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Editorial: NYPD Hides Neighborhood Crime Stats

By Editorial Staff

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

A little history:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Living Wage Bill Gets a Hearing; Vacca Remains Unconvinced

By Alex Kratz

The City Council held a long-awaited hearing on a controversial living wage bill last Thursday, with both sides of the debate testifying about the potential effects of the legislation in a session that lasted over two hours.

The Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act, sponsored by Bronx Council Members Oliver Koppell and Annabel Palma, would require developers of projects receiving taxpayer subsidies of more than $100,000 to pay workers $10 an hour with benefits, or $11.50 without.

The bill, which sprang from the living wage fight that derailed a plan to develop the Kingsbridge Armory into a shopping mall, has the support of every Bronx Council member, with the exception of James Vacca, who had said he was waiting for a hearing on the issue before taking a side.

“He’s wary of any legislation that might prevent jobs, and I’m not sure he’s convinced,” said Vacca spokesman Bret Nolan Collazzi, in a phone interview after the hearing.

“We’re not planning on signing on at this time,” he said.

The legislation currently has the support of 30 Council members; 34 are needed to override a mayoral veto.

The assertion that a living wage mandate would kill jobs was put forth in a report released by the city’s Economic Development Corporation last week. The 44-page study concluded that requiring employers to pay a higher wage would ultimately stifle commercial development and job growth.

“That is a cost we cannot afford to bear,” said Tokumbo Shobowale, chief of staff for Robert Steel, Bloomberg’s deputy mayor for economic development, in his testimony at last week’s hearing. Read more

Local Politicians Reach Out Through Town Hall Meetings

By Fausto Giovanny Pinto and ALEX KRATZ

In Kingsbridge Heights, they asked about the plan for developing the Kingsbridge Armory and alienating parkland. In Mt. Hope, they asked about the mounting murder count. And in Van Cortlandt Village, they asked about the Indian Hills nuclear power plant, just a few dozen miles up the interstate.

This spring, in a departure from recent history, local elected officials are holding town hall meetings throughout the northwest Bronx and asking residents to voice their concerns, questions and conundrums. Though attendance hasn’t been overwhelming, new State Senator Gustavo Rivera, who represents a sprawling chunk of the northwest Bronx, says the forums have been helpful and will continue as long as he is in office.

“The main thing is that I want everyone in my district to have access to me and my staff and have direct interactions with me,” Rivera said.

Last month, Rivera participated in a town hall forum in Van Cortlandt Village, along with other representatives of the area, including Congressman Eliot Engel, Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz and Councilman Oliver Koppell.

Rivera, who just recently opened up a district office on the Grand Concourse near Fordham Road, did not organize that forum, but he did set up two recent town hall meetings — one at BronxWorks’ Morris Senior Center in Mt. Hope and another at the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center. Read more

Students Benefit From Tech-aided Reading Program

By Lulaine Compere

At a school named for a 19th century literary giant, young students are now learning to read through technology made convenient and accessible only in the 21st century.

Ivonne Granda says her kindergarten class at PS 46, the Edgar Allan Poe Literacy Development School in North Fordham, has developed a love for reading through the Award Reading Program, which combines the use of interactive computer software with group and individual reading practices.

Granda and others at the school are hoping the new program improves the school’s underwhelming performance on last year’s state exams. Just 30 percent of PS 46 students read at or above their grade reading level, according to Department of Education statistics. The scores contributed to the school receiving a “D” grade for performance and an overall “C” grade in the city’s latest annual progress report. Read more

Green Housing for Seniors Opens in Bedford Park

By By Jeanmarie Evelly

Tony Carter remembers the New York City apartments of his youth: the cramped spaces, the flights of stairs he had to walk up, the rooms that were always too hot or too cold.

Now in his 60s, Carter’s current apartment has its own thermostat and air conditioner. He was the first tenant to move into Serviam Gardens, an affordable housing complex for seniors that officially opened May 3 in Bedford Park, on the campus of the Academy of Mount St. Ursula.

The stunning complex was designed to meet green building standards and boasts luxury amenities, including a movie theatre-style entertainment room, rooftop garden, fitness room and gym, library and a game room with billiards and ping-pong tables.

“No one, including myself, actually dreamed of having this quality of living and this quality of housing at this stage of our lives,” Carter said. “You wake up in the morning with a smile on your face. You don’t have to lock your doors.”

The Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation, a local affordable housing developer, spearheaded the $68 million project, leasing the property surrounding an unused former convent from the Ursuline Sisters, a group of nuns who run Mount St. Ursula, a historic all-girls high school on Bedford Park Boulevard.

John Reilly, the executive director at Fordham Bedford, said the Sisters contacted him several years ago as they were exploring possible uses for vacant parts of their campus. Read more

Proposed ‘Tech’ Charter May Open on Webster

By Alex Kratz

Two educators are hoping to open a charter school in the northwest Bronx, possibly on Webster Avenue.

Steve Bergen and Adjowah Scott, two former colleagues at an independent, tuition-free K-8 school in Harlem, have applied with the State University of New York’s Charter Schools Institute to establish their own middle school here in the Bronx.

The months-long application process should come to a head in June, Bergen says, when the two will find out if their proposal has been approved by the State.

They are calling the proposed school “Tech International,” and say their vision is a curriculum based around strong reading, writing and math skills, an added emphasis on the use of technology — every student would get their own laptop and e-reader — and a focus on different cultures and worldviews.

“We have ambitions to make this a very special school in the Bronx,” Bergen said.

If approved, the school would open in the fall of 2012, serving grades six through eight and starting with a class of 88 students, Bergen said, but he would hope to eventually expand the school through grade 12.

Bergen is a longtime math teacher and Scott has a background in special education. For the past several years, the two have run a program called “Tech Saturdays” in Harlem, which offers free computer skills classes to students and their families, and sets them up with refurbished or donated computers.

“We really have come up with an approach to using technology and international connections to help kids in underserved areas succeed,” Bergen said. “We want to take what we’re doing [now], and have a bigger impact.”

There are four charter schools currently operating in District 10, which covers most of the northwest Bronx, and two more are scheduled to open this fall.
Marvin Shelton, president of the district’s Community Education Council, said the community is likely to see an influx of charters in the coming years, since the State Legislature voted last spring to raise the cap on the number allowed in New York, from 200 to 460.

