Urban Plunge Out and About

Our "Listing of the Day" today was so convincing that we decided we needed to to take a stroll down the Grand Concourse/Kingbridge Road area today to check the hood out.

We were happily surprised when we arrived at Poe Park and saw a group of about 15 volunteers scraping and repainting the gate around the historic Edgar Allan Poe Cottage. The volunteers were part of Fordham University's "Urban Plunge" program, which exposes freshmen to all sorts of great community service projects in the neighborhoods surrounding Fordham.

The students also volunteered this morning with Women in Need, Inc., an organization which provides housing, help, and hope to New York City women and their families who are homeless and disadvantaged.

As a past "Urban Plunge" volunteer, it was extremely inspiring to see the program still going strong a full decade later (geez, I'm getting old...). Keep up the good work Urban Plungers!

~ErLu

Listing of the Day: Fordham Rd. Rental for the Whole Family

2546 Creston Avenue at Fordham Road 3 Bedroom, 2 Bath $2000/mo.

This listing spoke to me because of the size, price and location, but the interior pictures show a really nice, renovated place.

If you have a young family or are just trying to make it in New York on an entry-level-just-out-of-college salary or are a young teacher, find friends and split this place. I'm no mathematician, but I know that $666.67 a person, per month is pretty darn good for NYC - especially with more than half a bathroom each.

Certainly this area immediately north of Fordham Road can be a little rough around the edges, but you are close to great shopping on Fordham Rd. and great future shopping at the Kingsbridge Armory. You have the B/D at Fordham Rd. and the Concourse or the 4 at Fordham Rd and Jerome.

You are directly across from St. James Park and just across the Concourse from Poe Park, which houses Edgar Allen Poe's cottage. The cottage is undergoing some major renovations and should become a real jewel of the hood when it is completed. Poe Park also has a weekly farmer's market from 8am to 3 pm on Tuesdays.

Just down 192nd Street at 310 East Kingsbridge Rd. is the borough's flagship Bronx Library Center. It's the biggest, baddest and one of the newest libraries in the Bronx. So if you're into book-learning, you're in luck. Glenn Collin of the NY Times, said at the time of its renovation and reopening that it was a "library on steroids." If you are in to the arts, you have Lehman College's under-rated gallery, the Bronx Opera, which performs at Lehman, or the new stunning antiquities collection housed in Fordham University's Library.

Full Listing

~ErLu