"Now Booming, Not Burning, the Bronx Fears a Downside" NY Times 03/19/06
Geneva Causey has lived in the South Bronx for 38 years, but the new Yankee Stadium may push her out.Now Booming, Not Burning, the Bronx Fears a Downside
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS on March 19, 2006 in the New York Times
For decades, the area known as the Hub has been the retail heart of the South Bronx, attracting throngs of people to its small family-owned stores even as the residential blocks around it were ravaged by crime and, at times, consumed by flames.
But now, those who have kept this scrappy shopping district alive are worried, and the source of their fears is not robbers or arsonists, but development. A long-vacant lot is the planned home of a major shopping center that will include national chain stores like Staples, Forman Mills and Rite-Aid. Their impending arrival has caused as much apprehension as happiness.
"We have to watch out for the mom-and-pop stores," said George Rodriguez, chairman of the local community board, who for years has sought to bring national retailers to the area. "They did not move out, they did not capitulate. They served the clients in the area."
And the Hub is just the heart of it. A few decades after it became a national symbol of urban decay, the Bronx is home to a rash of new construction projects that are changing neighborhoods that have seen little new building in half a century. Many residents are uneasy.......
For the rest of the story please click on the title "Now Booming, Not Burning, the Bronx Fears a Downside"
posted by * @ 8:14 AM
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"In Geneva Causey's neighborhood near Yankee Stadium, residents say they learned of definitive plans for a replacement ballpark through a news conference announcing the plan in June 2005. After 38 years of living in the South Bronx, Ms. Causey believes it finally might be time to move: The proposed new Yankee Stadium would be built across the street, 90 feet from her bedroom...Mr. Carrión and other local politicians say the project will jump-start economic development. The City Council is expected to vote on the project in April. The Yankees want to start construction by May 1."
As usual, the Times is tone deaf. Lumping the Yankee plan in with all the other types of development is wrong, just like the plan itself is wrong. How will a new stadium which is used only 80 days a year "jump start" anything, when the old one never did? And construction has already begun: the city is busy as you read this moving a massive pipe. Has the plan been approved already? Nooo...it seems someone knows something we don't. What a scam!
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