South Bronx Unite 2026 Mid-Year Review
A Mid-Year Review · January–June 2026
We came into 2026 with momentum. At the end of 2025, the City approved a 99-year lease for the HEArts Center and New York State committed $2.5 million toward it.
Our Local Action Committee kept growing. Our air quality network kept expanding. We kept providing our community members with air purifiers for our homes.
But the fight for clean air got more urgent this spring.
Our community-managed monitoring network gave us data we'd been bracing for. Since congestion pricing launched, the air across the South Bronx has gotten worse, not better. The MTA predicted this would happen.
We warned the city this could happen. The numbers, unfortunately, affirm their prediction.
We stood with researchers from Columbia, shared the findings publicly, and made sure the people making decisions about our air had to look at them.
Amid that push, our other work didn’t stop.
Here’s what you’ve helped make possible in the first half of 2026.
The Clean Air Program: Our monitoring network produced the data confirming air quality has worsened since congestion pricing, and we brought it to the public alongside Columbia researchers. We also gave away 180+ indoor air purifiers for South Bronx residents just in the first half of the year.
The Waterfront: AOC announced a $1 million investment in our Waterfront Plan at the 132nd Street pier.
Green Space: Our Local Action Committee planted willows on vacant tree beds with AreshEarth and our Maria Sola stewards, and kept reclaiming neglected land for the community.
Community: Over 100 neighbors filled the nearby community garden and the street for our Earth Day celebration, with music, art, food, and dozens of free air purifiers.
And of course, we organized: We held events big and small. We had six Local Action Committee meetings, an Earth Day festival, a Food & Farms bike tour with NYBG, a hip-hop and spoken-word cypher, a neighbor-led book club, and more.
Clean Air: We Took Our Air Quality Fight Public
The South Bronx Pays the Toll: Press Conference. May 5th.
Particulate matter from truck and vehicle exhaust contributes to chronic conditions like asthma, heart disease, and diabetes. In the South Bronx, the asthma death rate is three times the national average. One in five school-aged children in our community suffers from asthma.
Everyone deserves to breathe clean air. And that's why, this spring, we made sure the city couldn't ignore what's happening to ours.
The Data Confirmed What We Feared
In 2024, we came out against congestion pricing because the MTA’s own environmental assessment predicted that the Manhattan toll would push truck traffic into our neighborhood. We could not stand by as yet another program threatened to harm us, a community already overburdened with pollution.
When congestion pricing began in January 2025, we had a dense network of air quality monitors ready to observe how the program would affect our air.
We teamed up with our research partners from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health to analyze the data. It confirmed our fears and the MTA’s prediction. Air quality has worsened in the South Bronx since congestion pricing launched.
We Stood With Columbia and Took It Public
When the researchers showed us the data, first we shared it with our community at our April Local Action Committee. But we knew this data needed to get out there. Congestion pricing had received praise across the region, and both the MTA and New York State had framed it as a complete success. A success for whom? Not for us in the South Bronx.
On May 5th, we held a press conference and shared our results alongside the lead researchers. Together, we put hard evidence in front of the city. The people of the South Bronx are paying the toll, and a far worse toll at that. It’s a toll that we pay every time we leave our homes, the moment we inhale polluted air.
Air Purifiers in More Homes
As we fight for root cause solutions to the dangerous levels of traffic and polluting industry in our neighborhood, we know that our community needs relief now.
In 2025, we gave away 58 Corsi-Rosenthal air purifiers to South Bronx residents. So far in 2026, we’ve given away 130.
In January, we co-hosted a do-it-yourself air purifier workshop and giveaway with The Mission Continues, led by our Local Action Committee member Rod Lugo. There, we built the purifiers that neighbors took home free of charge. We held another giveaway in February, and gave away dozens more at our Earth Day celebration in April.
Coming in the rest of 2026: We will continue to provide air purifiers to our community members. We'll keep using our data, not just to advocate, but to teach. Our youth education programs will connect students to the air quality science happening on their own block. The next generation will grow up knowing they can shape the conditions of their neighborhood.
