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The South Bronx: From Rags To Million Dollar Piano District .

 

The Bronx has a rich cultural history and is home to some of the most vibrant communities in the City.it went under rapid growth during the turn of the twentieth century, as it residential development boomed and subway lines extended further South in the Bronx, making travelling to and from the inner borough of Manhattan more accessible. Thousands of Irish, Italian, French, German, Polish and Jamigrants left the bronx  and either migrated further South in the Bronx or left the borough entirely, leaving behind mostly Hispanic and African Aican populations. Essentially, the South Bronx went from being two-thirds non-Hispanic in 1950, to two-thirds black or Puerto Rican in 1960. While issues of poverty, crime,  unemployment are not unique to the bronx The Mott Haven area of the Bronx has caught the eye of property developers and businessmen, with film studio springing in the waterfront warehouses, and companies specialising in loft apartments snapping up land.

 According to the 2015 BCD1  (Bronx Community District 1) Community Health profile, 72% of our community is Hispanic, 25% is Black and 2% is White. What’s more, 28% of our community is foreign born and 36% have limited English proficiency, and while some may say that the borough is not ready for major gentrification, developers argue that water front land of the mott heaven  has great potential for real estate opportunities, on the other hand  The South Bronx is, and has a history of being, one of the poorest neighborhoods in NYC. Crime, and drugs  in the borough is at a high compared to others . “We’re seeing more cameras faster — and more borough equity,” said Deputy Commissioner Phil Walzak, the NYPD’s top spokesman, and effort to ensure the public the the police is active in lowering the stats as written by The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/nyregion/bronx-heroin-fentanyl-opioid-overdoses.html .

According to https://datausa.io/profile/geo/bronx-county-ny the bronx has a median household income 10% of what some of the new propose apartment developments in the borough would cost. Owning one of these apartments will set you back 20-30% downpayment, not many of the renter in the bronx can become owners, I say this is the introduction to gentrification . Gentrification is a term used to describe what happens when lower-income neighborhoods receive massive levels of new investment, adding amenities, raising home values and bringing in new upper-income residents. This can lead to cultural displacement, when members of a racial or ethnic group who were longtime residents of gentrified neighborhoods are pushed out. The map shows some of the propose construction sites for the developments along the waterline, and the Group.

The Chetrit Group and Somerset Partners, the developers behind the Piano District and Port Morris waterfront development to bring thousands of market-rate luxury housing to the South Bronx, have sold their development for $165 million to Brookfield Properties according to The New York Post. This is the single most expensive transaction for a development site in Bronx history according to property records, and websites. With property values rising, a lot of the culture and bronx natives will be pushed out of the sll ready known “Lost Borough” , at least thats what some fear, and what studies have shown happens when gentrification happens.According to the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/14/realestate/the-bronx-is-great-thonx.html it is  being called the new Brooklyn, and it has many local residents fearing for their displacement, as they sit hopelessly while their borough gets auctioned off Piece By Piece.

 In my experience i was born and raised in the bronx, and i plan on getting a piece of this auction. Myself  and many local bronx residents should be invested in the borough that we call home for decades personally  I don’t  believe in displacement of locals  because they are the culture and the blueprint when listening to the narrative , and ideology of a community .  The say this is the new piano district, and i say we are the ones that hold the true keys . When you ask a bronx native if they are aware of the proposed “Piano District”, many are unaware.

 Bibliography :

CityRealty Staff. “Deegan Towers: New 25-story buildings on the South Bronx waterfront top out construction.” Future New York. October 17, 2019. https://www.cityrealty.com/nyc/market-insight/features/future-nyc/deegan-towers-new-25-story-buildings-south-bronx-waterfront-top-out-construction/16384

Small, Eddie. “This is what Brookfield’s South Bronx Megaproject Will Look Like.” TRD New York. https://therealdeal.com/2019/11/21/heres-what-brookfields-massive-south-bronx-project-will-look-like/ 

 

