City Councilwomen Maria del Carmen Arroyo and Melissa Mark-Viverito say 2000 FreshDirect truck trips per day would add to Mott Haven's existing environmental woes.

Mark-Viverito, Arroyo demand an audit on Harlem River Yards

Two members of the New York City Council want the State Department of Transportation to reconsider the lease of the land where FreshDirect is planning to build its new headquarters.

Melissa Mark-Viverito and Maria del Carmen Arroyo, who represent Mott Haven, have called for a moratorium on all new development in the Harlem River Yards until an audit is conducted on the impact of heavy industrial use of the land on the surrounding neighborhood.

Mark-Viverito and Arroyo sent a letter to DOT commissioner Joan McDonald on May 3, urging the agency to take into account the harmful impact FreshDirect’s 2,000 truck trips per day would have on a neighborhood already heavily burdened with polluting industries. 

The letter asks for the agency to re-examine the lease of the state-owned property to the Galesi Group, a real estate firm doing business locally as Harlem River Yard Ventures Inc. Mark-Viverito and Arroyo say the firm has violated the spirit of the lease by renting parcels to “an array of manufacturing and waste processing facilities that place a disproportionate impact of diesel truck traffic running in and through the South Bronx.”

There are four waste transfer stations on the narrow waterfront strip, which contribute to the area’s sky-high asthma rates, leading the council members to conclude “the tenant is using the property in a manner that is inconsistent with the terms of the lease.”

Since the Galesi Group signed the 99-year lease with the city in 1991, the area adjacent to the Harlem River Yards has been rezoned to allow for increased residential use, and to help bolster local businesses, the council members say.

“Adding insult to injury,” the letter says, “Harlem River Yard Ventures collects approximately $500,000 per month in rent from its subleases while paying only $43,000 per month in rent to DOT for the entire 94 acres.”

Mark-Viverito and Arroyo concluded by suggesting the DOT declare a default on the property and collaborate with state authorities to consider , “taking full account of the socio-economic makeup of the neighborhood and the disproportionate impact” on area residents.

Opponents of the FreshDirect deal, in which the city and state have authorized $130 million in subsidies to help the online grocer move from Queens to Port Morris, hailed the effort. Mott Haven community leader Mychal Johnson echoed the letter, saying, “This is a budding residential area with new developments and loft conversions; it is not an industrial wasteland.” He added, “We need open space and waterfront access and real economic development.”

South Bronx Unite, the umbrella organization that is coordinating opposition to the FreshDirect deal, also applauded the council members’ effort. The organization, which has been holding demonstrations in Manhattan calling for a boycott of FreshDirect (which does not serve most of the Bronx), is also seeking to show that local residents want access to the South Bronx waterfront. It is asking residents to fill out this survey.

Students from International High School learned about compost by doing at Brook Park. File photo by Urban Transformers

Friends of Brook Park is assembling a South Bronx Green Team Collaborative to build a new compost system in Brook Park on East 141st Street and Brook Avenue.

Students between 13 and 19 years old who live or go to school in the 10454 or 10455 zip codes are eligible for the summer jobs, which pay $8 an hour.

Applicants must have good communications skills and be punctual. Each intern will be responsible for sharing his or her experience as a members of the South Bronx Green Team Collaborative with at least one classroom in the South Bronx.

Participants must be available on six consecutive weekends for four hours a day beginning in mid-May.

An application form, due by May 10, can be obtained by sending an email to urbantransformers [at] gmail [dot] com, or an application may be mailed to Friends of Brook Park, PO Box 801 Bronx NY 10454, and should include contact information. Applicants should include a two-paragraph statement about why they are interested in participating in this project.

The parent or guardian of those selected for an interview will have to sign a permission and waiver form.

A project of Friends of Brook Park and the Urban Transformers, the collaborative is financed by grants from Citizens Committee for New York and Department of Youth and Community Development, thanks to funds from City Council members Maria del Carmen Arroyo and Melissa Mark Viverito.

Residents learn about recycling, conservation at annual festival

For the fifth straight year, Bronxites gathered at St. Mary’s Park to celebrate Earth Fest, sharing ideas for innovative ways to green the planet.