The Waterfront: A $1 Million Investment in a Decade-Long Vision'
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with South Bronx Unite co-founder Mychal Johnson on the 132nd St Pier. April 17th.
The Mott Haven–Port Morris Waterfront Plan is the vision this community has built together for more than a decade. We envision an accessible, living waterfront that heals us and protects us from storm surge while providing desperately needed access.
In April, that vision took a step forward. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came to the 132nd Street pier with us and announced that she secured a $1 million federal investment in the project.
After the grant setback we faced in 2025 when we didn’t hear back from the EPA about the Community Change Grant we applied for, this is the kind of momentum we needed. It's a sign that people are seeing the years of organizing and refusing to give up on our waterfront.
Coming in the rest of 2026: We'll keep making the case that the South Bronx waterfront should belong to the people who live here, that it should protect and heal us, not harm us. We will continue to bring neighbors, community groups, and allies to the waterfront to see and feel the need for green space and access to our water.
Green Space & Land Reclamation: We Put Down Roots
Aresh shows community members how to plant basket willows in a vacant tree pit. June 4th.
So many of the systemic problems we face come back to the land and who controls it. That’s why, through the community land trust — the Mott Haven–Port Morris Community Land Stewards — we secure public land for the public good and hold it in perpetuity.
This year, we’ve faced some frustrating setbacks. When the NYPD abandoned their old 40th Precinct building in Mott Haven, we brought neighbors together to imagine what it could be. Before we even had the chance to make our case that it should belong to the community, the city announced that it would reestablish it as a police precinct.
Last year, we hosted a Local Action Committee meeting at the Major Deegan Underpass, right next to Maria Sola.
We imagined what the space could become and opened conversations with the Department of Transportation about community use. This spring, oil-dripping trucks moved in instead.
It's another setback. But we'll keep fighting for these public lands, and others, to serve the community. At the end of June, the Department of Transportation removed the polluting vehicles.
As we bring the community to envision what we can do for these sites, we’ve found other opportunities to reclaim and heal the land.
Willows in the Ground
For our June Local Action Committee, we went outside with AreshEarth and Maria Sola garden stewards to plant willows in vacant tree beds. We identified these sites by working with NYC Parks. It's a small act with a long horizon. More trees mean cleaner air, cooler streets, and important wildlife habitats.
By getting our hands dirty, we empowered our residents to determine the future of their neighborhood.
The Tree Pit Initiative
Those willows are part of our ongoing Tree Pit Initiative with AreshEarth, where we identify empty, neglected tree pits across Mott Haven and bring them back to life. Every reclaimed pit is a piece of the neighborhood returned to the people who live in it.
Coming in the rest of 2026: We'll keep working with partners to design, study, and secure agreements for the publicly owned sites we've identified around Mott Haven, so they serve the community, not outside developers.
The HEArts Center: Building Toward Groundbreaking
The HEArts Center is the home our community has been building toward for years, a place for health, education, and the arts inside the former Lincoln Recovery Center in Mott Haven. This year, that vision moved closer to reality.
In July, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) awarded $1.79 million to help build the arts and cultural spaces at the heart of HEArts, including a 120-seat auditorium for rehearsals and performances. It's a major step toward the larger effort to bring HEArts to life.
We expect to close on the building by the end of July and break ground on construction in September.
This year, we also began meeting with the HEArts Advisory Board, a group of community members and partners helping shape the Center's three pillars of health, education, and the arts. Their guidance is making sure HEArts reflects the people it's built to serve.
When the Center opens, expected in 2028, it will be a permanent home for organizations already rooted in this work. That will include UpBeat NYC, which offers free music education to hundreds of South Bronx youth, YUCA Arts, which mentors local high school students in the visual arts, Green City Force, and South Bronx Unite.
Coming in the rest of 2026: With closing and groundbreaking ahead of us, we'll move into construction and keep working with our Advisory Board and future tenants to prepare the Center for the community.
And Of Course, We Organized
The Local Action Committee
The Local Action Committee meets every month so neighbors can share what they're seeing and organize around the actions we want to take. It's open to every South Bronx resident and ally, and in the first half of 2026 it stayed at the center of everything we do.
