Empty Kingsbridge Armory is Trouble for Ruben Diaz

Photograph by Atomische + Tom Giebel on Flickr

Last year Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. fought and conquered the building of a mall in the historic Kingsbridge Armory; now—facing a possible bid for citywide office—he has to figure out what to do with the hard-to-fill space. "He's got a big problem," a Bronx elected official told the Post. "No one's been able to do anything with this thing, and now he comes along and stops the only development that seemed to have a chance."

Diaz has formed a task force to tackle the problem, even offering a spot to Seth Pinksy, one of the primary organizers of the shopping mall plan (he politely declined). The borough president hasn’t exactly admitted that he may have fouled up—he sunk the Bloomberg-endorsed project by requiring that the mall pay its employees a living wage of $10/hour with benefits—but he has backed down. The fighting rhetoric he used last year (“The notion that any job is better than no job no longer applies," he once said) has been replaced by attempts at pacification. "We want to move forward," he said recently. "We understand what happened in November was very emotional for many folks."

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By Sabrina Jaszi in News on March 28, 2010 3:50 PM

Comments [rss]

manuelmontalvo

Employment in retail cannot save the Bronx economy.

FelixtheCat & Christine Quinn'

They should make it into a temporary shelter for homeless.

Mr Mel

Wasn't that the place where they were going to hire locals for the jobs? They wanted above the poverty line salaries and health care for all the hires. It probably could have been done, but the Pols wanted to control the hiring using their no show cronies and then the backers pulled out. The Bronx is doomed.

BP Jackson

Hello? Nobody read the paper? Is this the first that Gothamist has covered this? This is the project that wanted to pay it's workers less than a living wage? As troubled and troubling as Diaz is, his defense of wages and union jobs is the last line of defense where "local workers" means poverty wages while fat cats get fatter. Sorry, Gothamist, you missed on this one. Go ahead, and finish off Colonial Brooklyn before you export this mentality to Bronx or Queens.

xgeyiph772

Location, location, location. Drove past there a few weeks ago, and couldn't get out of the n'hood quick enough. A little bit of the old Bronx still hanging in there (pandhandlers, bums w/shopping carts full of garbage, cars driving by with stereos blasting music you could hear in Jersey). Not exactly a shoppers paradise.

Snoopy

How about using the same great idea generators that Pier 40 has used in the past. I'm sure they will have some great ideas.

Make it a homeless shelter without a roof. That will cut down on the long term tenants.

Christopher

A Bronx politician is discovering that taking a populist stance can actually have negative consequences? Shocker. If his constituents are stupid enough to keep re-electing him, they deserve the continued economic blight in their district.

Guest

that huge thing is empty??? if it were in manhattan, there'd be a million ideas on how to use the space. just use the goddamn space, darn it! it will make the bronx 100 times more appealing.

ugh...

5borough

What a loser. Just the the thing to the highest builder, they will figure out what will work there a lot better than the crooked city government.