Community Leaders: A. Mychal Johnson from stephanie rabins on Vimeo.

Community leaders: Lou Torres from stephanie rabins on Vimeo.

Neighborhood leadership takes many forms. From organizing farmers’ markets to advocating tenants’ rights, Mott Haven has many residents who work hard to make the their neighborhood a better place to live.

The Mott Haven Herald caught up with two local leaders–one who lives in a row house and holds a seat on the community board and one who lives in a housing project and is the voice of its tenants–to find out how they came to dedicate their time and effort to working for their community.

Mychal Johnson knows what gentrification looks like. He grew up in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago, whose struggles in the 1970s with depopulation, arson and crime invite easy comparison with the South Bronx of the same period.

Like Mott Haven and Melrose, Wicker Park has seen remarkable growth over the past decade, but its appeal to white-collar, college-educated residents has raised rents and prices, forcing many longtime residents to leave. “I didn’t want that to happen to this neighborhood” says Johnson, who moved to New York City with his family in 2003 and has lived in Mott Haven ever since.

Hoping to improving his neighborhood while keeping it affordable, Johnson became involved in community organizing as soon as he moved to the Bronx. And while he was working on the house he was finally able to buy, a friend stopped by with an idea.

“He said, ‘Why don’t you apply for a spot on the community board?’” Johnson recalled.

“My daughter went to school here,” Johnson says of his decision to join the board, “and I had become very close with people in the neighborhood.”

That was four and a half years ago. Since then, more families have been fixing up houses like Johnson’s in Mott Haven’s historic district. New restaurants have opened, and artists have found studio space in the neighborhood’s lofts and warehouses.

As a member of Board 1, in recent years Johnson has been focused on trying to guide development, particularly on the waterfront. Last year, the board won a fight against the New York State Department of Transportation’s plan to widen the Major Deegan Expressway. Johnson was a vocal opponent of the state plan, and he says the win was “crucial to the rebirth of the lower Grand Concourse and creating green space along the Harlem River.”

He continues to press for more community input into the city’s Comprehensive Waterfront Plan, and is now looking at ways to address the presence of so many waste transfer stations in Mott Haven.

More challenges lie ahead, he says, noting the rapid gentrification of other neighborhoods in New York City and the way it has pushed out long-time residents.

In addition to his service on Board 1, Johnson continues to do other organizing work. Last spring he traveled to Bolivia for the World People’s Conference on Climate Change. There he acted as co-president of one of the summit’s committees; when he got home, he participated in a panel about the conference.

Almost a mile away from the handsome block near Alexander Avenue where Johnson lives, Lou Torres is hard at work in his own corner of Mott Haven. In a brightly-lit first floor office of the Moore Houses, near St. Mary’s playground, Torres serves as president of the tenants association.

Like Johnson, Torres has also traveled the world, though for different reasons. He spent many years working as a musician and an actor, director and producer of films. But he always knew he would come back to his home base in Mott Haven.

In his capacity as president of the New York City Housing Authority complex, Mr. Torres leads art workshops for children as well as health, legal and educational programming for the residents in his buildings.

Keeping track of two 20-story buildings and representing over 1,000 residents is not an easy job. Torres is often the first to hear about problems in the building, but as a rule he can’t fix them alone.

But Torres is as upbeat about his work as Mychal Johnson is about his. Even after suffering a stroke last year that left him unable to speak for four months, Torres, who has regained his ability to communicate with words, although he still speaks slowly and sometimes haltingly, remains positive. He is in his office almost every day, working to improve quality of life in the Moore houses.

When asked about his accomplishments, Torres seems proudest of the work he’s done with Mott Haven’s young people. He has organized teen anti-violence events and rewarded participants with group trips and prizes. He holds educational workshops right in his office in the Moore Houses, teaching kids animation and other computer programs.

But getting money allocated for the things he wants to get done can be tricky. And as president, Torres also has to worry about serious security matters—about crimes committed on the property, police response time and even police harassment of Moore House residents.

All the while, Lou Torres continues his own filmmaking projects. Quick to hand out a head-shot, he is in the process of trying to fund and produce at least one film, and looking forward to acting in more. His resume ranges from a co-producer credit on the award-winning independent movie “Manito” to playing small parts in “Law and Order” and the big-screen blockbuster “Fantastic Four.”

