U.S. states of Maine and Vermont. In1983 the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico removed its bar on felon voting. In the most recent gubernatorial election on La Isla del Encanto, the candidates campaigned behind prison walls, and inmate turn-out was higher than in the rest of Puerto Rico, or the Bronx, for that matter...

Finally, for this week, a blind item we can’t resist: why did an NYC borough president attend and speak at a forum in Orlando, Florida for the selling of CMA’s Blue Rose condominiums? Close readers may remember previous questions about a Bronx-based agency which rented-out its non-profit status for a strip mall in the Sunshine State, and see the connection (or could search for Oct. 2, 2002, Orlando Sentinel squib). Until next report, for or with more information, contact us.

February 20, 2006 -In a Bronx Basement, Complaints Linger Long After Lease Is Signed

Bronx residents berated a local State Senator and police precinct commander in a church basement on February 16, about the Department of Motor Vehicles office that opened in 1998 in the old Dick Gidron Cadillac building on Fordham Road and Crotona Avenue. Descriptions were given of triple-parked cars blocking ambulances and snow plows, of garbage strewn and public urination, of a neighborhood in decline now besieged with prostitution.

NYPD Deputy Inspector Barry Buzzetti promised a blizzard of parking tickets, and even to “bust the chops of that fat Albanian, Simon” regarding the service of liquor to under-aged patrons in bars on 189^th Street. The perpetually-tanned Jeffrey Klein, now the neighborhood’s state senator, shushed the crowd and spoke of the broken-windows theory of penology, borrowed from Berkeley by Mayor Giuliani.

“We told Giuliani about the DMV problems,” one resident of Cambrelleng Avenue cut in. “And he didn’t do nothing.”

In fact the history of the siting of the DMV office in Belmont carried all the hallmarks of Bronx politics. The deal-broker, Kathy Zamechansky, was involved in the Wedtech military contracting scandal and was closely aligned with previous borough president Fernando Ferrer, and other still-active elected officials. (Her name now appears on a For Rent sign on Webster Avenue, as well). As reflected in the tapes that put him in jail, ex-State Senator Guy Velella was in on the siting, telling reporters in 1998 that the impact of the extra traffic would hardly be felt because Fordham Road, Crotona Ave. and nearby Southern Blvd. are already high-traffic areas. "This is not going to make it any worse," he said.

Those in attendance at the “Quality of Life” meeting on Feb. 16 in the basement of Mount Carmel church, however, told stories and showed photograph evidence, taken with a cell phone, of the situation growing worse and worse.

“You should have told me told years ago,” said Deputy Inspector Buzzetti, the commanding officer of the local police precinct.

“I did,” a woman answered. “At the feragosto, don’t you remember, I told you about the riot, they told me it was a bias crime and they would call me back.”

In fact, the demographics in the church basement were different that those of today’s wider Belmont, and the Bronxite users of the DMV office. The fliers announcing the meeting, for example, were on Italian bakeries but not their Latino counterparts. To some degree this reflects (or play off) the long ownership patterns of the two-story homes on Cambrelleng Avenue. State Senator Klein made it a wider issue, naming four neighborhoods in The Bronx particular deserving of protection, including Belmont, Throggs Neck an City Island. No community south of (or more predominantly minority than) Belmont was mentioned. In response to allusions to the deal-making that led to the Fordham Road site, Jeff Klein said he was tired of hearing about unclean hands.

The history of The Bronx was alive, in this drafty church basement. A man spoke of seeing prostitutes now on 187^th Street at nine or ten p.m.. (In response, Deputy Inspector Buzzetti said, “I know, I know, the blonde one.”) The man continued that when he moved to Belmont in 1969, he would walk from the Grand Concourse at midnight without fear. “What’s changed?” he asked, and the question wasn’t answered.

Jeff Klein promised to speak to DMV in Albany. Presumably, the gubernatorial race will have room for this local Bronx issue. The lease, according to Quality of Lifer Luana Malavolta Rodriguez, expires in four years. The Parkchester area which previously had the office is said to want it back. Long term suggestions for the Fordham Road site include a possible children’s museum. Short term, the idea of parking permits only for local resident was floated. “They have that in Westchester,” Jeff Klein said. “It requires state legislation.” Other suggestions were made about staggering the expiration dates for livery cab drivers, and providing parking for police officers who come about the tickets they’ve written (or to drink coffee in the Mobil station, as one attendee pointed out). The meeting ended with Jeff Klein repeatedly shushing the audience. “You’re acting like I’m a moron,” he said. We’ll continue to follow this story. Until next report, for or with more information, contact us.

On February 7, there were jokes but little self-deprecation at Mayor Bloomberg’s annual fete for the press corps. As for having skipped the debate held at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Bloomberg sniped, “you see how much difference that made.” Nor, he pointed out, had he ended up needing an endorsement from “Babies for Bloomberg” (for which he’d had a t-shirt made). He said that the gifts that he gave could be returned to Wal-Mart… in Hamilton, Bermuda.

The press corps, mostly in suits, mostly clapped when Bloomberg introduced, as “the Banking Superintendent,” Diana Taylor. The night previous, Bloomberg eschewed an invitation to the White House and instead spoke to homeowners in Throggs Neck in The Bronx. The tabloid press – a widening category – related this to the Bush administration’s withdrawal of Ms. Taylor’s name from consideration to chair the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (which, coincidentally or not, is consideration an application for insurance and a bank charter from Wal-Mart).

Lest the choice of Throggs Neck be seen as genuine outer borough affirmation, to a reporter Bloomberg joked, “How’d you like it last night in Throggs Neck?” contrasting it with well-dressed “Williamsburgh hip.” While this gentrified hot-spot is in Brooklyn, one left the mayor’s press event as if from the hearty hearth of a manor house surrounded by wastelands. Five minutes north on the M15 bus, 125^th Street and First Avenue was desolate. The jokes about Bermuda and the National Rifle Association seemed far, far away.

Across the Willis Avenue Bridge, recently put on sale for one dollar, the housing project canyons glittered with the lights of pizza and liquor stores. They say that The Bronx will be saved by new shopping malls, and by converting park land to a replacement Yankee Stadium. But the jobs created at the most recent uptown mall, the Target by 225^th Street and Broadway, have turned out to be barely minimum wage, and mostly part time (two days a week, following Christmas). How can rents of even six to eight hundred dollars be paid with such wages? The question hung in the seasonably cold air on 149^th Street in Melrose, a mile and a universe away from Gracie Mansion.

Missing mariachis – on February 4, the basement auditorium of the new Bronx library was packed, in anticipation of an NYPL-publicized presentation of mariachis. There were strollers in the aisle and three microphones on stage. Fifteen minutes after the program was supposed to begin, a man in a beige suit stood beside the stage and said the mariachis had yet to arrive, and had not called. “If any of you want to leave, we’ll entirely understand,” he said. Few left. Another fifteen minutes later, he reappeared and apologized. “We’ll never invite them again,” he said. He placed a cardboard box in front of an uncovered wall lamp a child had been playing with.

Before the cancellation, an interview was conducted. Not by Inner City Press – we were there for the mariachis – but by a Columbia Journalism School student, who turned the discussion from mariachis to immigration more generally. The interviewee did not at first want to give her first name, but then did, along with her phone number so that the student’s professor could call and double-check the facts. Leading Inner City Press to wonder: what ever happened to Columbia’s “Bronx Beat” publication? Online the most recent editions are from 2004. Was the publication, for which Columbia claimed credit for serving The Bronx, unceremoniously retired? Responses are welcome. [And received! Columbia professor Addie Rimmer responds, "We're here. Our first issue for the spring semester will publish on Feb. 13." Turns out that even though it's no easy find from the Columbia Journalism School's website, the 2005 editions are in fact online, here. We'll be looking for(ward) the 2006 editions.]

The New York Times, which as we’ve noted in this space often goes weeks without a single article covering life in the South Bronx (other than real estate article hyping gentrification), last week was all over the Webster Avenue White Castle police shooting story. But even then, with reporters on the scene, it couldn’t get its facts straight. Corey Kiligannon’s Feb. 3 article, “Where Burgers, and Sometimes Trouble, Beckon,” describes the White Castle as

“the only food place open in the wee hours after bars and clubs have closed. The White Castle on Webster Avenue is on a gritty commercial strip lined with gas stations, auto repair shops and nightclubs. Across the street is El Monstruo, an all-night auto shop that installs large, shiny rims.”

Perhaps the shiny rims blinded the Timesman to the jam-packed club scene right next to El Monstruo, at the Jet Set Café, or to the all-night frituras truck, Llego La Loca. On Tremont and Webster is a cuchifritos restaurant El Despertar, which is open all night on Fridays and Saturdays. Interviewed on Feb. 3, the all-night waitress laughed when told of the New York Times’ account. She asked, “Y que saben ellos?” (“What do they know?). Good question…

Update: regarding the challenge by ICP/Fair Finance Watch to Whitney National Bank, see “Consumer group protests First National sale,” Sarasota Herald Tribune, January 31, 2006.

And regarding inner cities, and similar to the Bronx, the national media’s Super Bowl week in Detroit has given rise to contradictory stories praising and critiquing the city, calling it rebuilt or still in decline. "Some of the people kind of had those written before they got here," said Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (fresh from cutting back the city’s fire department). Detroit’s population has declined from two million in 1954 to under a million today. It’s been noted that 1000 residents still leave every month, but now there’s a ubiquitous Hard Rock Café. Wanting to look at the lending that’s under this surface, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch has analyzed mortgage lending patterns in the Detroit Metropolitan Statistical Area in the most recent year for which data is available, 2004. Comparing the rate at which African Americans and whites were confined to higher cost mortgages over the federally-defined rate spread (of 3% over comparable Treasury securities on first lien loans, 5% on subordinate liens), some of the biggest names in finance, including Super Bowl advertisers, are among the most disparate. Click here to view.