January — We kicked off the year with an air purifier workshop and giveaway with The Mission Continues, building Corsi-Rosenthal purifiers together.
February — We brainstormed the actions we want to take in 2026 around land reclamation, the HEArts Center, and the waterfront.
March — The Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice joined us to share the city's first Environmental Justice plan. It was a real chance for our community to help shape it.
April — We sat down with our community to share the disturbing findings from our air quality monitoring network.
May — NYC Votes joined us to help neighbors get registered ahead of the June primaries and ready to make our voices heard at the ballot box.
June — We took the meeting outside and planted willows on vacant tree beds with AreshEarth and our Maria Sola stewards.
Outside of the Local Action Committee, we brought neighbors together for events big and small.
Earth Day in Maria Sola
In April, more than 100 people joined us in the garden and out on the street, which we blocked off for the afternoon, to celebrate and be in community. We had music, art, auricular acupuncture, reiki, massages, and food. We gave away dozens of Corsi-Rosenthal air purifiers. It was a reminder of what we're fighting for: a neighborhood where people can gather, breathe, and feel joy.
Bronx Food & Farms Tour
On May 16th, for the third year in a row, we joined the New York Botanical Garden on our Food & Farms Tour. We have the option to take a bus, provided for free by NYCBUS, or join us on bikes. We visited Mott Haven's community gardens and stopped at several vacant sites we imagine as the green spaces our community so badly needs.
Building Energy Futures in the South Bronx
On June 11th and July 16th, our partner fellows from MIT led conversations with South Bronx residents and partners about the future of the former New York Post Building, which sits empty on our Port Morris waterfront.
That site should serve our community as a hub for community-owned clean energy and good jobs, instead of bringing more of the pollution we already carry. The fellows shared what a Civic Virtual Power Plant is and how it could serve us.
Right now, fossil fuel peaker plants sit on public land along our waterfront, polluting our air while the rest of the city cranks the AC. This is about who controls the energy that powers our neighborhood and who benefits from it. We must imagine something different, and we're just getting started.
See more on our new page on Energy Justice.
Stay Cool: Extreme Heat Workshop
On June 16th, we teamed up with Waterfront Alliance and NYC Emergency Management for the first of two Stay Cool workshops on managing heat risks. The South Bronx is one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods in the city for extreme heat, with summer temperatures often running 7 to 9°F hotter than other neighborhoods because we have less tree canopy and more asphalt soaking up the heat. Neighbors came together to learn how heat affects our health, our air, and our local economy, and to talk through staying safe as extreme heat days keep climbing.
The Political Education Book Club: The Young Lords
Organized entirely by volunteer members of South Bronx Unite’s Local Action Committee, our Political Education Book Club brings the community together around the ideas that shape movements like ours.
In May, we met at Maria Sola to discuss the introduction to The Young Lords: A Radical History by Johanna Fernández. In June and July, we discussed the first few chapters and we’ll continue all summer. The Young Lords once ran radical community health programs just blocks from our future HEArts Center. Their legacy inspires and informs our work.
Throwback & A Decade of Fire Movie Screening
Longtime community member and photographer Eddie Pagán hosted two events at our office. The first was Throwback, which showcased his photographs taken over decades in the South Bronx. The second was a screening of a documentary, A Decade of Fire, followed by a conversation with the film's creator, Vivian Vasquez Irizarry. It’s a powerful look at the history that shaped the South Bronx, and the resilience that has always lived here.
Coming in the rest of 2026: Join us the first Thursday of the month for our monthly Local Action Committee and follow us on IG so you don’t miss any updates. Expect more celebration, more joy, and more community.
How You Can Support the Fight for Environmental Justice in the South Bronx
There's a lot of work to build a South Bronx where we're all thriving, where we have the green space, clean air, healing, and joy we deserve. There's a place for everyone in this movement.
Come to an Event
There is no South Bronx Unite without the people of the South Bronx coming together. The best way to support our work is to show up. Be in community and get to know your neighbors. The casual conversations are often where the most potent work begins. Whether it's the next Local Action Committee or our next celebration in Maria Sola, come join us, feel inspired, and hang out.
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Pa'lante!
— The South Bronx Unite Team
