Round'em Up

Here are some Bronx-related stories which we've rounded up you, our lovely readers, while trolling the interweb with our horse and lasso this fine morning:

The Bronx gets two "new" supermarkets [Village Voice]

BD NOTE: The New York Times piece we linked to yesterday offers by far the best coverage of the expansion/rebuilding of Western Beef in Tremont and Foodtown in Norwood. We're finding the coverage of the City subsidies being extending to these two supermarkets through the FRESH program to be a bit wonky. The Voice piece, along with a news Round Up on Grub Street, screams: Bronx Gets New Supermarkets. We think what they meant to say is, the Bronx gets improved supermarkets. We were down one supermarket in Norwood due to the fire that tore through the Foodtown, and the FRESH program will be offering about $3 million in benefits to aid the store in rebuilding and expanding. Similarly, the Western Beef in Tremont will be replacing and expanding what is already there. They'll be awarded $5.6 million to move their efforts along. This is really excellent news -- a bigger Foodtown with an expanded (and hopefully fresher) produce department would be wonderful...And hot dang would I be excited if the aisles were widened a bit to allow for passage of my stroller without taking out displays of Ritz crackers along the way! Like I said: Great news for grocery shoppers in the Bronx, but these incentives offered through the FRESH program aren't increasing our supermarkets in the Bronx...instead they'll hopefully improve what's already there. With all this good news you know we have to be a little annoying and ask one cringe-worthy question: Did these supermarkets have to be vetted as Living Wage Employers before being approved for millions of dollars worth of economic incentives from the City? Obviously from what we're reading, the living wage issue hasn't been brought up in relation to these government incentives. We realize there isn't an exact parallel to be drawn with the Armory project here, because Related would have benefited from the incentives, not any supermarket that would have been lucky enough to set up shop. We do recall, though, that there were cries of "the retailers should be living wage because we as taxpayers are funding the project!" So where's all the living wage hub-bub related to these government incentives?And just to be clear, the fact that this program that is designed to serve underserved and nutrionally deficient areas has been granted to CB7 sort of kind of confirms that our hood(s) is underserved and CAN USE MORE/BETTER SUPERMARKETS. Where are the Morton Williams sympathizers out there? If all was well and our nabe was saturated with fresh and affordble food options, why the need for a bigger/better/newer supermarket? Make no mistake, the ole BD is pleased as could be that the food options in our hood will increase and improve, but we just felt the need to point out a few things. And yes, we know that the Foodtown burned down, but clearly the major havoc that the loss of one supermarket wreaked on the hood is pretty clear evidence that we do not have enough.

In addition to allegedly being an overall crook, Councilman "Cash and Carry Larry" Seabrook divorced his wife in 1993 and never bothered to tell her...He continued sleeping with her and filing a joint tax return. He even insisted he had "real family values" because he stuck around until his kid was out of high school. [Daily News]

In related Larry Seabrook news, a reporter tries to figure out just how much crap you'd have to order on a bagel sandwich to get to the grand sticker price of $177 [New York Times]

Finally, some great coverage of the meeting that took place regarding the public hearing earlier this month to debate the potential rezoning needed for the owner of Med Alliance health care clinic to build an additional ten stories to create 58 residential units in a congested area of Fordham Road [YourNabe.com]

Bronx co-op Concourse Village is being sued for allegedly throwing out all of a man's deceased father's belongings while he was busy jumping through legal hoops in order to gain admittance to the unit to clear it out [Daily News]

Pedro Espada is down one amigo...Hiram Monserrate has been expelled from the Senate [New York Times]

Joshua Clottey, a famous boxer who resides in the BoogieDown and trains at John's Gym, will be competing in an international fight that billions are expected to tune it to watch...yet no one here seems to know who he is [YourNabe.com]

The Bronx Democratic Party has officially endorsed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [Daily News' Daily Politics]

The BBC is looking for some strict Bronx parents interested in taking in some unruly teens as part of a reality tv show [YourNabe.com]

Tire shop owners along Jerome Avenue were loving the heavy snowfall yesterday as they always see a significant uptick in business during inclement winter weather [New York Times]

Bronx Lebanon Hospital has been awarded a $15,000 grant from the Amerigroup Foundation [PRNewswire.com]

A Bronx thug charged with assaulting an officer was able to walk out of Bronx Criminal Court on Tuesday by simply dressing as another man [Daily News]

~ErLu