By Jeanmarie Evelly
Community leaders say a long-held city plan to turn the old Fordham Library into an animal shelter was officially nixed this month, reigniting the hopes of some who’d been trying for years to convert the 27,400-square foot Bainbridge Avenue building into a community center.
“The animal shelter plan is off the table,” said Community Board 7 District Manager Fernando Tirado.
The Fordham Library Branch, which was shuttered in 2005 and replaced by the high-tech Bronx Library Center on East Kingsbridge Road, was handed over to the city’s Department of Health in 2008 with plans to make it into a full-service animal shelter —- a move that outraged many local groups and elected officials who, at the time, were lobbying to have the building set aside for much-needed community space.
The animal shelter plan was in response to an old city mandate requiring the DOH to operate at least one full-service shelter in each of the five boroughs; neither the Bronx nor Queens has ever had one.
This month, however, the City Council passed a resolution overturning that shelter requirement; the city will instead allocate more funding to already existing animal drop-off sites in the Bronx and Queens, in lieu of opening new ones.
Since acquiring the old library, the DOH has been using the space as an administrative and storage office for scanning and shredding documents.
Tirado said the board was told the city would continue to use the building that way for at least another year, though a DOH spokeswoman said the department planned to continue using the site “indefinitely.”
Adaline Walker-Santiago-Higgins, who was just elected Vice Chair to CB7, said that she and the board will continue to work with the DOH to secure the building for some kind of community use, and are hoping to find a nonprofit interested in pursuing the space. Her biggest worry, she said, is that the city will decide to auction the building off —- a move that would risk the community losing the old library to the highest bidder.
“I’m hoping that’s not what’s going to happen,” she said.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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When you think about the amount of pets that are senselessly destroyed on a routine basis,you really must consider the impact on young people.Even if the disregard for life and the suffering of these poor creatures means less than nothing to some,we should consider the message we are sending through
example.We have no right to destroy that which God created.Each life is sacred to the creator.The Bronx needs a shelter,not an expansion of a euthanasia drop off.
Yeah, the Bronx needs an animal shelter, but not in our neighborhood. I live across the street from the library and we already have junkies and alcoholics running around like its nothing, an animal shelter will just cause more noise and bring a bad odor to our neighborhood. We already suffer enough so put that shelter somewhere else.