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Getting Ready for Summer

By None

Volunteers took to area parks for It’s My Park Day on May 19. On Mosholu Parkway at Webster Avenue, 15 youngsters from the 52nd Precinct Explorers Program joined members of the Bedford Mosholu Community Association to rake leaves, pick up garbage and paint walls. They even removed grafitti from one area garage. In Williamsbridge Oval, the Friends of Williamsbridge Oval, a new group of volunteers, planted fresh plants and shrubs.

Honoring a Woman’s Service

By None

Staff members of North Central Bronx Hospital Midwifery Service gathered Wednesday, May 23 to remember former colleague Sonja Dowie, who passed away in 2003. On what would have been the 30th anniversary of her service, the hospital named the Triage Unit after Dowie, a founding member of the service. The program is pioneering because of its synthesis of advanced medicine and midwifery, with obstetricians and nurse-midwives working together to provide intensive care during and after pregnancy.

VC Playground Opens

By None

Sachkerah Woods Playground is open!

The southeast corner of Van Cortlandt Park (at the corner of Jerome Avenue and Gun Hill Road) has a new playground, picnic area, bench-lined pathways and a comfort station. The rehab project is part of more than $200 million in Bronx  park improvements that the city offered Bronx state legislators in exchange for their approval on the controversial construction of a water filtration plant, also in Van Cortlandt Park, adjacent to the new playground.

A formal ribbon-cutting ceremony has not yet been scheduled.

Sachkerah Woods is named for an Algonquin phrase that is loosely translated as "extended land," according to the Parks Department.

Honoring Their Sacrifice

By None

For the 41st year in a row, members of the Jewish War Veterans, Neuman Goldman Post No. 69, gathered at the Museum of Bronx History on Bainbridge Avenue on Memorial Day to honor those who have died in American wars. Joining County Commander Mel Sacks, were Frank Vernucci of the Bronx Borough President’s office, Fr. William Kalaldjian, chaplain of the Bronx V.A. Hospital and Bronx historian, Professor Lloyd Ultan.

Letters to the Editor

By None

Clean My Neighborhood

By Justin Arundell

I hate my neighborhood because it is so loud,
I just want a neighborhood where I could be proud
I hate the litter,
I have become so bitter,
Do you people need a babysitter?
In my neighborhood the dogs poop,
Has anyone ever thought to use a scoop?
I want to make sure to keep them in the loop,
I won’t let my neighborhood turn into poop!
I don’t like my neighborhood!
I don’t like my neighborhood!
There’s garbage everywhere!
I don’t like my neighborhood!
I don’t like my neighborhood!
There’s dog poop everywhere!
I don’t like my neighborhood!
I don’t like my neighborhood!

Ed. note: This poem is part of a book of poems that PS 8 student Justin Arundell wrote for a school project. He is 8 years old.

Pit Bull Killed our Dog

It is with a heavy heart that we inform you that our beloved Shih Tzu dog, Stasha, was brutally murdered on May 17, at the corner of 205th Street and Webster Avenue at 11:35 a.m. A vicious Pit Bull, being held across the street, in front of the grocery store, "slipped out" of its collar, crossed the street, and without provocation, brutally and slowly killed our Stasha. Even after being hit by  pipe, it did not loosen its vise-like grip on her head, crushing her skull until the Pit Bull felt there was no life in her body. Unfortunately, there was very little we or the veterinarian could do to save her and had to endure the additional pain of putting her out of her misery.  It is most unfortunate that most feel "It was just a dog."  No living thing should be submitted to such a brutal demise. And it is even more painful to know that the responsible parties are being protected and justice may not be available for her. We ask that you remember her as the wonderful and loving dog that she was.

Angel and Jose

Ed. note: The writers, Norwood residents, asked that their last names not be included.

‘Irish,’ not ‘Gaelic’

Dear Editor:

Thank you very much for your article about years past and Irish things in Norwood, Bedford Park, and including me, and Keltic Connections, in it (article, March 22 – April 4, 2007). I have to set the record straight on one point. Your reporter took a leap in reference to the language of the cards I spoke about. It is a very common mistake, even made by many Irish-Americans. The cards I sold for St Patrick’s Day were in "Irish," not "Gaelic." For Christmas I did have cards in Gaelic, spoken in Alba (Scotland), Irish spoken in Eive (Ireland), and Manx or Manx Gaelic spoken in Mannin (The isle of Mann). All these are in the Gaelic branch of the Celtic language family.  

Mickey Burke

Taking Issue with Tracey Management

In your recent article ("As Repair Complaints Mount, So Do Tensions at Tracey," May 17 – 30, 2007), one might get the impression that our management company’s district manager, Mr. Daniel Durante, is really disappointed and frustrated (his words) about tenants who avail themselves of city agencies and the courts to get repairs and replacements done. The truth, of course, is that it is we tenants who have suffered real disappointment and frustration for many, many years due to lack of repairs and replacements.

When our tenant executive board took office in May of 2006, we met with Mr. Durante in two monthly management meetings. All we heard from him was that there was no money to do the repairs and replacements our landlord was legally obligated to do. So, we took our landlord to court. And we’re getting repairs and replacements done that would probably have never been done without going to court.

But still we cannot get everything done. Mr. Durante, for example, refuses to replace missing or rotten 34-year-old screens and blinds as the "costs associated with [them] make it prohibitive at this time." So, tenants fear opening windows without screens because an open window is an invitation to flies, bugs, pigeons and squirrels. Public housing residents have it better than we do.

Through our court action, we’re getting kitchen cabinets replaced, but not completely. Mr. Durante mostly refuses to replace the entire set of kitchen cabinets, preferring instead to give us tenants on the lawsuit mismatched cabinets of cheap plywood and white Formica counter tops that one tenant had to refuse because it was buckled even before being installed. Tenants not on our lawsuit get wood cabinets that look like the ones already there with a beautiful black, marble-speckled counter top. This is just one way Mr. Durante uses divide-and-conquer games to punish us for joining a group lawsuit against our landlord and his management company, R. Y. Management Company, Inc.

Divide and conquer is the game that Mr. Durante uses often as he promotes division here at Tracey by financially supporting the activities of our former executive board members, our Networking Committee and Sallie Caldwell. For example, it was Mr. Durante who forced our executive board out of hosting our recent Community Board 7 meeting here, even though Board 7 only came at our invitation. Mr. Durante told me in no uncertain terms that this was his building and that Ms. Caldwell would host the meeting. We stepped aside.

And then some tenants and even our local elected officials (who have mostly avoided contact with our tenant executive board this entire past year) wonder why we can’t all just get along here at Tracey and work together to improve our quality of life. Well, Mr. Durante does not want us to all just get along, which is why Ms. Caldwell has refused to work with me or our executive board. By insidiously manipulating certain tenants in divide-and-conquer games to make our executive board look bad at every turn, Mr. Durante hopes we tenants will re-elect in April of 2008 the former Tenant Council members who were defeated by us in a landslide election last year. That they were defeated is the real disappointment and frustration that Mr. Durante suffers from, for while they were in office, he did not have to worry about tenants agitating to get repairs and replacements done.

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

In your last issue, you wrote that Sallie Caldwell said that she "would do more for Tracey Towers, but can’t work with Gillian [our tenant organization president] or the other association officers." I consider it shameful that Ms. Caldwell, as a community public figure, would even express such an emotional reaction.

Ms. Caldwell is the vice chairperson of Community Board 7; she is secretary of the 52nd Precinct Community Council; and she is the paid representative of Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera. As a person who puts herself out as one who works to help others achieve community goals, Ms. Caldwell can do better than state publicly that because of her emotional reaction to Tracey Towers’ tenant leaders she will not help the vast majority of Tracey Towers’ tenants improve our quality of life. I think that Ms. Caldwell forgets that she lives here too and that any improvement in our living conditions is an improvement in hers.

Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera can do better than be represented by Ms. Caldwell, for doesn’t her refusal to help Tracey Towers’ tenants mean that Rivera’s office is refusing to help us?

Felix Gibson
The writer is vice president of the Tracey Towers Tenant Organization.

Neighborhood Notes

By None

Fresh Air Fund Registration

Register your child for a free summer program, courtesy of the Fresh Air Fund. There will be free registration for children ages 6 to 12 on Friday, June 1 from 4 to 8 p.m. at PS 93, at 1535 Story Ave. Registration is free. Please bring the following: medical card or Medicaid card, public assistance information if applicable, a recent physical (meaning after Aug. 1, 2006) and three emergency contact names and numbers. For more information, please call the Fresh Air Fund at 1 (800) 367-0003 or visit www.freshair.org.

Forest Restoration Initiative

The Southeast Forest Restoration Initiate (SERFI) is a multi-year initiative to restore an unhealthy section of forest. To become a SERFI Steward and help with the maintenance an inspection of newly planted trees at Van Cortlandt Park, you must attend the Saturday June 2 training from 1p.m. to 3 p.m. Please meet in the southwest corner of the Shandler Recreation Area parking lot. For more information or to register, contact Christina at (718) 601-1460 or fvcpeducation@hotmail.com.

Day Camp Visit

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center will host a family visiting day at their 125 acre Day Camp on Sunday June 3 at 10 a.m. Please call the center (preferably before May 31st) at (718) 882-4000 ext. 0 for car directions and to make arrangement s for bus transportation. Those who want transportation form MMCC must be at the center by 9 a.m. sharp on June 3.

Lawn Party Fundraiser

The Bedford Park Congregational Church, located on the corner of 201st Street and Bainbridge, will hold a fundraising Lawn Party on Sunday June 3 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. We will be serving hamburgers and hot dogs off the grill, and a delicious assortment of salads, fruit and desserts. Vegetarian entrees also available. Entry is $10 for adults and $3 for children. All are welcome. For more details please call (718) 733-3199. [verify number]

Latin American Music Program

The Bronx Library Center presents “Maraca and Guiro: Two Taino Instruments in the 21st century. The event, hosted by Jose Obando, Salsa Consultant at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and his Latin American band takes place on Monday, June 4th at 6 p.m. at 310 East Kingsbridge Road. Please call (917) 579-4244 for more details.

First Wednesdays

Two-time BRIO award winner and critically acclaimed soprano, Elly Erickson will perform a concert of Scandinavian songs this Wednesday, June 6 at 12:15 p.m. The afternoon performance, presented by The Bronx Library Center and The Bronx Council will take place at 310 East Kingsbridge Road as part of “First Wednesdays,” a series of free events featuring BRIO Award-Winning literary and musical artists. For more information call (718) 589-4244.

Panel on Crystal Meth in the Bronx

The Community Advisory Board to the Henry and Lucy Moses Division of Montefiore Medical Center presents a community-wide spring symposium on “The Tragic Reality of Crystal Meth in the Bronx.” Speakers and panelists, including representatives from the NYC Office of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Drug Abuse Treatment Program, will meet at Montefiore Medical Center’s Cherkasky Auditorium, Gun Hill Road entrance, on June 7, from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be provided. To register, call 1-800-MD-MONTE or e-mail mosescab@montefiore.org.

Bronx Pride Health Fair

The fifth Annual PRIDE Heath Fair takes place Saturday June 9 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Gun Hill Road, between DeKalb and Bainbridge Avenues. The fair, hosted by the Montefiore Medical Center and the Bronx HIV Care Network, celebrates Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender health with a day of music and dance performances, nutrition advice and free HIV testing. All are welcome. For more information, call (718) 321-3296 ext. 24.

Bronx River Bike Tour

Join the Bronx River Alliance every second Sunday from May to October for a gentile paced 5-mile bike tour along the Bronx River Greenway. Please meet at 1 p.m. at the park overlook at 204 Street east of Webster Avenue (near French Charley Playground). The next ride takes place on Sunday June 10.

Small Business Counseling

SCORE provides free on-on-one counseling for small business owners and those interested in having a small business. Counseling sessions are on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Bronx Library Center at 310 East Kingsbridge Road. Please call (718) 579-4256/57 to schedule an appointment.

Annual Community Health Fest

Come promote healthy families in our community on Saturday June 16 between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the 4th Annual Community Health Fest. The event, taking place at PS 94 Kings College School between 211 Street and Gunhill Road will feature music and refreshments and include free diabetes, glucose, blood pressure and balance screenings, HIV/STD education, prenatal care education, health insurance screening, and lots more. For more information contact Miriam Seminario at (718) 405-6345 ext. 1050, or Krystal Serrano at (646) 670-8848.

Summer Food Service Program

The Mosholu Montefiore Community Center announces its participation in the Summer Food Service Program. Free meals will be made available to all children 18 years and younger from June 28 to Aug. 17. Breakfast will be provided from 7 to 9 a.m. at the annex, located at 3512 DeKalb Ave. Lunch from 12:20 to 12:50 p.m., and snacks 3:20 to 3:50 p.m. will be served in the main building at 3450 DeKalb Ave. For more information, call (718) 654-0563.

DEP Job Prep

There are spots available at Bronx Community College’s Project Hire, a 20-week program that prepares residents to enter construction unions. A candidate must be between 18 and 60 years of age, low-income and a citizen or resident alien, but no construction experience is necessary. There’s also a free GED preparation class beginning in June, for which citizenship is not a requirement. Sign up for one or both at the Department of Environmental Protection office at 3660 Jerome Ave., Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call (718) 231-8470.

Cancer Research Program

Albert Einstein Cancer Center is offering two free research programs for patients with cancer, a Yoga-Based Cancer Rehabilitation Program, which includes 12 weeks of yoga classes, and a Mind-Body Cancer Program, which includes eight weeks of mind-body classes. Both are designed to help cancer patients cope emotionally, physically and spiritually. For more information, and to find out if you are eligible, call (718) 430-2380.

Children and Van Cortlandt Park

The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park presents Lil’ Explorers, in which third to fifth graders and a parent participate in free, fun, hands-on activities in the park, including a free field trip and gift at the end. The group will meet in the park at Bainbridge and Jerome Avenues, Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon through June 23. Applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, call (718) 601-1553.

Summer Law Program for Teens

The Monroe College Summer Law program, designed to introduce students to the civil and criminal court systems and the benefits of an education in legal studies, is now enrolling for August 12 to August 24 session. Classes are taught by practicing lawyers and students attend real criminal trials and get a taste of college life by residing in dormitories on Monroe’s New Rochelle campus. For more information or to request an application, contact Dean Karenann Carty at (914) 740-6429 or kcarty@monroecollege.edu

PS 20 Kindergarten

PS/MS 20, at 3050 Webster Ave., has begun kindergarten registration for the coming school year. To register, Monday through Thursday, 9 to 10 a.m., you will need to bring the child, the birth certificate of your child (who must be 5 years old by Dec. 31, 2007), proof of address through a utility bill, and a complete immunization record. For more information, call (718) 584-5510.

