The old Bronx courthouse, shuttered and vandalized for decades.Photo by Jeanmarie Evelly

The owner of a Melrose landmark is looking for a tenant

The former Bronx Courthouse, the enormous, stately building at the corner of East 161st Street and Third Avenue, has been empty for 31 years.

Now, there’s been a flurry of activity, as its owner seeks a tenant. He’s enlisted a local blogger to help publicize the effort, and says he’s ready to rent part of it to a health club, if more grandiose ideas for the entire building don’t come to fruition soon.

The building was once the only bustling courthouse in the borough. Today, it’s beautiful but abused. A chain-link fence seals it off, but graffiti artists have still managed to deface it. Just under an ornate statue of Lady Justice, someone has spray-painted the word BRONX in pink block letters.

The city closed the doors of the courthouse in 1978 and allowed it to fall into ruin.

For years, the neighborhood nonprofit Nos Quedamos fought to acquire the property to convert it into Melrose’s town hall–a community center with a library and even an office for the Bronx Borough President–that it envisioned as an emblem of the neighborhood’s rebirth.

Politics got in the way. The Giuliani administration, at odds with Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, turned its back on Nos Quedamos, which had raised millions earmarked for renovations, not for purchase.

Instead the city auctioned the courthouse off to developers—twice. The current owners, Henry Weinstein and his business partner Benjamin Klein, bought the building for $300,000 in 1998.

Now, they say they are once again looking for tenants to occupy the old courthouse and that they hope it can be turned into something to serve the neighborhood.

“We really had our hearts set on community use for this building, but somehow we’re finding it difficult to identify a substantial enough user,” said Weinstein in an interview.

Yolanda Gonzalez, the head of Nos Quedamos, said that while the group hasn’t reached out to Weinstein directly, it remains very much interested in the building.

“We’re still looking to see how we can work with the current owner, making sure we can bring the building back to its original purpose–to serve the public,” Gonzalez said in an interview. “It was built with public dollars.”

She’s approached almost daily, she said, by members of the community who want to know what’s going on with the building and who are frustrated by the fact that it remains derelict.

But Weinstein insists the years of vacancy are not the result of neglect but of waiting for the right tenant.

“I always could have turned it into self storage, but I felt it was such a nice building, it would be a crime,” he said. “I bought it for a cheap price, so because of that, I thought I could really afford to wait.”

Several businesses have expressed interest, Weinstein said, including a medical group and a health club.

But he’s still hoping a school or a nonprofit will come through to rent the space, he said, adding he does not object to setting aside a portion of the building for community use, possibly in the form of a daycare center or an afterschool program.

Last year, the building was slated to become the home of a new charter school, the Bronx Academy of Promise, but the school pulled out.

“They weren’t really ready for a building of that size,” Weinstein said.

Weinstein wasn’t able to renovate the crumbling interior to meet their needs, school officials told The New York Times.

Now, the bad economy and the city budget crunch have also deterred potential tenants, Weinstein said.

Other members of the community have weighed in on what they think the building should be used for.

Ed Garcia Conde, who runs the neighborhood blog “Welcome to the Village of Melrose,” recently took a tour of the courthouse with Weinstein, and asked readers for suggestions. Responses included an Apple Store, a Barnes & Noble, a children’s theatre and an affordable grocery store.

“I think it’s time we got something going in there that we can all be proud of,”
said Garcia Conde, who also works in real estate and described Weinstein as “a friend and colleague.” With all of the development happening in Melrose, it shouldn’t be long before Weinstein fills the space, he said.

Development in Melrose has been taking place under the Melrose Commons Urban Renewal Project—a plan that Nos Quedamos helped develop—which includes blocks of new affordable housing as well as a campus for Boricua College.

“I think it’s something that’ll be picked up pretty quickly, when people start learning the demographics—that it’s not the same demographic as 30 years ago,” Garcia Conde said. “There’s a lot going on.”

Weinstein said that he hopes to have a tenant lined up within the next six months or so, and predicted that the building could be restored and ready to use in as little as six to nine months.

“If I don’t identify a non-for-profit or a school, if none of those pan out, I’m just going to take my health club and put them in there, in a third of the building,” he said.

“We’ll see what happens after that.”

A version of this story appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald. Contact the author at jeanmarie.evelly@motthavenherald.com.

