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Op-Ed: Livable Neighborhoods, Without the Gentrification Label

By Gregory Lobo Jost

It’s been almost seven years since the New York Times wrote about the south Bronx transforming into a hip and gentrifying “SoBro,” citing an influx of white residents, artists, croissants and mesclun salad greens. Just last month, the Times ran a similar article, by the same author, once again boldly declaring gentrification in the south Bronx – now on the lower Concourse.

Yes, according to the 2010 Census, there is some small statistical evidence of an increase in the number of white residents (up by about 500) in the lower Concourse area, though the sample white residents cited in the article work as a grant writer, guidance counselor and a schoolteacher.

The premise of both articles, though, is that these neighborhoods are now “livable” enough that white people would consider living there, even though many of the improvements and features of the neighborhood are made possible by longtime black and Latino residents, including those with higher incomes.  Keep in mind, however, that almost all of the population gains in the Bronx, including the south Bronx, are driven by huge gains in the Latino population, as new Latinos in the last decade outpaced new whites by a ratio of 35 to 1. This overall increase in the Bronx’s population would not have happened without new affordable housing projects popping up on remaining vacant land in the south Bronx.

What is most disturbing about these types of articles is the willingness to jump straight to the gentrification conclusion, with only the slimmest evidence of some factor that could possibly (but not necessarily) accompany actual gentrification. In doing so, the Times appears interested in propping up real estate values (or at least discovering the next hot neighborhood) without regard for the consequences their declarations could have.

Read more

Bronx Newspapers Combined Editorial: Living Wage Dies

Editor’s note: This editorial reflects the opinion of the Norwood News, The Riverdale Press, Hunts Point Express and Mott Haven Herald, and appears (or will appear) in all four publications.

The battle to require businesses that receive city subsidies to pay their workers a living wage began with a bang when Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. led a fight to reject the creation of a shopping mall at the Kingsbridge Armory if retail workers weren’t paid enough to make ends meet in this most expensive of cities.

The battle has ended with a whimper.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn has gutted the bill sponsored by Bronx Council members Oliver Koppell and Annabel Palma. Developers to whom taxpayers give $1 million or more will be required to pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour. Their tenants, however, can continue to pay $7.25. Read more

What Were The Top News Stories of 2011? You Decide

By Alex Kratz

Next week, the Norwood News unveils it’s annual Year in Review issue, which will include our picks for the top news stories of 2011. We will be basing our selections on three factors: relevance to our readership in the northwest Bronx, impact on the community and interest generated. We plan on lumping some of our stories into larger “Year in [Insert Subject: Crime, Politics, Parks, etc.]” features, which will allow us to touch on multiple stories for each subject.

But we also want to hear from you, our readers. What, in your mind, were the biggest, most interesting, most impactful stories of this year? It could be something we’ve written about extensively or a story we may have neglected entirely — it’s up to you.  Include as much or as little detail as you want in the comments section below and we’ll run a selection of Reader’s Picks stories in next week’s print edition. Anything we can’t fit into the paper, we’ll run online here on Breaking Bronx.

If you don’t feel comfortable leaving a comment here, you can write us at norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org, leave a comment on our Facebook page or send us a direct message on Twitter (@norwoodnews). Feel free to include your name or ask to remain anonymous.

–Alex Kratz, Editor-in-Chief

Editorial: Protecting Our Kids From What?

Let’s not overthink this. The Department of Education’s policy precluding churches and other religious organizations from worshiping in city schools is discriminatory and impractical.

Like tens of thousands of groups, from Alcoholics Anonymous to the Boy Scouts, churches like Bronx Household of Faith in University Heights pay rent and use school facilities for a few hours every week during off-hours when no students are present.

The city’s main argument in arguing to keep the policy in place (despite vigorous opposition from Bronx Household’s lawyers with the Alliance Defense Fund, which took up the case in the name of religious freedom), is that students who attend schools where there is religious worship during off-hours will get confused. They might feel the government, which controls the schools, favors a certain religion.

Even if this notion didn’t appear condescending to students, who see religion everywhere in our society, we would argue that the premise is faulty to begin with.

We went to PS/MS 15 back in June to find out how Bronx Household used the school and to see if it, in fact, “transformed” the school into a state-sponsored church (as an appeals court judge argued in upholding the city’s policy).

What we found is that on a Sunday morning, there was no sign of church or anything else going on inside the building. Read more

The Bronx Breakdown: Sitting Down with Sal, Bronx Corruption Updates, A Church Hopes for Supreme Court Help and More

By Alex Kratz

Editor’s note: The Bronx Breakdown is a re-imagined and re-invigorated version of what we once called “Friday News & Notes,” which was lacking in both an interesting title and consistency. We’ll be experimenting a little in this space, but for the most part, the weekly Breakdown, which will appear Friday afternoons, will consist of (1) a subjective breakdown of the week’s biggest and most intriguing news stories, (2) tidbits and newsbits we’ve come across and thought you should know about (3) a youtube clip, probably from Bronx Assemblyman and amateur Scorsese, Jose Rivera and (4) recommendations for things to do in the Bronx this weekend. So settle in, grab a cup of coffee or a Bronx Brewery Pale Ale and enjoy the Breakdown.

A Fond Farewell to Sal the Pizza Man
Writing about the retirement of legendary local pizza man Sal Calces, now former owner of Sal’s Pizza on Bainbridge Avenue, for this week’s edition of the Norwood News was bitter sweet. Bitter, because it means Sal, a Norwood-area fixture for more than three decades, won’t be around anymore. His warmth and charisma will be greatly missed by me and countless others. But sweet because it’s fun to write about someone that people genuinely love.

It also meant spending a good hour just talking to Sal in the restaurant he put his whole life into for 31 years. There were a couple of interesting details that came out of our conversation and other interviews I conducted that didn’t make it into the print piece and I wanted to share them here.

Sal will miss the restaurant and his customers more than they will miss him. He truly loved his customers; he called them his “people” and his “family.” But even more than that, Sal won’t know what to do with himself without the responsibilities that came with running Sal’s Pizza and Restaurant. When I went to interview him, he was hauling supplies up from the basement storage room. At 62, he was still intimately involved in every aspect of the restaurant’s operation, flitting back and forth from kitchen to front counter to checking in with customers as they ate. Read more

Friday News & Notes, 11/11/11, Veteran’s Day Edition

We took last week off, but we’re back today on Breaking Bronx with some freewheeling and random tidbits as we head into the weekend.

— First of all, a very Happy Veteran’s Day to all of our brave men and women who have served or are currently serving overseas.

— I want to take a minute to send a shout out to the vet I know best, ex-Marine Nicky Rosa, a tattoo enthusiast and beer aficionado who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and experienced some crazy, ah, stuff. (Full disclosure: he’s my lovely wife’s cousin.) Soon after coming home from the Middle East, Nicky moved to the Bronx, a borough he is exceedingly passionate about. He loves the Bronx’s working-class, down-to-earth people and attitude. For the past few years, he’s lived on Decatur Avenue, a few blocks north of Fordham Road (one of toughest neighborhoods in the northwest Bronx and he loves it) and now spends his days underneath the Cross Bronx Expressway plying his trade as a union iron worker. Though it’s not official and I don’t mean to jinx it, Nicky is in the process of fulfilling his dream of buying a house in Woodlawn, which he hopes to fix up with the help of his beautiful girlfriend Kelly.

Recently, I’ve read lots of stories about veterans struggling to adapt to life after war and I think it’s completely understandable. While it hasn’t always been easy for him, Nicky has worked hard, stayed positive and, as a consequence, his story keeps getting better and better and should serve as an inspiration to other veterans who are looking to find their post-war way. Cheers, Nicky.

— The family of Bimal Chanda, the 59-year-old Bengali man who was fatally beaten two weeks ago, has hired attorney Joseph Awad.In a phone interview today, Awad said Chanda’s widow, who found her husband in stairwell (and may or may not have scared off his attackers) is understandably devastated and receiving counseling to help her cope with the pain of losing her husband. I asked him about rumors saying Chanda was targeted for some reason — like his ethnicity or the possibility that he witnessed a crime. Awad said, at this point, “there was no reason to believe he was targeted.” Read more

Letter to the Editor: Smoking Concerns

To the Editor,

As an artist with a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts and Art Therapy I am impressed with the fidelity to cultural practices and  design of the fine cigars created by Francisco Rosario (Norwood News, Oct. 20, 2011-Nov. 2, 2011).  Mr. Rosario’s dedication to maintaining the skills he adopted in childhood is admirable and no doubt his cigars bring enjoyment and relaxation to his customers.  As a child advocate, I am concerned that he was working with toxic materials as a child and most likely subjected to the second hand smoke of the adults around him.  As a health professional with a Master’s in Public Health, I have grave concerns about the impact of cigars on the health and well being of Mr. Rosario, his customers, their families, especially children and anyone in the wake of their smoke.

While cigar smoking seems charming and sophisticated, this is the information on the National Cancer Institute website:

—Cigar smoke, like cigarette smoke, contains toxic and cancer-causing chemicals that are harmful to both smokers and nonsmokers.

—There is no safe tobacco product, and there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. The more you smoke, the greater your risk of disease.

—Cigar smoking causes oral cavity cancers (cancers of the lip, tongue, mouth, and throat) and cancers of the larynx (voice box), esophagus, and lung.

—All cigar and cigarette smokers, whether or not they inhale, directly expose their lips, mouth, tongue, throat, and larynx to tobacco smoke and its toxic and cancer-causing chemicals.

An article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (Shapiro, Jacobs, Thun, 1999) states:  “Results from this large prospective study support a strong association between cigar smoking and mortality from several types of cancer.”

I applaud Mr. Rosario’s commitment as an artisan.  I think the article about his cigar shop in our Bronx neighborhood is interesting. But I shudder to think of the number of people who have purchased cigars from him over the past 10 years who have been harmed and have harmed others with the toxic ingredients in the beautifully rolled and artfully designed cancer-causing tobacco.

Karel R. Amaranth, MPH, MA

Editorial: Empty Lot, Empty Promises

Two years ago, in the wake of an early Halloween morning fire on Bainbridge Avenue that destroyed 10 Norwood businesses and deflated an entire neighborhood, there was much talk of renewal — from city agencies, elected officials and the landlord who owned the lot where those businesses once thrived.

“The plan is to get the building back up as quickly as possible,” said Evelyn Jacobson, whose company, West Bronx Stores, owns the Bainbridge Avenue lot.

Obviously, that plan isn’t working out for Jacobson or the rest of the neighborhood. The lot remains empty, walled off by planks of particle board.

For a while, rumors swirled that Jacobson had struck a deal to lease space in what would be a newly-constructed building for some type of retail use. Now, the Norwood News has learned, Jacobson scrapped that idea and is looking to sell the property for a huge chunk of change, perhaps as much as $5 million. Not surprisingly, in a struggling economy, no one is biting. Read more

Welcome to the Norwood News’ Digital Evolution

Dear Readers,

Whether you are a regular reader of the Norwood News or you are just checking out this website for the first time, I would like to personally thank you for your support of vital community journalism. Now, starting this week, we would like to reward you for your support by offering you more. More news. More photos. More information. More analysis. More multi-media. All of this for free. I know. Sounds too good to be true, right? Let me explain.

For nearly a quarter century (we began publishing in 1988!), the Norwood News has produced quality, vibrant and civically important journalism through its print edition. We began as a bimonthly newspaper covering just one neighborhood: Norwood. Today, we publish every two weeks and cover the neighborhoods of Community District 7 — Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights — plus anything else borough, city, state or nationwide that we feel is important or of interest to you.

The problem now is that our coverage cannot be contained in the limited space we can afford to produce bi-weekly. So, instead of having you wait for the next print edition for your news, we are working hard to deliver it to you digitally via several online platforms.

The heart of this extended coverage will be the Norwood News website, norwoodnews.org, where we will still provide you with every story produced in the print edition, plus features like Neighborhood Notes (our guide to local programs, services and announcements) and Out & About (our arts and entertainment calendar). We will also include a link to a pdf version of the actual print edition in case you want to read the paper, as it was produced, on your computer (or smart tablet or iPhone, etc.). Read more

‘Have a Nice Day’: My Mugging Story

By Nathaniel Herz

A few days before I got mugged in Williamsbridge Oval, I was thinking to myself about the surprising warmth and courtesy that I’d felt from Bronx residents in my first few weeks in the borough.

In August, I’d moved from rural Maine to New York City to study at Columbia Journalism School, and I’d picked Norwood as the neighborhood beat that I’d be covering through December.

When I arrived, pretty much the only thing I knew about the Bronx was that my friends from Manhattan and Brooklyn didn’t like to go there. When I told them that I’d actually chosen to cover a neighborhood in the borough, they looked at me like I was out of my mind. Read more

Op-Ed: A Love Letter to Norwood

By Sally Dunford

Dear Norwood,

I can’t remember when I didn’t love you. When I was little, Mom and Dad and a half-dozen siblings would come to Perry Avenue, to Nana and PopPop’s house. It was so exciting after East Greenbush. We’d come down on the Thruway and get off at 233rd Street, and go down Jerome Avenue. I was convinced that the end of the No. 4 train at the Woodlawn station was the gateway to New York. You could see the world from Nana’s house — the subway, the Thanksgiving parade, or just feeding the ducks at Woodlawn Cemetery. Aunt Ethel lived around the corner, and we played with the Irish kids next door. One of the three O’Sullivan girls had an exotic name – it was pronounced “Ah-va” — short for “Ave Maria because she was born at Christmas, ya see?” her sister told me.

So when I got a scholarship to come to Fordham University, it wasn’t surprising that I came. It was 1969 and the whole world was upside down. I lived my freshman year on Perry Avenue (Fordham had just gone co-ed, and there were no dorms for women). Sophomore year I got an apartment share; I was 19 and ready for independence. College was a time of learning, but I learned the most at the demonstrations and the constant political and philosophical discussions at the Campus Center during the day, and the The L-D (the El Dorado Bar – long gone I’m afraid) under the 3rd Avenue El.

I met my husband at The L-D, 40 years ago today. He was just back from Nam. We married a year later. Mike and I settled back in my mom’s old neighborhood, Norwood in the Bronx. Nana, newly-widowed, still lived there, and we wanted to be able to help her (not that she actually needed help — she lived another 20 plus years!). Read more

Op-Ed: Ten Years After 9/11, the Last Word is Love

By Colleen Kelly

I was at a conference at Fordham University this past May entitled “Moral Outrage and Moral Repair — Reflections on 9/11 and its Afterlife.” The title interested me, as it seemed to accurately describe large portions of my existence this past decade.

My brother, Bill Kelly, Jr., died in Tower 1 on September 11th. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He didn’t work at the Trade Center.

Ironically, Bill’s prior visit to Windows on the World was in December 2000 to receive an employee recognition award. Who knew that the one-day conference Bill was attending on September 11th, the conference he persuaded his boss into letting him attend, would be an event from which he would never return.

Moral outrage — certainly. At the extremists that murdered my brother. At the twist of fate that led him to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. At a humanity that allows for violence as a means to make a point, state your case, right perceived wrongs. At anyone who dared exult in the agonizing smoke and fire.

Then came feelings of confusion — at my country, now planning to bomb others a world away. Didn’t we — yes, we — just live through terror and horrific violence? So then how could we — yes, we — be the cause of similar harm to others? Confusion, also, with my church.

What is a just war exactly? Why does the justification to injure others seem so hypocritical … and human? And how does one truly live out the gospels—or are they simply a collection of beautiful stories?

Finding a group of 9/11 family members who had these and similar concerns was a true blessing. In February of 2002, we formally became an organization, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. We have been working together to break cycles of violence ever since, and our members are “the best friends I never wanted to know.” Read more

Op-Ed: Looking Back on What Matters After 17 Years at Norwood News

By Jordan Moss

In 1998, four years after I became editor of the Norwood News, I was staying at a bed-and-breakfast in Kingston, NY. After introducing myself to another guest at breakfast, l told him where I worked. He laughed and told me he previously worked at the School Construction Authority (SCA), which was then independent of the Board of Education. “We used to fear getting that paper in the mail every time it came out!” he said.

For more than two years, the Norwood News had highlighted the rash of problems and delays in completing PS 20 on Webster Avenue and later PS 15 on Andrews Avenue — two badly needed schools in vastly overcrowded District 10. We submitted Freedom of Information Law requests that uncovered problems in the laying of the foundation at PS 20, and for quite a while ran a countdown clock on the front page counting the days until the latest scheduled completion date.

The school eventually got built and has been serving local residents for almost 15 years, as has PS 15. Our coverage resulted in other newspapers highlighting the SCA’s problems and led to local residents organizing and putting pressure on the agency. The SCA finished the next batch of local schools and additions on time and got its act together.

This is only one example of the critical role community journalism can play and has played in this part of the Bronx. It’s why hyper-local news is so important. There are dozens of TV, radio stations and newspapers that focus on citywide, statewide and national issues, and they occasionally touch down in our northwest Bronx neighborhoods. But only good community papers are dedicated to relentlessly covering issues that so directly affect residents.

Newspapers like this one, by being so familiar with the operation of, and players in, the local civic machinery, can hold government and its representatives accountable and make sure that our communities receive our fair share of taxpayer-generated resources.

Being able to have this kind of impact by editing a newspaper that gave our neighborhoods, too often neglected by decision makers, a voice is why I came to work every day. Read more

Op-ed: Unlikely Heroes and Other Joys of Youth Baseball

By Jarrett Murphy

My son, Owen, and I were supposed to miss this game altogether. It was originally scheduled for back in April, for a day when we were in Ireland. But it rained that day, and the game was called off. So the second and final meeting between the Athletics and Pirates of the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center’s baseball league’s Bantam Division was instead set for Saturday, June 18 at Shandler Field in Van Cortlandt Park.

There was no rain this time. Intense sunshine baked the ballfield. The last time we’d been on the field, our Athletics had a 12-4 lead as the Yankees took their final at-bat only to see the Yanks score eight runs to eke out a tie. The week before there had been another cancelled game because of bad weather; that one would never be made up. This was to be our last game of the year.

