• Home
• News
• Health
• Politics
• Schools
• Crime
• Business
• Opinion
• Sports
• Culture

 RSS

A Local Resource in the Battle Against Child Abuse

By Jordan Moss

Virtually everyone in the Bronx is familiar with the tragic details surrounding the death of Quachaun Browne, the 4-year-old Norwood boy who was horrifically beaten allegedly by his mother’s boyfriend.

But far fewer people are familiar with this statistic: there are 13,000 reports of abuse every year in this borough alone.

And here’s something else most folks probably don’t know: There is an important resource right here in the northwest Bronx, in Norwood, that any person who fears for the safety of their own child, or even a friend and neighbor’s child, can call on for advice or refer someone to.

The city’s Administration for Children’s Services is the government agency that must act on reports of child abuse. “But everyone is responsible for protecting children,” says Karel Amaranth, the director the J.E. and Z.B. Butler Child Advocacy Center which is a part of The Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.

The 21-year-old Center’s Steuben Avenue headquarters, which is literally steps away from where Quachaun lived, is probably best known for its innovative multi-faceted approach to helping children once they are found to have been abused. It brings all the social services, medical and law enforcement personnel under one roof so that kids do not also have to suffer the indignity of being shuttled from office to office and agency to agency at the most vulnerable time in their lives.

But the Center also exists to prevent child abuse by providing counseling early on to families in trouble and parenting classes to virtually anyone who is interested in being a better parent.

“We want to see children before anyone commits a crime,” says Amaranth.

(Anyone can call the Center for an appointment and Amaranth stresses that, while insurance is accepted, those without insurance will not be charged for the Center’s services.)

She describes a typical situation where a child keeps getting sick and the mother is referred to the Center by the city, the child’s school or a community organization. In addition to counseling the parent, the child is given a full medical exam.

Children can then be referred to a specialist (for glasses, say) or to a specific program (such as an obesity clinic). “We can provide any number of medical [or] social work interventions,” Amaranth says.

Parents and caregivers, meanwhile, can also be referred to the Center’s prevention services, which are based on Reservoir Oval in what used to be the Gun Hill Jewish Center. (The structure now houses both the Center’s prevention services and also Montefiore’s School Health program.)

There’s an ongoing class for non-offending parents whose children were abused and came through Child Advocacy Center.

But another class in skills-building for parents and all types of caregivers — foster parents, grandparents, pregnant moms, etc. — is for anyone interested. That class helps people “better your ability to communicate with your children,” says social worker and class facilitator Ina Mendez, who stresses that the classes are positive in nature and are a judgment-free zone. “This is about enhancing what they already do very well, reinforcing the strengths and then adding to that.”

The next 12-week class begins in March. (See below)

Even though the Center can be a resource in many respects, and can provide advice to anyone concerned about a child’s welfare, Amaranth says people should call the state’s central register (which will notify ACS) when they suspect abuse. The more information ACS has about a child’s situation, the more able they’ll be to intervene effectively, she says. If someone isn’t sure what to do, they can call the Child Advocacy Center for advice, Amaranth adds.

Amaranth also hopes that ACS will work more closely with community resources like the Center, by making referrals in situations where a crime has not been committed. The Center’s staff is also available to make presentations at schools and community organizations.

And she reminds us that we all have a role to play in protecting children.

“It really takes a village,” Amaranth says. “We’re all responsible for all children.”

 

Dinowitz Acts on Pinnacle

By Editorial

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz deserves credit for being the first elected official in the Bronx to utter a public word about the contemptible practices of the Pinnacle Group. Despite the fact that close to 40 Bronx buildings have been snapped up by this company, which has harassed tenants by illegally increasing rents and hauling dozens of them into court for trivial and trumped-up matters, no elected official did or said anything about this issue until now. As Heather Haddon reports in this issue as part of a continuing series that began last October, Dinowitz’ office is helping two constituents deal with unfair rent increases assessed by Pinnacle. The assemblyman is also considering alerting all his constituents who live in Pinnacle buildings to be on the lookout for irregular charges. We hope that he will also pressure the state’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal to take a closer look at the company’s practices.

In the meantime, we’re glad a local elected official has begun to take action.

Mayor’s School Gamble

By Editorial

As the Norwood News reported last issue, the construction of 21 new schools in the city’s capital plan have been scrapped by the Bloomberg administration because state money is not in the pipeline.

The city included that money in its school construction plan because a judge has ordered the state to provide city schools with a fair share of state education dollars.

Because the governor and Republican lawmakers in Albany are stalling in fulfilling the judge’s order, the mayor ratcheted up the political pressure by scrapping the school projects and embarking on an all-out political campaign to force the state legislature’s hand. (He’s even talking about backing a Democrat in a Queens state Senate race against the incumbent from his own party.)

While the mayor deserves credit for taking off the gloves in this critical fight for city schools, we wonder if he hurt his own cause by keeping parents in the dark about his plans.

Among the projects that were scrapped is the renovation of the old Fordham library building on Bainbridge Avenue for the Bronx Leadership Institute. Parents and students involved in the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition were central to the planning and organizing of that school, which this year is temporarily housed in the Police Athletic League building on Webster Avenue. Supporters of that school say there was never a question that that the library would get renovated and that they were totally blindsided by the mayor’s decision to scrap the plans.

Likewise, parents and elected officials in lower Manhattan are livid over the icing of two schools that were central to a pact to allow for commercial development in the area. Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff even signed an agreement outlining the deal with Council Member Scott Gerson. Now parents there are calling the mayor a liar.

So, instead of parents being the wind at Bloomberg’s back as he takes his case up to the state capital, the mayor instead has angry parents chomping at his pant leg.

We understand why the mayor only came up with a single construction budget that did not include a contingency plan if the state failed to act. It provides the state with a stark decision: Give the city the money it’s owed or doom these new schools.

But wouldn’t it have made more strategic sense to tell the parents that their schools depended on funding from Albany, and if that wasn’t forthcoming he’d need their troop support for his battle in Albany?

If the mayor pulls off this high-stakes, high-wire act, surely all will be forgiven. If he doesn’t, he may wish he and his school chancellor had been straight with supporters of these schools and recruited them for a fight they could have helped win.

Five-Two Officer Laid to Rest

By David Greene

Rookie cop Eric Hernandez, a beat officer from the 52nd Precinct’s Operation Impact, was laid to rest nearly two weeks after being shot in error by a fellow officer responding to an assault at a White Castle on Webster Avenue.

Hernandez, 24, joined the force in 2004 and joined the NYPD’s football team, where he excelled and quickly earned the respect of his fellow officers from across the city. Hernandez was named the team’s most valuable player in three of the last seven games. The team has retired his number, 20.

After complications that resulted in the amputation of the lower part of one leg, it was hoped that Hernandez would continue to recover from his wounds at St. Barnabas Hospital. Hernandez’ teammates joined him by his bedside to watch the Super Bowl.

Several thousand police officers from across the tri-state area paid their respects to Hernandez at St. Bernard’s Church in White Plains on Feb. 13.

Deputy Inspector Joseph Hoch, commander of the 52nd Precinct, told the Norwood News that Hernandez was a “humble guy” who didn’t feel the need to “broadcast his status as a football star.” He added, “This was an emotionally trying time for the precinct.”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke at the funeral. “The really important thing to remember about Eric was not how he carried the ball but how he carried himself,” Bloomberg said.

Hernandez played his first game in April 2005 against the Philadelphia Police Department and earned the respect and admiration for his efforts in the Fun City Bowl against the Fire Department.

“As a member of Operation Impact, he brought crime down in troubled areas,” recalled Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who continued, “Eric was relentlessly upbeat with composure beyond his years.”

Kelly vowed that the six suspects who allegedly attacked Hernandez would be punished. “We’ll see to it that they’ll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” he said.

Recalling the shock of Hernandez’ death, his half-brother Michael said, “I couldn’t believe that the guy stealing my deodorant three weeks earlier was gone forever.”

A grim-faced Borough President Adolfo Carrión also attended the funeral, his second for a Bronx cop since December. “I’m here to pay my respects to his family and his memory, to make sure he’s not forgotten,” he said.

The Hernandez family gave their consent to a movie production company to film parts of the funeral for an upcoming movie starring actor Colin Farrell.

Dinowitz Says Pinnacle Harasses His Constituents

By Heather Haddon

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz is speaking out against the controversial practices of the Pinnacle Group after he discovered the management company aggressively went after two vulnerable tenants in his district.

“The stories are just horrible,” said Dinowitz about the incidents, which involve Riverdale and Norwood residents and properties. “They’re trying to enrich themselves off of the misery of other people.”

In the first case, Pinnacle served a 90-year-old man with court papers for back rent due on his Henry Hudson Parkway apartment, according to Terry Colon, a staffer working on the cases. Colon found that the man had actually overpaid Pinnacle by more than $1,000. The company failed to acknowledge that they received funds from the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption program, which subsidizes the rents of low-income seniors living in regulated apartments.

“He was double dipping,” said Dinowitz, referring to Joel Wiener, who heads Pinnacle.

Colon is also trying to assist a tenant at 215 E. Gun Hill Road who was hit by a quick succession of rent increases last year. The hikes were retroactive charges allowed under the stabilization program, but they aren’t usually done all at once, according to Colon. The resident has accrued $4,000 in rent arrears. She is also disabled. “She has to go to court in a wheelchair,” Colon said.

The irregularities seem to be endemic to Pinnacle buildings. The company has quickly acquired a slew of properties in low-income city neighborhoods. The Norwood News has documented in several previous stories that tenants have been slapped with scores of lawsuits for back rent or trivial residency disputes. Residents in both Manhattan and the Bronx have charged that they are the victims of threatening letters, eviction threats and unnecessary court appearances.

“They are particularly harassing the elderly,” said Earline Nelson-Cody, a Harlem tenant, during a meeting of Pinnacle tenants last month.

The company has twice been caught by the state for intentionally overcharging Bronx tenants. Pinnacle issued credits to residents in buildings on Olinville Avenue, calling it a “clerical error.” That justification was also used in the Riverdale tenant’s case.

“It became clear to the landlord that it was becoming a public problem for him,” Dinowitz said.

Colon lives in Kingsbridge Gardens, a former Mitchell Lama building bought by Pinnacle in 2002. She, too, was overcharged by the company after they made a number of building-wide improvements in the complex. Colon says she was supposed to be charged roughly $50 for the repairs, but received a bill for $100.

