2004 was not the borough’s finest hour in the public policy arena. Most Bronx politicians in the machine’s fold continued to support the construction of the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park. The project will adversely affect Norwood and surrounding communities in numerous ways. The Eastview site in Westchester was much more suited to an industrial facility of this kind, but the politicians were seduced by more than $200 million in park improvement funds offered by the DEP in exchange for their support.

Local Region 1 has submitted a proposal to the city Department of Education (DOE) to close MS 143 and, in its place, create a new middle school and allow a small high school currently sited there to expand.

A police officer from the 52nd Precinct maced a 17-year-old Walton High School student on school grounds on Dec. 17 in an incident that advocates believe is the latest consequence of the Kingsbridge school’s rampant overcrowding.

A judge has dismissed one of the four lawsuits brought by opponents of the filtration plant planned for Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park.

University Heights is in the midst of a housing building boom the likes of which it hasn’t seen in decades.At least seven projects are under way or in the works in a neighborhood that developers have historically ignored. Many of the projects, which range from three-family homes to high-end rentals, already have waiting lists.

Bronx officials and kids wasted no time making use of the new amenities at Devoe Park. City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe was fast on his feet during an inaugural game of hoops at Devoe Park’s renovated basketball courts, though local teens gave him a run for his money.

Scores of Bronx tenants lost their rights over the last year and they probably didn’t even know it. That’s because a Bronx Supreme Court judge, Sallie Manzanet, prevented community organizers from entering five neglected buildings, negotiating with banks to enforce the good repair clause of mortgage contracts, or even discussing the problem buildings with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD).

Once home to quiet prayer and meditation, the second floor of the convent at St. Brendan’s Church now resonates with the tickling of piano keys and strumming of guitars. The Norwood institution realized a long-held dream last month when its music school opened in the school’s former convent.

Together Patty Doyle and Lisa Concelacion have decades of nursing experience. Still, neither had seen anything like the Aguirre brothers, the world-famous conjoined twins who were successfully separated after four surgeries in 2003 and 2004 at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.