The race to redevelop the Kingsbridge Armory is officially on. Close to a hundred people showed up to an informational meeting put on by the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) on Thursday, Oct. 19 at the Armory. The morning meeting included an overview of the request for proposals (RFP), an extended tour through the Armory’s labyrinth of rooms and tunnels, and ended with a brief question-and-answer session.

The more than $200 million in Bronx parks funding promised by city officials in exchange for siting a controversial water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park, has begun to change the local landscape. Fences and bulldozers can be found in most local parks and more are on the way. Following is a rundown of where the various park projects in Community District 7 and the Norwood News readership area stand:

Evander Childs’ do-everything Jamaican superstar, Mario Rainey, danced through the last 10 minutes of the Bronx Championship last Tuesday at his home field, a game the Tigers won 2-0 over cross-borough rival Truman.

The 92nd Street Y in Manhattan honored a Bronx – and Norwood – treasure last Thursday evening. As part of a series, "Music and Dance of Jewish Traditions," Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, a songwriter, singer and poet, was celebrated as the equivalent of a rock star in Yiddish culture.

While service has resumed at the Bedford Park Boulevard station on the No. 4 line after a four-month rehab project, the Mosholu Parkway station is about to undergo a similar facelift. Beginning on Oct. 30, the northbound side of the station will close for three months and the southbound side will close for a similar length of time beginning next summer, according to a New York City Transit spokesperson.

Lockers belonging to nearly 200 members of the 145th Maintenance Company were quietly placed onto two military trucks on Saturday and delivered to Staten Island as the National Guard unit slowly moved out of the Kingsbridge Armory to its new base on Manor Road in Staten Island.

In an effort to satisfy an increasing demand for off-site parking, the New York Botanical Garden is in the final stages of purchasing a site to build a $37 million, 784-car garage on the corner of Webster Avenue and Bedford Park Boulevard.

We’ve learned there’s another difference between the Mets and the Yankees that has nothing to do with payroll or their relative performances in the post-season. While both teams succeeded in wrangling deals for new stadiums, only the Mets seem to have recognized that, along with some public financing, comes a degree of community responsibility.

Thousands of local eighth-graders, with their parents’ help, will soon be deciding where to spend the next four years of their young lives and they need all the information they can get. Most schools will be opening their doors to prospective students with open houses and other events (see sidebar), but this will give parents and kids a head start.