The Athletics, coached by Sam Saltares, struck first, scoring twice. We came back with five runs. In the third, they took a 7-5 lead. Then we went ahead 10-7. They put four across in the next frame, but we scored one more in the bottom half to tie the game at 11. Our star player, Artie, was out of town. But we were getting enough offense off the bats of Deandre, our leadoff man, with Carlos, Romeo and Joel getting on base every time. Denae belted a rocket past the third baseman. David beat out a throw to first. Owen had two RBI singles despite having to lay down between at-bats with a headache and fever. Alyssa played heads-up right field, and Jeremy patrolled left. Nick and Quadir stole hits from the Bucs with clever fielding.

Yet we still came to our last at-bat of the season down 13-11. More hits came. The bases loaded up. The tying run came across. Then it was Richard’s turn.

Richard, who happens to be our neighbor, had never played baseball before the season. People who came to our games often heard his name as coaches shouted for him to pay attention, stop playing with dirt, or at least stand up in the outfield. Earlier in the season, he’d asked me to stop the team from chanting his name when he was at the plate because it made him nervous.

Having taken his place in the batter’s box, Richard made a couple of weak swings. Quickly, he was down to his last strike. The winning run was on third base.

The pitch came, and Richard swung, this time with purpose, with meaning. The ball popped off the bat rolling and bouncing toward the shortstop. The bench knew instantly, just by the peculiar way the ball was dribbling across the diamond, that it was all we needed. We roared. The runner on third scampered home. Richard, the fastest man on the team, sprinted to first. He beat the throw by two steps.

The field emptied as Richard stood on first not quite understanding why everyone was hitting him on the helmet. The coach and assistants, grown men all, leapt off their feet. Owen cried with joy. Our final record was 4-4-1, which is somehow way better than 3-5-1, but it didn’t matter that much. If we had finished 1-9, this win would still have felt like the championship.

When the team got their trophies—every team gets trophies—Richard said it was the first he’d ever received. He also got the game ball. The next night he yelled into our yard to ask when the next game is. It was hard to tell him that there’d be no more games until April.

There is plenty not to like about sports—taxpayer-funded stadiums built on top of poor people’s parks, spoiled millionaire athletes, absurd ticket prices, steroid cheats, jingoistic violence. And there’s a lot about sports that is not very profound; they’re an excuse to drink some beer and not think about more important, more depressing things. But sometimes sports are more than all of that. They are a ball dancing across a dusty field and an unlikely hero wondering why everyone is smiling at him.

Jarrett Murphy, a Norwood resident, is editor-in-chief of City Limits.

Op-ed: Action Needed on Dirty Boilers That Pollute and Kill

By Ruben Diaz, Jr. and Scott Stringer

When it comes to health-threatening air pollution in New York, toxic boilers are public enemy number one. These boilers—which burn #4 and #6 heating oil in apartment buildings and other structures—are a menace to the health and well-being of our city. While they are only used by one percent of all New York buildings, they account for an astonishing 86 percent of the city’s airborne soot pollution.

To put it another way: This noxious heating oil produces 50 percent more air pollution than all of the cars and trucks in New York City, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. And the human toll is staggering. We know that the air pollution caused by dirty boilers and other sources is responsible for more than 3,000 deaths and approximately 6,000 emergency room visits for asthma in children and adults in New York each year, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

This is a citywide problem, but the roots of it might surprise you. New data evaluated by the Manhattan borough president’s  office shows that 63 percent of the boilers using #4 and #6 oil are located in buildings with one or more units of rent-regulated housing. And a breakdown of these buildings by zip codes reveals that the 12 most affected neighborhoods, the so-called Dirty Dozen, are in the Bronx and northern Manhattan. Our analysis shows that 10467—including Bedfor Park and Norwood in the Bronx—has the highest number of dirty boilers in rent-regulated buildings (252) of any New York zip code. It also ranks fifth in the city for individuals under the age of 5, a population that is particularly vulnerable to such pollution. Read more

Sen. Diaz Betrays Tenants

By Editorial

Most New Yorkers don’t know who their state legislators are or what they do (or don’t do).

But there’s no better illustration as to why they should than the impending debacle over rent regulations in New York City.

Last year the Democrats had their best shot at strengthening rent regulations and lifting the threshold for vacancy decontrol above the $2,000 it was set at in 1994.

But one of the Democrats was Pedro Espada, who fashioned himself a man of the people but preferred to live in the Westchester suburb of Mamaroneck while he fashioned sham pro-tenant legislation that was designed to favor his benefactors in the real estate industry. In nabbing the chairmanship of the Housing Committee by holding the evenly split Senate hostage, he was able to block key tenant bills at will.

Voters had the good sense to remove Espada for this and a variety of alleged transgressions, but we are still left with his “amigo,” Bronx State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr., an Espada enabler who voted in favor of the so-called “Rent Freeze” bill but now has amnesia.

