City planners hope apartment houses and a hotel will replace some of the businesses along the Harlem River waterfront.

Where auto shops and empty factories now predominate, apartments and a hotel would rise

By Maria Clark
maria.clark@motthavenherald.com

The lower section of the Grand Concourse is almost entirely dedicated to the auto industry. The road is lined with busy auto repair shops, a gas station, a newly revamped car wash and a car dealership.

Apartment houses and a hotel may replace these businesses, if a rezoning proposal for the area passes. But although opposition has been muted, it has critics among policy-makers and planners who say the city should preserve manufacturing jobs.

When the plan was first proposed, former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, said that the zoning could jeopardize more than 230 jobs in the four-block area between E. 144th street and E. 138th street on the Grand Concourse.

Amy Anderson, the Project Associate for Sustainable Initiatives at the New York Industrial Retention Network, testified at the April 1 New York City Planning Commission hearing and reiterated Carrion’s concern.

“Manufacturing business located in such areas face increasing real estate pressures associated with nearby real estate development, resulting in displaced companies and jobs. Now is not the time to be displacing businesses and risking job losses,” she said.

Business owners have chosen to focus on their work, rather than worry about city plans that may or may not threaten their future on the Concourse.

“I have heard rumors that the city is planning to relocate us. Whatever happens, happens,” said Epifanio Aybar, the owner of Bonanza Auto Repair Shop near 140th street on the Grand Concourse.

His small shop has remained afloat despite rising rent. He says his secret for success is two-fold. His recycled tires sell rapidly and he knows how to get female customers to trust his mechanics with their cars.

“Women feel comfortable leaving their cars here, because we explain the different parts of the car and show them where the problem is,” he said.

Aybar’s lease expires in 2016, at which point construction or no construction, he plans on retiring.

The zoning proposal encompasses a 30-block area that surrounds the lower end of the Grand Concourse below 149th street. The plan would change some of the streets where only manufacturing is now permitted to a residential area.

Today 57 percent of the four to 12-story loft buildings and waterfront lots are vacant, according to the Planning and Development unit of the Bronx Borough President’s office. Even during the day, the streets along the lower Grand Concourse are nearly empty. Trash lines the gutters and the only sounds come from passing trains and the high-power hoses used to clean out garbage trucks at a nearby Department of Sanitation facility.

“It’s quite dead at night. After 7 you can scream and no one will hear you,” said Jose Orta , 40, the warehouse manager at Baya Movers Company near 144th street on Canal Place. Unlike Epifanio Aybar’s business on the other side of the Metro North railyard, which splits Mott Haven, Baya Movers Company is not jeopardized by the zoning plan.

Orta welcomes the idea of residents moving into the area, saying it will mean better access to food. With only two delis in the area and a diner, he says, the neighborhood will need more eateries.

Despite the empty streets, in recent years the neighborhood has seen a dramatic decrease in crime. In 1995, the 40th Precinct on 138th street, which covers all of Community District 1, reported a total of 1,116 robberies. That number dropped to 541 last year. Break-ins, however, remain a concern for local workers.

Igor Gladkov, the president of Astra Town Car Corporation, had to install video cameras and alarms around his car dealership near E. 140th street on the Grand Concourse. Two homeless men broke into the small offices on the car lot in January 2008, used the microwave to heat up food and took off with a supply of pens.

Pilfering is the least of Gladkov’s worries. The proposal threatens his business.

Gladkov, however, says he isn’t too concerned. His lease ends in seven years and in that time he suspects there won’t be much construction in the area.

His office rattled as two trains passed by in the rail yard below the dealership. He had to shout to be heard. “If they build a hotel on this strip, the guests will check out after one day and never come back. No way anyone can get any sleep around here with the trains.”

However, if a hotel developer does take over his car lot, Gladkov says he’ll deal with the situation the best he can.

He said, “Moving the business will be hard on us and our customers. But if we have to move, then we move.”

The Department of City Planning hopes Hudson River Park will be a model for a redeveloped Mott Haven.

If fancy apartments and stores move in, will they be pushed out?

By Caroline Linton
Caroline.linton@motthavenherald.com

Lamont Barkley, 42, has lived in Mott Haven his whole life and has witnessed the devastation that overtook the neighborhood, and its rebuilding.

But that does not mean he’s ready for the latest change: the city’s plan to replace gritty industrial buildings with high-rise waterfront apartments and retail businesses.

“Development is always a good idea, as long as you don’t try to move people out of the projects,” he said.

Barkley lives in the Patterson Houses, the 15-building Housing Authority complex that occupies the land between Morris and Third Avenues from E. 139th to E. 145th Streets. The city’s plan calls for creating “a lively mixed use, mixed income neighborhood” along Morris Avenue, across the street from the housing project.

While by some estimates it could take as long as a decade for the Lower Concourse rezoning to accomplish its goals, many residents are leery of the changes.

“They’ve been trying to push people who have been here for years out,” said a local resident who would only give his first name, Poochie. “I’m 54 years old, I grew up here and most of the people who are still here, they wouldn’t be able to afford it now.”

But Thomas Carswell, who said he has been a resident for 52 of his 57 years, said he would welcome the changes.

“This particular area—Mott Haven—these projects, they’re a breeding ground for drugs, violence, STDs,” he said. “Anything that’s coming to this area to improve it, I’m all for it.”

Even though construction worker Billy Meister, 47, makes his living from development, he said he worried that Mott Haven would lose some of his favorite qualities if developers moved forward in the way the city hopes they will.

“There’s a lot of construction going on, but nothing is favorable to the people,” said Meister, who lives in Orange County but works on construction projects in the Bronx. “You can’t build a high-priced neighborhood and keep us here.”

For Charlie Brice, 35, a waitress at the Sweetwaters Café at Third Avenue and 138th Street, the idea of encouraging new businesses to locate in the area is a welcome one. Since she lives near Yankee Stadium and does not own a car, she said she would appreciate it if more grocery stores were added in the area.

But she, too, expressed concern about the impact of the changes. Growing up in Dorchester, a Boston neighborhood that has attracted higher income residents in recent years, she said she has seen the good and bad sides of gentrification. She especially lamented the loss of small “mom and pop” stores.

But while Brice, who is African-American, said she liked the diversity of Mott Haven, she worries about just who will be moving into those new apartment buildings. “It’s fine to be multicultural and all; just don’t kick us out, ”she said.

While many of the residents interviewed were at best ambivalent about the plan, the area’s elected officials have fewer qualms.

Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, Jr., the frontrunner to become Bronx Borough President, said he wanted to make sure residents would not feel they are being pushed out of the area. “Obviously, we’re going to continue to push business, but we want to keep the character of the neighborhood,” Diaz said.

Similarly, State Senator José M. Serrano said in an email response to questions that he supports the Lower Concourse rezoning, as long as city officials work with community members.

“The key here is not about when it will be completed, but whether it will be achieved with the proper community input so that the citizens of the South Bronx and its adjacent areas may benefit from the changes,” he wrote.

Barkley, the Patterson House resident, said he remained skeptical, especially after going to a ballgame at the new Yankee Stadium with his son. The stadium turns its back on the residents who live near it, he said, and he worried that a similar thing would happen if the Lower Concourse plan succeeds.

“You’ve got to remember people live here,” Barkley said. “They’ve been living here their whole lives.”

A version of this article appeared in the Spring 2009 edition of the Mott Haven Herald.

The swamp is a fetid, four-block long stew of garbage and stagnant water

Mosquitoes swarming from a garbage-filled, four-block long stretch of stagnant water plague residents of nearby apartments all summer