Bronx Weekend News Roundup, Dec. 13

Welcome back to the program, ladies and gentlemen of the Bronx. A little weekend wrap-up to get you started this week. On to the news!

NY1's Dean Meminger runs through the top Bronx stories of 2010: the Riverdale bombing attempt trial; the the anti-gay attacks attributed by police to the Latin King Goonies; Pedro Espada, Jr.'s trials, tribulations and, finally, primary loss to Gustavo Rivera; a borough-wide rise in violent crime; the deaths of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and announcer Bob Sheppard, as well as Supreme Court Justice Burton Roberts.

Police have made an arrest in the shooting of an off-duty police detective early Sunday morning in the Bronx's Pelham Bay neighborhood. The detective, Richard Olmo, 43, was apparently trying in a dispute -- over a minor fender bender or parking too close to another vehicle -- outside of the Pelham Bay Diner when someone pulled out a gun and shot him in the backside. Olmo was released from Jacobi Hospital this morning.

Award-winning Latin jazz musician Arturo O'Farrill is teaching the next generation of Latin jazz artists at the Urban Assembly Bronx Studio School for Writers and Artists. Great Bronx quote from the Daily News article: "The Bronx is what's left of the New York I grew up with - of policemen and teachers - of real working people," O'Farrill said.

On Friday, a Bronx judge ordered LNR Property Corp. -- the realty group that is overseeing 10 dilapidated Bronx apartment buildings that were bought and then abandoned by Milbank Real Estate -- to cough up $2.5 million for repairs. The judge ordered the repair work in September, but issued a stay as LNR shopped the mortgages for the properties over the last few months. The City Council recently estimated that it would cost more than $26.6 million to fully rehab the buildings.

As part of its Neediest Cases series, the Times looks at a Burmese family making its way in the Bronx's West Farms area.

With poverty and unemployment rising, some say the Bronx'sCommunity Board 7 could have used the minimum wage jobs that would have come with a new mall inside the Kingsbridge Armory. But the mall plan was killed in the City Council a year ago.

A couple that met in the Bronx and almost married here was reunited more than four decades later, thanks to Facebook.

An NYU study breaks down the city's Dominican population, 40% of which lives in the Bronx.

A couple of Pedro Espada stories as the state senator continues to stay away from Albany during his final weeks in office:

The Post says he's still collecting a pay check from his network of nonprofit health clinics, which Attorney General Andrew Cuomo accused him of using as his "personal piggy bank." (This isn't really news, we knew he was still getting paid from the health clinics, but it remains unclear how much compensation Espada's receiving because he hasn't been listed on the nonprofit's last three tax forms. A source says criminal charges for Espada could come as soon as next month.)

And, finally, Albany Times-Union political bureau chief Casey Seiler says goodbye to absentee Espada in an opinion piece. At the end, he captures Espada in a good mood, reveling in the chaos he caused during the now infamous state senate "coup" of 2009. 

Ed. note: Start a discussion about any of these stories, or anything else you want to talk about in our forum. Highlight problems in your neighborhood with our SeeClickFix feature. And find out what's happening in our constantly-updated events calendar.

Awaiting the 2010 Census: An End of the Year Demographic Teaser!

I know things are slow in the West Bronx news-wise, so in addition to Jordan's editorial request, here's an end of the year treat for all of you data-geeks like me:

The Census Bureau, in addition to gearing up for 2010, has been keeping busy all decade long with the American Community Survey which tracks smaller samples of the population in various geographies. Because of the small sample size, much of the data isn’t so reliable, and for New York City, there isn’t much below the county level. Recently, the Census’s American Fact Finder website has released 3-year estimates for 2005-2007. While the data isn’t quite as current as the 2007 ACS, it has a much larger sample size than the one year ACS and should be considered more reliable (although still nowhere close to the decennial census).

I took a quick look at some of the data on immigration to uncover certain trends to expect in 2010, and to verify some of what we see in our neighborhoods everyday. Overall, the foreign-born population in the Bronx is estimated to have jumped 12.5% since 2000 from 385,827 to 434,251. Foreign-born residents now likely comprise 31.7% of the borough’s population, up from 29.0% in 2000. Citywide, the Bronx now is estimated to have 14.3% of all foreign born residents, up from 13.4% in 2000.

Where are the big changes coming from? Counteracting drop-offs in the Irish- and Yugoslavian-born populations are dramatic increases in West African, Dominican and Mexican populations (no big surprises here). Almost half of the 60,500 West African-born NYC residents live in the Bronx, including 63% of those born in Ghana (estimates show about 12,600 Ghanaian-born Bronx residents).

In 2000, Manhattan still had more Dominican-born residents than the Bronx, but there is little doubt that this is still the case. Estimates show the Dominican-born population in the Bronx has grown from 124,000 in 2000 to nearly 140,000 in recent years, while Manhattan’s share has dropped from 125,000 to 109,000 (many fleeing the rapidly rising rents in upper Manhattan). About 39% of all NYC residents born in the D.R. live in the Bronx.

It comes as little surprise that the Mexican-born population in the Bronx has grown dramatically. In fact, estimates show it has virtually doubled since 2000 to over 38,000. The overall number of Central American-born Bronx residents has shot up a third from 46,000 to nearly 62,000, or about 22% of the City’s total.