“Their goal is to get as high an increase as possible,” she said.

The Marino Organization, a public relations firm hired by Pinnacle, did not return calls for comment on the cases.

Dinowitz says his office will continue to monitor Pinnacle and assist residents. He is considering conducting a mass mailing about the company’s practices to Pinnacle buildings in the district.

“We’re going to go after him and enforce the law,” he said.

Fire Rekindles Tracey Concerns

By Heather Haddon

A suspicious fire and ongoing maintenance issues at Tracey Towers have sparked anger among residents and a rebellion against tenant leaders.

“A lot of issues are still on the table,” said Betty Woodard, a 30-year resident of the large Bedford Park complex.

Frustration with serious problems at Tracey spiked last April when Ming Chen, a Chinese delivery man, got stuck in one of the building’s elevators for four days. The infamous incident forced R-Y Management, which oversees Tracey, to step up efforts to rehab the towers’ elevators and work closer with tenants. R-Y began meeting bi-weekly with Tracey’s tenant council, creating a plan for building and security improvements, and starting on a number of renovations.

To date, three out of 12 of the elevators have been rehabbed, with the project slated to wrap up by the end of this year. Tracey’s meeting room, which suffered from chronic leaks, was fixed up. Work on four of the boilers started earlier this winter. R-Y also secured a loan to fund façade and roof improvements.

The work satisfied tenants’ concerns to a degree, but unrest has resurfaced as serious problems continue. Residents report that the elevators, including the new ones, skip stops, zoom up and down, and break down for extended periods. “The elevators are going crazy,” said Sam Gillian, a tenant and vocal critic of Tracey’s conditions.

The situation was underscored when a fire broke out on Jan. 28 on the 33rd floor of one of the towers. Several tenants say that because only one of the elevators that goes as high as the 41st floor was operational that evening, firefighters resorted to climbing the stairs to reach the blaze. “They had to lug their equipment up 13 floors,” Gillian said.

The fire took an hour to contain and required more than one engine, according to a Fire Department spokesperson. It caused extensive damage to the apartment’s kitchen, where it erupted. The Fire Department did not determine a cause.

Tenants suspect, however, that a faulty refrigerator plug caused the fire. “[Maintenance] kept repairing it instead of replacing it,” said Jean Hill, a close friend of the couple who lived in the apartment. Gillian also questioned whether the repairman was qualified to fix the appliance.

R-Y’s manager for Tracey, Dan Durante, did not return calls for comment.

Tracey residents have long complained about the competence and attentiveness of their maintenance and security staff. Chen’s ordeal further highlighted those concerns.

Donele Harrison, the secretary of Tracey’s tenant council, says they are interviewing security companies to replace Copstat, their current provider. They hope to choose between two bidders by the end of this month.

There has been less progress in overhauling the maintenance situation. Tracey’s current company has been without a contract for three months due to disagreements with R-Y, according to Harrison. “They are saying ‘we have no supplies,’ while management is saying they’re lazy. We’re suffering in the interim,” she said.

Tracey tenants are also in the midst of a power struggle. Some residents charge that the council has gotten too cozy with R-Y, and are calling for immediate leadership elections. In the meantime, they have formed their own tenants committee called the Tracey Towers Concerned Residents.

“We’re reflecting the anger that’s been building up among the tenants,” said Gillian, who has been joined by about a dozen others. “The tenant council isn’t doing what they should be doing.”

Harrison admits that the council might not be as aggressive as some tenants want. But she thinks their approach is more effective. “At least we have them talking and things are getting better,” she said. “You are never going to satisfy everyone.”

The new group has started a petition concerning elections. Woodard says they’ve gotten residents from 366 of the 861 total units to sign as of earlier this month. “Things are not getting better here,” she said.

Elections for the council are slated for September. Harrison said the council is sticking with that timeline, and will form a nominating committee in the spring.

Terminal Market Deal Criticized

By Heather Haddon

Elected officials are championing a community benefits agreement signed for the new Bronx Terminal mall as groundbreaking, but some community groups say the precedent-setting nature of the pact is exactly what they‘re worried about.

“It’s a disgrace,” said Pasquale Canale, president of the 161st Street Merchants Association. “We don’t feel that the community got anything.”

The Related Companies won its bid to build the Gateway Center mall at the old Terminal Market earlier this month when the City Council agreed to rezone the area. The night before the vote, Bronx officials and Related negotiated a package of labor-related stipulations and community givebacks for the $395 million project. The 965,000-square-foot complex, located between 149th and 153rd streets along the Harlem River, will include chain stores like BJ’s Warehouse, but not Wal-Mart. It is slated to open by 2009.

Related agreed to invest $3 million in job training and referral programs for Bronx residents, reserve some space for local and minority-owned vendors, and compensate the Market’s previous merchants. They also mandated that BJ’s accept food stamps and other benefits from customers (they currently do not at other stores), and pay half the membership fees for 1,000 residents.

Officials across the Bronx hailed the deal. “This agreement should serve as the benchmark for doing business in our borough and throughout the city,” said Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión in his state of the borough address earlier this month.