It was quite a weekend on Webster Avenue in The Bronx. On Friday on 167^th Street at Jaritza’s Bar, a police raid resulted in the shooting death of a civilian in body armor armed with a .357 magnum. On Saturday on Webster just below Tremont, off-duty police officer Eric Hernandez was shot in what’s called friendly fire, outside the White Castle. The Daily News reports that Hernandez had been bar-hopping, was waiting in line for sliders when five people assaulted him. Not in the Daily News, but known to the neighbors, is that the stretch between 178^th and 175^th Street has become clubbing alley, with the Jet Set Café just across from White Castle, and two clubs up on Tremont. Where the five assailants came from remains to be reported…

News you won’t (otherwise) hear in The Bronx: a business with 15 employees, Metrostar Distribution Inc., a distributor of paper products to the food industry, has decamped for Long Island. The owner Michael Agajan said of Long Island, “."It's cleaner," Agajan said. "It's just a better work environment than the Bronx."

Meanwhile, a company staying in The Bronx is Safeguard, whose roach spray caught fire in the Bronx apartment of José Calo, leading to litigation. Previously, there were issues of Safeguard and the sewer system around Wales Avenue…

Bronx library update: the wireless Internet works, although on January 28 large signs said, “No Printing Today.” And there was no access to the auditorium…

What is most striking about the new Bronx Library Center which opened on Kingsbridge Road on January 17 is that there is already a waiting list to use the computers. Inner City Press has previously described teenagers have to wait for hours to use the handful of computers at other Bronx branches. Here the waiting time is (for now) half an hour, based on a maximum of one 45-minute session a day.
This review, written on of the 36 Internet-enabled IBM ThinkCentre computers on the fourth floor of the new Bronx Library Center two days after its opening, was mentally drafted while waiting a half-hour to use the computer. It was not clear where the supposedly 100+ computers were. Out the windows, art deco apartment buildings, tattoo shops and parts of the Botanical Garden can be seen. Students mill about; security guards are called. A librarian is asked if they have wi-fi and answers, "What?" A second question clarifies: they call it wireless. Bronx materials are locked up in file cabinets. The lower level, with auditorium and writing center, was blocked by a security guard.

NY1’s story predicted: “While the old library was plagued with complaints of overcrowding and a lack of computers, those complaints are unlikely to apply to the new facility, which has… 127 computers.”

Newsday’s stilted architectural review of Jan. 19 reported breathlessly that “The Bronx's latest landmark sits on high ground, jammed between a psychic reader's storefront and a squat brick apartment block with fire escapes hanging off the facade.” Yep – apartment buildings here have fire escapes, literally haaanging off them…

The New York Observer of Jan. 23 editorializes that Bronxites should support the giveaway of their parkland for a new Yankee Stadium. Would this pink paper take the same stance on a carve-out from Central Park?

Stray pop-culture reference: North Bronx congressman Engel let his mustache be combed on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report of January 19, in a which a Stella D’Oro breadstick figured prominently…More seriously and closer to home, 19-year old Laurice Arthur was shot and killed in the Power Deli Grocery at 694 Courtlandt Ave. in Melrose, just down the street from his home (and down the street from Inner City Press’ previous office at 680 Courtlandt). The Daily News noted that he died wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt with the words "R.I.P. Carlito" on the front, a tribute to his friend Carlos Arauz, 18, who was shot to death about 100 yards from the store on December 29…

The proposed new Yankee Stadium, which would “alienate,” in its proponents’ archaic euphemism, over 15 acres of parkland, was debated for hours on January 11 at the NYC City Planning Commission. Seated in the front row was Yankees president Randy Levine, who only two weeks ago call the plan’s opponents “professional protesters” and “outsiders.” But speaker after speaker stated that they’ve lived in Highbridge for decades, and don’t want to lose their parks. The commissioners’ questions didn’t address this issue. One commissioner asked about how she can best drive home from the game. Another asked if the Yankees will work with the community to “find out” why asthma is so prevalent. “For that I’ll have to turn to Mister Levine,” was the response.

Reference was made to Manhattan’s Central Park – would the City even consider giving up 15 acres there, or in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park? Two Yankee representatives referred to ideas proffered by the Bronx borough president, who has already given his approval. “Interesting, but we’re dubious,” the Yankee representative said of the Bronx B.P.’s proposal to make Macombs Dam Bridge one-way before and after Yankee games. The Yankees’ architect claimed to have listened to the community, but this was called into question by witnesses against. From three to five p.m., the few supported included a teacher at Morris High School, based on the Yankees’ financial support to his robot-building club, and a self-described blue collar worker who denounced “those people… illegal immigrants,” saying they send their low wages back to their countries. This witness also said that the Yankees don’t pay back enough to the City.

The Department of City Planning posted a notice on its web site that despite the public hearing beginning at 10 a.m., testimony about the Yankee Stadium items would not begin before 11:30 a.m.. In fact it was the afternoon, and then into the evening, and many witnesses opposed to the project had to leave before their names were called. The chairwoman said that no decision will be made in the near term; a figure mentioned was sixty days. An observer of the public hearing might assume that the project will be voted down. But from the body language of the Yankee brass and consultants, they at least believe the fix is in – primarily because of quickly-taken votes in the City Council and Assembly in Albany. The question remains, as asked at the hearing: would this even conceivably happen to parkland in Manhattan, or even Brooklyn or Queens? One wag said, as day turned into night: Bronx Bombers, indeed.

Times watch from Bronx POV: in the week it was reported that the New York Times’ daily circulation in The Bronx fell from 18,300 in 2001 to a mere 12,600 in 2005 (this in a borough of 1.3 million people in the Times’ supposed hometown), the paper of record once again unqualifiedly promoted gentrification in The Bronx. Its January 15 article, “Outsiders Tiptoe into the South Bronx,” did not even mention that rising costs make things harder for current Bronx residents. The Times reported on condos that “went on sale last month for $235,000 each and six are already in contract. One buyer is from Manhattan, another is from Queens, and many of those who have come to open houses are also from outside of the Bronx.” There was no mention, much less analysis, of displacement. The Times-praised condos are on Nelson Avenue in Highbridge – while being the only of the four dailies not to cover the Jan. 11 City Planning public hearing on the Yankees’ proposed take-over of parkland in Highbridge. Apparently not fit to print.

Nuclear medicine, anyone? Inner City Press/Community on the Move has received a letter from Connecticut-based CardinalHealth, projecting a new “radio-pharmacy” at 2425 Waterbury Avenue in The Bronx. Triggering the letter is a required application to the NYS DEC, since the proposed site is in a DEC-defined “Environmental Justice Area,” and ICP has been identified by DEC as a “party likely to be interested in this Plan.” Well, yes. We’ve expressed our interest to Cardinal, but have yet to hear back.

It’s become a cliché, that the 41^st Precinct’s gone from “Fort Apache” to “Little Houses on the Prairie,” supposedly all spruced up by New York City Partnership low-rise houses. But included in the year-end crime statistics, though not noted by any other media, was a 150% rise in murders in the 41^st Precinct from 2004 to 2005, and a 9.7% rise in robberies. While additional forces are being assigned to the 40^th, 44^th and 46^th Precincts, of the 41^st, nothing’s been said. Sometimes a cliché doesn’t help…

As we get back up to full speed now after the holiday, we want to make our readers aware of a new service (worked on over the holiday). Inner City Press now offers an RSS.XML feed – although not of all articles, only those articles, not only Bronx-related but also on fair lending, environmental justice, the United Nations (where Inner City Press' Global Service is accredited media) and related topics that are broken-out on separate pages on InnerCityPress.com. It’s something of a step forward; the articles are now included / spidered in such venues as Google News. Readers are free to subscribe to (or make others aware of or suggest the inclusion of) Inner City Press’ RSS feed, available here. As always, any support for this work and this new service is appreciated.

First the New York Times, and now the Daily News, both praising without qualification the intended gentrification of the South Bronx. The Daily News of December 27 spoke of jazz bars and condos, reporting one-bedroom rents of $1200. This figure was compared to rents in Manhattan, rather than to median family incomes in The Bronx. Regarding the jazz bar, the Daily News didn’t ask what happened to the locale it is replacing, the erstwhile Blue Ox. Residential conversion is predicted for “170 Brown Place, a former public school building that belongs to a local nonprofit.” That would be Argus Community, Inc. / Argus Youth, Inc.. Why would a non-profit apparently be fueling gentrification by considering conversion of previously public-use space into condos in an overheated market? We’ll see.

Also in the news: two Bronx police precincts are being cut in half, in the NYPD’s “Operation Impact.” The 44th will be split at the Grand Concourse and the 46th will bifurcate at Jerome Avenue. Each will receive 100 new cops. In the 46^th, murder is up. The connection to real estate trends is not reported on…

A story we’d be remiss not to note: up to 1500 patients at Bronx Lebanon Hospital may have been exposed to tuberculosis, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In CDC says the nurse came into contact with more than 1,000 patients they haven't been able to find. Officials are asking anyone who was a patient in the maternity ward from September to December 2003 to call 311 to arrange for confidential testing. Great…

New Years Eve in The Bronx included spirits-seekers lined up outside North Side Liquors on Webster and Fordham, as the snow began to fall. The taco stand “El Paparazzi” was still open, serving up huge chorizo tacos for $2.50. Further east in Belmont a new deli-slash-tacqueria’s opened, on Hughes and 183^rd Street. It’s called Karied’s and they don’t play cheap with meat. Across the street a barber shop slash video game haunt called Kuts is open.

