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Volume XX • Number 48 • November 28 - Dec. 4, 2013 •
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Borough Board votes to redevelop Kingsbridge Armory By HAYDEE CAMACHO On Thursday, November 21st, the Bronx Borough Board voted unanimously to support the forthcoming redevelopment of the Kingsbridge Armory. “Today’s vote will facilitate the construction of a world class skating, and community and educational facility that will be the catalyst for positive redevelopment not just in the surrounding community, but across the borough,” said Borough President Diaz. The 10-0 vote of the Bronx Borough Board included three City Council Members—Fernando Cabrera, Oliver Koppell and Andy King—who attended the meeting to offer their support for the project in person. Since the vote, Cabrera has denied charges by the developers KNIC Partners that he asked them to contribute $100,000 annually for 99 years to a group with which he’s been associated with in exchange for his stamp of approval. “It’s just nonsense,” Cabrera said of the claims that he asked for the hefty donation to Community Action Unlimited, a group that was associated with Cabrera and his church
and lost its non-profit status in 2010. The group is one of 27 local organizations that is part of the community benefits agreement. The developers, through their attorney, said the councilman did try to secure such a deal as part of a community benefits agreement negotiated between the developer and an alliance of 27 local organizations to include a community service component in the project. Prior to Thursday’s vote, Diaz addressed concerns that small businesses would be pushed out of the area. “Nothing in this proposal will compete with the businesses outside the armory,” he said. “It will enhance that foot traffic, enhance those revenue streams outside of the armory. I am proud to support the development of the Kingsbridge National Ice Center.” The Kingsbridge National Ice Center project was announced as the City’s official choice for the Kingsbridge Armory at a press conference in April 2013. The facility will include 50,000 square feet of community space for free after-school ice sports and academic tutoring programs for disadvantaged youth. The program will be
modeled after the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation in Philadelphia, which has seen considerable academic and athletic success with students who participate. Diaz lauded KNIC partners saying the developers “came to us the right way.” “They approached the Bronx with respect. A lot of what had been going on in the past is that developers come to us and think we should accept whatever they want to give us. When you show us respect, we show you respect and we can all together.” The service cabinet meeting also featured an overview of the green boro taxis launched this past June by the Taxi and Limousine Commission. The cabs will provide service within the five boros except in Manhattan below E. 96th Street and W. 110th Street and the airports. Outside of the restricted areas, they will be permitted to take base calls from the community car service they are affiliated with. The taxis will have metered fares, which are the same as the yellow taxi rate. Boro taxis will be a uniform green color, and like their yellow counterparts, will
have a roof light to indicate availability, a taximeter, GPS and a credit/debit card reader. Also, each boro taxi has a unique license number that can be referenced to file a complaint or retrieve lost property. Over the next 3 years, the TLC plans to sell 18,000 taxi permits. As of November 8th, the 6000 permits allotted for the first year were sold, including 1200 for wheelchair accessible vehicles. Greg Gordon, External Affairs Analyst with the TLC said there are currently 40 wheelchair accessible vehicles on the road and the number is expected to go up. Gordon said drivers who possess the proper license are only allowed to own one permit. “Drivers who are in the boro taxi service have reported that they are generally doing better,” said Gordon. “The TLC has heard from drivers who are making double and triple the revenue now compared to when they were livery drivers.” Beginning November 25th, the TLC will begin an MTA public service campaign to inform both passengers and interested license holders about the program.
Klezmatics star Lorin Sklamberg appears at Riverdale Temple
By PAULETTE SCHNEIDER Lorin Sklamberg, a music scholar and the lead vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Jewish roots band the Klezmatics, treated a rapt audience at Riverdale Temple this month to a talk on the evolution of contemporary klezmer in America. Sklamberg is the sound archivist at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. He stressed that the YIVO collection itself, with more than 6,000 songs recorded on 3,500 discs, played a major role in the klezmer revival of the 1970s.
To illustrate some aspects of the genre, Sklamberg cued up a few vintage recordings, one on a tiny 1930s device he nicknamed a “picnic gramophone.” He pointed out that the recording industry itself was influential in changing instrumentation and compositional structure. The clarinet, with its clear voice on recordings, replaced the violin as the primary klezmer instrument. Even in live performances, musicians began to perform briefer pieces, in keeping with the industry reality that only a few minutes of music could be stored on each side of a record. And com-
posers began to label their pieces with unique rather than generic names because listeners wanted to identify particular tunes. It was clarinetist Dave Tarras, Sklamberg explained, who established the now-recognizable American klezmer sound that features drums and accordion. Riverdale Temple’s Jewish Cul-
ture Series, in partnership with YIVO, was launched in 2011 when a Friday night lecture by YIVO director Jonathan Brent met with such enthusiasm and generated so many questions from the congregation that Rabbi Judith Lewis finally had to call an end to the evening. Adult education chair Yvette Marin finds topics of community
interest and collaborates with YIVO on programming. Jewish humor will be the focus of the next series event. YIVO was founded in Vilna, Poland, in 1925 and moved its headquarters to New York in 1940. Riverdale Temple, established in 1947, is Riverdale’s oldest Jewish congregation.
Dinowitz gets action from DOT on parking sign Thanks to an effective letter from Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz to the city’s Department of Transportation, those who park in a particular space on Independence Avenue will no longer need to contend with signage ambiguity and unfair parking tickets. A week after receiving the letter, the DOT moved the “No parking anytime” sign from its confusing location within the parking space demarcation lines to a spot just south of the parking space demarcation on the west side of Independence between West 237th and West 238th streets. Before, everything south of the sign—including part of the parking space itself—was part
of the no-parking zone. This encouraged traffic enforcement agents to slap tickets on cars parked in the space. Assemblyman Dinowitz was satisfied with the prompt response. “The DOT was wrong to have that sign inside a parking spot, but traffic enforcement, either out of incompetence or malice, gave out way too many parking tickets to motorists who were quite obviously innocent,” he said. “I am pleased the DOT sprang into action so quickly to fix the problem, and I’m glad they did it in a clear and easily understandable way for motorists and traffic enforcement officers alike.”
Lorin Sklamberg, multi-instrumentalist, appears at Riverdale Temple.