My map is based on the garbage that can be seen in the ocean, landfills, and recycling plants and the amount of pollution all around New York City. Usually people throw their trash in trash cans and do not really think about where it is going or what happens to it as sanitation workers remove the garbage from the trash cans and it gets hauled off to either recycling plants, landfills or some of it like plastic ends up in the ocean and marine wildlife mistake it for food and even get tangled in it causing some loss in marine life or  gets washed up at the beach causing it to be covered in trash. When I was young I always believed that our garbage ended up in a recycling plant and never thought of or knew what a landfill is for such a long time until I learned about what it is. I thought that it was not good for the environment until I learned that the point of landfills is to isolate waste from its surrounding environment, preventing water contamination and stop contact with the air, which was not true, while the garbage decomposes in the landfill. But there are also dangers in placing garbage into landfills which affects the air and water by polluting it which causes a lot of problems for our health. People used to think that the trash they threw out mostly went to recycling plants and landfills but recently for a while it was discovered that it was found in streets, in the beach, in the oceans and was even buried in landfills that resulted in causing the pollution of air and water which, in turn causes various respiratory diseases and other dangerous health effects as dangerous contaminants from it causes it to be absorbed into the lungs and different parts of the body. This is caused by our decision to throw our stuff to the floor, spit on the floor without cleaning any of it up even when they are confronted to do so and even ignore when asked to clean up their mess. Recycling Garbage is a necessary part of life as it causes less pollution and saves up the used material to be reused again for the future and helps the economy greatly while cleaning up the rest of the trash that is left everywhere. According to What are the benefits of Recycling? “ Scrap cars, old bottles, junk mail and used rubber tires are becoming common features of our landfills. All of these may seem endless, but the resources required to make them are finishing off quickly. Recycling allows all of these junk items to be used over and over again so that new resources do not have to be exploited. It conserves natural resources such as water, minerals, coal, oil, gas and timber”(Rinkesh,https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/benefits-of-recycling.php).In other words, What are the benefits of Recycling are stating that recycling allows for less waste and saving more needed resources to better the planet and that they are able to lessen the amount of garbage by reusing the material. I agree with them and the reason why is that on certain products they will have a label with all the information about it and sometimes say that the product uses reused material and some trash is being cleaned up in New York. But although they made a claim that most of the recycled garbage is reused this is not the case as not all are actually recycled as some of the material is degraded from the amount every time the item is recycled and is being wasted which causes more unused material to be wasted. But what is true is that it gives more job opportunities to those that need it and more money to the workers. According to What are the benefits of Recycling “ While you may feel that recycling is each person for himself, in reality it is a huge industry within itself. After you do the basic sorting out and deposit your trash for recycling, it has to be sorted and shipped off to the right places…Certainly, one of the major benefits of recycling is that it creates more jobs in the community and provides stability to the entire process. Throwing the trash away creates some six to seven jobs at best, where recycling can help create close to thirty jobs”(Rinkesh,https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/benefits-of-recycling.php).They are right about the increased jobs in recycling plants as The U.S scrap industry generated over 150,000 direct jobs and over 323,000 indirect jobs in 2015, US recycling industry employed 1.25 million workers while the US solid waste management industry only hired 0.25 million workers, but my view, however, contrary to what they have argued, is that sometimes something will go wrong in the workplace and can lead to injuries and fines for it, it can cause workers to leave or quit and would not want to be hired at all and the business can start to lose money which in turn causes the businesses to close and become bankrupt. This can also affect the economy by causing less jobs in the recycling station and even less pay, this leads to worker stress and workplace problems and more job loss. The impacts of the Recycling Center and Landfills is that it can lead to health problems because of faulty equipment or from the pollution in the air which leads to people to complain about the environment and the measures that are not being put in place. This will start to get worse as we in the future will not be able to keep this in check and our planet will become inhabitable. According to Garbage Pollution, Causes, Effects and Solutions “Garbage pollution arises when the waste collected in dumping sites keeps rotting, spreading odor and cause air pollution in the surrounding areas…It is often seen that waste including inorganic material such as iron cans, paper, plastic, glass pieces, or leftover food, animal bones, vegetable peels etc. are dumped in the open”(Sujeet Kumar https://www.indiacelebrating.com/environmental-issues/garbage-pollution/). What makes Sujeet Kumar right in his claims is that the trash is piling up and it is making it difficult for people to lead normal lives as pollution has more of an effect on us causing us to develop more problems in life.  According to Garbage Pollution: Causes, Effects and Solutions “In our country, the cities are getting reduced to dumping grounds of waste. Garbage is present everywhere in some form or the other whether there is a village or a city, a temple or a mosque. This problem has been increasing since the last nearly three decades, leading to health issues and degradation of the environment. Today we are victims of many types of waste including domestic, agricultural and industrial waste…The rest either accumulates in the fields or in the streets and in the end, during the rainy season; it reaches the oceans through rivers”(Sujeet Kumar https://www.indiacelebrating.com/environmental-issues/garbage-pollution/ )Although others may say that with the Recycling plants and Landfills, the planet is much more cleaner and safer due to less strain from pollution and reusing of materials to save leftover unused material. However this is not the case as this map below shows the areas where the waste is most common at.

Image result for (https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2014/02/06/map-where-are-the-trashiest-new-yorkers/).

(https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2014/02/06/map-where-are-the-trashiest-new-yorkers/).

This picture I took a while ago shows how much as humans, we use our resources very quickly and make a mess of things. This was taken near my High School and it was actually cleaned up just over a month and a half ago as a month and three weeks ago it was actually worse.

To summarize, these are the reasons how waste  in the ocean, landfills, and Recycling plants cause lots of pollution all around New York and the fact that some of our health problems come from waste pollution.

 

Caroline Gonzalez

English 110

A trip without the kids 

There aren’t a lot of public clinics that can offer sex health information and services in NYC. Planned Parenthood opens the door to many patients who need this type of primary health services for the public. However, there are very few clinics of Planned Parenthood in NYC. In fact there are only 4 locations across all 5 boroughs, 1 is located in the lower east side of Manhattan and the one location in Brooklyn. The Bronx, Queens and Staten Island also only have one Planned Parenthood in their whole entire borough. Women in low income areas benefit from this services and it would benefit them to have more locations in NYC because it can help reduce unwanted pregnancies, STI, etc. It also creates a long waiting list for people who want to use the resources that Planned Parenthood provides when there aren’t many locations available. 

Impoverish clinic 

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care provider. Planned Parenthood receives federal funding to help practice the services they provide, although some groups of people believe that funding this organization is wrong. Some may argue that having Planned Parenthood clinics open is unnecessary since there are other options for seeking primary care. However, more than half of Planned Parenthood clinics are found more in underserved communities. Planned Parenthood should have more funding and have more clinics available in low income areas like in The Bronx. 

It is argued that Planned Parenthood is not necessarily the only option there is to seek for primary seaxual health. According to The Susan B Blog, “ women have other options for seeking primary care, contraception, STI testing and cancer screening. According to the Chiaroscuro Foundation, “in addition to the tends of tens of thousands of U.S doctors and hospitals providing this care, there were 1,048 federally qualified health centers in the U.S.” This argument shows that it is not necessary to have Planned Parenthood clinics open because there are so many other public spaces that can provide the same sources as Planned Parenthood. However, Planned Parenthood helps low income patients who don’t have insurance and provide lower cost procedures compared to state funded clinics. 

Planned Parenthood is located in a lot of rural areas and communities that doesn’t provide birth control. According to I Stand with Planned Parenthood,  “ nearly one-third of all women in need of publicly funded birth control live in counties where Planned Parenthood is the primary safety-net health care provider.” This can demonstrate that people who are in poor communities and in rural areas can rely more for access to primary care through Planned Parenthood because more than half of Planned Parenthood’s health centers are in rural and underserved communities.

I believe that there should be more Planned Parenthood clinics available in low-income communities like The Bronx. The Bronx only has one Planned Parenthood in its entire borough. Even though there are other clinics that can be found that also provides the same sources as Planned Parenthood, it’s not always guaranteed to be free of charge or have a reduced fee if the patient doesn’t have medical insurance. Planned Parenthood says, “patients find that Planned Parenthood health care fees are very reasonable, especially when compared to other doctors’ offices.” This makes it more of an affordable option for patients who don’t have legal documentation and want to look for a primary care. 