Representatives from businesses, community organizations, and city agencies combined on April 21st to promote environmental initiatives, through information kiosks, activities for kids and assorted giveaways at Mott Haven’s biggest park.

Julia Wilson, 6, circled a flagpole several times while trying to decide where to tie a bright orange ribbon, to give flight to a sail made of recycled materials. She settled on a spot she could reach at the bottom of the pole.

“Recycling means cleaning the earth and not leaving garbage around,” she said, standing back to admire the plastic bags and ribbons tethered to it that blew in the wind.

“There’s a lot to learn here,” said Levell Peterkin, 40, who was visiting family in the area. “I was over there and talked to Con Ed, who told me you can change all the light bulbs in your house to these things,” he said, holding up a compact fluorescent light bulb. “I could cut my electricity bill by 40 percent.”

With bright green papers in hand, festival-goers like Peterkin strolled from one table to another listening to vendors peddle their wares. The product vendors stamped the papers, allowing participants to collect prizes based on the number of stamps they’d accumulated.

“It’s fun and free, but you have to work to get the free stuff,” said Rachel Amar, the event’s founder. “It’s a way to incentivize green behavior.”

A crowd swarmed the table that was covered with prizes for most of the afternoon. One volunteer yelled, “Hardcover books, three points. Softcover books, two points. All brand new books, come and get them.” Other prizes included t-shirts, healthy snacks and bottles of lotion.

Nearby, a group of kids played a round of Recycling Olympics, the newest addition to Earth Fest. They competed in a recycling toss, where they had to decide whether an item of garbage went in a blue plastics bin, a green paper pin or a black trash bin.

After playing the game, Natasha Perez, 8, reflected on what she learned.

“Plastic should not go in the paper, because later you can’t recycle,” she said.Across from the games, Jayla Garris, 11, stood on stage singing her rendition of Adele’s “Someone Like You,” as part of the youth talent show that featured spoken-word and musical and dance performances. She said it was her first time at Earth Fest.

“It’s nice of people to throw an event because people don’t usually celebrate the Earth,” she said.

Anna Vincenty, a long-time neighborhood activist who worked for many years for housing advocacy group Nos Quedamos and now works as Congressman Jose E. Serrano’s community liaison, was honored with a 2012 GetGreen Environmental Leadership award.

“There is nothing more important than making sure that today you take advantage of everything that you’re learning,” said Vincenty. “We’ve got to make sure we leave our children and our grandchildren a better place than what we found.”

Superhero Global Man Eco-Avenger also accepted an award for promoting green education to children.

“One of the things I want everybody in this community to understand is we believe in you,” he said. “We are committed to making sure the Bronx gets cleaner and cleaner.”

Kellie Terry-Sepulveda of The Point CDC, protesting the mayor's waste-to-energy plans in Manhattan on April 9th. Photo by Adi Talwar/City Limits

Advocates say trash would be burned in poor neighborhoods

Bronx community groups took to the streets of Manhattan on April 9th to protest Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plans to test new garbage disposal technology they fear will end up hurting the South Bronx.

Representatives from The Point CDC, Nos Quedamos, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice and other community organizations teamed up outside the city’s Economic Development Corporation headquarters downtown to voice their concern over the mayor’s plans to to sign contracts with private businesses to convert trash into energy in newly built incinerators.

The opponents say the incinerators needed for the conversion process would almost certainly be built in industrially-zoned neighborhoods like Hunts Point and Port Morris, adding to existing pollution problems.

“At the end of the day, we know where this is going to end up,” said Kellie Terry-Sepulveda, executive director of The Point CDC. “We’re against anything that will further burden the neighborhoods.”

Terry-Sepulveda and other opponents say the technology risks creating more problems than it may solve, by polluting the air in areas around the plant.

“They’re not looking at the science of this,” she said.

