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.

SummerStage Dance 2010, will be in St. Mary’ Park this weekend. Rennie Harris RHAW and Le Soul Afrique with Special Guest Akim Funk Buddha will perform on Friday, June 25, at 7 p.m. Abakua Afro-Latin Dance Company and Areytos Performance Works will be on stage on Saturday at 7.

One of the culprits in a scandal that has cast a shadow on Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo and City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo is headed to a federal pen for the next 10 months. Margarita Villegas pleaded guilty to embezzling $50,000 from a non-profit housing corporation that manages low income apartments. Next up, Richard Izqierdo Arroyo, who admitted stealing $115,000, some of which prosecutors say went to the assemblywoman and councilwoman, his grandmother and aunt, respectively.

Friends of Brook Park has a plan to create oyster and mussel beds in the Bronx Kill, which separates Mott Haven from Randall’s Island. The organization is awaiting word from the feds about a $50,000 grant for its proposal to clean up the polluted water nature’s way.

Assemblyman Michael Benjamin won’t challenge Congressman Jose Serrano this year, but won’t rule out a run in 2012, when new district lines are drawn. Benjamin is giving up his seat in the State Legislature.

A refugee from Sierra Leone, who attended International Community High School in Mott Haven was stabbed to death in Washington Heights Sunday. Police said 18-year-old Mohamed Jalloh, who lived in the Highbridge section of the Bronx, was seen arguing with a group of men in a McDonald’s.

Mott Haven has a new landmark, the seven-story Haffen building in the Hub. The Landmarks Preservation Commission also began considering creating a Grand Concourse Historic District stretching from 153rd to 167th Street.

Thirty-three-year-old Tamar Brown was killed on Courtlandt Avenue near the Melrose Jackson Houses Sunday. Police said he had been shot several times.

A soldier who grew up in Mott Haven was murdered on an Army base in Georgia. Master Sgt. Pedro Mercado, 47, a father of three was shot several times. Police have not identified the shooter, who turned himself in and is in custody.

Thieves broke in to St. Rita’s Shrine Church in Mott Haven and stole chalices and communion plates, some jewel-encrusted.

An alley separating the Mott Haven Branch Library and an apartment building is used to store the library's trash.Photo by Sergey Kadinsky

Trash from other branches in the borough collects in adjacent alley

The Mott Haven Library is the oldest public library building in the Bronx, and one of the architectural gems of the Mott Haven Historic District. But the New York Public Library system uses the alley next door as a dump.

All the borough’s branch libraries–from Riverdale to Highbridge–package their trash and drive it to the alley. Whenever the branches have to dispose of a large item too big to fit in a trash can—a wooden table or chair, a microfilm machine or a bookcase, for example—it, too, winds up in a dumpster parked at the Mott Haven branch.

Library officials won’t explain why.

After numerous phone calls and emails from the Mott Haven Herald, library spokesman Herbert Scher responded only: “The Library has determined that the current location is the best one for centralized collection of bulk trash items.”

Neighbors complain that the dumpster stinks, something library officials deny, saying only certain types trash, not the smelly variety, is deposited there. In addition, residents say, the dumpster is an eyesore in a part of Mott Haven that is becoming more upscale, as homeowners and landlords renovate their buildings.

“There’s no reason why there should be a dumpster here,” said artist Linda Cunningham, who lives two buildings down from the library. “This is a residential area.”

When the National Register of Historic Places listed Alexander Avenue in 1980, it praised the “two fine civic buildings”—the 41st Precinct and the library—for “their harmonious proportions and low scale which blend into the surrounding environment.”

Financed by Andrew Carnegie’s philanthropy a century ago, the library’s design was inspired by the Carnegie mansion on Fifth Avenue and 91st Street, which today houses the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum.

The dumpster arrived in the alley almost four years ago, according to Dorothy Louise, a playwright who lives in a condominium two buildings down from the library. She considers the dumpster an eyesore in an otherwise improving neighborhood.

Louise’s home is a former textile factory and warehouse that has been divided into condominium lofts, settled largely by artists, musicians and other creative professionals. Across the street from the library, a run-down walkup is being renovated, with a new sidewalk tree, courtesy of the city.
The offending dumpster is parked in an alley separating the library from a four-story walkup.

On the ground floor, Stephanie Meza, 19, has a bedroom window facing the alley and the dumpster. “My mother has to put on the fire to get out the smell,” said Meza. “We’ve called 311 because of the foul smell. The trash is over the top.”

Meza also said that noisy garbage trucks empty the dumpster as early as 6:30 in the morning.

“The trucks wake me up,” said Meza. “And the workers are loud and rude.”

“I’ve spoken with the library staff,” said Louise. “And they don’t want it here, either.”
Throughout the week, janitors from the various branches drive the trash to the dumpster. The Sanitation Department collects it from the alleyway.

“The Sanitation Department won’t pick up individual bulk items from a library,” said Scher initially. “They have to pick them up at one location in a dumpster.”

Not so, says the Sanitation Department. “The Sanitation Department does not require the New York Public Library to bring their bulk items to the Mott Haven branch,” said spokesman Matthew Lipani in an email response.

In Queens, whose public libraries are not part of the New York Public Library system, “each location has its trash collected individually,” says Queens Library spokeswoman Joanne King.

While the alley behind the Mott Haven branch is used to store trash, other nearby branches have better uses for their outdoor space. The Morrisania branch has park-like landscaping around its building, while the Hunts Point branch has an unused alley behind it.

Lipani, the Sanitation Department spokesman, defended the way the library maintains the dumpster saying, “the area where the container is stored is clear of debris and does not constitute an ‘eyesore.’”

Neighbors disagree.

“There are a lot of cats here,” said Meza. “And people throwing trash over the fence.”
In response to those complaints and an inquiry from the Mott Haven Herald, the library installed a mesh fence and tarp in early November to cover the alley from public view, which further offended the neighbors.

“That masks it, but we still have garbage out here,” said Tyko Kilhstedt, a painter, pointing at a garbage bag outside the fence. Kihlstedt’s wife Andrea, has also spoken with library staff, and says they share her dislike of the tarp.

The Public Library administration insists the dumpster is necessary and unavoidable. “We do not have an alternative site, and this will be used for the foreseeable future,” said Scher.

“It will still smell,” said Kilhstedt. “It could be a nice small park, but at the moment it’s just an eyesore.”

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

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.

The facade of the former PS 31 facing E. 144 StreetPhoto by Maria Clark

‘Castle on Concourse’ languishes in neighborhood poised for growth

By Maria Clark
maria.clark@motthavenherald.com

The passage of time has not been kind to the former school building nicknamed the “Castle on the Concourse.”

Entire sections of the roof have collapsed. Plastic tarps cover the holes. Rotted wooden planks shield the windows and cover gaping holes in the walls.

PS 31 was once one the top schools in the city and was housed in a building that was judged worthy to be a New York City landmark. Now it is a wreck.

Removing asbestos and modernizing its facilities wasn’t worth the price, the Board of Education decided 15 years ago. The “Castle on the Concourse” has steadily crumbled since the decision was made.

“We didn’t only lose a beautiful building. We lost a great school,” said Grizel Cabrera, a former school aide who worked at PS 31 from 1989 to 1997.

Despite plans to rezone the area to invite thousands of new residents, officials from the Department of Education have no plans to restore the treasured building that still stands on 144th street and the Grand Concourse.

“We are not currently doing any construction and there are no plans for reconstruction in the near future,” said Department of Education spokesman William Havemann.

The scaffolding and supportive beams wrapped around the building are in place to prevent it from collapsing, according to Wilhelm Ronda, the director of planning at the Bronx Borough President’s Office. When Ronda toured the building over a year ago, he noted extensive water damage and found that the facade on the North end of the building had crumbled.

“Clearly there is a need for funds to do more than just prevent it from collapsing,” he said. Emergency repairs would cost up to $30 million according to Ronda.

Ronda hopes the building can be adapted for a new public use, such as a performing art space or even a children’s art museum.

“I would like to use up as much of the building as possible. I hope at some point the administration will provide additional funding to do so,” Ronda said.

PS 31, named the William Llloyd Garrison School in honor of the great opponent of slavery, was designed and built over 100 years ago by architect Charles B.J. Snyder, the superintendent of school buildings who presided over the city’s Golden Age of school construction. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1986.

Under the careful watch of retired principal Carol Russo, PS 31 had blossomed into one of the top performing schools in the city. A New York Times article from 1987, headlined “Bronx School Excels Academically, Despite the Odds,” reported that 61 percent of students from kindergarten to sixth grade tested at or above their grade level in mathematics. Almost 88 percent tested at or above their grade level in reading.