Free Pre-School Program

Monsignor Boyle Head Start offers a free pre-school program for children ages 3 to 4. Breakfast, lunch and snacks are included. Please bring child, a copy of his or her birth certificate, immunization card, proof of family income, residence, medical insurance and Social Security Card. For details, call (718) 405-7824.

Art Classes

The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park presents “Art Near the Park,” a four workshop series. Amalgamated resident and art teacher Lucy Degidon will work with participants to create nature-inspired art. Workshops will be held on Fridays from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the Building 9 Community Room on Gale Place off of Orloff Avenue. Pre-registration is required for workshops starting with the collage class on June 1. A per-class material fee of $4.00 for adults and $2.00 for children applies to all except members of the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park. For more information, call Christina at (718) 601-1460 or fvcpeducation@hotmail.com.

Out & About

By Judy Noy

Editor’s Pick

Trolley Showcases BRIO Talent

On June 6, the South Bronx Cultural Corridor celebrates its own. A festival, called BX1: The Second Bronx Artist Biennial, pays tribute to the talented Bronxites who were chosen to receive BRIO (Bronx Recognizes Its Own) Individual Artist Fellowships this year. And what better vehicle to charter this celebration than the Bronx Culture Trolley, which normally runs the first Wednesday of every month from Hostos Art Gallery, 450 Grand Concourse at 149th Street, to a variety of events. For the June 6 trolley, Longwood will host the Biennial Festival from 5 to 8:30 p.m. as the BRIO awards are presented, with the visual media winners’ works displayed in the gallery. From there, the trolley leaves at 5:30, 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. for performances by BRIO winners past and present, such as a swing and Dixieland jazz show by Neal Haiduck at Yankee Tavern Venues and hip-hop by PattyDukes at Pregones Theater. For more information, call (718) 931-9500 ext. 33 or go to www.bronxarts.org.

Onstage

Latinlogues, a collection of comedic and poignant monologues about the Latino experience in America, will be presented at Lehman College’s Center for the Performing Arts, on June 2 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 to $35. Also at the Center, Roberto Roena y Su Apollo Sound and Chino Nuñez & Friends Orchestra perform salsa on June 16 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $35 to $50. The college is located at Goulden Avenue and Bedford Park Boulevard. Call the box office at (718) 960-8833.

A music program, Maraca & Guiro: Two Taino Instruments in the 21st Century, will take place at the Bronx Library Center at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road, on June 4 at 6 p.m. For more information, call (718) 579-4244/46 or visit www.nypl.org.

A Concert of Scandinavian Songs, performed by Elly Erickson, will represent the Bronx Council on the Arts’ First Wednesday of the Month Program at the Bronx Library Center, at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road, on June 6 at 12:15 p.m. For more information, call (718) 579-4244/46 or visit www.nypl.org.

The Bronx Academy of Art and Dance, in conjunction with the Bronx Dance Coalition, will present its annual spring dance festival, Boogie Down Dance Series, featuring works by Bronx choreographers through June 9 at 841 Barretto St. Tickets are $10 to $15 with discounts for Bronx Cultural Card holders. For more information, call (718) 842-5223.

The Children’s Theatre Company at Lehman presents the Three Little Pigs: Krazy Kung Fu Kaper on Wednesday, June 13 at the Lovinger Theatre. All tickets are $5. The college is located at Goulden Avenue and Bedford Park Boulevard. Call the box office at (718) 960-8833.

Events

The Bronx River Alliance invites you outdoors with Paddling: From the Border to the Mouth, a full Bronx River canoe trip, on June 2 and Second Sunday Cycling, a 5-mile bike tour along the Bronx River Greenway on June 10. For more information and to register, call (718) 430-4636 or visit www.bronxriver.org.

The New York Botanical Garden presents Caribbean Storytelling, featuring Taino Indian and Caribbean folktales, on June 17 at 2:30 p.m. in the Conservatory courtyards. Also, June is Rose Month at the Garden, featuring a variety of programs, tours and displays. Garden admission is free from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays. After noon on Saturdays and all day Sundays, admission is $6 for adults, $3 for seniors, $2 for students with ID and $1 for children ages 2 to 12. For more information, call (718) 817-8700.

Talk to Her, the 2002 film by Pedro Almodóvar, with adult themes and frontal nudity, is showing on June 2 and The Story of the Weeping Camel, set in the Mongolia Gobi Desert, is showing on June 16. Both are at 7 p.m. at the Meeting House of the Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture at 4450 Fieldston Rd. Donations are accepted. For more information, call (718) 548-4445.

The Bronx Seaside Trolley, which leaves from the Pelham Bay Park 6 train station the first Friday of every month, is off to the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum and City Island on June 1. The public rides free, with the trolley leaving the station four times between 5:25 and 9:25 p.m. Enjoy musician Phil Price, taste wine, eat hors d’oeuvres and take guided house tours. Fees are $8 per adult and $5 per child under age 12. For more information and to register, call (718) 885-1461/9100.

Exhibits

Thoreau Reconsidered, an exhibition exploring 19th century American writing about nature through the lens of contemporary art, features works by artists inspired by Henry David Thoreau, including his observations about light and life at Walden Pond. The exhibit runs from June 7 through Aug. 26 in the Glyndor Gallery and grounds. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at West 249th Street and Independence Avenue in Riverdale. For more information, call (718) 549-3200 or visit wavehill.org.

Caribbean Gardens: Journey to Paradise, celebrating Caribbean flowers and culture, began April 27 at the New York Botanical Garden’s Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. The new buds are accompanied by the Paradise in Print exhibition in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library, which runs through Aug. 19. For more information, call (718) 817-8700.

Learning

Decorate a seed package to take home at Garden Mystery Treasures, one of Wave Hill’s family art projects, June 2 and 3 from 1 to 4 p.m. Also, see a performance of “What If You Could Take the Sun and Plant It in Your Hand?” presented by the Touchstone Center Theatre Ensemble, based on a poem by Richard Lewis, followed by the chance to create a mixed-media banner at Plant the Sun in Your Hands at 1 and 2:30 p.m. on June 9 and 10. Both are in Wave Hill’s Kerlin Learning Center, located at West 249th Street and Independence Avenue in Riverdale. Free with admission to grounds. For more information, call (718) 549-3200 or visit wavehill.org.

The Bronx Library Center at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road, has events for all ages:

Children can attend Baby and Me Lapsit, featuring songs, rhymes, movement, and picture books, for ages 8 to 15 months with parent or caregiver, on June 9 at 11 a.m. There are also two craft programs at 4 p.m. for kids ages 7 to 12: Snake Book Making on May 31, and Bug Magnet Making on June 14. All require pre-registration.

Young adults can attend Play Chess! to improve their skills, on June 4, 11 and 18 at 4 p.m.

Adults can attend two events on June 9: a Books and Poetry Reading featuring winners of the 2007 Chapter One Competition and Reading Series, at 1 p.m. and Bronx Street Game, a lecture by Ray Capo, longtime Bronxite and former president of the Bronx Historical Society, at 2:30 p.m. Also take in People with Arthritis Can Exercise! a lecture reviewing types of exercise for people with arthritis on June 11 at 6 p.m.

For a detailed schedule, call (718) 579-4244/46 or visit www.nypl.org.

Children can solve a mystery at the Sherlock Holmes Takes the Case event, at the Mosholu Library, 285 E. 205th St., on June 12 at 4 p.m. For more information, call (718) 882-8239.

Young actors are guided on a theatrical path in the Mighty Action Racket Theatre Workshop, June 12 at 4 p.m., at the Jerome Park Library, 118 Eames Place, near Kingsbridge Road. For more information, call (718) 549-5200.

NOTE: Items for consideration should be received in our office by June 4 for the next publication date of June 14.

Police Report

By Alex Kratz

Graffiti Offenders Exposed

As part of the 52nd Precinct’s new crackdown on quality of life offenses, police officials want to make it plain that graffiti won’t be tolerated. Last month, the precinct instituted its new "quality of life" initiative, which will now be called the Conditions Unit and will be dedicated to stopping graffiti, excessive noise and public drinking.

To illustrate its intolerant stance on graffiti, the Five-Two recently released the names of 38 people who were arrested on graffiti charges so far this year.

"We want the community to know who’s doing this," said Special Operations Lieutenant Steve Phalen.

Phalen said the precinct has made 35 arrests after receiving 56 graffiti complaints, which means they’re catching almost two out of every three offenders residents have complained about. Here, we’ve listed 19 adult offenders. Most of these people live in the Bronx, many here in the Five-two and a couple from outside the city: (The oldest was 40 years old, but most are young men not old enough to drink alcohol legally.)

Efrain Lopez of 1725 Andrews Ave.; Daniel DeJesus of 1760 Montgomery Ave.; Tyrell Brown of 1880 Valentine Ave.; James Tobar of 2707 Sedgwick Ave.; Antonio Birthwright of 20 W. 190th St.; Eric Rivera of 1239 Clay Ave.; Ernest Garcia of 2065 Grand Concourse; Dorsett Tirado of 3450 Gates Pl.; Maurice Peel of 3426 Gates Pl.; Thomas Poveromo of 116 Stanford St., Yonkers; Keith Heron of 10 Ursa Ave., Greenwood Lake; Pedro Sanchez of 2820 Morris Ave.; Erick Castellanos of 1652 Popham Ave.; Wilson Rodriguez of 751 Gerard Ave.; Alphonso Powell of 2675 Morris Ave.; Luis Rosa of 2825 Claflin Ave.; Jorge Reyes of 2375 Marion Ave.; David De La Cruz of 3034 Grand Concourse; Jamal McLelland of 1945 Vyse Ave.

Depending on their prior arrest records, most of those listed received community service penalties and were ordered to clean up their own mess, police said.

Shots Fired Near Aqueduct

On Thursday, May 17, police responded to a radio call of shots fired. A young man, 17 years old, was reportedly firing a .380 pistol into the air in broad daylight at about 6:14 p.m. on Fordham Road and Aqueduct Avenue.

When police approached the young man, the suspect dropped the gun and ran, but was soon overcome by police officers.

‘Defaced’ Gun Found in Gates Place

The mother of a young man on Gates Place called the police to report that her son was keeping a gun in his room.

Cops inspected the room and found marijuana, a 9-millimeter pistol and a sawed-off shotgun. Police said the pistol had been "defaced," meaning the serial number had been filed off, making it difficult to track its origins. It also means that the gun was probably purchased off the street. Possession of a defaced gun is a felony.

Shooting Victim Aided By Samaritan

A man was shot near 204th Street and Webster Avenue following an argument with a group of Hispanic men, police said.

Expletives were exchanged and then someone from the group of men pulled out a gun and fired shots at the victim. He was shot in the thigh as he ran away. The victim managed to limp his way to the Bronx River where a Samaritan picked him up and drove him to St. Barnabas Hospital.

Daytime Burglaries

Police in the Five-Two arrested a pair of burglars on May 16. Both were trying to gain access to apartments through fire escapes in the Bedford Park/North Fordham area. Both were apprehended in the act by Anti-Crime patrols, cops said.

Both burglaries occurred during the daytime, which police say is when the majority of home invasions happen.

Shooting Suspect Collared

Police responded to reports of shots fired at 250 E. Gun Hill Road in Norwood early Tuesday morning, according to police. They arrested a 21-year-old white male named Daniel Laino.

Precinct Commander Meets His Public

By Jordan Moss

There’s a new precinct commander at the Five-Two, as there is at every precinct in the city every two or three years.

So, community residents that attend community meetings are accustomed to seeing a new face more often then they’d probably like.   

The new commander of the 52nd Precinct, James Alles, has been on the job for three  months, but he made something of a debut at a Precinct Community Council Meeting two weeks ago. It was the first time he presided over a  Council meeting, which was held this May 17 in the basement of Cosmopolitan AME Church in University Heights.  

Dressed in a dark blazer, khaki pants and open-collared shirt, Alles held forth like an experienced talk show host, darting up the aisles, talking directly to his questioners.

While it was the first time Alles met many of the people in the almost-packed room, it certainly wasn’t the first time their complaints were aired at meetings like this.

One woman asked why officers at the precinct don’t pick up the phone at the precinct’s main desk (718-220-5811). "Are your phones out of order again?" she said, with a healthy dose of sarcasm. She said she had called one night about people drinking and making noise on East 209th Street in Norwood — a  perennial source of disturbances and community complaints — and  got no answer.

This particular complaint has been aired for years — 20 years was the figure Steve Bussell, a long-time member of the Council, cited — without any significant change in behavior at the precinct. Bussell is so used to the complaint that he said he didn’t expect there to be any changes in it. "It’s been a problem for 20 years. It’s never been solved," he told Alles. "You’re not going to solve it."

But Alles insisted that the issue is a "pet peeve" of his and that he’s been known to call the precinct desk himself to see if anyone answers. "The phones have to be answered," he declared. "If they’re not answering the phones, they’re going to have to deal with me." He also said he would address the issue at roll calls.

If no one answers the phone, Alles told residents to call 911, although he emphasized, "I’d rather my guys answer the phone."

Alles also discussed the precinct’s new "quality of life" unit (see Norwood News cover story in May 3 -16 issue), which Alles said would instead be called the "conditions unit." It addresses nuisance problems that don’t get addressed by cops on patrol who are too busy responding to radio calls to deal with noise and public drinking complaints.   

The precinct will look at a log of 311 calls to help them assess where these kinds of problems are and people can call the precinct directly with quality of life complaints. The issues can range from the infamous Mister Softee jingle to barbecuing on Mosholu Parkway to public drinking, Alles said

"Nothing’s too small," he said.

Alles reiterated that he is asking police headquarters for an expansion of the precinct’s Impact zones to include Tracey Towers and the Knox-Gates section of Norwood, following the recent shootings of four young Tracey tenants.

The current Impact Zones, targeted high-crime areas flooded by rookie officers, exist between 183rd and 184th Streets (and also up to Fordham Road) between University and Jerome avenues as well as on Creston Avenue between Fordham and Kingsbridge roads.

At the end of the meeting, Brenda Caldwell, the president of the Council announced a new borough-wide initiative whereby all the precinct councils meet together monthly. The effort, which seeks to build better relationships between cops and community sprung from the aftermath of the police shooting in Queens of Sean Bell. Caldwell invited new officers under Allese’s command to meet with the new group.

As all new commanders are, Alles was well received by people at the meeting, who sat at tables with white tablecloths, snacking on cookies and cake.

Shortly after introducing himself, Alles tried to set the tone for his tenure at the Five-Two.

