Bedford Park Teen Killed; Shootings Double in 52nd

In the last two weeks alone, a 15-year-old Bedford Park resident was murdered, and shooting incidents have doubled. There were only four shooting incidents in the first five months of the year and there have been four since June 12. The gun violence is being compounded by reports of raucous street behavior in neighborhoods throughout the precinct. |  Read More

Lessons Learned at Kids' 'African' Market

The sounds of drumming and shouting radiate throughout the halls of PS 340 as the elementary students' simulated African marketplace comes to life. "Two dollars!" one child yells, while another tries to haggle down the price. |  Read More

Enraging Many, Espada Blocks Tenant Legislation

Local residents and housing advocates say State Senator Pedro Espada, Jr., whose name means "sword" in Spanish, has stabbed them in the back by siding with Republicans, not supporting rent laws that would preserve affordable housing and essentially paralyzing the state legislature. |  Read More

Domestic Violence Survivors Find a New Destiny

After spending almost a year in various domestic violence shelters around New York City, Maria, whose real name is being withheld for her own protection, has found a new life and a new beginning in the northwest Bronx. What she found was Marcello Manor, the newest and largest project of New Destiny, a nonprofit housing corporation that provides permanent housing and help for survivors of domestic violence. |  Read More

Dems Helped Elect Espada

Pedro Espada may be the second or third most important person in state politics at the moment, but he wasn't a state senator a mere six months ago.

He won a Democratic primary against Efrain Gonzalez, Jr., the indicted incumbent, with less than 5,000 votes.

Democratic officials who were in the process of deposing party leader Jose Rivera, closed ranks behind Gonzalez, despite clear indications that he was headed to jail.

They overlooked Gonzalez's pending criminal trial on fraud and corruption charges by telling themselves that Gonzalez would be more loyal than Espada, and that if he went to jail, they'd get to hand pick a candidate who would sail to election. Gonzalez had never flirted with joining the Republican caucus (though he did endorse Rudy Giuliani and Al D'Amato) and wouldn't stand in the way of hallmark Democratic legislation like vacancy decontrol, their reasoning went.

"If he were to be convicted, he would be out of office and there would be a special election," says Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz. "If Pedro Espada got elected, we believed there would be a good chance that he'd sit with Republicans because he had a history of doing that, and it's not a distant history."

It would be a decent point if Gonzalez had won. But he didn't - probably because few voters were motivated to head to the polls to choose between the indicted Gonzalez and Espada, who has his own sordid history.

What if they instead had gotten behind a third candidate? |  Read More

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 Public and Community Meetings