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

 RSS

Pedestrian Countdown Signals Installed On Concourse; Response to Injuries, Fatalities

By Justin Bodden

A Concourse that is grand shouldn’t rack up nine fatalities and 411 pedestrian injuries in five years. But that’s the record of the borough’s most famous thoroughfare, which has prompted the city to identify a way to make Bronxites safer when crossing it.

Department of Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan and James Vacca, the east Bronx lawmaker who chairs the City Council Transportation Committee, recently announced the installations of pedestrian countdown signals along the four-and-a-half-mile long, 180-foot-wide Grand Concourse in hopes of preventing future accidents.

The countdown signals are being installed at 49 intersections along the Concourse beginning at East 140th Street continuing up to Mosholu Parkway. The signals display how much time pedestrians have to cross before the light turns.

In February, 11-year-old Russell Smith was struck and killed by a Honda, as he crossed the Concourse at East 183rd Street after buying milk for his infant brother. In 2005, Virginia Verdee was walking home from church on a Friday night when she, too, was struck and killed at the same intersection.

“Speeding and reckless driving kills, and these pedestrian countdown signals will save life and limb up and down the Grand Concourse, which is one of the most deadly thoroughfares in our borough,”  Vacca said. “Pedestrian countdown signals give New Yorkers the information they need to make the safe choice, which often means waiting for the next light on streets like the Grand Concourse.”

According to DOT studies, the countdown signals have been effective elsewhere in the city.

“I can see how there can be a lot of accidents on the Concourse — it’s very populous, cars going up and down the street,” said Daneda Gillespie, a drug abuse counselor who works near the Concourse and 183rd Street. “I think that’s a very good idea to help prevent accidents. It might not prevent every crash, but it does help.” Read more

Toxins Send PS 51 to Crotona

By Ronald Chavez

At a tense public hearing last week, the Department of Education announced it will be moving Bedford Park elementary school PS 51, known as the Bronx New School, to a new building two miles south—the result of a discovery earlier this summer that its current site contains hazardous levels of a chemical toxin linked to cancer.

“I apologize to you. It will not happen again,” Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott told a crowd of seething parents at the Aug. 18 meeting at the Bronx High School of Science.

The school will re-open in less than two weeks, the first day of the new school year, in a building on East 182nd Street in Crotona, formerly the Catholic school at St. Martin of Tours. The new location is larger, with more classroom space and a gym next door.

But that’s doing little to calm parents, worried over the news that PS 51’s current building on Jerome Avenue tested positive for high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE), a chemical which can cause kidney and liver problems and damage to the central nervous system over long periods of time, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. TCE also causes dizziness, headaches, nausea and blurred vision.

“There were children in the school who were sick, and I mean seriously sick,” said Annette Melendez, a former PTA president who said a number of students during her time at the school had complained of headaches and that one had died from cancer. “Gee, this is such a small school,” she said. “Why are so many children sick in such a small school?” Read more

Corner Named for Fallen Traffic Agent

By Ronald Chavez

The northeast corner of East 188th Street and Webster Avenue will permanently be marked by tragedy.

Earlier this month, the corner was conamed Donnette and Sean Sanz Place, in honor of a city traffic enforcement agent who was struck by a speeding van while seven months pregnant.

In 2008, at the corner now bearing her name, Donnette Sanz was on her lunch break when a van with faulty breaks rammed into her, leaving her pinned under a school bus. Some 30 neighborhood residents managed to lift the school bus off of her.

Sanz was rushed to the hospital where doctors performed an emergency C-section to save her baby.  Sanz died about an hour after the operation. Her son, Sean Sanz initially survived, but ultimately died about a week later. Read more

Tracey Tenants Rage at Rent Hike Proposal

By Ronald Chavez

Citing poor management that has led to deteriorating conditions, tenants at Tracey Towers argued against a proposal at a public hearing last month that would hike their rent by over 60 percent over the next three years.

RY Management, which operates the connected buildings, says its proposal to raise rent by 23.53 percent for this past July, again by 20.34 percent in July of 2012, and 16.9 percent for July of 2013 is necessary to cover the increased cost of fuel, insurance, and labor contracts.