"We’re out her to turn this precinct around," he told the crowd, though he praised his predecessor Joseph Hoch. "[We're going to try] to make this precinct one of the safest in the Bronx."

Program Stresses Creativity and Community

By Jordan Moss

All year long, kids participating in an arts-focused after-school program at PS 56 have been sharpening their creative skills.

Organized by the nonprofit Community Works, 42 students worked with artists after school on various projects.

Artist Oriolla Maakheru worked with a group of kids from kindergarten through second grade, and helped them express concept of community. They pretended they were tour guides and created a tour of the neighborhood that focused on “what is special about Norwood.” They also created a mural highlighting their favorite parts of the community.

The older group – third through fifth graders — led by playwright Julia Grob, worked with kids on writing and poetry. They prepared for and conducted interviews with people they designated neighborhood heroes: Del Pilar, a park ranger in Van Cortlandt Park; Barbara Klein of the Bronx Dance Theatre, and Norwood News editor Jordan Moss.

A poet and drummer were also added to the program, as the organizers of the project determined what additional projects would interest the kids and keep their attention.

The program, which was funded by Council Member Oliver Koppell through the CASA (Cultural After-School Adventures) program, concluded with a performance in the school’s auditorium on May 10, where the children sang, rapped and danced, stressing their feelings about the community they live in.

History Comes to Life at St. Ann’s

By Alex Kratz

It’s like the start to a well-told joke. So, Ben Franklin, Malcom X and Pocahontas walk into a school cafeteria…

But there’s no punch line this time, only a class of third graders putting history into action. Last week at St. Ann’s School in Norwood, parents enjoyed a room full of tiny, animated historical figures, who, with a push of a fake button, told an abbreviated autobiographical story.

As part of teacher Noreen Hagerty’s biography unit, each of her students chose a historical figure to study. Each created a poster complete with pictures and historical facts, memorized a brief autobiographical account and came up with a costume that would embody their chosen figure.

Over the years, Hagerty has added various pieces – a report, a poster, a speech – to the biography project. This year, she had the idea for a living, breathing wax museum, which came to fruition last week in the school cafeteria.

There, parents were treated to a buffet of historical heavyweights (literally, in the case of boxers Muhammad Ali and his daughter Laila). Civil rights heroes Malcolm X, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. stood side-by-side in solidarity, as baseball pioneers Roberto Clemente and Jackie Robinson took swings at racial and ethnic barriers. Meanwhile, Native Americans Sacajawea and Pocahontas jockeyed for leadership positions, as Henry Hudson’s mustache kept falling off.

It was truly history in the making.

Community Discusses Alternatives to Violence

By Alex Kratz

Lovey Mazique-Rivera, the principal of MS 80 in Norwood, worries about what happens to her impressionable middle schoolers once they leave the friendly confines of her newly-renovated building on Mosholu Parkway.

"I can protect them when they’re inside of this building," Mazique-Rivera says, "but I can’t protect them once they’re outside."

When she first arrived at MS 80 four years ago, Mazique-Rivera says there were 17 gangs represented inside the middle school. Since then, with the help of her staff, she has eliminated gang activity in the school, but that doesn’t stop them from influencing her students once they’re outside of her control.

These days, gangs recruit her youngsters, literally, once they hit the streets after school. The gangsters, she says, have already marked their territory at local parks, specifically at the Reservoir Oval Park and the basketball courts on the parkway. Many gang members approach her kids and offer what Mazique-Rivera calls "a sense of belonging."

MS 80 Parent Coordinator Angela Roker angrily says she won’t even let her teenage son go to the park unless she’s there supervising.

In an effort to promote more constructive alternatives to joining gangs and/or dealing drugs, Mazique-Rivera and Roker joined up with Anthony Rivieccio, a former community board member and long-time local activist, to create the second annual "Community Night Out."  

Last year’s "Nigh Out" focused on child abuse following the horrific death of 2-year-old Quachaun Browne. This year’s focus on after-school activity as an alternative to violence – which featured panel discussions for adults and workshops on film making and horticulture, among others, for the kids – coincided with the shooting of four young men (none of whom died), three weeks earlier, outside of Tracey Towers.

Tracey is just a few blocks west of MS 80 on the other side of Jerome Avenue. But Mazique-Rivera said although all of her students come from the east side of Jerome Avenue, because of school zoning requirements, her children are not immune to stray bullets. And although Community Night Out was conceived before the shootings, Mazique-Rivera said the incident served as a wake-up call to everyone.

She said she spoke to her entire school about the shooting incident after it happened. "My children are afraid and they’re feeling that [the violence] might spill into the schools," Mazique-Rivera said.

Local elected officials have taken notice since the shooting as well. Senator Efrain Gonzalez showed up at a press conference at MS 80 a week prior to Community Night Out. At the actual event, he was joined by Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Assemblyman Jose Rivera, along with representatives from Council Member Oliver Koppell and Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera, for a panel discussion on what can be done to alleviate the violence.  

Mostly, the conversation kept returning to the failure of the city’s school system, which the politicians cited as one of the primary reasons students drop out, fall in with gangs and turn to illegal activity.  

At the end of the discussion, Lilly Lozano from Jose Rivera’s office, stood up and pointed to the mostly empty MS 80 auditorium (perhaps 30 adults from the neighborhood were in attendance). "This auditorium should be packed with people," she said, warning that if more don’t people get involved, nothing will change.

"If we as a community can’t look out for our own kids," Rivieccio said during a break in the programming, "it will push them into the prison system."

Fordham Hill Co-op Replaces Board Leadership

By Alex Kratz

By the day of the vote earlier this month, shareholders at the Fordham Hill Owner’s Cooperative were tired, but ready for change.

Having endured an exhaustively bitter board election campaign compounded by a management exodus, voters turned out to oust an unpopular board of directors that was, residents said, running the high-end University Heights housing cooperative into the ground.

In the six months leading up to the May 14 election, shareholders were bombarded by information, misinformation, superfluous audits, an emergency referendum, anonymous mailings, political attacks, flying accusations and several resignations.

In the end, local activist Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter and her slate of "New Vision" candidates, which includes former Bronx politician Israel Ruiz and Community Board 7 member Betty Errico, emerged victorious. Now, Pilgrim-Hunter says, the hard work of rectifying the problems at Fordham Hill begins.

"This is a new day at Fordham Hill," said Pilgrim-Hunter, playing the part of newly elected official for the first time and going through her to-do list. "We need to determine what our financial status is. Our management office is in shambles and our maintenance is a mess."

Pilgrim-Hunter’s first order of business will be to find a new property manager, or at least try to retain the old one.

The current manager, Everton Moore, recently announced that he would be leaving in June. Two other assistant managers have resigned this year. Moore said staff cuts as well as accusations and pressure from the old board had made the work environment toxic for him and his employees. Now, with a new board in place, Moore is considering staying at Fordham Hill.

"The new board has been much more communicative," Moore said.

The new board is also awaiting the results of a second financial audit. A first audit last fall didn’t uncover any inaccuracies or irregularities, but the old board initiated another "forensic" audit earlier this year. In calling for the audit, and through not-so-subtle inferences, the old board accused previous boards and current property management, including Moore, of mishandling millions of dollars over the past several years.

Moore laughed off the suggestion that he ever stole money from Fordham Hill and maintains that his management team has never acted improperly. Pilgrim-Hunter agrees with Moore and doesn’t understand why the old board insisted on another audit. In total, the cooperative is spending more than $150,000 on audits this year. The extra audit and the harassment of management are two reasons the old board had to go, Pilgrim-Hunter and other Fordham Hill shareholders said.

The board action that first provoked the shareholders ire, however, was a plan to restructure security at Fordham Hill. The board approved a plan that would have cut the presence of live security guards drastically and replaced them with a high-tech electronic system. Many shareholders argued that the presence of live security guards is the cooperative’s best amenity and main selling point.

Initially, the board wanted to implement the plan over the winter without putting it to a shareholder vote. But pressure from shareholders and Pilgrim-Hunter’s newly-formed opposition group, the Concerned Shareholders of Fordham Hill, forced the board to hold a referendum on the plan. Shareholders ultimately rejected the restructuring proposal.

The controversy agitated shareholders and revealed a deep rift in the board between a slate of five members and the other four members. The majority slate was approving plans and actions with little input from other board members, shareholders and non-slate board members said. The situation deteriorated in such a way that then-president Lena Townsend, originally a slate member, resigned from the board last December in protest of the slate’s unilateral decision-making process.

Townsend and others agreed that the only way to stop the board was to replace it. With that in mind, Pilgrim-Hunter created a slate of her own and called her group the New Vision candidates.

As the election heated up, anonymous flyers and mailings began circulating. A postal investigation found that one of the anonymous mailings, which Pilgrim Hunter said amounted to a full-scale assault on the New Visions candidates, led back to the City College office where Pereta Rodriguez (a member of the old board) works. Attempts to reach Rodriguez for comment were unsuccessful by press time.

Gloria Marshall, a shareholder and member of the election committee, was pleased with the results of the election process, which she characterized as the most controversial in her 20 years at Fordham Hill. Marshall supports the new board and said she liked Pilgrim-Hunter because "she’s a mover and a shaker."

Suffering from laryngitis, Townsend, in an e-mail, said she also held high hopes for the new board. "There was obviously a huge amount of support for the new board and I think shareholders will be supportive in what, I’m sure, will be a challenging transition," Townsend wrote.

Pilgrim-Hunter is now trying to meet with the old board to talk about that transition, but she said they’ve been reluctant thus far.

Members of the slate of the old board members refused to talk with the Norwood News for this article.

Protesting Adjuncts Say BCC Shortchanges Them

By Cassandra Lizaire

Three dozen faculty members rallied outside the Bronx Community College (BCC) campus last Tuesday, protesting compensation practices they feel have long shortchanged adjuncts throughout the City University of New York (CUNY) system.

Last week’s demonstration was the second in a chain of protests staged between May 21 and May 31 on five CUNY campuses. At these campuses – Baruch College, College of Staten Island, Queensborough Community College, Kingsborough Community College and BCC – CUNY part-time faculty, or adjuncts, protested a pay reduction during the 15th and final week of the semester.

Unhappy with CUNY’s compensation of teaching adjuncts for two hours per class during finals week instead of the three hours’ pay rate they receive throughout the semester, faculty at BCC led a spirited demonstration to raise awareness of the issue.

Organized by the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the labor union representing 20,000 CUNY professionals and faculty staff, last week’s protest highlighted what Ruben Rangel, a BCC adjunct lecturer, said was the main point of the protest. “BCC administration is [either] clueless about what their faculty does in the last week of the semester, or they are pretending that they do not know,” Rangel said.

In addition to proctoring exams, adjunct faculty spend the last week advising students, grading finals, and managing administrative duties such as filing attendance records, explained Rangel, who teaches in the English departments of BCC and City College.

While he does the same amount of work at each institution, Rangel said he is paid fairly at City College, but not at BCC.

“Shortchanging adjuncts during finals week is incredibly cheap, blatantly unfair and an insult to PSC members’ professionalism as teachers,” said Dorothee Benz, the PSC press secretary and a former instructor at Baruch College.

“These five colleges have done it this way for a long time. They’re allowed to keep doing it, legally and contractually, but that does not mean they have to,” said Benz, referring to a May 2006 arbitrator ruling that frees those five colleges to pay the lower rate.

Michael Arena, a CUNY spokesman said the issue would be addressed during negotiations with the union.

“The matter was presented to an arbitrator who essentially indicated that the appropriate venue for resolving this issue was through the collective bargaining process,” he said. “We are waiting for PSC to present this issue as part of negotiations between the union and the university.”

In response, PSC president Barbara Bowen said, “We should not have to wait for the very long process of collective bargaining to solve what we see as a straightforward issue.”

Bowen is confident that the protests and the 2,000 petition signatures they will present to the president’s office on each campus, will lead CUNY to change its end-of-semester pay policy at the five colleges.

Concourse Corner Named For 9-11 Victim Luke Nee

By Alex Kratz

Luke Nee, a native Bronxite who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks, symbolically returned home to North Fordham two weeks ago, his name memorialized on a street sign at the corner of Minerva Place and the Grand Concourse.

On Saturday morning, May 19, in a warm ceremony presided over by Council Member Joel Rivera and attended by family and friends, the intersection, between 198th and 199th streets, officially became known as Luke Nee 9-11-01, a reference to the day he tragically died.

Nee, a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald in the North Tower of the Trade Center, grew up in a house just three blocks from the intersection that now bears his name. His parents, John and Mary Nee, Irish immigrants from Galway, still live there.

As adolescents in this predominantly Irish neighborhood in the 1970s, Nee and his buddies hung out around Minerva Place so often that they became known as the “Minerva Boys,” according to news reports.

A graduate of St. Philip Neri Academy and Cardinal Hayes High School with a knack for mathematics, Nee applied for a job at Drexel Burnham and Lambert, a Wall Street investment banking firm. A handful of the Minerva Boys followed him downtown.

It was at Drexel that Nee met Irene Lavelle. They were married on Sept. 11, 1982 and they later had a son, Patrick, now 16.

By all accounts a man who took pleasure in simple things, Nee was a Yankee fan who loved meatball heroes and videos on Saturday night. He took his family on weekend jaunts to Jones Beach and tore through novels on his commute from Stony Point, where he settled with Irene and Patrick.

“It’s a small world,” Nee liked to say, “but I wouldn’t want to paint it.”

On his 19th wedding anniversary, Nee, who was 44 when he died, made a final call to Irene from the North Tower to tell her how much he loved her and that he wanted Patrick to know the same.

For the past few years, Nee’s family has been trying to get the city to create a memorial street sign in his honor, said Nee’s brother-in-law, John O’Keefe. When the family approached Rivera about the sign, he told them they had to go through Community Board 7 first, which they did. The board approved their application in September 2005, putting the onus back on Rivera to push it through the City Council.

It took him some time, but “Luke Nee 9-11-01″ finally was placed in a local law in 2006 establishing the renaming of the intersection at Minerva Place and the Grand Concourse.

And then on May 19, Luke Nee made his way home.

Dinowitz Calls For Investigation of Filter Plant Costs

By Alex Kratz

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, usually an outspoken critic of the water filtration plant being built in Van Cortlandt Park, sat mostly silent during a meeting two weeks ago of the Croton Facility Monitoring Committee, which oversees the filter plant project.

Dinowitz, who has opposed the project from the beginning (unlike other Bronx politicians such as Bronx Democratic boss Jose Rivera), may have been playing possum because this Friday he is set to unleash a formal complaint to the city, calling for a complete investigation into the project, which is experiencing “astronomical cost overruns.”