Assemblyman Jose Rivera said Ululy Martinez, chief of staff for the Bronx Democratic Party, deserves most of the credit. “[The agreement] is the first of its kind in the city,” said Martinez, a lawyer, during an interview at an event earlier this month. Martinez said he consulted similar community benefits agreements from California, and while the Gateway document isn’t as beneficial to the community as those, he said it comes close.

Matt Lipsky of the Neighborhood Retail Alliance, a city advocacy group, couldn’t disagree more. “There is no pressure on the developer to do anything,” he said.

If Related shirks its responsibilities, they will be fined up to $60,000. Community opponents fear Related will pay the fine and do whatever they want. “The community sold itself out for $60,000,” said Greg Bell, co-chair of Bronx Voices for Equal Inclusion, an advocacy group affiliated with the Mid-Bronx Neighborhood Advisory Council.

Martinez said Related was reluctant to make the agreement binding, but that officials succeeded in adding “enforcement mechanisms.” He didn’t elaborate on those measures.

Critics also complained about other parts of the agreement. The amount of space reserved for local merchants boils down to less than two percent of the entire mall. Living wage and minority hiring stipulations only pertain to workers contracted through Related, not the buildings’ tenants. The stores are encouraged, but not mandated, to hire through Bronx referral programs.

“How many people really are going to get jobs from Bronx county?” asked Bell, who sits on Community Board 4.

Community groups are particularly irate about the negotiating process. Last November, 18 community development corporations, Bronx organizations and other local stakeholders were selected by the borough president’s office to begin brainstorming about an agreement. They were divided into committees addressing small business, employment and environmental impacts.

Groups were given about a month to draft a document, but participants say they weren’t provided with any outside guidance. “We’d go to meetings among ourselves and talk in circles,” said Canale, who owns a corner store.

In the end, the groups weren’t even at the negotiating table. Organizations were e-mailed a completed document the morning of the Council vote. It included three lines for community signatures—and those were the only ones obtained. The heads of Hostos Community College, the New Bronx Chamber of Commerce and Mount Hope Housing Company endorsed the agreement. At least seven groups refused, according to Lipsky.

“Our two main focuses are transparency and inclusion,” Bell said. “This had neither.”

Anne Fenton, a spokesperson for the borough president, admitted that the rushed nature of the endorsement process wasn’t ideal, but she said that the signatories did represent each of the committees. “We chose three people that were heavily involved,” she said.

Critics worry that a closed-door process has implications for the neighboring Yankee Stadium development. The new stadium and parking garage, which would put replace two park, is moving forward despite growing community opposition.

Canale feels burned by Bronx officials. “How can you forget the neighborhood that put you up there?” asked Canale, who collected over 250 signatures against the stadium in less than two days. “The Yankees weren’t the people who elected you.”

Workers Strike at Fordham Hill

By David Crohn

The blizzard of ’06 was especially cold for residents of the Fordham Hill Cooperative last weekend as they were caught in the middle of a labor dispute pitting maintenance workers against the management company.

Fifteen workers walked off the job early Sunday morning — just as the snow was starting to pile up —and hit the picket lines to protest last month’s layoff of 10 of their colleagues. The management company, Fordham Hill Owners Corporation, blamed a budget squeeze caused by the rising cost of fuel and said the layoffs might only be temporary.

“We said from the beginning that we would revisit the layoffs in three to six months,” said property manager Everton Moore.

Fordham Hill, a nine-building, 1,100-unit self-managing apartment complex at Sedgwick Avenue and Fordham Road, is home to prominent Bronxites such as state assemblyman Jose Rivera and state Senator Efrain Gonzalez.

The tenants depend on the maintenance department’s 28-member staff for garbage collection, cleanup and, during the winter, snow removal.

But since the layoffs, the remaining workers say they have had to work extra days and double shifts to pick up the slack. Besides the rehiring of their coworkers, at the top of their list of demands is a new contract. They’ve been without one since March 2005.

“We want a contract and we want these guys back because it’s too much for us,” said maintenance worker Mario Sosa, as he picketed last Tuesday.

And some tenants say they are fed up with the Fordham Hill Owners for cutting services while raising monthly maintenance fees 17.5 percent in January.

 “They laid those people off, but they still raised the rents,” said tenant Nila Reynoso. “Where’s the money going?”

She said that although she has had to step in and clean the hallways she supports the striking workers, whom she says deserve better treatment. “I feel sorry for the people who were laid off,” Reynoso said. “They were good people with families to support.”

But Moore disputes the claim that any residents have had to work since the strike began. He said a contingency plan, which includes him personally shoveling snow, has been in effect.

He also said that the strikers, represented by the Service Employees International Union, were being “intentionally disruptive” by striking at the beginning of the blizzard, on the one day of the week that management staff is off.

Union spokesman Daniel Massey called the timing of the strike simply “a fortunate coincidence.”

The strike also came two days before a board meeting in which the co-op was to decide how to respond to the union’s demands for a new contract, which have been public for months.

“We knew what they wanted. And now they’ve done this before we’ve even had a chance to act,” Moore said.

When the two sides went to the bargaining table Friday, Feb. 17, management presented the union with an offer including two reinstated employees and increased wages and benefits. Massey described it as “woefully inadequate.” He said the union countered with a request to have six workers reinstated, as well as a standard Bronx Realty Advisory Board (BRAB) contract with annual pay raises. Fordham Hill is not a BRAB member.

