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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Bronx News Roundup, Wednesday, June 15

Welcome to the Wednesday early afternoon edition of the roundup. I'll be your humble host and guide today as we navigate through the latest Bronx news. 

Weather: Just downright lovely out here in the Boogie Down. Should stay this way until Friday.

Story of the Day: The New Downtown Bronx?
Pop quiz: Where's downtown Bronx? Give up? OK, you guessed correctly. There is no designated, or even unofficial, downtown Bronx area.There's no one place where borough commerce can congregate and entice even more corporations and businesses to set up shop. That could change with the coming expansion of the Hutchinson Metro Center near Westchester Square. Joseph Simone, president of New Rochelle-based Simone Development Companies, is building on the success of the Metro Center's first building, a renovated and updated version of a former residential treatment center. A new nine-story office building is set to open across the street from the original building this summer and is already 90 percent leased, mostly by medical groups and law firms. Construction on a twin tower is expected to begin this summer as well. When fully completed, in an estimated five years, the complex will have 2 million square feet of office space. The kicker: the final tower will supposedly include a high-end hotel and conference center.


Quick Hits:
The reckless manslaughter conviction of an ex-cop who killed a drunk driver who had crashed near his Bronx home was overturned by an appeals court

Local businesses (and school teachers) are looking to capitalize on Yankee legend Derek Jeter's quest for 3,000 hits. (That quest has been suspended as the Yankees placed Jeter on the disabled list yesterday. He won't be back until at June 29.)

The Bronx International Film Festival starts tonight at Lehman College with a screening of the documentary, "Zero Percent," which highlights a program that seeks to give prisoners at Sing Sing access to higher education.

The story of a wild ladies night out in the Bronx.

With a streetlight out for the past three months, a stretch of Hoe Avenue between 167th Street and West Farms Avenue has become increasingly dangerous.

Tuff City Bronx, a tatoo shop on East Fordham Road, has served as an artistic outlet for Bronx youth over the past few years.

A Bronx resident has been thwarted in her attempt to be buried in a pet cemetery with her dog and cats.

If it's Puerto Rican-relate, it's Bronx-related. Below is a PBS story on President Obama's visit to Puerto Rico. Obama is the first president in more than 50 years to visit PR. Nuyoricans are pumped.

3 comments:

  1. I doubt anyone in the west Bronx will ever acknowledge a part of the east Bronx as "downtown" Bronx, or vice versa. They are separate georgaphies, and at one time were in separate counties. The way the Bronx came about historically will make it very difficult for folks to ever agree on a downtown Bronx, especially when "going downtown" means going to Manhattan.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Times has covered the notion of a downtown Bronx a few times. I think this is the most recent of them (which i remember well for obvious reasons!).

    http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/20/nyregion/neighborhood-report-south-bronx-south-bronx-tries-go-uptown-deciding-that-it-s.html?scp=4&sq=downtown%20bronx&st=cse

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Hutchinson Metro Center will be doing well if it achieves suburban office campus status. There is nothing about its design or lack of transit connections that could ever qualify it as a "downtown."

    The real contender for "downtown" is Fordham Plaza. It already has some significant office buildings and the largest shopping strip in the Bronx, with good transit connectivity. There is future growth potential in the surrounding area, including the rezoned Webster Avenue.

    ReplyDelete

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