Ronay Menschel and Adam Weinstein Talk About Affordable Housing

For the past two decades, Ronay Menschel and Adam Weinstein have led the Phipps Houses Group, New York City’s oldest and largest affordable housing provider. Founded in 1905 by Carnegie Steel’s Henry Phipps, the organization has built over 6,000 units, and currently manages 12,500 apartments, as well as community service centers, Head Start locations, vocational centers, and afterschool programs.

In the mid-1970s Ronay Menschel worked in Edward I. Koch’s Washington Congressional office and moved to … <Read More>


Botanical Garden to build 825-space parking garage

BSA approves variance for six-story parking structure. The New York Botanical Garden applied for a variance to construct a six-story, 123,600-square-foot parking garage with 825 spaces. The proposed garage, to be located on two Bronx lots adjacent to the Metro-North Botanical Garden Station along Webster Avenue, Bedford Park Boulevard and Botanical Square South, would replace an abandoned gas station and a one-story warehouse. The proposal required a variance to alter height and setback limitations, allow … <Read More>


Federal court rejects challenge to Yankee Stadium

Bronx locals’ second attempt to halt Yankee Stadium claimed bias and ineptitude on the part of the National Parks Service. As part of the needed approvals for the Yankee Stadium development, the National Park Service approved the plan to privatize a 10.67-acre portion of the Macomb’s Dam Park and replace the lost park space with 16.44 acres on three separate parcels, including the old Yankee Stadium site, to be developed with baseball and softball fields, … <Read More>


Earth Pledge Executive Director Leslie Hoffman Talks About Making the City a Green Place, One Roof at a Time

Manhattan’s first green roof, installed in 1998, sits on top of the 1902 Georgian townhouse at 122 East 38th Street in Murray Hill, the home of Earth Pledge, a New York based nonprofit that promotes green building technologies. Founded by Theodore Kheel to support the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio, Earth Pledge now sponsors the Greening Gotham program, an initiative to get New York City developers, building owners, and government officials behind green … <Read More>


Yankees Stadium construction proceeds

Court refuses to halt destruction of 377 mature trees. After the City approved the New York Yankees’ plan to construct a new stadium, Save Our Parks, a group of over 100 Bronx residents, filed an article 78 petition challenging the final environmental review and sought an immediate injunction to stop the Yankees’ plan to remove 377 mature trees.

Court refuses to halt destruction of 377 mature trees. After the City approved the New York Yankees’ … <Read More>


Lawsuit alleging cancer advances

Families near Pelham Bay landfill claim infants’ cancers caused by chemicals at dump. Sanitation closed its 81-acre landfill in Pelham Bay, Bronx in 1979 following 16 years of operations and increasing complaints over odors and a yellow mist emanating from the site. In 1983, the state declared the dump an inactive hazardous waste site prompting the City to sue 15 corporations in 1985, alleging that the corporations illegally dumped hazardous chemicals. Later that year, Sanitation … <Read More>