Neighborhood chosen for ‘Six to Celebrate’ designation

Bedford Park stepped closer towards legitimate neighborhood preservation after the Historic Districts Council (HDC), a nonprofit group specializing in maintaining neighborhoods’ familiar aesthetics and cultural heritage, placed it in its ‘Six to Celebrate’ designation.

The group, which lobbies the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and touts its involvement in the creation of over 100 historic districts in its 49-year history, puts a spotlight each year on six neighborhoods it considers important to New York architecture, culture and history and in need of preservation. In a statement, HDC described Bedford Park as an “elegant and diverse residential community” with a “bucolic character.”

HDC will provide community stakeholders with free consultation on how to preserve historic aspects of the neighborhood—home to 19th-century churches, Victorian- and Queen Anne-style houses and other historic sites—before they’re erased by overdevelopment.

“Unless we preserve some of the best of the past, we’re going to be left with no future,” said Simeon Bankoff, executive director of HDC.

Leading the charge for preservation from within the neighborhood is the Bedford Mosholu Community Association (BMCA)—a longstanding civic group dedicated to preserving quality of life in the neighborhood—which filed the application for the HDC designation.

“This was one way that we could bring publicity to the neighborhood. There will be a lot of work involved, but we’re on top of that,” said BMCA president Barbara Stronczer.

For years, residents of Bedford Park have attempted to ward off overdevelopment in the neighborhood. Bedford Park’s residential areas, which were untouched by the epidemic of arson in the Bronx in the 1970s, are a mix of six-story Art Deco buildings and pre-war single-family homes painted in pastel colors, nestled between the roaring thoroughfares of the Grand Concourse and Webster Avenue. Its dense streets, whisper-quiet and lined with cars, are punctuated by green spaces like the New York Botanical Garden and the green-way on Mosholu Parkway.

As of late, development of new and taller buildings has ticked up, prompting efforts for preservation. Many residents are personally attached to the neighborhood’s current landscape.

“I don’t like the new buildings because I prefer the old houses,” said Sila Pivonka, who has lived in the neighborhood for 42 years. “It is not going to be the same neighborhood if they start putting buildings here,” she said. “There are beautiful homes here.”

Other residents were displeased with the rash of tall buildings in development for more than just architectural reasons, with some citing fears of their potential new neighbors. “Once they bring in new buildings negative people will come,” said Ana Santiago, who’s lived in Bedford Park for 15 years. “Then the neighborhood starts getting bad,” she said without elaborating.

‘Six to Celebrate’ gets its name from the six neighborhoods HDC chooses to help throughout one year. The Bronx made a strong showing on the 2019 roster, with Kingsbridge and Hunts Point also listed. Hell’s Kitchen, Dorrance Brooks Square and Chinatown/Little Italy in Manhattan rounded out the group.

It’s unclear what strategy HDC looks to employ in Bedford Park, though Bankoff tells the Norwood News that they will leave it up to groups like Bedford Mosholu Community Association to decide.

“I hope people can start taking pride of where they live,” said Stonczer. “Hopefully we will be able to, if we work hard enough at it, [get] some type of a historic district designation.” BMCA submitted a ‘Six to Celebrate’ application in December after gathering information on the neighborhood’s historical and present background. This came following increasing development projects in the neighborhood, where speculative buyers would routinely propose lucrative buy-out offers to existing homeowners who ultimately took them.

Growing interest in developing the neighborhood follows the 2011 rezoning of 88 blocks of Webster Avenue, between East Gun Hill and Fordham roads. A portion of the rezoned area cuts through Bedford Park.

“I would say once they talked about the rezoning of Webster Avenue, things changed drastically,” said Stronczer. “It was obvious the city and the state were going to give subsidies for affordable housing and low-income housing. Things seemed to change because people looked not only at the designated rezoned area, but also at the streets we always thought was six-story zoning streets.” She added, “It turned out to be 10 to 12 stories that had been zoned years ago and we were not aware of that.”

Several homes have recently been bulldozed in Bedford Park to make way for developments that fall within zoning limits of 13 stories. One of those major projects is happening along East 202nd and East 203rd streets, near East Mosholu Parkway South, where Brooklyn-based CAMBA looks to build 11- and 8-story buildings.

“They’re concerned about the zoning, which allows for speculative developers to come in small houses and build enormous buildings that are really out of context with the area,” said Bankoff.

Residents expressed worries that taller buildings will lead to a more crowded neighborhood, with some citing concerns about parking—which is already difficult to come by—and a general strain on communal resources.

“I don’t want to see any more buildings. It’s way overcrowded already,” Mary Tertulien, 74, said. She believes new development will have a damaging impact on the established community. “We need new programs,” Tertulien added. “We have a lot of young children and a lot of seniors. We should concentrate on building up what we have.”

Additional reporting by Alondra Vasquez