But even with so much in store, Torres never talks about leaving the Moore Houses, just as Mychal Johnson’s travels continue to bring him back to Mott Haven. Though the men followed different paths to leadership in Mott Haven, both are taking their cues from those who built their neighborhood back up after the hard times of the 1970s. They’re staying.

Part restaurant, part art gallery and part karaoke spot, the Bruckner Bar and Grill is a hang out for local artists.

Bruckner Bar and Grill lures artists and the coat and tie crowd

By Lindsay Lazarski
lindsay.lazarski@motthavenherald.com

When people compare Mott Haven to Williamsburg or call it “SoBro” or otherwise tab it as the next up-and coming-place to live, they almost always follow by mentioning the bars where artist and yuppies congregate. There is G-Bar on the Concourse, Alexander’s Café south of the Major Deegan Expressway, and tucked below two overpasses that merge onto the Third Avenue Bridge, the pioneer of them all, the Bruckner Bar and Grill.

Part restaurant, part art gallery and part karaoke spot, the Bruckner Bar and Grill which opened 10 years ago, has become a hangout for local artists, city workers, and young professionals in business suits and heels on their lunch break and after work.

A glass garage door that opens during the summer and a woodstove that burns in the winter keeps patrons cozy as they sit at mismatched tables on mismatched chairs and survey the latest art on the walls. With the hum of Coldplay in the background, customers order grilled salmon with mixed greens or the Mediterranean platter with eggplant salsa and Israeli salad. Dressing comes on the side.

At the bar, European soccer plays on one of the televisions and Sports Center plays on the other.  A friendly blue-eyed bartender in a t-shirt that reads “Bronx” greets each guest by yelping hello from across the restaurant as he wipes the wood counter or pulls from one of the six beers on tap.

“If it feels like downtown, then I accomplished my mission,” says owner Alex Abeles, who plans to expand the restaurant to include an outdoor seating café during weekend brunch.

At the cost of $10 for a specialty cocktail and the “downtown-like” atmosphere, the Bruckner Bar and Grill represents change and gentrification in Mott Haven.

“It used to be a real drug-infested area,” said Christopher Garcia, who has worked at the air-conditioning company next to the Bruckner for seven years.

“You would have homeless people sleeping under the bridge and a lot of drugs and prostitution going on,” Garcia said.  Now, he says, the area has been cleaned up dramatically.

But with a “for sale,” “for rent” or “for lease” sign affixed to the outside of nearly every building in a three-block radius, the Bruckner Bar and Grill remains a lonely outpost, in its own isolated corner, disconnected from the larger part of the community.

Its menu and its prices make add to the feeling.

The Bruckner charges $10 for a salad, while at La Familia, a Latin restaurant down the block, $6 buys a plate piled high with homemade stewed chicken and mashed potatoes, but customers and the bar’s owner say the prices make sense.

“It’s different from what’s usually in the area,” said James Skinner, a first timer at the Bruckner who grew up in the Bronx. “This is the South Bronx: there is a lot of ethnic cuisine, Latin, Caribbean, African-American cuisine. Traditionally, you would have to go into the city to go to a bar like this.”

Abeles, who formerly managed, the Coffee Shop, a restaurant in Union Square, does not apologize for the “downtown” atmosphere or the downtown prices.

He said he took a huge risk in 2006 by investing in a place with zero foot traffic. He needed to make many changes to attract the professional crowd from the Bronx Courthouse and Lincoln Hospital, he added.

He started with a fresh coat of paint on the walls and improved service, and added more options to the menu than just a burger.  The original owners “brought in the wrong crowd,” he said.

“We raised prices, not Manhattan high, but out of certain people’s price ranges.  We lost a lot of the crowd – troublemakers, but it was replaced by other people,” said Abeles.

“Its nice to see that most of the tables are filled,” said William Jordan, a physician who was coming from a friend’s gallery exhibition.  But he added, “It’s hard for me to say how many of the people who are eating at these tables here actually live in the numerous housing projects that are within a few blocks of here.”

Steven Gallegos, a regular who owns Sobro Studios, a recording and rehearsal space for bands a few doors away from the Bruckner Bar and Grill, eats at the restaurant three to four times a week. Gallegos, a New Rochelle resident, said he was first attracted to the industrial feel of the neighborhood and patronizes the Bruckner because of the family atmosphere.

“SoHo gets a name, NoHo gets a name, why not here?” asked Gallegos. “Things have to change at some point. But I would hate to see this place turn into condos and high rises.”