Annals of enforcement: Bronx-based A & L Sheet Metal Fabrications Corp. has been cited by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for four instances of failing to correct hazards cited during a 2004 OSHA inspection, as well as five new serious violations of workplace health standards. These include $11,400 in proposed fines, for unguarded moving machine parts; excess air pressure in a compressed air cleaning hose; improper storage of oxygen and acetylene cylinders; and allowing metal and/or chromium dust to accumulate on work surfaces, a refrigerator and a microwave oven. Finally, fines totaling $2,400 were proposed for two serious citations involving unguarded fan blades…

For ICP’s comments to the Federal Reserve and Office of Thrift Supervision on Sovereign Bank’s attempt to acquire Independence Community Bank Corp, see ICP’s Bank Beat report, which will continue following this story.

As the New York City transit strike was settled on December 22, the metal barricades in front of the Metro-North station on Fordham Road in The Bronx were still up. The commuters trains were standing room only. Cars lined up all the way south to 183^rd Street. Out in Baychester, bus drivers shifted from the picket line into their afternoon shifts. It is unclear if the MTA, as some have reported, is committed to drop its proposal to require increased contributions by incoming employees to their pension plans. While in Manhattan TWU president Toussaint and Mayor Bloomberg each gave speeches, neither addressed the substance of the settlement. Toussaint said more details will emerge in the coming days. Watch this space.

This week, in light of the coming-out (as a British spy) of longtime Bronx resident and supposed Sinn Féin rep Denis Donaldson, a brief foray in this vein. In the Dec. 24 Irish Times, Seán O'Driscoll quotes Gabriel Megahey about seeing Donaldson buying a round of drinks for FBI men in the Phoenix bar in the Bronx. "That was an eye-popper," Megahey says. "I just had a feeling from that moment that something wasn't right." The Irish Times says that
”Donaldson's apartment on Decatur Avenue was just a block from the main commercial strip on Bainbridge Avenue, which was then one of the most populated Irish neighborhoods in New York.
"He loved the Irish neighborhoods but also the diversity of New York," said one of his closest friends. "I remember taking him down to jazz clubs in Greenwich Village. He reveled in it, and he loved the Italian neighborhoods and all the types of food from all the different ethnic groups."
He recalled that Donaldson would walk for an hour from the Bronx to Noraid's Manhattan office and walk back in the evening just to take in the sights of New York.”

And what sights, on the route, there were. The above-linked Post.ie article places Donaldson elsewhere in the Bronx:

“Donaldson lived in the Bronx on Bainbridge Avenue, and soon became noted for his love of the nightlife. Often business was done in bars, with the affable Donaldson winning someone over to his view over a pint or two, though no one ever remembers him being drunk.”

As the Irish Times concludes, “Maureen McCullough, however, believes that Donaldson's full story has yet to be told. "I knew him as a gentleman, a straight-arrow kind of guy who wanted the best for everyone. I don't know what happened. I just know that it's going to take 50 years before this story is fully told."

The Bronx in the shadow of transit strike: on December 16, the 4 train over Jerome Avenue, after passing the still-open pits of the gas station on 184^th Street, disgorged its passengers at Burnside, saying they could go no further south. The previous night on 42^nd Street, the TWU had a chant: “Who’s got the power?” “We’ve go the power!” “What kind of power?” “Union power!”

From the Poughkeepsie Journal of December 14, MetroNorth’s contingency plan revealed: “Some Hudson and Harlem line trains will skip regular stops in the Bronx.” Other papers reported there’d be shuttles coming north from Grand Central, for three dollars a ride. But why then skip stops in the Bronx?

Follow-up to petting zoo: on December 17, fireman from the Belmont Avenue house were celebrated. In the 18-wheel tractor, the petting pony fared worse. By the end of the day it was cowering, reportedly beaten by a group of teens. No more were feeding pellets sold for a quarter. Signs had been added, instructing kids to wash their hands. What happened? And what will be the repercussions?

HSBC, trying to defend its below-described violations of the Servicemembers' Civil Relief Act to the UK newspaper The Observer, argued that "Household's credit card business had once offered reductions only to those serving in combat zones, but had updated this policy in line with legal changes in 2003." See, “HSBC 'overcharging' US troops,” by Conal Walsh, The Observer (UK), December 18, 2005. But this defense doesn't fly: even prior to the 2003 amendments, the interest rate reduction was required for those on active duty, with no reference to combat zones. So HSBC's mis-speaking, to put it diplomatically....

Arrived in The Bronx at the weekend was the annual 187^th Street petting zoo, in front of Mt. Carmel Pharmacy. Horses roamed on Beaumont Avenue; the convoy came from Windham Mountain Ranch from the 518 (area code), a crew that put on shows in Jersey over the past summer. On Sunday, December 11, the cart drawn by two horses moved slowly in Arthur Avenue traffic, playing surreal Christmas songs and smelling of, well, horse…

This week Inner City Press’ book review is of “Building New York: The Rise and Rise of the Greatest City on Earth,” Bruce Marshall (2005: Universe/Rivoli). In this 300 page book, there are fewer than a dozen references to The Bronx: to Woodlawn Cemetery, to the Bronx River Parkway, to Parkchester (whose mid-Bronx location is described on page 266 as “a dismal section of the Bronx until the Metropolitan Insurance Company built the huge residential complex”). The example given of early urban renewal is in East Harlem: a haunting photo of the foundations of buildings demolished to make way for Jefferson Park on 112^th Street. Even the sections on Zoos and Botanical Gardens, while mentioning that the Bronx has the major example of each, pictures only the Central Park Zoo, and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Perhaps because fewer Bronxites could or would buy this $50 coffee table book…

Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch (ICP) has just filed a challenge to the application by Alabama-based Compass Bancshares, Inc. to acquire TexasBanc Holdings Co. and TexasBank, a $464 million proposal announced on September 19, 2005. See ICP’s Community Reinvestment Report this week for more. And now from the mailbag, we devote this to NY-based Chase's actions in the Katrina zone:

Subject: Chase Home Finance
Date: 12/6/2005 3:03:58 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: [Name withheld]
To: JPMChaseWatch [at] innercitypress.org

My home is located in Hancock County Mississippi. Hurricane Katrina devastated southern Hancock County causing over 90% of homes and businesses catastrophic damage. My home was one with catastrophic damage.

Shortly after the hurricane I contacted Chase to inquire about payment options. I was told that based on the damage and my federally declared zip code that I would not have to make payments for three months. In December I was to assume payments and the months of September, October and November 2005 would be added to the loan without penalty. On September 29 I received a bill from chase detailing my missed payment as past due. I called and spoke to a representative named Andrew who assured me the bill was automatically computer generated but that the system did not identify my loan as late. I again called in October and November when I received my bills. I was told the same thing. On November 22 I received a letter from chase requesting information about intent to rebuild.

Again I called, again I was reassured that my credit would not be affected and I would owe but one payment in December.

Today, December 5, I called to make my scheduled payment and was told that not only do I owe four months of payments but that I would be reported to the credit bureau starting January if not paid. I asked to speak to a supervisor who told me that Chase made the decision not to honor full deferrals on November 1, 2005 and anyone I spoke to after that misinformed me. Between November 1 and November 29 I had no less than six conversations with Chase Representatives; all of them assured me I was fine. The supervisor advised me that payment plans were being set up to bring people current with their mortgages but I do not qualify for such since I am unemployed (Katrina destroyed my place of employment as well). She told me to make my December payment and call back in January. She could offer no assurance that my credit then would not be affected if I am unable to come up with the almost $4000 it would take to make me current.

I have four children, my home is destroyed, my insurance company is not paying for damages, I am unemployed and I feel I have been deliberately misled by Chase. I was told one thing and at the last moment everything regarding my loan changed.

December 6, 2005: We’re compelled to Bronx-react to the much-hyped “Knights of the South Bronx,” which premiered today on A&E. Fifteen minutes in, even before the first advertising break, young Jimmy Washington tries to rob a bike in The Bronx, is chased by cops and runs until he hides in a chess tournament being won by Ted Danson. One problem: the chess tournament is by the arch in Washington Square Park. That’s a hundred and fifty block run… And following up on yesterday's report, see (from Scotland), US soldiers’ families allege loan discrimination by HSBC," by Karl West, The Herald (Glasgow), December 5, 2005. Until next report, for or with more information, contact us.

Of the U.S. military personnel killed to date in Iraq, the youngest New Yorkers to fall were four age 19, including Army Pfc. Luis Moreno of the Bronx, who was killed by sniper fire on Jan. 29, 2004. The oldest were two 46-year-olds, including Navy Cmdr. Joseph Acevedo, also of the Bronx, who was killed in a “non-hostile” incident on April 13, 2003. Of the 47 military women killed in Iraq, three were from New York. Marine Cpl. Ramona Valdez, 20, of the Bronx, was killed by a suicide car bomber June 23, 2005.

