Residents Continue Push for New Community Arts Center at Abandoned Rehab Clinic
Photo: Kiara Thomas. Raymond Figueroa, Jr., advisory board member of South Bronx Unite and co-founder of Brook Park Youth Farm Alternatives-to-Incarceration program speaks to Bronx residents about the proposed H.E.Arts Center on Nov. 6 near the abandoned Lincoln Rehabilitation Center.
Mott Haven Herald
By: Kiara Thomas
South Bronx residents who have been fighting for years to turn an abandoned rehab center into a creative and educational space argued at a community meeting earlier this month that such a place would have been a blessing at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Lincoln Rehabilitation Center on East 140th Street closed down 10 years ago, and advocacy groups like South Bronx Unite and the Mott Haven-Port Morris Community Land Stewards have since proposed plans to turn the building into a space for local organizations focused on health, education and the arts. But the project has remained at a standstill.
“Could you imagine what this could have been during the pandemic in terms of providing services, (for) our children going to school hungry, how we could be feeding our kids on their way to school?” said Mychal Johnson, a co-founder of South Bronx Unite, said at a Nov. 6 meeting near Willis Playground.
