With the help of a $1.5 million federal grant, the planners and transportation engineers have been studying the impact modifications or removal of the Sheridan would have on Hunts Point and South Bronx traffic. The study was seen as a sign that the Department of City Planning would back tearing down the highway and replacing it with parks, housing and commercial buildings.

Backers of the long battle over the highway’s future contend that the mile-long Sheridan is underused and the community badly needs the land for other purposes.

The highway’s fate has become an issue in the tug-of-war between New York and New Jersey over the future of the the Hunts Point Terminal Coop Market that supplies fruits and vegetables to restaurants and groceries across the region. The owners of the wholesale firms in the coop who are negotiating to renew their long-term lease with the city have threatened to move across the Hudson if the Sheridan is torn down. They say their trucking fleets need the Sheridan to move food to and from the massive market, which employs 7,000 workers.

At the meeting of the Sheridan Community Working Group at the BankNote Building, city planners said without the Sheridan many trucks from the Market would be forced onto local streets, adding to an already colossal congestion problem, calling that a “fatal flaw” in the proposal to abandon the highway.

While advocates of tearing down the highway have contended that instead of going north from the George Washington Bridge to the Sheridan, trucks could turn south and take the Major Deegan Expressway to the Bruckner Expressway, the planners said the Port Authority had scuttled any hope for that to work. Trucks are not allowed on the lower level of the bridge, and Port Authority officials have insisted the policy will not change, they said.

Those who back tearing the highway down were livid at being left out of the process.

“There’s a whole alternative that hasn’t been considered in spite of all this analysis,” Hunts Point resident Julian Lamb said.

“I can say that it has been considered,” responded Mike Marsico, assistant commissioner of modeling and data analysis for the city’s transportation agency.

Kellie Terry-Sepulveda, executive director of The Point CDC, said the federal grant that supplied the funds the city is using to conduct its study stipulates “a process of engagement was necessary in order to reach the best solution, and I don’t know whether or not that is what we’re seeing here with the Community Working Group. I feel reported to, not engaged.

“The city is not in this alone,” she continued, and added officials should “provide the community an opportunity to look at where they’re heading with your analysis so there can be an exchange.”

The evening before, Produce Market president Matthew D’Arrigo met with Community Board 2 to update residents about negotiations between the Market and the city. D’Arrigo warned owners would be more likely to bolt to New Jersey if the Sheridan were torn down. More than 90 percent of the trucks that serve the Market use the Sheridan, he said.

“I’ll risk angering some people, but I think the de-mapping of the Sheridan is not a highway move, it is a Parks Department [and] housing move under the guise of DOT,” he said.

D’Arrigo said truckers would lose the variety of routes they currently have if the Sheridan is demolished, and that a key backup route would be eliminated.

“I don’t think you’re going to be alleviating traffic by removing the Sheridan, I think you’re going to be exacerbating it,” he said.

But neighborhood advocates said traffic engineers should listen to residents, then go back to the drawing board and reconsider.

“This is why we organize, because of stuff like this,” said Julien Terrell of the Soundview group Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, which wants housing and parks to replace the Sheridan.

“I went through the paperwork—well, there’s three analyses, and there’s one missing,” Terrell said, and added, “We keep talking about trucks, but there are real people who live in these neighborhoods.”

The mayor’s office announced last week it would not announce a final decision on the Sheridan until next year, and did not respond to a request for comment on the delay.

Residents learn about recycling, conservation at annual festival

For the fifth straight year, Bronxites gathered at St. Mary’s Park to celebrate Earth Fest, sharing ideas for innovative ways to green the planet.

Representatives from businesses, community organizations, and city agencies combined on April 21st to promote environmental initiatives, through information kiosks, activities for kids and assorted giveaways at Mott Haven’s biggest park.

Julia Wilson, 6, circled a flagpole several times while trying to decide where to tie a bright orange ribbon, to give flight to a sail made of recycled materials. She settled on a spot she could reach at the bottom of the pole.

“Recycling means cleaning the earth and not leaving garbage around,” she said, standing back to admire the plastic bags and ribbons tethered to it that blew in the wind.

“There’s a lot to learn here,” said Levell Peterkin, 40, who was visiting family in the area. “I was over there and talked to Con Ed, who told me you can change all the light bulbs in your house to these things,” he said, holding up a compact fluorescent light bulb. “I could cut my electricity bill by 40 percent.”

With bright green papers in hand, festival-goers like Peterkin strolled from one table to another listening to vendors peddle their wares. The product vendors stamped the papers, allowing participants to collect prizes based on the number of stamps they’d accumulated.

“It’s fun and free, but you have to work to get the free stuff,” said Rachel Amar, the event’s founder. “It’s a way to incentivize green behavior.”

A crowd swarmed the table that was covered with prizes for most of the afternoon. One volunteer yelled, “Hardcover books, three points. Softcover books, two points. All brand new books, come and get them.” Other prizes included t-shirts, healthy snacks and bottles of lotion.