“Any reasonable analysis puts the cost to taxpayers approaching $3 billion!” Dinowitz writes in letters obtained by the Norwood News to both the city’s Department of Investigation (DOI) and Conflict of Interest Board.

An initial estimate from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in 2004 said the plant would cost about $1.3 billion total. Now, with a new general contractor in place to build the structure after the first contractor bowed out in April (three months after they were supposed to start construction), the DEP is saying the project will cost around $2.2 billion. But that doesn’t include the $240 million for park renovations or the design and management costs or money for job training and community outreach programs. The plant was supposed to be completed by 2011, but that date has been pushed back to sometime in 2012.

At the monitoring committee meeting, the DEP announced that the DOI had been overseeing the project since last summer, but did not say what specifically they had been, or would be, looking at.

Dinowitz said that’s a good start, but he wants the DOI to go back to the very beginning to investigate the grossly underestimated cost estimates (which he says may have been fudged to convince legislators to approve the park site) and the actions of former DEP Commissioner Chris Ward who resigned the day after the City Council approved the site location and exactly one year later took a job as head of the General Contractors Association (the most prominent of several labor unions that pushed for the park site).

There is also the issue of why the city chose to use what Dinowitz calls an “antiquated chemical filtration process” over a less expensive and less bulky process called membrane filtration, which Dinowitz says is an “industry-standard.”

“While at this time I am not making any specific allegations of corruption, certainly the possibility must be considered given the extraordinary difference between what was projected and what is real,” Dinowitz writes.

The Macombs Dam Curse?

By Editorial

Everyone knows about the Curse of the Bambino – the legend that holds that the Boston Red Sox went 86 years without winning the World Series because they had sold the great Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920. The Yankees, of course, went on to become the greatest franchise in sports history.

But did the Sox throw off their curse onto their pinstriped archrivals?

A precursor of such a curse may have reared its head in the team’s championship drought of the 1980s. In the late 1970s, the team promised money to help fix up the neighborhood in return for a rehab for the House That Ruth Built. The Yanks got their rehab. But the community got shut out. Was the team’s bad luck in the 1980s a warning to the Boss not to ‘dis the Bronx again?

Now, the Yankees are in the basement of the American League East, despite the highest payroll in baseball. What gives?

Might it be the fact that the richest team in sports appropriated a large public park for its new stadium and parking garage, while leaving neighborhood kids — and adults —without a convenient place to run, play ball and just plain recreate?

(Yes, a replacement track is complete and park projects are on the drawing board, but they are a long walk from the affected community, a fact obviously unimportant to the Yankees and the political leaders who enabled their land grab.)

Maybe the destruction of Macombs Dam Park (and part of Mullally Park) are just too serious of an infraction for the baseball gods to ignore.

Secretary Gates’ Civic Lesson

By Editorial

Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave a commencement address to the U.S. Naval Academy last week.

In it, he highlighted and reaffirmed basic principles of our democracy – the importance of Congress, a free press and a nonpolitical military.

What he said should not be newsworthy. But it is, simply because it is impossible to imagine anything remotely similar passing the lips of his boss, President Bush.

Regardless of the context, we feel the speech is important enough to reprint an excerpt from a May 26 Associated Press report on the address:

“Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates encouraged the U.S. Naval Academy’s Class of 2007 yesterday ‘to remember the importance of two pillars of our freedom under the Constitution: the Congress and the press.’”

“‘Both surely try our patience from time to time, but hey are the surest guarantees of the liberty of the American people …’

“Gates told the freshly minted Navy and Marine officers that they will have the responsibility to inform people below them that the military ‘must be nonpolitical’ and to recognize the obligation to truthfully report to Congress, ‘especially when it involves admitting mistakes or problems.’

“‘The same is true with the press, in my view a critically important guarantor of our freedom,’ Gates said.

“Gates cited news reports of poor outpatient treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as an example of the role of the press.

“‘When it identifies a problem, as at Walter Reed, the response of senior leaders should be to find out if the allegations are true, as they were at Walter Reed, and, if so, say so,’ Gates said. ‘And then act to remedy the problem. If untrue, then be able to document that fact.’

“Gates said the Founding Fathers wisely understood that Congress, a free press and a nonpolitical military are needed in a free county.

“‘The press is not the enemy, and to treat it as such is self-defeating,’ Gates said.”

We hope Secretary Gates’ message echoes throughout the land.

Mess No More

By None

Just about three weeks after we featured the grafitti on this building at the corner of Briggs Avenue and East 201st Street as the Mess of the Month, men armed with power washers erased the mess. We thank the property owner and hope the vigilance continues.

Armory Advocates Get First Look at Proposals

By Alex Kratz

After a nearly two-and-a-half month delay, the Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment project is back on track and the city is moving quickly toward choosing a developer.

Last Thursday, after the city abruptly dropped a controversial confidentiality agreement requirement, members of the Armory task force – an advisory group made up of local elected officials and community representatives – viewed all three of the Armory proposals.

Though financial details were not discussed and no paperwork distributed, the Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the quasi-public entity handling the Armory project for the city, showed task force members the content of each developer’s plan.

For the uninitiated, the Kingbridge Armory, a giant castle-like on Kingsbridge Road at the corner of Jerome Avenue, which reportedly contains the largest drill hall floor in the world (a full three football fields), has been nearly vacant for more than a decade. Now, after much prodding from community activists, the city is turning the Armory complex into a commercial mixed-use development. The EDC is now on the verge of awarding the job to one of three developers: Rosenshein Associates, Atlantic Development Group or the Related Companies.

After viewing the proposals, Community Board 7 Chair Greg Faulkner liked what he saw. Essentially, Faulkner said, the community is in a win-win situation based on the quality of the proposals. Though he wouldn’t go into detail, Faulkner said two of the three delivered most of what the community wanted for a revamped Armory. He wasn’t as impressed by a third proposal.

Though Faulkner wouldn’t discuss much in terms of specifics, the highlights from the projects were spilled on an urban planning blog called City Skip. Faulkner confirmed that the blog’s contents were accurate.

According to City Skip, the proposals contain mostly the same mix of entertainment, retail and community space. Each proposed restaurants, a bank branch, a cinema, a book store, one large retail anchor store and at least 30,000 square feet of community space. The proposals varied on the amount and manner of parking.

What set them apart, Faulkner sad, was the aesthetics of each. One looked more like a traditional mall, he said, while another proposal simply blew him away with how beautiful it was. One of the proposals had a significant amount more community space.

Faulkner said the task force will be able to say what they like and don’t like about the projects, but the group will not make a final recommendation. He added that the EDC will present the proposals to Community Board 7 some time in June. The EDC has said it hopes to choose a developer by July.

Ed. note: Check out all the highlights from the proposal at: http://cityskip.blogspot.com/2007/05/kingsbridge-armory-update.html.

For more on the history of Armory redevelopment process, visit: http://www.bronxmall.com/norwoodnews/ongoing/armory.html

Clinton Prepares To Do Damage in Playoffs

By Alex Kratz

With a pair of thrashings last Wednesday, the Dewitt Clinton Governor’s baseball and softball teams sent a message to the rest of their New York City competition: we will be a force to be reckoned with come playoff time.

Defense the Key to Hot-Hitting Lady Govs

Let’s start with the Lady Governor’s softball team, which began last week on cruise control, having won all 12 of their regular season games, most of them high-scoring, double-digit victories that would make football teams blush.

Coach Daniel Smith, in his 12th year at the helm of Clinton softball, said, “This is the best hitting team I’ve ever coached. We can hit with anyone in the city.”

Indeed, his two hitting stars, Senior Mariela Castillo and Junior Jazcely Pagan, are ranked first and third, respectively, in hits in the city’s Public School Athletic League (PSAL).

In Wednesday’s 16-6 win over division rival Lehman, both hit home runs (Pagan’s was an inside-the-park job that showed off her speed, while Castillo’s moon shot to left-center nearly threatened traffic on Mosholu Parkway) during a seven-run barrage that mercifully ended the game in the 5th inning.

While the Lady Governors have proved they can bang with anyone, it’s their pitching and defense that may be their undoing.

Last Tuesday, the day before they administered the beating, Clinton lost to that same Lehman squad, 11-10, mostly due to the Lady Governor’s 11 errors.

Smith usually makes his players run a lap for each error the team makes, but after Tuesday’s loss, he didn’t have to force anyone to do anything. When he showed up at Clinton practice field after the loss, the players were already well into their 11 laps.

Smith called it “a great show of character.” He says this team is much more cohesive than last year’s, which was torn apart by jealously and infighting. That team lost badly in a first round playoff match against Bayside.

If they’re going to make it further this year, Smith says they need to focus on limiting fielding errors and improving their pitching.

Earlier in the year, the team’s best pitcher, Ashley Icaza was declared academically ineligible and was lost for the season. In her absence, Pagan and Sophomore Rosalee Flores have stepped up and carried the load. Flores, a lefty, is such a good fielder she fills in at third when Pagan is pitching. Lefties rarely play infield positions besides first base.

Once the team reaches the playoffs, runs will be harder to come by, Smith says, making pitching and defense the keys to a successful tournament run.

“Once you start facing that Staten Island pitching, it’s tough,” says Smith. Staten Island’s Totenville are defending PSAL champions and are undefeated in a tough division again this year.

Boys Try to Unseat a Powerhouse

Speaking of champions, perennial Bronx baseball powerhouse Monroe dominated the competition in such a way in 2006 that they only gave up one run during the entire playoff tournament.

The team that scored that run: the Dewitt Clinton Governors.

This year, the Governors are reloaded and aiming to build on that small but telling moral victory from last season, says Coach Robert Miller, who is also a gym teacher at Clinton.

Miller says Monroe is once again the team to beat, as they continue to replenish their talent year after year. “They’re a baseball factory,” Miller says.

Last year, Monroe had Danny Almonte, the pitcher best known for being two years overage while dominating Little League World Series competition six years ago. He similarly dominated PSAL competition last spring.

At 33-0 this year, Monroe is ranked 4th in the nation, according to one poll. And they have the city’s best pitcher again, Sophomore Dawin Rivas, who has yet to give up a run after 33 innings this year.

Still, while Monroe is performing similarly to last year, Miller says the Governors are improved.

The heart of the team is defense, Miller says. “We’re very good defensively – we don’t beat ourselves.”

That defense is led by senior catcher Jonathan Candelier who is getting looks from pro scouts because of his rocket arm and powerful and consistent bat.

Though he’s hitting .432, two of his teammates have better batting averages. Senior Johnelv Ortiz is hitting .487 and transfer Jean Ca Regalado is punishing the ball to the tune of a .526 average.

Miller says the biggest difference between this year and last year, however, is the pitching, led by stud junior Jose Aponte. Last year, Miller says, Aponte would come off the mound in tears because he couldn’t find the strike zone. This year, he’s throwing strikes and blowing hitters away in the process. His miniscule 1.08 earned run average to go along with 37 strikeouts and only seven walks are evidence of his dramatic improvement.

Last Wednesday, he simply overpowered the hitters from Alfred E. Smith in route to an easy 9-3 victory. The stocky Regalado contributed five runs batted in and Ortiz had three hits.

Chemistry-wise, Miller says he loves his team and affectionately calls them “The Happy Idiots,” a reference to the colorful 2004 Red Sox championship team who called themselves “a buncha idiots.”

Both Clinton teams enter the final week of the season with great hitting, good chemistry and building momentum. Both are prone to loud chatter in both Spanish and English. After the Lady Governor’s victory last Wednesday, the team started dancing around the infield and cheering loudly, as if they were sending a message to the rest of the city.

“Who’s house? C’s house! Who’s house? C’s house!”

Our Wake-Up Call

By Editorial

No one died.

This time.

Hit by bullets, four young men fell to the ground outside of Tracey Towers on May 4.

Thankfully, they will recover.

Yes, let’s breathe a sigh of relief, but no, let’s not just go back to what we were doing.

Because next time, or the time after that, we’ll have a dead kid, neighbor or friend to pick up off the sidewalk. It could be anybody with a name, a birthday, a favorite song, a baseball game to go play.

On the surface, this latest incident is like any other violent scenario involving urban minorities. Assailant and victim are collapsed into one impression, the bottom line being: it’s tragic but they were bad kids and had it coming. This is the message we repeatedly get from the 11 o’clock news and the tabloid treatment of these stories.

But let’s look closer at the more complex picture and see if we can still put it out of our minds.

The incident occurred 8:30 p.m., not 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. The young men are Ghanaian – there is a large Ghanaian community at Tracey. At least one of them is enrolled in college.

According to someone who has his ear to the ground, they were on their way to see “Spiderman 3.” This is not to say there aren’t troublemakers at Tracey, just that these young men don’t appear to be them.

Police say they found weapons next to the victims – metal pipes, bats and electrical wire.

They must have been spoiling for a fight, right?

Well, maybe, but it’s even more likely they were expecting a fight. Because, as almost anyone at Tracey or the Knox-Gates community across the parkway can tell you, turf-based skirmishes are nothing new in the neighborhood. Many residents report that the tensions and the fights go back five years or more, and they aren’t limited to Tracey and Knox-Gates.

So, it seems that part of everyday life of being young in Tracey, and other parts of the community, is arming yourself just to get a cheeseburger on Jerome Avenue. This is the kind of thing that isn’t reflected in the crime stats.

What can be done?

We need to talk more, in our churches, schools and community associations, but also across blocks, neighborhoods, and local institutions about youth violence and work toward solutions. To our knowledge, there has been no community meeting in the last several years to address this issue specifically. It’s time.

(One key point: if there is a meeting, organizers must involve and invite young people. There won’t be a solution without them.)

We also need to figure out how to best utilize the resources of the 52nd Precinct. Our instinct is to call for a greater police presence in Knox-Gates and at Tracey, and maybe that’s necessary right now. But many neighborhood youth say they don’t trust the cops enough to give them information, etc., so while more cops might be a good idea in the short term, it’s not going to solve the underlying problems.

The shootings on May 4 were a wake-up call for our community.

Now, it’s up to us to start communicating and creating solutions.

Ed. note: A group called the Children’s Collective is planning a Community Night Out on Children’s Safety at MS 80 tonight – Thursday, May 17. (See Neighborhood Notes on page 10 for more information).

In the Public Interest

By Alex Kratz

‘First Step’ to War’s End?
Serrano Sees Victory in Loss

Congressman Jose Serrano, a vocal opponent of the U.S. war in Iraq, saw a silver lining in the defeat of a resolution that called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The measure lost 171 to 255 but Serrano said the effort made an important statement nonetheless.