A couple of weeks ago, Diaz beat up on Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn for their push for gay marriage legislation; he said they should be focused on the Emergency Tenant Protection Act.

Surprised by Diaz’s sudden concern for tenants, we asked him why he sided with Espada last year on a bill that would have undermined rent stabilization.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he said. “This is this year. That was last year.”

When he was reminded of his vote, and that he attended Espada’s rally for the bill, he said it was in the name of friendship.

Bronx tenants don’t need their elected legislators to be “friends.” They need them to do the people’s business, which would have been to stand up to Espada last year.  This year, strengthening rent laws beyond a simple renewal of weak regulations has little chance of passage because of the

Republican takeover of the Senate, so Diaz’s conversion serves only himself.

Diaz may have forgotten what he did to jeopardize the living situations of thousands of Bronxites, but his constituents never should.

Editorial: NYPD Hides Neighborhood Crime Stats

By Editorial Staff

The NYPD has been proud to trumpet plummeting crime stats over the last 15 years or so. Citywide and precinct-wide crime stats are easy to come by. But when it comes to information about crime in your neighborhood or on your block, well, not so much.

A little history:

In early 2008, the Norwood News asked James Alles, then commander of the 52nd Precinct, for the previous year’s crime stats broken down by the precinct’s 15 sectors.

No problem, Alles said, directing a lieutenant to print out the stats. It took all of two minutes.

The statistics allowed us to publish a map showing crime trends in specific neighborhoods, something residents have long sought. We received loads of positive feedback from readers.

“Although I feel safe in my neighborhood, evidently our autos are targets,” one reader said. “Is it possible to receive these reports on a sector basis each month? The overall report for the entire precinct does not really inform the public about their own neighborhood.”
Months later, we asked Alles about doing a follow-up piece. He smiled sheepishly and shook his head. He told us the published sector stats had landed him in hot water with NYPD brass and that we would have to go through the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information (DCPI) at police headquarters if we wanted more sector stats.

In December 2008, when we asked for the year’s sector stats, DCPI said we would have to file a formal Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. So, we FOILed. A month later (government agencies are required to respond within five business days of receiving the request), the NYPD wrote us saying they probably had the records but that it would take them three months to dig up the same information that it took the 52nd Precinct two minutes to produce.

By mid-March, three months after filing the request, we wrote an editorial saying the delay was unacceptable. The day the article was published, the NYPD called us and then faxed over the stats. It probably took them two minutes.

Now, here we are again, waiting on the NYPD. Read more

Letter to the Editor: End of Middle Class Dream at Tracey?

Our landlord at Tracey Towers has notified tenants that the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has received its application for a rent increase to go into effect in three stages over the next two years. The percentage requested for July 2011 is 25.53; for July 2012 it is 20.34; for July 2013 it is 16.9. When the math is done, we tenants will have our rents increased by a whopping 77 percent in the next two years.

Tracey Towers is a Mitchell-Lama complex where tenants moved in with the promise that rents would remain affordable. If these rent increases go through as requested that will no longer be the case. The whole Mitchell-Lama concept will be destroyed, and increasing numbers of dislocations will result as tenants get evicted due to non-payment of rents they can no longer afford.

In these harsh economic times, especially harsh for our working middle class and fixed-income seniors, such a draconian rent increase is unconscionable. The destruction of our nation’s middle class has finally reached Tracey Towers where seniors, who will be hit especially hard, will have to decide whether to pay rent or buy food and prescription medicines.

What makes this current rent increase request even more egregious is the fact that the New York City Rent Guidelines Board never approves increases above 10 percent for those living in rent-stabilized apartments, those whose incomes would enable them to pay even more. So, why such an exorbitant request for a rent increase here at Tracey Towers?  We can only conclude that it is the result of the class war being waged all across America against the middle class. HPD has our fate in their hands, which may mean we are doomed.

Sam Gillian
The writer is vice president of the Tracey Towers Tenant Organization.

Clinton Baseball Eyes Playoffs

By Selim Khan

Coming into the home stretch of a season filled with inconsistency, not just weather-wise, but with the team’s play as well, the talented DeWitt Clinton High School varsity baseball team is looking to secure a playoff berth in the PSAL Championship.

The Governors have not only been inconsistent from game to game, but often within the same game.

“We can play six great innings but have a bad inning, can drop easy pop ups, have mental errors,” said Coach Dennis D’Alessandro. He feels the team is “schizophrenic” and Mother Nature has not cooperated either. It’s hard to build momentum when a handful of games have already been missed because of inclement weather.

As of Tuesday, May 17, the Governors were 8 – 5, good for third place in the Bronx A East Division, which D’Alessandro calls “arguably the best in the city…every [game], there’s a chance for a slugfest.”