At the same time, tenants allege management has ignored the twin 41-story buildings.

Some apartments near the top floors have been wrecked by water damage.

“When it rains, we pray hard,” said Margaret Mack, who lives on the 41st floor. She’s a member of the Committee for Survival and a resident since 1980. She said the windows in her apartment are “defective” and do little to keep rain out. Some of her walls are cracked and exposed. Read more

Espada’s Health Clinics, Banned from Medicaid Program, Likely to Close

By Jeanmarie Evelly

On Aug. 10, the State Department of Health terminated the network of health care clinics run by former Bronx Sen. Pedro Espada, Jr. and his son from the state’s Medicaid program–a move that will essentially mean closure for the five medical centers of the Soundview Network, which operate almost entirely on reimbursement funds from Medicaid patients.

The reason for the exclusion, the Health Department said, is Soundview’s failure to comply with state laws that “are designed to ensure that Medicaid dollars are properly accounted for and that systems are in place to ensure that all claims for funding are valid.”

Just hours before the announcement, the State’s Office of the Medicaid Inspector General released a letter recommending Soundview be cut, also citing the organization’s failure to comply as well as a “lack of oversight” of the business operations there, and the fact that both Espada and his son, Pedro Gautier Espada, are still leading the company, despite being barred from participating in the Medicaid program themselves back in January.

Both Espadas are facing trial on federal charges that they embezzled more than $500,000 from Soundview, spending the money on luxury car payments and exorbitant sushi restaurant tabs.

Espada held a press conference in response to the state’s decision, defiantly declaring “this clinic will not close,” to a group of reporters and blaming the attacks against him on political targeting by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In his previous role as attorney general, Cuomo first raised the embezzlement charges against Espada in a civil suit in the spring of 2010.

According to the Department of Health, Soundview’s Medicaid ban will go into effect Sept. 12. In the meantime, the state will be working to make sure the clinic’s Medicaid patients will be effectively transferred somewhere else for care, according to a statement.

Schools Must Teach Sex Ed, City Says

By Jeanmarie Evelly

New York City high school and middle school students will be required to take sex education classes starting this fall, the schools chancellor announced last week, the first time the city has broached such a mandate in over two decades.

Until now, schools were required by the state to educate students about HIV/AIDS. Whether or not to include lessons on broader sexual health topics in the curriculum — like sexually transmitted infections, birth control, how to properly use a condom — was left to the discretion of each individual school. The current requirements, Chancellor Dennis Walcott wrote in a letter to principals, is “leaving us with an uneven system that I believe does not serve our students well.”

The new school curriculum requires one semester of sex education in middle schools, and another in high school. Principals can decide in which grade the semesters will be taught.

“We have students who are having sex before the age of 13; students who have had multiple sexual partners; and students who aren’t protecting themselves against sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS,” Walcott wrote.  “As a parent and a grandparent—and as the person responsible for ensuring that all of our public school students receive a high-quality education—that is very concerning.”

The change is stemming, he said, from a larger, multimillion dollar program launched by the mayor earlier this month called the Young Men’s Initiative, which aims to eliminate the social and economic disparities faced by black and Latino youth.

According to Health Department data, just over 25 percent of teenage girls, and 10 percent of boys, who were surveyed by the South Bronx District Public Health Office, said they did not use a condom the last time they had sex. The Bronx had a higher teen pregnancy rate in 2009 than any other borough, another report found—105 of every 1,000 girls.

Sex education in schools can mean the difference between a young woman graduating or not, said Nancy Biberman, president of Bronx nonprofit WHEDco, which runs an afterschool program for teenage girls called Just Ask Me, or JAM, based around advocacy for sexual health education in schools.

“It’s just another tool in the tool kit of helping kids succeed,” Biberman said, adding that the city’s lack of a sex education mandate for the last 20 years has “significantly hurt a couple of generations.”

JAM started in 2007, when a group of middle school girls at one of the WHEDco’s afterschool program started discussing just how little they knew about sex.

“We came to realize that there was a huge problem in the schools,” Biberman said. “The young people were saying, ‘There’s a lot we don’t know. The information we’re gettting about sex is coming from music videos and things we’re hearing on the street.’”

That same group of girls started a petition and lobbied their principal, at Bronx’s IS 218, to include sexual education in their health lessons. They were later asked to testify before the City Council when the idea of a mandate was being considered by the DOE.

Not everyone, of course, approves of the change. Bronx Sen. Ruben Diaz, Sr. accused Mayor Bloomberg of intending to “completely usurp the role of parents,” in teaching their children about sex.

Parents have the right to opt their children out of classes on pregnancy prevention and birth control, Walcott said.

Gillibrand Bill Targets Unemployed City Youth

By Jeanmarie Evelly

U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand met with a number of Bronx clergy leaders and local lawmakers last week to promote legislation she’s sponsoring to reduce the number of unemployed young people in urban areas.

The Urban Job Acts of 2011 would funnel money to both national and local nonprofit organizations that work with young minorities, according to a press release. The funding would be used for educational, job readiness and social service programs that specifically target at-risk city populations, like high school dropouts or those involved with the criminal justice system.

“This program would give city organizations the tools and resources they need to help our youth prepare for future jobs, find employment opportunities, and reach their full potential,” Gillibrand said. “The skills they would acquire through this program are invaluable. Helping our youth compete in this difficult economy will have a lasting, positive impact on our community.” Read more

Fire on Gun Hill Affects Families, Businesses

By Alex Kratz

On the first Friday morning of August, Ashley Santiago looked out the window of her apartment on the corner of Gun Hill Road and Rochambeau Avenue and saw fire raining down from the sky.

“My mom told me, ‘Look, there’s fire coming down from the sky,’” she said, two hours later.

Dressed in shorts and a tank top, the 18-year-old grabbed her wallet, cell phone and keys and ran out of the building, 3504 Rochambeau Ave., along with her mother, aunt and two dogs.

Santiago’s family and every other resident, including two teenagers who were in the apartment where the fire erupted, made it out of the building in plenty of time, but damage from the fire left a handful of families homeless, at least temporarily. Read more

Bronx Lawmakers Ask Obama to Halt Deportation Program

By Jeanmarie Evelly

The federal government continues to implement a controversial deportation program despite intense criticism and the fact that three states, New York included, have already attempted to withdraw from participating in it.

Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it will continue to roll out its “Secure Communities” initiative, which requires local law enforcement agencies to share digital fingerprint records of people who are arrested with federal immigration officials, who then check the prints for a person’s green card status—and deport anyone found to be residing here illegally.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in June that New York would not comply with the program, and the DHS had originally conveyed that participation by states was optional. In this month’s announcement, however, DHS changed gears, saying it did not need state or local authorization to continue its practice of deporting based on arrest records.

New York legislators, including many here in the Bronx, continue the denounce to program, saying it would only harm communities with large immigrant populations and that the federal government is ignoring criticism of Secure Communities. Read more

City Plans Overhauls for MS 80 and MS 391

By Jeanmarie Evelly

As part of an ongoing effort to turn around poor performing schools, the Department of Education is making changes this fall at 33 middle and high schools across the city, including two nearby: MS 80 on Mosholu Parkway, and MS 391, or the Angelo Patri School, further south on Webster Avenue.

The effort will qualify the city to receive millions of dollars in federal School Improvement Grants, doled out by the U.S. Department of Education, which require the DOE to institute one of four federally approved “intervention” methods to turn things around at each struggling school.

To the relief of teachers and parents, the city announced last month that none of the schools on its low-achieving list would be closed—one of the federal models on the table, and a favorite of the Bloomberg administration, which has shut down dozens of schools for poor performance over the last decade.

Instead, the DOE will institute two other federally approved tactics, “restart” and “transformation.” Read more

Community Policing

Police and community came together on the evening of Aug. 2 in Williamsbridge Oval Park, which is just the point of National Night Out. There was music, games for kids, and the Office of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio gave Deputy Inspector Joseph Dowling a proclamation honoring the 52nd Precinct for its work in the community. (Photos by Adi Talwar)

Current Print Edition

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

Latest from Breaking Bronx

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

Archives

Copyright © 2007 Norwood News · Log in