Terry-Sepulveda pointed out the example of the New York Organic Fertilizer Company, which opened in Hunts Point in 1994 and blanketed the area with foul odors that sickened residents for over a decade before closing last year. The plant converted sewage sludge into fertilizer pellets that were later shipped to citrus farms in other states. Although the process was promoted as environmentally friendly because it recycled sludge rather than burying it in landfills, residents and environmentalists condemned it because of its harmful local impact.

Boosters of the new thermal processing technology say it burns cleaner than outdated garbage incinerators, but some environmental advocates disagree, and say it will negatively impact the health of nearby residents as badly as the old trash burning methods.

According to the New York Public Interest Research Group, a liberal advocacy organization, studies show the new incinerator technologies emit comparable levels of toxic emissions” to conventional incinerators, and that they also emit “particulate matter contributing to heart & respiratory disease.”

NYPIRG went on to say in a statement that there have been “malfunctions, explosions and shutdowns” in the implementation of the technology in other countries, including Germany, and that “experimenting with these new technologies in a densely populated area such as New York City is unnecessary and risky.”

“Given NYC’s zoning laws, most of the locations where an incinerator could be sited in NYC are in, or adjacent, to low-income communities of color that are already disproportionately burdened by pollution,” the statement warned.

Ludger Balan, executive environmental program director for the Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy brought birds to Get Green 2010. File photo by Nick Loomis

For the fifth year, South Bronx residents will mark Earth Day with a festival in St. Mary’s Park in Mott Haven on Saturday, April 21, from 12 noon to 4 p.m.

The free South Bronx Earth Fest combines family activities with entertainment and environmental exhibits at the park on St. Ann’s Avenue and 146th Street.

More than two dozen local businesses, community organizations, ity agencies and not-for-profit groups are participating in the 2012 GetGreen festival. Event goers will enjoy music and dance performances with a “green” theme, free boat rides, “Recycling Olympics” games for youngsters and special appearances by eco-superhero Global Man and friends. In addition, GetGreen organizers plan to plant a tree in St. Mary’s Park to commemorate the event’s fifth anniversary.

Longtime neighborhood activist Anna Vincenty, formerly of Nos Quedamos and now community liaison for Congressman Jose Serrano, will be honored with a 2012 GetGreen environmental leadership award, along with city officials.

The public is invited to bring unwanted electronics, including TVs, radios, cell phones, computers and printers, and unwanted textiles, such as matched shoes, belts, towels, and clothing, to the event for recycling.

GetGreen organizers include the Betances Center, Bronx River Alliance, City Matters LLC, LAS Consulting, Materials for the Arts/NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, GrowNYC’s Office of Recycling Outreach and Education, The POINT, the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (SoBRO), Sustainable South Bronx, NY Cares and Waste Management of New York.

In the event of rain, activities will be held at Betances Community Center, 547 East 146th Street.

The Harlem River Yards in Port Morris, where FreshDirect plans to move. Photo by Joe Hirsch

Worried members say Mott Haven will suffer

Community Board 1 condemned the deal to move online grocer FreshDirect from Queens to Port Morris without community consultation after a heated debate at its March meeting.

The board passed a resolution authored by board member and activist Mychal Johnson, who charged Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and city and state officials had deceived South Bronx residents by pushing through the $123 million package of subsidies to the company too quickly, without allowing community input or considering the negative effects that added truck traffic and waste could have on Mott Haven and Melrose, which already suffer from some of the country’s highest asthma rates.

The city’s Industrial Development Agency approved the subsidies in February, after New Jersey tried to lure FreshDirect and its 2,000 jobs across the Hudson River. 

“We all want our constituents to have the best and not to be dumped upon,” Johnson said, adding he had received confidential data showing that FreshDirect plans 2,000 truck trips per day–far more than the company has publicly acknowledged–once it completes its move to the Harlem River Rail Yards.

District Manager Cedric Loftin strongly disagreed, saying a memorandum of understanding negotiated by the borough president in answer to critics of the deal, showed that the borough’s highest-ranking official was taking local citizens’ concerns to heart.

“I understand people should have been brought to the table,” Loftin said, but added, “I don’t think the door is closed” for further discussion.

