New York Yankees
Community Council
Youth Leadership Award
The New York Yankees
Community Council will provide
a $750 stipend to fi ve deserving
students nominated by
Community Board 10 for their
Youth Leadership Award.
Applicants must have performed
50 hours of leadership/
volunteer work as a tutor,
mentor, community unity
developer, and/or as an advocate
against violence or substance
abuse in their community.
CB 10 is seeking high school
seniors who reside in the CB
10 service area, who meet the
service requirements above.
Applicants should com-
plete and submit an application
with a resume (name, address,
education, volunteer
work/extracurricular activities,
awards, employment, etc.)
to CB 10, via mail, e-mail or
hand delivery, which must be
received at the board offi ce by
Wednesday, February 20 at 5
p.m. (Email: bx10@cb.nyc.gov;
address: Community Board
10, 3165 East Tremont Avenue,
Bronx NY 10461).
An application form can be
requested by contacting the
board offi ce at (718) 892-1161,
and is available on CB 10’s website,
www.nyc.gov/bronxcb10,
under Announcements.
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, F 28 EBRUARY 1-7, 2019 BTR
INTERFAITH SERVICE HELD AT TRINITY BAPTIST CHURCH
Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and Trinity Baptist Church hosted an annual interfaith service honoring
the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Monday, January 21 with service conducted by Dr.
David Kelly of the Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Brooklyn. Speakers at the annual event included
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, NYS Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and District Attorney Darcel Clark.
(Above) Clark and Diaz spoke at the service. Photo courtesy of Borough President Diaz’s offi ce
BY DOROTHEA POGGI
Ferry Point Nabe Update
The Unionport Bridge Construction
is moving along.
I must commend one of the
many traffi c controllers that
stands in the freezing cold
at Bruckner Boulevard and
Brush Avenue and actually
helps a lot. He is amazing at
his job and is appreciated.
The old Whitestone Cinema
building is being demolished
and our community is
in for a rough ride with that
big change. The facility will
be bringing in hundreds of
tractor trailers each day and
night from all directions. It
is the equivalent of one of the
Amazon facilities but is not in
the headlines as it should be.
The Bronx Times did write
about it briefl y in last week’s
article about Amazon coming
to Hunts Point on page
62. Where will truck drivers
be taking their breaks in our
community? With no apparent
rest stops and poor enforcement
of overnight Truck
Parking/standing/idling I believe
our quality of life will
be diminished? These days of
overnight shipping will bring
more jobs and pollution to our
neighborhoods.
Ferry Point Park
We now have a great restroom
in Ferry Point Park that
is holding up with no reported
graffi ti. We have a ferry stop
coming somewhere in the park
within three years? There is
consideration of a walkway
along the Crescent shaped
East River Waterfront on the
golf course side. The ferry
plan seems to involve restoration
of the large parking lot on
the west side of the park near
the Queens-bound toll plaza.
As a person who grew up
near this park and the president
of Friends of Ferry Point
which leads hundreds of volunteers
annually (est.1999) to
enhance and advocate for its
maintenance and redevelopment,
I am happy to see some
diverse exciting uses suggested
for this park in the future.
There is a vibrant history
that is intertwined with the
small neighborhood nearby,
and the larger Throggs Neck
community. Ferry Point Park
is a 413.8-acre park. The park
site is a peninsula projecting
into the East River. The park
is operated by the NYC Department
of Parks and Recreation.
The Hutchinson River
Expressway crosses through
and above the park as it becomes
the Bronx-Whitestone
Bridge, splitting it into east
and west sides.
East Side
Currently the east side
of the park has a golf course
named Trump Links at Ferry
Point Park. It also has a community
park along Balcom
Avenue (baseball, basketball,
tot lot). The East River waterfront
has had various designs
dropped and a walkway promenade
seems to be in the future.
The eastern side borders
are St. Raymond’s Cemetery,
Balcom Avenue, Miles Avenue,
Emerson Avenue the East
River and the Bronx-Whitestone
Bridge.
