Saturday, March 18, 2006
Now Booming, Not Burning, the Bronx Fears a Downside
Now Booming, Not Burning, the Bronx Fears a Downside
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: March 19, 2006
For decades, the area known as the Hub has been the retail heart of the South Bronx, attracting throngs of people to its small family-owned stores even as the residential blocks around it were ravaged by crime and, at times, consumed by flames.
But now, those who have kept this scrappy shopping district alive are worried, and the source of their fears is not robbers or arsonists, but development. A long-vacant lot is the planned home of a major shopping center that will include national chain stores like Staples, Forman Mills and Rite-Aid. Their impending arrival has caused as much apprehension as happiness.
"We have to watch out for the mom-and-pop stores," said George Rodriguez, chairman of the local community board, who for years has sought to bring national retailers to the area. "They did not move out, they did not capitulate. They served the clients in the area."
And the Hub is just the heart of it. A few decades after it became a national symbol of urban decay, the Bronx is home to a rash of new construction projects that are changing neighborhoods that have seen little new building in half a century. Many residents are uneasy.
Hmm. In Robert Caro's The Power Broker (a biography of Robert Moses, a man that held many New York City and State offices for over 50 years of the 20th Century), Caro strongly implied that the Bronx was forever ruined thanks to the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway (I-95) - a project that Moses was in charge of.
Maybe not?
Note that I even though I consider The Power Broker to be deeply flawed in many ways, it's still worth reading. Just take a lot of it (especially the chapters dealing with the post-World War II years of Moses' career) with a grain of salt.
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: March 19, 2006
For decades, the area known as the Hub has been the retail heart of the South Bronx, attracting throngs of people to its small family-owned stores even as the residential blocks around it were ravaged by crime and, at times, consumed by flames.
But now, those who have kept this scrappy shopping district alive are worried, and the source of their fears is not robbers or arsonists, but development. A long-vacant lot is the planned home of a major shopping center that will include national chain stores like Staples, Forman Mills and Rite-Aid. Their impending arrival has caused as much apprehension as happiness.
"We have to watch out for the mom-and-pop stores," said George Rodriguez, chairman of the local community board, who for years has sought to bring national retailers to the area. "They did not move out, they did not capitulate. They served the clients in the area."
And the Hub is just the heart of it. A few decades after it became a national symbol of urban decay, the Bronx is home to a rash of new construction projects that are changing neighborhoods that have seen little new building in half a century. Many residents are uneasy.
Hmm. In Robert Caro's The Power Broker (a biography of Robert Moses, a man that held many New York City and State offices for over 50 years of the 20th Century), Caro strongly implied that the Bronx was forever ruined thanks to the construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway (I-95) - a project that Moses was in charge of.
Maybe not?
Note that I even though I consider The Power Broker to be deeply flawed in many ways, it's still worth reading. Just take a lot of it (especially the chapters dealing with the post-World War II years of Moses' career) with a grain of salt.
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