Bronx. Community. Food. Justice.

Yesterday I joined a bike caravan on a trip with South Bronx Unite and Friends of Brook Park to see the points of access (and lack thereof) to the South Bronx waterfront, culminating in an excursion to Randall’s island for some canoeing.  We started off at Brook Park on 141^st St & Brook Ave, where about 30 of us gathered with our bikes.  Brook Park recently got a grant from the NYC Council, which allowed them to purchase some bikes for the community’s use – so exciting! 

 

We set off going west across 141^st St, heading northwest and cutting across the Bronx on 144^th St until hitting Exterior (under the Major Deegan Expressway).  We drove up to and through Mill Pond Park, which has a nice path along the water and some tennis courts.  Unfortunately, access to the waterfront for canoeing and other recreational activities is hindered because of a train rail which runs straight along the water.  

We continued on, south on Exterior, going through the neighborhood which has been rezoned to include more residential and business uses of the land, but where access to the waterfront is completely blocked off due to industrial uses.  We stopped off at La Finca del Sur, and heard about some important bioremediation work being done to the soil.  Raised beds are common in the South Bronx when growing food because of contaminated soil.  They are going to be planting more sunflowers here, as these plants can actually help to pull contaminants out of soil - a useful fact I did not know!  

 

Driving back up to Bruckner Blvd (since 132^nd St was still closed off), we were able to head south back to the waterfront via the road (closed to cars) underneath the Willis Ave bridge.  All of this land is supposed to be part of a “public-private partnership.”  A new rail system for freight was supposed to be built that would reduce truck traffic, but instead it subleases to firms with heavy vehicle use.  It’s the home of a waste transfer station (which processes 5000 tons of trash per day, way more that the Bronx creates, as trash is brought in from other parts of the city), industrial buildings for the Department of Sanitation, FedEx, and the New York Post.  (Harlem River Yard Ventures collects a lot of money from these subleases, too – they provide an income of approximately $500,000 per month, only $43,000 of which gets paid back per month in rent to DOT.)

 

Within the past year, a new residential building (supposedly affordable for Bronx residents) was built directly across from the waste transfer station.  This same stretch of land, undeveloped except for the industrial buildings just mentioned, is also the site of the proposed new headquarters for FreshDirect, which if built would bring 2000 more truck trips through the neighborhood, which already has some of the highest asthma rates in the country – five times the national average.  They were granted the permission to build on this land using an outdated environmental impact statement which does not take into account the rezoning and new residential buildings built on this land since the environmental assessment was conducted 20 years ago. 

This land was leased to a private company with the understanding that private money was needed to develop the land for the public benefit.  However, the Galesi Group has not delivered on its promises. The land is primarily inaccessible to the public and there is still no waterfront access or ways to use the space for recreational purposes. Fortunately, most of the elected officials representing the area have signed on to a letter drafted by South Bronx Unite, calling for an audit on the land until a more thorough environmental assessment is completed. 

At the end of a long stretch of land along the water (which will hopefully one day become part of the South Bronx Greenway being initiated by Sustainable South Bronx), we came to the Bruckner Expressway / Robert F. Kennedy Bridge.  Underneath the bridge is the location of the planned pedestrian bridge which will connect the South Bronx to Randall’s Island, supposedly by 2013. 

 

Since the pedestrian bridge is not completed yet, in order to access Randall’s Island, we had to backtrack to St. Ann’s Ave to use the current pedestrian pathway to Randall’s Island, up the ramp of the bridge.  Once we got to Randall’s Island, we met up with Harry Bubbins from Friends of Brook Park who brought a trailer of canoes for us to use.  A number of us took the canoes down the Harlem River to the Bronx Kill, where the Randall’s Island Connector is to be built.  I shared a canoe with Carlos, who volunteers with Friends of Brook Park’s beekeeping efforts and also with Sustainable South Bronx.  He told me about some of the interesting things SSBx does to train community members on sustainable jobs.  He is currently involved in creating cool roofs by painting roofs white (which helps reflect sunlight better than black-painted roofs) and is soon to be involved in creating more green roofs. 

While I have heard a lot of the conversations about the Harlem River waterfront, the South Bronx Greenway, the Randall’s Island Connector, the proposed FreshDirect site, waste transfer station & rezoning for residential usage of land in the South Bronx, taking a bike tour of these spaces with champion community advocates like Mychal Johnson, Corrine Kohut, Monxo and Libertad, puts more of the story into perspective.  Prior to today, I had attempted to go running to Randall’s Island before, a venture which took several hours and a lot of backtracking because it is nearly impossible to navigate the highways and pedestrian access to bridges leaving the South Bronx.  I am glad to hear about the progress being made with the Randall’s Island Connector and the efforts of elected officials to make sure the land is used for positive development which benefits the public. Community members who all have different areas of expertise but who all share a passion for betterment of the community can have a lasting, positive impact on the neighborhood when they come together for a cause.