“It was a wonderful school. They were given little in terms of resources, but Carol tapped into the enthusiasm of the teachers. She was a diamond of an educator,” said Irving Gikofsky, the television personality widely known as “Mr. G.”

A former teacher, “Mr. G” sent his daughter to PS 31 and took part in 28 consecutive graduations.

“When Carol retired, nobody could take her place. The giant left and nobody could fill her shoes,” he said.

The Department of Education closed the school soon after Russo retired in the mid- 1990s. PS 31 and its students were transferred to a new building on E. 156th Street near Morris Avenue.

Students and teachers still refer to the school’s former home building as the “Castle on the Concourse” because of its size and design.

“I loved everything about that school. I remember on rainy days when we couldn’t go outside, we got to watch cartoons or educational movies in the auditorium,” said E’Toyi Lucas, 29, a former student.

Lucas, like many of his fellow alumni fondly remembers the sheer size of the building, its winding stairs and long hallways.

“I always thought that it was so big and scary at times. It really saddens me that they allowed such a historic place to deteriorate. I pray that they would rebuild so that other children can experience the beauty of PS 31,” wrote Shemeka Gibbs in an email about her time as a student at PS 31 in 1983.

Herman Francis, a member of Community Board 1’s Municipal Services Committee, said that in light of city plans to rezone the Grand Concourse, the area needs a new school.

“We don’t have enough schools as it is, and what we have there is a beautiful empty building that should be a school again,” Francis said.

The “Castle on the Concourse” remains under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education and will not be opening its doors to greet eager students next fall or anytime soon. Shingles will crumble and water damage will continue its destructive march through the once stately walls.

The city’s Economic Development Corporation, which is responsible for promoting economic growth throughout New York City, has promised to “evaluate the feasibility of an adaptive reuse of PS 31” as part of the lower Grand Concourse zoning plan. It offered no timetable.

“I think we all have a connection and a passion for PS 31 and we would all hate for that school to disappear,” said E’Toyi Lucas.

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

The proposed Bruckner Boulevard Historic District

In addition, a block of Bruckner Boulevard would become a historic district, if the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to accept the proposal.

Landmark status safeguards distinguished architecture or buildings that have played an important role in the city’s history or cultural heritage. The outsides of landmarks cannot be changed without permission from the landmarks commission.

In his 2008 State of the Borough speech, Carrion announced the formation of a task force to find buildings in each of the Bronx’s community districts worthy of preservation. The task force issued its report in December.

Rincon Criollo Casita, a shrine to Puerto Rican music and culture at E. 158th Street and Third Avenue is the centerpiece of the report on Community District 1.

The cultural center and garden was a dump in the mid-1970s when Don José “Chema” Soto led a group of friends to build a shack like the small wooden houses scattered throughout Puerto Rico, plant a garden and gather to play traditional music. Now local people gather there for social events and scholars come from all over the world to learn the island’s traditions.

The task force called for landmark status for:

• the German Methodist Episcopal Church of Melrose on Elton Avenue and E. 158th Street;
• Immaculate Conception Church on E. 151st Street and Melrose Avenue
• St. Anselm’s Roman Catholic Church on Tinton Avenue and E. 152nd Street.

The three churches, built in 1879, 1887 and 1907, respectively, are all architecturally, distinctive, according to the task force.

In Mott Haven, the borough president’s report calls for the first subway station in the Bronx, the Mott Haven station at E. 149th Street and the Grand Concourse to become a landmark. Already on the National Register of Historic Places, the station opened in 1904, and the old street name, Mott Avenue, is still prominently displayed on its brick wall.

The task force also wants Plaza Borinquen, a housing project with a difference, to be preserved. Built in 1974 on E. 139th Street between Willis and Brook avenues for the South Bronx Community Housing Corporation, it is a modernist low-rise complex of triplex 3- and 4- bedroom apartments, each with its own garden.

Finally, the task force said historic district status should safeguard a portion of Mott Haven’s growing antique district. A stretch of Bruckner Boulevard between Alexander and Willis Avenues forms a cohesive block of recently-renovated tenements that “reflect the historic character” of the area, the report said.

If the landmarks commission acts on the recommendations, the buildings would join St. Ann’s Church on St. Ann’s Avenue at E. 140th Street, and PS 31, on the Grand Concourse and E. 144th Street and the Mott Haven Historic District along Alexander Avenue between E. 137th and 141st streets on the honor role of city landmarks.