Meanwhile on the home front, military personnel on active duty are being overcharged on high interest loans by bank holding companies including MBNA and Bank of America, a new investigation of compliance with the Servicemembers’ Civil Relief Act (SCRA) by Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch has uncovered. Through documents just obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, ICP had documented widespread violations of the SCRA, defrauding and overcharging of those in active military service, and regulatory inertia in dealing with the abuses. See, e.g., US soldiers’ families allege loan discrimination by HSBC," by Karl West, The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), December 5, 2005. ICP has immediately written to the Federal Reserve, demanding inquiry into and action on these newly unearthed documents, prior to any ruling but denial on BofA’s application to acquire MBNA. We'll see. For now, somewhat related, click here to see the sequel to Inner City Press' Predatory Bender, called Rights Force, set in The Bronx...

Bronx media watch: the New York Times (City Section) of December 4 covers the planned closing of Metropolitan College of New York’s Bronx campus – ten days after Inner City Press covered it. After describing 149^th Street as “a desolate block of Courtlandt Avenue in Mott Haven,” the article concludes that “For some, the closing of this campus echoes the much larger uproar created in 1972 and 1973, when a financially desperate New York University sold its Bronx campus at University Heights, shutting down many of the science programs located there.” Wonder who those “some” are…

Big Brother in the Botanical Garden: civil libertarians that we are, or plain old privacy mavens, we’re compelled to note with concern the Botanical Garden’s new practice of not only checking membership cards, but typing in the members’ names as they enter, and spitting out a receipt complete with a bar code on it. When asked why this was necessary, the response was “This is what we do now.” But why? Why must it be entered into a computer who has entered the old growth forest? Counting the entrants would be fine. But why take and record names? We’ll see.

Slow turning wheel of lead paint “justice” – seven years after the harm was diagnosed, a $950,000 settlement was agreed to last week by the faceless entity, “581 East 137th Street Association.” As the Daily News recounts, on Nov. 1, 1994, Elba DeJesus and her two children, Joanna Diaz, 7, and son, Jonathan DeJesus, 13, moved into an apartment building at 581 E. 137th St. Four years later, a blood test revealed elevated levels of lead in the children. An inspection by the city Health Department in April 1998 confirmed lead in chipped and peeling paint on the apartment walls. Elba DeJesus sued… defense attorney John Guglielmo put an expert on the stand who testified the lead levels were raised by lead-based candle wicks that DeJesus frequently burned in the apartment. After three weeks of testimony, Guglielmo offered a settlement on behalf of the landlord. Guglielmo said the children's disabilities were not caused by lead paint exposure. He said Jonathan was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder before the family moved into the apartment.” And so it goes…

In Maclean’s of November 21, this off-handed reference to The Bronx: a taxi driver “won't go to Clichy-sous-Bois. The next driver, a black man with an African accent, just laughs when asked to go to the suburbs. ‘Non. Non, merci, he says and drives off. Once a cab finally gets there, it's clear why no one wanted to drive into the area. Parisians often brag about the myriad of social services supposedly available in France's underprivileged neighborhoods. ‘It's not like the Bronx,’ one man says.” Oh yeah?

Moving outward from The Bronx: see,”Fulton Financial Accused of Biased Lending: Federal Reserve Is Asked to Halt Firm's Acquisition of Columbia Bancorp,” by Terence O'Hara, Washington Post, November 23, 2005, Pg. D4; ”Advocacy group tries to block Fulton deal,” Lancaster New Era, Nov. 23, 2005; and ”Group challenges Howard bank buyer: Fulton accused of bias against minorities,” by Laura Smitherman, Baltimore Sun, November 22, 2005, Pg. 1D.

Well, it’s been confirmed. Inner City Press’ mid-week report of November 16 about the stealth moves to close the Bronx campus of Metropolitan College burst into public view on November 19. As students picketed on Courtlandt Avenue, MCNY president Stephen Greenwald claimed that the closure would somehow “serve the students” best. While MCNY talks a good game (and its president did previously work in Hollywood), how is this difference from NYU closing its Bronx campus in the 1970s and telling students to travel down to Washington Square? Developing...

The New York Times of November 15 ventured to the “intersection of Crotona Avenue and East 170th Street in the South Bronx,” to reported on residents “tossing their old, not-so-old and expensive footwear onto the wire. Some of them said they did it to claim the neighborhood as their own, to represent, one young man said, 'the ghetto where we come from.' Christopher, 16, hopes that years from now, he will return to the block and see his shoes up there.” That very intersection saw mass-evictions just over a decade ago -- the Times itself covered the pre-eviction residents for a Thanksgiving story by James Bennet, entitled “Pilgrims' Progress: In Bronx, Plucky Settlers Give Thanks” (Nov. 27, 1992). Perhaps the sneakers will remain -- the people were evicted.

Update of November 16, 2005: Heard on the street, 149^th Street to be exact -- some students at Metropolitan College of New York on Courtlandt Avenue and 149^th Street are expressing outrage at what they understand to be plans to stealthly close their campus. It’s yet to appear in other media, but inquiries might be made to the school (whose web site describes the campus as an “anchor... surrounded by one of the City’s most vibrant retail environments”) or even to a certain ex-Bronx Borough President who has served, until recent campaign, on the board of trustees of Metropolitan College of New York. For a current list of trustees, click here -- there's some overlap with the banking industry and the NY Banking Board).

MTA speak: ''One of the things we were trying to do was provide mobility for people who live in the Bronx to take good-paying jobs in places like White Plains and up to Greenwich and Stamford,'' Robert C. MacLagger, director of operations planning for Metro-North, was quoted last week. He estimated that the number of people boarding outbound trains at Grand Central Terminal and in the Bronx has more than doubled, to about 12,000 each weekday morning. And that doesn’t include the Bee Line bus...

The London Telegraph of November 7 opined: “The French government could learn from New York, whose badlands have been transformed over the past 15 years. One of the roughest of New York's neighbourhoods, the South Bronx, was made infamous by the author Tom Wolfe in his 1987 novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, as a hellhole of drugs, crime and despair. When Wolfe returned recently to the South Bronx he was astounded at the changes. ‘I had to explain to young Dominican shopkeepers what it used to be like,’ he told an audience in Manhattan last month. ‘All the prostitutes and drug-dealers had just gone.’”

Not to be anti-French, but Michelin’s sampling of New York stiffed The Bronx. Jean-Luc Naret told the NYT last week that of the 1,500 restaurants sampled, “about 100 were in Brooklyn, 50 in Queens, 30 in the Bronx and 20 on Staten Island.” And the results? Listings for 463 restaurants in Manhattan, 25 in Brooklyn 13 in Queens, four in Staten Island and a grand total of two in The Bronx (Roberto’s in Belmont and Riverdale Garden). Why no more? The Times quoted Naret that the inspectors moved to Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island for six to eight weeks to immerse themselves in the food scenes. ''A few of them didn't want to leave,'' he said, adding that one developed a fondness for Staten Island. 'He was saying, If I had to live here, I could live here.'” Apparently that didn’t apply to The Bronx...

For some of ICP’s consumer protection work, click here (BankRate.com article). Until next report, for or with more information, contact us.

The Bronx-relevant fair lending news of last week was an enforcement action announced November 4 by the OCC against Laredo National Bank and its the subprime affiliate Homeowners Loan Corporation. This HLC is a major subprime lender in New York, and in The Bronx. When Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria applied to acquire both companies, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch submitted comments, demonstrating disparities at Homeowners Loan Corporation (and reported in the December 14, 2004, American Banker and December 13, 2004 MarketWatch). The disparities in New York were as follows:

In the New York City MSA in 2003, for mortgage refinance loans, HLC reported originating 1.92 loans to African Americans for each loan to a white. The aggregate in this MSA made 0.24 refinance loans to African Americans for each loan to a white. HLC targets its higher cost loans at African Americans EIGHT TIMES more frequently than whites

The regulators in March 2005 approved BBVA’s applications, but the story continued, leading to the OCC’s $14 million fine. While some may say that the OCC announcement shows that the OCC, having sued to block state attorney general investigations of national banks and its subsidiaries, is finally taking its own enforcement actions, this one was brewing since before the 2004 mortgage data was submitted. ICP in comments to the regulators identified disparities in the 2003 data. BBVA withheld from ICP most of its answers to regulators, and, tellingly, tried to give ICP its 2004 HMDA data in paper form, making further analysis difficult. ICP finally got the information and filed more comments. So the November 4, 2005, enforcement action still leaves the OCC with a glaring deficit in its own investigatory and enforcement actions, now that it claims sole jurisdiction over national banks and their subsidiaries...

As to BBVA / Homeowners Loan Corporation, ICP has now raised the issue to others of BBVA’s regulators, including in Colombia and Spain, on BBVA’s applications to acquire Granahorrar...

So strangely warm for November, what’s better and more Bronxy than a bike ride up Southern Boulevard, past the Zoo (where a parking lot attendant was robbed at gun point just last week), past the Somewhat-Big-Dig where a parking lot is planned, on the haunted site of the old Fordham Hospital, north past football game closely watched by MTA police blowing off their Metro North assignments, and into the park, past French Charlie’s Park, where Army recruits in camouflage are training. Preparing for a coup d’etat, perhaps. The leaves are red now, nearly flaming. Up the hill on the east side of the park, the 2 train roars over White Plains Road and Allerton. On Boston Road by C-Town, a man is fixing bikes, his mechanic’s tools and stray inner tube staked out on the sidewalk. The Korean vegetable market, that largest in this area, has Sweet Lady apples no bigger than squash balls. There’s fresh tofu but sadly no wasabi peas. Referral is made to Jimmy’s Fish Market, barely ten feet wide, on Arnow Avenue. But no. Mexican restaurants and Albanian groceries; one hundred pigeons roost on the El train station. They too enjoy the last heat of the season.