The Bangladeshi-born population has also swelled from about 4,000 to an estimated 7,500. In addition, the relatively small Middle Eastern-born community (referred to on the Census as Western Asia) has grown 75% from 2,250 to almost 4,000.

Feel free to post any questions about this data or a specific question about a country I didn’t mention. Happy New Year, everyone!

Update
I posted this in the comment section based on a question about changes in the Puerto Rican population:

I was able to pull out corresponding tables from 2000 and the 2005-2007 ACS estimates called "HISPANIC OR LATINO ORIGIN BY SPECIFIC ORIGIN" which shows us what people are identifying as (as opposed to where they were born). According to these data sets, the Bronx had a net gain of 215 residents who identified as Puerto Rican. As a percentage of total residents this is a drop of .6%, and as a percentage of all Latinos, this is a drop of 3.6%. Across the five boroughs, Manhattan and Brooklyn lost 2,500 and 10,300 Puerto Ricans respectively, while Queens and Staten Island gained 2,500 and 6,900 respectively. Obviously, the biggest changes are in Brooklyn and Staten Island, the latter of which increased its self-identifying Puerto Rican population by nearly 25%.

Overall there was a net loss of 3,323 Puerto Ricans in NYC, while the surrounding counties (Fairfield in CT, Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Middlesex, Morris, Passaic and Union in NJ, and Dutchess, Nassau, Orange, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester in NY) picked up about 20,000. Westchester had the biggest numerical increase at close to 7,000 (similar to the increase in Staten Island) while Morris, Bergen and Orange counties has the largest percentage increases.

From another angle, Puerto Ricans comprise a smaller share of all Latinos in virtually every county since 2000 -- the exceptions being Morris County NJ and Manhattan, where it's simply a case of other Latinos leaving faster than Puerto Ricans. The biggest estimated growth among Latino groups in the Bronx? In order: Domincans +80,772, Mexicans +27,216, Ecuadorians +10,415, and Hondurans +6,877.

Any other questions?

No Surprise Here: Bronx Picks Up Most Manhattanites Since 2001

Opinion from Guest-Blogger Gregory Lobo Jost

The IRS has recently released data on net-migration between Manhattan and the outer boroughs, confirming demographic trends we're familiar with: the Bronx is the largest recipient of folks moving out of Manhattan (a net gain of almost 24,000 between 2001 and 2006). Of course, the press (the original article on the Observer and a follow-up blog post on Gothamist) has mostly missed the point, thinking of the trend in relation to the record sale price averages being recorded in Manhattan.

Sure, there are a number of wealthy families moving to Riverdale, but that number would never compete with the number of well-off moving to Brooklyn.

As most West Bronx Blog readers know, the largest influx of Manhattanites into the Bronx are lower income, working class families (often Domincan) from Washington Heights, Inwood, Harlem and East Harlem. 2005 Census data showed the Bronx was the only borough that incoming households from other NY counties made less than those already living here.

Of course, as some of those who've posted on Gothamist have mentioned, the Bronx is barely affordable to these new-comers, as well. It's all part of a larger affordability crisis New York City is experiencing.

Finally, on an unrelated note, the Riverdale Press has a great editorial on water rates.

More and More Dominicans Coming from the Island of.... Manhattan!

Regarding the Daily News story on the increase in the Dominican population in the Bronx(mentioned in the previous post), one point that bears emphasis is that much of the influx is not coming only from the Island of Hispañola, but also from the north end of the Island of Manhattan.

"Dominicans are coming not only from their native island, but from Washington Heights, a longtime Dominican enclave. 'In a few years from now, there's not going to be a Washington Heights,' said David Medina, regional manager at Health Plus, a yearly sponsor of the Grand Dominican Parade. 'Everyone's moving here to the Bronx.'

In mentioning that "foreign-born Dominicans are among the poorest groups in the Bronx," the article reinforces the notion that (contrary to what the New York Times Real Estate section wants you to believe) the vast majority of people moving to the Bronx are low-income. Instead of "the gentrification of the South Bronx" or young wealthy Manhattanites moving to the west Bronx corridor, it's poor families from Washington Heights, East Harlem and other gentrifying neighborhoods who are being forced into the Bronx; the thousands of Dominicans moving to the Bronx is an excellent example of this real trend.

(By the way, if you want to see actual demographic evidence against the gentrification of the Bronx, check out the second chart on page 14 of the UNHP report on Shrinking Affordability.)

News Roundup for July 24

The NY Times City Room blog looks at the city's continued practice of hiring emergency housing providers without contracts. The substandard conditions many Bronx families have been placed in were documented in a June Highbridge Horizon story.

The Daily News reports that Dominicans are the fastest growing group in the Bronx, increasing their numbers from 133,000 in the 2000 census to 200,000 in 2005.

Another Daily News story announces that Community Board 8 (Riverdale and Kingsbridge) has hired a local activist and former mayoral staff person as its district manager. CB7 has just begun its search for a new manager.

NY1 reports on the Straphangers Campaign's Annual State of the Subways report, which named the 1 train the best in the city. The MTA plans to buy 620 more trains to replace the ones that break down a lot.

And there's lots of coverage of the event yesterday at 1520 Sedgwick demanding it be granted landmark status as the birthplace of hip hop. Here's the Newsday story.