There aren’t a lot of public clinics that can offer sex health information and services in NYC. Planned Parenthood opens the door to many patients who need this type of primary health services for the public. However, there are very few clinics of Planned Parenthood in NYC. In fact there are only 4 locations across all 5 boroughs, 1 is located in the lower east side of Manhattan and the one location in Brooklyn. The Bronx, Queens and Staten Island also only have one Planned Parenthood in their whole entire borough. Women in low income areas benefit from this services and it would benefit them to have more locations in NYC because it can help reduce unwanted pregnancies, STI, etc. It also creates a long waiting list for people who want to use the resources that Planned Parenthood provides when there aren’t many locations available. 

This is The Bronx’ Planned Parenthood location. As you can see from this image, this clinic has a shared space with other offices in this building. There is also no sign that there is a Planned Parenthood clinic inside this building. This shows that Planned Parenthood is low funded especially in low income areas like The Bronx making the clinics difficult to be recognizable for people who don’t know where the clinic is. With this location being in the south Bronx, it helps a lot of people who are low income or don’t have insurance. 

Ultimately, what is at stake here is that people in low income areas don’t have enough resources or many options to have a choice over their bodies. This can result in a higher teen pregnancy rates in poor communities, pointing to the fact that The Bronx has the highest pregnancy rate in all NYC. If Planned Parenthood is more funded then more people are going to have the option to make a choice for their bodies in a more affordable way. 

Works Cited: 

 

Jedidiah Lopez
Professor Michael
Eng 110
11-15-19

The topic for my map that I will be doing is about homelessness in the Bronx. The reason why I wanted to do this is not only because I live in the Bronx but every time I come home from work I would always see and notice homeless people laying down on the street asking for money. I would always think of how they got in that position, was it lack of not paying for bills?/health problems?/ or maybe some other personal problems. I remember one time I was discussing this with one of my friends and he said that being homeless was a choice this spoke for me to explore the reasons/circumstances that lead to homelessness in the Bronx. When it comes to the topic of homeless, most of us will readily agree that seeing people living in poverty is sad we feel pity for them. When this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of it being a concern for society. Whereas some are convinced that homelessness is a product and it results from circumstances beyond an individual’s control. Society needs to acknowledge that they are the only ones that can help the homeless which is why this is being presented to you. The bronx has up to 1.3 million people living in it and half of that, 50% are homeless and/or struggling to keep up with the bills. This issue is to the people specifically in my borough because I live here and I know I can relate because we see homelessness at least once a day, whether it is on the bus, train or even on the street. Although homelessness is a major issue because some people think it is a choice but reality along with data and facts says it’s due to some factors such as mental health, personal problems or being in debt. Consequently, this should be a concern but I want people to see the viewpoint that being homeless is not a choice and figure out why and to try to prevent it. An example of how homelessness live on a day to day basis is shown: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHDkALRz5Rk)
Nowadays in society the topic of homelessness is not a major concern because people do not seem to notice and automatically assume it is a choice rather looking at the factors that can cause it such as being in debt or mental problems. According to the article “Changes in daily substance use among people experiencing homelessness and mental illness: 24-month outcomes following randomization to Housing First or usual care” it talks about some factors that affect people to the point so much that it brings them down and eventually they are homeless. In Julian M. Somers, Akm Moniruzzaman & Anita Palepu views they state, “Substance-related disorders are the most common psychiatric conditions among people who are homeless, and are associated with elevated risk for chronic homelessness, infectious diseases and mortality.” This is what happens to people when they become homeless, they get diseases, disorders due to the fact that they are homeless. Once people end up being homeless it can have a devastating effect on them. For instance another article called “ Mastery matters: consumer choice, psychiatric symptoms and problematic substance use among adults with histories of homelessness” talks about the problems of the homeless, what to do to survive and I can’t help to think after reading this that people still think being homeless is a choice, they are struggling with society as is and are trying to get out of the hole. The author Ronni Michelle Greenwood states “Indeed, individuals with histories of homelessness do have higher rates of trauma, victimization (e.g. Goodman et al. 1991, Stewart et al. 2004) and physical illness (Hwang 2001) than the general population.” This means that homelessness can affect the person even after they get out of being homeless which can have an impact for them during their lifetime. The way homeless starts can be troubling. For instance the article “Why Are People Homeless?” mentions, “ERODING WORK OPPORTUNITIES Reasons why homelessness persists include stagnant or falling incomes and less secure jobs which offer fewer benefits. Low-wage workers have been particularly have been left behind as the disparity between rich and poor has mushroomed.” This is just one of the ways people get fired and then become homeless, it is not their choice to b e fired.