“There’s going to be an opportunity for many jobs here,” Loftin continued. He added that he thought Diaz would meet with the board to answer concerns that FreshDirect will not comply with the agreement. In it, FreshDirect promises to try to fill about 200 of the 600 new jobs the company says it will create with Bronx residents and to build a cleaner-running fleet of trucks. The company is also scheduled to meet with borough president’s office in June to discuss expanding its service to the Bronx, where it currently delivers only to Riverdale and Woodlawn.

Critics call the agreement toothless, saying there are no sanctions if FreshDirect falls short on its promises, and say that the additional garbage and the air pollution from increased truck traffic far outweigh any benefits to the neighborhood.

“What happens to the jobs after they get the money?” Johnson asked.

“I’m not here to rubber stamp that,” said Land Use Committee chairwoman Arline Parks of the city’s deal. “I’m not saying it’s not a good deal, but the fact they didn’t come to us is a problem.”

Parks criticized the Galesi Group, the real estate developer that leases the rail yard and will be FreshDirect’s landlord, saying it has imposed burdens on the neighborhood without corresponding benefits. “The giveback has not been there in exchange for what they’ve gotten,” she said.

Community board members “often find out after the fact,” she added. “We need to hold them more accountable.”

The board agreed almost unanimously to a motion Johnson presented, condemning the process by which the city deal was done.

“There has to be a point at which we say ‘basta,’” Johnson said, to loud applause.

Opponents of company’s move to Mott Haven seek broad support for boycott

Over a dozen South Bronx activists took their protest against FreshDirect to the Upper West Side on March 21st, urging Manhattanites to join them in a citywide boycott of the online grocer. 

The activists, representing a group called South Bronx Unite, gathered at Verdi Square on W. 72nd St. to rally support. They argue the food delivery company’s planned move to Mott Haven will add extensive truck traffic to a neighborhood whose residents are already among the city’s most asthma-plagued.

FreshDirect announced in February it will move from its Queens facility to the South Bronx, after the city offered it $130 million in loans and incentives to keep it from moving to New Jersey.

“We want everyone in the city to know that this is a very serious issue that doesn’t just impact the South Bronx,”said Harry Bubbins, director of the Mott Haven group Friends of Brook Park.

“FreshDirect customers are around here, and their customer base needs to be aware of the impact that they are having on us,”said Daniel Wallace, a Mott Haven resident.

Asthma hospitalization rates are higher in the South Bronx than anywhere else in the city, according to a 2008 study conducted by the city’s Department of Health, but Community Board 1 member Mychal Johnson said the tony Upper West Side is equally affected by noise and pollution from Fresh Direct’s vehicles.

“We just want to let Manhattan residents know it’s not just a Bronx issue,” he said.

Ivelyse Andino, who has lived in Mott Haven her whole life, said she suffers from asthma and is worried about pollution from the trucks.

“I’m tired of seeing the city polluting our neighborhoods, doing back-room deals with public money and not considering the community,” she said.

Brian Chidester, who recently moved to Port Morris from Virginia, said he had open-heart surgery in October.

“I don’t want to be breathing the kind of toxins that are going to be coming out of the trucks coming through our area every single day,” he said.

Members of South Bronx Unite protested FreshDirect's move to Mott Haven on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Photo by Alex Robinson

FreshDirect officials have said the company will transition gradually to a fleet of electric trucks, including ten when it opens. In addition, they vow to create up to 1,000 jobs over five years.

Protesters said they are skeptical the company will keep its word. They alluded to an audit released by City Comptroller John Liu’s office on March 19th, which revealed that over 300 companies that received similar tax breaks in 2009 failed to create or retain the jobs they had promised to.

“This is a company that wants to move to our neighborhood without offering any benefit.  We’re going to bear only costs and people elsewhere are going to get all the benefits,” Wallace said.

Opponents argue that adding insult to injury, FreshDirect does not deliver to the South Bronx, but the company has promised that will change.

A representative for FreshDirect handed out promotional flyers for the company at the protest, but he declined to comment.

“Today’s rally against FreshDirect’s decision to expand in New York ignores the positive impact of our public-private partnership with the city,”the flyer read.