Now that the 2005 baseball season is over, complete with Fox’s send-up of “Latin Legends” before the final game of the White Sox’ sweep, we want to review the just-out book, “Early Latino Ballplayers in the United States: Major, Minor and Negro Leagues, 1901-1949.” When the Cincinnati Reds in 1999 added to their roster two Cubans – one of whom, Aramando Marsans, was called the “Ty Cobb of Cuba,” apparently without intentional irony – the Cincinnati Tribune complained that “the peculiar social conditions of [Cuba] make it mighty hard to determine the exact standings of most of the natives regarding color.” Who’s peculiar? In 1918, Marsans was with the New York Yankees, and was fired (and banished from the “major” leagues) by manager Miller Huggins. The New York Times dubbed Marsans “the temperamental Cuban center fielder.”

The book tells the tales of such giants as Adolfo Luque (194-179 with an ERA of 3.24 in 20 major league seasons); el Inmortal Martín Dihigo, and Hiram Bithorn, for whom the stadium in San Juan is named and who died in 1951 at the age of 35, shot by police in Mexico. At the inquest Corporal Ambrosio Cano claimed that “Mr. Bithorn had had in his dying breath that he was a member of the Communist Party” (149). Like another of our favorites, Bronxite Abraham Polonsky, another victim of the Cold War (we recommend his “Zenia’s Way,” set in The Bronx, East 180^th Street to be exact).

Finally, for this week, we're compelled to return to a perch: the New York Times of Sunday, November 6 contains 13 references to The Bronx, all perfunctory. One's in an article on the marathon (the Bronx reference involves Gatorade). There's a home sale in Riverdale, and a Wedding/Celebration involving a Riverdale teacher. There's a mention of Fordham Road in an article on the mayoral campaign (co-bylined by a reporter who, in profiling the Bronx' contribution, neglected to note that he worked for later-indicted Bronx Borough President Stanley Simon). One of the references is to a "Bronx cheer." Indeed.

Annal of enforcement: last week the USDA reached into the Bronx cited “Gran Manzana Tropical Inc.” and its sole owner with the delicious Apple-like name of Mauricio N. Tabarovsky for failure to pay a New Jersey produce seller a $9,060 reparation award previously issued under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act... Also last week, the National Credit Union Administration placed into liquidation the Bronx-based Korean-American Chamber of Commerce Federal Credit, after determining the credit union was insolvent and that management had “abandoned credit union operations.” NCUA chartered Korean-American Chamber of Commerce Federal Credit Union in 1979 to serve members and employees of the Korean-American Chamber of Commerce in [the] Bronx, New York...

We said we’ve have more to say about Yonkers, and here’s a second installment. This time, from the past, from rarely opened books on dusty shelves. The grand daddy of them all, in more ways than one, is the 1896 tome by The Rev. Charles Elmer Allison, “The History of Yonkers.” It was reissued in 1984, in a limited edition of 500 copies. By Harbor Hill Books of Harrison, New York. Like we said, dusty. And yet illuminating, including of The Bronx. For example, on naming, Allison had this to say:

“’The Yonkers,’ from about 1646 until 1788, when the township was erected, was the name of a tract lying between the Amackassin and the Spuyten Duyvil, the Bronx and the Hudson. During that period, ‘The Yonkers,” or ‘The Yonkers Plantation,’ was also the name of a precinct, which comprised the greater part of what was subsequently known as the town of Kingsbridge… In 1874, the town of Kingsbridge became part of the Twenty-fourth Ward of New York City.”

That would be.. The Bronx. Note also that Yonkers, too, had a “The.” So The Bronx’s name, supposedly from “The [Jonas] Bronx’ Plantation” (or land) is not so out of place. Allison catalogues Yonkers’ industries, including the formation of the Yonkers Savings Bank in 1854. He lists all 41 initial trustees, and describes the “new Herring’s burglar-proof vault.” There’s a sense in the book that nothing will stop Yonkers.

Jumping forward to 1951, there’s Frank L. Walton’s “Pillars of Yonkers.” He credits Charles Allison, and includes photographs with breathless captions like one calling the Odell Tree a “perfect work of Nature” – yes, capital N. Whose the reverend now? Pantheists of lower Westchester...

Back in the real (?) world, at the United Nations Environment Program Financial Initiative meeting on October 26, there was bragging about Citigroup’s micro-finance programs. But when the head of Citigroup’s microfinance group was asked about the relation between his unit and the larger subprime CitiFinancial was, he referred to “CitiFinancial and other micro-finance institutions” wanting effective regulation and transparency. His answer -- which a number of observers including from Citigroup peer banks and rating agencies notes was not at all responsive -- ignored that Citigroup has lobbied against regulation and transparency; it also implies that Citigroup is including its high-cost CitiFinancial unit in its definition of micro-finance. For shame...

In other portions of the meeting, in a session called “Lending for a sustainable future,” a representative from Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi claimed that “since civil society in Japan is not mature,” only the banks can improve society. In the micro-finance session, the moderator said that in a recent trip to India she’s found that a microfinance institution is about to get paid to be a distribution channel for the product of Proctor & Gamble…

Click here for Inner City Press’October 31 review of a recent (2005) book about the United Nations.

The October 18 announcement of a anti-predatory lending program for some neighborhoods in New York City listed, as a major sponsor, HSBC. Given that HSBC owns Household International, subject to the largest predatory lending settlement to date (at $486 million), one wonders why the conflicts of this program were hardly mentioned by the media which covered the announcement.

Last week Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch filed timely comments opposing Toronto Dominion / Banknorth’s applications to acquire Hudson United, a bank recent subject to a money laundering cease-and-desist order. The order was taken off by the FDIC, just in time for TD Banknorth to apply to buy Hudson United. A little too convenient, we think - we have requested all related documents from the Federal Reserve, under the Freedom of Information Act (citing a recent ICP win, ICP v. FRB, 380 F. Supp. 2d 211). See, e.g., “TD Banknorth plan protested; Inner City tries to block acquisition, criticizes treatment of minorities, poor,” by Jerry Harkavy, Associated Press / Canadian Press October 18-19, 2005 and, e.g., Boston Globe, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, etc

As Cathay and UCBH Holdings duke it out in a bidding war for Great Eastern, Inner City Press / Community on the Move has filed timely comments opposing Cathay’s application to the Federal Reserve: Until last month, Cathay has been subject to a Memorandum of Understanding regarding breakdowns in its anti-money laundering systems. While, conveniently, the MOU was ended simultaneous with the announcement of Cathay’s proposed acquisition in New York, there are issues which should be closely considered in this proceeding, including in connection with the evidentiary hearing ICP is requesting.

Less legalistic, more experiential: a recent (bus) cruise down Southern Boulevard from Fordham Road to 174^th Street found ever-more self-storage places, and at 174^th Street, a sign for “State Senator David Rosado.” The Five Train wasn’t running in the day: so take the Two to 149^th. A huge construction pit by the Prospect El station. Ear buds and I-Pods in full effect. Que viva el Bronx...

On October 14 in the one free portion of the Zoo -- we won’t again name the car company that sponsored it -- a Bronx River festival was held. From the bandstand Congressman Serrano was speaking, then two cars loudly crashed just outside the fence. Most of the younger attendees ran to take a look, while up on the bandstand Maria from Sesame Street sang karaoke songs from the show. There was free ice cream, and burgers for five dollars. There were ducks, and the fast-flowing river, carrying eight days of rain out to sea. For mid-October it was a very nice fair...

A recent venture to lower Manhattan, through the metal detector and security into City Hall, then out to 31 Chambers Street, site at least previously of the Municipal Reference & Research Center and the Surrogate Court, found the thrill is gone. The security to even get into the building is high; once inside, more questions are asked to access to elevators and old wooden-booth payphones. The MRRC is now the “City Hall Library;” you have to sign to get in. Perhaps not surprisingly -- and perhaps as intended -- there are many fewer users. Still, once inside, there’s a trove of historical books, including about The Bronx.

There are minutes to the Community Board meetings in 1965. CB6, from Tremont to Belmont, had its meeting in the Bronx Savings Bank, later to be abandoned and now reborn as a Mexican nightclub. Names still in the ‘hood can be found in the minutes: Frank Giordano, whose name is on a middle school on 189^th Street, was thrown off the board for repeated non-attendance. (Go figure). There was opposition to the Boys Club, which eventually got built; there was demand for a Federal Building that was never constructed. Fordham Hospital was demolished, as was Old Borough Hall, with the Community Board’s support. So much for historical preservation. There was a proto-Bee Line called West Fordham Transit, with busses to New Rochelle and Yonkers. The train station on 183^rd and Park Avenue was demolished; the Third Avenue El was torn down (not before the Board proposed a replacement monorail). Petitioning the Board was the Tre-Ford Civil Association, led by two homeowners on rarely-mentioned, three block long Bassford Place. Tre-Ford’s complaint? About “dope addicts” in 400 East 183^rd Street. Plus ca change...

Last week a Bronx accident again shut down Amtrak’s New York - Boston line. This one was deadly: trucker Herby Muñoz, 46, was killed when the tanker he was driving capsized and caught fire on Bruckner Boulevard. The blaze spread to 11 parked cars and four adjacent buildings. Rest in peace...

Speaking much less seriously of RIP -- and this is written just after the Bronx Bombers’ loss to the Angels in Game 3 of the LDS -- the presence at Yankee Stadium of Henry Kissinger had one scouring the bleachers for process servers come to serve Hammering Hank with war criminal charges...

