Will the South Bronx Casitas Get Landmarked?

Photo by Joe Schumacher.

Adolfo Carrión Jr., the Bronx borough president who was recently appointed Urban Policy Director in the Obama administration, is one of many who are urging the Landmarks Preservation Commission to declare that Rincón Criollo and other South Bronx casitas are city landmarks.

The NY Times takes a look at the community garden on East 157th and Brook Avenue, which houses the 16' x 16' clubhouse ("one of many scattered throughout the Bronx that are meant to evoke the Puerto Rican countryside"). While the Times runs a photo of another, more dilapidated casita, the one pictured here is the Rincón Criollo—whose name means "down-home corner"—which has only occupied the lot since 2007 (before that, it was located one block away). A little history lesson tells us, "While the South Bronx was burning in the 1970s...the founders of Rincón Criollo, under the leadership and initiative of Don José Chema Soto, decided to take action. Before Rincón Criollo was created, the site where it was originally located was then an abandoned lot filled with abandoned cars and garbage, another victim of the widespread disinvestment and rampant arson."

A former Bronx borough planner (who created the current site list after a nine-month block-by-block survey) told the paper that "emphasizing sites that have cultural significance, like the casitas, is very, very different from how we normally have done things, but it is important to broaden the definition.” However, it's also noted that the LPC "typically frowns upon buildings whose exteriors have been significantly renovated. And the only pieces to survive its move two years ago were roof beams."