The Week in Rewind spotlights some of the editorial work of the Bronx Times for the week of Aug. 21- Aug. 25. Compiled by Camille Botello.
Bruckner rezoning opponents appeal judge’s decision
The challengers of the Bruckner Boulevard rezoning are appealing a Bronx Supreme Court judge’s decision to dismiss their lawsuit, prolonging a legal battle that could drag into next year.
Buffalo-based land use attorney Richard Lippes filed a lawsuit against the city on Feb. 13 on behalf of a group of Throggs Neck residents against the contentious rezoning, arguing that the environmental review process wasn’t properly conducted. The project, which was approved in October 2022, is slated to bring nearly 350 apartments to the low-density East Bronx neighborhood.
Nathan Taylor, senior counsel for the city’s environmental law division, argued that the case should be dismissed because Lippes did not properly serve the city with the lawsuit on time or initially list Throggs Neck Associates LLC — the rezoning applicant — as a respondent in the case, calling these “fatal errors.”
Judge Leticia Maria Ramirez dismissed the case on Aug. 14, echoing the arguments that there were procedural issues with the lawsuit. Lippes filed a notice of appeal on Monday to the Appellate Division, First Department.
Article 78 cases — a method of challenging government actions in the state courts — are typically difficult, and more so for land use cases, according to Jeffery Braun, a lawyer for Kramer Levin who litigates commercial, real estate, land use and environmental cases for developers, corporations and nonprofits. The courts tend to be deferential to government actors, and land use projects are typically backed up by a process that incorporates professional work and explanations that support the city’s decisions, making it harder to argue the city is in the wrong, he said.
Braun told the Bronx Times that Lippes’ procedural missteps “kill” the case without even getting to its substance.
“If I were in his shoes, I would be very pessimistic,” Braun said.
In her decision, the judge said that even if she considered the merits of Lippes’ arguments about the project’s environmental review, she would not back him.
Acclaimed storyteller looks back on how the Bronx shaped him in new memoir
For Peter Quinn, “Cross Bronx: A Writing Life” is much more than just a memoir.
Certainly, Quinn’s personal and professional life provide plenty of fodder for a memoir, since he spent three decades as a speechwriter for two New York governors, Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo.
He also worked as a Wall Street messenger, a court officer, a high school teacher, an ad man, a documentary scriptwriter, a Hollywood film consultant, a corporate writer, the editorial director of Time Warner and also published numerous articles, essays and four novels in more than a half-century as a professional writer.
Growing up in Parkchester and attending St. Raymond Grammar School, Manhattan Prep High School, Manhattan College and Fordham University grad school, the 76-year-old Quinn views “Cross Bronx” as a hodgepodge of things, much like the borough itself.
“It’s a book about a specific time and place, and how that time and place along with family, education, and heritage helped shape me both as a person and as a writer,” Quinn explained. “Mixed in with that, it’s a bit of history of the Bronx, some history inside the politics of New York city and state, some reflections on what it meant to be raised Bronx Irish Catholic, and maybe it’s also a love letter to the Bronx, then and now.”
Game on: Hostos internship offers paid video game design course, the first of its kind in New York
This summer, six Hostos Community College students participated in a unique opportunity to collaborate on an original video game, learn valuable work skills and earn course credit — all while getting paid by their own school.
The students who participated are now well on their way to turning their passion for gaming into a viable career in an industry that is exploding worldwide.
Hostos, located in the South Bronx, was the state’s first public institution to offer a game design degree — a program that has been around 2012. Marcelo Díaz Viana Neto, assistant professor of game design at the college, said in an interview with the Bronx Times that he plans to make a recently formed internship “a fixture of the program.” The professor and his colleagues weren’t seeing enough well-paying, true entry-level positions in the field, so they developed the internship from scratch.
Shakan Paris, a 27-year-old Bronx native, was a member of this summer’s internship cohort and said that the program’s mantra — “just make stuff” — has helped them build a portfolio and work with confidence toward a career in game design.
Paris said the team still considers the game unfinished, but told the Bronx Times, “Personally, I’m pretty happy and proud of what we created.
“It took us some time to conceptualize and put into action what we were going to do … and to finally see it come to fruition is just, like, a special thing to see.”
Hochul says expansion of Bronx’s Bruckner Expressway will ease truck traffic, ‘right the wrongs of the Robert Moses era’
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday that a project that aims to reduce truck traffic on local streets in the South Bronx is nearing completion.
The project, which involves widening the Bruckner Expressway and adding new exit ramps, aims to more efficiently manage the massive number of trucks traveling to and from the Hunts Point Terminal Market, the world’s largest food distribution center.
The announcement celebrated the completion of phase 2 in the $1.7 billion “Hunts Point Access Improvement Project,” which aims to more efficiently manage the massive number of trucks traveling to and from the Hunts Point Terminal Market, the world’s largest food distribution center.
Phase 2 — which Hochul said is being finalized ahead of its scheduled autumn completion date and below its $518 million budget — encompasses the widening of 1.25 miles of the Bruckner Expressway between East 141st Street and Barretto Street and new on-and-off ramps at Leggett Avenue, providing another route for trucks to take from the highway to the produce market.
A third phase, which is under construction, will see the reconstruction of the “bottleneck” Bruckner-Sheridan interchange and complete the addition of a third lane on the Bruckner.
The governor, standing against a green backdrop at the La Central YMCA in the South Bronx, painted the project as a win for the environment, taking trucks off residential streets where they wear down roads and spew toxic fumes, contributing to the Bronx having the city’s highest asthma rates.
“[South Bronxites] live in a community that’s under siege from toxic fumes from heavy truck traffic,” the governor said, referencing the history of environmental racism in the borough’s planning decisions. “Today, we’re gonna take back our community, take back our air and our sidewalks and our streets, and make sure that everyone who calls this wonderful community home will have a better outcome, a better life, because they deserve it.”
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