In 2005, I took a ride to the Bronx to check out the abandoned Transit Ready Mix facility located along the Bronx River. Transit Ready Mix was owned by Biff Halloran, who also owned Certified Concrete (thus the title to this article).

When Biff was indited on mafia related price fixing charges in 1988, Certified/Transit fell into Bankruptcy. The ready mix facility here sat abandoned from the 1990s until (and a bit after) our 2005 visit.

At the time the property was very much abandoned - beat up, with rusting aggregate silos, conveyors and garages still in place. It wasn't overflowing with homeless people though, as was the case at the Harlem (127th street) facility. There was way more to see, so I photographed the hell out of the place that day.

Amazingly - the majority of the old aggregate structures are still present today. They've been cleaned up and painted red, with the entire lot converted to parkland.

Present Park
This last has been converted to become 'Concrete Plant Park". The park retains quite a bit of the old ready-mix equipment. All things considered it's a really nice preservation of a long neglected space, and creates parkland in a community that definitely needed it.

Here's some more details: Once underdeveloped, this new waterfront park completed in September 2009 and officially opened to the public October 30th now contains facilities supporting and linking existing and planned multi–use pedestrian green-ways with other off–road, on-road bicycle/pedestrian routes. Construction of a new canoe/kayak launch provides an access point to the Bronx River Corridor along the park's shoreline. The site was also enhanced through the creation of a waterfront promenade, a reading circle, and inviting park entrances at both Westchester Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard.