Free Computer Tutoring Mosholu Preservation Corporation is offering a free computer tutoring class Mondays through Fridays from 2 to 5 p.m. at 3400 Reservoir Oval East. Topics range from basic computer skills to navigating the Internet. All are welcome. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please call Brenda Lucio at (718) 324-4461. Navigating Medicare Council Member Oliver Koppell, along with other local politicians and organizations, is offering a program on Medicare, including how to choose a Medicare, health or drug plan; how to protect yourself from fraud; and who to notify if you suspect Medicare fraud. Speaker Betty

Read More

Onstage n JASA    Van Cortlandt Senior Center, located at 3880 Sedgwick Ave., presents Music of Latin America performed by classical guitarist Anthony Purdy, March 9 at 1 p.m., preceded by lunch at noon with a suggested donation of $3. For more information, call (718) 549-4700. n The Bronx Library Center hosts A Musical Tribute to Tono Pepin, featuring Tono’s son, master percussionist Papo Pepin and his salsa ensemble, performing Latin jazz, the music of his father, Feb. 23 at 2:30 p.m. The Center is located at 310 E. Kingsbridge Road off Fordham Road. For a detailed schedule, call (718) 579-4244/46

Read More

While the city continues to deliberate about which contractor should develop the long-vacant Kingsbridge Armory in the northwest Bronx, community leaders and local elected officials wonder what’s taking so long. As the community awaits an answer, speculation is running rampant.

Despite ongoing community concerns, work will begin this month on a 6-story, 48-room Comfort Inn on Webster Avenue in Norwood, as the McSam Hotel Group moves ahead after struggling for more than a year to convince neighbors that the project will be good for the area.

This is not the kind of news that makes the front page of the city’s tabloids or the top of the 11 o’clock news (or even the bottom).

But it should because it will affect millions of New Yorkers and the city’s civic bloodstream.

As Juan Gonzalez first reported in the Daily News last month, the city is now negotiating a contract with Verizon to provide cable service in the five boroughs.

That’s important for two reasons. The first is obviously that it will introduce cable competition for the first time. Time Warner and Cablevision will no longer have virtual monopolies.

The second reason is that part of the deal will include what percentage of revenue will go toward public access television.

Community leaders are getting very tired of waiting for the city to choose a developer for the Kingsbridge Armory.

So are we.

Almost 18 months ago, we celebrated the announcement of the release of the request for proposals by stopping our "Armory Clock," the countdown of days that passed since Governor George Pataki visited the armory in 2005 and announced he would help figure out where to relocate the National Guard units that still occupied the buildings behind the landmark facility, which appeared to be the main stumbling block at the time.

Even though MS 80 is well within the readership area of the Norwood News, it would seem that no one in that surrounding neighborhood has read the paper’s periodic reminders to “cut the crap.” The other day I had occasion to walk along Rochambeau Avenue on the MS 80 school side of the street from East 208th Street to Van Cortlandt Avenue, and that entire length of sidewalk had dog poop splayed every few feet, anywhere from the curb’s edge to the center of the sidewalk. By the time I decided to start counting, I totaled no fewer than six

Read More

I just wanted to take a moment and tip my hat to Jordan Moss, editor-in-chief of the Norwood News. During his tenure, he has been able to take what was once a very good “idea” and blossom it into a viable bi-weekly newspaper. For almost 20 years, it has been wonderful to see the Norwood News cover our area and the problems within it, especially as the neighborhood and its problems evolve. A perfect example was to have the hindsight to cover the police news, by sector, as in your great 52nd Precinct map [Jan. 24–Feb. 6, 2008 issue]. Many

Read More

The New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) has agreed to investigate the massive cost overruns that have plagued the construction of the Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park.