The Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, visited St. Vincent DePaul’s Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Longwood on July 16, to help bring attention to the Center’s fight to secure the funding it needs to stay open. The 200-bed facility on Intervale Ave, many of whose residents have lived most of their lives in Hunts Point and Longwood, has been open since 1992, and is 90% Latino. The Archbishop led prayers primarily in Spanish, and told a large gathering of seniors and elected officials he was “more committed than ever” to fighting to keep the center open, telling them, “darn it, this should be where your present and your future is.” Seniors, staff and administrators at St. Vincent nervously await word on whether they will receive $18.3 million in state funding that remains tied up in Albany.
A new initiative hopes to bring the Bronx into the Internet age, providing high speed Internet access to 400,000 households in the borough. The Bronx lags the other boroughs in broadband access to the web, and poor neighborhoods lag wealthier ones. Only 58 percent of Bronx residents have a computer at home compared to more than 70 percent for Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island and more than 65 percent for Brooklyn, according to a study by New York City. Just 38.8 percent of Bronxites have high-speed access. That number drops to 26 percent in Housing Authority buildings. The new plan, put forward by the County Executives of America, faces a number of hurdles. The federal government would have to rewrite regulations and provide $122 million for it to succeed.
The Hunts Point Fish Parade won raves from an upstate newspaper last week. The Register-Star of Hudson, New York, 120 miles upriver from the Bronx, was on hand to feature the participants in the town’s Bindlestiff Family Cirkus’ Spring 2010 Stiltwalking Afterschool Workshop. But it came away impressed with the neighborhood, calling it “the epicenter of an urban revival,” and telling its readers, “Within the last 15 years, there has been a groundswell of of community activism, as residents banded together to make their streets safer from crime, from watchdog groups overseeing industrial development, and petition the waste companies, manufacturers, trucking companies and other polluters to clean up their industries, thus improving the air and quality of life.”
Free modern dance classes for teens will be offered at the Betances Community Center, East 146th Street and St. Ann’s Avenue, from July 15 – August 19. The classes, for boys and girls 13-17 years old, will meet on Thursdays from 6:30-7:45 p.m. Call 212-204-6518 to register and for information.
Hunts Point’s burdens of industry and truck traffic are highlighted in a new video from the Pratt Center for Community Development, as part of the center’s effort to persuade the city to revise the City Charter to spread the the impact of polluting facilities more fairly.
An organization called the Urban Peace Movement is organizing “Silence the Violence Day,” a vigil at the corner of Southern Boulevard and Hunts Point Avenue from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. as part of a nationwide national day of action on July 22.