Community advocates and partners unveil Soundview Economic Hub Plaza in the Bronx

SOUNDVIEW, The Bronx (PIX11) – It's one of the busiest highways in the world, and where the Bruckner Expressway is elevated near the Bronx River, there are four lanes of busy surface roadway on either side of the eight-lane interstate overpass.

It's loud, dusty, and chaotic. However, in the middle of it all is a brand new eye of the storm, with a permanent art display and pop-up food, crafts, and other vendors. 

Making it all work—on top of making it all happen in the first place—is no small feat. Local community advocates, in conjunction with government and corporate partners, have accomplished this, which was celebrated with a grand opening on Friday. 

Suki Watashi is a visual artist from the Bronx whose print is featured in the Under The Bruckner Art Gallery, a display of one-story-tall artworks in various media exhibited al fresco in the unorthodox space. 

"The purpose of the art being here in the first place," Watashi said in an interview at the opening, "is to show Bronx citizens that they can be part of this."

Her artwork and the gallery in which it's displayed are part of a much, much larger project. The art display is in a corner of the Soundview Economic Hub, the city's newest public plaza.

"That for decades has laid vacant, blighted and fallow and unusable by the community," said David Shuffler.

Shuffler is the executive director of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, a community advocacy non-profit that cleaned up the under-the-overpass space and secured funding to fence it in and partially pigeon-proof it. 

"We have 20 different artists featured, with different contributions in this space," Shuffler said. "We've had close to a dozen vendors showcasing their products, their talent."

He was referring to local businesspeople like Chrystina Casado. She's a chef and restaurateur who's set up pop-up catering in the plaza twice since its soft opening last month.

"We're local," she said about her catering business, Brunch At Zion's, "farm-to-table and organic."

She'd set up again for the grand opening on Friday. Next to her booth was the children's bookseller Wilde Flowers & Books, whose founder and CEO, Concetta Gleason, was on hand to make sales. 

She said it was her third time selling at the new plaza and that she's looking forward to the area evolving to promote the newly christened public space. 

Specifically, Gleason said that one addition could promote the plaza well. "Having an art path from the river to this hub area," she said, referring to the nearby Bronx River and its greenway. "We're two blocks away from each other. We're neighbors."

The new Soundview Economic Hub Plaza is within two blocks of three different parks: Soundview, Concert Plant, and Colgate Close Parks. Gleason said that she favors any additions that can connect the parks and the plaza.

Another improvement, for which YMPJ has commissioned an architect and secured architectural renderings, is sound reduction measures for the space, which is in the middle of some of the world's most congested traffic. 

Making that improvement will take funding, but corporate sponsors and state and city advocates have helped to make the public space a reality in the first place. 

As the local city council member, who worked to secure some of the Soundview Economic Hub financing, pointed out, all the partners are interested in improving the newly opened plaza. 

"Why not take an empty space and make it more livable for the eye, to say the least, right?" he said. 

The Soundview Economic Hub and Under The Bruckner Art Gallery are now open every day, year-round, from sunrise to sunset.