Audio slideshow produced by Tom DiChristopher and Alex Robinson

MIT planners proposed events in existing spaces to attract people to the waterfront, including temporary closing the 145th St Bridge for a food festival.

Series of forums to seek ideas from residents

With FreshDirect set to occupy a crucial piece of the waterfront, a grassroots coalition, buoyed by promises of federal support, has launched an effort to reclaim recreational access to the Harlem River shore.

The Harlem River Working Group, a two-year-old organization devoted to the initiative, is planning a series of forums in March and April to seek ideas and public support for parks, greenways, boat launches and other public facilities along the river.

Formed by the Bronx Council on Environmental Quality in May 2009, the working group includes some 50 environmental and community organizations. Last October, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited Roberto Clemente State Park to announce that the federal government would support efforts to gain access to the Harlem as part of the President’s Great Outdoors Program.

Access to the Harlem in the Bronx is currently limited to Mill Pond Park in Mott Haven and Roberto Clemente State Park in Morris Heights. The working group hopes to see walking trails, boating on city-provided boats, improved water quality, eventually good enough to allow swimming and educational programs and festivals to attract more people to the river.

Last year, advocates worked with students and faculty members from MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning to envision some of the ways the shore might be converted from its current dilapidated state. Among its proposals was the creation of a playground and park on the water at the foot of Lincoln Avenue, a rain garden at Lincoln Avenue and East 138th Street and a new outdoor art gallery and the intersection of Lincoln and Bruckner Boulevard.

The Harlem River Working Group’s forums are designed to showcase such proposals and solicit public feedback on them, as well as to gather new ideas from residents.

The announcement that the online grocer FreshDirect would occupy 16 acres in the Harlem River Rail Yards added urgency to the working group’s agenda. The organizers have joined the opposition to the deal, because it threatens plans to build a pedestrian bridge from the Bronx to the playing fields of Randall’s Island.

The bridge “addresses a decades-old slight to the communities of Port Morris and Mott Haven,” Chauncy Young, the organization’s coordinator, told a public hearing on FreshDirect, as he asked unsuccessfully for the decision on state and city subsidies to be postponed.

Negotiations over the bridge are underway, according to John DeSio, the spokesman for Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., who said the bridge was “a separate issue” from the agreement worked out between the borough president and FreshDirect last month concerning jobs.

Mott Haven resident Aazam Otero urged Community Board 1 to consider a garden rather than new buildings on 149th St. and Southern Boulevard.

Protesters blast development plan

A heated war of words erupted at Community Board 1′s February meeting as protesters shouted down a developer and a city housing official’s efforts to explain the city’s plans to construct Crossroads Plaza.

The board voted to approve the city’s request for a zoning change that would allow the three-building complex to be built at the corner of 149^th Street and Southern Boulevard, but had to do so over the catcalls, jeers and sometimes profane objections of some 30 protesters who had cleared the lot of debris and turned it into the Morning Glory Garden.

“It’s a great site at the intersection of three major streets,” said Ted Weinstein, director of planning for the Department of Housing Development and Preservation in the Bronx, adding “it will bring a lot of people to the area.”

As he spoke, protesters standing on the sidewalk outside the community board’s Third Avenue office banged on the window and held up a sign reading “People over Profit,” with drawings of vegetables.

John McGrath, an official for Easter Seals in New York, said that the proposed eight-story Easter Seals building slated for the site was needed if children with special needs were to be served.

But the protesters loudly countered that the gardens they had grown are the best use of the land, and charged that the city was working for the benefit of the plan’s high-profile developer while excluding poor residents.

“I am a gardener from that lot and I am frustrated that these people come into our community and take our land,” said Samuel J. Gompers HS student Sony Cabral. “Can anybody in a suit please define gentrification for me?” he asked Weinstein and Douglaston representative Matt Feldman.

“What programs are subsidizing the developments?” asked gardener Aazam Otero, who also questioned the financing of the project and the affordability of the rents in the planned 13- and 15-story apartment buildings.