“These are very reasonable demands that every other Bronx owner has been able to accede to,” Massey said. Moore countered, “It is management’s opinion that the union’s demands are unrealistic.”

E. Doyle McCarthy, an outspoken resident, said that although the strike did not significantly affect Fordham Hill’s quality of life, she and other residents would like to see it resolved soon and the workers’ demands met.

“My talking to residents leaves me with the sense that we want union maintenance workers at Fordham Hill,” McCarthy said. “We think it’s important to the quality of life for the residents and the co-op that we have this union continuing as the staff.”

Community Farmers Cultivate Cross-Cultural Exchange

By Alex Kratz

Havana, CUBA — Karen Washington and Justo Torres have a lot in common. Both turned plots in their dense urban environs into gardens. Both are fresh food advocates, selling their produce in local markets and teaching gardening workshops.

They both love the land — it’s just a matter of where. While Washington weeds in the Bronx, Torres cultivates in Cuba.

Despite the divide, the two got to swap composting secrets and tilling tips in person during an American delegation to Cuba in 2004. For Washington, the encounter sowed the seeds of what is possible in local farming.

“These are people who were left with nothing, and were able to survive on their own self-sufficiency,” said Washington, 51. “It was absolutely incredible.”

The trip was organized by Just Food, a New York City nonprofit that advocates for local food production and farming, to learn about Cuba’s agricultural renaissance. “Havana is the city that urban agriculture experts talk about as a great example,” said Kathleen McTigre, a Just Food staffer. “Everyone knows how to grow stuff there.”

That wasn’t the case when Cuba, like the U.S. today, had easy access to fertilizer and fuels. When the U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1989, Cuba abruptly lost its main trading partner. As a result, its mechanized agricultural system was decimated. Tractors rusted and crops spoiled in the fields, leaving food supplies short and bellies hungry.

As the crisis worsened, Cuba’s government initiated an agricultural upheaval in 1993. Organic pesticides were developed and farming went small scale. Parcels of land in big cities like Havana were turned into cooperative farms, thereby shortening shipping distances, and local markets were opened to sell what was produced. Neighborhood gardens, whether on an office building’s lawn or in someone’s backyard, were also encouraged.

The results have been dramatic. Urban farms now produce 60 percent of the island’s vegetables, according to a report by Oxfam, an international development agency. Total yields have doubled or tripled each year since 1994, and thousands of Cubans now cultivate their own local plots.

Torres is one of them. In 1997, he cleaned out the garbage behind his Havana home, scoured the trash for planting containers, and rigged a watering system. He arranged a compost bin and planters — ranging from old tires to porcelain tubs — throughout his backyard and on the building’s roof.

The concrete plot is now a lush jungle of vegetables, fruit and herbs, along with some livestock. What he doesn’t use, Torres sells in a monthly market. He now teaches workshops in community gardening and encourages his neighbors to pass up porkchops for bok choi.

“It’s all about good health and eating better,” said Torres during an interview at his home in December. “I wouldn’t be able to have these things in my diet otherwise.”

Alberto Rojas took over a large plot two years ago for the food and the sheer joy of farming. The garden, fenced in behind a garbage-strewn street, now brims with cabbage heads and fig trees. “It’s an affair of my heart,” said Rojas, 72.

Washington shares that passion, and was thrilled to see it on such a grand scale. “We were exchanging the same stories,” she said.

Back in 1987, Washington helped transform a junky Crotona lot into a community garden through the Bronx Green-Up program, an urban agricultural initiative run by the New York Botanical Garden. The Garden of Happiness has continued to thrive and now offers classes and provides produce for a Tremont Avenue farmers market.

“Here in America we are so used to having things come out of a box or out of can,” Washington said. “We are educating people that, yes, apples and tomatoes are grown right here.”

Washington and McTigre give lectures on Cuba’s agricultural successes to community farmer groups and, last year, at the Botanical Garden. Ena Nemley, a North Fordham gardener, found it inspiring.

“I would love to go there and see hands-on how they live and do this,” said Nemley, 75, who has worked in the Bainbridge Avenue Lotbusters garden for 20 years.

McTigre hopes to organize more exchanges between the two countries, but travel restrictions to Cuba make it unlikely. “Any gardener would be risking something,” she said, referring to possible fines. Many educational delegations to Cuba were banned after a further tightening of the U.S. blockade in 2004.

The restrictions are frustrating for both sides. “[People from] the U.S. miss out in learning about this,” said Francisco Paz, a member of the Community Patio Project, a Cuban gardening group. “There are many things in common in all cities, even New York.”

Washington knows that first-hand. “The commonality is there,” she said. “The language was different, but we both spoke [about] a love for the earth and the richness that it produces.”

No State $$, No New Schools, City Says

By Heather Haddon

The fates of the Leadership Institute, a small high school, along with 22 other school construction projects are in limbo because the state has not delivered additional education funds.

The city Department of Education (DOE) indicated that the renovation of the Institute’s new site would be postponed in a December revision to its capital plan. DOE had banked on the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) lawsuit to provide $16.1 million for the Institute, along with $744 million for the other projects.

The state’s highest court ruled in 2003 that the city deserves billions in additional dollars for its schools, but Albany is still dragging its feet. The governor has appealed court decisions on the matter for years. In his budget address last month, Pataki made no mention of the mandate.

The city is pressing the issue. The mayor went to Albany last month to lobby lawmakers, and the City Council introduced a resolution last week demanding that the state pay up. “We call on the governor to stop stalling and immediately comply,” said Council Member Robert Jackson, the Education Committee chair, in a statement.

The DOE remains optimistic that the stalled projects could still move ahead soon. “We’re very hopeful that something will be worked out before the end of the calendar year,” said Margie Feinberg, a DOE spokesperson.

In the meantime, the Institute’s fate is unclear. The school opened in the Police Athletic League building on Webster Avenue last fall, and was to permanently relocate to the old Fordham Library this September. Region 1 Superintendent Irma Zardoya, who retired this month, said the project was on track during a meeting two months ago.

That assessment was somewhat accurate. The DOE completed all the preliminary scoping and design work to transform the Bainbridge Avenue building into a 300-seat school. Construction could begin immediately — if funds were on hand.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Ronn Jordan, president of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. The Coalition and its youth group, Sistas and Brothas United, founded the school and assist in running it.

Final word on all 23 schools will be decided later this month during a meeting of the city’s Panel for Education Policy, which replaced the old Board of Education. Three Bronx high schools in Mott Haven and Hunts Point are also slated for delays.

Many renovations to existing local schools will move forward as promised. The budget amendment states that building work for PS/MS 20, MS 45, PS 56, MS 80, PS 94, PS/MS 95, MS 143, MS 206, MS 254, PS 280, Walton and DeWitt Clinton high schools will take place this year with city funds. Bigger projects, like science and computer labs, are pinned to the same elusive state funds and will mostly be postponed. Over $600 million in repairs and new equipment for city schools were nixed, according to Council estimates.

The DOE also delayed many construction and renovation projects in last year’s version of its five-year capital budget. The state consistently gets the blame. “Our students have been shortchanged for so long,” Feinberg said.

Jordan thinks the city should have used more foresight. “The [DOE] knew they weren’t getting the CFE funding,” he said. “It’s not like Pataki was going to wake up one day and become benevolent.”

But Noreen Connell, a leading education advocate, thinks the city is being strategic. “It’s good for it [the construction funding] to come to a head,” said Connell, executive director of the Educational Priorities Panel, a city advocacy group.

Tagging specific projects to CFE funding puts the ball solidly in the state’s court, she said. “It’s a risk, but otherwise it’s never going to be solved,” said Connell, who is optimistic that the CFE suit will be resolved in the next year or so.

Pataki is appealing the ruling for the last possible time. He wants the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court, but Connell doubts the justices will take it on based on decades of reluctance to hear school funding issues.

Feinberg would not say what would happen to the Institute if funds don’t materialize by the fall. The school will outgrow its current site next school year once another 110 students are enrolled. Jordan was told they might have to move into a big high school, like Roosevelt, as has been the case with many of the city’s new small schools. He’s not in favor of that option.

The Coalition is busily lobbying local lawmakers on the Institute’s behalf, and plans to turn out in force at the Education Policy meeting.

Work Set to Resume on Park House at St. James

By James Fergusson

"Contractor promises work will be complete by May 12, 2004,” says a fading sign next to St. James Park House (officially known as the Comfort Station and Community Meeting Center). As local residents will attest, this promise was broken, and today the building remains fenced off, boarded up, and in a sad state of disrepair.

According to Ashe Reardon, a parks department spokesman, a succession of contractors has defaulted on the project since spring 2003. In all, five companies have backed out, and this, said Reardon, explains the delay in the park house’s renovation. “It’s been really unfortunate,” he said.

There may, however, be a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. The project’s bonding company, St. Paul Travelers, has hired a new general contractor, Integrated Construction Management. “Fully-fledged construction will start in the next few weeks, and we hope to be complete early this summer,” said Reardon.

Work will include the replacement of windows, doors and frames; new interior walls and finishes; and handicap accessible offices and bathrooms. Reardon added that much of the plumbing and electrics had been completed by previous contractors.

“We’re committed to getting this project done,” said Reardon. “It’s an old building [the park house was built in 1936], and our goal is to bring it up internally and make it into a useful multi-purpose space.”

In a project separate from the park house, four of the parks disintegrating staircases have been restored using money from the filtration plant windfall. Three are at Creston Avenue and one is at Jerome Avenue at the north end of the park. Two others will be renovated at Morris Avenue and work will begin this spring on the entrance by 193rd Street and Jerome. Later in the year work will be done on the park’s lawns, benches, fences, and perimeter wall. In total, $3.75 million is being spent.

Ideas for Oval Park Go Up on Drawing Board

By James Fergusson

Few Norwood residents have failed to notice how shabby Williamsbridge Oval, the neighborhood’s 19-acre park, has become in recent years. The main field is almost completely devoid of grass and the crumbling perimeter walls and rickety fences are in urgent need of repair. The good news, however, is that significant renovations are in the pipeline.

The work will include: an all-weather athletics track and an artificial-turf field; improvements to the promenade and recreation center; slope stabilization; an area specifically for seniors; new walls and fences around the park’s boundaries; somewhere to play roller hockey; a skateboarder friendly area; and redesigned playgrounds.

Parts of the Oval have seen work in recent years, including the almost complete renovation of the northern entrance, but nothing on this scale. Approximately $13 million will be spent on the project, with the money coming from revenue generated by the controversial filtration plant being built in Van Cortland Park. (In return for hosting the plant, the Bronx has been allocated $220 million for its parks over the next five years.)

Parks Department officials are now mulling over ideas generated at a Dec. 1 public scoping meeting held in the Oval Park House. In attendance were Hector Aponte, the Bronx Parks commissioner, other park staff, and representatives of local elected officials. Also present were community leaders from the Mosholu Woodlawn South Community Coalition (MWSCC), Mosholu Preservation Corporation (MPC), Community Board 7, and Mosholu Montefiore Community Center.

Ashe Reardon, a spokesman for the Parks Department, said the meeting was “positive.” “We got lots of feedback and we’re in the process of assessing the thoughts of the community,” he said, adding that his agency was eager to “make it [the park] as diverse a place as possible.”

Lisa Murray, an MWSCC member who lives on the Oval, was also pleased with the meeting and reported that there was a consensus on a number of issues. “Some of the problems are so glaring,” she said. “Like the field. No one thought the field shouldn’t be a priority.” Everyone also agreed that new fences and pathways were needed, said Dart Westphal, president of MPC (the nonprofit that publishes the Norwood News) and that the south playground needed more attention than the north playground.

There were some differences of opinion, Murray said. Some wanted to do away with the dog run while others wanted to improve it. The possibility of a skate park for skateboarders, in-line skaters and freestyle bikers, was another contentious issue. A skate park was in the original plan put forward by the city, but in a survey conducted by MWSCC late last year, and presented at the meeting, that feature was not found to be in the top five priorities among current Oval users.

“The community didn’t express a strong interest in a skate park,” said Reardon, “and we’re now looking more at a multi-purpose area that skateboarders can use but not specifically for skate boarders.”

The Parks Department will present some initial plans at another session in the spring, where residents will have one last chance to influence the final design.

According to Reardon, the formal design stage is likely to begin in late winter or early spring, and take a year to complete, with construction beginning in late 2007. (The Parks Department Web site offers a different time frame, with the design finished by this coming fall and work commencing approximately four months later.) No information was available as to how long the project would take.

Some Bronx residents, if given a choice, would have done without the local park improvements if it meant the community wouldn’t be home to the filtration plant. For Murray, however, it’s time to look forward. “I’m not happy the plant is in our neighborhood, but that debate is over,” she said. “I’m very excited about what it [the Oval renovations] means for the community. There’s potential for it to be a really wonderful space where the community can interact.”

Tenants Turn Up Heat on Bank for Lending Practices

By David Crohn

Bronx tenants, led by Housing Here and Now, staged a protest a few weeks ago calling on New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) to stop loaning money to the city’s worst landlords.

The group, representing housing organizations across the city, released a report listing 231 buildings in poor condition whose landlords receive mortgages from NYCB. Twenty-three of those buildings can be found in University Heights, North Fordham, Bedford Park and Norwood.

About a dozen picketers held signs reading “Fix it now!” and waved copies of the report on Creston Avenue.

According to the report, “New York Community Bank has established a pattern of lending that worsens the quality of life in the poor communities of color where it operates.”

Some distressed buildings include 2290 Davidson Ave., which has received 18 complaints for a defective elevator; at 2592 Creston Ave., there are 13 open violations for a defective boiler. At 2239-41 Creston Ave., where the protest was held, tenant Yvonne White showed a reporter her apartment, the site of 37 lead paint violations. She lives there with her two young daughters.

Having been unable to make progress with the landlords themselves, Housing Here and Now has been going after NYCB. They say the bank should reform its practices to make sure its mortgaged properties are well maintained.

“NYCB is not doing its job. The words of its own mortgages say that these buildings must be kept in good repair,” said James Stanton, a tenant leader with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, a member group of Housing Here and Now.

Under the community reinvestment act (CRA), a state and federal law enacted in 1977, banks are required to meet the needs of communities in which they do business.

A NYCB spokeswoman responded. “We have been recognized for our service to New York with an outstanding Community Reinvestment Act designation [in 2002], the highest level of ranking,” she said.

The spokeswoman added, “All of the buildings we’ve invested in, if you look at them over time, have gotten better.”

As the Norwood News reported in November, Housing Here and Now’s last protest was at NYCB’s Madison Avenue headquarters in Manhattan. The bank is taking steps to acquire Atlantic Bank of New York, which would increase its share of the multi-family lending market to $12.245 billion.

Housing Here and Now’s list of the city’s worst landlords can be found on-line at http://www.nycworstlandlords.com/nycwl 

Quiet Farewell to Quachaun

By Jordan Moss

Neighbors, friends of the family, and acquaintances streamed into McKeon Funeral Home Tuesday night to say goodbye to Quachaun Brown, the 4-year-old whose death shocked the city just as it was suffering through the aftermath of Nixmary Brown’s death two weeks earlier.

As television news trucks with towering satellite dishes lined Perry Avenue in Norwood Monday night and photographers were corralled behind a rope line waiting for the expected arrival of Quachaun’s grandmother, those who knew the boy, and some who didn’t, sat quietly in the large, warmly-lit room in rows facing his coffin. A few quietly approached the coffin — where Quachaun lay in a bright white tuxedo, his serene face framed by a white knit cap — and knelt. His right hand clutched a Bible. A mountain of teddy bears and stuffed animals spilled out of the lower part of the coffin where an adult’s legs would have been.

Quachaun allegedly died at the hands of his mother’s 18-year-old boyfriend, Jose Calderon, after a violent weekend in their Kossuth Avenue apartment where the boy suffered a fractured skull and a lacerated spleen and pancreas. Calderon is accused of beating Quachaun after the boy knocked over his flat screen TV. A bitter irony is that the apartment building is directly across the street from North Central Bronx Hospital and steps from Montefiore.

Paramedics determined Quachaun had been dead for hours when they arrived at the apartment early Monday morning.

Calderon has been charged with murder and Aleishia Smith, Quachaun’s mother, with manslaughter for failing to get medical help for her son. Smith is the mother of five other children, one of whom lived with her mother. She had the children with four different men.

Caseworkers from the city’s Administration for Children Services had been inside the home four times since November. Neighbors and friends frequently babysat and provided meals but there were fewer visitors to the apartment when Smith took up with Calderon.

At the wake, Anthony Randolph, a neighbor and close friend of the family who handled the details of the wake and funeral services (which were donated by McKeon Funeral Home and Woodlawn Cemetery), sat in a quiet room off the lobby for an interview with the Norwood News. In introducing himself, Randolph said he was treated unfairly in a recent Daily News story that reported that he was a convicted sex offender who was not permitted to spend unsupervised time with children. Randolph was convicted in 1992 of molesting two teenage boys, according to the state’s on-line sex offender registry. But according to the State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, he completed parole in 1999 and is no longer barred from contact with children. He now works as a medical assistant.

With a quiet resolve, Randolph described Smith, the boy’s mother, as a good person who was overwhelmed caring for her six children in a one-bedroom apartment. He said he wished she had gotten more help. Randolph said he remembered the time an ACS worker came by to show her a parenting video. But he said she needed much more than that, and listed food, clothes and parenting classes as examples.

Randolph said he resented those in the community who blamed the family and others for what happened. “If you knew there was neglect in that home and you didn’t call ACS, you’re just as guilty as he [Calderon] is,” Randolph said. “[If you knew they were hungry and] you didn’t go home and cook and bring them food, you’re just as guilty as he is.”

“Peaches needed help and help wasn’t given to her,” Randolph added, using Aleishia’s nickname. “Sometimes we can’t look to ACS to always be there. We as a community have to be there.”

Randolph, who frequently brought the family food and called ACS five times himself, said he last went by the apartment on the Friday before Quachaun’s death but did not see him there.

As for why Smith didn’t seek help for her child, Randolph said, “I know Peaches. Peaches had to be scared [of Calderon] or intimidated [not to take Quachaun to a doctor]. That was her only son. They had a love affair.”

As for Quachaun, Randolph echoed many who had interacted with the boy many called Tibbers because of his fascination with Tigger. “He had a smile that would warm your heart,” Randolph said. “He had a twinkle in his eyes.”

Randolph said Quachaun’s grandmother, who would sometimes take care of two of the children at a time at her home, would now try to get custody of all five of her daughter’s remaining children.

“They [the children] should be together,” Randolph said. “They’ve been through enough sorrow in their lives. She’s been the only constant, stable force in their lives.”

Carrión Predicts Action on Armory

By Jordan Moss

Pronouncing himself “sick and tired of talking about the Kingsbridge Armory,” Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión, Jr. said he expected “action” in the long-delayed renovation of the Kingsbridge Armory within the next 24 months.

“We need some action, and I think, I am confident, that working with the Bronx leadership, we’re going to be able to, in the next 24 months, see the kind of action we haven’t seen in [a] dozen years at the Kingsbridge Armory to create educational space and retail space and jobs, and construction jobs, and opportunity for the Bronx,” Carrión said in his State of the Borough address at Lehman High School last week.

Carrión did not provide the reasoning behind his new-found optimism regarding the project, which has been hopelessly mired in political squabbles and general bureaucratic inertia since the state handed the vacant landmark over to the city in 1993. Any attempt to redevelop the armory hinges partly on finding a new home for the National Guard, which occupies two buildings behind the armory’s massive drill hall.

But the Bloomberg administration’s indecision on the matter also may be playing a role keeping the facility in mothballs.

The Norwood News reported in the previous issue that administration officials are debating the possibility of moving the police academy to the armory. That prospect is unpopular with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition which, in conjunction with a large real estate developer, has drafted detailed plans that include the same components Carrión delineated in his speech.

Current Print Edition

Click here for PDF downloads of recent editions. Click here for all recent print edition stories.

Latest from Breaking Bronx

• Tomorrow: Live Coverage From The Bronx BP’s State of Borough Speech Wed, Feb 22 at 5:27pm
• Bronx Nabe Note: Become Your Own Boss Workshop, Thursday Night Wed, Feb 22 at 4:35pm
• Wednesday’s Bronx News Links Wed, Feb 22 at 3:17pm
• Local Initiative Puts Focus on Teens’ Reproductive Health Wed, Feb 22 at 12:33pm
• Bicycles and Basketballs Could be in the Armory’s Future Wed, Feb 22 at 5:58am

Archives

Copyright © 2007 Norwood News · Log in