Charters schools, which are publicly funded but independent from the regulations of traditional public schools, can sometimes be a source of controversy. In a city like New York, many schools must compete for limited resources — building space in particular.

“We prefer them to find their own space,” Shelton said. “Anytime a charter is going to go in a public school building, it decreases that area’s ability to absorb students. Our buildings are supposed to serve the local community.”

Tech International hopes to open at 2348 Webster Ave., in a building currently occupied by another charter school, Bronx Community, which is expanding and will move to a new building on Webster and 205th Street in the 2012 school year.

With Local Support, Tenants Take on Landlord

By Alex Kratz

The beleaguered but emboldened residents of 85 Strong St. gathered in the lobby of their apartment building on Sunday afternoon to demand action from their aloof landlord. It felt like a high school play. Some glanced at scripts, while others held up props. Everyone took their places. Lights. News 12 cameras. Action.

It was opening day for these Kingsbridge-area tenants who say they are finally fighting back after enduring more than two decades of neglect and unresponsiveness from their landlord, Martin Hyman. Organizers and other activists who helped orchestrate the rally say 85 Strong residents are not alone. This type of treatment is happening to tenants in buildings throughout the borough.

“It’s a systematic problem in the Bronx,” said Sergio Cuevas, who became active in the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition when his own building, 2785 Sedgwick Ave., one of the infamous Milbank buildings, began to rapidly deteriorate from neglect. (The Milbank buildings were sold to a landlord who agreed to make repairs with city oversight. Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Christine Quinn both recently attended an announcement of what they considered a historic agreement.)

The Coalition, which was established in 1974 to combat rampant housing neglect, never stopped organizing tenants, but its success in getting citywide attention for its Milbank work appears to signal a renewed focus on housing work. The Coalition’s lead housing organizer, Gabe Pendas, said the group is now working in 117 Bronx buildings.

“They’re empowering us to go forward,” said Cuevas, who was so fired up at the 85 Strong rally that he flubbed a couple of his chants.
In the cast of 85 Strong St., Josie Rodriguez is the main character. A 27-year resident of the building, Rodriguez said Hyman wants old tenants in the rent-stabilized building out, so he can hike up rents. He encourages them to leave, she said, by simply doing nothing when tenants complain about leaks or rats or wheelchair access or mold or cockroaches.

“He doesn’t really do anything,” Rodriguez said. “And when he does, it’s quick patch-up jobs by unlicensed workers.”

Hyman did not respond to calls for this article. Read more

Q&A: Dr. Jane Bedell, Bronx District Public Health Office

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Interview by Jeanmarie Evelly

In 2003, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene opened regional offices in several high-needs neighborhoods that have some of the worst health outcomes in the city. The South Bronx District Public Health Office is located at 1826 Arthur Ave. This week, Be Healthy! caught up with Assistant Commissioner Jane Bedell, M.D. to see what her office is working on.

Q: What do District Public Health Offices do?
A: This was set up under then-commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden, essentially as a response to a lot of health data that showed there were certain areas of the city that had the most health challenges. There are three district offices throughout the city, and we all have a slightly different lead item that we work on. Here in the South Bronx, we work on lowering the unintended teen pregnancy rate—about 90 percent of teen pregnancies are unintended. We recently got a grant from the [federal Centers for Disease Control] to do a whole bunch of work in Community Districts 2 and 3, working with the schools in that area.

Q: Are there other health issues that you think are the most pressing?
A: The one set of data that is going in the wrong direction is around obesity and diabetes. We do a lot of local initiatives around fitness and nutrition. What we hope our work will do is change the environment so that the healthy choices are the easy choices. Right now, it’s difficult to live in the south Bronx and make healthy choices, because the options are pretty limited.

We’ve been working with bodegas, trying to get more fresh fruits and vegetables into local corner stores. There’s the green cart initiative—something the Health Department has been working on for quite some time that we think is starting to catch on, and help change the landscape here when it comes to the availability of fresh produce. We also fund “Shape Up New York,” a no-cost fitness program. A lot of people don’t have the income to support a gym membership, and there aren’t a lot of gyms in the Bronx to begin with.

Q: How big is your staff?
A: We focus mostly on the south Bronx, and we have about 25 to 30 folks [who work here]. That’s a small number compared to the population. What we try to do is work with other community-based organizations, houses of worship, local schools, community boards—basically anyone who wants to partner with us, we’re interested in working with. That’s a way of amplifying our effect.

Q: The Bronx has a bad reputation when it comes to health. What do you make of that?
A: Pretty much on every health outcome, the Bronx is at or near the bottom when compared the rest of the state. There shouldn’t be a big difference between the lowest ranking and the highest-ranking counties, and yet there is.
We’ve got pretty big hurdles [to overcome]. Most big health statistics are really driven by poverty and education levels, and those are the big picture things to keep in mind. But, that being said, we think we’re really on track with a lot of our initiatives.

Business Powwow at Beso Lounge

Merchants and business development groups gathered at the elegant Beso Lounge on East 204th Street in Norwood last week to network and compare notes.

The event, organized by Mosholu Preservation Corporation (publisher of the Norwood News)  and the East 204th Street/Bainbridge Avenue Merchants Association, with help from the Small Business Development Center at Lehman College, featured information about business loans, marketing, security and the potential for creating a Business Improvement District in the area. State Senator Gustavo Rivera attended as did 52nd Precinct Commander Joseph Dowling.

Foodtown and Sal’s Pizza provided refreshments for the event, which was sponsored by the city’s Department of Small Business Services, and Lucero Flower Shop provided floral arrangments . For more information on issues and programs affecting local small businesses, contact Michael Lambert, MPC deputy director at (718) 324-4946 or e-mail mlambert@mpcbronx.org.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clinton Baseball Eyes Playoffs

By Selim Khan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Armory Report Coming in June

By Alex Kratz

At a town hall forum in Kingsbridge Heights on Sunday, State Senator Gustavo Rivera said the Bronx borough president’s Kingsbridge Armory task force was in the final stages of completing its recommendations for redeveloping the massive building that has been vacant for nearly two decades. They will release the report in June, he said.