Although the team has had its stretches of bad play, there have been some memorable wins as well. Clinton handed Lehman High School its first loss of the season when they were undefeated at 5 – 0. The Governors were down four runs in the seventh inning before mounting a comeback. There’s a healthy rivalry between the two schools and D’Alessandro wouldn’t mind “playing an entire schedule just against them.”

Another special win came this past Friday against Evander Childs Campus when Clinton was down five runs, but was able to pull off a walk-off win in a most unlikely fashion: a suicide squeeze play.

Even though D’Alessandro doesn’t feel his team has been able to put it all together, with 32 teams able to qualify for the playoffs, he expects to see his team in the playoffs.

Talent-wise, he says, this is the best team he’s had in his five years as coach at Clinton. In order to make a deep run and play for the city championship at Keyspan Park in Brooklyn, he will have to rely on a core of senior players including CF Joaquin Dejesus, P Jean Allende, RF Julian Burgos and SS Melvin Mercedes, who D’Alessandro calls “a generational high school player and [you] won’t see another player like him come through in 10 to 15 years.”

Editorial: Some Hope Amid Housing Crisis

By Norwood News Editorial Staff

Over half a million people in the west Bronx live in residential apartment buildings. At least a third of these tenants pay half of their hard-earned wages on rent. Though Bronx residents are paying thousands of dollars a year on shelter, too many of these buildings are in a desperate – sometimes life-threatening — state of disrepair.

It’s a chronic problem in the borough, made even worse over the last decade by over-leveraged investments made by sketchy investors who often hide behind shell companies, banks and mortgage servicers.  Treating the investments like the same sham commodities that precipitated the foreclosure crisis, purchasers, enabled by banks that should know better, paid prices that either made maintaining the properties untenable, or led them to try to recoup their investments by harassing tenants out of their apartments to make way for superficial improvements and people willing to pay more.

University Neighborhood Housing Program, a local nonprofit that should get more citywide attention for its critical research and policy recommendations, reveals in a recent report that “sales price per unit increased uninterrupted for the decade beginning in 1996, skyrocketing 794 percent by 2005.”

There has been too little official attention to this crisis, but tenants living in 10 buildings in the so-called Milbank portfolio organized by the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition have galvanized a rare meeting of the minds that has led to important reform.

Mayor Bloomberg and his Department of Housing Preservation and Development deserve credit for facilitating a transfer of ownership of the Milbank portfolio to a single, identifiable owner who will be held accountable by a broad coalition of tenants and public officials. Read more

Op-ed: Show Me the Teachers!

“Mayor to Kids: Say Goodbye to Your Teacher” is the glaring headline on the front page of the Feb. 17 edition of New York Teacher, a bi-weekly periodical for teachers. Its sub-head reads “Bloomberg would rather lay off teachers than extend millionaire’s tax.”

This state tax is due to expire at the end of this year, and my immediate thought on this sub-head was: I wonder if the mayor objects because he himself is a millionaire, which would mean his own taxes would be higher. It has been reported that this tax could add billions of dollars to the state budget which could prevent layoffs.

Much has been written about the possibility of 5,000 teachers losing their jobs come the start of the new school year in September. Whether it’s the veterans or the newbies, it’s not good news either way. Read more

Letter: Grammy-Winner Plays at Norwood Church

By Judy Noy

Maybe you’ve seen him at Willie’s Steak House, or even at the Grammys in Los Angeles. Pete Nater earned his Grammy in 2005, along with the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. But has he forgotten that he’s from the Bronx? Not a chance. Even though he’s made it, he seems to have a soft spot for us.

This April, Mr. Nater will play trumpet for the 11 a.m. Easter service at Epiphany Lutheran Church, 302 E. 206th Street, in Norwood.
Asked whether, now that he has the big prize, it means that he can concentrate exclusively on music now, he replied, “Well, I still have my day job down at the Law Department.”

Nater plays weekend gigs, locally, or takes time off to tour Japan, Turkey, France and half a dozen other countries. And yet, on weekdays he can still be found at his desk in the City Law Department, as a torts investigator, finding witnesses and checking evidence for claims against the city. “With his tightly coiled posture, poker face and shaved scalp, he could be mistaken for one of the cops his unit is charged with defending,” wrote Anemona Hartocollis about Nater in a 2005 New York Times article.

Nater was 12 when he started playing trumpet. He got to play in the Junior High School 123 jazz band in Soundview, and the rest is history. Admitted into the High School of Music and Art, he was soon discovered by Larry Harlow, the famed Latin music producer who recruited him to fill in for a sick trumpet player. Nater never looked back, except to pick up his high school diploma.

