A few years ago, when Tony James was homeless, he looked for help to the Living Room, a drop-in center then in the BankNote building on Lafayette Avenue. Today, James calls the Living Room a neighborhood nuisance.
Six years ago, Larry Turman was unemployed. Mentally unstable, with a history of homelessness, he relied on the aid of government and nonprofit service agencies. Today, Turman, 57, works full-time in a mailroom. On a recent afternoon, he was racing to meet a deadline for a thousand-letter mailing. “The customer [...]
Under a cloud of uncertainty about its future following the loss last month of its contract with the city, the embattled sewage-to-fertilizer company NYOFCo now faces a new challenge: around-the-clock scrutiny of its odor by an independent team of engineers. But at a public meeting at the Point CDC on [...]
If two former bankers and a master brewer have their way, the Bronx’s first microbrewery will open in the historic Banknote building in Hunts Point this summer. Steve O’Sullivan, Niall Henry and Damian Brown, all under 30, plan to produce six different beers with tongue-in-cheek names, including Riverd(ALE), Mother Hef’n [...]
By Sasha Wortzel sasha.wortzel@gmail.com THE PROVENANCE OF BEAUTY. from Sunder Ganglani on Vimeo. Hunts Point resident John Tyson maintains that the South Bronx is a place to be proud of. He didn’t always feel this way. “The Bronx now is a beautiful place. It’s a nice community,” says Tyson, a [...]
By Jeanmarie Evelly jmevelly@gmail.com When sculptor Albert Bensusen lost his studio in downtown Manhattan 10 years ago, a friend showed him pictures of a studio he’d just rented. “I said, ‘Wow, that’s beautiful. Where is it?’” the spry 79 year-old Bensusen recalled. To his surprise, the loft—with its high, airy [...]
Hunts Point’s historic BankNote building will continue to be home to the the John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy Charter School, at least until 2022. The school, which serves a population of 275 students has extended its lease on the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the Lafayette Avenue building.
Wildcat Academy cooks up a new way to educate By Sendy Tavera Stavera@hunter.cuny.edu Photo by John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy The dining room in the American Bank Note Building. Where much of the world’s money was once produced, today students are cooking and baking, in a charter school designed to [...]
By Emily Taken-Vertz Emtv708@gmail.com Last year, the environmental organization Sustainable South Bronx planted a secret garden on the roof of the sprawling American Banknote building, which covers the better part of the block bounded by Tiffany and Barretto Streets and Garrison and Lafayette Avenues. The rooftop resembles a weedy vacant [...]