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     Click here for Inner City Press' weekday news reports, from the United Nations and elsewhere.  Click here for a recent BBC piece on Inner City Press' reporting from the United Nations  Search This Site       Click here for Inner City Press front page

  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.

May 12, 2008

   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...

May 5, 2008

            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?

April 28, 2008

   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#

April 21, 2008

  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...

April 14, 2008

  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...

April 7, 20

  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...

March 31, 2008 -- see, www.innercitypress.com/ic1mtamnrr033008.html

Bronxites Are Excluded from Metro-North Trains, As Congestion Pricing Looms

Byline: Matthew R. Lee of Inner City Press in the Bronx: News Analysis

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."

March 24, 2008

  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...

March 17, 2008  WashPost - Guardian (UK)

 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?

March 10, 2008

      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#

March 3, 2008

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...

February 25, 2008

  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...

February 18, 2008

    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."

February 11, 2008

  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...

            This hasn't stopped Merrill from promoting itself with a page on the program of the mis-conceived Gucci / Madonna event held February 6 on the North Lawn of the UN, the over-commercialization of which was reported as far away as Australia, click here to view (cites Inner City Press, and see this, which links in Deutsche Bank). And so it goes...

February 4, 2008

  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...

At the UN, George Clooney Says that in Lockheed Martin's Sole Source Darfur Deal, Mistakes Were Made; click here for video debate.

January 28, 2008

  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...

January 21, 2008

   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...

January 14, 2008

  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...

 January 7, 2008

  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

December 31, 2007

  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

December 24, 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?"

  "I said, How's it going, buddy."

  "That's not what you said."

  "Okay, I called you cracker. Are you white?"

   "No." And that the conversation shifted...

December 17, 2007

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

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee: News Analysis

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?

December 10, 2007

  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...

December 3, 2007

  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?

  From the mailbag:

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.

November 26, 2007

 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.

  We like the good news on South Brother Island, click here.

November 19, 2007

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

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

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.

News analysis: It would be important for the UN to stand by its commitments, and if for some reason backing away from commitments is seen as necessary, to be transparent, including to the press, about such changes. The earlier City letter was reported in the Washington Times of November 12, and New York Sun of November 13. Did the UN think that the City's November 13 letter wouldn't become public? This same pattern, with larger financial stakes, has taken place in connection with the UN's no-bid $250 million contract to Lockheed Martin for Darfur peacekeeping infrastructure: the UN said it had to go "sole source" following the Security Council's July 31 resolution on Darfur, but then a memo emerged, obtained and published by Inner City Press, showing the move to sole source as early as April 2007. Each time, the UN's response seem to be to try to track down the leak, to go after whistleblowers. But the City is free to release its letters.

   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.

November 12, 2007

   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."

UN Diplomats Contest Congestion Pricing, Cuba Out of Princeton, Ticket Number Down

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: Off the Racks

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...

November 5, 2007

  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...

October 29, 2007

  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...

October 22, 2007

   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...

October 15, 2007

   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...

October 8, 2007

  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).

October 1, 2007

  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...

  Click here for Inner City Press' coverage of the UN General Assembly's General Debate...

September 24, 2007

  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....

September 17, 2007 - As Fed Releases Mortgage Study, Subprime Disparities Worsen at Citigroup, HSBC, Wells

            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?

September 10, 2007

   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...

September 3, 2007

   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?

August 27, 2007

            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...

August 20, 2007

  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....

August 13, 2007

  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?

In UN - Bloomberg Fire Safety Stand-Off, Freedom of Information Is Lacking

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

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.

August 6, 2007

  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....

July 30, 2007

            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...

July 23, 2007

  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

 Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN

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)

   At three in the morning, Team Bloomberg announced that

"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...

July 16, 2007

  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!"

  For Inner City Press' reporting on Somalia, see Reuters AlertNet 7/14/07

July 9, 2007

   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...

July 2, 2007

  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...

From the mailbag--

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 ...

June 25, 2007

  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...

June 18, 2007

  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...

June 11, 2007

   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...

  Filed with the New York Banking Department:

Dear Superintendent Neiman:

  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

Weekly Bulletin of May 18, 2007

Comment Period expires June 18, 2007

May 18, 2007 (CB-CRB)

NEW YORK COMMERCIAL BANK

1601 Veterans Highway, Islandia, N.Y. 11749

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.

Developing.

June 4, 2007

  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...

May 28, 2007

   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.

May 21, 2007

   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...

May 14, 2007

   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."

            Not so the head of Bronx Lebanon, Miguel Fuentes, who beyond the $485,274 a year previously disclosed to the Daily News makes more....

May 7, 2007

            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....

April 30, 2007

      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

April 23, 2007

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.

  Click here for ICP from Carnegie Hall last week...

April 16, 2007

  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.

April 9, 2007

   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...

4/4/07-- "Banks Prone to Sell Minorities Pricy Loans," Reuters / Washington Post

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.

April 2, 2007

   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?

March 26, 2007

   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...

March 19, 2007

   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.

March 12, 2007

   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?

March 5, 2007

   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.

February 26, 2007

  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...

February 19, 2007

            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.

            Click here for Inner City Press d