“Finally, we were able to send the correct message to the Administration: the war must end,” Serrano said in a press release. Unfortunately, some of the Republicans seem to feel like protecting the president is more important than protecting our troops.”

Serrano didn’t mention in the release that 59 of his fellow Democrats voted with the Republicans to defeat the measure.

But Serrano and his colleagues did pass a more popular bill to put the administration on a short leash and only fund the war through the summer. That measure succeeded 221 to 205.

Another local congressman, Eliot Engel, was not present for either vote. His spokesman, Joe O’Brien, said his boss has been in Florida, attending to his gravely ill mother. If he had been present for the votes, Engel would have voted for both bills, O’Brien said.

Koppell Honored

Oliver Koppell, who heads the City Council’s Committee on Mental Health, Mental Retardation, Alcoholism, Drug Abuse and Disability Services, was honored by the Mental Health Association of New York City at its annual party last week.

The group singled out Koppell for his work in expanding mental health services, particularly for the elderly and small children.

Koppell was able to get $1.3 million included in last year’s budget for the Children Under 5 Initiative and another $1.5 million for Geriatric Mental Health Services.

Engel’s Touts Oil Reduction Bill

It’s not often that you hear the words “welcomed” and “President Bush” coming out of the mouth of Eliot Engel at the same time.

The words were uttered in a press release concerning the president’s plan to save oil.

But (and you knew it had to be coming) Engel said his own legislation, known as the DRIVE Act, would save more oil than Bush’s plan and do it quicker.

Engel’s bill, which has 80 co-sponsors in the House, would force Americans to reduce its oil consumption by 2.5 million barrels a day by 2015 and twice that by 2025. The U.S. would reach those goals by promoting biofuel production, helping manufacturers produce more efficient cars, and by providing money to encourage the introduction of plug-in hybrids.

The legislation would also mandate that 50 percent of new cars be capable of running on ethanol or other renewable fuels.

A similar bill has 25 co-sponsors in the Senate. The House version is co-sponsored by a Republican, Jack Kingston of Georgia.

Engel said that he’s optimistic that his legislation will be considered this session.

Rivera Takes on Graffiti

Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera recently announced an initiative to combat graffiti in her district, which includes the 204th/Bainbridge merchant corridor in Norwood as well as the heavy commercial districts of White Plains Road and Morris Park Avenue.

The second-term lawmaker is teaming up with the Bronx Council for Economic Development (BCED) and City Solve to implement a two-phase project.

In the first phase, City Solve, a business that specializes in graffiti removal, will target and remove or paint over graffiti in shopping areas throughout the 80th Assembly district. In the second phase, BCED will purchase a truck to perform graffiti removal. City Solve will help train the workers who operate out of the truck.

“This is an unprecedented event,” said Rivera in a statement. “An undertaking of this magnitude has never taken place.”

In a statement, Rivera said the BCED will use capital money that she has allocated to the group to purchase the graffiti removal truck.

Swedish Firm Take Over Filter Plant Project

Skanska, a multi-national Swedish firm has taken over the major building phase of Croton Water Filtration Plant for $1.3 billion, according a company press release.

The firm was given the opportunity to take over the project once the lowest bidder for the project, a consortium led by Perini Corporation, bowed out a month ago. Skanksa was the only other company to submit a bid for the project last fall.

If Skanksa had not accepted the $1.3 million price tag, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) would have been forced to put the project out to bid again, causing more delays.

Due to a federal mandate to complete the project within a certain timeframe, the building of the plant was supposed to have begun on Feb. 8. Consequently, the city has been racking up daily fines because construction has yet to begin. So far the city has accumulated more than $1.5 million in fines.

It remains to be seen when Skanska will begin construction. The DEP couldn’t be reached for comment by press time.

Public and Community Meetings

Community Board 7′s Education, Youth and Libraries Committee, will meet Tuesday, May 29 at 6:45 p.m. at Mosholu Montefiore Community Center at 3450 DeKalb Ave. For more information, call (718) 933-5650.

Community Education Council 10 will meet Thursday, May 17 at 6:15 p.m. at PS 291 at 2195 Andrews Ave. For more information, call the office at (718) 741-5836.

Croton Facility Monitoring Committee will meet Thursday, May 17 at 7 p.m. The major construction contract will be discussed. For more information, call the office at (718) 231-8470.

52nd Precinct Community Council will meet Thursday, May 17 at 7:30 p.m. at Cosmopolitan Church, which is located at 190th Street and Grand Avenue. Bill Valenka, from Auto Crime at the District Attorney’s office, will speak. For more information, call (718) 220-5824.

Letters to the Editor

By None

Lessons of Imus

While some of us might applaud Don Imus getting fired for the insensitive comments he made about the women of Rutgers, let us not forget where he got the power to say what he said; he got it from us.

We often refer to one another as Niggas, Ho’s, and Bitches. We consider ourselves as Pimps, Playas or Gangstas. We reward comedians and rap artists and other black entertainers with multi-million dollar mansions, fast cars, and all kind of awards for their

achievements. When was the last time you heard two Jewish individuals greet each other as Hymies, or two Asians as Nips, or two Whites as honkeys? They don’t!

By referring to each other by these derogatory names that we wouldn’t dare call our parents, we’ve set a trend of acceptability by people of other colors to do the same. Let us resolve not to reward people who think of our men and women in such a negative and demeaning way.

The same way we got the advertisers to pull their support from Imus show, we could do the same to same to the artist by not buying their records or going to their concerts.

If you can’t say it to your mother or father, then you should not say it at all!

Tracy Wm. Heyward

School Policy Threatens Safety

I was born and raised in the Bronx.  I now teach in the same neighborhood in which I grew up.  

I have repeatedly emailed Chancellor Klein regarding his ineffective discipline policies in NYC public schools. Just today, a boy who threatened to bring in a gun and shoot two of his classmates was placed in another class inside our school. All Klein does is shuffle these violent kids from class to class or school to school.   

When an elementary school student commits an act of violence (sexual assault, physical assault on a teacher or classmate, a threat of bringing a gun to school and killing someone) he is recommended for a suspension. While we wait for the paper pushers, who work directly under the chancellor, to schedule the suspension hearing, the violent student continues to sit in class with his victims. Sometimes he victimizes them again and again while we wait. If we are lucky, the violent student is temporarily, or sometimes permanently, sent to another school where only the principal has the right to know why.  

Most teachers are too timid to question this policy. Most teachers just accept a suspended student into their class without demanding answers. And when some of us do have the courage to make a stink about such a ridiculous policy, the violent student is simply placed elsewhere – into the classroom of a teacher too afraid to speak up.

What follows is a true account of this policy in action. It is not an isolated incident.  It is DOE policy and it is what we face on a regular basis.

Last year a student was suspended from another school into a classroom next to mine.  The teacher was never informed as to what he had done to warrant the suspension. She expressed her concern about the safety of her 28 third graders sitting in a class with a potentially violent student.  Her concerns fell on deaf ears — Region One sent him here — so he stays until Region One says otherwise. Later that day, the suspended student pushed one of her students down the stairs and kicked him. The teacher filled out the required incident report.  In addition, she and I e-mailed Joel Klein.  Mr. Klein responded to my email. He stated that he would direct his Youth Development staff to take "appropriate action."  The violent student stayed in our school but was placed in another class where the teacher was too timid to object. A tragedy will one day exit from this revolving door policy. I hope we do not have to wait for that in order to get some media attention.

Roseanne McCosh
The writer is a teacher at PS 8.

Open Letter to the Community

In late March and early April, a group of four long-standing community based organizations in the northwest Bronx spearheaded an effort to respond to the needs of the Norwood and Bedford Park communities. The four groups are the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC), Mosholu Preservation Corporation (MPC), the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC) and the West Bronx Housing and Neighborhood Resource Center (WBHNRC). The group is tentatively called the Norwood/Bedford Park Consortium.  The consortium held two community-wide meetings where residents, through a series of small group discussions and guided activities, developed a list of concerns. From that list, participants voted on the top issues.

These issues were: 1) the need to communicate resources that are available 2) building a sense of community and 3) training for a variety of skills development.  The Norwood/Bedford Park Consortium strives to build a network of leaders, resources, media, activities and strong local institutions that will provide residents with ample opportunity to communicate and build community. The more interactions people have, the quicker their feeling of belonging to a community solidifies. We are calling this effort the Norwood/Bedford Park BLOOMS initiative.

This is only the beginning; we know we need to involve more people and get more input. As we address these issues, and as community residents engage in this process, new needs and new resources will emerge. It is the intention of the Norwood/Bedford Park Consortium to continue to develop our response to the needs that are voiced by community members. The ultimate goal of the Consortium is to provide resources, skills and community organization so that Norwood and Bedford Park residents can take the leadership in making Norwood and Bedford Park BLOOMS. Our efforts will be channeled through sharing information, sponsoring/hosting various community based events and training.

Please watch for announcements and upcoming events in the Norwood News and throughout the community.  If you have any questions or comments about the Norwood/Bedford Park BLOOMS initiative, please contact Jennifer Mitchell at (718) 324-4462 or email at jmitchell@mpcbronx.org.

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center
Mosholu Preservation Corporation
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
West Bronx Housing and Neighborhood Resource Center

Tax Would Focus Country on War

This letter was sent by the author, who grew up in Norwood, to Congressional representatives from Hawaii and New York.

I am the husband of a currently deployed Army officer stationed in Hawaii, and with a home of record in New York. I’m writing today for two reasons: to thank you for your support of emergency war funding legislation that included a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq and to ask you to take an additional step and require that any additional funding for the current conflict be paid for immediately, through a tax increase.

When my wife was deployed in Afghanistan two years ago, I found the deployment easier to deal with than her current Iraq tour, even though she was probably in more physical danger in Afghanistan. At that time, I at least had the comfort of believing in the cause that she was fighting for. Right now, I’m not sure I even know just why she — or the rest of our troops — are there. I’m a bit of a cynic by nature, and did not expect my view of the cause to make a difference in how easy it would be to face the separation. To my surprise, I’ve discovered that it’s much easier to make sacrifices when you know why you are being asked to make them.

This brings me to one of the reasons that I am asking that you attach a tax increase to any further war spending — sacrifice. Last night, when my wife called from where she’s stationed, I mentioned that I had learned about the decision to extend Army tours through the media instead of through Army channels, but that it was nowhere near the top story of the night. A radio DJ getting fired for making insensitive and racist comments and the implications of the Anna Nicole paternity test were all apparently much more newsworthy events. My wife was surprised that this surprised me. Her response was, "Of course it isn’t. Why would most people care about this."

She’s right. The vast majority of the American public has little at stake in this conflict. The sacrifices are being made by the military and by military families. As retired Major General John Batiste put it last year, "Most Americans only confront this issue by deciding what color of magnet [to put] on the back end of their SUV." I think that if more Americans were being asked to make sacrifices to support this war effort, more Americans would pay closer attention to what has been (and is) going on.

Sacrifice isn’t the only reason to make sure that this war is funded through taxes now. We also have a responsibility to our descendants. Right now, our two children are already being asked to sacrifice a great deal for this war effort — their mother has been away during 18 of the last 33 months. It is unfair, unreasonable, and irresponsible to ask them, when they grow up, to also pay the financial costs of the war. The current policies, unfortunately, do just that.

Please consider taking these actions, both to support the troops who are deployed now and to support those who are being asked to pay for the war later.

In addition to emailing this letter to you, I am also posting it on my blog (http://scienceblogs.com/authority). I would encourage anyone who reads it there to send a similar letter to their Representatives and Congressmen.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Michael Dunford

Neighborhood Notes

By None

Kids Health Fair

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center is sponsoring the Children’s Health Fair 2007 on Sunday, May 20, from noon to 3 p.m. There will be health screenings and education, as well as giveaways, refreshments and entertainment. Admission is free and open to children ages 12 and under when accompanied by an adult. Come rain or shine to the corner of Gun Hill Road, one block east of Jerome Avenue. For more information, call (718) 882-4000 ext. 0.

Children’s Safety

At MS 80, on Thursday, May 17 from 4 to 9 p.m., the Children’s Collective presents a Community Night Out on Children’s Safety. The school is located at 149 E. Mosholu Parkway N. For more information, call (646) 519-0235.

Spring Bazaar

The Amalgamated Nursery School’s Annual Spring Bazaar will be held on May 20 between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. The festivities, featuring a raffle and silent auction with prizes, a jumping castle, live entertainment, arts and crafts including face painting, and a flea market, will take place in the "Train Park" at the corner of Orloff Avenue and Gale Place just off Van Cortlandt Park South. In case of rain, the fair will be held two blocks away in Vladeck Hall, 74 Van Cortlandt Park S. at the corner of Hillman Avenue. For more information, call (718) 543-8688.

DEP Job Prep

There are spots available at Bronx Community College’s Project Hire, a 20-week program that prepares residents to enter construction unions. A candidate must be between 18 and 60 years of age, low-income and a citizen or resident alien, but no construction experience is necessary. There’s also a free GED preparation class beginning in June, for which citizenship is not a requirement. Sign up for one or both at the Department of Environmental Protection office at 3660 Jerome Ave., Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call (718) 231-8470.

Summer Youth Employment

Applications for the 2007 New York City Summer Youth Employment Program are due May 18. The seven-week program, which runs from July 2 through Aug. 18, provides wages of $7.15 per hour for up to 25 hours of work in a variety of positions at hospitals, non-profits, small businesses, law firms, museums or retail organizations. New York City residents, ages 14 through 21, can apply. This is the first year students can apply on-line, in addition to downloading the application to print at nyc.gov/dycd. For more information, call the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center at (718) 882-4000.

Blood Drive

Hudson Valley Blood Services has scheduled a mobile collection unit at the 52nd Precinct, at 3016 Webster Ave., on May 17 from 1 to 6:30 p.m.

Displaced Homemakers Program

Bronx Community College offers career development workshops, computer training and job search assistance for Bronx and upper Manhattan residents.  BCC is now registering students to enroll in free classes between May 21 and June 22. Displaced homemakers, who are individuals who have provided unpaid services to their families in the home, been dependent on another family member’s income, are unemployed or are having trouble finding employment, may be eligible. Once eligibility has been determined, participants must attend orientation on May 17. For criteria and more information, call (718) 289-5828/5824.

Asthma Screenings

The American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology is offering free asthma screenings on May 18 from 9:30 a.m. to noon at Mercy Community Care, 4234 Bronx Blvd. The screenings, offered to children and adults, identify people at risk for asthma and also help previously diagnosed asthmatics keep their symptoms under control.

Fresh Air Fund Registration

Register your child for a free summer program, courtesy of the Fresh Air Fund. There will be free registration for children ages 6 to 12 on Saturday, May 19 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Snow House, at 135 Hall of Fame Terrace between Andrews Avenue and Loring Place, and Friday, June 1 from 4 to 8 p.m. at PS 93, at 1535 Story Ave. Registration is free. Please bring the following: medical card or Medicaid card, public assistance information if applicable, a recent physical (meaning after Aug. 1, 2006) and three emergency contact names and numbers. For more information, please call the Fresh Air Fund at 1 (800) 367-0003 or visit www.freshair.org.

U.S. Gun Policy Forum

Jackie Kuhls, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence (NYAGV), will present "Gun Policy in the United States," a talk hosted by the Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture, on Sunday, May 20 at 11 a.m. The discussion will be held at 4450 Fieldston Rd., (at the corner of Manhattan College Parkway) and will highlight gun deaths among teens in the U.S. in relation to current legislation. For details, call Curt Collier at (718) 548-4445.

City Ballet School Auditions

The School of American Ballet (SAB), of New York City Ballet, seeks young aspiring ballet dancers in the Bronx. The school will hold special free auditions on Sunday, May 20 for children ages 6 to 10 for the 2007-2008 winter term. Auditions will take place at the Bronx Dance Theatre, at 585 E. 187th St., between Arthur Avenue and Hoffman Street, starting at 1 p.m. For more information, call the school at (212) 769-6600.

Business Plan and Marketing Workshop

The New York State Small Business Development Center will host the workshop, "Creating a Winning Business Plan & Marketing Your Small Business" on Wednesday, May 23 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The course, which includes tips for generating financial statements and effective promotion, will be held on the Lehman College Campus at 250 Bedford Park Blvd. W. in the Old Gym Building, Room 108-B.  Participation is limited. Contact Nancy Beltrez at (718) 960-8806.

Cardiovascular Health Talk

The Mosholu Montefiore Senior Center, located at 3450 DeKalb Ave., will host a free talk on cardiovascular health on Wednesday, May 23 at 1 p.m. Robert Fay of the NYC Department for the Aging’s Health Promotions Unit will give the talk titled, "The Heart of the Matter: Cardiovascular Health."  For more details, call Bayla Lovens at (718) 798-6601.

Panel on Crystal Meth in the Bronx

The Community Advisory Board to the Henry and Lucy Moses Division of Montefiore Medical Center presents a community-wide spring symposium on "The Tragic Reality of Crystal Meth in the Bronx." Speakers and panelists, including representatives from the NYC Office of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Drug Abuse Treatment Program, will meet at Montefiore Medical Center’s Cherkasky Auditorium, Gun Hill Road entrance, on June 7, from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be provided. To register, call 1-800-MD-MONTE or e-mail mosescab@montefiore.org.

Cancer Research Program

Albert Einstein Cancer Center is offering two free research programs for patients with cancer, a Yoga-Based Cancer Rehabilitation Program, which includes 12 weeks of yoga classes, and a Mind-Body Cancer Program, which includes eight weeks of mind-body classes. Both are designed to help cancer patients cope emotionally, physically and spiritually. For more information, and to find out if you are eligible, call (718) 430-2380.

Summer Food Service Program

The Mosholu Montefiore Community Center announces its participation in the Summer Food Service Program. Free meals will be made available to all children 18 years and younger from June 28 to Aug. 17. Breakfast will be provided from 7 to 9 a.m. at the annex, located at 3512 DeKalb Ave. Lunch from 12:20 to 12:50 p.m., and snacks 3:20 to 3:50 p.m. will be served in the main building at 3450 DeKalb Ave.  For more information, call (718) 654-0563.

Children and Van Cortlandt Park

The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park presents Lil’ Explorers, in which third to fifth graders and a parent participate in free, fun, hands-on activities in the park, including a free field trip and gift at the end. The group will meet in the park at Bainbridge and Jerome Avenues, Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon through June 23, except May 26. Applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, call (718) 601-1553.

PS 20 Kindergarten

PS/MS 20, at 3050 Webster Ave., has begun kindergarten registration for the coming school year. To register, Monday through Thursday, 9 to 10 a.m., you will need to bring the child, the birth certificate of your child (who must be 5 years old by Dec. 31, 2007), proof of address through a utility bill, and a complete immunization record. For more information, call (718) 584-5510.

Free Pre-School Program

Monsignor Boyle Head Start offers a free pre-school program for children ages 3 to 4.  Breakfast, lunch and snacks are included.  Please bring child, a copy of his or her birth certificate, immunization card, proof of family income, residence, medical insurance and Social Security Card. For details, call (718) 405-7824.

As Repair Complaints Mount, So Do Tensions at Tracey

By Annie Shreffler

Disagreements among tenant leaders and a management agency bogged
down by a constant demand for repairs have caused some Tracey Tower
residents to look to the courts for help.

The officers of the Tracey Towers Tenant Association gathered
signatures on 122 notarized HP (Housing Part) Action forms and sent
them to the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development
(HPD), prompting building inspections. The forms allow the association
to represent tenants, a welcome solution for those unwilling to go to
court themselves.

“Most people are afraid or don’t have time to go to court,” said
Vilasario Rojas, a well-know fixture at Housing Court and a Tracey
resident since the two towers opened in 1974.

Rojas says he doesn’t wait to be ignored; he takes maintenance
complaints directly to court. It began in 2004, when a blocked terrace
drainpipe flooded his fifth floor apartment, and the units below.

“It was so bad, they had to put five-gallon drums in the foyer to
catch the water,” he said. Frustrated with maintenance’s patch job,
Rojas began visiting court.

“Every time I ask, they [management] don’t care. I got fed up. They
didn’t think I’d go that far,” he said. “As long as I got breath in my
body to go to court, I will. It’s the only way to get the repairs.”

RY Management District Manager Danny Durante is disappointed when he
hears Tracey Towers described as a rundown complex or a place with
dissatisfied residents. Framed photos around his office show his
involvement with thriving youth programs at Tracey and other buildings
under his watch. He says he wouldn’t ask residents to live where he
didn’t feel his own family would be comfortable, and he tracks
complaints called into Tracey’s maintenance office.

883 Complaints

“If you’re unhappy with something, call me,” he said, explaining
that the fastest route to repairs is contacting building maintenance,
not city agencies or politicians, which generates unnecessary paperwork.

Responding to the 122 forms, Durante hired additional staff and is
addressing an itemized list of 883 complaints, ranging from routine
paint requests to broken cabinets and dysfunctional intercoms. He
instructed his staff to make appointments with tenants, but he’s
frustrated that time and money has been spent on sorting out this issue
and visiting court, rather than running an efficient system for making
routine repairs.

“I’m going to do my job well whether they help [gather complaints]
or not. This is muddying the system,” he said, adding that an average
day of calls to maintenance generates about 40 work orders, plenty for
a staff of 30 maintaining 871 units.

Management is installing new cabinets and countertops for tenants who
complained, but Sam Gillian, the tenant association’s president, says
with summer coming, management needs to do more.

“People need blinds and screens and all we hear is they have no money,” said Gillian.

Durante priced blinds for the complex after a meeting with the
tenant association. It took three days to measure and determine a cost
of $500,000.

“Costs associated with [installing new blinds] make it prohibitive at this time,” he said.

Gillian also said residents who complain get less attention from maintenance, but

Durante said he wants everyone to work together to improve the
towers. He recalled how the former tenant association brought
Councilman Oliver Koppell and state Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera together
to help management appeal to HPD for two loans, for $1.8 million and
$2.3 million that allowed them to begin capital projects.

Together, tenants and management set short and long term objectives.
The loans were specifically for a new elevator system, boiler system,
façade repair and roof repair. The boilers are now functioning and the
elevators, infamous for stranding a Chinese food delivery man for
almost four days in 2005, are now completed.

Rent Increase

Management won their petition to raise rents three years ago, the
first increase in 18 years, but even that wouldn’t have paid for the
capital projects.

“The gross rent potential [rent from every unit] is insufficient to
maintain regular building operations and needed upgrades,” Durante
said. “Normally, we’d fund a reserve account [for large projects]. We
can’t do that right now.”

Sally Caldwell, called “Miss Sally” by many tenants, is a long-time
resident at the towers. Now on Assemblywoman Rivera’s payroll, she
works with Ricardo Concepcion, a constituent service representative in
Rivera’s office. He said he often calls landlords or 311 on behalf of
tenants, relaying complaints about lack of heat or hot water and
similar matters. Caldwell feels some of the work to keep the building
up needs to come from tenants: many floors have untidy incinerator
closets and graffiti continues to plague the walls, but she expressed
hope for Tracey Towers.

“Things are looking up,” she said, but added, “We all need to help make this a better place”

Rojas doesn’t agree with Caldwell’s assessment that it’s tenant neglect that leaves the building in disrepair.

“Nobody’s messing up stuff,” he said. “It’s cheap and installed poorly.”

Rift Between Leaders

Caldwell insists she would do more for Tracey Towers, but can’t work
with Gillian or the other association officers. Gillian accuses
Caldwell of making excuses for management. He attended a meeting with a
mediator and Caldwell on May 7, but a gag order agreement prevented him
from providing any information. The rift between the leaders has
created tension and polarized residents.

Brenda Caldwell, Sally’s daughter and the head of the 52nd Precinct
Community Council, argued with Gillian after last month’s community
board meeting, held at the towers.

“Unless my mother has done something, why dislike her?” Brenda
Caldwell said. “His focus seems to be on my mom. He needs to spend time
doing things for the Towers. I just want it to stop. We’re all adults.”

Meanwhile, a visit to the 50+ Seniors group that meets every weekday
in Tracey’s community room confirmed that not all tenants feel they’ve
seen building improvements. Many shook heads when asked if there is
better maintenance.

“Keys don’t work to go up the ramp and it’s a $45 fee to get a new
one,” complained a man who gave his name as Mr. Todd, another original
resident of the towers.

One resident who signed an HP Action form but didn’t want to give
her name, is disappointed with her new cabinets, which she called
poorly installed, plain boxes on her walls.

“It looks like a casket, like a piece of wood stuck up there,” she
said. She is also frustrated that un-patched holes left from the March
replacement have allowed mice and roaches in. She’s keeping her food
and dishware in containers in her living room. Also, the new cabinets
have fewer shelves and no backing, revealing plain walls.

Durante denies that management ordered cheap cabinets, saying they
even tried to match originals. He says when he learned that some
cabinets were missing backs, he ordered his crew to return and install
them, and that he has made sure no vendors send him backless cabinets
again. As for holes, he said the crew is supposed to visit the units by
appointment and finish the work.

“She will get a back to her cabinets and we will correct the situation,” he said.

Tracey Shooting Puts Spotlights Ongoing Turf Battle

By Alex Kratz

A fight was going to happen. Somebody brought a gun.

Police say this scenario played out to nearly tragic consequences in Norwood two weeks ago, when four young men were shot, two critically, outside of Tracey Towers.

The four victims, all of Ghanaian decent, are expected to make full recoveries.

Meanwhile, two suspects were arrested the day after the shooting and charged with attempted murder and gang assault. A police report said the two suspects were from the Bronx, but outside the area. It’s widely believed, however, that the duo, at the very least, spends a great deal of time, in the Knox-Gates neighborhood, which is directly across Mosholu Parkway from Tracey.

Details of what happened that Friday evening remain murky at best, but residents say the shooting stems from a long-standing feud between youth at Tracey Towers and Knox-Gates, two communities only a football field apart.

“When you can’t contain something that is so explosive, this is what happens,” said one Tracey resident.

The Scene

Just after sundown, at about 8:30 in the evening, some 15 shots were fired across the wooded darkness of Mosholu Parkway into a group of young black men who were hanging out at the bottom of a Tracey Towers driveway near Paul Avenue.

One of the young men, Farid Haruna, 22, a student at Sullivan County Community College who moved the United States from Ghana at the age of 5, took a bullet to the chest resulting in a punctured lung. Haruna had just returned from school three hours earlier to visit family and friends, said his sister, Laila Haruna, 20, who lives at Tracey.

Somehow, Haruna ended up in Tracey’ security office where a security guard and another resident applied pressure to his wound while waiting for an ambulance. The resident, who declined to give his name, estimated that the medics took about 20 minutes to arrive.

Another Tracey resident from Ghana who requested anonymity had just returned from work when he heard the burst of shots. He ran out onto the driveway ramp and saw one of the victims lying on the concrete, bleeding from a bullet wound to his chest.

“I got scared, really scared,” said the 20-year-old resident who put pressure on the young man’s wound until a police officer showed up and immediately began asking the victim questions. “He’s dying and this guy asks, ‘Who shot you?’” the young man said, incredulously.

Two others were shot, both in the foot.

Sergeant Kevin Maloney, the head of the anti-crime detective unit assigned to Norwood, said the police showed up to a “horrific scene” at Tracey.

(At a tenant meeting, Maloney conceded that police probably questioned the victims before they were taken away by medics because it would have been irresponsible for them not to gather as much information about the suspects as possible. Also, Maloney said, it is policy for police to wait for medics before administering any aid.)

The police initially identified three victims. The two with chest wounds were sent to St. Barnabas Hospital, while the other victim, who sustained a less severe foot wound, was taken to North Central Bronx Hospital. The fourth victim later checked into North Central on his own.

Upon arrival, police shut down the entire area, including Mosholu Parkway and all the entrances to Tracey. Meanwhile, 25 extra cops from the 52nd Precinct began canvassing the area, talking to witnesses, reviewing videotape and looking for evidence. Police commissioner Ray Kelly made the shooting a top priority and sent any overtime officers from the Bronx to the scene.

Right where the victims were shot, Maloney said police found a host of weapons, including bats, metal pipes and electrical wire.

“There’s two sides to the story,” Maloney told an anxious crowd at the Tracey tenant meeting last week. “Let’s not say we’re not to blame over here [at Tracey]. Somebody came with bats. Somebody came with guns.”

While the police were searching for clues and interviewing witnesses, a crowd began to gather beyond the yellow police tape. Maloney said the crowd began screaming at the police to go across the parkway. The shooters, they yelled, came from Knox-Gates.

The Aftermath

The next day, police arrested three suspects; two of whom were identified from pictures by the victims from their hospital beds and arrested. Police have identified the suspects as Rondell Rose, 16, and Juan Martinez, 18. As of Tuesday afternoon before this paper went to press, the police were still looking for a third shooter, said Deputy Inspector James Alles, the relatively new commanding officer of the 52nd Precinct.

Alles said they have requested that the area around Knox-Gates become an Impact Zone, which would flood the area with foot-patrolling cops temporarily. Since the shooting, he said they’ve been patrolling are vigorously.

The most telling, and disturbing, fallout from the shooting outside of Tracey is that know one seemed surprised by it. Not residents, community leaders or the police. It was almost as if people were surprised that it didn’t happen earlier.

At the Tracey tenant meeting, several residents became emotional. “I told you this was going to happen,” they shouted at police, who didn’t argue.

Residents from Tracey and Knox-Gates say the beef between the two dates back six years, but no one knows exactly when or why or how it started. Just like no one can say what precipitated the shooting on Friday night.

There are differences between the two communities. Tracey is made up primarily of black and African immigrant residents, while Knox-Gates is primarily Hispanic. While no one would say Tracey is tight-knit, residents there argued that they have a more defined sense of community than the unaffiliated conglomeration of buildings in Knox-Gates. For the most part, the youth coming out of Tracey, like Farid Haruna, are still pursuing academics, while many of the young adults hanging out on West Mosholu Parkway North are out of school and unemployed.

“Everybody here goes to school,” said a 19-year-old Tracey resident who requested anonymity. “Lots of them dropped out. It’s jealousy.”

“[The victims] are decent kids,” said Don Bluestone, who comes in contact with kids from both sides, in one way or another, as the head of the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center. “To my knowledge, they are in college now and they are not involved in any of these activities.”

Growing Apart

Many of the Tracey kids say they went to school with their counterparts at Knox-Gates, ate dinner with their families, played sports with them. At a certain age, however, the relationships began to sour and the distance across the parkway became longer and darker. Soon, a trip to McDonalds on Jerome Avenue became a trek across enemy lines.

Every Tracey resident has a story about a violent encounter near the parkway or Jerome that they either witnessed or heard about. Cops say they are constantly making narcotics busts in the Knox-Gates area. They just arrested someone there for using a TASER gun to rob somebody.

Though some Tracey residents said the beef is racial, Knox-Gates youth (a relative term as many are in their upper 20s or 30s), many of whom claim allegiance to the M-MOB, also have constant run-ins with gangs across Jerome Avenue, north of the parkway, which is also mostly Hispanic.

Knox-Gates resident Lyn Pyle, a founder of the COVE, a youth outreach group in Knox-Gates, said her neighborhood has been very quiet since the shooting. She said she’s hoping the entire community can work together to improve the situation. “I think we need to sit down and figure out how to respect each other’s territory and come to some kind of understanding,” she said.

Stacy Jones grew up in Tracey Towers and raised her kids, now teenagers, there. She’s witnessed severe beatings near Jerome and now offers to walk with any Tracey youth when they need to make the trip across the parkway. Like everyone else, she doesn’t harbor any illusions of magic potions. “I wish there was an easy solution, but there isn’t one.”

Twins, Separate but Together, Return to Monte to Celebrate 5th Birthday

By Cassandra Lizaire

Inside the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center, the press, various guests, and hospital associates eagerly awaited the arrival of formerly conjoined twins Carl and Clarence Aguirre. That Friday, April 20, the boys celebrated their fifth birthday, almost two and a half years since the unprecedented surgery that successfully separated them.

When they finally appeared wearing matching blue helmets, the twins looked sleepy, still waking up from their afternoon nap. After everyone sang “Happy Birthday,” Arlene Aguirre helped her sons blow out the candles on two birthday cakes – one for each of her two healthy boys.

“I am very happy to share that my boys are five years old and I’m still pinching myself, asking if it’s real,” said the cheerful mom.

When Aguirre arrived in New York City with her sons in September of 2003, the fate of her twins was uncertain at best.

Once craniopagus twins, the boys were joined at the top of their heads and shared a two-inch section of brain tissue as well as skull bone and vital blood vessels. Their condition inhibited digestion, caused respiratory infections, and was causing the boys to slowly die. But thanks to the surgical care and treatment the boys received at The Children’s Hospital, Clarence and Carl are on the road to normal childhoods, Aguirre said.

“No such twins in history have lived to the age of five, much less continued to develop physically, emotionally and intellectually as Clarence and Carl have,” said Dr. James Goodrich, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Children’s Hospital. Goodrich and chief of pediatric plastic surgery, Dr. David Staffenberg, headed the medical team that separated the twins in a four-stage, 10-month-long procedure.

Since the surgeries, “the twins have retained their distinctly individual personalities,” said Goodrich. “Clarence is still a ham. He runs around like a bandito. Carl was always the shy one and holds back more.” Appropriately enough, at the birthday ceremony, Carl could be seen quietly playing a video game, while Clarence posed for the cameras.

The blue helmets remain a reminder of the boy’s medical history. As a protective measure, the boys must wear the helmets to shield their sensitive skulls, which may be harmed during normal play.

“We have not performed surgery to complete cranial reconstruction of their skulls because we do not want to interrupt their developmental gains with additional hospital stays,” Staffenberg said. The medical team opted to let the boys’ bone to continue to grow on its own, before more reconstructive procedures.

Until then, the boys continue to play and fight like normal 5-year-olds, said Aguirre. This fall, Carl and Clarence will begin their first year of school as kindergartners.

With Ballroom Dance Classes Kids Learn More Than Merengue

By Kathryn Molinaro

Dancing and spinning like professional dancers, the fourth graders from PS 340 tangoed around the dance floor.

Just 10 weeks earlier, dance instructor Latisha Cesar had to convince the class that the opposite sex didn’t have cooties.

“It’s always hard to get them to work together,” Cesar said.

Once the students started dancing, though, they forgot about gender and let the music take over.

The ballroom dancing program comes to schools like PS 340 from the American Ballroom Theater’s Dancing Classrooms program, which began in 1994 and is based in Manhattan. Sessions last 10 weeks and meet for two 45-minute classes a week during the school day.

Cesar, who studied dance at Lehman College, has worked for American Ballroom Theater for three years. She teaches dances like the waltz, rumba, tango and swing at elementary and middle schools throughout the Bronx.

“We want to give these children something to strive for,” Cesar said. “It’s really about helping them grow as people.”

Principal Deirdre Burke agrees that the program, in its second year at her school, teaches lessons beyond twirling and jazz hands.

“I think the arts are an entitlement,” Burke said. “If you’re going to be educated you have to know more than reading and writing.”

Burke and Cesar like how ballroom dancing builds students’ vocabularies, gives them an appreciation of the arts and strengthens confidence, which can transfer to better grades in the classroom.

The program, which cost $10,200 this year for PS 340, is paid for with discretionary money the school receives as an Empowerment school and by Learning in the Arts, a program the Department of Education launched to emphasize music, art and theater education. The program is open to all fourth, fifth and sixth graders and costs nothing for the students. Those who can’t dance for religious reasons participate by helping with the music and other behind-the-scenes jobs.

Eddie Vargas, the leadership team chair at PS 340, decided to bring ballroom dancing to the school after seeing “Mad Hot Ballroom,” the hit documentary that follows fifth graders at three different New York City public schools as they take part in the Dancing Classrooms program.

“We’ve got to find a way for us to do this,” Vargas remembers saying after seeing the movie. “I liked the fact that it taught them confidence, responsibility, leadership. It gives the kids an opportunity to shine.”

Sixth grader Imani Purnell, 12, likes the program because she learns new dance steps and hears music from around the world. Her favorite dance is the salsa.

“A lot of hips,” she said. “It’s very Latin.”

Imani added that the class has also taught her good posture, which her mom likes.

On April 19, the PS 340 students showcased their grapevines and fox trots for parents in one of the ballrooms at The Eastwood Manor on Eastchester Road. The space was donated by the owners.

The girls shined in dresses and hair ribbons and many of the boys wore ties. The 200 students paraded around the marble dance floor underneath twinkling chandeliers in escort style – couples with linked arms, girls on the right – as flash bulbs and applause burst from the parents’ section.

Between dances, the students sat at tables covered with white tablecloths and napkins that matched the purple and peach balloons decorating the room. When the students finished dancing, Cesar announced free summer classes at the American Ballroom Theater.

As a cheer went up from the students, Burke smiled. It seems her students had developed an appreciation for the arts, and everyone agreed they now dance a mean tango.

 

Klein Lays Out Vision for School System Overhaul

By Alex Kratz

Last week, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein parachuted into the northwest Bronx to promote and explain his ambitious overhaul of New York City public schools. Also known as the Children’s First Initiative, the plan has been met with national accolades, local opposition, and often, just plain confusion.

With all the system-wide changes being implemented, it’s difficult for even the most informed parent to keep track, let alone make sense, of it all. In fact, parent groups around the city have called for the chancellor to slow down and take time to listen to what the parents think and incorporate their input.

Despite this, Klein, with strong backing from Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is plowing ahead with his plan.

Most changes to the school system, major or minor, only require approval from the city’s Panel for Education Policy, which replaced the Board of Education in 2002. The panel is comprised of 13 members. Each borough president appoints one panelist, while the mayor installs the other eight.

The Final Chapter

The dramatic next step in the Bloomberg/Klein makeover comes July 1, when the new fiscal year begins. That’s when every school in the city will be reorganized by support structures (see sidebar), regions will be disbanded and new evaluation tools will be implemented.

It’s a sort of final chapter in Klein’s epic school system makeover – a risky bid to change what he calls “a culture of failure.” With that as a backdrop, Klein showed up at PS 37 in Kingsbridge last Monday to answer his critics and reiterate the Big Picture.

“We have two options,” Klein said, responding to critics of his plan. “Stay on the same course and pray for a miracle, or we can do the hard work and make changes.”

Buffered by a cadre of handlers, Klein strode to the stage and sat in the middle of a long table. He was flanked by other members from Community District Education Council (CDEC) 10, who were holding their monthly public meeting.

Klein, a product of Queens public schools who took over the country’s largest school system five years ago after gaining notoriety as the Clinton Administration lawyer who beat Microsoft in a landmark anti-trust case, started his pitch at the beginning.

He talked about how the system he inherited a half decade ago was in shambles: graduation rates plummeting, dropout rates skyrocketing and the achievement gap (between whites and minorities) growing.

More than 50 years after Brown versus Board of Education, the historic case that guaranteed equal education for all races, Klein said, minority students in the city were four years behind white students. He called this gap “shameful” and “unacceptable.”

 

He went on to say that although the gap remains wide, there are signs of progress. The city’s overall four-year graduation rate jumped another 3 percent to 50 percent in 2006, after rising 3.5 percent in 2005. Last year, 15 of the city’s new small high schools (part of Klein’s plan calls for smaller, more intimate academic settings) graduated 73 percent of its students. The Bronx Aerospace Academy, a small school on the Evander Childs campus, graduated an astounding 93 percent of its kids, all of them minority students.

 

Klein also boasted that New York City was again, for the third consecutive year, named one of the top five most improved urban school districts in the country by the Broad Foundation, a non-profit that focuses on public education.

 

Points of Emphasis

 

To continue improving the system, Klein said he’s pushing four points of emphasis:

Basically, Klein is making schools responsible for everything – curriculum, parent involvement, professional development for teachers, arts programming – meaning strong leadership and good decision-making will be more crucial than ever.

“I want to make schools the center,” Klein said. “I don’t know any parents who send their kids to a district. They send them to schools.”

Flaws in the Plan

After Klein left the meeting, Council Member Oliver Koppell, a former school board member who represents a big chunk of District 10, said he’s still not convinced. Both he and Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz have recently expressed criticism of Klein’s overall plan.

“The whole re-organization has many flaws,” Koppell said. “The seeds of conflict and confusion are there. The whole system seems doomed to failure.”

Koppell added that he’s worried that arts and extracurricular activities will suffer because schools will choose to spend extra funds on preparing for math and reading exams, which are required by the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind Act and are tied to federal funding.

CDEC 10 President Marvin Shelton, who moderated a question-and-answer session with the chancellor after he outlined his reform plan, has been regularly informed every step of the way and he’s still struggling to make sense of it all.

“There’s a lot up in the air,” Shelton said about all the details and kinks of Klein’s plan. Shelton acknowledged that “something had to be done,” but said the jury’s still out on whether it will all work out.

“The movement is coming fast,” Shelton said. “Hopefully, tomorrow morning we’ll put our kids on the bus and they’ll get a better education.”

City’s Weird Water Logic

By None

Waste water.

That’s the message the city has for every homeowner and landlord in the city.

We’re not joking. Despite the mayor’s impressive environmental master plan, the city Water Board’s executive director told the few people assembled at a recent hearing that one of the main reasons for the hefty hike this year, was that people were cutting down on their water use.

“Our financial needs are spread across fewer gallons consumed,” was how Water Board Executive Director Steven Lawitts put it. So, to penalize rate payers for being conservation-minded, rates for homeowners and landlords will rise by 11.5 percent in July, and the Board projects similar increases for next year and the year after.

These numbers are dry and uninteresting, unless you happen to be a homeowner who pays them, in which case it’s hardly an academic issue. What if you’re just scraping by or behind on your mortgage? Or maybe you’re a senior citizen or disabled veteran on a limited income and there just isn’t any more disposable dough to fork over to the city. Council Member James Vacca called it a “regressive” tax because “not everyone has the equal ability to pay. The Water Board does not recognize that. “

The city does its best to keep the water issue as dry as possible and as far from the ratepayer as it can possibly manage.

Vacca, the only elected official to attend the hearing this year, waved around a notice every property owner in the city received on April 20 about work on the Croton water system. Why didn’t the city advertise the hearings in that mailing? He called it a “lost opportunity that the DEP did not want to avail themselves of.”

At the start of the session, the Water Board’s hearing officer listed each periodical it placed a notice in about the hearings. That included the dailies and the Jewish Press, but not a single community newspaper. Not that the text-heavy ads would have drawn much notice regardless of where it was placed. What about an old-fashioned press release? But that would’ve made it more likely that newspapers would actually publish articles on the issue in advance of the hearing.

The Bronx hearing was also held at 9:30 a.m. in a basement lecture hall deep into the Lehman College campus, not exactly a location that’s easy to get to, particularly if you’re elderly or handicapped.

These efforts to depress turnout worked. There were only eight or nine speakers and four of those were from University Neighborhood Housing Program, the local non-profit that serves as probably the only consistent monitor of this issue in our borough.

UNHP recently published a report documenting the shrinking number of affordable apartments. Water rates affect affordability and landlords’ ability to keep their buildings in healthy physical and fiscal condition.

Most renters aren’t aware of the water rate debate, because they don’t get a water bill. But their landlords do, and you can be assured that that rate is factored in when property owners demand rent increases before the Rent Guidelines Board.

UNHP is calling for a water summit with city agencies and officials to seriously address this issue. They say it would fit in nicely with the mayor’s massive urban planning project known as “PLANYC 2030.” We agree.

A Look at Where Local Park Rehabs Stand

By Kathryn Molinaro and Jordan Moss

As the weather warms up and the end of the school year is in sight, kids, dog walkers, joggers and baby strollers are beginning to stream into local parks and playgrounds. As they do, many park users will find their favorite green spaces either markedly improved or looking like a construction site, and maybe a little bit of both. That’s because $200 million in park improvement monies, allocated as a result of a controversial political deal to build a giant water filtration plant in the Norwood section of Van Cortlandt Park, has begun transforming local parks.

Here’s a rundown on where these local park improvement projects stand, according to the Parks Department.

Van Cortlandt Park

Work is complete on the golf-course-themed Sachkerah Woods Playground in Van Cortlandt Park at the corner of West Gun Hill Road and Jerome Avenue – the project closest to the filtration plant site. The project includes a comfort station, a new playground and picnic area, and a bench-lined path connecting the playground to the street. A final inspection to check on the finishing touches – known as a “punch list” – was scheduled to take place last week and a ribbon cutting ceremony will soon be scheduled by the borough commissioner.

Devoe Park

Residents of University Heights will have to wait a little longer for the end of the construction at Devoe Park. Parks Department spokeswoman Jesslyn Tiao said work is 41 percent complete and should be finished sometime this summer. When the work is finished, there will be new paths and landscaping throughout the park. The playground at the east end of the park, at Fordham Road and University Avenue, will be reconstructed and a new playground will be built at the west end of the park. The play areas will be equipped with swings, a spray shower, slides and play equipment for toddlers and older children.

Though a November Norwood News article indicated that renovations to the comfort station at Devoe would begin this summer, the current word form the Parks Department is that the “Devoe comfort work station work schedule is still being developed.”

Aqueduct Walk

A consultant has been selected for the design process, which will continue through the fall. The project includes new promenade pavement, new playgrounds, and new passive spaces on Aqueduct Walk from Kingsbridge Road all the way down to Morton Place. Construction will begin in fall 2008 and last about a year.

Williamsbridge Oval

Williamsbridge Oval can also look forward to a face-lift, but not until fall 2009, the projected completion date. In the design phase until the end of July, plans for the Oval include a new turf soccer field and a 400-meter rubberized track with lane striping. The Oval will also receive new basketball courts with full and half courts, bench seating and bleachers. There will be a playground with features for children of all ages, with a spray shower as the centerpiece. The plan also includes renovations for the recreation building, in design until the end of August, including making the lower level handicapped accessible. All construction is set to begin in spring 2008.

St. James Park

After many delays and defaulting contractors, the rehab of the comfort station at St. James was completed earlier this week, according to the Parks Department. Another project not related to the Croton funding, the entrance stairs on Jerome Avenue, is complete. Phase II of the St. James rehab, which included the rehab of two additional park entrance stairways and the repair of the perimeter walls, was completed in November, according to the Parks Department. The design of Phase III — which includes reconstruction of retaining walls and yet more entrance stairs into the park — is complete and the job will be advertised for bids on May 16.

The design of Phase IV is also complete and scheduled to be put out to bid later this month. It consists of new landscaping paths and fencing.

Harris Park Ball Fields

The design of the six ballfields at Harris Park, sandwiched between Lehman College and the Bronx High School of Science, is complete. Two of the fields will have synthetic turf, and the other four will be natural grass. The job will be advertised for bids on May 10.

Poe Park Visitors Center

This is not a Croton-funded project, but local advocates are anxiously awaiting the construction of a new Visitors Center at Poe Park, which has experienced a renaissance in recent years, with a new bandstand, playground and pathways.

The Parks Department says the design of the project, which will engage visitors in the life and work of the park’s namesake, Edgar Allan Poe, is complete and the job is out to bid.

Filter Fines Pile Up on City

By Jordan Moss

By next week, the city will owe the federal government over $1.5 million in fines because it has failed to award the contract for building the water filtration plant in the giant hole in Van Cortlandt Park.

The New York Post first reported that the fines began Feb. 8 at $11,000 a day and will go up to $30,000 a day on May 9, at which point the city will be forced to fork over a total of $1,560,000. The city is under a federal mandate to build the plant according to a detailed schedule.

As the Norwood News reported in the previous issue, the lowest bidder, a consortium of three larger firms — Perini, Tutor-Siliba and O & G — pulled out of negotiations with the city following six months of negotiations.

Steven Lawitts, the Department of Environmental Protection’s first deputy commissioner, said, after last week’s Water Board meeting (see editorial on p. that it was the “biggest construction contract the city has awarded ever,” and that the city and the Perini consortium were “unable to agree on a set of terms.”

Lawitts predicted that, despite the setback, construction would begin this summer.

Asked if water rate payers would foot the bill for the fines, a DEP spokesman said, “Yes.”

Greg Faulkner, the head of the Croton Facility Monitoring Committee, an advisory group that has tried to hold the DEP’s feet to the fire on a number of issues, said the agency has a lot of questions to answer at the next committee meeting on May 17.

Faulkner, who found out about the failed contract talks in the Post, said he especially wants to know why the committee wasn’t apprised of the deteriorating negotiations. “They knew things were going bad,” he said. “They should have told us about it.”

Brief Chicken Joint Shutdown a Lesson in Resilience of Drug Trade

By Alex Kratz

Everyone knows illegal drugs are being sold from inside and outside of the 24-hour Kennedy Fried Chicken on the Grand Concourse and 198th Street, but that doesn’t stop it from happening.

At any time, day or night, neighborhood residents say, you’ll see a group of young Hispanic males, teenagers mostly, some maybe in their early 20s, standing outside of the brightly-lit fast-food restaurant. There is a red sign in the window near the door that says: No Standing.

The owner of a nearby store, who didn’t want to give his name, said they are there selling drugs. One of the young loiterers angrily approached a photographer recently, discouraging him from snapping any more pictures for this article.

Community stalwarts, Monsignor John Jenik of Our Lady of Refuge Church and John Reilly of the Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation, both said the restaurant has been a drug haven ever since it opened several years ago.

About a month ago, the Police Department shut the restaurant down in another attempt to thwart the blatant drug dealing by using the Nuisance Abatement law that targets crime-riddled commercial properties. The law debuted in New York City in the 1970s and was used primarily to shut down brothels.

In this case, the manager of the restaurant was taken to Civil Court after police reported three confirmed drug sales through confidential informants. The place was shut down for a day and then resumed business. So did the drug dealers, Reilly said.

Lieutenant Steve Phalen, the director of special operations for the 52nd Precinct, has only been on the job here for a few weeks, having just transferred from another Bronx precinct, but he is already fully aware of the history of problems at the fried chicken joint.

Using Nuisance Abatement laws is one of the tactics the precinct’s Street Narcotics Unit (SNU) uses to stop drug dealing in front of commercial establishments, which are often used by dealers as cover. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s not as effective as it should be.

“It’s tough with the franchises,” Phalen said, meaning bigger chain restaurants like Kennedy have the resources to fight efforts to impose more severe legal penalties.

He said they originally thought the Kennedy manager was involved in selling, but now Phalen believes the manager is simply being intimidated into not helping the police. He said it’s often “kids” who are selling hard drugs inside of the establishment.

Phalen said SNU teams will continue to target the restaurant and increase surveillance there, “but we have to get complaints. We have to get [restaurant] management on board.”

Attempts to reach management for comment were unsuccessful.

Nicole Jackson, an assistant Bronx district attorney who does similar work as part of the DA’s Narcotics Eviction unit, said the hope is that Nuisance Abatement closures will ramp up pressure on the owners of troubled buildings and force them to evict the offending tenants.

Even before the restaurant opened, Jenik said there was the equivalent to an open-air drug market on that block of the Grand Concourse. He used to bring his congregation to the block and protest the illegal activity. Now, it’s reached the point, he said, where he has lost hope that the situation will ever change.

The firebrand priest, who has long butted heads with the Five-Two over what he perceives as a lack of drug enforcement, said stopping the drug trade is simply no longer a priority in New York.

He said the proof is in the weekly crime statistics report, otherwise known as Compstat, which doesn’t list drug dealing as one of the major crimes.

Ignoring the problem, Jenik said, “undermines the public’s faith in the powers that be.”

Bill McDonald, a former beat cop who now teaches criminal justice at Monroe College, said blatant dealing doesn’t necessarily mean the cops are ignoring the issue. In fact, the Nuisance Abatement closure means they are exploring every legal avenue to combat this type of activity. But he said the pressure has to be consistent, otherwise the dealers will continue to return.

“Police don’t have unlimited power,” McDonald said. “They have to work [within] the laws.”

 

Reilly, a longtime Bedford Park resident and activist, said he expects more drug activity at the Kennedy Fried Chicken throughout the summer, but wouldn’t mind if the place was shut down permanently. “I have no idea how the chicken is,” he said, “but we could certainly survive without it."

Armory ‘Gag Order’ Dropped

By Alex Kratz

After two months of negotiations with a Bronx advisory group, city officials withdrew a controversial confidentiality agreement that would have prevented group members, including prominent elected officials, from speaking publicly about the Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment proposals.

The advisory group — the Kingsbridge Armory Task Force — which is comprised of local elected officials and community leaders, is now set to review the proposals on May 10, but it’s unclear how much detail they’ll get to see.

Initially, the task force was supposed to sit down and review the three proposals for the long-vacant Armory with the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) on March 1.

But elected officials, including Congressman José Serrano and Council Member Oliver Koppell, balked at signing a prerequisite confidentiality agreement before the meeting, saying it was too broad and infringed on their ability to relay information to their constituents. Officials referred to the agreement as a gag order.

Instead of reviewing the proposals, the task force and EDC spent the March 1 meeting discussing the parameters of a viable confidentiality agreement.

Both sides appeared willing to compromise. The EDC remained adamant that some type of confidentiality agreement needed to be in place to ensure the integrity of the selection process. The task force wasn’t against an agreement as long as it was more specific and limited in scope.

In the following weeks, the EDC sent a couple of agreement re-drafts to task force members. Counter-proposals, including at least one from Koppell’s office, were then sent back to the EDC. Then, talks between the parties stopped and the EDC simply dropped the confidentiality agreement requirement last week.

Now, the task force is scheduled to meet with the EDC on May 10 to review the three Armory proposals (from Related Companies, Atlantic Development Group and Rosenshein Associates), but it’s unclear exactly what parts of the proposals will be available and what will be excluded.

EDC spokesman Andrew Brent said the task force will still be able to see project details that will allow a thorough understanding of each proposal, but Koppell and others on the task force don’t seem to know precisely what that means they will be looking at on May 10.

“We’ve sought to preserve two things in this process: legitimate collaboration with local stakeholders that allows them an opportunity to give substantive feedback on the proposals and a course of action that maintains the highest levels of integrity and competitiveness to ensure we get the best result for the community and the city,” said Brent, in an e-mail to the Norwood News.

Since the Armory Task Force was created last summer, the EDC has hyped the group as an unprecedented community voice in a major city project. Brent said the task force’s input remains “vital.”

And though it remains unclear how the lack of a confidentiality agreement will affect the selection process, the May 10 meeting is “a step in the right direction,” said task force member Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, who represents Serrano and works with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.

Precinct Establishes ‘Quality of Life’ Unit

By Alex Kratz

Go to any community meeting and, no matter what its purpose, you’ll hear residents complain about noise, graffiti, dog poop, or outdoor drinking and carousing. So-called “quality of life” issues are at the center of how people gauge the health of their neighborhoods.

Murder and overall crime may be way down citywide, but if people can’t get a good night’s sleep because of noisy neighbors, or their sense of order is disturbed by the prevalence of graffiti, they won’t consider their neighborhood safer.

Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani credited New York City’s plummeting crime rate during his tenure, to the Broken Windows theory — which holds that if you focus on the smaller problems in the community, such as broken windows, public intoxication and rampant graffiti, it will create an environment where major crime goes down as well.

But, considering the prevalence of local quality of life concerns, many area residents would probably say that they haven’t seen much evidence that laws covering these lesser infractions are being enforced.

Now, however, the 52nd Precinct’s new commanding officer, Deputy Inspector James Alles (pronounced like bowling “alleys” he told his audience at a community precinct meeting) is installing a new patrol dedicated exclusively to addressing issues like noise and public drinking.

It’s called the Quality of Life Unit and will consist of two officers and one patrol car. The unit will patrol the precinct area – at various hours of the day so as not to give offenders a pattern to set their watch to – looking for people drinking in public, scrawling graffiti, or blaring loud music, among other quality of life issues.

They will also respond to calls made by shop owners or fed-up residents who witness the offenses occurring. Making its purpose even more singular, the Quality of Life unit will not respond to radio calls announcing other major crimes in progress, such as shootings, burglaries or rapes.

Alles’ new Director of Special Operations, Lt. Steve Phalen, said the impetus for the unit stemmed from a sharp increase in felony assaults in the Charlie, or “C” sector, which is in the southern end of the Five-Two. Most of the assaults there were the result of drunk guys on the street looking to smash bottles and start fights, Phalen said.

“If we can end the drinking problem [through the Quality of Life unit], then we can hopefully eliminate the felony assaults before they happen,” said Phalen, who Alles brought to the Five-Two after working with him in the same capacity in the 45th Precinct.

Bill McDonald, an ex-cop who now heads Monroe College’s criminal justice department, said if police don’t take care of the quality of life issues, it could have a devastating trickle-down effect on the community. “If an old lady can’t return from the supermarket without being harassed by a group of guys drinking beer and smoking weed on the street, she won’t keep going to the supermarket,” he said. “Then the supermarket won’t stay in business.”

Community Board 7 Chair Greg Faulkner said he hasn’t yet been briefed about the Quality of Life patrol, but that he gets a lot of noise complaints at his monthly meetings.

“On the face of it, quality of life sounds good,” Faulkner said. “I just don’t want it to be a situation where we’re just harassing people.” He added that police during the Giuliani era often used quality of life as an excuse to harass kids just hanging out on the street, even when they weren’t engaged in criminal behavior.

Faulkner said he would like to discuss the new patrol with Alles at one of the Board’s public meetings.

Phalen said he doesn’t know of other Quality of Life units around the city, but that it’s similar to the “Tracer” units that were installed citywide in 1998 to strictly enforce narcotics complaints. Tracer units often respond to calls reporting marijuana smoking or blatant hand-to-hand drug dealing.

Phalen said residents can get their complaints to the Quality of Life Unit by calling the precinct’s front desk, (718) 220-5811; community affairs, (718) 220-5824; or 311.

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