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Celebrating a World of Holiday Traditions

By Falon Perez

Last Thursday, young and old gathered at the Kittay House to celebrate various holiday traditions from around the world. It’s something the Kingsbridge area senior living community would like to make into a tradition. 
“It’s my first year with the Kittay House and the first time we are putting together a holiday show, but we want to do it every year,” said Amy Gruszewski, Kittay House’s creative arts leader. “It is a better way to show how each culture celebrates this time of year.”
Together, the Kittay Community Chorus and students from the Geriatric Career Development Program, which draws students from a host of Bronx public high schools, put on the show, singing songs from a variety of cultures.
“Its cool to do this,” said Esther Sintim, 19, of the geriatric program. “I’m happy to sing and see the reaction of the senior citizens and know I helped put those smiles there.”    —Falon Perez

Thoughtful Gift Giving

By Alex Kratz

Sometimes, when you receive a gift, it changes your life for the better and sometimes it leaves you perplexed as to what was the gift giver thinking at the time. Sometimes these acts of kindness make you wonder if they’re really being kind when they give you a sweater with one sleeve bigger than the other or a scarf with your name written all over it. Or a gift of bath soap and deodorant — are they trying to give you a hint?
Last year, I got a gift in the mail which I had to pick up at the post office. On a cold December day I had to go a mile to the post office by bus, and then stand on a line for over an hour. When it was my turn, I had to show my ID in order to get my package which took a while because it was lost in the back somewhere. Finally, the clerk handed me a small flat package which turned out to be a Christmas CD with songs like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and “Jingle Bells.” Boy, did I really want to jingle someone’s bells.
I don’t mean to be a scrooge, but please make my life easier. I have made gift-giving mistakes of my own like when I gave my sister a nightshirt that was one-size-fits-all and she felt insulted by it. Well, I just wasn’t sure what her size was. I thought I was playing it safe.
I know someone who gave their super a gift of a case of beer when the guy obviously had a bad drinking problem.
This Christmas, due to the hardship that most people are experiencing with some losing their jobs and others having a hard time keeping food on the table for their families, it is time for thoughtful gift giving and considering peoples’ feelings by giving them gifts without making them feel bad about it.
My good luck to all on this mission and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Olga Irrizarry

Agency Protects Tenant Rights

By None

Alex Kratz’s recent article “Tenants Pressure State Agency on Unfair Rent Increases,” (Dec. 11 – 24) ignores the facts and paints an inaccurate picture of the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) and its role in fairly administering New York State’s rent laws.  
In the past 18 months under the new administration, DHCR has taken a proactive role in implementing dozens of initiatives designed to protect tenants’ rights under the Rent Stabilization Code. These are steps that have never, in the history of the agency, been taken, and that have been praised by the housing community and tenant groups around the state.
One of the most significant is a new DHCR policy to conduct random inspections related to applications and appeals for rent increases based on Major Capital Improvements (MCI). Until recently, inspections were done only upon tenant complaints.
Here are just a few more examples of DHCR’s continuous efforts to protect tenant rights:
• DHCR holds regular forums to gather input from tenants and owner on issues surrounding rent regulation.
• Last year, the State’s highest court upheld DHCR’s position that rent stabilized tenants who receive a Section 8 rent subsidy are entitled to receive renewal leases on the same terms and conditions as their previous lease, keeping 46,000 low-income tenants from losing their homes.
• DHCR worked to close the unique and peculiar regulatory loophole that would have allowed tens of thousands of rent stabilized apartments to be removed from the state’s affordable housing portfolio.
DHCR is committed to fairly upholding the Rent Stabilization Code and assuring tenants have a voice.
Deborah VanAmerongen

The writer is commissioner of the NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal.

DHCR Must Rule Now

By Alex Kratz

We’re glad Division of Housing and Community Renewal commissioner Deborah VanAmerongen took the time to respond to our article about her agency’s response to the appeal of an MCI (major capital improvement) rent increase. But we wish she would have addressed specific issues raised in the article, namely why her agency has not yet ruled on an appeal filed by tenants at 2720 Grand Concourse. As Alex Kratz reported, DHCR’s failure to address the issue means that tenants have had to pay a 6 percent rent increase since last January and are due to be hit with another 6 percent hike next month, even though there’s a very good chance that the landlord’s requested rent increase should be overturned or at least reduced.
The tenants filed an appeal with DHCR last February, and since they didn’t hear back, they eventually filed a second appeal. The agency’s own guidelines say it must rule within 90 days, but twice that deadline has passed without any official action.
VanAmerongen writes about the initiatives her agency has taken in the last 18 months to uphold the Rent Stabilization Code and support tenants’ rights. Well, that’s all well and good, but it’s cold comfort for the beleaguered tenants of 2720 Grand Concourse, some of whom have devoted countless hours to combating what they feel is an unjustified rent increase. It’s a testament to their dedication, but it would have been unnecessary if DHCR just did its job and issued its ruling.
A DHCR spokesperson told us two weeks ago that the agency would rule in “the next few weeks.” In our next issue, we’ll let you know what they decide, or whether they’ve decided at all.

Public and Community Meetings

By None

•    The Community District 10 Education Council Public Hearing will meet on Jan. 7 at P.S. 54, located at 2703 Webster Ave. The hearing will be on the proposed zone line (see above) changing effective September 2009. For more information, call (718) 741-5836.
•    The Bedford Mosholu Community Association will meet at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 7 at 400 E. Mosholu Pkwy. So. Apt. B1 (Lobby Floor). All are welcome.
•    The 52nd Precinct Community Council will meet on Jan. 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Station House, 3016 Webster Ave. For more information, call (718) 220-5824.

DOE Seeks Zoning Changes

By Alex Kratz

With construction projects scaled back, the Department of Education is attempting to address overcrowding at PS 8, PS 56, PS 86 and PS 246, by rezoning three other local schools, PS/IS 20, PS 54, and PS 340. These three schools are currently “unzoned,” which means neighborhood students aren’t automatically assigned to them. A hearing will be held to discuss the proposed changes on Wednesday, Jan. 7, at 6 p.m., at PS 54, 2703 Webster Ave.
The changes include:
• A portion of the PS 56 zone and PS 8 zone will be given to PS/IS 20. However, the zone will still allow PS/IS 20 a limited choice.
• A portion of the PS 8 zone and PS 46 zone will be given to PS 54. Given the fact that PS 54 was established to relieve PS 46, the majority of students will be from the PS 46 zone.
• A portion of the PS 86 and PS 246 zone will be given to PS 340. The school was established as limited choice school with priority to PS 86 and PS 246 students.

Fury Over School Crowding Crisis

By Alex Kratz

On a dark and stormy night two weeks ago, local students, parents and teachers spoke out at PS 118’s rickety old auditorium, telling real-life overcrowding horror stories.
At the Leadership Institute, students try to learn in windowless gymnasium storage closets while kids yell and play just outside the door. At PS 8, teachers present lessons in locker rooms filled with moldy water-bug-infested shower stalls.
A handful of Department of Education (DOE) and School Construction Authority (SCA) representatives heard these stories and many more at the Tremont-area school, where the monthly Community District 10 Education Council meeting was held. The officials presented the city’s latest capital plan (for 2010-2014), which includes just one new school and only 399 new seats, for a district suffering under the weight of severe overcrowding issues (an additional 755 new seats were carried over from the last capital plan).
The DOE has acknowledged local overcrowding problems, but says budget cuts forced it to scale back the capital plan, which doesn’t include any new high schools for the Bronx.
After presenting the plan at district council meetings citywide, the DOE may still revise the plan before it goes to the City Council for final approval in April.
Dozens of speakers told the DOE reps that the new capital plan was shockingly inadequate.
Students from the Leadership Institute, a small high school founded partly by student activists from the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), were particularly outspoken. (Since 2006, when the city eliminated 1,500 District 10 seats from its previous capital plan, the NWBCCC has held several rallies to demand more seats and more schools.)
During an early lull in the meeting, an NWBCCC organizer yelled a common refrain from the past two years: “What do we want?” The students responded: “More schools!”
Originally promised its own facility before opening four years ago, the Leadership Institute shares a cramped space with PS/MS 4 near Crotona Park. Students and teachers said the building and classrooms were built on a smaller scale for elementary-age kids, compounding overcrowding problems and embarrassing Institute students. There are no lockers, meaning students must carry around all of their books and materials throughout the school day, further clogging hallways and classrooms.
An Institute science teacher, Stephanie Wortel, said students were also limited by a lack of computers and other technology, preventing them from doing extensive research and forcing students to scale back projects.
Priscilla Sheeran, the principal of PS 56 in Norwood, said her school needed a new, bigger building because it’s running at 200 percent capacity, according to the DOE’s own calculations, despite busing more than 100 area kids to other public schools. At the very least, Sheeran said, she wanted the DOE to replace the school’s dilapidated mini-building with a permanent structure.
Teachers, parents and students from PS 8 in Bedford Park said they wanted their mini-building replaced as well. PS 8 parent Ivette Rivera, whose daughter Crystal is one of 33 kids in her class, said, “The situation is very bleak. It’s not fair and it’s not right.”

Was Police Shooting Justified?

By Alex Kratz

A plainclothes police officer, responding to reports of a dispute involving a gun at a North Fordham apartment building, fatally shot a 40-year-old man, who police said was wielding a baseball bat.
Family members and other witnesses said the officer used unnecessary force to stop the man, who was embroiled in a dispute with upstairs neighbors when police arrived.
At a 52nd Precinct Community Council meeting last Thursday night, Bronx Borough Chief Thomas Purtell said the Bronx District Attorney’s Office had convened a grand jury to determine whether the officer’s use of deadly force was justified. Purtell said the grand jury will interview everyone who lives on the floor of the building where the shooting occurred.
Just before midnight on Tuesday, Dec. 9, officers responded to a call for a “dispute with a gun” at 2710 Bainbridge Ave.
When officers arrived on the scene, guns drawn, they encountered Alex Figueroa, 40, holding a wooden bat in his hand in the fifth floor hallway of the building. Figueroa, who lived on the fourth floor, had gone to the fifth floor to confront a group of men who had earlier insulted his 18-year-old stepdaughter, according to his family and witnesses in published reports.
That’s when details get murky. Police said Figueroa ignored “several orders to stop,” which is when one of the officers, who was identified as Michael Falcione, 30, a six-year veteran of the NYPD, fired a single bullet into Figueroa’s chest. Police said Falcione had never previously fired his weapon in the line of duty.
 Police said Figueroa lunged at Falcione with a raised bat. But his wife, Sandra Rodriguez, who was in the hallway when her husband was shot, told reporters that Figueroa never made a move toward the officers. Rodriguez said that when officers encountered Figueroa upon reaching the fifth floor, one officer said, “Don’t move” once and then fired. “Not even five seconds,” she said. “’Don’t move,’ then bang.”
 “What happened that night was not justified,” said another resident at the building who declined to give his name.  “Cops are supposed to give a perpetrator a warning before they shoot, and they shouldn’t shoot a person in the chest or other vital places.”
Another unidentified resident of the building, who said he was a friend of the devastated family, said, “Oh God, [Figueroa] was a good man. He never was in trouble. A family man who always stayed at home, and took care of his kids and wife. He went to church.”
 “My husband was a church-going man,” Rodriguez told the Daily News. “We moved to this country two years ago to pursue the American Dream and look what happened to us. Look at what we get.
The grand jury will have to determine whether the officer believed he was at risk of being killed or seriously hurt by the suspect, regardless of whether or not the suspect was carrying a weapon.
  The family held a wake for Figueroa on Dec. 16. The body was taken to Puerto Rico the following day for burial. The family remains in Puerto Rico, neighbors said.
 Falcione is on desk duty pending the grand jury investigation.

Bedford Park Tragedy

By Alex Kratz

Samira Ahmed, 15, a successful student-athlete at Mount St. Ursula Academy, died tragically on Dec. 15, after collapsing during a basketball game.

School officials don’t yet know the cause of death and are awaiting the results of an autopsy, said Cecilia Grande, a school spokesperson.

Last week, Mount St. Ursula, an all-girls school on Bedford Park Boulevard, was in a state of mourning. On Tuesday, the day after Samira died, the school held a special Mass for her, during which classmates held up posters created in her memory.

“It’s been a very difficult time,” Grande said.
Samira, less than a month away from her 16th birthday, was popular with her classmates, who called her “Smiles” because she was so cheerful.

“She was an honor student and role model to her fellow classmates,” Grande said.

In addition to being one of the best players and a captain on the junior varsity basketball team, Samira was also a member of the school’s Photo Club. She attended St. Brendan’s in Norwood before enrolling at Ursula for high school.

Grief counselors were present on campus to help students and faculty cope with the tragedy, Grande said.
The basketball team is planning to retire Samira’s number 3 jersey, Grande said.

On the school’s Web site, Samira’s coach, Jillian Asaro wrote: “We will love you and will miss you. We will carry you in our hearts every day. #3 ALL DAY; ALL THE WAY.”
Details about what happened are few. Earlier in the day, the school held a pep rally for the game that night against Preston. A photo from the rally shows Samira smiling with her teammates.

Samira’s parents, Rosey and Amadu Ahmed, attended the junior varsity game, during which Samira collapsed. The Ahmeds accompanied her as she was transported to Montefiore Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead after attempts to revive her were unsuccessful.
A memorial service was held for Samira at Bronx Miracle Gospel Tabernacle Church on Saturday, Dec. 20.

By Falon Perez

Last Thursday, young and old gathered at the Kittay House to celebrate various holiday traditions from around the world. It’s something the Kingsbridge area senior living community would like to make into a tradition. 
“It’s my first year with the Kittay House and the first time we are putting together a holiday show, but we want to do it every year,” said Amy Gruszewski, Kittay House’s creative arts leader. “It is a better way to show how each culture celebrates this time of year.”
Together, the Kittay Community Chorus and students from the Geriatric Career Development Program, which draws students from a host of Bronx public high schools, put on the show, singing songs from a variety of cultures.
“Its cool to do this,” said Esther Sintim, 19, of the geriatric program. “I’m happy to sing and see the reaction of the senior citizens and know I helped put those smiles there.”    —Falon Perez

By Alex Kratz

Sometimes, when you receive a gift, it changes your life for the better and sometimes it leaves you perplexed as to what was the gift giver thinking at the time. Sometimes these acts of kindness make you wonder if they’re really being kind when they give you a sweater with one sleeve bigger than the other or a scarf with your name written all over it. Or a gift of bath soap and deodorant — are they trying to give you a hint?
Last year, I got a gift in the mail which I had to pick up at the post office. On a cold December day I had to go a mile to the post office by bus, and then stand on a line for over an hour. When it was my turn, I had to show my ID in order to get my package which took a while because it was lost in the back somewhere. Finally, the clerk handed me a small flat package which turned out to be a Christmas CD with songs like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and “Jingle Bells.” Boy, did I really want to jingle someone’s bells.
I don’t mean to be a scrooge, but please make my life easier. I have made gift-giving mistakes of my own like when I gave my sister a nightshirt that was one-size-fits-all and she felt insulted by it. Well, I just wasn’t sure what her size was. I thought I was playing it safe.
I know someone who gave their super a gift of a case of beer when the guy obviously had a bad drinking problem.
This Christmas, due to the hardship that most people are experiencing with some losing their jobs and others having a hard time keeping food on the table for their families, it is time for thoughtful gift giving and considering peoples’ feelings by giving them gifts without making them feel bad about it.
My good luck to all on this mission and have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Olga Irrizarry

By None

Alex Kratz’s recent article “Tenants Pressure State Agency on Unfair Rent Increases,” (Dec. 11 – 24) ignores the facts and paints an inaccurate picture of the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) and its role in fairly administering New York State’s rent laws.  
In the past 18 months under the new administration, DHCR has taken a proactive role in implementing dozens of initiatives designed to protect tenants’ rights under the Rent Stabilization Code. These are steps that have never, in the history of the agency, been taken, and that have been praised by the housing community and tenant groups around the state.
One of the most significant is a new DHCR policy to conduct random inspections related to applications and appeals for rent increases based on Major Capital Improvements (MCI). Until recently, inspections were done only upon tenant complaints.
Here are just a few more examples of DHCR’s continuous efforts to protect tenant rights:
• DHCR holds regular forums to gather input from tenants and owner on issues surrounding rent regulation.
• Last year, the State’s highest court upheld DHCR’s position that rent stabilized tenants who receive a Section 8 rent subsidy are entitled to receive renewal leases on the same terms and conditions as their previous lease, keeping 46,000 low-income tenants from losing their homes.
• DHCR worked to close the unique and peculiar regulatory loophole that would have allowed tens of thousands of rent stabilized apartments to be removed from the state’s affordable housing portfolio.
DHCR is committed to fairly upholding the Rent Stabilization Code and assuring tenants have a voice.
Deborah VanAmerongen

The writer is commissioner of the NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal.

By Alex Kratz

We’re glad Division of Housing and Community Renewal commissioner Deborah VanAmerongen took the time to respond to our article about her agency’s response to the appeal of an MCI (major capital improvement) rent increase. But we wish she would have addressed specific issues raised in the article, namely why her agency has not yet ruled on an appeal filed by tenants at 2720 Grand Concourse. As Alex Kratz reported, DHCR’s failure to address the issue means that tenants have had to pay a 6 percent rent increase since last January and are due to be hit with another 6 percent hike next month, even though there’s a very good chance that the landlord’s requested rent increase should be overturned or at least reduced.
The tenants filed an appeal with DHCR last February, and since they didn’t hear back, they eventually filed a second appeal. The agency’s own guidelines say it must rule within 90 days, but twice that deadline has passed without any official action.
VanAmerongen writes about the initiatives her agency has taken in the last 18 months to uphold the Rent Stabilization Code and support tenants’ rights. Well, that’s all well and good, but it’s cold comfort for the beleaguered tenants of 2720 Grand Concourse, some of whom have devoted countless hours to combating what they feel is an unjustified rent increase. It’s a testament to their dedication, but it would have been unnecessary if DHCR just did its job and issued its ruling.
A DHCR spokesperson told us two weeks ago that the agency would rule in “the next few weeks.” In our next issue, we’ll let you know what they decide, or whether they’ve decided at all.

By None

•    The Community District 10 Education Council Public Hearing will meet on Jan. 7 at P.S. 54, located at 2703 Webster Ave. The hearing will be on the proposed zone line (see above) changing effective September 2009. For more information, call (718) 741-5836.
•    The Bedford Mosholu Community Association will meet at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 7 at 400 E. Mosholu Pkwy. So. Apt. B1 (Lobby Floor). All are welcome.
•    The 52nd Precinct Community Council will meet on Jan. 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Station House, 3016 Webster Ave. For more information, call (718) 220-5824.

By Alex Kratz

With construction projects scaled back, the Department of Education is attempting to address overcrowding at PS 8, PS 56, PS 86 and PS 246, by rezoning three other local schools, PS/IS 20, PS 54, and PS 340. These three schools are currently “unzoned,” which means neighborhood students aren’t automatically assigned to them. A hearing will be held to discuss the proposed changes on Wednesday, Jan. 7, at 6 p.m., at PS 54, 2703 Webster Ave.
The changes include:
• A portion of the PS 56 zone and PS 8 zone will be given to PS/IS 20. However, the zone will still allow PS/IS 20 a limited choice.
• A portion of the PS 8 zone and PS 46 zone will be given to PS 54. Given the fact that PS 54 was established to relieve PS 46, the majority of students will be from the PS 46 zone.
• A portion of the PS 86 and PS 246 zone will be given to PS 340. The school was established as limited choice school with priority to PS 86 and PS 246 students.

By Alex Kratz

On a dark and stormy night two weeks ago, local students, parents and teachers spoke out at PS 118’s rickety old auditorium, telling real-life overcrowding horror stories.
At the Leadership Institute, students try to learn in windowless gymnasium storage closets while kids yell and play just outside the door. At PS 8, teachers present lessons in locker rooms filled with moldy water-bug-infested shower stalls.
A handful of Department of Education (DOE) and School Construction Authority (SCA) representatives heard these stories and many more at the Tremont-area school, where the monthly Community District 10 Education Council meeting was held. The officials presented the city’s latest capital plan (for 2010-2014), which includes just one new school and only 399 new seats, for a district suffering under the weight of severe overcrowding issues (an additional 755 new seats were carried over from the last capital plan).
The DOE has acknowledged local overcrowding problems, but says budget cuts forced it to scale back the capital plan, which doesn’t include any new high schools for the Bronx.
After presenting the plan at district council meetings citywide, the DOE may still revise the plan before it goes to the City Council for final approval in April.
Dozens of speakers told the DOE reps that the new capital plan was shockingly inadequate.
Students from the Leadership Institute, a small high school founded partly by student activists from the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), were particularly outspoken. (Since 2006, when the city eliminated 1,500 District 10 seats from its previous capital plan, the NWBCCC has held several rallies to demand more seats and more schools.)
During an early lull in the meeting, an NWBCCC organizer yelled a common refrain from the past two years: “What do we want?” The students responded: “More schools!”
Originally promised its own facility before opening four years ago, the Leadership Institute shares a cramped space with PS/MS 4 near Crotona Park. Students and teachers said the building and classrooms were built on a smaller scale for elementary-age kids, compounding overcrowding problems and embarrassing Institute students. There are no lockers, meaning students must carry around all of their books and materials throughout the school day, further clogging hallways and classrooms.
An Institute science teacher, Stephanie Wortel, said students were also limited by a lack of computers and other technology, preventing them from doing extensive research and forcing students to scale back projects.
Priscilla Sheeran, the principal of PS 56 in Norwood, said her school needed a new, bigger building because it’s running at 200 percent capacity, according to the DOE’s own calculations, despite busing more than 100 area kids to other public schools. At the very least, Sheeran said, she wanted the DOE to replace the school’s dilapidated mini-building with a permanent structure.
Teachers, parents and students from PS 8 in Bedford Park said they wanted their mini-building replaced as well. PS 8 parent Ivette Rivera, whose daughter Crystal is one of 33 kids in her class, said, “The situation is very bleak. It’s not fair and it’s not right.”

By Alex Kratz

A plainclothes police officer, responding to reports of a dispute involving a gun at a North Fordham apartment building, fatally shot a 40-year-old man, who police said was wielding a baseball bat.
Family members and other witnesses said the officer used unnecessary force to stop the man, who was embroiled in a dispute with upstairs neighbors when police arrived.
At a 52nd Precinct Community Council meeting last Thursday night, Bronx Borough Chief Thomas Purtell said the Bronx District Attorney’s Office had convened a grand jury to determine whether the officer’s use of deadly force was justified. Purtell said the grand jury will interview everyone who lives on the floor of the building where the shooting occurred.
Just before midnight on Tuesday, Dec. 9, officers responded to a call for a “dispute with a gun” at 2710 Bainbridge Ave.
When officers arrived on the scene, guns drawn, they encountered Alex Figueroa, 40, holding a wooden bat in his hand in the fifth floor hallway of the building. Figueroa, who lived on the fourth floor, had gone to the fifth floor to confront a group of men who had earlier insulted his 18-year-old stepdaughter, according to his family and witnesses in published reports.
That’s when details get murky. Police said Figueroa ignored “several orders to stop,” which is when one of the officers, who was identified as Michael Falcione, 30, a six-year veteran of the NYPD, fired a single bullet into Figueroa’s chest. Police said Falcione had never previously fired his weapon in the line of duty.
 Police said Figueroa lunged at Falcione with a raised bat. But his wife, Sandra Rodriguez, who was in the hallway when her husband was shot, told reporters that Figueroa never made a move toward the officers. Rodriguez said that when officers encountered Figueroa upon reaching the fifth floor, one officer said, “Don’t move” once and then fired. “Not even five seconds,” she said. “’Don’t move,’ then bang.”
 “What happened that night was not justified,” said another resident at the building who declined to give his name.  “Cops are supposed to give a perpetrator a warning before they shoot, and they shouldn’t shoot a person in the chest or other vital places.”
Another unidentified resident of the building, who said he was a friend of the devastated family, said, “Oh God, [Figueroa] was a good man. He never was in trouble. A family man who always stayed at home, and took care of his kids and wife. He went to church.”
 “My husband was a church-going man,” Rodriguez told the Daily News. “We moved to this country two years ago to pursue the American Dream and look what happened to us. Look at what we get.
The grand jury will have to determine whether the officer believed he was at risk of being killed or seriously hurt by the suspect, regardless of whether or not the suspect was carrying a weapon.
  The family held a wake for Figueroa on Dec. 16. The body was taken to Puerto Rico the following day for burial. The family remains in Puerto Rico, neighbors said.
 Falcione is on desk duty pending the grand jury investigation.

By Alex Kratz

Samira Ahmed, 15, a successful student-athlete at Mount St. Ursula Academy, died tragically on Dec. 15, after collapsing during a basketball game.

School officials don’t yet know the cause of death and are awaiting the results of an autopsy, said Cecilia Grande, a school spokesperson.

Last week, Mount St. Ursula, an all-girls school on Bedford Park Boulevard, was in a state of mourning. On Tuesday, the day after Samira died, the school held a special Mass for her, during which classmates held up posters created in her memory.

“It’s been a very difficult time,” Grande said.
Samira, less than a month away from her 16th birthday, was popular with her classmates, who called her “Smiles” because she was so cheerful.

“She was an honor student and role model to her fellow classmates,” Grande said.

In addition to being one of the best players and a captain on the junior varsity basketball team, Samira was also a member of the school’s Photo Club. She attended St. Brendan’s in Norwood before enrolling at Ursula for high school.

Grief counselors were present on campus to help students and faculty cope with the tragedy, Grande said.
The basketball team is planning to retire Samira’s number 3 jersey, Grande said.

On the school’s Web site, Samira’s coach, Jillian Asaro wrote: “We will love you and will miss you. We will carry you in our hearts every day. #3 ALL DAY; ALL THE WAY.”
Details about what happened are few. Earlier in the day, the school held a pep rally for the game that night against Preston. A photo from the rally shows Samira smiling with her teammates.

Samira’s parents, Rosey and Amadu Ahmed, attended the junior varsity game, during which Samira collapsed. The Ahmeds accompanied her as she was transported to Montefiore Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead after attempts to revive her were unsuccessful.
A memorial service was held for Samira at Bronx Miracle Gospel Tabernacle Church on Saturday, Dec. 20.

Mt. St. Ursula Mourns Fallen Basketball Player

By Alex Kratz

During a Monday afternoon game, Mt. St. Ursula Academy sophomore basketball player Samira Ahmed (pictured, fourth from left) collapsed on the court and later died after being rushed to the hospital.

School officials do not know the cause of death at this time, said Cecilia Grande, a spokesperson for the school.

Grande said Mt. St. Ursula, an all-girls school on Bedford Park Boulevard, is in a somber state of mourning. Yesterday, the school held a special mass for Ahmed, during which classmates held up posters created in her memory.

"It’s been a very difficult time," Grande said.

Samira, less than a month away from her 16th birthday, was well-liked by her friends and classmates who called her "Smiles." She was also a member of the school’s Photo Club in addition to being one of the best players and a captain on the junior varsity basketball team.

"She was an honor student and role model to her fellow classmates," Grande said in an email earlier today.

For the past two days, grief counselors have been at the Ursula campus to help out students and faculty during this rough time, Grande said.

The basketball team is planning to retire her number 3 jersey, Grande said, perhaps in the near future. The team plays tonight on the Ursula campus. Grande expects it to be a packed house.

Details about what happened on Monday are few. Earlier in the day, the school held a pep rally for it’s game that night against Preston. (The above photo, provided by the school, was taken during the rally.) The junior varsity game tipped off at 4:15 p.m. and Samira’s parents, Rosey and Amadu Ahmed were in attendance.

At some point in the game, Samira collapsed on the court. Her parents accompanied her off the court and to Montefiore Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.

It’s unclear exactly when she was pronounced dead and Grande said the school does not know what caused the death. An autopsy will be performed, she said.

***

This is Mt. St. Ursula’s official statement about the death:

In Memoriam:

 Samira Ahmed
January 12, 1993 – December 15, 2008

 The entire community of the Academy of Mount St. Ursula is deeply saddened by the untimely death of our student, Samira Ahmed.

 The students, faculty and staff offer their heartfelt condolences to her family and pledge their support in every way possible as they navigate through this valley of darkness.

May the Good Shepherd lead Samira safely home and embrace her family with his love.

Miss Universe Brings World of Cheer

By None

On World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela spent the day in the northwest Bronx bringing good cheer. First, she visited Montefiore Medical Center’s Adolescent AIDS Program and then spent time with sick kids at Montefiore’s Children’s Hospital. Here, she’s switching roles with Marielys Ruiz, 20, who suffers from sickle cell anemia.

Neighborhood Notes

By Norwood News

Summer Camp Discounts

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, 3450 DeKalb Ave., is offering parents an early bird discount of $200 off the summer day camp fee for kids in kindergarten through second grade. The discount will be offered until Saturday, Jan. 10. The Sunshine Day Camp for kids with special needs is also offering the discount. For more information, call (718) 882-4000 or visit www.mmcc.org.

Youth Boxing

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, 3450 DeKalb Ave., is accepting winter registration for its boxing program. Classes will start the week of Jan. 17 for ages 7 through 23. Fees for the class are affordable and depend on how many classes are taken. Demonstration classes will be held on Jan. 10. For more information, call (718) 882-4000 or visit www.mmcc.org.

Fordham Road Discount

For the month of December, more than 65 Fordham Road businesses are giving 10 percent discounts to the public this holiday season. Until Dec. 21, when consumers display one of BID’s newspaper advertisements (see p. 15), online coupons, or a MetroCard during time of purchase, consumers will receive the discount. Some restrictions may apply. During this period, most of the businesses involved will be open until 9 p.m on Fridays. For more information, call (718) 562-2104.

Social Security Help

On Dec. 18, representatives of the Social Security Administration will help people with any questions/issues about Social Security at Congressman Eliot Engel’s Bronx office, 3655 Johnson Ave. Due to the holidays, reps will only be there for half the day. Appointments must be made through Richard Fedderman by calling (718) 796-9700.

Wii Games for Adults and Seniors

On Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4 p.m., adults and seniors can enjoy free Wii video games at the Mosholu Library, 285 E. 205th St. To sign up, go to the Adult Information Desk. For more information, call (718) 882-8239.

Entrepreneurial Workshop

Small business owners are invited to a free entrepreneurial workshop, which includes a chance to meet other business leaders who are surviving the economic downfall. There will also be a presentation on managing your business. The workshop will take place on Thursday, Dec. 11 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Monroe College, West Hall, Room 919, 2467 Jerome Ave. To register, visit www.oedglobal.org/attend/registration/htm.

Place for Teens With Issues

The Power Project is a free program for teens ages 12 to 18 who are dealing with substance abuse and other problems. Located at 3464 Webster Ave., Power Project provides case management, individual and group counseling, trips, and is just a place to get away from it all. For more information, call (718) 515-7971.

Toy and Gift Drive

JE & ZB Butler Child Advocacy Center is having a toy and gift drive for kids (from infants to teenagers). Donations of new toys and gifts for the children can be brought to the Center at 3314 Steuben Ave. For more information, contact Lois Pearlman at (718) 920-7584 or lpearlma@montefiore.org.

English Classes

The New York Public Library is offering free classes in English for speakers of other languages at the Bronx Library Center, 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. (off Fordham Road). For more information on other locations, call the Library’s Office of Community Outreach Services at (212) 340-0918 or visit www.nypl.org/calendar.esol.html.

Learn the Internet

St. James Recreation Center at 2530 Jerome Ave. offers free classes in Microsoft Office, Resume/Cover Letter Writing, Computer Basics, and much more. For more information, call Justin Young at (718) 367-3659.

Adult ESL and Computer Classes

PS 94 on Kings College Place will offer ESL levels 1 and 2 and Computer Skills classes through summer 2009. Both classes meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Computer classes will be taught in English and will include lessons on keyboarding, Microsoft Word and other programs. Registration is first-come, first-served. For more information, call Ms. Seminario, the parent coordinator, at (347) 563-4772 or (718) 405-6345.

Seeking Artists for Aging Project

The Bronx Council on the Arts is seeking artists who are interested in exploring the link between creative expression and the quality of life of older people. BCA is offering unique opportunities in the field of Creative Aging. Send resume and letter of interest to Ed Friedman, Bronx Council on the Arts, 1738 Hone Ave., Bronx, NY 10461 or email: info@bronxarts.org.

Quality of Life Screening

The Psychosocial Oncology Program of the Montefiore-Einstein Cancer Center is conducting a survey study in order to learn about the physical and emotional stresses faced by cancer survivors. Participants will have to fill out questionnaires and have the opportunity to participate in free/low-cost programs and support services within the program. For more information, call (718) 430-2380.

Breast Oncology Program

The Breast Oncology Living Daily Program also known as BOLD living, offers a variety of free educational, support, and mind-body workshops. They are designed to empower and nurture breast cancer patients, survivors, and loved ones, but are open to all. For more information or to register, call (718) 430-3613 or visit outreach@aecom.yu.edu.

After School Child Care

Registration is now taking place for the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center’s after-school childcare programs at 3450 DeKalb Ave., for children in kindergarten through 6th grade. The Discovery Club is offering staff escort from PS 94, PS 280, St. Ann’s, MS 80 and van service from PS 8, PS 94 Annex, PS 56 and 56 Annex, St. Brendan’s, St. Philip Neri, PS 41, Visitation, and PS 95. For complete information or to register, call Ruth Moore weekdays at (718) 944-3207.

Preschool New Enrollment

The Mosholu Montefiore Community Center now has more space available for childcare. There are new classrooms for 2- to 4-year-olds at the center, located at 3450 DeKalb Ave. For more information, call (718) 882-4000.

Alzheimer’s Support Group

The Alzheimer’s Association’s New York City chapter provides a support group in Norwood for Spanish and English speaking caregivers who have relatives with Alzheimer’s disease or another type of dementia. The support group meets on the first and third Wednesdays of the month from 5 to 6:15 p.m. For the location or more information, call Mark Goodwin at (718) 920-7377.

Free Respite Program

Kingsbridge Heights Community Center (KHCC) is offering free after-school services to families with mentally retarded or developmentally disabled children ages 5 to 21 from 3 to 6 p.m. KHCC is also offering a Saturday Respite Program for ages 15 to 25, and on Sundays another Respite Program is provided for ages 18 to 65. Weekend Respite Program hours are from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. They are held at the KHCC, 3101 Kingsbridge Terrace (near Sedgwick Avenue) at West 230th Street. To register or for more information, call Hanna Gabris at (718) 884-0700 ext. 202.

Teen Center

The Boys and Girls Club of Mosholu Montefiore Community Center at the Fort Independence Houses announced that memberships are being accepted for the fall Teen Center program for boys and girls ages 12 to 16. The center is open Monday through Friday nights from 6:30 to 9 p.m. and offers a variety of teen activities. For more information and/or registration, call Israel Rosario at (646) 358-6096.

Free After-School Program

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center is accepting applications for its free Fort Independence after-school program, which serves kids in kindergarten through sixth grade, Monday through Friday, 3 to 6 p.m. The program offers a variety of activities. For more information, call Israel Rosario, (646) 358-6096.   

Foster Parents Needed

The Foster Care Network is asking families to open their hearts and homes to foster children this holiday season. For more information, call (800) 454-3727.

Prevent Cancer

Angela Matotek of the American Cancer Society, will discuss how to help prevent cancer, including: How to have an active lifestyle, maintaining a healthy weight, and maintaining a healthy diet. The presentation is Saturday, Dec. 13 at 2:30 p.m., at the Mosholu Library, 285 E. 205th St. For more information, call (718) 882-8239.

Speech Program at Ursula  

The Mt. St. Ursula Speech Center, 2885 Marion Ave., is now accepting applications for its fall program. The center has openings for children ages 2 to 5 who are in need of speech and language services. Medicaid and other insurances accepted. For more information, call (718) 584-7679.

Karate Classes at MMCC

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, located on Gun Hill Road and DeKalb Avenue, will be offering a wide selection of Karate classes for elementary school students, teens, and adults starting in the next few weeks. The classes are offered for all levels on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Classes are affordable and discounts are available. To register or for more information, call Luis Morales weekdays at (718) 944-3290 or MMCC at (718) 882-4000 ext. 0.

Free GED and Business Courses

The State University of New York’s North Bronx Career Center located at 3950 Laconia Ave., at East 224th Street, is now accepting applications for the fall semester. Classes offered are GED Prep and basic to advanced MOS Certification Computer classes, free training in Business Office Technology (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Job Readiness (Resume, Cover Letter, Interview Skills) and Pre-Certification Training in various careers (Child Care, Security and more). All students wishing to apply must meet state income and academic guidelines. This is an HRA-approved program. Classes began in September. To begin the application process or for more information, call (718) 547-1001.

Aphasia Clinic Accepting Clients

The Lehman College Speech and Hearing Center, which provides therapy on a sliding scale payment schedule, is now accepting new clients in its recently expanded aphasia clinic. The clinic will provide individual and group therapy sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon to 1 p.m. and 2 to 3 p.m.; group therapy sessions also take place on Tuesdays from 1 to 2 p.m. Diagnostic and therapeutic sessions will be supervised by faculty members who are licensed by the NYS Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and certified by ASHA (American Speech Language Hearing Association). For more information, call Wanda Adams at (718) 960-8138.

Epilepsy Seminars

A series of free epilepsy seminars will be held the second Wednesday of every month: Nov. 12 from 3 to 4 p.m. “Epilepsy in the Classroom”; Dec. 10 from 3 to 4 p.m., “EEG Testing: Procedure & Outcomes.” The seminars will be held at the Northeast Regional Epilepsy Group; Medical Pavilion, 4256-1 Bronx Blvd. For more information, contact Dawn Brace at (718) 654-6184 or dbrace@epilepsygroup.com.

 

 

Out & About

By Judy Noy

Onstage

• World Beat and Percussion with Dale Gordon will be featured on Dec. 17 at 4 p.m., for young adults at the Bronx Library Center, located at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road. For more information, call (718) 579-4244/46 or visit www.nypl.org.

• The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, located at 841 Barretto St., presents Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo, a story of a Latin-American gay couple. The play runs on Dec. 11, 12 and 13 at 8 p.m. For more information, call (718) 842-5223.

• The Fordham United Methodist Church Choir and Guests and the Ensemble Sepia Chamber Orchestra and Harpsichord will perform Part I of George Frederick Handel’s Messiah at the Fordham United Methodist Church, 2543 Marion Ave. on Dec. 14 at 4 p.m. For more information, call (718) 367-9347.

Events

• Bronx Museum of the Arts presents “Los Machos de Mi Vida,” a video installation featuring Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, performing multiple roles, Saturdays from 6 to 8 p.m., through Dec. 20, at the Bronx Museum Project Space, 11 Bruckner Blvd., in Mott Haven. Raimundi-Ortiz will also teach a salsa dance class for Latinas during the duration of the show. For more information, call (718) 681-6000, ext. 120.

• The Wave Hill House offers two family art projects: Sparkle and Shine, to make gifts and decorations out of metal foil, beads and pinecones, on Dec. 13 and 14; and It’s a Wrap, to make wrapping paper with designs inspired by nature, Dec. 20 and 21; both from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Kerlin Learning Center. Wave Hill is located at West 249th Street and Independence Avenue. For more information, call (718) 549-3200 or visit www.wavehill.org.

Exhibits

• The Bronx Council on the Arts presents Graffiti: Spirit of an Age @ 40 x 10, highlighting works by artists who began their careers as teens creating graffiti art, having now expanded to drawing, painting and sculpture. This free exhibit is on view through Feb. 7, at the Longwood Gallery at Hostos Community College, 450 Grand Concourse at 149th Street. There will be a free curator and artists talk on Dec. 13 at noon. For more information, call (718) 518-6728 or (718) 931-9500, ext. 33.

• Street Art, Street Life: From the 1950s to Now, a collection of photography, is a documentation of performances, events, and artwork, on view through Jan. 25, at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse at 165th Street. For more information, call (718) 681-6000.

• The New York Botanical Garden presents Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum, through Jan. 11, at the LuEsther T. Mertz Library. As part of the exhibit, there will be a 13-piece taiko drumming performance on the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory lawn, and Kiku for Kids, in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. For more information, call (718) 817-8700.

• The Wave Hill House, located at West 249th Street and Independence Avenue, will feature Naturally Inspired, a selection of art produced in workshops for adults and at the weekly Family Art Project; and Flora & Fauna, an installation of a vine that winds along the wall of the staircase, through Feb. 22. For more information, call (718) 549-3200 or visit www.wavehill.org.

• The Neuberger Museum of Art, at 735 Anderson Hill Rd., in Purchase, NY, will exhibit Great Women Artists, featuring two sculptures by Barbara Korman, of Norwood. The show runs from noon to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays, through Feb. 22. For more information, visit www.bkormanstudio.com.

Holiday Events

• Rachel and Matisyahu, a singing-storytelling duo, will sing in English and Hebrew and tell stories in the Carlebach tradition, to celebrate Chanukah, at the JASA Van Cortlandt Senior Center, 3880 Sedgwick Ave. A holiday lunch will be served at 12:15 p.m. Suggested donation for lunch and entertainment is $3. For more information, call (718) 549-4700.

• The Mosholu Library, located at 285 E. 205th St., presents Make a Kwanzaa Ornament, Dec. 16 at 4 p.m. for young adults, and Christmas With Elvis; a free Elvis tribute show, performed Las Vegas style by Steve Charles in full costume, Dec. 20 at 2:30 p.m. For more information, call (718) 882-8239.

• The Bronx Library Center, located at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road, presents a Holidaze Party, Dec. 24 at 4 p.m. for young adults; and three concerts including Holiday Jazz Concert, with Mary Pearson’s Yes/Nonet, Dec. 13 at 2:30 p.m.; a Classic Holiday Concert, with the Bronx Symphony Orchestra, Dec. 20 at 2:30 p.m.; and the Brass Menagerie Holiday Brass, Dec. 27 at 2:30 p.m. For more information, call (718) 579-4244/46.

• The New York Botanical Garden presents Holiday Train Show, featuring large-scale model trains and more than 140 miniature replicas of New York landmarks created from plant parts, through Jan. 11, in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Complementing this show is Gingerbread Adventures, a fun and educational event for children, including hands-on activities, in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. Also scheduled is a puppet show, The Little Engine That Could, directed by master puppeteer Ralph Lee, Saturdays and Sundays, through Dec. 21 and daily Dec. 26 to Jan. 2 at 1, 2, and 3 p.m., in the Arthur and Janet Ross Lecture Hall. For more information, call (718) 817-8700.

Learning

The Bronx Library Center has events for all ages:

• For children and preschoolers, there is Preschool Romp, Dec. 11, 18 and 20 at 11 a.m.; and Family Time, Dec. 13 at 11 a.m.

• Also, for school-aged children, there are Theatre Group Meetings, Dec. 15 and 22 at 4 p.m.; a Theatre Group Performance, Dec. 20 at 2 p.m.; Snowflake, Dec. 11 at 4 p.m.; and Toddler Two-Step, Dec. 27 at 11 a.m.

• Young adults can attend the Halo 3 Tournament, Dec. 15 and 22 at 4 p.m.; Yu-Gi-Yoh Play, Dec. 19 at 4 p.m.; and Super Smash-A-Thon, Dec. 26 at 4 p.m.

• The Center is located at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road. For a detailed schedule, call (718) 579-4244/46 or visit www.nypl.org.

• The Mosholu Library, located at 285 E. 205th St., offers Preschool Story Time, Dec. 11 at 10:30 a.m., for children and preschoolers. Also scheduled is Action Racket Theatre Lab, Dec. 15 at 4 p.m. for young adults. For adults, there is Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines for Cancer Prevention, presented by the American Cancer Society, discussing an active lifestyle and maintaining a healthy weight and diet, Dec. 13 at 2:30 p.m. For more information, call (718) 882-8239.

• The Jerome Park Library, at 118 Eames Place, hosts Break!, Dec. 22 at 4 p.m.; Photo Frame Creations, Dec. 11 at 4 p.m.; and Design Your Own T-Shirt, Dec. 18 at 4 p.m., for young adults. In addition, there is Folk Tales From Around the World, Dec. 12 at 3:30 p.m. and Arts and Crafts, Dec. 15 at 3:30 p.m., for school-aged children. For more information, call (718) 549-5200.

NOTE: Items for consideration should be received in our office by Dec. 15 for the next publication date of Dec. 25.

Filipinos Make Mark on St. Ann’s

By Chloe Tribich

Among the many traditions that Filipino parishioners have brought to the Parish of St. Ann is the “Misa de Gallo,” or “Rooster Mass.” This is a novena – a series of nine masses — that begin at 6 a.m. on each of the nine days leading up to Christmas.

“It’s very traditional,” says Leticia Gedubig, who came to the United States from the Philippines in 1971. “It’s what I grew up with, but we only recently started doing it here.”

In the Philippines, where the majority of the population is Catholic, the Misa de Gallo begins at 3 a.m. (before the rooster crows) to allow farmers to attend the service before work. Last year, St. Ann’s concluded each early Misa de Gallo with sweets and hot drinks.

Filipino faces are relatively new to St. Ann’s parish, which was founded in 1927 on Bainbridge Avenue near Gun Hill Road. The once-dominant Irish population is now dwindling, and since the 1980s, the large Puerto Rican contingent has been joined by Latinos from Central and South America and, increasingly, by Filipinos.

“Of 30 students at last summer’s Bible school, seven or eight were Filipino,” says Father Francis Scanlon, the church’s pastor. “That’s a huge change from 30 years ago.”

The St. Ann Choir, the church’s primary choir that sings at weekly worship services, is almost entirely Filipino. The St. Ann Novena Choir, which sings only monthly and on special occasions like the annual St. Ann Novena in the summer, is about half Filipino and includes singers from various countries, such as Trinidad, Portugal and Jamaica.

For many of the Filipino members, St. Ann’s is more than a place for religious observance. It is a place to build new relationships in a new country and also a place to preserve a national identity while assimilating into a new one.

“Filipinos are people who don’t like to stick out,” says Novena Choir member Carlos Espiritu, who is Filipino and a pediatrician. “On the one hand that’s good, because our community doesn’t have a segregated feel, but on the other hand, we are more at risk for losing our identity. The choir addresses that because we sing together and we celebrate in our own way, but we are open to anyone and we join with parishioners of all backgrounds.”

Rosalie Cabrera arrived in New York from the Philippines in 1988, hoping to advance her career in health care. In the Philippines, she says, her co-workers would perform daily masses, which included hymns, in the public areas of their hospital. She remembers fondly how patients would pack the hallways to listen and participate.

When Gedubig, then the leader of the staff choir at Montefiore Medical Center (which has its main entrance just across the street from St. Ann’s), asked her to sing in the hospital’s masses about seven or eight years ago, Cabrera agreed.

Soon after, Gedubig approached Monsignor Robert Trainor, St. Ann’s pastor at the time, with a proposal for a musical collaboration. The Montefiore choir became and still remains the St. Ann Novena Choir. (The Novena choir is fully made up of St. Ann’s members and no longer has any formal affiliation with Montefiore.)

Cabrera says “the church is like a family.” She keeps a photo album documenting her fellow choir members’ life celebrations — baptisms, weddings, Christmas parties — and speaks enthusiastically about how they have provided stability in her shifting life here in the States.

Others choir members agree. “After a week of work, choir practices are like therapy,” Espiritu says.

He recalls the experience of caroling in nursing homes with the Novena Choir on Christmas Day two years ago as one of the group’s most satisfying performances. “You should’ve seen the faces,” he says of the nursing home residents. “Some of them had tears in their eyes.”

It isn’t only special occasions that bring the parishioners together. Sundays after the noon Mass, St. Ann Choir member Remy Lazo prepares lunch for her fellow singers. Only after the friends have enjoyed the home cooking — often traditional Filipino dishes such as thick soup with eggs or noodles with shrimp — do they squeeze around the Lazo family’s upright piano to sing.

The choir has already begun preparation for this year’s Christmas performances. Practice for the Christmas concert, which features both choirs, started in mid-November. An effort is also being made to organize more caroling in nursing homes this holiday season.

In all seasons, what choir members value most is the way that the music has built their community and, consequently, increased year-round mass attendance. “We’re really more like a family than a choir,” said Espiritu. Then he laughed and added, “How else could we spend more time eating than singing?”

Translating Dog Barks

By Alex Kratz

Dogs bark because they sense danger. There are people who stand in front of other people’s doors and windows and tease a dog into barking. The dog is thinking correctly. These people are a danger.

Homeowners and apartment dwellers whose dogs are being teased should realize that the teaser is trying to have the dog declared a nuisance. The teasers are potential burglars.

People who approach other people’s dogs and attempt to show affection to the dog, without the consent of the owner, are probably also potential burglars.

Dogs can smell fear and might attack. Barking is not meaningless.

Cheri Fistel

Norwood

20 Years at Paper

By None

With the publication of this issue, I am celebrating having completed 20 years with the Norwood News.

It hardly seems possible that more than 20 years have gone by since the first issue of the paper appeared on the scene, but I may have made a similar comment each time you achieved an additional five-year milestone. I guess it just seems that time passes that much more quickly the older we get. I wouldn’t have thought that I’d still be associated with the paper all these years later when I answered your call for volunteers in your first issue.

As soon as I came across that first edition in October of 1988, I contacted the office to volunteer. Back then, your second issue wasn’t published until two months later, so although the Norwood News officially celebrated its 20th year of publication with the October 2-15 issue, I am celebrating my own 20th anniversary with the paper with this issue.

I’m pleased to say that although I’ve seen people come and go over the years, that I’ve remained throughout, and hope to continue for as long as possible. It’s not everyone who enjoys their job and looks forward to coming to work, but I feel that in spite of various professions I’ve had over the years, I believe I found my calling as a proofreader.

Congratulations on completing 20 years of publication. I hope to be there for your next celebration.

Judy Noy

Norwood

Save School Arts

By None

Re: your article “Room for Improvement” (Nov. 27 – Dec. 10).  It’s unfortunate to read about the shortcomings of the five-year plan for school construction in addressing overcrowding in District 10. As a parent in the article mentioned, overcrowding is forcing many schools to convert long cherished arts spaces into general classrooms. Music rooms, dance and performance spaces and art studios are being divided, walled and converted, and arts offerings, such as the dance program at the school on the Kennedy High School campus, are being eliminated. This is not an isolated occurrence. A recent survey of New York City principals revealed that 25 percent reported losing art, music, dance or drama spaces to general education classrooms. Extrapolated to the whole system, that’s several hundred schools that may have lost their arts space in recent years.

While easing overcrowding and providing adequate classroom space for public school students should be a top priority for the city, this should not be done by seizing and converting dedicated facilities necessary to support learning in the arts. Bronx parents should let their principals and elected officials know that this is not acceptable. The Department of Education should ensure that arts spaces in public schools are preserved and develop a plan to reclaim those arts spaces that have already been lost.  All of New York City’s schoolchildren deserve the arts education they are entitled to by state law.

Doug Israel

Land Grab

By Editorial

The city is trying once again to tack on another new and loathsome component to its already disastrous filtration plant project.

It proposes to snatch a chunk of parkland used by local kids to build a parking lot for the new golf course right next to Sachkerah Woods Playground, the only neighborhood benefit of what is shaping up to be the biggest boondoggle in Bronx history.

Because it’s technically for a park use, the city says it isn’t alienating additional parkland.

Maybe so, but after a litany of monumental screw-ups — not least of which is a tripling of the original price tag to around $3 billion —  you’d think they’d shy from riling the community yet again and show a little sense.

And while golf is a recreational purpose, it is barely one that benefits this community enough to warrant slapping down more asphalt. After all, the parking lot is obviously for people who live far away from Norwood.

The city should stick to its original plan and keep the parking lot on the north side, where it is now and was originally slated for after the project’s completion.

But we’re not naïve. We know this will take another push by advocates and elected officials to get the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to do the right thing — like when they stopped the agency from blasting at the Jerome Park Reservoir.

Maybe after taking another drubbing, the DEP will focus on finishing the plant and think twice before springing anything like this on the community again.

We can dream, can’t we?

3 Murders Hit Nabe in 1 Week

By Alex Kratz

After only seven murders during the first 10-and-a-half months of the year, the 52nd Precinct experienced three in one week in November, all of them within a four-block radius in North Fordham.

Over the past 28 days, there were eight murders in the entire borough and three of them occurred in this neighborhood. The three appear to be unrelated, but the area has struggled for decades with blatant drug dealing and violence.

After finding a 40-year-old Hispanic man with a long history of arrests shot to death near 198th Street and Pond Place on Nov. 17, police said the murder may have been drug related. Police officials said no arrests have been made and that the investigation is ongoing.

Five days later on Nov. 22, a couple of blocks away at 2780 Grand Concourse, a 24-year-old Hispanic man was shot in the groin and later bled to death from the injuries. Two women, ages 22 and 24, were later arrested and charged with the killing.

The very next day, a 44-year-old black man was found beaten to death in his apartment on Marion Avenue, just blocks from the previous two murders.

An Impact Zone (which puts rookie cops on foot patrols in high crime neighborhoods) was recently moved from here to another part of the precinct. Also, due to lower crime stats in the early part of the year, the precinct lost dozens of cops to other commands and is down at least 50 officers from where it was a year ago.  So far, there have been 10 murders in 2008, compared to 12 by this point a year ago.

Police at the 52nd Precinct could not be reached by press time.    

Espada’s High-Stakes Gamble

By Jordan Moss

It is probable that only a small percentage of city residents can name their state legislators. But it’s hard to imagine that anyone in the northwest Bronx does not now — or won’t soon — know that their state senator is Pedro Espada.

Espada, a newly elected state senator for the 33rd Senate District, which includes all the neighborhoods of Community Board 7 and much of Community Board 5, seems to have catapulted himself to the top of the Senate leadership with some audacious, bare-knuckles deal-making.

By threatening not to support Queens State Senator Malcolm Smith in his bid to ascend to majority leader now that the Democrats have a two-seat majority in the chamber, Espada and two other renegade Dems – Ruben Diaz, Jr. of the Bronx and Carl Kruger of Brooklyn — extracted tremendous concessions from Smith.

Under the deal, which still has to be approved by the full Senate, Smith will still be the top Democrat in the chamber, but he’ll only retain the Constitutionally-proscribed title President Pro Tempore. Espada, will be the majority leader and will be vice chair of the Rules Committee, through which all legislation flows. It is still unclear, however, how much power Espada will wield, since Smith said on Monday in a press conference that current Deputy Minority Leader Jeffrey Klein, a Bronxite who has rapidly climbed the Senate’s leadership ladder, will remain his number two and take on the title of Vice President Pro Tempore.

(At press time, Espada, who did not return a call Tuesday, told the New York Times that he was “tremendously dismayed and disappointed” that his new post came with few responsibilities.)

Diaz was promised the chairmanship of the Aging Committee and Kruger the helm of the powerful Finance Committee.

The deal was reportedly brokered by Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks and upstate billionaire and perennial political aspirant Tom Golisano in a meeting also attended briefly by Governor Paterson.

Also reportedly part of the deal, and a concession to Diaz, was a promise not to bring legislation legalizing gay marriage to the floor of the Senate next year, according to the New York Times.

The Gang of Three or Three Amigos – as they’ve been called in the press – also exacted changes in the way the Senate is run, making it easier for Republicans to bring their legislation to the floor and assigning seating by alphabetical order rather than by party. The three Democrats have flirted with supporting the Republican leadership, making them unpopular on their own side of the aisle. But they’re now on the verge of becoming among the most powerful legislators in the Capitol.

As the New York Times put it: “The deal is a particular triumph for Mr. Espada and Mr. Kruger, who went from being pariahs in their own party to being two of its leading members.”

The rule changes that will allow Espada — who still has not registered his campaign committee a month after the election — to ascend to the carved out position of majority leader will have to be voted on in January, so anything could still happen. Democratic senators who oppose the plan gave Smith an earful at a closed-door meeting over the weekend, arguing that he had given away too much.

If Espada is ultimately successful, it takes some of the pressure off Gov. Paterson to appoint a Hispanic to Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate seat. Espada and Diaz said the lack of Hispanic leadership in significant positions was a key motive for their high-stakes political gamesmanship.

Ed. note: A version of this article originally appeared on the West Bronx Blog (www.west bronxnews.blogspot.com). Check the blog for regular updates on this and other political stories.

Public and Community Meetings

By None

•    The Community District 10 Education Council will meet on Dec. 11 at 6:15 p.m. in the auditorium of MS 118 located at 577 E. 179th St. The new school capital plan will be discussed. For more information, call (718) 741-5836.

•    The 52nd Precinct Community Council will meet on Dec. 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bronx Botanical Garden. Special guest speakers will include Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion and Chief Purtell of Patrol Borough Bronx. For more information, call (718) 220-5824.

•    Community Board 7 (CB7) will meet on Tuesday, Dec. 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the St. Ann’s Church cafeteria, 3519 Bainbridge Ave. For more information, call (718) 933-5650.

•    The  CB7 Land Use Committee will meet Dec. 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Community Board Office, 229A E. 204th St. For more information, call (718) 933-5650.

•    The CB7 Traffic & Transportation Committee will meet Dec. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Community Board Office, 229A E. 204th St. For more information, call (718) 933-5650.

•    The Economic Development Committee will meet Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. at the Community Board Office, 229A E. 204th St. For more information, call (718) 933-5650.

By Alex Kratz

During a Monday afternoon game, Mt. St. Ursula Academy sophomore basketball player Samira Ahmed (pictured, fourth from left) collapsed on the court and later died after being rushed to the hospital.

School officials do not know the cause of death at this time, said Cecilia Grande, a spokesperson for the school.

Grande said Mt. St. Ursula, an all-girls school on Bedford Park Boulevard, is in a somber state of mourning. Yesterday, the school held a special mass for Ahmed, during which classmates held up posters created in her memory.

"It’s been a very difficult time," Grande said.

Samira, less than a month away from her 16th birthday, was well-liked by her friends and classmates who called her "Smiles." She was also a member of the school’s Photo Club in addition to being one of the best players and a captain on the junior varsity basketball team.

"She was an honor student and role model to her fellow classmates," Grande said in an email earlier today.

For the past two days, grief counselors have been at the Ursula campus to help out students and faculty during this rough time, Grande said.

The basketball team is planning to retire her number 3 jersey, Grande said, perhaps in the near future. The team plays tonight on the Ursula campus. Grande expects it to be a packed house.

Details about what happened on Monday are few. Earlier in the day, the school held a pep rally for it’s game that night against Preston. (The above photo, provided by the school, was taken during the rally.) The junior varsity game tipped off at 4:15 p.m. and Samira’s parents, Rosey and Amadu Ahmed were in attendance.

At some point in the game, Samira collapsed on the court. Her parents accompanied her off the court and to Montefiore Medical Center where she was pronounced dead.

It’s unclear exactly when she was pronounced dead and Grande said the school does not know what caused the death. An autopsy will be performed, she said.

***

This is Mt. St. Ursula’s official statement about the death:

In Memoriam:

 Samira Ahmed
January 12, 1993 – December 15, 2008

 The entire community of the Academy of Mount St. Ursula is deeply saddened by the untimely death of our student, Samira Ahmed.

 The students, faculty and staff offer their heartfelt condolences to her family and pledge their support in every way possible as they navigate through this valley of darkness.

May the Good Shepherd lead Samira safely home and embrace her family with his love.

By None

On World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza of Venezuela spent the day in the northwest Bronx bringing good cheer. First, she visited Montefiore Medical Center’s Adolescent AIDS Program and then spent time with sick kids at Montefiore’s Children’s Hospital. Here, she’s switching roles with Marielys Ruiz, 20, who suffers from sickle cell anemia.

By Norwood News

Summer Camp Discounts

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, 3450 DeKalb Ave., is offering parents an early bird discount of $200 off the summer day camp fee for kids in kindergarten through second grade. The discount will be offered until Saturday, Jan. 10. The Sunshine Day Camp for kids with special needs is also offering the discount. For more information, call (718) 882-4000 or visit www.mmcc.org.

Youth Boxing

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, 3450 DeKalb Ave., is accepting winter registration for its boxing program. Classes will start the week of Jan. 17 for ages 7 through 23. Fees for the class are affordable and depend on how many classes are taken. Demonstration classes will be held on Jan. 10. For more information, call (718) 882-4000 or visit www.mmcc.org.

Fordham Road Discount

For the month of December, more than 65 Fordham Road businesses are giving 10 percent discounts to the public this holiday season. Until Dec. 21, when consumers display one of BID’s newspaper advertisements (see p. 15), online coupons, or a MetroCard during time of purchase, consumers will receive the discount. Some restrictions may apply. During this period, most of the businesses involved will be open until 9 p.m on Fridays. For more information, call (718) 562-2104.

Social Security Help

On Dec. 18, representatives of the Social Security Administration will help people with any questions/issues about Social Security at Congressman Eliot Engel’s Bronx office, 3655 Johnson Ave. Due to the holidays, reps will only be there for half the day. Appointments must be made through Richard Fedderman by calling (718) 796-9700.

Wii Games for Adults and Seniors

On Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4 p.m., adults and seniors can enjoy free Wii video games at the Mosholu Library, 285 E. 205th St. To sign up, go to the Adult Information Desk. For more information, call (718) 882-8239.

Entrepreneurial Workshop

Small business owners are invited to a free entrepreneurial workshop, which includes a chance to meet other business leaders who are surviving the economic downfall. There will also be a presentation on managing your business. The workshop will take place on Thursday, Dec. 11 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Monroe College, West Hall, Room 919, 2467 Jerome Ave. To register, visit www.oedglobal.org/attend/registration/htm.

Place for Teens With Issues

The Power Project is a free program for teens ages 12 to 18 who are dealing with substance abuse and other problems. Located at 3464 Webster Ave., Power Project provides case management, individual and group counseling, trips, and is just a place to get away from it all. For more information, call (718) 515-7971.

Toy and Gift Drive

JE & ZB Butler Child Advocacy Center is having a toy and gift drive for kids (from infants to teenagers). Donations of new toys and gifts for the children can be brought to the Center at 3314 Steuben Ave. For more information, contact Lois Pearlman at (718) 920-7584 or lpearlma@montefiore.org.

English Classes

The New York Public Library is offering free classes in English for speakers of other languages at the Bronx Library Center, 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. (off Fordham Road). For more information on other locations, call the Library’s Office of Community Outreach Services at (212) 340-0918 or visit www.nypl.org/calendar.esol.html.

Learn the Internet

St. James Recreation Center at 2530 Jerome Ave. offers free classes in Microsoft Office, Resume/Cover Letter Writing, Computer Basics, and much more. For more information, call Justin Young at (718) 367-3659.

Adult ESL and Computer Classes

PS 94 on Kings College Place will offer ESL levels 1 and 2 and Computer Skills classes through summer 2009. Both classes meet Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Computer classes will be taught in English and will include lessons on keyboarding, Microsoft Word and other programs. Registration is first-come, first-served. For more information, call Ms. Seminario, the parent coordinator, at (347) 563-4772 or (718) 405-6345.

Seeking Artists for Aging Project

The Bronx Council on the Arts is seeking artists who are interested in exploring the link between creative expression and the quality of life of older people. BCA is offering unique opportunities in the field of Creative Aging. Send resume and letter of interest to Ed Friedman, Bronx Council on the Arts, 1738 Hone Ave., Bronx, NY 10461 or email: info@bronxarts.org.

Quality of Life Screening

The Psychosocial Oncology Program of the Montefiore-Einstein Cancer Center is conducting a survey study in order to learn about the physical and emotional stresses faced by cancer survivors. Participants will have to fill out questionnaires and have the opportunity to participate in free/low-cost programs and support services within the program. For more information, call (718) 430-2380.

Breast Oncology Program

The Breast Oncology Living Daily Program also known as BOLD living, offers a variety of free educational, support, and mind-body workshops. They are designed to empower and nurture breast cancer patients, survivors, and loved ones, but are open to all. For more information or to register, call (718) 430-3613 or visit outreach@aecom.yu.edu.

After School Child Care

Registration is now taking place for the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center’s after-school childcare programs at 3450 DeKalb Ave., for children in kindergarten through 6th grade. The Discovery Club is offering staff escort from PS 94, PS 280, St. Ann’s, MS 80 and van service from PS 8, PS 94 Annex, PS 56 and 56 Annex, St. Brendan’s, St. Philip Neri, PS 41, Visitation, and PS 95. For complete information or to register, call Ruth Moore weekdays at (718) 944-3207.

Preschool New Enrollment

The Mosholu Montefiore Community Center now has more space available for childcare. There are new classrooms for 2- to 4-year-olds at the center, located at 3450 DeKalb Ave. For more information, call (718) 882-4000.

Alzheimer’s Support Group

The Alzheimer’s Association’s New York City chapter provides a support group in Norwood for Spanish and English speaking caregivers who have relatives with Alzheimer’s disease or another type of dementia. The support group meets on the first and third Wednesdays of the month from 5 to 6:15 p.m. For the location or more information, call Mark Goodwin at (718) 920-7377.

Free Respite Program

Kingsbridge Heights Community Center (KHCC) is offering free after-school services to families with mentally retarded or developmentally disabled children ages 5 to 21 from 3 to 6 p.m. KHCC is also offering a Saturday Respite Program for ages 15 to 25, and on Sundays another Respite Program is provided for ages 18 to 65. Weekend Respite Program hours are from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. They are held at the KHCC, 3101 Kingsbridge Terrace (near Sedgwick Avenue) at West 230th Street. To register or for more information, call Hanna Gabris at (718) 884-0700 ext. 202.

Teen Center

The Boys and Girls Club of Mosholu Montefiore Community Center at the Fort Independence Houses announced that memberships are being accepted for the fall Teen Center program for boys and girls ages 12 to 16. The center is open Monday through Friday nights from 6:30 to 9 p.m. and offers a variety of teen activities. For more information and/or registration, call Israel Rosario at (646) 358-6096.

Free After-School Program

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center is accepting applications for its free Fort Independence after-school program, which serves kids in kindergarten through sixth grade, Monday through Friday, 3 to 6 p.m. The program offers a variety of activities. For more information, call Israel Rosario, (646) 358-6096.   

Foster Parents Needed

The Foster Care Network is asking families to open their hearts and homes to foster children this holiday season. For more information, call (800) 454-3727.

Prevent Cancer

Angela Matotek of the American Cancer Society, will discuss how to help prevent cancer, including: How to have an active lifestyle, maintaining a healthy weight, and maintaining a healthy diet. The presentation is Saturday, Dec. 13 at 2:30 p.m., at the Mosholu Library, 285 E. 205th St. For more information, call (718) 882-8239.

Speech Program at Ursula  

The Mt. St. Ursula Speech Center, 2885 Marion Ave., is now accepting applications for its fall program. The center has openings for children ages 2 to 5 who are in need of speech and language services. Medicaid and other insurances accepted. For more information, call (718) 584-7679.

Karate Classes at MMCC

Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, located on Gun Hill Road and DeKalb Avenue, will be offering a wide selection of Karate classes for elementary school students, teens, and adults starting in the next few weeks. The classes are offered for all levels on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Classes are affordable and discounts are available. To register or for more information, call Luis Morales weekdays at (718) 944-3290 or MMCC at (718) 882-4000 ext. 0.

Free GED and Business Courses

The State University of New York’s North Bronx Career Center located at 3950 Laconia Ave., at East 224th Street, is now accepting applications for the fall semester. Classes offered are GED Prep and basic to advanced MOS Certification Computer classes, free training in Business Office Technology (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), Job Readiness (Resume, Cover Letter, Interview Skills) and Pre-Certification Training in various careers (Child Care, Security and more). All students wishing to apply must meet state income and academic guidelines. This is an HRA-approved program. Classes began in September. To begin the application process or for more information, call (718) 547-1001.

Aphasia Clinic Accepting Clients

The Lehman College Speech and Hearing Center, which provides therapy on a sliding scale payment schedule, is now accepting new clients in its recently expanded aphasia clinic. The clinic will provide individual and group therapy sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon to 1 p.m. and 2 to 3 p.m.; group therapy sessions also take place on Tuesdays from 1 to 2 p.m. Diagnostic and therapeutic sessions will be supervised by faculty members who are licensed by the NYS Department of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and certified by ASHA (American Speech Language Hearing Association). For more information, call Wanda Adams at (718) 960-8138.

Epilepsy Seminars

A series of free epilepsy seminars will be held the second Wednesday of every month: Nov. 12 from 3 to 4 p.m. “Epilepsy in the Classroom”; Dec. 10 from 3 to 4 p.m., “EEG Testing: Procedure & Outcomes.” The seminars will be held at the Northeast Regional Epilepsy Group; Medical Pavilion, 4256-1 Bronx Blvd. For more information, contact Dawn Brace at (718) 654-6184 or dbrace@epilepsygroup.com.

 

 

By Judy Noy

Onstage

• World Beat and Percussion with Dale Gordon will be featured on Dec. 17 at 4 p.m., for young adults at the Bronx Library Center, located at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road. For more information, call (718) 579-4244/46 or visit www.nypl.org.

• The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, located at 841 Barretto St., presents Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo, a story of a Latin-American gay couple. The play runs on Dec. 11, 12 and 13 at 8 p.m. For more information, call (718) 842-5223.

• The Fordham United Methodist Church Choir and Guests and the Ensemble Sepia Chamber Orchestra and Harpsichord will perform Part I of George Frederick Handel’s Messiah at the Fordham United Methodist Church, 2543 Marion Ave. on Dec. 14 at 4 p.m. For more information, call (718) 367-9347.

Events

• Bronx Museum of the Arts presents “Los Machos de Mi Vida,” a video installation featuring Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, performing multiple roles, Saturdays from 6 to 8 p.m., through Dec. 20, at the Bronx Museum Project Space, 11 Bruckner Blvd., in Mott Haven. Raimundi-Ortiz will also teach a salsa dance class for Latinas during the duration of the show. For more information, call (718) 681-6000, ext. 120.

• The Wave Hill House offers two family art projects: Sparkle and Shine, to make gifts and decorations out of metal foil, beads and pinecones, on Dec. 13 and 14; and It’s a Wrap, to make wrapping paper with designs inspired by nature, Dec. 20 and 21; both from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Kerlin Learning Center. Wave Hill is located at West 249th Street and Independence Avenue. For more information, call (718) 549-3200 or visit www.wavehill.org.

Exhibits

• The Bronx Council on the Arts presents Graffiti: Spirit of an Age @ 40 x 10, highlighting works by artists who began their careers as teens creating graffiti art, having now expanded to drawing, painting and sculpture. This free exhibit is on view through Feb. 7, at the Longwood Gallery at Hostos Community College, 450 Grand Concourse at 149th Street. There will be a free curator and artists talk on Dec. 13 at noon. For more information, call (718) 518-6728 or (718) 931-9500, ext. 33.

• Street Art, Street Life: From the 1950s to Now, a collection of photography, is a documentation of performances, events, and artwork, on view through Jan. 25, at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse at 165th Street. For more information, call (718) 681-6000.

• The New York Botanical Garden presents Kiku: The Art of the Japanese Chrysanthemum, through Jan. 11, at the LuEsther T. Mertz Library. As part of the exhibit, there will be a 13-piece taiko drumming performance on the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory lawn, and Kiku for Kids, in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. For more information, call (718) 817-8700.

• The Wave Hill House, located at West 249th Street and Independence Avenue, will feature Naturally Inspired, a selection of art produced in workshops for adults and at the weekly Family Art Project; and Flora & Fauna, an installation of a vine that winds along the wall of the staircase, through Feb. 22. For more information, call (718) 549-3200 or visit www.wavehill.org.

• The Neuberger Museum of Art, at 735 Anderson Hill Rd., in Purchase, NY, will exhibit Great Women Artists, featuring two sculptures by Barbara Korman, of Norwood. The show runs from noon to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays, through Feb. 22. For more information, visit www.bkormanstudio.com.

Holiday Events

• Rachel and Matisyahu, a singing-storytelling duo, will sing in English and Hebrew and tell stories in the Carlebach tradition, to celebrate Chanukah, at the JASA Van Cortlandt Senior Center, 3880 Sedgwick Ave. A holiday lunch will be served at 12:15 p.m. Suggested donation for lunch and entertainment is $3. For more information, call (718) 549-4700.

• The Mosholu Library, located at 285 E. 205th St., presents Make a Kwanzaa Ornament, Dec. 16 at 4 p.m. for young adults, and Christmas With Elvis; a free Elvis tribute show, performed Las Vegas style by Steve Charles in full costume, Dec. 20 at 2:30 p.m. For more information, call (718) 882-8239.

• The Bronx Library Center, located at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road, presents a Holidaze Party, Dec. 24 at 4 p.m. for young adults; and three concerts including Holiday Jazz Concert, with Mary Pearson’s Yes/Nonet, Dec. 13 at 2:30 p.m.; a Classic Holiday Concert, with the Bronx Symphony Orchestra, Dec. 20 at 2:30 p.m.; and the Brass Menagerie Holiday Brass, Dec. 27 at 2:30 p.m. For more information, call (718) 579-4244/46.

• The New York Botanical Garden presents Holiday Train Show, featuring large-scale model trains and more than 140 miniature replicas of New York landmarks created from plant parts, through Jan. 11, in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory. Complementing this show is Gingerbread Adventures, a fun and educational event for children, including hands-on activities, in the Everett Children’s Adventure Garden. Also scheduled is a puppet show, The Little Engine That Could, directed by master puppeteer Ralph Lee, Saturdays and Sundays, through Dec. 21 and daily Dec. 26 to Jan. 2 at 1, 2, and 3 p.m., in the Arthur and Janet Ross Lecture Hall. For more information, call (718) 817-8700.

Learning

The Bronx Library Center has events for all ages:

• For children and preschoolers, there is Preschool Romp, Dec. 11, 18 and 20 at 11 a.m.; and Family Time, Dec. 13 at 11 a.m.

• Also, for school-aged children, there are Theatre Group Meetings, Dec. 15 and 22 at 4 p.m.; a Theatre Group Performance, Dec. 20 at 2 p.m.; Snowflake, Dec. 11 at 4 p.m.; and Toddler Two-Step, Dec. 27 at 11 a.m.

• Young adults can attend the Halo 3 Tournament, Dec. 15 and 22 at 4 p.m.; Yu-Gi-Yoh Play, Dec. 19 at 4 p.m.; and Super Smash-A-Thon, Dec. 26 at 4 p.m.

• The Center is located at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road. For a detailed schedule, call (718) 579-4244/46 or visit www.nypl.org.

• The Mosholu Library, located at 285 E. 205th St., offers Preschool Story Time, Dec. 11 at 10:30 a.m., for children and preschoolers. Also scheduled is Action Racket Theatre Lab, Dec. 15 at 4 p.m. for young adults. For adults, there is Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines for Cancer Prevention, presented by the American Cancer Society, discussing an active lifestyle and maintaining a healthy weight and diet, Dec. 13 at 2:30 p.m. For more information, call (718) 882-8239.

• The Jerome Park Library, at 118 Eames Place, hosts Break!, Dec. 22 at 4 p.m.; Photo Frame Creations, Dec. 11 at 4 p.m.; and Design Your Own T-Shirt, Dec. 18 at 4 p.m., for young adults. In addition, there is Folk Tales From Around the World, Dec. 12 at 3:30 p.m. and Arts and Crafts, Dec. 15 at 3:30 p.m., for school-aged children. For more information, call (718) 549-5200.

NOTE: Items for consideration should be received in our office by Dec. 15 for the next publication date of Dec. 25.

By Chloe Tribich

Among the many traditions that Filipino parishioners have brought to the Parish of St. Ann is the “Misa de Gallo,” or “Rooster Mass.” This is a novena – a series of nine masses — that begin at 6 a.m. on each of the nine days leading up to Christmas.

“It’s very traditional,” says Leticia Gedubig, who came to the United States from the Philippines in 1971. “It’s what I grew up with, but we only recently started doing it here.”

In the Philippines, where the majority of the population is Catholic, the Misa de Gallo begins at 3 a.m. (before the rooster crows) to allow farmers to attend the service before work. Last year, St. Ann’s concluded each early Misa de Gallo with sweets and hot drinks.

Filipino faces are relatively new to St. Ann’s parish, which was founded in 1927 on Bainbridge Avenue near Gun Hill Road. The once-dominant Irish population is now dwindling, and since the 1980s, the large Puerto Rican contingent has been joined by Latinos from Central and South America and, increasingly, by Filipinos.

“Of 30 students at last summer’s Bible school, seven or eight were Filipino,” says Father Francis Scanlon, the church’s pastor. “That’s a huge change from 30 years ago.”

The St. Ann Choir, the church’s primary choir that sings at weekly worship services, is almost entirely Filipino. The St. Ann Novena Choir, which sings only monthly and on special occasions like the annual St. Ann Novena in the summer, is about half Filipino and includes singers from various countries, such as Trinidad, Portugal and Jamaica.

For many of the Filipino members, St. Ann’s is more than a place for religious observance. It is a place to build new relationships in a new country and also a place to preserve a national identity while assimilating into a new one.

“Filipinos are people who don’t like to stick out,” says Novena Choir member Carlos Espiritu, who is Filipino and a pediatrician. “On the one hand that’s good, because our community doesn’t have a segregated feel, but on the other hand, we are more at risk for losing our identity. The choir addresses that because we sing together and we celebrate in our own way, but we are open to anyone and we join with parishioners of all backgrounds.”

Rosalie Cabrera arrived in New York from the Philippines in 1988, hoping to advance her career in health care. In the Philippines, she says, her co-workers would perform daily masses, which included hymns, in the public areas of their hospital. She remembers fondly how patients would pack the hallways to listen and participate.

When Gedubig, then the leader of the staff choir at Montefiore Medical Center (which has its main entrance just across the street from St. Ann’s), asked her to sing in the hospital’s masses about seven or eight years ago, Cabrera agreed.

Soon after, Gedubig approached Monsignor Robert Trainor, St. Ann’s pastor at the time, with a proposal for a musical collaboration. The Montefiore choir became and still remains the St. Ann Novena Choir. (The Novena choir is fully made up of St. Ann’s members and no longer has any formal affiliation with Montefiore.)

Cabrera says “the church is like a family.” She keeps a photo album documenting her fellow choir members’ life celebrations — baptisms, weddings, Christmas parties — and speaks enthusiastically about how they have provided stability in her shifting life here in the States.

Others choir members agree. “After a week of work, choir practices are like therapy,” Espiritu says.

He recalls the experience of caroling in nursing homes with the Novena Choir on Christmas Day two years ago as one of the group’s most satisfying performances. “You should’ve seen the faces,” he says of the nursing home residents. “Some of them had tears in their eyes.”

It isn’t only special occasions that bring the parishioners together. Sundays after the noon Mass, St. Ann Choir member Remy Lazo prepares lunch for her fellow singers. Only after the friends have enjoyed the home cooking — often traditional Filipino dishes such as thick soup with eggs or noodles with shrimp — do they squeeze around the Lazo family’s upright piano to sing.

The choir has already begun preparation for this year’s Christmas performances. Practice for the Christmas concert, which features both choirs, started in mid-November. An effort is also being made to organize more caroling in nursing homes this holiday season.

In all seasons, what choir members value most is the way that the music has built their community and, consequently, increased year-round mass attendance. “We’re really more like a family than a choir,” said Espiritu. Then he laughed and added, “How else could we spend more time eating than singing?”

By Alex Kratz

Dogs bark because they sense danger. There are people who stand in front of other people’s doors and windows and tease a dog into barking. The dog is thinking correctly. These people are a danger.

Homeowners and apartment dwellers whose dogs are being teased should realize that the teaser is trying to have the dog declared a nuisance. The teasers are potential burglars.

People who approach other people’s dogs and attempt to show affection to the dog, without the consent of the owner, are probably also potential burglars.

Dogs can smell fear and might attack. Barking is not meaningless.

Cheri Fistel

Norwood

By None

With the publication of this issue, I am celebrating having completed 20 years with the Norwood News.

It hardly seems possible that more than 20 years have gone by since the first issue of the paper appeared on the scene, but I may have made a similar comment each time you achieved an additional five-year milestone. I guess it just seems that time passes that much more quickly the older we get. I wouldn’t have thought that I’d still be associated with the paper all these years later when I answered your call for volunteers in your first issue.

As soon as I came across that first edition in October of 1988, I contacted the office to volunteer. Back then, your second issue wasn’t published until two months later, so although the Norwood News officially celebrated its 20th year of publication with the October 2-15 issue, I am celebrating my own 20th anniversary with the paper with this issue.

I’m pleased to say that although I’ve seen people come and go over the years, that I’ve remained throughout, and hope to continue for as long as possible. It’s not everyone who enjoys their job and looks forward to coming to work, but I feel that in spite of various professions I’ve had over the years, I believe I found my calling as a proofreader.

Congratulations on completing 20 years of publication. I hope to be there for your next celebration.

Judy Noy

Norwood

By None

Re: your article “Room for Improvement” (Nov. 27 – Dec. 10).  It’s unfortunate to read about the shortcomings of the five-year plan for school construction in addressing overcrowding in District 10. As a parent in the article mentioned, overcrowding is forcing many schools to convert long cherished arts spaces into general classrooms. Music rooms, dance and performance spaces and art studios are being divided, walled and converted, and arts offerings, such as the dance program at the school on the Kennedy High School campus, are being eliminated. This is not an isolated occurrence. A recent survey of New York City principals revealed that 25 percent reported losing art, music, dance or drama spaces to general education classrooms. Extrapolated to the whole system, that’s several hundred schools that may have lost their arts space in recent years.

While easing overcrowding and providing adequate classroom space for public school students should be a top priority for the city, this should not be done by seizing and converting dedicated facilities necessary to support learning in the arts. Bronx parents should let their principals and elected officials know that this is not acceptable. The Department of Education should ensure that arts spaces in public schools are preserved and develop a plan to reclaim those arts spaces that have already been lost.  All of New York City’s schoolchildren deserve the arts education they are entitled to by state law.

Doug Israel

By Editorial

The city is trying once again to tack on another new and loathsome component to its already disastrous filtration plant project.

It proposes to snatch a chunk of parkland used by local kids to build a parking lot for the new golf course right next to Sachkerah Woods Playground, the only neighborhood benefit of what is shaping up to be the biggest boondoggle in Bronx history.

Because it’s technically for a park use, the city says it isn’t alienating additional parkland.

Maybe so, but after a litany of monumental screw-ups — not least of which is a tripling of the original price tag to around $3 billion —  you’d think they’d shy from riling the community yet again and show a little sense.

And while golf is a recreational purpose, it is barely one that benefits this community enough to warrant slapping down more asphalt. After all, the parking lot is obviously for people who live far away from Norwood.

The city should stick to its original plan and keep the parking lot on the north side, where it is now and was originally slated for after the project’s completion.

But we’re not naïve. We know this will take another push by advocates and elected officials to get the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to do the right thing — like when they stopped the agency from blasting at the Jerome Park Reservoir.

Maybe after taking another drubbing, the DEP will focus on finishing the plant and think twice before springing anything like this on the community again.

We can dream, can’t we?

By Alex Kratz

After only seven murders during the first 10-and-a-half months of the year, the 52nd Precinct experienced three in one week in November, all of them within a four-block radius in North Fordham.

Over the past 28 days, there were eight murders in the entire borough and three of them occurred in this neighborhood. The three appear to be unrelated, but the area has struggled for decades with blatant drug dealing and violence.

After finding a 40-year-old Hispanic man with a long history of arrests shot to death near 198th Street and Pond Place on Nov. 17, police said the murder may have been drug related. Police officials said no arrests have been made and that the investigation is ongoing.

Five days later on Nov. 22, a couple of blocks away at 2780 Grand Concourse, a 24-year-old Hispanic man was shot in the groin and later bled to death from the injuries. Two women, ages 22 and 24, were later arrested and charged with the killing.

The very next day, a 44-year-old black man was found beaten to death in his apartment on Marion Avenue, just blocks from the previous two murders.

An Impact Zone (which puts rookie cops on foot patrols in high crime neighborhoods) was recently moved from here to another part of the precinct. Also, due to lower crime stats in the early part of the year, the precinct lost dozens of cops to other commands and is down at least 50 officers from where it was a year ago.  So far, there have been 10 murders in 2008, compared to 12 by this point a year ago.

Police at the 52nd Precinct could not be reached by press time.    

By Jordan Moss

It is probable that only a small percentage of city residents can name their state legislators. But it’s hard to imagine that anyone in the northwest Bronx does not now — or won’t soon — know that their state senator is Pedro Espada.

Espada, a newly elected state senator for the 33rd Senate District, which includes all the neighborhoods of Community Board 7 and much of Community Board 5, seems to have catapulted himself to the top of the Senate leadership with some audacious, bare-knuckles deal-making.

By threatening not to support Queens State Senator Malcolm Smith in his bid to ascend to majority leader now that the Democrats have a two-seat majority in the chamber, Espada and two other renegade Dems – Ruben Diaz, Jr. of the Bronx and Carl Kruger of Brooklyn — extracted tremendous concessions from Smith.

Under the deal, which still has to be approved by the full Senate, Smith will still be the top Democrat in the chamber, but he’ll only retain the Constitutionally-proscribed title President Pro Tempore. Espada, will be the majority leader and will be vice chair of the Rules Committee, through which all legislation flows. It is still unclear, however, how much power Espada will wield, since Smith said on Monday in a press conference that current Deputy Minority Leader Jeffrey Klein, a Bronxite who has rapidly climbed the Senate’s leadership ladder, will remain his number two and take on the title of Vice President Pro Tempore.

(At press time, Espada, who did not return a call Tuesday, told the New York Times that he was “tremendously dismayed and disappointed” that his new post came with few responsibilities.)

Diaz was promised the chairmanship of the Aging Committee and Kruger the helm of the powerful Finance Committee.

The deal was reportedly brokered by Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks and upstate billionaire and perennial political aspirant Tom Golisano in a meeting also attended briefly by Governor Paterson.

Also reportedly part of the deal, and a concession to Diaz, was a promise not to bring legislation legalizing gay marriage to the floor of the Senate next year, according to the New York Times.

The Gang of Three or Three Amigos – as they’ve been called in the press – also exacted changes in the way the Senate is run, making it easier for Republicans to bring their legislation to the floor and assigning seating by alphabetical order rather than by party. The three Democrats have flirted with supporting the Republican leadership, making them unpopular on their own side of the aisle. But they’re now on the verge of becoming among the most powerful legislators in the Capitol.

As the New York Times put it: “The deal is a particular triumph for Mr. Espada and Mr. Kruger, who went from being pariahs in their own party to being two of its leading members.”

The rule changes that will allow Espada — who still has not registered his campaign committee a month after the election — to ascend to the carved out position of majority leader will have to be voted on in January, so anything could still happen. Democratic senators who oppose the plan gave Smith an earful at a closed-door meeting over the weekend, arguing that he had given away too much.

If Espada is ultimately successful, it takes some of the pressure off Gov. Paterson to appoint a Hispanic to Hillary Clinton’s U.S. Senate seat. Espada and Diaz said the lack of Hispanic leadership in significant positions was a key motive for their high-stakes political gamesmanship.

Ed. note: A version of this article originally appeared on the West Bronx Blog (www.west bronxnews.blogspot.com). Check the blog for regular updates on this and other political stories.

Public and Community Meetings

By None

•    The Community District 10 Education Council will meet on Dec. 11 at 6:15 p.m. in the auditorium of MS 118 located at 577 E. 179th St. The new school capital plan will be discussed. For more information, call (718) 741-5836.

•    The 52nd Precinct Community Council will meet on Dec. 18 at 7:30 p.m. at the Bronx Botanical Garden. Special guest speakers will include Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion and Chief Purtell of Patrol Borough Bronx. For more information, call (718) 220-5824.

•    Community Board 7 (CB7) will meet on Tuesday, Dec. 16 at 6:30 p.m. at the St. Ann’s Church cafeteria, 3519 Bainbridge Ave. For more information, call (718) 933-5650.

•    The  CB7 Land Use Committee will meet Dec. 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Community Board Office, 229A E. 204th St. For more information, call (718) 933-5650.

•    The CB7 Traffic & Transportation Committee will meet Dec. 18 at 6:30 p.m. at the Community Board Office, 229A E. 204th St. For more information, call (718) 933-5650.

•    The Economic Development Committee will meet Dec. 18 at 7 p.m. at the Community Board Office, 229A E. 204th St. For more information, call (718) 933-5650.

Mr. Rivera Goes to Washington

By Alex Kratz

When it was announced by CNN that Barack Obama would become the next president of the United States, Haile Rivera, a Dominican-born U.S. citizen who gave up his comfortable life in the Bronx for an upstart presidential candidate, put his head down and cried.

“I was just thinking back on the moments on the campaign, all the places we’d been and all the people we’d talked to and all the B.S. we endured. It was all worth it,” Rivera said in a phone interview from his University Heights apartment. “It was the perfect ending to a long-fought campaign.”

While the rest of his campaign colleagues in Hialeah, Florida (20 minutes northwest of Miami) gave each other champagne showers, Rivera called his girlfriend, crying. A quick shout out to his mom in Philadelphia, crying. In a conversation with a senior Obama advisor, he couldn’t hold back the tears.

For Rivera, the victory was pure validation for what he’d sacrificed. Rivera quit his beloved job with the New York City Food Bank and suspended his candidacy for the City Council last spring to join the Obama campaign in Philadelphia. He went on to help organize and train volunteers in Virginia, North Carolina, Puerto Rico and, finally, south Florida. He worked long hours for little pay. But, in the end, he said, “I realized that everything had paid off.”

A couple of weeks ago, Rivera took another big risk, accepting an unpaid and unknown position with Obama’s transition team in Washington, D.C. He left the Bronx on Monday after taking out a loan so he could keep his University Heights apartment, where he and his girlfriend, Cosette Morillo (who joined him on the campaign trail) have lived for the past few years.

Rivera may have to work for free until sometime after Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration, but he’s optimistic. “One thing I’ve noticed is that they take care of you,” Rivera said.

Ready for Your Complaints

By Alex Kratz

When Fernando Tirado became the new district manager for Community Board 7 in January, one of his main goals was to create a comprehensive Web site for the board, a place on the Internet where local residents could find out valuable information and submit complaints and suggestions.

While the site remains “under construction,” residents can now submit complaints and send e-mails to the board office through the new Web site. Check out the new site and send in a complaint at www.bronxcb7.info. Tirado has said he hopes to have the rest of the site completed sometime next year.

 

Hunger Crisis Hits Bronx Hardest

By Peter Mullin

Coinciding with the floundering economy, record numbers of food pantries and soup kitchens of the Bronx struggled to keep up with the increased demand for emergency food services in 2008. Emergency food agencies in the Bronx reported the highest numbers in both increased demand and turning people away.

According to a recently released survey conducted by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, 90 percent of all responding Bronx food providers testified to an increased demand for food, while over 70 percent reported limiting portion size, hours of operation, and turning people away. Only agencies in Queens had a tougher time dealing with insufficient amounts of food in the face of a growing demand.

“The bad news is that we have more agencies than ever running out of food,” said Joel Berg, the Coalition’s executive director, in a statement. “The hunger situation which was truly awful in 2007 has now reached crisis proportions.”

Families with children, senior citizens and immigrants showed the highest increase in need, the survey concluded.

Mixed Memories of Ramon Velez

By Peter Mullin

A polarizing figure throughout his life, the death of Ramon Velez has proven to be no different, inspiring a wide range of reactions to the passing of the anti-poverty baron who ran the South Bronx political machine for more than a quarter of a century.

From fawning remembrances to more moderate recollections of the man once described by former mayor Ed Koch as a “poverty pimp,” politicians and journalists alike have weighed in on Velez’s passing.

Described as both corpulent and baby-faced in historian Jill Jonnes’ book South Bronx Rising, Velez’s figure was a caricature of the “macho male Latino.”  Born in the rural Puerto Rican village of Hormigueros, he came to New York in 1962 finding work as a welfare caseworker in Hunts Point. Velez rose to power through his control of the Hunts Point Multi-Service Center, where he provided jobs and services to many from the impoverished community, often in exchange for political patronage, while enriching himself with a share of the federal funding he was so successful at leveraging.

Called the “ironfisted godfather of Puerto Rican politics” in a recent Daily News column by Juan Gonzalez, Velez was regularly under investigation for corruption, yet never convicted of a crime — a fact, the Times reported in 2001, he wore as a badge of honor.  Writing recently in the Times, David Gonzalez recalled Velez’s empire as a “tangled and lucrative network of nonprofit groups receiving millions in government financing for services that regulators faulted for being shoddy or mediocre.”

From his fiefdom, an array of Puerto Rican politicians rose to prominence, including Congressman Jose Serrano, Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, and former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, among others. Recently, Serrano acknowledged the contributions Velez made as a community organizer to the rise of Puerto Rican participation in Bronx politics.

Citing increased voter registration, an increased respect for the city’s Spanish-speaking population, and his work at the Hunts Point Multi-Service Center, Serrano called Ramon Velez’s impact “unparalleled” in New York City. “He was a visionary and a talented organizer,” the congressman said in a statement. “Our community will miss this great man.”   

 

 

Bx34 & Bx10 on Chopping Block

By Chloe Tribich

In response to a budget shortfall, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) proposed system-wide fare hikes and service cuts, including the elimination of bus service that connects Bronx riders in northwest Bronx neighborhoods.

If the proposal is implemented, the Bx10 bus, which joins Norwood to Riverdale, will cease nighttime operation. The Bx34 bus, which connects Fordham Road to Woodlawn via Bainbridge Avenue, will be eliminated altogether.

“To fulfill our obligation to close a $1.2 billion deficit, the MTA had to draw up many painful proposals,” said MTA spokesperson Aaron Donovan in an e-mail. “Bus routes were identified for weekday elimination based on ridership, revenue and service duplication.”

According to the MTA, the Bx10 carries an average of 10,197 riders a day and ranks 96th out of 194 New York City bus routes for ridership. The Bx34 carries a daily average of 4,972 riders and ranks 140th. The busiest routes in Manhattan carry over 100,000 riders daily, the MTA says.

Since the Bx10 and Bx34 are not fully duplicated by other lines, many riders will have to transfer at least once and walk longer distances if the cuts are implemented. Those who can’t walk up and down subway steps will have even fewer options.

“We know [service cuts are] going to affect residents because people have come to our office to complain,” said Community Board 7 District Manager Fernando Tirado, adding that the fare hikes – which could rise up to $3 (from $2) for a one way trip — would be particularly hurtful.

“The elimination of the Bx34 and [reduction of the] Bx10 will be a major problem for our seniors especially,” said Sister Catherine Naughton, who does senior outreach for St. Brendan’s Church in Norwood. “It’s going to severely limit their travels.”

The MTA is a state authority that oversees mass transit in New York City and seven adjacent counties. Revenue is drawn from rider fares and from dedicated tax streams — a portion of New York’s 8.375 percent sales tax, for example, goes to the MTA. The 17 board members, who are nominated by the governor and confirmed by the State Senate, are required to balance the authority’s budget.  

The cuts, proposed by the MTA on Nov. 20, are not final. A special commission, appointed by Governor David Paterson and headed by former MTA chair Richard Ravitch, recently recommended the state raise taxes to increase cash flow to the MTA, mitigating service reduction and fare hikes.

On Dec. 17, the MTA will vote on the principles of its budget proposal. Later in the winter, the agency will hold public hearings on the fare increases and vote on the exact increase amounts.

“The fare increases are envisioned to be implemented in June,” Donovan wrote. “Service cuts would have staggered implementation dates in the first half of 2009.”

The state, however, could pass tax increases to replenish MTA coffers and minimize cuts. Stipulations to save particular bus lines would not necessarily be included in the legislation, but lawmakers could secure commitments from the MTA to prioritize areas important to their constituents.

Cate Contino, coordinator of the nonprofit New York Public Interest Research Group’s Straphangers’ Campaign, said raising taxes would be a way to maintain reasonable service and fare levels. “New York City riders already pay an overwhelming proportion of the transit operating budget through fares,” she said.

In November, the MTA reported that 69 percent of subway operating costs and 39 percent of bus operating costs were funded by riders. Contino says the national average is about 37 percent.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, whose district encompasses much of the northwest Bronx, agreed that raising payroll and commuter taxes was prudent. “Cutting services ends up costing us in the long run,” he said. “We should be improving service to encourage people to take public transportation. Service improvement is a revenue producer.”

Dinowitz cautioned, however, that state tax increases couldn’t fix everything. Limited fare hikes are inevitable, he said, and the “MTA needs to look at how it can save money. How much [of the deficit] is due to MTA incompetence?”

MTA hearings on fare increases should be scheduled in coming weeks. Details will be posted on the MTA’s website at least 30 days in advance, the agency said.

Meanwhile, riders await the outcome. “I really need this bus, because I have a bad problem with my back,” said Sharon Bryan, who boards the Bx34 at Bainbridge Avenue and 212th Street after work. “It would take me an extra half an hour to get home if I didn’t have it.”

 

Tenants Pressure State Agency on Unfair Rent Increases

By Alex Kratz

In October, Amanda Texeira, a young single mother, took her two young kids out of school to get an early life lesson in a real world classroom.

Texeira wanted her kids to know why they hadn’t seen much of her in the past 10 months and why the fridge was barren, so she took them to the Bronx offices of the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) on Fordham Road.

A significant rent hike, approved in 2007 and imposed by the DHCR this past January, was forcing Texeira, a non-unionized teacher at a Harlem charter school, to work nights and weekends to keep up with payments.

“I wanted them to know why mommy isn’t home as much as she should be,” Texeira said. “I wanted them to see what we’ve been fighting against and get that experience.”

Texeira and other tenants at the building, 2720 Grand Concourse, have appealed the imposed increase, which DHCR granted for Major Capital Improvements (or MCIs), because they say it is unwarranted, or at the very least, exorbitant.

MCIs

DHCR grants rent increases at rent-controlled buildings when landlords make MCIs, which include significant renovations (like remodeling every unit’s kitchen) or the replacement of outdated equipment or elements (like new windows). But landlords first must apply to DHCR and provide proof that they’ve done the renovations and paid what they say they’ve paid.

In this case, the building’s landlord, Jacob Selechnik, applied for a $1.5 million MCI increase for replacing the building’s deteriorating roof parapets. Lawyers for the tenants say there is no doubt some work was done, but not $1.5 million worth. In addition, they charge in the appeal, the landlord’s proof of payment was inadequate, there were serious housing violations when it was approved and the parapet’s replacement could have been prevented if the previous landlords would have done the legally required upkeep. (Selechnik didn’t return several calls seeking comment.)

Since February, the DHCR has twice failed to rule on the appeal in the allotted 90-day time period (according to its internal regulations), meaning tenants have had to pay the six percent increase since January. Another six percent hike will kick in at the beginning of the New Year.

In an e-mail last week, Nancy Peters, a spokesperson for the DHCR, said the 2720 appeal “is being processed thoroughly and expeditiously and we expect to have a decision in the next few weeks.” She said the increase is being upheld while the appeal is still being processed because that’s the way the law is written.

Tenants went to the DHCR offices to request a meeting with the agency’s commissioner to talk about their specific case, but they also wanted to highlight, by chanting slogans and carrying signs, some of the DHCR’s failings in general. It was part of a coordinated effort led by the Northwest Bronx and Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC) and Housing Here and Now, an umbrella organization of housing advocates.

DHCR ‘Broken’

For the past year, Housing Here and Now has tried mostly unsuccessfully to talk with DHCR about implementing systematic reforms for what they feel has become an agency that heavily favors landlords over tenants.

“DHCR has consistently fallen short in its mission of protecting tenants in rent-regulated housing,” said Michelle O’Brien, Housing Here and Now’s executive director. “They have allowed flagrant landlord abuse of rent increases on rent-regulated apartments. They have done far too little to prevent illegal rent overcharges, [including] MCI increases for basic needed repair work caused by landlord negligence.”

In October, tenants held up signs outside DHCR’s Fordham Plaza offices that read, “DHCR is broken.”

Generally speaking, O’Brien says landlords regularly abuse the MCI system by applying for rent increases for repair work “that simply brings their property into compliance” with the housing code. And DHCR often approves it, according to Housing Here and Now. For example, DHCR granted an MCI increase at a Manhattan building, 163 Starr St., when the landlord installed smoke detectors.

Judith Goldiner of the Legal Aid Society says the biggest problem is that many tenants don’t know their rights when it comes to rent increases.

O’Brien says this is because the DHCR doesn’t educate tenants. For instance, the agency notifies tenants that an MCI increase has been filed. But, as was the case at 2720, tenants don’t understand the process and didn’t start fighting it until after it was approved.

Also, if the DHCR’s 90-day window for ruling on appeals passes (which it has twice), tenants are supposed to assume the DHCR’s original ruling stands. It’s up to tenants to file for an extension if they’re not satisfied.

DHCR receives about 120 MCI applications from landlords every month and at least 90 percent of them are approved (at least partially), according to Peters. But the DHCR doesn’t usually go to a building to inspect the work that’s been done unless tenants complain, Peters said, adding that the agency had done more inspections under its current commissioner than the previous one.

Reinforcements

“[Not reacting before the MCI was granted] was our fault,” said Dino Rossi, a former activist who’s led the exhaustive fight to overturn the MCI at 2720. “But that doesn’t mean our argument isn’t valid.”

To help tenants make that argument, Rossi enlisted organizers at the NWBCCC and lawyers from the Urban Justice Center (UJC). Over the summer, the UJC tapped Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, a national law firm based in Manhattan to take the case on pro bono.

“We’re lucky to have all this help,” Rossi said recently. “It makes me sad and depressed when I think about all the tenants who aren’t organized and are being victimized.”

In October, two days after the protest at the DHCR, Stroock lawyers filed a final argument with DHCR enumerating the reasons why the MCI should overturned, or at the very least modified “to just and equitable standards.”

At the DHCR’s offices in October, a case worker met with Texeira, her two kids and a couple of NWBCCC advocates. Candidly, he told them appeals usually take about a week, but if the agency puts it on the back-burner, it can take five or 10 years. (Officially, DHCR wouldn’t say how long it usually takes, how many tenant appeals they receive or how many are granted.)

Texeira, who shares her story of hardship with dozens of other tenants at 2720, walked away a little discouraged, but glad she’d made the trip with her two kids. Out in front of the agency’s office building, her son Leonardo proudly held up a sign reading: “The DHCR took our Mommy.”

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