Living and working out of a two-family house in the south Bronx, Nater continues to play birthdays, bar mitzvahs, weddings, and, yes, church gigs for deserving congregations like Epiphany’s. By the way, in 2004, he entertained at the surprise birthday party that Jennifer Lopez gave for Marc Anthony at their house on Long Island. He has played with just about all of the Latin-Jazz greats, including Ray Barretto, Machito, Johnny Pacheco, Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Charlie Palmieri, Hector LaVoe, Marc Anthony, Celia Cruz, and Mongo Santamaria, just to name a few.

When asked why he agreed to play at Epiphany, a small congregation of maybe 50 people, he said, “Well, you know, I enjoy playing all kinds of music, and I enjoy performing anywhere, anytime. I believe in God, so why not play in church?”
–Janet Norquist-González, Norwood resident

Webster Ave. Rezone Now in Hands of Council

By Alex Kratz

The rezoning of a long, auto shop-strewn stretch of Webster Avenue between Fordham Road and Gun Hill Road is now moving into its final stage — scrutiny from the City Council, which must sign off on the plan.

Over the past few years, Community Board 7 has worked with the office of City Planning to up-zone Webster Avenue to encourage more residential and retail development and, at the same time, down-zone select neighborhoods in Norwood and Bedford Park.

Over the coming weeks, the Council will hold three meetings to discuss the Webster rezone plan:
• March 15, 9:30 a.m., 16th floor Hearing Room – Zoning Subcommittee (Hearing & Vote)
• March 16, 11 a.m., 16th floor Hearing Room – (Full) Land Use Committee (Hearing & Vote)
• March 23, 1:30 p.m., Emigrant Savings Bank (49-51 Chambers St.) — Stated Meeting (Vote)

The public can sign up to speak at the March 15 Zoning Subcommittee hearing. The actual vote on the plan will be on March 23.

Editorial: Foodtown’s Welcome Return

By Norwood News

The absence of Foodtown in Norwood for the last 15 months has been deeply felt by thousands of local residents. The elderly, who were able to walk to the supermarket before the store burned to the ground in December 2009, were particularly burdened by the loss.

But the store has emerged bigger and better with a much wider array of offerings and more room for residents with walkers, strollers and shopping carts to maneuver.

The Katz family, comprised of astute businessmen who own 13 other stores, has occasionally rankled local residents, as when it tried to buy and close a rival Bedford Park market in the 1990s. Ensuing protests, particularly among senior citizens, made them reverse course.

But to the family’s credit, they have deep roots in the community and ensured that staffers were employed at their other stores after the fire. The Katz’s investment in the Norwood store — they say their expenses for the rebuilding outweigh their insurance settlement — appears to be significant and the decision to offer many things too few Bronx supermarkets have, such as organic foods and a robust produce section, is a vote for quality in a community that deserves much more of it. Entrepreneurs all over should take heed.

As Noah Katz told a customer on Tuesday who expressed appreciation for the new store: “You deserve a first class store at low prices.”

The Katz family has earned the plaudits it has been receiving for rebuilding in style in a relatively short amount of time. There’s still the large lot across the street made vacant by another fire just two months earlier, but the rebuilding of Foodtown sends the message to prospective developers that Norwood is still open for good business.

Editorial: The Armory Vote One Year Later

By Norwood News

It’s the one-year anniversary of the nearly unanimous City Council vote that scuttled the mayor’s juggernaut to stuff a cookie-cutter mall inside the landmark Kingsbridge Armory.

In that time, the city’s two tabloids, the New York Post and the Daily News, have taken every opportunity to whack at Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. for his opposition to the project, which gave the necessary juice to a community and labor-backed effort to defeat it in the City Council.

Regular readers know where we stand on this, but as long as the editorial boards of the city dailies continue to harp on this, we are compelled to reiterate our position.

For more than a decade, community organizations led by the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition hammered out plans for a remake of the facility that made room for recreation, community programming, small businesses, a movie theater, etc.

Related, the city’s chosen developer, never offered details on what it was going to provide except for retail. Despite this and the clear sense that the Armory would be a mall pure and simple, the community’s only firm request in the end was that people had to be paid a living wage, particularly when the developer was going to receive over $70 million in taxpayer subsidies to remake a public landmark.

It was hardly an outlandish request. Several other municipalities have enacted wage guarantees on development projects benefiting from taxpayer subsidies. Read more

Op-ed: Should Parks and Beaches Be Smoke-Free?

By Juan Ramon Rios
Highbridge Community Life Center

As a child I always enjoyed going to our Bronx beaches and parks with my family. While affluent children enjoyed collecting seashells by the seashore, I remember fondly picking up cigarette butts so we could spell out our names with them. Little did we know of the harms of secondhand smoke and the impact discarded cigarette filters would have on our environment. Read more

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