A recent trip (just) north of The Bronx to Yonkers found strange echoes and parallels, just over the county line. The Bee Line bus from 242^nd Street takes you north alongside Van Cortlandt Park, a few final pubs like Ireland’s Own, then the border. Across it there’s commercial real estate for rent, a diner and then the South Broadway commercial strips. There are Salvadoran restaurants and falafel and shwarma too. There’s an empty Masonic Temple at 130 South Broadway, and the Yonkers Police Department in an old building the sign on which still says: “Saunders Trade School.” Riverdale Avenue because Warburton, at Main between two murals with a glimpse down to the river. All rents are going up. On Warburton up the hill, on the corner of Glenview, there’s a Laundromat in a former bank branch. The Bee Line comes every twenty minutes at midday, and stops by 10 pm. There’s the Glenview Mansion, which they charge $5 to enter, through the Hudson River Museum. This was built in 1969, Soviet-style architecture with ominous swinging steel doors. Inside the museum there are displays about the river, and, temporarily, gory photos from the TV show Law & Order. These are popular with the guards.

We can’t fail to note that last week, Yonkers mayor Phil Amicone said that he doesn't "negotiate with terrorists" -- referring to the teachers who were picketing across from the mayor’s house. He’s got a way with words, that Amicone. So far no apology.

The lack of fair lending in Yonkers is a problem. But more on that in due course. For now, last week, ICP filed far-flung comments on predatory lending by GE and HSBC.

This week we briefly venture (just) north of The Bronx, to Yonkers in specific. It’s reported that crime is rising. So too are incursions on civil liberties. The plan is to set up "red zones," a law enforcement technique used in upstate New York and elsewhere. The zones are designated high-crime areas from which anyone on probation or parole is barred. If they are in the zones, they are arrested. But what if they live in the zones?

The 3rd Police Precinct in southwest Yonkers is the city's most violent. Incidents of murder, rape, robbery and assault surpassed or matched the other three precincts combined last year, with 491 crimes in those categories, compared with 453 for all other precincts in Yonkers. We’ll have more from Yonkers after an anti-predatory lending venture there on October 5...

Speaking of predatory lending, more than a month ago, ICP/Fair Finance Watch filed comments opposing HSBC’s application to acquire another high-cost subprime lender, Metris, as reported by the UK’s Observer newspaper. Last week HSBC responded -- and dodged the questions. Click here to view. And click here for Inner City Press’ reviews this week, of books about San Diego, to which we ventured. Here’s four lines, composed on the Bx41 bus:

On the baseball diamond on Crotona Park North on October 2, the third game of the final series of the Caribe AA league was played: Licey versus San Francisco. The latter had orange uniforms with "Giants" on the chest. The game was in honor of Nelson (Bocua) Rodriguez; the field is named for Roberto Clemente. There was a public address system and a veritable forest of trophies. In the stands three women sold (lottery) tickets as well as chicken, rice and beans. It's the game of THE Americas...

As baseball's regular season enters its final week, Inner City Press' Bronx Reporter offers this account of the Bronx Bombers' September 22 game with the Baltimore Orioles, on the southwest corner of 161st Street and River Avenue, where the Stadium should remain.

Where's Howard Cosell when you need him? The approach to the game from Fordham Road is delayed by an apartment building fire on 188th Street between Park Avenue and Third. Ladies and gentlemen, as a recent title has it, The Bronx is Burning.

But the D train, once reached, is the fastest ride in the city. Ten minutes, tops, south from Fordham Road. Along River Avenue, the bowling alley and sports bars all advertise bag check. Under the Big Bat / boiler stack, game attendees are slated to meet. The crowd is thick and the hot dogs expensive. But once inside the Stadium, the grass is a manicured green, and the sky is getting orange up over the courthouse. Bob Sheppard asks for silence for forward deployed military, especially those who have died. Then Mike The Moose Mussina throws the first pitch, in a storm of camera flash bulbs. Sodas cost four dollars. The Orioles score first, after a Jeter error. The Bombers answer with long balls, the biggest blow a three run shot by Jorge Posada. "Hip Hip Jorge" says the scoreboard. The lead swells to 7-1. Some people start leaving.

But after the sixth Mussina leaves. Leiter enters, throwing more balls than strikes. Tanyon S. throws gas on the fire. Soon it is 7-5. Flash Gordon comes on to close. With two outs, Mora homers. The lead is down to one. Tejada grounds out. Cue "New York New York."

Out on the Concourse, livery cars wait, their drivers hold signs. Further east on 161, the fried chicken place on Morris has no ice cream. For that, continue to Third Avenue, past the two abandoned courts. Further north on Third Avenue, it still smells of smoke. Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx Bombers are on fire...

Bronx (as word) Watch: The news (if you can call it that) service This is London reported on Sept. 20 that “a gang of 30 hoodies who broke into flats and ransacked homes in south-east London left residents feeling they were ‘living in the Bronx” ... The Sierra Leone newspaper The Concord last week referred to “the Spanish locality of Bronx, New York”... Click here for Inner City Press’ review this week, of three Chicago-related books, including "The Puerto Rican Diaspora" (Temple University, 2005). There's a photo of the Puerto Rican Gates over Division Street, and discussion of displacement, including of fritoleros -- those who cook cuchifritos. Again: cuchi insurection!

Annals of journalism: the Bergen (NJ) Record of September 13, in an article about the South Bronx Mental Health Council, reports breathlessly that “They work in a neighborhood that's far removed from Fifth and Park avenues. Fences are topped with barbed wire. At the street corners, police officers sit in their cars, waiting for something to happen.” Let’s break that down. Isn’t that what police officers do? Sit in cars and wait for something to happen? Barbed wire is not confined to the South Bronx. And there’s a Park Avenue here too...

On the wider rah-rah 9/11 front, we (alone) note: when the going gets tough, the Royal Bank of Scotland gets... running. While Connecticut officials congratulated themselves on RBS’ move to Stamford from New York (even putting a number on it -- 550 Royal Bank of Scotland jobs will be leaving New York), no New York official said anything. Even in the week of the fourth anniversary of 9/11/01...

Last week, the Federal Reserve finally released aggregate mortgage lending data for 2004, including for the New York City metro area. The picture is not pretty, considering percentages of conventional refinance first-lien loans over the federally-defined rate spread (3% over comparable Treasury securities on first lien loans)

Conventional Refinance Loans Secured by First Liens in the New Orleans Metropolitan Statistical Area in 2004

Whites: 10.67% of loans were over the rate spread
African Americans: 31.04% of loans over the rate spread -- 2.91 times higher than for whites
Hispanics: 17.7% of loans over the rate spread -- 1.66 times higher than for whites

Update of September 13-14, 2005, on the local beat: As of 1:30 p.m. on primary day, a grand total of 16 people had voted, at the polling place in P.S. 205 on Southern Boulevard and 189^th Street. The poll workers fumbled with the voting rolls, in a music classroom with a half dozen Casio keyboards. Those whose names were not found cast provisional ballots. Inside the booth, a taste of the 19^th century: a lever you pull (to the “Voting Position”) before flicking little plastic flags to make your choices. Then pull the lever back, and then the curtain. In this part of The Bronx, there are only two campaigns: six Democrats for Mayor, the same for public advocate. The (interim) upshot: if this is any guide, turn-out is not high. 11:55 p.m. update: Miller conceded from Cro-Bar. Sept. 14: From Park Slope, Weiner stood down. (See, e.g., WNYC). Until next report, for or with more information, contact us.

This year’s Ferragósto along Arthur Avenue was held not in August but September. The 11^th, to be exact. Perhaps for that reason, there were slightly fewer booths than in previous years. But there was more music: from Hughes and 186^th, opera was throbbing. On 187^th and Hughes, a doo wop band held forth. Butch Barbella’s Streets of The Bronx band, with a few arrangements that sounded close to karioke (Milli Itali, said one wag in the crowd), but other better. In front of the retail market, Rep. Serrano was introduced. He said he assumed that many attendees no longer lived in The Bronx; he declared himself Italian for the day, and after for remembrance of the 9/11/01 victims. Missing from last year was the crepe stand; a new addition was a stall with religious statues and a large anti-abortion poster. There were clowns; one had a long wooden nose and frightened the children. There were samples of mozzarella and bread and a long line for zeppole. Summer’s almost gone...

Because Italian is only one of many cultures in The Bronx, this event notice: on Sunday, September 18 from 3 to 7 p.m., La Peña del Bronx will be celebrated in the garden on Elton Avenue and 160^th Street. Promised is live music, Chilean food, and a call, as always, for more gardens in The Bronx.

ICP elsewhere in New York -- First Avenue and 46^th Street: in the week before the United Nations’ World Summit, more than 1,150 non-governmental organizations met at the acronym-heavy DPI/NGO Conference. Inner City Press’ editor, attending the conference for the Fair Finance Watch, marveled at the view of Queens out over the East River, and the surprisingly good 60 cent coffee from a machine in the U.N. basement. Following speeches by Shashi Tharoor, Jean Ping and Jan Egeland, an NGO panel on partnerships was held. At the last minute, it was announced that there were no translators available, so the panel spoke in English to an overflow crowd. Ziad Abdel Samad of the Arab NGO Network for Development spoke of the war in Iraq. Victoria Tauli-Corpuz of the Philippines spoke of injustice more generally, particularly against indigenous people. Questions were allowed, but only if pre-screened: they could be written on cards and might or might not be read out. Thus is civil society listened to. The corporations in the Global Compact, on the other hand, are not edited -- as recounted in ICP’s HSBC Report, for example. And see ICP's latest review, of a French novel about the World Trade Center, with Bronx references - click here. Until next report, for or with more information, contact us.