The task force, made up of a long list of influential Bronx stakeholders, has been meeting periodically since early last year. In the fall, New York University graduate students took on the redevelopment of the Armory as a capstone project and has been working with the task force ever since. A few weeks ago, the NYU team presented the task force with its final report, which Rivera said he still “digesting.” He said the task force will probably meet again and hash out all the particulars before the borough president’s office authorizes the final recommendations.

“The most important thing is that, whatever happens with the Armory, it should benefit the community,” Rivera

Ferrer Named to MTA Board

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Former Bronx borough president and two-time mayoral candidate Freddy Ferrer was appointed on Monday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board, the governing body that oversees the state agency (and, most notably, approves all of those fare hikes and service changes).

Ferrer served as borough president of the Bronx for 14 years, from 1987 to 2001, before making a run for mayor. He currently works for the public affairs firm Mercury.

Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. said he was pleased with the choice.

“I am thrilled that my predecessor, Fernando Ferrer, has been nominated by Governor Andrew Cuomo to serve as a member of the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority,” Diaz said in a statement. “We could not ask for a better choice. I consider Freddy to be both a close mentor and a dear friend, and I know that he will serve not only the Bronx but the entire city well in this endeavor.

Gillibrand Visits Monte

By Jeanmarie Evelly

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand made a stop in the Bronx recently to attend a “healthy eating” fair at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in Norwood.

The senator took a quick tour of several booths set up in the hospital’s lobby, where staff presented visitors with nutritional information and tips for eating healthier.

“This display is all about nutrition,” said Gillibrand, who sits on the Senate’s Agriculture and Nutrition Committee, the first New York representative to do so for nearly four decades. She’s sponsored legislation to ban trans-fats in school lunches and increase funding for child fitness programs.

“Too many of our children are obese,” she told reporters on her visit today. “We need to do much better.”

The Bronx has some of the bleakest obesity statistics in the State. According to a 2009 report from Gillibrand’s office, 62.7 percent of Bronx County adults are overweight or obese. In the South Bronx, a third of pre-schoolers enrolled in the city’s Head Start program are obese.

The Bronx’s First-Ever Urban Farm Tour

Editor’s note: For more info and a slideshow of photos from the urban farms tour, click here.

On Saturday, May 14, in conjunction with Bronx Week, the borough’s tourism council held its first-ever Urban Farm Tour.

The event helped commemorate the anniversary of the Bronx’s first Bronx Food Summit, which was held last May. The farm tour was sponsored by the Bronx Tourism Council, The Bronx Food and Sustainability Coalition and the New York Botanical Garden.

The tour began in midtown Manhattan where participants boarded a trolley and traveled to three different farms in the Bronx. It attracted residents from the Bronx, as well as Manhattan and even included tourists from Korea.

Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. visited the second stop on the tour, the Garden of Happiness, at 182nd Street and Prospect Avenue, which he described as “a little oasis of tranquility.”

He told participants that this is one of the many Bronx Week events dedicated to health and nutrition.

Taxi Crashes Into Fordham Rd. Store; Kills 1, Injures 5

By David Greene and Lulaine Compere

A 61-year-old Fordham-area resident was killed late last month when a livery cab driver lost control of his Lincoln Town Car at a busy Fordham Road intersection last month and crashed through a storefront window.

On Thursday, April 21, at about 2 p.m., authorities and witnesses said 61-year-old Carmen Ahmed had just left Cee & Cee Department Store at 331 E. Fordham Rd., near the corner of Bainbridge Avenue, when the taxi jumped the curb and pinned her under vehicle.
Emergency rescue crews arrived and freed Ahmed, who was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital but she died on the way there.

Ahmed, a grandmother of five, lived on Bainbridge Avenue, just down the block from the store, and, coincidentally, worked at the billing department at St. Barnabas for the last 18-years. “She was a popular and beloved employee, and for a long time she was part of the St. Barnabas family,” hospital spokesman Steven Clark told the Daily News. “It’s really a terrible time here.” Read more

Picture the Homeless Challenges Perceptions of Marginalized

By Rachel Sander

Adjusting the yellow bow in her thick gray locks of hair, Arvenetta Henry clasped her hands under her chin. “Everyone calls me Miss Henry,” she said with a smile, “because I am a teacher.”

Henry, who wouldn’t give her exact age, but admits she is over 50, spent most of her adult life as a Bronx teacher. She is no longer in the traditional classroom setting, but through a nonprofit homeless advocacy organization operated by the very homeless population it serves, Henry continues to teach.

“When I was teaching in the 1980s, I didn’t know what transitional housing meant when my students told me about it,” she said. “Now that term has a whole new concept.”

Henry became homeless 18 months ago and sought refuge in a local shelter. But one day, she returned from work to find her bags packed. Shelter workers informed her that she and other homeless city workers were being transferred to Queens.

While living in Queens, she had to wake up at 5 a.m. in order to commute to her teaching job in the Bronx. Her transitional apartment building had an 8 p.m. curfew. Henry was having trouble making it to work and home on time.

“I went to the union,” she said. But, “being homeless is almost like having a disease; they didn’t want to touch it.”

She eventually lost her teaching job as well. It was at this point a friend told her about Picture the Homeless (PTH).

Located in the same building as Fordham Lutheran Church, at 2427 Morris Ave., just south of Fordham Road, PTH is a nonprofit that functions as a learning center for homeless advocacy in the Bronx. Read more

Gustavo Rivera Moves Senate Back To Neighborhood

By Alex Kratz

Like every New York state senator, when 33rd District representative Gustavo Rivera moved into his local office, he received two flags — the stars and stripes of the United States of America and the goddesses of Liberty and Justice of New York state — as well as a copy machine and a dated set of rectangular office furniture.

“They [senate administrative staffers] told me they only had rectangular furniture,” said Rivera’s communications director Conchita Cruz, sitting in the new office on the fifth floor of the Poe Building on the Grand Concourse, across from the Loew’s Paradise Theater. “But they said they had received a lot of requests for oval tables.”

At this point, nearly four months into Rivera’s freshman senate term, Cruz and the rest of staff, including six full-timers and two part-timers, are happy to have any furniture. Since the first of the year, Rivera and his team have been essentially working out of their backpacks and briefcases as the senate negotiated a lease on the senator’s district office. (Rivera’s office identified the Poe Building space in early January and the state requires several layers of approval in order to enter into a lease agreement.)

While Cruz and Rivera sometimes worked out of their apartments, the staff mostly did business from a handful of mobile locations or the senate offices at 250 Broadway in downtown Manhattan.

There were blogosphere grumblings critical of Rivera for not securing a district office quickly enough. Although he said the process was completely out of his control, Rivera admitted he was frustrated about the delay and his office has said it’s a stark illustration of how even the basic functions of government machinery have broken down in Albany. Read more

Ex-Cop Found Guilty in Beating of Suspect

By Jeanmarie Evelly

A former NYPD officer in the 52nd Precinct was convicted of assault on April 26, after pleading guilty to the 2010 beating of a handcuffed prisoner during a drug-bust gone awry in University Heights.

Ex-cop John Cicero, 30, pleaded guilty to beating 26-year-old Jonathan Baez on a Davidson Avenue sidewalk in January 2010. He admitted to punching Baez several times in the head and slamming his head into the pavement, according to a statement from the Bronx District Attorney’s Office. The assault was captured on video by someone watching nearby.

At the time, Cicero was responding to a radio call from two undercover narcotics detectives who had been hit by stray bullets after a fellow detective fired his gun at a pit bull that attacked them, a press release said. Baez was already handcuffed and in custody when Cicero arrived on the scene.

The former police officer, who resigned from the NYPD a month after the assault, was sentenced to 400 hours of community service. The judge issued an order of protection for Baez.

At 110, Holy Nativity Tries to Reinvent Itself

By Lulaine Compere

If not for an official from a faraway West African nation, the Church of the Holy Nativity in Norwood would have seen its 110th birth year come and go without so much as a peep.

“One of our wardens from Sierra Leone got us to celebrate our 110the anniversary,” says Richard Kelly, a longtime parishioner.

That Holy Nativity, an Episcopalian congregation, was reminded of its lengthy local history by a man from Sierra Leone, says a lot about the state of the church. Some long-standing church members, like Kelly, remain. But like many area churches, Holy Nativity’s numbers have shrunk and its congregation has diversified racially and ethnically.    Read more

Devastated Milbank Buildings Finally Sold

By Jeanmarie Evelly

It was a rare scene for the transfer of a residential apartment building: tenants, a new landlord and a variety of city elected officials, from the mayor on down, gathered April 26 for a press conference that turned out to be a celebration.

The now-infamous Bronx Milbank buildings — including 2785 Sedgwick Ave., 2500 University Ave., and 2505 Aqueduct Ave., all in University Heights — were finally sold last month to a new landlord after months of local organizing and city involvement. Tenants, advocates and elected officials had fought to wrest the portfolio of 10 deeply troubled properties from irresponsible bankers and owners to a party who could afford to make them livable again.

Over 100 people showed up for the announcement of the sale at 3018 Heath Ave., where the building had brand new windows — the first of what tenants hope will be many improvements to come at this and the other Milbank properties.

“My building is a plumbing disaster,” said Maggie Maldonado, who lives in the Sedgwick Avenue apartments.

“We now have someone to communicate with — someone to hold accountable,” said another tenant, Twyla Rashid, who described conditions at her building as “devastating.”

The one to hold accountable now is Steven Finkelstein, a Scarsdale-based landlord who purchased the mortgage and the deeds to the properties in a $28 million deal last month, and faces a mountain of some 4,000 housing code violations.

As part of the deal, Finkelstein promised to start making serious and immediate repairs and will have to report back regularly to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development about the work he’s done.

“Accountability, I have no problem with,” Finkelstein said, as he stood surrounded by reporters with notepads and cameras. “All the press attention, I could do without.” Read more

Be Healthy: National Health Survey Gives Bronx a Checkup

By Jeanmarie Evelly

For the first time in more than 20 years, a national study that measures the health and nutrition status of Americans across the country has set its sights on the Bronx, which is consistently ranked as one of the unhealthiest counties in the nation.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, surveys 6,500 residents from 15 counties across the nation each year. The data gathered is meant to provide a snapshot of the country’s health and is used by legislators and officials to influence health programs and policies.

“It’s kind of like a health report card for the nation,” said senior study manager Nora Martinello.

Staff from the CDC started knocking on doors across the Bronx last week to conduct health interviews at a random sampling of addresses. Starting in the middle of May, about 500 chosen residents will undergo full, confidential medical exams from a team of survey physicians, dentists, nutritionists, and lab technicians. Read more

Is Mayor Open to ‘Every Good Idea’ on Armory?

By Jordan Moss

It seemed like the big freeze between the mayor and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. as it relates to the Kingsbridge Armory, was thawing just a tad.

At a press conference on April 26 in Kingsbridge, the Norwood News asked Mayor Bloomberg if his administration was willing to consider new plans for the Kingsbridge Armory, since Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. will release a report in June drafted by the NYU Wagner School of Public Policy with recommendations for redeveloping the vacant landmark.

“We’re open to every good idea,” the mayor said, exhibiting none of the bitterness some have attributed to him for having his preferred plan for the facility — a mall developed by The Related Companies — killed by Diaz and many of the very same people that were at the press conference to cheer him on for the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to get a portfolio of 10 nightmare apartment buildings into the hands of a new, accountable owner.

And just this week on Gary Axelbank’s BronxTalk show, Diaz said he was pleased with the mayor’s comments, which were reported on the Bronx News Network website (www.bronxnewsnetwork.org).

But the day after the event we received this unsolicited statement from the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), appearing to walk back the mayor’s sunny comments at the press conference. “We’re interested in hearing feasible proposals that don’t cost the City more money than we can spend and that have private sector investment that isn’t completely backstopped by City dollars,” the statement read.

Asked to respond, John DeSio, the Diaz spokesman said this in a statement: “Shortly, the task force will issue its final report, which will identify appropriate usage for this site as well as funding streams that can make those proposals a reality. Borough President Diaz feels that the report of the task force must be used to develop a new RFP [request for proposals] for the Kingsbridge Armory.”
Whether the mayor is “open” to that idea remains to be seen.

By The mail stoppage, which has since been resolved, is another recent example of the logistical problems that crop up at apartment buildings where transitional and permanent residents mesh. Perry and other permanent residents at 15-19 have endured problems with noise, cleanliness and safety, but the mail problem was probably the most maddening to date.

Residents of a large apartment building complex on the north side of Mosholu Parkway were confused and upset when their mail stopped being delivered in late January.

“I thought it might just be me,” said Henry Perry, a substitute teacher and longtime resident of 15-19 West Mosholu Parkway North, as well as tenant association president. “But as soon as I talked to the mail carrier, I realized this was a bigger issue.”

Just over two years earlier, half of Perry’s building was turned into temporary housing for homeless families. The conversion has not been completely smooth, especially for permanent residents who were suddenly forced to live side-by-side with vagabond families and other temporary tenants.

The mail stoppage, which has since been resolved, is another recent example of the logistical problems that crop up at apartment buildings where transitional and permanent residents mesh. Perry and other permanent residents at 15-19 have endured problems with noise, cleanliness and safety, but the mail problem was probably the most maddening to date.

Perry said that it wasn’t until Feb. 7, nine days after mail stopped, that a notification was posted on his mailbox informing him that, from now on, residents needed to pick up their mail at the Williamsbridge Post Office, a mile and a half away.

Permanent residents, including Perry, believed the building’s transitional tenants, who had increased in number over the past two years, were somehow to blame. (Landlords at what Department of Homeless Services calls its “cluster sites” receive more from the city than they would from renting out to regular tenants.)

When the complex first started housing homeless families in October 2008, about half of the units were transitional. Now, “About 90% of the residents at 15, 17, & 19 West Mosholu Parkway North are from shelters while the other 10% are tenants who permanently live in one of the 3 buildings,” United States Postal Service spokesperson Darleen Reid said in an e-mail.

When building management told Perry they didn’t see a problem with residents trekking over to the Williamsbridge branch, Perry reached out to Councilman Oliver Koppell’s office as well as Community Board 7.

According to a press release, Koppell’s office was told “the post office does not deliver mail to transitional homeless shelters because of the impermanence of the residents.” (Reid confirmed that USPS does not automatically deliver mail to transitional housing.)

A member of Koppell’s staff contacted the local post office to explain that permanent residents still lived in the Mosholu building and were entitled to regular mail delivery. Read more

Editorial: Some Hope Amid Housing Crisis

By Norwood News Editorial Staff

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

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

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

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

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

Murder on W. 192nd Street

By Alex Kratz

Last Wednesday, April 27, just before 10 p.m., police responded to a 911 call reporting of a male shot in front of 64 W. 192nd St. When they arrived, police said they found Julio Rodriguez, 25, with two gunshot wounds to the torso.

Emergency responders transported  Rodriguez to St. Barnabas Hospital, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead on arrival. There have been no arrests, police say, and the investigation is ongoing.

It was the third murder in the 52nd Precinct so far this year. Rodriguez lived at 2604 University Ave., literally around the block from where he was found mur

After Deadly Fire, Koppell Bill Back in Spotlight

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Local elected officials are looking for ways to crack down on illegally subdivided apartments in the Bronx and across the city after a recent fire at one such dwelling killed three members of a Belmont family.

One effort, a bill sponsored by Bronx Councilman Oliver Koppell, would require the Department of Buildings to seek a warrant to gain access to properties they suspect have been illegally converted if inspectors are turned away or unable to enter a building after two attempts.

Officials say city inspectors are often unable to gain entry to the properties.

Several complaints had been received about the site of the recent Belmont blaze, a foreclosed row house at 2321 Prospect Ave. that had been dangerously chopped up into several single rooms. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said building inspectors couldn’t get into the building to follow up on complaints.

Koppell said his legislation, if passed, would force city agencies to keep trying.

“I was shocked to find out this city practice,” Koppell said, about the practice of closing complaint cases after two failed attempts. “It seemed to me to be completely outrageous, and irrational. They’ve got to try to pursue it.”

Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the court system largely denies the city’s requests for access warrants, and that the Council will hold a hearing on the issue in June.

Koppell’s bill has lingered in the Council since it was introduced last October.

“I think this is prevalent citywide,” he said. “A lot of immigrants coming in are looking for inexpensive dwellings, and not being really aware of the law, they’re taken advantage of.”

The Belmont fire, which broke out in the early morning hours of April 25, killed 12-year-old Christian Garcia and his parents, Christina Garcia and Juan Lopez.

Health Matters

Walk-a-thons
The B’N Fit Fourth Annual Walk-a-Thon will be held on May 7 at the New York Botanical Garden from 8 to 10 a.m. Developed by the Division of Adolescent Medicine at the Children’s Hospital for Montefiore (CHAM) and the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, the Bronx Nutrition and Fitness Initiative for Teens (B’N Fit) addresses the increase in adolescent obesity through weight loss services provided in a safe and supportive environment. Last year 125 participants attended the walk-a-thon and raised $8,000. This year the goal is to increase participation to 250 and raise $25,000. For more information, call (718) 920-2232.

Doctors for a Healthier Bronx will be holding their 9th Community Walkathon and Health Fair on Tuesday, May 17 from 4 to 7 p.m. at 2330 Eastchester Rd. in collaboration with Montefiore Medical Center (rain date is Tuesday, May 24). The event for kids and adults will feature stretches and warmups, a little league baseball clinic, musical chairs, games and prizes, blood pressure checkups, a Zumba workshop, free T-shirts, pedometers and goodie bags.

Mental Health and Wellness Fair
The Suzanne Pincus Family Learning Place will be holding a Mental Health and Wellness Fair on Thursday, May 19 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, 3415 Bainbridge Ave. Come learn about mental health and wellness programs for children with special needs and resources for the whole family. For more information, or if you would like to be a presenter, call the Family Learning Place at (718) 741-2357.

Local Officials Say ‘World a Better Place’ Without Bin Laden

By Jeanmarie Evelly

As New York City and the world reacted to the recent death of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, several Bronx elected officials expressed their responses to the historic news — largely seeing the Al Qaeda leader’s death as a milestone for the city, and a means of closure for those who lost a loved one in the tragedy nearly a decade ago.

“On September 11, 2001, thousands of New Yorkers, including many Bronxites, fell at the hands of a terrorist attack masterminded by Bin Laden,” Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., said in a statement sent out Monday.

“For nearly ten years the families, friends and loved ones of those victims have had to live with the knowledge that the man who was responsible for so much loss in their lives walked the earth freely,” he said, going on to call bin Laden’s killing a “significant victory.”

Of the thousands of victims killed in the World Trade Center attacks, 142 were from the Bronx.

On Sunday night, President Barack Obama announced that bin Laden had been shot and killed by U.S. forces at a compound in Pakistan. His identity was confirmed using facial recognition software and DNA sampling. Following the announcement, hundreds rallied nea Ground Zero and in Times Square to celebrate.

“As a New Yorker, I witnessed first-hand the smoldering remains of the World Trade Center containing thousands of lost souls,” Bronx Congressman Eliot Engel said in a press release. “Many people living in my district did not return to their families that night.”

“The world is a better place today now that Osama bin Laden is no longer part of it,” he continued, praising President Barack Obama and the country’s armed forces for their role in his death.

In a statement, South Bronx Congressman Jose E. Serrano said the news will help heal the nation’s wounds from 2001.
“The news that bin Laden is gone helps us to finally move beyond that painful memory,” he said.

Teen Charged in Devoe Park Double Murder

By David Greene and Alex Kratz

Police in the 52nd Precinct arrested a teenager they say is responsible for a triple shooting in a University Heights park earlier this month that left two young men dead and a third person wounded.

On April 7, police officers responded to a report of a male shot on the basketball court inside Devoe Park, which sits on the northwest corner of Fordham Road and University Avenue. When the officers arrived just before 8 p.m., they discovered three victims who were then transported to St. Barnabas Hospital.

Allan Matos, 22, of Father Zeiser Place (which borders Devoe Park) and Edwin Liz, 17, of Crescent Avenue, both suffered fatal gunshot wounds — Matos was hit in the back, Edwin in the neck — and were pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The other victim, who police described as a 40-year-old Hispanic man, took a bullet to his leg and was expected to survive.

Shortly after the shooting, according to court documents, police say they found 16-year-old Yenfri Ramirez with what turned out to be a .38 caliber gun loaded with three live rounds and three spent shell casings. The gun was recovered on the ground, police said, next to Yenfri.

Less than 48 hours later, based on the gun evidence and witness testimony, Yenfri was charged with two counts of murder, attempted murder and criminal possession of a weapon. He is being held without bail on Riker’s Island and will next appear in court on May 13, according to Melvin Hernandez, a spokesman for the Bronx District Attorney’s office.    Read more

Making Reading Fun, One T.I.G.E.R. Day at a Time

About halfway through his pivotal starring role as a life-sized, book-loving tiger at Norwood elementary school PS 94, Joe Lawliss removed his foam-rubber mascot head and breathed deeply. It’s all worth it, he thought.

Lawliss runs an after-school tutoring program at PS 94. He has two kids of his own. He realizes how important reading is for the development of young minds. It’s the reason he doesn’t have a TV at home and is willing to dress up in a cumbersome tiger costume that makes him feel like he’s living in a sauna. It’s why he will spend the entire day prancing around to various classrooms at PS 94 preaching: Reading is fun!

Parent Coordinator Miriam Seminario started T.I.G.E.R. (Together In Getting Everyone Reading) Day — an initiative developed by the nonprofit Literacy Inc. (LINC) — when she first arrived at PS 94 in 2003. It’s her programmatic baby. She spends an inordinate amount of time preparing for it each year: organizing administrators, teachers, parents and staffers as well as recruiting readers, media and, of course, a tiger.

“For me it’s important because the future is our kids,” Seminario said, while racing between PS 94’s two buildings in knee-high leather boots.

It’s also something that will hopefully encourage students to read at PS 94, where just 29 percent of third, fourth and fifth graders tested at or above grade level in reading on state exams last year, according to Principal Diane Daprocida. Read more

Off to College, With Posse in Tow

By Rachel Sander

For high school seniors, springtime brings more than showers and flowers — it brings college acceptance (or denial) letters. While many students anxiously await fat envelopes or fear the arrival of thin ones, there are some, like northwest Bronx resident Adolfo Abreu, who are already celebrating and plotting out future plans to put their education to work.

Abreu, who is on pace to graduate in June from the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, which last year boasted a graduation rate of 92 percent, was ecstatic when he found out in February that he had a received a full ride, with a group dynamic twist, to Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

“It was just an incredible feeling,” he says.

In recognition of his outstanding leadership skill and academic potential, Abreu was the recipient of a Posse Scholarship, which is awarded to a group, or “posse,” of students who will all attend the same college. The scholarship was created in 1989 in response to many college dropouts who claimed they had no real friends or support system at their college.

Next fall, Abreu will be attending school with nine other scholarship recipients from other urban neighborhoods. This spring and summer they will meet one another and participate in workshops, enabling them to form bonds of friendship before they even get to campus.

“I’m really looking forward to going to college with a group of people I already know,” Abreu says.

It is unclear exactly who nominated Abreu for the scholarship, but whoever did was obviously a big fan. And rightfully so.
Raised by a single mother, the precocious 18-year-old blossomed into a leader with Sistas and Brothas United (SBU), the youth activism arm of a grassroots organizing outfit with deep community ties, the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.

Abreu, who first came to the SBU for tutoring when he was 12, said the organization’s commitment to social change inspired him. Since joining the Coalition, most of his work has focused on education reform. Recently, he fought for student Metrocard funding. He also helps teach students how to advocate for resources in their schools. Two years ago, as 16-year-old, he led a rally to stop the Kingsbridge Armory from turning into a shopping mall.

Count Laura Vazquez, co-director of the Coalition, as a firm Abreu supporter. “What makes Adolfo a strong leader is his passion and his dedication,” Vasquez says. “He’s the type of person who is involved in everything.”

Abreu, who is president of SBU, a youth trainer, and an executive board member for the Coalition, is also a mentor and role model, Vasquez says. “He helps young people develop leadership skills,” she says, “so that when he leaves, there will be people to follow in his footsteps.”
Abreu said he is excited about getting involved with leadership programs at Trinity and specifically wants to address the issue of campus diversity, which the Posse Foundation aims to improve.

Posse was thrust into the spotlight last year when President Obama donated a portion of his Nobel Peace Prize award money to the foundation. “The students that are selected…end up graduating from selective colleges with a very high success rate. This shows the validity of using less-recognized skills as indicators of likely educational success,” Obama told The Chronicle of Higher Education, referring to the scholarship’s focus on selecting students who show strong leadership skills above all.

Abreu has Obama-like aspirations. He plans to study politics and when he’s done with school, he says, “I want to come back and change a lot.”

He admires Malcom X’s work in pushing for social change and (later) unity, but Abreu says his mother, Felicia Infante, is his real role model. “She is a true inspiration,” he says, explaining how hard she worked to support and raise him singlehandedly.

Aside from politics, Abreu wants to hone his listening skills in college. “Our whole life, we don’t listen,” Abreu says. “We never take the time to know where the other person is coming from. I want to learn to listen better.”

A Local Haven for Abused Children in the Bronx

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Every day, the staff at the J.E. and Z.B. Butler Child Advocacy Center must face grim realities that most people find hard to hear or stomach: the stories of physically and sexually abused or neglected children, stories often marked by bruises and broken bones.

“If you’re going to be in this field, you have to really love kids,” said director Karel Amaranth. “People say, ‘I could never do what you do, because I love kids too much,’ but to do what we do, you have to.”

The Butler Center, run by the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center, expanded this winter and now includes three Bronx sites — its main building at 3314 Steuben Ave., a counseling center at 3380 Reservoir Oval East, and its newest location, further south, on East 188th Street and Valentine Ave., acquired in January from St. Barnabas Hospital.

The Butler Center is the only certified, medically-based clinic of its kind in New York, Amaranth said, and its goal is to offer comprehensive and holistic treatment for abuse victims and their families, from medical exams to counseling.

“Our mission is to intervene in child abuse in any point that we can,” she explained.

The Steuben Avenue location is a cheery, two-story building, where a staff of pediatricians, nurses and social workers perform medical exams and conduct interviews. Read more

Board Rejects Tax Break Bid by Controversial Landlord

By Alex Kratz

Six years after construction began, and a few years after work stalled, an upscale Gun Hill Road building appears to be back on track with a controversial landlord now in the driver’s seat.

Though the property, 301 E. Gun Hill Rd., is nominally controlled by a limited liability corporation called Gun Hill LLC, landlord Jacob Selechnik — dubbed “Jake the Snake” by tenant organizers for a long history of neglecting violation-plagued buildings — and/or his related business interests are behind a recent push to complete work on the building, which sits at the corner of Perry Avenue.

Gun Hill, LLC, shares an address and phone number with Realty Masters, Selechnik’s management company on Broadway in Kingsbridge. An employee there who answered the phone recently said she knew of the property and would have somebody in charge respond to an inquiry. No one called back.

Last month, Miriam Wurzberger, from a Brooklyn company, Metropolitan Realty Exemptions, called Fernando Tirado, the district manager of Community Board 7, to say Gun Hill, LLC, was applying to receive city tax breaks as it finished construction on 301 E. Gun Hill Rd. She wanted the Board to consider sending a letter of support.

Tirado and other Board members didn’t know the development’s ties to Selechnik, but were skeptical after looking at the application for a 421-a tax abatement, which would allow the landlord to pay property taxes on the building as if it were still an empty lot. The application said rents at the building would be at least $2,000 for a one-bedroom apartment, too high, they thought, for a neighborhood in need of more affordable housing.

“You’re not providing affordable housing, why should you get tax breaks?” Tirado said about the Board’s reaction.
Tirado said the Board asked Wurzberger to present in front of the Board and provided more detailed information, but she never responded. In turn, based on the application, the Board voted to send a letter asking the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to reject Gun Hill, LLC’s application.

HPD spokesman Eric Bederman said in an e-mail that the application was under review and that an affordability component was not required to receive a 421-a tax abatement. He added that, “A letter of recommendation from the Community Board doesn’t help or hinder. The application is judged purely on the merits on whether it meets all of the qualifications or not.”

Construction began on 301 E. Gun Hill Rd. in 2005, but the original developers ran out of money and Gun Hill, LLC, recently bought out the mortgage.

“Our biggest fear is that they won’t be able to rent out the apartments because they’re too expensive and the landlords will turn the building into transitional housing,” Tirado said.

Q&A with Michael Lambert: New Jerome-Gun Hill BID Director Settles In

Michael Lambert, a Bronx Science grad and longtime Montefiore Medical Center employee, was recently hired as executive director of the Jerome-Gun Hill Business Improvement District (BID) and deputy director of Mosholu Preservation Corporation. He sat down with the Norwood News to talk about his new position, the benefits of a BID, and why he might make a great Jeopardy contestant.

Q: What did you do before becoming executive director of the Jerome-Gun Hill BID?
A: I worked as program director of the New York Children’s Health Project which provides primary care health services and related support services to homeless children and families throughout four of the five boroughs of New York, using mobile medical units.

Q: What attracted you to this job?
A: I think the diverse nature of the role of executive director of the BID brings together a number of different aspects people tell me are excellent fits for my personality. And I can’t argue with them after being here for three and a half months. It’s part business, part politics, part networking. It’s part health care administration, it’s part community activism, it’s part information sharing. And these are a lot of the things I have been looking for [in a job], and having the opportunity to play a role and make an impact on a larger scale, what’s basically going to bring creative and innovative ideas to the BID.

Q: How have you gone about learning about your new position?
A: BIDS are monitored by the Department of Small Business Services and they provide a tremendous number of resources for learning the role.  I also use [former BID director and current Mosholu Preservation Corporation executive director] Roberto Garcia as a sounding board. That combined with just literally getting out there and walking the beats, so to speak, and meeting a lot of the merchants first hand, being very active in the community government structure, attending a lot of meetings, has been invaluable.

Q: Do merchants know what a BID is?
A: I think it depends on the merchant. I think that some of the merchants who may have been active on our own board of directors are obviously very knowledgeable about what the BID Is. There have been other merchants, as I go through the corridor, and even following up on issues as the BID director, where someone has been actually told, “Oh, the BID director is going to come talk to you,” and I get there and they’re like, “Who are you? Who do you work for? And what do you do?” Read more

A Street Re-Renamed

By Jeanmarie Evelly

A stretch of road between East Fordham Road and Allerton Avenue, known for the last three decades as Dr. Theodore L. Kazimiroff Boulevard, was renamed last week and restored to its original title — Southern Boulevard — a rare act by the city of revoking an honorary street name.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed the change into law on April 11. According to a New York Times report, officials at Fordham University and the New York Botanical Garden, both located near the portion of road being renamed, argued that the name Kazimiroff Boulevard confused travelers trying to visit the institutions.

The street will now be “co-named,” according to a statement from the mayor’s office.

Dr. Theodore L. Kazimiroff, a Manhattan College graduate and Bronx resident, was best known during his lifetime for fighting to protect ecosystems in Pelham Bay Park, City Island and other Bronx neighborhoods.

A practicing dentist, he was also the first ever Bronx borough historian and helped co-found the Bronx County Historical Society. He died in 1980, and a year later, the section of Southern Boulevard was renamed in his honor. Read more

Post Office Reopens

By Rachel Sander

The Mosholu Post Office on Jerome Avenue (finally) reopened last week.

The post office, which closed due to structural damage last April, is once again open for regular business hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m to 4 p.m.

“It was a pain in the butt that it was closed for so long,” Julissa Shapiro said. “But it’s great that it’s open now!”

Darlene Reid, a spokesperson for the United States Postal Service (USPS), said an “Emergency Shutdown” was issued for the building last year due to the damaged ceiling.

The closure was extremely inconvenient for residents. “It has just taken too long,” Bronx resident Jill Rosenburg told the Norwood News in March, when USPS announced the post office would be open for business on March 14. When it didn’t, some residents worried if the building would ever open. (Many residents also complained the service at the mobile postal unit placed on the street in the branch’s stead was inconsistent at best.) Read more

After Finding Fields Closed, League Marches On

By Alex Kratz

Opening Day for the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center’s youth baseball league is a big event. Players, parents, coaches and league organizers, all gather together at the Center, on DeKalb Avenue and Gun Hill Road, to march as one to a nearby field for the ceremonial first pitch and the first scheduled games.

This year, things didn’t go according to plan.

For the first time since 2008, the parade was supposed to culminate at Bedford Park’s Harris Field, where the Parks Department recently opened new, synthetic turf baseball fields after much delay (half of the fields there remain under construction). The league had signed city-authorized permits for Harris Field and organizers were excited to finally return to what used to be their primary playing space.

But when Chris Pinto, who runs the league for MMCC, went down to check on the field early Opening Day morning, April 9, just to see if everything was in place, he found the gates locked. And when he called the Bronx Parks Department office to get some answers, he was directed to the Manhattan office. The staffers there had no idea what he was talking about and did not offer to open the fields by game time.

MMCC officials were irate. “We got no explanation,” said MMCC Executive Director Don Bluestone. Read more

Budget Woes Will Cut Deep Into Youth Jobs

By Lulaine Compere

New York State’s budget woes are going to take a huge chunk out of the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program, which allows thousands of young people to get their first job experience. The program received a drastic cut in their budget, meaning fewer jobs for kids and increased competition for the jobs available.

Bob Altman, the assistant executive director for the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC), which operates the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), said the program is crucial and loss of funding devastating.

“Most of the people who are in the city got their first job through Summer Youth,” Altman says. “It provides life skills to kids on how to get a job, how to keep a job, and gives them money to buy books and things for school.”

The program pays for youth to work during the summer months at local businesses and organizations. Last year, Summer Youth provided 36,000 jobs and received 143,000 applications.

This year’s projected number of summer youth jobs for New York City is 24,000 after the state restored a portion of the program’s funding.

Rosa Santiago is a coordinator for the In-School Youth Program, a kind of year-round version of the bigger summer program. It is a subsidiary of MMCC. Kids apply for her program and if they qualify, they get help with SATs, tutoring, counseling, and a guaranteed summer youth job.

“I’m not happy. We used to get a lot of jobs. Now because of budget cuts we are getting a small amount,” says Santiago. “This program is important because it keeps kids off the street, it helps them with college and helping their parents. These kids save their money. They’re preparing for graduations and proms. The money goes to feeding themselves and their families.”

Through Santiago’s program, kids are guaranteed a job so they do not have to go through the lottery where they are put up against thousands of other applicants looking for a job. Some of the kids are even hired by her office to do clerical work. This year the program has about 63 kids a huge cut from last year. Her program also helps kids find a job throughout the rest of the year though those jobs are not guaranteed.

“It’s hard to find a job at a young age,” says Dalie Santana, one of the students taking part in Santiago’s program.

“Last year, I was 17 and looking for a job,” says Felix Castillo, who is also taking part in Santiago’s program. “No places were hiring and the Summer Youth line [to apply for the program at MMCC] went around the whole block.”

Summer Youth not only provides jobs, but education to the participants.

“We give a range of interactive courses for the kids,” said Andre White, SYEP’s director. They get work readiness, financial literacy, and advice on higher education and health education.”

The cuts came as state officials were trying to close the $10 billion deficit.

“Right now, the city contributes $26 million and the state is only putting in about $8 million,” says White. “We have more applications but less funding, which means fewer young people working, and they carry those experiences of rejection.”

Without help from SYEP and in a down economy, Santiago says finding a job on their own will be a struggle.

“The kids face more competition against young adults who have [their own] kids,” says Santiago.

On top of that, many local nonprofit organizations use the free labor provided by SYEP to offer discounted services.

“A lot of places depend on Summer Youth,” says Altman. “Churches and camps don’t charge as much when they have people from summer youth.”

Editor’s Note: For more information or to apply for the Summer Youth Employment Program, call (718) 882-4000 or visit the websites at www.mmcc.org and https://application.nycsyep.com.

Op-ed: Show Me the Teachers!

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

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

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

Letter: Grammy-Winner Plays at Norwood Church

By Judy Noy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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