Windmills help generate electricity for the the Eltona, an affordable housing complex in Melrose.

If wind huffs and puffs it will blow electric bill down

From blocks away, you can spot 10 white windmills whirling atop the five-story brick building on East 156^th Street. The wind-powered turbines help generate clean electricity for the 63 rental apartments inside.

This is the new, green, look of affordable housing, and Melrose is leading the way.

Called the Eltona, the building is the latest addition to housing for low-income families in the neighborhood. Its state-of-the art, energy efficient features are what you might expect to find in the trendy apartments of Williamsburg or SoHo.

“When you speak of green roofs, when you speak of sustainability, when you speak of green structures, we’re number one,” Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., boasted at the building’s ribbon cutting ceremony on Oct. 27.

The Eltona is the first affordable housing development in New York City to qualify for the highest rating a green building can get, called LEED Platinum. The Bronx itself is home to 86 percent of the LEED certified-for-home units in the state, according to Les Bluestone, president of Blue Sea Development, the Eltona’s developer.

LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a certification system developed by the United States Green Building Council to rate how environmentally friendly a building is. Platinum is the highest a building can achieve, followed by gold, silver, and just plain LEED-certified.

The Eltona offers one-, two- and three-bedroom rental units for $782, $943 and $1,089 a month, respectively. Eligibility is determined by family size and income. A family of four must earn no more than $46,080.

Blue Sea has received more than 2,400 applications, according to Bluestone, and about 20 leases have been signed so far.

Twenty-three-year-old Tia Smith and her two-year-old daughter were among the first residents to settle into the Eltona. Smith was on the verge of eviction a few months ago after the rent in her last apartment was raised to $1,300 a month.

The Eltona is one of several environmentally friendly, affordable buildings in Melrose Commons.

“I didn’t know where I was going four months ago, where I was going to live,” Smith said. “Now I know I have a place to come home to.”

Smith and other Eltona residents will also serve as the subjects of an environmental study by Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. The study will monitor the effects of living in a green building on health.

In addition, no smoking is permitted anywhere in the building, and health authorities hope that will have an impact on asthma symptoms in a neighborhood where asthma is epidemic.

The Eltona isn’t the only or first building in the neighborhood to go green. Melrose Commons, as this area of redeveloped housing units is known, is also home to Sunflower Way on East 158^th St between Melrose and Elton Avenues. Completed in 2002, the 30 three-family homes were the first affordable housing to qualify for an Energy Star label through the use of energy efficient appliances, heating and water systems.

In 2007, Blue Sea Development built the nearby Morrisania Homes, the first affordable housing units in the state to receive any kind of LEED certification.

Construction of a LEED Silver building is nearing completion on East 158^th Street. The Jardin de Selene, as the building is called, stands 12-stories high, one of the tallest structures in Melrose Commons.

The building used recycled materials during construction, has bamboo floors and counter tops and solar cells on its roof that will generate about three percent of the building’s annual electricity needs.

But no other housing is quite like the Eltona. Its residents will also be eligible to receive on-site job training from Wildcat Service Corporation, a New York nonprofit.

And then there are those rooftop windmills.

The windmills are an experiment, Bluestone says. Blue Sea is still trying to determine whether or not the turbines are worthwhile, since their efficiency depends on how strong the winds are in a given day and location. (The Eltona also has an electricity source in the building’s basement that works with the turbines.)

“Between the two of them, if it happens to be a windy day, then we could be providing about 90 percent of the building’s electricity,” Bluestone said, “but the wind would have to be steady.

“The jury is still out on whether it’s practical in that location,” he continued.

A version of this story appeared in the Winter 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald.

Residents wait on line outside the Bronx Housing Court on the Grand Concourse.

Courthouse program offers a helping hand to tenants in trouble

On many weekday mornings, the line outside the Bronx Housing Court at 1118 Grand Concourse stretches around the block. Many of those who wait will find themselves and their families on the street.

Each year, as the weather turns colder, the city’s homeless shelters swell with residents seeking refuge.

A substantial number of the 75,514 families hauled into Housing Court by landlords and evicted for failing to pay their rent come from Mott Haven and Melrose, according to court officials

“The judges were frustrated because they were seeing so many people coming in with these problems—not being able to pay rent and facing eviction,” said Carmine Rivetti of the United Way of New York, a nonprofit that provides community based social services.