A recent Bronx-relevant book we at Inner City Press feel compelled to review is "Frames of Protest: Social Movements and the Framing Perspective," edited by Hank Johnston and John A. Nokes (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005). We note it because of its discussion of the Young Lords and other groups in Mott Haven - and an entire chapter on the exploits of Superbarrio in Mexico City, by Jorge Candena-Roa. Of Mott Haven, Cathy Schneider, author previously of "Shantytown Protest in Pinochet's Chile" (Temple University Press, 1995), writes:

"in the 1950s Mott Haven became predominantly Puerto Rican and black. It also became one of the poorest communities in the country. In 1969, the Young Lords challenged the machine, using an antisystem frame. On July 14, 1970, for instance, the Young Lords occupied Lincoln Hospital by driving a truck up an emergency ramp. For twenty-four hours they occupied the hospital, demanding a new hospital, a raise in the minimum wage of health care workers, and working control.. But this radical coalition of activists in hospitals, drug clinics, and the local church was unable to pose a viable alternative."

This last is not well-enough explained. Schneider jumps to 1992, writing that at an Episcopal church (which she leaves unnamed, but is clearly St. Ann's) a "gang leader was show by another gang member and buried at the church he had served. Shortly after, the diocese removed the priest and despite weeks of parishioner protest, the priest and his supporters were unable to win the support of established social service agencies or politicians."

Schneider concludes with the "sentiment of cynicism and distrust, during the focus group [she] conducted: 'Everyone sells out here.'"

This week we take out on-wheels review a bit further north, to Gun Hill Road. There’s Golden Krust, of course. But at 3584 White Plains Road there’s Green Garden Health Foods, which serves sweetened fresh carrot juice for four dollars, and has vegetable patties on the menu as well. One subway stop south, at 704 Burke Avenue, there’s the “Three Boys from Italy” pizzeria, “Since 1970,” right next to a good roti place. Continuing south under the El, there’s the Guinean Community of America, Inc. / Bayagui Business, near the corner of Britton. On Allerton and Barnes, there’s Krishna Wine & Liquors. South on Boston Road you’ll find the 24-hour Ganzo grocery, with sandwiches on a grill, and somewhat cold and congealed spare ribs -- hey, no one is perfect. The Bronx will take you everywhere if you let it...

From the British newspaper The Sun, of August 26: “A teenage hoodie brandishes a gun in the street, terrifying shoppers in yet another shocking example of lawless Britain. As fellow hoodies sat beside him on a wall, grinning and laughing, the youth "adopted the position" New York cop-style and leveled the gun down the street. It is a scene you might expect to see on a midnight tour of the Bronx - but this was 3pm in the well-heeled market town of Knutsford, Cheshire.” Some expectations...

The Bronx was in New England news last week -- because a CSX train broken down in the Oak Point Yards stopped train service from New York up to Boston....

Yes, we at Inner City Press have another Bronx restaurant review, and an impromptu street fair review as well. On White Plains Road just above Pelham Parkway, under the screaming Five and Two elevated trains, there’s a Mexican restaurant called, simply, Mister Taco. Inside there is a cowboy-themed mural, and a small half-moon slot going back into the kitchen. It is run by three women, two of whom wear t-shirt announcing that they are the boss. The menu translates gorditas as “Fat Little Tortillas;” with tongue or barbequed goat, they are quite good. For breakfast, cactus and egg is offered. It is good, reasonably priced food, and we wish the three women’s Mister Taco as the luck in the world.

On Saturday, August 27, between Prospect and Crotona Avenues on 187^th Street was an ad hoc street fair. The live music and food were Dominican in origin and/or inspiration. There were blue and white balloon tied to the botanica’s awning. The bachata echoed through Belmont. We hope to see it again.

What we did see, well past midnight on Saturday night, was a booming concert in the formerly vacant bank branch on Tremont and Park. The band was from Tijuana, Los Tucanos - they came in a custom-painted 18-wheel truck, and an accompanying RV. The Rumba Club was not open; the lights in the windows of the old bank branch spun crazy with the music...

We’ve done our best for the summer to stay out of the political orbit. But couldn’t help noticing in recent campaign finance filings some media-candidate conflicts. Collazzi of the Bronx Times Reporter donated to James Vacca; Michael Knobbe of BronxNet to Joel Rivera, etc.. Whether these will give rise to any full disclosures remains to be seen.

And now next in a series, slightly more serious (or sociological) this time -- a restaurant review, of the International House of Pancakes branch on 232^nd Street and Broadway. This must be one of the most profitable in the IHOP chain. On a recent visit, there were people waiting on benches, for up to twenty minutes, to be seated at a table. People were dressed up; for many, this was a date, or a celebratory family meal. (There were many babies, and many toddlers in high chairs). Incongruously, however, or not, this IHOP is badly maintained. The grout by the windows is cracked. The pleather on the seats is faded and stained. A hash brown was crushed into the rug under the table and not cleaned up. While the eggs and endless coffee (for $1.49) were good, and waiter Armando was unfailingly polite, Inner City Press opines that if Bronxites are going to treat IHOP with such respect, the chain should do the same. The restaurant should be spruced up. It’s current physical condition is an insult.

A follow-up, regarding the shooting of Dantae Johnson -- last week, the Appellate Division threw out the conviction of Officer Mark Conway, ruling that he wasn't criminally negligent when he shot the 18-year-old Johnson on May 26, 1999, in Kingsbridge while being chased by Conway. Conway, who was driving, reached out of his car to grab Johnson with his left hand while holding his gun in his right hand. The weapon discharged. Conway was convicted of criminally negligent assault in 2001. But the majority of the judges said a finding of criminal negligence "would require an officer in pursuit of an apparently armed suspect to maintain a holstered gun as he struggles with the suspect at close range." So walk carefully...

This, we hadn’t seen until last week -- the publication Euromoney of July 2005 reported that ICP

“has a question. How come the firm, which undertook in January 2003 on its corporate citizenship website to stop making so-called HOEPA loans, has, according to its own home mortgage data for 2004, made a further 837 such loans? The reference is to high-cost loans charging 800 basis points or more above treasuries that are usually extended to borrowers with poor credit histories in poor neighborhoods and now covered by the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act. Into the breach steps Robert Willumstad, president and chief operating officer of Citigroup. He tells Lee that the bank doesn't make such loans and that Lee must have misinterpreted the data. That's odd, Lee replies, as he is looking at a spreadsheet of loan figures provided by Citigroup that has a HOEPA status column with 837 loans marked yes. Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data is as familiar ground to Lee as negative operating leverage ratios are to the average bank analyst. Citigroup later pleads that although it instituted the policy of not originating Hoepa loans in January 2003, various divisions that it had acquired through the purchases of Associates and parts of Washington Mutual only phased in this new approach to lending over time. It's a messy fudge of an explanation.”

Emphasis on “fudge”.... Meanwhile, ICP on August 13 filed timely comments opposing the application to the FDIC by BNP Paribas / Bank of the West to acquire Commercial Federal -- click here to view.

And now, from the Inner City Press (Bronx) sports desk, notes on Yanks v. Texas, August 12 on 161st Street --

In the bottom of the third, when Matsui tested Soriano’s arm in trying to score from first on Posada’s double, Texas catcher Barajas blocked the plate, forcing Matsui to slide outside and get tagged out. But is “forced” the right word? One wag said it was time for the type of play Pete Rose pulled in an All-Star Game so long ago, but still replayed on ESPN Classic: run the catcher over. Matsui plays hard, but may be averse to being called dirty. Run the catcher over!

Later than same inning, Bernie Williams hit a two run homer, and one just knew that on WCBS radio (which the Daily News’ guy called Al Yankzeera) John Sterling was hyper-ventilating, “Bernie goes boom!”

And finally (for now) -- why would the Yankees leave Al Leiter in, after repeated performances like August 12’s, and take Aaron Small out of the rotation?

Oh and two restaurant reviews. On Lydig Avenue between Wallace and Holland Avenue there’s a storefront that only sells burek. It’s three dollars a piece; there’s only one other thing on the menu: yoghurt. That costs one dollar. The store is called Dukagjeni. A block away on Lydig there’s a store with “Russian-style ravioli.” Then the previously-reviewed Indi-Pak restaurant. Quite diverse, there on Lydig...

Also, on Webster just south of Tremont, there’s the long-parked one ton truck of La Loca, selling fried meats and, for example, pasteles, for $2.50. On a recent visit, a mother from the Dominican Republic ordered stomach, while her son, bouncing a ball, asked: “You know how there’s things that look nasty, but then they taste mad good? It’s like that here.” Yep...

Out and about in the Bronx, after a series of wind storms: on Cauldwell Avenue just north of 156^th, a tree had fallen down. Same too on Clinton Avenue just south of Crotona Park, alongside a burned-out garage and charred car. Even in the park itself, police tape around a fallen limp. The Food Town supermarket on St. Paul’s Place has a re-opening sign, and as many flags as the United Nations. A fenced-in four story building called Paige Apartments. On Claremont Parkway, one of the Bathgate Industrial Park factory buildings is already being demolished. Absurd....

As is this -- in its second response to Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch’s comments, Washington Mutual has this to say: “since minorities make up a larger percentage of the subprime lending pool, it is statistically inevitable that combining the threshold loan rates of a prime lender and a subprime lender will result in a higher threshold loan rate for minorities than for white borrowers. While this is a socially troubling result that Applicant continues to attempt to address through innovative lending programs, the OTS should not allow ICP to use the pending application as a forum for protesting broader social issues.”