A half-dozen homeowners and renters representing the group We Are Mott Haven attended the evening meeting to express their own grievances to the board over a development for the mentally ill slated for 144^th Street and Brook Avenue near their homes. The homeowners have argued at past board meetings that the development would further destabilize a neighborhood already saturated with social services, adding they were not advised of the project in time to effectively oppose it, and they believe elected officials who represent Mott Haven and Melrose have abandoned them.

The homeowners ceded their own public speaking time to allow Otero to continue addressing the garden group’s complaints, shouting “Let the young man speak” while others yelled, “This is what democracy looks like.”

“You’re all on the take,” yelled Louie Melendez of We Are Mott Haven, as the group angrily walked out, chanting, “We voted you in, we will vote you out,” along with the gardeners. The community board is appointed by elected officials, none of whom were present.

The DOE promises immigrant parents of city schoolchildren "we have your language."

Interpreting program for parents underused, advocates say

In the weeks before Christmas, PS 146 on Cauldwell Ave. in Morrisania, exuded energy. Handmade decorations brightened every corner and songs sung in different languages burst out from classrooms.

In the hallway, one colorful sign among many hung on the walls spoke out to everyone: “Welcome parents!” in eight languages.

Right below it, another sign read: “Interpretation services available,” in those same eight languages.

The “No Child Left Behind” Act, established by the Bush administration in 2002, stated that all students should have equal access to a high quality education. But in the Bronx, where the number of residents who speak English “not well” or “not at all” has risen by about 15 percent to over 312,000 since 1990, language is a significant barrier to achieving that goal.

“In my 20 years in this school, I have seen the number of non-English speaking families rise by dozens,” said Yvette Johnson, parent coordinator at PS 146, where nearly one in five of the school’s 459 students comes from families that don’t speak English fluently.

“The kids usually learn the language fast; it is the parents who have most problems,” said Johnson.

To help parents with limited English become involved in their children’s education, the city’s Department of Education in 2002 created a translation and interpretation unit for public schools.

Though initially meant to translate school documents, the unit now employs more than 40 staffers who interpret and translate in the city’s most commonly spoken second languages: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Urdu.

But according to New York-based non-profit Advocates for Children, which published a report in 2009 on immigrant children in the city’s public schools, the system is not working.

“There are serious lapses in the service,” said Gisela Alvarez, the group’s senior project director. “It is still not widely available.”

The Department of Education declined to comment.

“There is just not money enough,” said Evelyn Rodríguez, parent coordinator at Samuel J. Gompers High School in Mott Haven, where almost a fifth of the 672 students are from families with limited English. “Translators are expensive.”

Gompers’ budget was cut by about 15 percent this year. To save money, schools like Gompers are using the assets they have.

 ”Usually it is a member of the staff who interprets for the parents. Sometimes it’s the kids who do it,” said Johnson. “And that can backfire pretty badly.”

“We have had parents who had no idea their kid was failing because they would just rely on what the child was saying,” said Alvarez. “And they would make up what the grades stand for.”

Many school administrators are unaware the language program exists, Alvarez says, and many parents turn the service down even when it is offered.

“Parents are not comfortable telling a complete stranger their problems, and especially their children’s problems,” she said.

It’s often the parent with the weakest English who communicates with the schools, officials said. “It is not unusual that only the father speaks good English, because they need it at work,” said Johnson. “The mother can get by with little or no knowledge of English – and it is usually them who take care of the children’s education.”

“We have parents that would like to participate more in their kid’s school life, but they don’t want to cause any trouble,” said Rodriguez. “So even if we can provide a translator, they don’t ask.”

Advocates for Children reported that four of every five parents they interviewed said they wanted to have a more active role in their children’s education.

Jeannette Bocanegra, spokesperson for the Mott Haven organization Community Connections for Youth, says parents often complain of lack of communication with their child’s school. Usually, language is the reason for the communication breakdown.

“Parents lament that they had no idea their son had a problem at school, because they could not read the reports,” said Bocanegra. “And if they asked their son, they would just give some vague answer, or none at all.”

Would interpreting services help? “Maybe,” said Bocanegra. “It would definitely be a step forward.”