Group Plans Massive Housing Complex for West Farms Road

Editor's Note: This story first appeared in the latest issue of the Tremont Tribune, out now.

A development group is proposing to build a series of high-rise apartment buildings and retail shops in West Farms and Crotona Park East, in what the city is calling one of the largest private rezoning projects undertaken in the Bronx for several decades.

Signature Urban Properties, a real estate group headed by former New York City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, purchased the five-acre site, which runs along West Farms Road and the Sheridan Expressway and north and south of the Cross Bronx Expressway.

The group has requested that the city rezone the 11-block area to allow for residential development in order to construct 10 buildings, each approximately 15 stories high made up of 1,325 apartment units, 663 of which would be affordable housing.

Bronx News Roundup Oct. 27

Contrary to what Sarah Palin believes, not all “real” American heroes live in small-towns, argues Mike Lupica, in his Daily News column. Lupica points to Deon Taylor, who grew up and lived in the Bronx while working as a narcotics officer in Brooklyn. Taylor, 30, served and tragically died for his country, killed by a road-side bomb last Wednesday while stationed in Afghanistan. He is remembered as someone who “fought for our city as a policeman and then went off to fight for our country.”

In their “Living In” section, The New York Times explores Crotona Park East. Known as the “worst slum” in the 1970s, Crotona is now the site of many new real estate projects, including Intervale Green and Louis Nine House, which will be open for rent next month. Restoration projects for Crotona Park and Indian Lake are also underway. For those interested in settling in the area, Times provides a digest of the local schools, public transit, grocery stores, and cost of living.

Jason Neal, 33, from the Bronx was found guilty of transporting narcotics across the country and of possession of a firearm. He faces a life sentence.

Police are searching for a man in his 20s or 30s, around 5’6”, suspected to have robbed three banks in a five month period.

Two Bronx men were arrested for allegedly kidnapping a 24-year-old woman in Yonkers yesterday. The woman, also from the Bronx, went to meet a man she had met on the internet at her friend’s house in Yonkers. The man forced her at gunpoint into a car where another man was waiting, and they drove off. Police say the woman was not harmed.

SUNY Canton student, Matthew W. Rivera, from the Bronx, was stabbed several times Sunday night while heading to the movies to watch “Saw V” with a large group of students. Jevaughn Francis, 17, also from the Bronx, was charged with the stabbing and three others are suspected to have been involved. Rivera was taken to Canton-Potsdam Hospital and is said to be in stable condition.