But the disparities ICP has identified are not “societal,” but at Washington Mutual and its subprime unit Long Beach. And if regulators were to agree with WaMu’s argument, that each affiliates’ lending must be considered separately, conglomerates could run rings around the fair lending laws by simply confining most people of color into separate subsidiaries (not unlike what happens at Washington Mutual / Long Beach)...

Our reviews of Bronx streets and street eats must continue. This time venture further east from the El train at White Plains Road. Alongside Pelham Parkway is a bike path. It’s five miles to Orchard Beach. But this time turn south on Williamsbridge Road. There’s a commercial strip, with a mix of tortillas and sushi. A second floor loft says Bronxites for Bloomberg. There’s the Velella law firm, the office of Rosenberg Diamond. A storefront of the predatory, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. Turn west again on Rhinelander Avenue. Quiet side streets of two-family homes, hydrant spray caps on, until you’re back on White Plains Road. There’s an Islamic Center and a Hallal butcher. Up ahead under the train, by the Bronx Park East station, there’s a taco stand called La Onda. You can eat standing up at a counter facing the sidewalk; tacos are two dollars. Next door is a pool hall and bar, with a cowboy singing karaoke. Across the street there’s a slip-and-fall lawyer’s office next to a garage. Overhead the elevated train screams. What’s not to like?

Slated for closure for the next five months is the 241^st Street station on the Five and Two subway lines. While shuttle busses will be in place, closing the entire station is reminiscent of what happened to the Intervale Avenue station, and some stops on the Four train line over Jerome Avenue. But closing the terminal station? Also slated for fix-ups are the aforementioned Bronx Park East station, as well as Pelham Parkway, Allerton Ave., Burke Ave., Gun Hill Road, 219th St., 225th St., 233rd St. and the Nereid Avenue station...

Bronx photos in London -- the exhibition Born in the Bronx, including a photograph of a girl dancing to a sound system at Crotona Park in the early 80s, can be seen at the Vinyl Factory Gallery, 51 Poland Street, London W1, until the middle of August...

The Daily News of July 21 reported that “ridership on Metro-North's Harlem line out of Westchester County to the Bronx has jumped 30% since service improvements last fall, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority...On the Harlem line, the Melrose and Tremont stations have been completely rebuilt.” But that’s not yet true. As of June 24, Tremont Station northbound was reduced to the length of a single train car. Southbound trains are only reachable by an aluminum gangplank..

Forget trains -- t his is the time for biking in The Bronx. Head north from the Zoo, along the side of the Botanical Garden. Then west on Mosholu Parkway, over the train tracks and Webster Avenue, along bike paths up to the Grand Concourse. There’s a gas station where you can fill your tires. Or head east, between the Garden and the Zoo. Midway to Pelham Parkway there are ducks and even turtles. Then a half dozen crosses of highway, to White Plains Road and the subway. One block south on Lydig there’s the Rawal Ravail restaurant, “The Finest Pakistan Indian Bangladeshi Breakfast Lunch and Dinner.” (Also on the menu, along with this promotion: a greenish photograph of the Shah Faisal Mosque in Islamabad). Inside it is dark and cool, with a big screen TV tuned to Pakistani stations. Samosas are three for two dollars; chicken kebab is a buck and a half. The El train roars overhead. Out in the park, families barbeque, play volley ball, celebrate birthdays. A perfect weekend in The Bronx...

Seen on the street -- on Webster Avenue, to be precise, just north of 168^th Street, an endless pothole, blocked off from traffic by a “Mi Zona” metal newspaper box....

More on holes, this time loopholes: the Daily News of July 19 praised the new Albert Walsh Apartments, a building on Rev. James A. Polite Avenue, saying it “contains all two-bedroom units.” But what then of families with male and female children? They’ll be told that the City can’t countenance with boys and girls in the same room. So much for large families...

On July 25, Inner City Press / Fair Finance Watch filed comments with the FDIC and Utah regulators opposing the applications to form Wal-Mart Bank. Back in 1999, ICP blocked Wal-Mart’s attempt to by a one-branch savings bank in Oklahoma. Now they’re back. From ICP’s comments:

This application represents the stealth attempted entry of this country’s largest and most destabilizing and disinvesting retailer into banking... Wal-Mart is subject to the largest anti-discrimination in employment class action lawsuit in U.S. history. “The lawsuit, Dukes v. Wal-Mart, alleges that the world's biggest retailer discriminates against its female employees in terms of pay and promotion.” Wal-Mart has been charged with discrimination not only by gender, but also by race. See, e.g., New York Times of July 14, 2005: “Two black truck drivers have filed federal lawsuits against Wal-Mart Stores in Arkansas, arguing that the company discriminated against them by denying them jobs because of their race. Lawyers who filed the suits are seeking class-action status.” The asserted discrimination is not only against employees, but also consumers. See, e.g., Boston Globe of July 13, 2005: “Customers Sue Wal-Mart Over Alleged Bias, Suit Claims Cases of Racial Profiling” -- “In a lawsuit filed in US District Court in Boston yesterday, the consumers alleged they were followed, searched, humiliated, and in some cases, detained by greeters at the store after entering the retail center in 2002 or 2003.... The lawsuit, brought by one white consumer and nine minorities, including three African-Americans, several West Indians, and a Mexican shopper, alleges that Wal-Mart employees illegally detained the minorities until police arrived and searched bags or stopped them as they were leaving.”

Beyond that, as further examples of Wal-Mart’s substantive violations, Wal-Mart “reached an out-of-court settlement in a child labor case in which teen clerks in three states were allowed to use heavy equipment in violation of safety laws. The company's vice chairman was fired a few months before his scheduled retirement after an accounting scandal became the subject of a criminal investigation.” St. Petersburg Times, June 4, 2005.

This pattern has resulted in increasing opposition to Wal-Mart’s proposals. See, as four examples just last month, the Denver Post of The Denver Post of June 28, 2005, “Wal-Mart foes pack hearing;” Charlotte (NC) Observer of June 5, 2005, “Wal-Mart battle goes to public;” Philadelphia Inquirer of June 3, 2005, “Wal-Mart plan brings out challengers;” the Madison, Wisc. Capital Times of June 2, 2005, “Rally Rips Wal-Mart on Health Care.” See also, NBC Dateline of June 17, 2005, linking Wal-Mart to sweatshops in Bangladesh.

This pattern of law-violation has given rise to shareholder resolutions, including by elected officials in New York. As reported in the N.Y. Post of June 2, 2005, “Wal-Mart Blasted for Rule-Breaking,” the “shareholder group, co-headed by New York City Comptroller William Thompson Jr., called on Wal-Mart's board to set up a special committee to monitor Wal-Mart's future compliance with laws and regulations. The shareholders said they also were concerned about Wal-Mart's 24 violations of child labor laws in three states. Thompson said the board's laxity on compliance ‘could be indicative of inadequate internal controls and a lack of board oversight and accountability.’" This is a standard that the FDIC must consider on this application, including at the public hearings ICP is requesting. Click here for more of ICP’s comments.

This week we venture -- where else? -- behind the News. The Daily News, that is, which on July 15 reported that

“The Bronx firm demolishing a vacant supermarket that collapsed in upper Manhattan yesterday has links to the mob and has been cited for several safety violations during the last year, the Daily News has learned. Safeway Environmental Corp. is tied to Harold Greenberg, a twice-convicted felon who the FBI says is an associate of the Gambino crime family. Greenberg's Big Apple Wrecking and Safeway share the same Bronx address and phone number, and Safeway's equipment is leased from Greenberg's Dynamic Equipment, records show. Greenberg pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 1993 and was sentenced to 15 months for his role in a bid-rigging scheme involving Gambino-controlled demolition companies... In February 2003, Safeway withdrew its application to bid on school projects after the School Construction Authority inspector general began asking questions about its ownership... Within the last 15 months, Safeway has twice been cited by federal officials for safety problems they deemed ‘serious.’ Safeway referred all calls to spokesman Bob Liff, who declined to comment.”

Inner City Press, as is our wont, has looked into this. The referenced “Bronx address” is 1379 Commerce Avenue, Bronx NY 10461. Surprisingly, or not, Uniform Commercial Code records show loans to this company by Citigroup. So what due diligence does Citigroup do? Developing...

A footnote: inveterate news-watchers that we are, we’re compelled to note that the spokesman to whom Safeway “referred all calls,” Bob Liff, was a Daily News reporter until, in 2001, he jumped to the PR firm of George Arzt Communications, as a senior vice president...

Call us Bronx boosters, but here’s a questions, from the federal newswires of July 5: “The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded a $2.71 million contract to Takota Corp., Las Vegas, for exterior renovations to buildings 1&2 at the South Bronx Job Corps Center, South Bronx, New York.” Couldn’t find a Bronx, or even New York State-based company?

Fire on Featherbed: on the night of July 4, there was a four-alarm fire in a strip of storefronts on Jerome Avenue near Featherbed Lane. A pet store caught fire but it wasn't immediately known -- at least not to the suddenly skeptical Daily News of July 5 -- if any animals were inside. One person suffered minor smoke-related injuries.

This week, an update: we have received, by Express Mail no less, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed “Gateway Center at Bronx Terminal Market.” The proposal is to build a huge mall; the DEIS, amazing, states that it “would not have a substantial influence on residential property values, and no significant adverse impacts would result from indirect residential displacement.” This may be because they are limiting that study, of displacement, to the area one-quarter mile around BTM. For other purposes, they study commercial strips up to Fordham Road (but jumping ov