Currently the west side is
heavily used for seven soccer
leagues, a few cricket leagues,
Blue Angels Model Airplane
Club, dog walking, jogging,
fi shing, kayaking and barbecues.
Friends of Ferry Point
Park holds multi-annual waterfront
cleanup events, plantings
and helps care for the
3,000 trees planted in the park
as the Ferry Point 9/11 Memorial
Grove and 9/11 Living
Memorial Forest. These trees
were donated by the Prince of
Monaco. This public west side
of the park is located on the
eastern shore of Westchester
Creek, adjacent to the neighborhood
of the Ferry Point. A
very short section of Schley
Avenue meets Brush Avenue
at the Greenway Entrance at
the northern end of the west
side of this park.
Ring Road circles under
the bridge from Hutchinson
Service Road South to north
and joins them both.
West history: The original
171-acre parcel was called ‘Old
Ferry’ and was located at the
confl uence of the Westchester
Creek and the Baxter Creek
Inlet.
Ferry Point (old Ferry
Point) is named after the ferry
stop or the Ferris family, who
were 17th-century residents of
Ferry Point (Throggs Neck).
The fi rst house to be built in
the Bronx was reportedly the
Charlton Ferris House, built
in the area in 1687 along Ferris
Avenue (Hutchinson River
Pkwy) between Wenner Place,
Brush Avenue and Lafayette
Avenue (where Throggs Neck
Shopping Center now stands).
It was situated on the estate of
Albert L. Lovenstein. Several
other large and handsome
18th-century Ferris houses
were built in the Throggs
Neck neighborhood, of which
two lasted until the 1960s.
By the 19th century, the
area of Throggs Neck had developed
into a fashionable public
summer resort, which also
contained large German beer
gardens, to which the residents
of Yorkville, Manhattan
(then a heavily German neighborhood)
arrived by steamboat
service up the East River.
The 19th-century steamboat
landing at the Ferris Dock
on Westchester Creek stood
at present-day Brush Avenue
north of Wenner Place; the
road to it bore the name of the
steamboat Osseo. This waterway
was used for many years
to transport building materials
etc. to the expanding
Bronx. A grandchild tells a
family story of the many shipments
of liquor delivered from
Westchester Creek (during
prohibition) through a tunnel
which opened behind the fi replace
in her family home on
Brush Avenue.
In 1937, New York City acquired
the west side land for
Ferry Point Park in preparation
for the construction of
the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge.
Completed in 23 months for
the 1939 World’s Fair. The land
had belonged to the Roman
Catholic House of the Good
Shepherd (Home for wayward
girls).
Many tourists rested on
their way to the world’s fair
The landscaped west-side
parkland was opened to the
public in 1940 with a magnifi -
cent restroom on top of the hill,
an overlook of the East River
with cascading stairs down to
the waterfront facing Manhattan.
bringing it to its current
land area. In the 1950-70s the
west side of the park was well
utilized by churches, schools,
and visitors from Parkchester,
Castle Hill and Throggs Neck
apartments.
East History
Baxter Creek Inlet had
six fresh water springs coming
down from Westchester
into East River. This east side
was a large fresh/salt water
marsh. In the 1930s, Parks
Commissioner Robert Moses
planned a beach, bathhouse,
cafeteria complex; bus terminal
and parking fi eld for the
site, (the crescent shape was
man made named Pleasant
Beach on some old maps) but
none were ever built. In 1948,
243 acres were added to the
park by condemnation.
This east side underwent
years of raw garbage landfi
ll under the authority of the
New York City Department of
Sanitation (began in 1952 and
continued until 1970). In the
1970s this land was proposed
to be a golf course. Catherine
Poggi insisted it become Parks
property before it becomes a
golf course to keep the area
designated as such and protected
from development. After
many questionable stops
and starts, the east side was
covered with dirt and a golf
course was created.
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