Take that, Howard Cosell.
A comprehensive plan for a revitalized South Bronx was unveiled yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg, who said the borough has become such a hot destination that some people don’t even recall the late sportscaster’s comment during a 1977 baseball broadcast that, “The Bronx is burning!”
“I don’t know whether it’s been eliminated,” the mayor said of the stigma at a windswept press conference in front of the Bronx courthouse.
“But [this year’s] All-Star Game is another opportunity for us to show that the facts are very different.”
Bloomberg announced the “South Bronx Initiative,” a sweeping blueprint for upgrading three neighborhoods: Melrose Com- mons/Third Avenue; Bronx Civic Center and the lower Grand Concourse.
The improvements ranged from a major rezoning to encourage more high-density development to mapping a new public park along the Harlem River to developing the last city-owned sites to create more affordable housing and ground-floor retail space.
New distinctive lighting and street furniture, improved subway entrances at 149th and 138th streets on the concourse and a study of super-fast buses on Webster and Third avenues were all part of the package.
“This is refurbishing the entire South Bronx, which is long overdue,” said one official.
The city was expected to spend $100 million to $200 million on the projects initially, not counting $174 million for the new parks and waterfront improvements around Yankee Stadium and Bronx Terminal Market.
Curiously, not a single elected official joined the mayor at the announcement, even though his press release included laudatory quotes from Borough President Adolfo Carrión and Rep. José Serrano.
Despite private investment of $3 billion and near-record low unemployment, The Bronx remains the city’s poorest borough.
According to the city’s Web site, only 14.6 percent of Bronx residents were college graduates as of the 2000 census.
By comparison, 21.8 percent of Brooklyn residents had degrees then.
More than a third of the families on welfare in the city live in The Bronx.
If Bloomberg is right, all that’s going to change.
“All of The Bronx has become a very hot place for people to live. People who are moving to New York are considering living in The Bronx,” he said.