The problem was crucial enough for officials to launch a pilot program four years ago to help residents from the 10451 zip code, which includes much of Melrose.

Most of the residents who find themselves in court have little knowledge of the system or where to turn for help, said Ellen Howard-Cooper of the city’s Department of Homeless Services. So the Department launched the Homeless Help program in partnership with the Housing Court, Legal Aid and the United Way.

“There have been studies that show 70 percent of families don’t seek assistance,” when facing eviction, said Howard-Cooper, who oversees the program.

With an office located right in the Bronx housing court building, Housing Help is like one-stop shopping, she said. The program tries to deal with the underlying issue that led to an eviction notice—loss of a job, loss of a subsidy, mental health problems or domestic violence.

“You’re not just going to have a lawyer,” said Judge Jaya Mahavan, who presides over all of the program’s cases. “The idea is to prevent people from having to come back.”

The program boasts a stellar success rate. Ninety-eight percent of the 1,630 families who have used the service since it began in 2005 have remained out of the shelter system. Housing Help either kept them from being evicted or placed them in stable housing elsewhere.

In addition to providing legal services, the court program also matches the families up with local organizations, like BronxWorks (the new name for the Citizens Advice Bureau), which runs its own eviction prevention program. They help residents apply for a state subsidy that helps pay the rent for families with at least one child, who are on public assistance and are facing eviction.

BronxWorks program director Stacha Johnson said the demand for eviction help has grown tremendously over the last few years. The failing economy and cuts to federal housing programs such as Section 8 vouchers have left more families struggling.

“Previously, it was a lot of people who needed one-time help,” Johnson said. “It’s been difficult for families who’ve become unemployed.” Unemployment insurance doesn’t provide enough to pay the rent, she said.

The Department of Homeless Services is hoping to use the success of the Homes Help pilot program to influence policy throughout the city. The program has already been expanded to two other zip codes in Queens and Brooklyn.

The need is there, Judge Madhavan said. His courtroom has been flooded with more cases than ever.

Despite a series of belt-tightening budget cuts as tax revenues declines because of the recession, Madhavan insists there are no plans to end the service anytime soon.

“To the extent that we have the money were going to keep this going,” he said. “We have been swamped with numbers of people that we’ve never seen before, but the program continues.”

Shop owners at the busy Third Avenue Hub are worried over competition from the Gateway

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

President and CEO Christine McMahon addresses the crowd during Fedcap's community meeting at the Mott Haven Branch Library.Photo by James Cook for Fedcap

A nonprofit with its roots in Manhattan and branches throughout the city has set its sights on the South Bronx, with hopes of bringing jobs to the neighborhood.

Fedcap, which creates jobs and trains people who have difficulty finding work to fill those positions, plans to expand its services locally. The organization held a “listening session,” at the Mott Haven Branch Library on July 28th to get feedback from residents about the community’s needs.

Residents and representatives from neighborhood groups gathered to ask questions and fill out surveys, in the first of several forums the group plans to hold over the next year to help locals overcome barriers to employment.

Wworking mothers’ need for childcare, transportation to and from work, the lack of job opportunities for high school students and young adults, and the need for more computer-training programs were among the concerns residents raised.

“We know that it’s not as simple as ‘bring the jobs in,’” said Christine McMahon, chief executive officer for Fedcap. “We want to gauge the barriers that exist to long-term economic independence.”

Fedcap created over a thousand jobs last year, according to McMahon, a number she said the organization hopes to double in the next five years. The group uses state and federal contracts to provide manufacturing, custodial and mailroom jobs, while also offeringtraining to help applicants land and keep work.

Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo supported the nonprofit’s push for opportunities in the South Bronx.

“This is something that I think is going to be important for the community,” Arroyo said. “We’ll work together to connect as many of the dots as possible, to create as many opportunities as possible, so the people that I represent will have good jobs that allow them to support their families.”

Originally founded in 1935 as an employment resource for disabled workers, Fedcap has expanded its reach to serve communities around the city where jobs are scarce.

The Bronx has the highest unemployment rate in New York City—peaking at 11.7 percent in June, according to the Department of Labor.

“Each time we asked, where is the greatest need? We were consistently pointed here,” McMahon said.

