Home’s plans aren’t hospitable

In her many contributions to our understanding of cities and how the people in those cities try to live hospitably and respectfully, Jane Jacobs tells the story of a family that loved to picnic on a special knoll on an acre that they owned in the country. 

Ironically, when they built themselves a house on that acre, they lost their special knoll. Ms. Jacobs recounts, “…somehow they had not realized they would destroy it and lose it by supplanting it with themselves…”he

Not too long ago neighbors gathered at a location across from the former Passionist Retreat to meet candidates for the New York City Council, and shared stories about the Passionist Retreat, the grounds, the mansion, their personal wandering among the trees and rocks and just looking at the great vista over the Hudson to the Palisade. Some knew well of the groundbreaking work of Father Thomas Berry who worked in the Retreat House and was a founder of the ecology movement in the 1970’s. 

The Passionists were permissive about who could visit and walk through their grounds. Like the knoll in Ms. Jacobs story, this real property in the north Bronx is about to disappear, and with it a rare refuge in an urban environment. 

The Hebrew Home for the Aged has purchased the property, which incidentally is zoned R1-1 and was designated a Special Natural Area District some years ago. Their plans — variously described at community meetings and at presentations to Community Board 8 — are not finalized, yet the current mass of structures that comprise the present Hebrew Home facilities west of Palisade Avenue and south of 261st Street have already overwhelmed the small road that runs between the Metro-North rail station and the College of Mount St. Vincent. 

The Hebrew Home has been justly lauded for residential and rehabilitation services for the elderly and infirm. However, good work is not always made better by expansion. Care of the handicapped and elderly is being reevaluated. Complex up-scale facilities for the few who can afford them may not be the best plans as we progress through the 21st century. 

And the delicate equilibrium of a neighborhood will be shattered by the continued, incessant supply truck deliveries, the traffic of three shift changes, ambulances and emergency vehicles, a near constant stream of visitors on weekends and the constant hum of power plant machinery. 

Is it beneficial for the Hebrew Home to expand into the “knoll” that was an oasis for so many? 

I write to urge my neighbors to join the Riverdale Community Coalition (www.riverdalecommunitycoalition.org), and sign a petition to maintain the fragile ecosystem along the Hudson. I think we all know that once parks give way to parking lots, there is no return.

Bruce Volpe is a Riverdale resident. Point of view is a column available to all readers.