People need to reconsider the options and think about the topic: Homelessness and need to understand that it is a major issue in today’s society and see that it is not a choice, here are just some ways people do not choose to be homeless. Another way people become homeless the article explains is housing. When the apartments go up it cause people to move out therefore hard to just move out of the home so unexpectedly.  However, many mentally ill homeless people are unable to obtain access to supportive housing and/or other treatment services. The mental health support services most needed include case management, housing, and treatment. it shows the data that was collected from previous year. To start off, the article “ Why are people homeless?” says “A lack of affordable housing and the limited scale of housing assistance programs have contributed to the current housing crisis and to homelessness. According to HUD, in recent years the shortages of affordable housing are most severe for units affordable to renters with extremely low incomes. Federal support for low-income housing has fallen 49% from 1980 to 2003 (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2005). About 200,000 rental housing units are destroyed annually. Renting is one of the most viable options for low income people (Joint Center for Housing Studies).” Housing can cause a major issue due to the fact there is a limit to the housing assisting programs and on top of this the rental housing units get taken out per year. Another way people can become homeless is mental illness. Mental illness is “any disease of the mind, psychological ones”. They can control how you act and why you act like that. The article “Why are people homeless?.” gives more insight. There it says: “Despite the disproportionate number of severely mentally ill people among the homeless population, increases in homelessness are not attributable to the release of severely mentally ill people from institutions. However, many mentally ill homeless people are unable to obtain access to supportive housing and/or other treatment services. The mental health support services most needed include case management, housing, and treatment.”. It is not the people’s fault that they have mental illness rather they need help instead of society pushing them away. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOraK2E58vo) Homelessness can not be a choice and is not a choice. The last two factors that can contribute to homelessness is the lack to afford healthcare and being in a domestic violence with someone. Not being able to have healthcare can lead to major problems such as developing illness therefore not being able to work and thus not being able to pay the rent. With domestic violence when women get into this once they get kicked out it is hard to get back on your feet. In the article “Why are people homeless.?” it states “Lack of Affordable Health Care: For families and individuals struggling to pay the rent, a serious illness or disability can start a downward spiral into homelessness, beginning with a lost job, depletion of savings to pay for care, and eventual eviction. One in three Americans, or 86.7 million people, is uninsured. Of those uninsured, 30.7% are under eighteen. In 2007-2008, four out of five people that were uninsured were working families. Work-based health insurance has become rarer in recent years, especially for workers in the agricultural or service sectors (Families USA, 2009). Domestic Violence: Battered women who live in poverty are often forced to choose between abusive relationships and homelessness. In addition, 50% of the cities surveyed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors identified domestic violence as a primary cause of homelessness (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2005).Approximately 63% of homeless women have experienced domestic violence in their adult lives (Network to End Domestic Violence).” This is the data to show how homelessness can occur and it is not by choice. (https://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-homelessness-new-)
Research has shown that homelessness is caused not by only one factor but by multiple and none of those factors are a choice, rather they just happen not by the people choosing it. This can impact society as is and we need people to see the other perspectives and points of view that this is not chosen for them. The homeless may affect the community which therefore can have a lasting impact on how society runs. There are many myths and assumptions that homeless just “choose” to be homeless but the truth and data shows it is not the truth. I hope this brought a greater understanding and opened a new light for you. (www.understandhomelessness.com)