Nearby, a group of kids played a round of Recycling Olympics, the newest addition to Earth Fest. They competed in a recycling toss, where they had to decide whether an item of garbage went in a blue plastics bin, a green paper pin or a black trash bin.

After playing the game, Natasha Perez, 8, reflected on what she learned.

“Plastic should not go in the paper, because later you can’t recycle,” she said.Across from the games, Jayla Garris, 11, stood on stage singing her rendition of Adele’s “Someone Like You,” as part of the youth talent show that featured spoken-word and musical and dance performances. She said it was her first time at Earth Fest.

“It’s nice of people to throw an event because people don’t usually celebrate the Earth,” she said.

Anna Vincenty, a long-time neighborhood activist who worked for many years for housing advocacy group Nos Quedamos and now works as Congressman Jose E. Serrano’s community liaison, was honored with a 2012 GetGreen Environmental Leadership award.

“There is nothing more important than making sure that today you take advantage of everything that you’re learning,” said Vincenty. “We’ve got to make sure we leave our children and our grandchildren a better place than what we found.”

Superhero Global Man Eco-Avenger also accepted an award for promoting green education to children.

“One of the things I want everybody in this community to understand is we believe in you,” he said. “We are committed to making sure the Bronx gets cleaner and cleaner.”

In the 1950s and ’60s the streets of the South Bronx were brimming with music. The sound of conga drums reverberated between rooftops. Afro-Cuban and jazz rhythms merged with son, mambo and chachacha beats on stoops in Hunts Point, Longwood and Mott Haven to create a new music: salsa.

Renowned percussionists Benny Bonilla, Angel Rodriguez and Bobby Sanabria backed up for legends like Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. 

Now many of the musicians who provided the neighborhood with its contagious backbeat are coming together to help launch The South Bronx Culture Trail at a place that served as a sanctuary for so many of them, the Casita Maria Center for Arts and Education.

“First I practiced at a studio, then the streets and the cuchifritos [smaller venues,]” said Rodriguez.

For Bonilla, who played the congas on Pete Rodriguez’ hit song “I Like it Like That,” and performed with the father of Latin Boogaloo, Joe Cuba, as well as star singer and composer, Cheo Feliciano, Hunts Point was a cradle rich in musical education.

“All my neighbors became stars,” said Bonilla.

Bonilla and Rodriguez lived on Simpson St. in Longwood. Sanabria grew up in the Melrose Projects on Courtlandt Ave. Like many musicians of the era, they spent their afternoons at Casita Maria. It was a safe place for a kid from the South Bronx to hang out. They played stickball together and shared their love of music.

Now, in an effort to showcase the borough’s rich heritage, Casita Maria and Dancing in the Streets, an organization that honors the history of neighborhoods and public spaces through performances, are launching the Culture Trail. The project features a virtual and physical map of musical landmarks, culminating a two-year initiative that has encompassed the gathering, documenting and sharing of historical research and oral histories from the neighborhoods.

A series of concerts, walks, exhibits and other gatherings continues until 2013. An exhibit of 150 photographs by Hunts Point native Ricky Flores opened the series on April 26th.

Marta Rivera, Casita’s programs director, said that by bringing back Casita alumni and creating an archive of the South Bronx musical history, the new project cements a legacy.

“We want to attract tourism as well,” Rivera said. It is important to let people know that “the Bronx can be visited. This is a thriving community.”

The trail is also “celebrating the community that nurtured the music the Bronx helped create,” said Aviva Davidson, director of Dancing in the Streets. Local residents are encouraged to enhance the map, by adding places where Latin stars played, practiced and lived.

One such site was Manny Oquendo’s Conjunto Libre headquarters at 972-976 Kelly Street: “A university for many important local musicians – Andy Gonzalez, Dave Valentin, Papo Vazquez, Steve Turré, Jimmy Bosch, Oscar Hernández, Willie Rodríguez,” according to Elena Martinez, producer of From Mambo to Hip Hop, a film on the South Bronx’s musical legacy.

Another site on the trail is P.S 52, in Longwood, which Rivera called, “a mecca for more than 60 musicians who used to practice there.”

The first phase of the Trail ends in October with a procession of musicians playing the plena, a traditional Puerto Rica drum, through Hunts Point and Longwood streets, where stoops and fire escapes will be transformed into scenes from the Bronx of the 1940s through 1970s.

The procession bridges the old and the new Bronx.

“If there’s no places like Casita, culture dies,” said Angel Rodriguez.

The agency on April 24^th voted down an application submitted by King Oak Corp., which announced in 2010 that it planned to open a topless bar on Oak Point Ave., to be called King of Clubs. The club’s application was turned down in 2011, and again last April. 

When the owners approached Community Board 2 in 2010 requesting a letter of support that would have strengthened their liquor application, the board turned them down, instead opting to send a letter to the Liquor Authority urging authorities to reject the application.

Hunts Point residents, members of Community Board 2 and police from the 41^st Precinct argue the neighborhood’s topless bars significantly increase local violence due to the patrons they attract and drain police resources as more officers are deployed nearer the bars.

In a letter notifying community board members of the agency’s most recent rejection of King of Clubs, district manager Rafael Salamanca wrote “This is a big win for the community, but it must not end here. We as a community must continue to keep the pressure on the NYSLA” to ensure future applications are rejected, Salamanca wrote, and added topless bars are “not in the public interest.”

In addition, State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. has drafted legislation that would require the Liquor Authority to invite community boards to present oral testimony at hearings where liquor license application hearings.

Board members were disappointed when they received news in April the agency had granted a liquor permit to another applicant, Platinum Pleasures, despite residents’ and business’ pleas they reject that application.

In nearby Mott Haven, a string of violence and car break-ins and around Sin City, a topless club on Park Ave., has that community on edge, while police from the 40th Precinct comb the area near the bar in large numbers to combat crime and violence they say has been brought in by the bar.

The city’s Department of Education will close Banana Kelly High School at the end of the current school semester, reinterview faculty for their jobs, hire new teachers to replace those it chooses not to retain, then reopen the school with a new name in the fall.

At a public hearing in Brooklyn on April 26th, the DOE’s Panel for Educational Policy voted 8-4 in favor of the new “turnaround” model many students and faculty at Banana Kelly dreaded. 

Education officials say the move will address the school’s low graduation rates and poor attendance, both of which they contend are among the city’s lowest. Banana Kelly was among 24 schools across the city the DOE considered for the close-and-reopen model.

Bronx representative Wilfredo Pagan was one of the four panelists who dissented from the majority decision, telling his colleagues on the panel and an angry, vocal public the turnaround model was confusing to parents and students.

“I don’t want to continue to be part of a process that will continue to break down our system,” he explained to the panel, adding, “while we’re doing this, families are just trying to survive and some of them are just giving up.”

Schools chancellor Dennis Wolcott defended the turnaround model, saying “it’s a great opportunity for a school to re-identify itself with a new mission, and a new name.”

Sensing the inevitable but hoping for a different outcome, some 50 students, teachers and union representatives faced off against a DOE official in Banana Kelly’s cafeteria on April 4th, to argue the agency should scrap its proposal at the time.

Students, and teachers and their union argued closing and reopening Banana Kelly unfairly pins the blame for the school’s failures on teachers who have worked tirelessly with tough-to-reach kids from poor communities.

The city threatened to close Banana Kelly at the end of the 2011 school year, but later opted not to, instead replacing the school’s long-time principal and other staff last fall.

“I don’t understand why this is happening,” junior Osiris Zavala told the DOE official at the April 4th meeting. “You’re blaming the teachers. It’s not fair to the students who are actually trying.”

“It’s a shame. We have no control over our school,” she said.

Junior Edward Bonner said he was a lost, confused kid when he enrolled at Banana Kelly, but teachers have helped him grow up. Bonner argued the new administration, however, is obsessed with preparing students for the Regents exam, to students’ detriment.

“My first year here, I didn’t want to be here, I just wanted to stay home,” Bonner said. “To think you would change the whole staff and the students would fall in line—how, how do you know that?” he asked angrily, adding that learning to memorize in order to “pass the stupid test” is an overly limited way of measuring students’ abilities.

Shael Suransky, the Senior Deputy Schools Chancellor, told the angry group that the change is necessary to improve education at Banana Kelly, and the name-change would help symbolize the school’s new identity and direction. The school’s 77 percent attendance rate and its 55 percent graduation rate are among the city’s lowest, he said.“Those were the voices that were not heard tonight,” Suransky, a former principal at Bronx International High School in Morrisania, told the plan’s detractors. “We do not want to see so many kids lost along the way.”

“The point of this proposal is to strengthen what’s going on here,” he said.

Suransky said reports the school must replace half of its teachers in order to qualify for $800,000 in federal funding are inaccurate. Teachers will be reinterviewed, he confirmed, but there is no formula dictating how many will be retained or replaced, and, he added, “there will be many elements of Banana Kelly incorporated into the new school.” Principal Antonio Arocho, who was named to run the school last fall, will stay on.

Teachers were unimpressed with the DOE representative’s assurances.

“The community connection we have at this school will die if the staff leaves,” said English teacher Lauren Fardig, who added that resources at the school are being mismanaged, and charter schools that are increasingly replacing the city’s public schools “don’t take difficult students.”

“When will the DOE truly look to meet the needs of these underserved students?” she asked.

Award-winning science teacher Nick Vitale argued the city’s frequent changes have gradually broken teachers’ and students’ spirits during his 12-year stint at Banana Kelly.

“It seems every decision that’s been made has been made by people who don’t know the school,” he said. “Every decision has made it harder to work here.”