Mott Haven resident Joyce Austin said she hopes Fedcap will meet its goals. “The neighborhood needs it,” she said. “In fact, the whole Bronx needs it. But if they can start with just one neighborhood, that’s great.”

Fedcap plans to hold more information sessions in the coming months, with dates and locations to be announced.

One hundred trees along the Grand Concourse are part of the Tree Museum, a summer-long public art project to celebrate the street's 100th anniversary. Bronx student James Kane of All Hallows High School narrates for this amur corktree in Joyce Kilmer Park.

The Grand Concourse, the iconic boulevard that stretches along four miles of the Bronx, has 100 years of stories to tell. This summer and fall, Bronx residents are lending their voices to share those stories—through the trees that line the street’s parks and sidewalks.

The Tree Museum is the creation of Irish artist Katie Holten, who was commissioned to create a work of public art to celebrate this year’s 100^th anniversary of the Grand Concourse.

From 138th street to Mosholu Parkway, 100 trees tell their stories. Green discs on the sidewalk bearing the Tree Museum logo identify the trees and offer a phone number that visitors can call, either from home or from their mobile phones, to hear a short audio clip about the Bronx narrated by people who live and work in the community.

“It’s kind of like an Easter egg hunt,” Holten said of the markers scattered along the Concourse.

Call tree number 6, a honey locust in front of the post office at 588 Grand Concourse, and you’ll hear community activist Majora Carter talk about growing up in the Bronx. Harry Bubbins, director of the local environmental group Friends of Brook Park, narrates for tree number 13, an American elm at the entrance to Franz Siegel Park.

Call this tree outside the post office at 588 Grand Concourse to hear Majora Carter, the founder of Sustainable South Bronx, talk about growing up in the South Bronx.

Bronx Borough Historian Lloyd Ultan, who participated in the project, said he thinks using trees is an appropriate way to celebrate the street’s centennial.

“The Grand Concourse is noted for the fact that it’s tree-lined,” he said. “That’s one of the things that makes the Grand Concourse outstanding, so it made a great deal of sense.”

Ultan made recordings for seven different trees along the Concourse, offering historical facts and anecdotes about the street.

Opened to traffic in November of 1909, the Concourse was modeled after the Champs Elysees in Paris, and soon came to mark achievement in the borough, Ultan said.

“The Grand Concourse in the Bronx was the equivalent of 5th Avenue and Park Avenue in Manhattan,” he explained. “It was a symbol that you had made it.”

Holten said she knew very little about the area when she launched the project in 2007.

“I spent about two months researching and spending as much time as possible on the Concourse,” she said.  “I kind of fell in love with it.”

Organized by the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Wave Hill and the Department of Parks and Recreation, The Tree Museum debuted on June 21st and will run until Oct. 12th.

The audio guide is available by calling (718) 408-2501 and entering the extension for any tree, numbered 1 to 100. More information, including a map of the project, can be found at www.treemuseum.org.

Campers from Phipps Day Camp take advantage of the new facilities at the reopened Melrose Playground. Photo by Jeanmarie Evelly.

Renovations to the Melrose Playground are finally complete, to the delight of local children and residents.

“Happy days are here again, because the playground is open and you get to play in it,” Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe told a crowd of well-wishers in the park on Cortlandt Avenue between East 153rd and 156th Streets at the July 7th ribbon-cutting.

A group of youngsters from the Phipps Summer Day Camp came out to try the new equipment, which includes a swing set, slides, see-saws, chess and checkers tables and a spray pool to cool off in.

Leondra Davila, who lives a block away on Melrose Avenue, also came to the opening with her five young children. They went to the park everyday before the renovations began and waited patiently for it to reopen. She insisted the wait was worth it.

“I love it, it’s a big difference from the one here before, much more kid-friendly,” she said. “I’m even enjoying it myself.”

Joining in the festivities were Deputy Bronx Borough President Aurelia Greene, Assembly Member Carmen Arroyo, Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo, Community Board 1 chair George Rodriguez and other community leaders in cutting the ribbon on the newly redone site.

Later in the week, Benepe joined former New York Knick star guard John Starks and others to celebrate improvements to Sedgwick Playground where a basketball clinic was being run by the Knicks. New handball courts, playground equipment and swings have been added at that playground on Undercliff Avenue in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx.