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Rebuilt After Fire, Tolentine’s Doors Swing Wide Open

By Alex Kratz

On the corner of Fordham Road and University Avenue this past Sunday, colorful balloons danced in the wind and sunshine. Tethered to railings, the balloons dotted the path up to one of the Bronx’s oldest churches, St. Nicholas of Tolentine, where the doors were wide open for a celebration.

A year and a half earlier, on a similarly lovely day in March, someone set fire to Tolentine’s vestibule, including its doors, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage and an unquantifiable amount of heartache for the church’s parishioners.

Despite the act of arson committed that day, Father Joseph Girone, the head priest at Tolentine, said the church never wavered in its commitment to keeping its doors open to the public, as it always had.

“After what happened, we could have said we’re closing our doors, but we didn’t,” Girone said. “That was important for us.”

Tolentine usually holds three Masses on Sundays — one in English, one in Spanish and one in Vietnamese. But on this day celebrating the re-opening of the church’s brand new (and many say, improved) vestibule, all of Tolentine’s congregants came together for one giant service.

Much of the multi-lingual talk from the pulpit was about the symbolism of doors.

“The theme of the doors is that they represent us,” Girone said. “People come in through those doors searching for God. They carry only their burdens, their joys and their sadness.” When they emerge, Girone said, “they leave transformed through the celebration of the sacraments.” Read more

On State Test Scores, Northwest Bronx Schools Lag Behind

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Elementary and middle school students in the Bronx’s District 10, which contains all of the schools in the Norwood News coverage area, scored worse than students across both the city and state on last year’s standardized math and English exams, according to data released last month.

Students in grades 3 through 8 are required to take the high-stakes tests every spring, and the scores are used, in part, to determine whether they can be promoted to the next grade level or held back. Students are given a grade number from 1 to 4, with scores 3 and over deemed “proficient” by the state.

On average, only 33 percent of District 10 students passed the English exam, compared to 44 percent of students citywide and 53 percent across the state. Math results were similarly staggered: an average of 48 percent of District 10 students passed, compared to 57 and 63 percent of city and state students, respectively.

Community Education Council President Marvin Shelton says that District 10, among the city’s largest and most crowded, has remained stagnant over the years when it comes to test scores, despite Department of Education claims that student performance is improving across the city since Mayor Bloomberg took control of the school system in 2002.

“We still seem to be struggling with the high number of level one’s and two’s,” Shelton said. “Nine years of mayoral control, and we don’t have much to show for it. Progress is at a glacial pace. They’re not strides, they’re baby steps.” Read more

The Making of a Liberal Politician: Part II

Ed. Note: This is the second in a series of articles about 33rd District State Senator Gustavo Rivera who was thrust into the spotlight after defeating the controversial Pedro Espada, Jr. last fall. Rivera represents the entire Norwood News coverage area. Click here for Part I

First-Time Candidate Gustavo Rivera Takes on Pedro Espada

It was early spring, 2010, when Gustavo Rivera became a political candidate by default and a dash of desperation. At the time, two other Democrats had declared their intention to run against the incumbent in the 33rd Senate District, Pedro Espada, Jr., who, less than a year earlier, had brought the New York state senate to its knees by offering his party allegiance to the highest bidder.

Liz Krueger, a Democratic state senator from Manhattan whose unabashed hatred for Espada and his politics runs deep, sat in a diner on the Upper East Side with Rivera and Rivera’s longtime friend, Chris Malone, a political science professor. They were discussing possible strategies for ousting Espada, whose political gamesmanship had all but squandered the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the senate — the first time in decades Democrats enjoyed control of both legislative houses. “We needed a non-criminal person to hold that seat,” Krueger says now, referring to Espada’s legal woes. (Espada has never been convicted of a felony, but is scheduled to stand trial for embezzlement sometime early next year.)

Krueger liked the two candidates already in the race, but didn’t think either could take out the well-financed Espada. At one point, Rivera offered up himself in the form of a question. “Do you think I could win?” Krueger remembers Rivera asking. Hmm, Krueger remembers thinking, that just might work.

That afternoon, the trio spent “like forever,” Krueger says, “talking about how this was perhaps totally the wrong thing to do, but we’re going to do it anyway. From there we went out and we ran and ran hard.”

Malone says Rivera, a Kingsbridge resident who couldn’t stand the thought of being represented by Espada for another two years, ran not so much out of “opportunity, but out of necessity.”

Rivera went from completely unknown to front-runner in a matter of months, garnering support from elected officials, unions and, especially, Bill Samuels, whose New Roosevelt Initiative pledged $250,000 to defeat Espada. Read more

Bakery Returns to Its Roots on Bainbridge Avenue

The smell of fresh bread is wafting back to Bainbridge Avenue.

In 2009, the Bainbridge Bakery in Norwood was gutted, and then completely demolished by a pair of fires in the span of seven months. Nearly two years after the second blaze — which struck just a few days before the business was set to reopen — Ana and Tony Mirdita, the couple that owns the bakery, are preparing to move into a new space on the same block. And neighborhood residents are hungrily waiting.

“My wife is more excited, because she likes their bread,” said Mark Goldberg, 71, who lives nearby. ”It’s nice that the bakery is open. Let’s hope this is the last time.”

In fact, the bakery’s new space, a former hair salon on Bainbridge between 205th and 206th streets, is still shuttered. A pair of homemade signs posted in the window declared that it is “coming back soon.”

In an interview on Friday, Tony Mirdita said that he had originally hoped to move the bakery back into its old spot on the block, which remains vacant following the second fire.

But Mirdita and his wife kept fielding questions about when they’d reopen, and when the old space was “not ready,” they opted for the new one, just up the block. Tony Mirdita said he hopes to start serving customers in about four weeks.

In 2009, the family suffered through an ordeal that Jimmy Cronin, a butcher at Hillside Meat Market on the same block as the new bakery, described as “a kick to the gut.” Read more

Bronx Adds a Name to 9/11 Memorial List

By Emily Piccone

The Bronx continued its annual tradition of remembering the 144 Bronx lives that were taken on Sept. 11, in a ceremony organized by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and his staff.

The feelings of renewing the brotherhood of patriotism were widespread on Thursday, Sept. 15 at Lou Gehrig Plaza, where more than 100 people were gathered.

“Today is a day that we should recall that sense of patriotism, that sense of brotherhood and sisterhood that locked the immediate aftermath of that horrible day 10 years ago,” said Administrative Judge Douglas McKeon in his address to the crowd.

With a special ceremony in honor of the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and his staff brought together a chorus of students that sang a selection of American melodies, a vocalist accompanied by Artistic Director Denise Perry of the Millennium Dance Company, and a final releasing of white doves after a reading of the 144 names of Bronx victims.

At the ceremony held last year, that list included one less name, Diaz explained to the audience.

A man by the name of Leon Heyward, a Bronxite who was coming up from the subway right as the second plane hit, chose to stay amidst the debris and smoke to help citizens escape. He was swept up in a cloud of toxic smoke, and passed away this past year. Read more

Multi-Service POTS Expands to Fill Growing Needs

By Ronald Chavez

With local hunger and unemployment numbers on the rise, nonprofit multi-service group Part of the Solution is expanding with the opening of a brand new $8 million facility next door to its current Webster Avenue location.

Part of the Solution, or POTS, known for its widely-used soup kitchen, case management and legal services, haircuts and showers, is bolstering each of its programs and adding others.

This comes amid reports of rising poverty in the country, according to the latest Census figures. POTS officials say they saw an 88 percent spike in the use of its emergency food programs from 2005 to 2010. According to the Food Resource Action Center, POTS serves the congressional district (the 16th) with the highest rate of hunger in the country.

Much of the new center is already in use. But the new facility is tentatively scheduled to open at full strength on Oct. 1, or whenever the new kitchen, the centerpiece of POTS’ programming, is completed.

The old kitchen served a maximum of 22 people at a time, whereas the new kitchen will have the capacity to serve 60 at a time. Staffers said the line to enter the old kitchen often extended outside the building and ran down the sidewalk. Read more

Op-Ed: A Love Letter to Norwood

By Sally Dunford

Dear Norwood,

I can’t remember when I didn’t love you. When I was little, Mom and Dad and a half-dozen siblings would come to Perry Avenue, to Nana and PopPop’s house. It was so exciting after East Greenbush. We’d come down on the Thruway and get off at 233rd Street, and go down Jerome Avenue. I was convinced that the end of the No. 4 train at the Woodlawn station was the gateway to New York. You could see the world from Nana’s house — the subway, the Thanksgiving parade, or just feeding the ducks at Woodlawn Cemetery. Aunt Ethel lived around the corner, and we played with the Irish kids next door. One of the three O’Sullivan girls had an exotic name – it was pronounced “Ah-va” — short for “Ave Maria because she was born at Christmas, ya see?” her sister told me.

So when I got a scholarship to come to Fordham University, it wasn’t surprising that I came. It was 1969 and the whole world was upside down. I lived my freshman year on Perry Avenue (Fordham had just gone co-ed, and there were no dorms for women). Sophomore year I got an apartment share; I was 19 and ready for independence. College was a time of learning, but I learned the most at the demonstrations and the constant political and philosophical discussions at the Campus Center during the day, and the The L-D (the El Dorado Bar – long gone I’m afraid) under the 3rd Avenue El.

I met my husband at The L-D, 40 years ago today. He was just back from Nam. We married a year later. Mike and I settled back in my mom’s old neighborhood, Norwood in the Bronx. Nana, newly-widowed, still lived there, and we wanted to be able to help her (not that she actually needed help — she lived another 20 plus years!). Read more

Healthy Recipes: Make Your Own Salad Dressing

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Salads are great. Salads can — and should — be a part of your diet. They’re a tasty way to up your daily vegetable and fruit intake and a quick, easy meal to take with you to work.

But salads can also be deceiving, when done wrong: a well-intentioned plate of greens can very easily go from healthy to high-calorie once you factor in toppings, and especially when doused in a fattening dressing (many restaurant salads are guilty of both).

So why not make your own dressing at home? DIY salad dressings are easy, generally healthier, and they’ll save you money. One bottle of Newman’s Own, according to the company’s website, costs $7.98, but most simple dressings can be thrown together with ingredients that are probably already in your kitchen, if you’re someone who cooks fairly often: oils, vinegars, and standard herbs and spices. Read more

City Can End Rental Program for Ex-Homeless, Judge Rules

A Manhattan State Supreme Court judge ruled last week that the city was no longer required to provide rental subsidies in a widely-used but controversial affordable housing program, putting thousands at risk of homelessness as soon as next month, some advocates say.

The court decision was the result of a class-action lawsuit by the nonprofit Legal Aid Society, challenging the city’s decision to end the Advantage program, which provides housing subsidies to the formerly homeless for up to two years. The city contends that it can no longer afford to keep the program running after the State withdrew funding for it last year (it was originally scheduled to end in April). Advantage participants were given a temporary reprieve over the last few months after the Legal Aid Society filed its suit.

Last week’s decision means the city can now legally cut the program; starting next month, some 12,000 Advantage participants will no longer receive their housing vouchers.

“It’s going to wreak havoc on this part of the Bronx,” said Sally Dunford, of the West Bronx Housing and Neighborhood Resource Center. “It’s going to be like pulling the rug out from under a lot of people.” Read more

Another Push for Yankee Stadium Hotel

By Jeanmarie Evelly

The Bronx is now one step closer to getting its own major hotel — not the seedy, hot-sheet kind that has so often plagued the borough, but what Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. predicts will be a “world-class” place to stay near Yankee Stadium.

The Bronx Overall Economic Development Center (BOEDC) released a “request for expressions of interest” on Monday, calling for interested developers to submit proposals to build a hotel on what is now a parking garage at River Avenue and East 153rd Street.

Bringing a high-end hotel to the Bronx has been a much-stated goal of Diaz since he took office.

“A major hotel and conference center has been a priority for the people of the Bronx for decades, and we are getting closer and closer to seeing that dream become a reality,” he said in a press release this week.

The site of the proposed future hotel is leased from the city by Bronx Parking Development Company. The group, which used acres of city-owned land to build a number of parking garages around the new Yankee Stadium two years ago, has been in dire financial straits since, struggling to get game-goers to pay to park there.

BOEDC President Marlene Cintron said building a hotel on the site will “maximize a valuable underutilized tract of land,” and could bring as many as 125 new jobs to the neighborhood.

The request is asking that projects meet certain requirements, among them a conference center, at least one high-end, penthouse-level restaurant, a concierge or condo level for long-term stays and some form of retail store.

Engel Backs Obama’s Call For ‘Millionaire’s Tax’

By Jeanmarie Evelly

U.S. Congressman Eliot Engel, who represents portions of the north Bronx, is praising President Barack Obama’s plan to raise the base tax rates on the wealthiest Americans to raise revenue and reduce the country’s budget deficit.

Obama’s proposal, announced Monday as part of a larger plan for economic growth, would increase taxes for people making over $1 million a year. The president is calling it the “Buffet Rule,” after the billionaire investor who famously lamented in a New York Times Op-Ed last month that he pays a smaller portion of his income in taxes than the poor or middle class.

In a statement Tuesday, Engel said he agreed with Obama’s decision to raise the income threshold for the tax hike from $250,000, the previously proposed bracket.

“Having the threshold at $1 million will not penalize high cost-of-living states, and will still generate the kind of revenues we need to address our long-term debt,” he said.

Even with that change, the president’s plan is already getting resistance from the Republicans of Congress, who claim that forcing the extremely wealthy to pay more will deter them from creating jobs and ultimately stall the economy—an idea that Engel dismissed.

“My Republican friends deride this as ‘class warfare’ because it asks the wealthy to pay more,” he said. “Class warfare to me is refusing to tighten tax loopholes and continuing the Bush Tax Cut levels, while the middle and working class continue to struggle.  It is class warfare to have the highest rate of poverty in our history while one percent of the country controls half the wealth.”

PS 51’s Move to Crotona Not Seamless

By Ronald Chavez

For the parents of kids at PS 51, the move from a contaminated building in Bedford Park to the St. Martin of Tours building in Crotona has been mostly smooth, with some minor hiccups.

Parent Stephanie Gonzalez said school buses were an hour late on the morning of the first day of school, but that the buses have been on time in the mornings since. Anthony Rivera said his brother had gotten a school bus at 2:50 p.m. and got home at 4:10, despite the new location being just two miles from the old one.

A Department of Education spokesperson said the DOE has not received any formal complaints about the school. PS 51 Parent Coordinator Helena Ortiz said the issues with bus scheduling had been worked out after the first week. She added that matters like air conditioning or when kids got back home once they were on the bus were handled by the bus company, and not by the school. Read more

Parks Dept. Brings Oval Skaters to a Halt

By Ronald Chavez

Giovanni Martinez, 14, has been skateboarding at Williamsbridge Oval Park for about a year. He and his friends, a pack of teens who’ve become regulars at the Oval, use the concrete, foot-high ledges that surround the park’s trees and walkways to grind and perform tricks.

But late this summer, the Parks Department halted the tricks by installing small metal wedges that protrude from the ledges, intended to stop the wheels on a skateboard.

“We have nowhere to skate now,” said Giovanni. He said he and about 10 other skaters, his friends, were shocked when they found the wedges, which they call “stoppers.” On a recent afternoon, the group had already succeeded in removing four of them, and hammered away on a fifth.

A skate park had originally been included in the renovation plans for Oval Park in 2008, but one never materialized. The Parks Department said Community Board 7 had voted for using the funds towards other improvements (the park boasts two brand new playgrounds, which opened this summer).

Even without an official, sanctioned skate space, some of Giovanni’s friends have been riding at Oval Park for years. Now, they say their options are limited. There is a relatively new skate park by Yankee Stadium, but skaters are constantly being robbed in that area, they said. Read more

Op-Ed: Ten Years After 9/11, the Last Word is Love

By Colleen Kelly

I was at a conference at Fordham University this past May entitled “Moral Outrage and Moral Repair — Reflections on 9/11 and its Afterlife.” The title interested me, as it seemed to accurately describe large portions of my existence this past decade.

My brother, Bill Kelly, Jr., died in Tower 1 on September 11th. He wasn’t supposed to be there. He didn’t work at the Trade Center.

Ironically, Bill’s prior visit to Windows on the World was in December 2000 to receive an employee recognition award. Who knew that the one-day conference Bill was attending on September 11th, the conference he persuaded his boss into letting him attend, would be an event from which he would never return.

Moral outrage — certainly. At the extremists that murdered my brother. At the twist of fate that led him to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. At a humanity that allows for violence as a means to make a point, state your case, right perceived wrongs. At anyone who dared exult in the agonizing smoke and fire.

Then came feelings of confusion — at my country, now planning to bomb others a world away. Didn’t we — yes, we — just live through terror and horrific violence? So then how could we — yes, we — be the cause of similar harm to others? Confusion, also, with my church.

What is a just war exactly? Why does the justification to injure others seem so hypocritical … and human? And how does one truly live out the gospels—or are they simply a collection of beautiful stories?

Finding a group of 9/11 family members who had these and similar concerns was a true blessing. In February of 2002, we formally became an organization, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows. We have been working together to break cycles of violence ever since, and our members are “the best friends I never wanted to know.” Read more

The Making of a Liberal Politician: Part I

By Alex Kratz

State Senator Gustavo Rivera’s Journey From Puerto Rico to the Bronx

Ed. Note: This is the first in a series of articles about State Senator Gustavo Rivera who was thrust into the spotlight after defeating the controversial Pedro Espada, Jr. last fall. Rivera represents the entire Norwood News coverage area.

Just 10 months into his new job as a state senator representing the northwest Bronx, Gustavo Rivera is a relative newcomer to elected office. But Rivera, a Puerto Rican native who moved to the Bronx 13 years ago, is not new to his party’s liberal ideology. He grew into it through years of study and an unexpected discovery during his early years in New York City.

Much like the vast majority of Puerto Ricans, Jose Gustavo Rivera’s parents, Lydia and Jose Manuel Rivera, exercised their right to vote on election days. (Rivera and his brothers, Jose Manuel, Jr. and Jose Javier, all go by their middle names.) But they were not in any other way political.

Both parents grew up in the center of the Caribbean island country without their fathers. Each became the first in their families to attain high school and college degrees and preached the value of education to their three sons.

“Both his mother and myself, we stressed the importance of education on them,” says Rivera’s father. “It doesn’t matter what they want to do. But you need to have an education. It will always be there.”

After earning undergraduate and master’s degrees in biochemistry in Puerto Rico, Jose Rivera went to Wisconsin to pursue a PhD. But the pursuit was cut short when his first son, Gustavo Rivera’s older brother, Jose Manuel, Jr., began showing signs of what is now known as autism. Determined to help his son succeed, the elder Rivera turned his attention to studying up on this mysterious developmental disability. Now a high-functioning autistic who was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, Gustavo’s older brother makes a living translating books into Braille.

Jose Rivera, of course, wanted badly for his middle son, Gustavo, to go all the way with his education and earn his doctorate.
“Gustavo was always an extremely curious guy,” his father says. “He wanted an answer for everything. Always wanted to know the why, what and  whom. It got him in trouble with some of his teachers.”

As a child, Gustavo’s mother called him “Papa con ojos” or “Potato with eyes” because of his oval-shaped head and enormous eyes. He was a mature conversationalist at a young age and felt as comfortable speaking with adults as he did with his peers, his father says. In secondary school, his father says young Gustavo was “very peculiar; he chose his friends very carefully.” Read more

Op-Ed: Looking Back on What Matters After 17 Years at Norwood News

By Jordan Moss

In 1998, four years after I became editor of the Norwood News, I was staying at a bed-and-breakfast in Kingston, NY. After introducing myself to another guest at breakfast, l told him where I worked. He laughed and told me he previously worked at the School Construction Authority (SCA), which was then independent of the Board of Education. “We used to fear getting that paper in the mail every time it came out!” he said.

For more than two years, the Norwood News had highlighted the rash of problems and delays in completing PS 20 on Webster Avenue and later PS 15 on Andrews Avenue — two badly needed schools in vastly overcrowded District 10. We submitted Freedom of Information Law requests that uncovered problems in the laying of the foundation at PS 20, and for quite a while ran a countdown clock on the front page counting the days until the latest scheduled completion date.

The school eventually got built and has been serving local residents for almost 15 years, as has PS 15. Our coverage resulted in other newspapers highlighting the SCA’s problems and led to local residents organizing and putting pressure on the agency. The SCA finished the next batch of local schools and additions on time and got its act together.

This is only one example of the critical role community journalism can play and has played in this part of the Bronx. It’s why hyper-local news is so important. There are dozens of TV, radio stations and newspapers that focus on citywide, statewide and national issues, and they occasionally touch down in our northwest Bronx neighborhoods. But only good community papers are dedicated to relentlessly covering issues that so directly affect residents.

Newspapers like this one, by being so familiar with the operation of, and players in, the local civic machinery, can hold government and its representatives accountable and make sure that our communities receive our fair share of taxpayer-generated resources.

Being able to have this kind of impact by editing a newspaper that gave our neighborhoods, too often neglected by decision makers, a voice is why I came to work every day. Read more

Huge Turnout for Muslim Holiday Event

By Jasmeet Sidhu

Several hundred Norwood-area Muslims gathered in Williamsbridge Oval Park on Tuesday Aug. 30, to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.

The outdoor ceremony, which was organized by the North Bronx Islamic Center, was the first of its kind in the Norwood area.

“In this neighborhood, it’s the first time we’re doing it in a park,” said longtime mosque attendee Nurul Haque. “After 30 days of the fast, sacrifice, mercy, discipline…you get to celebrate yourself along with others.”

Moinul Hussein, a 24-year-old college student, said he was hoping the outdoor prayer would help dispel myths about the Muslim community.

“I want people to see us, what we do. There’s nothing crazy going on. Just like how people go to the church and pray, we go to the mosque and pray. We follow an Imam, they follow a priest.”

Ramadan is considered the holiest month for the religion of Islam. It is marked by followers fasting from sunrise to sunset.

Cabrera Crusades for Prayer in 9/11 Memorial Service

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Bronx City Councilman Fernando Cabrera is petitioning Mayor Bloomberg to include prayer in next week’s ceremony commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks — joining a chorus of the city’s religious leaders criticizing the mayor for excluding them from the memorial service.

During a radio broadcast last month, Bloomberg said the ceremony will feature a small group of current and former elected officials who will read pre-selected, nonreligious poems or texts.

Those scheduled to participate include: President Barack Obama, former President George W. Bush, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christi, former New York Gov. George Pataki, former mayor Rudy Guliani and Bloomberg himself.

“There’s an awful lot of people who would like to participate, and you just can’t do that,” Bloomberg said.

A spokeswoman for the mayor’s office told the Wall Street Journal and several other news outlets that there are no plans to amend the ceremony, and that religious rituals have never been included in any of the yearly memorials.

“It has been widely supported for the past 10 years and rather than have disagreements over which religious leaders participate, we would like to keep the focus of our commemoration ceremony on the family members of those who died,” said spokeswoman Evelyn Erskine.

But Cabrera, himself a pastor at the New Life Outreach International Church on Morris Avenue, is personally crusading against Bloomberg’s stance. He’s gone on a number of television news shows over the last few weeks to discuss the issue and started an online petition (at press time, it had some 700 signatures).

“During 9/11, the faith community served as pillars for many New Yorkers coping with the tragedy. As a pastor during the tumultuous aftermath, I know firsthand that it was a time where people were searching for meaning and things bigger than themselves,” Cabrera said in a statement. “People’s faith helped fill this void and continues to serve as spiritual and emotional support.”

DOE Announces 9/11 Curriculum

By Jeanmarie Evelly

With the start of a new school year arriving just days before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Department of Education unveiled a new classroom curriculum last week to help students understand the history and emotional weight of the event.

The curriculum, developed by the DOE and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, includes lesson plans for each age group and classroom materials that teachers can download off the DOE’s website.

“The 10th anniversary will be an emotional, difficult time for many New Yorkers, so it’s important that our students understand what happened that day,” said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott. “With the help of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, we’ve created a guide to discussing these events with students in a meaningful way that is also academically rigorous.”

Lessons focus on subjects like the history of the towers, the efforts of the first responders and how the city has since memorialized the tragedy. Kindergarteners, for example, can learn about the Search and Rescue Dogs that helped sort through the Ground Zero rubble in a lesson called “Furry Heroes.”

Schools will also have access to special counseling resources should students or staff members need it, the DOE said.

Investment in Infrastructure Will Bring Jobs, Engel Says

As President Barack Obama prepares to deliver his much-hyped “jobs” speech this Thursday night, Bronx Congressman Eliot Engel says that investing in transportation construction is the key to creating more jobs.

In a statement released last week, Engel urged his colleagues in Congress to cooperate with President Obama to pass a federal transportation bill that funds roads, railways and transportation construction, something the president has been pressing as one solution to the nation’s high unemployment rate.

‘The best way for us to create immediate jobs is to rebuild our infrastructure,” Engel said in a press release.

“It is a win-win for America,” he added. “For example, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says that a $50 billion investment in school renovation could create half a million jobs in one to two years.  If we fail to reauthorize the transportation bill, we would lose 4,000 jobs instantly, $1 billion in revenue in the first 10 days, and approximately one million jobs in the first year.”

Engel said he recently toured his district — which includes parts of the Bronx and Westchester — to survey the damage caused by Hurricane Irene.

“Bridges were knocked down and entire chunks of pavement were washed away, leaving municipalities with hazardous conditions, massive cleanup and logistical nightmares,” Engel said. “This just proves that we need to pay much more attention to our national infrastructure than we have in recent decades.”

Obama has said he is committed to rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure as a means of reigniting the nation’s stalled economy, and is expected to address this in his speech to Congress Thursday night.

The unemployment rate in the Bronx is the highest of any county in New York, according to the Department of Labor, at 12.3 percent in July.

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