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On Sunday, November 4th, the city will host its annual ING New York City Marathon. More than 38,000 runners from over one hundred countries are expected to participate, including elite athletes and those running for charities.
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There’s lots to do on Jerome Avenue between East 174th Street and the on-ramp to the Cross Bronx Expressway. You can get your car windows tinted. You can purchase a used police cruiser. You can pimp out your rims. You can have a chicken, rabbit or rooster slaughtered, plucked, skinned and trussed. You can time how frequently the No. 4 train roars by on the tracks above. But if you’re worn out after all that activity, there’s no place to rest your head.
Prakashkumar Patel wants to change that. “They need a good hotel in the Bronx,” said Patel, who owns Marriotts, Hampton Inns and other chain hotels in Albany, on Long Island and near LaGuardia Airport. He purchased and demolished a car repair shop – one of many on the strip – at number 1665. And he plans to build a brick and granite Comfort Inn, complete with breakfast and meeting rooms and a parking lot in the rear. “It will bring up the value of the whole area,” he said.
Local leaders disagree.
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When P.S. 209 principal Jacquelyn Cannon died in May, parents, teachers, and community residents realized they wanted to make sure the school retained the spirit of its much-loved leader.
Now, they’re hoping to go one step further – in renaming the school and a portion of 183rd Street on which the school sits in her honor.
“She was the mother of the school,” said Niya Mitchell, whose third-grade daughter, Ny’Rayah Mitchell, attended the school and whose first-grade son, Charles Fields, is in his second year there.
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Saving a few hundred dollars on heating oil is no small thing for a single mother of three scraping by on a social worker’s salary. Thanks to a Citgo Corporation heating oil discount program, Camille Pow has stashed away some much-needed cash the last two winters.
“I got a deduction of $26 to $30 every month last year, which means $300 more you can look for in your pocket,” said Pow, 45, who rents one of the 1,250 apartments owned by Mount Hope Housing Company, which receives a 40 percent discount on oil from Citgo, then passes the savings on to tenants through rent breaks.
Now the two-year-old program could potentially benefit Pow and other low and moderate-income residents of the 32-building complex in ways they never expected.
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Buoyed by a commitment to ensure that a redeveloped Kingsbridge Armory will anchor the community, hundreds of local residents crowded into the Fordham Manor Reform Church Oct. 27 before marching around the landmark fortress in a cold, driving rain.
The rally could be described as a warning shot across the bow for the developer, which the city should choose in the coming weeks.
A banner on the side of a truck expressed the rally participants’ objective in stark terms: “Developer: Negotiate with KARA.”
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The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission sent architects for the Battery Maritime Building project back to the drafting table on Oct. 23. The commission did not vote on the proposed plan to renovate and expand the ferry terminal but recommended that the architects incorporate elements that reference the building’s original architecture.
“The building feels segmented,” said Pablo E. Vengoechea, the commission’s vice chairperson. “It feels like there is something happening at the bottom and something else happening on top.”
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Adam Brock wants to keep his Williamsburg neighborhood green. That’s why the 21-year-old New York University student challenged two mega developers’ plans for the landmark at Community Board 1’s last full board meeting.
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An old vacant gym at a Williamsburg middle-school has been transformed into a dazzling yellow-and-blue wing.
“It’s bright and when I see it, it makes me happy,” said wide-eyed eighth-grader Briona Slayton at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Ten Eyck Upper School’s “Grade Eight Institute” on October 17.
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The Social Security administration announced a 2.3 percent cost of living adjustment (COLA) increase for next year recently - the lowest in four years.
It will not help retiree Clifton Rutherford much.
The 77-year-old Jamaica resident’s rent is scheduled to rise $20 in January to $700. That is twice the $10 boost he will get in his Social Security check, under the smallest nationwide COLA increase since 2004.
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October and November are considered the best months to get a vaccination against influenza. Although the nasal spray is available, most New Yorkers who opt for the vaccine will get a needle in the arm. Dr. Jane R. Zucker, an assistant health commissioner for the city, joins us in our studio to discuss New York’s plan to ensure that 90% of its population over 65 gets the vaccine.
Producer: Megan Kelty
Reporters: Carolyn Nardiello, Laura Silver
