Inquiring Photographer: Rent Laws

By DAVID GREENE

This week we asked readers their thoughts on the sweeping new rent laws passed last week in Albany, and if these new laws will affect and protect local residents. The new rent laws are very good; I mean, rent is too exorbitant now. It’s a serious problem. You need two people, [each with a job], just to pay the rent, otherwise you can’t survive. The new laws will protect people from being thrown out by a landlord, so it’s good that the new laws protect us. Teddy Equal Norwood I have been looking for an apartment and I’ve got

Why the CFB’s New Program Could Disrupt Purported 11th CD Race

By DAVID CRUZ

Next year will likely be an election season for the ages. And the New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB) is preparing so. With 35 New York City Council seats up for grabs, five of which are in the Bronx, more candidates will be on hand (CFB expects 500 candidates), especially those new to politics. Meantime, all five borough presidents, including Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., will have vacancies. Running campaigns is not cheap, leaving many candidates who believe they can make a difference to not even consider the thought. But CFB is looking to undo that by reminding

Merchants falling in the Jerome Gun Hill Business Improvement District (JGHBID), and supporters were on hand for the first-ever Small Business Recognition Barbecue hosted by the BID on June 21. The event honored longstanding or active merchants of the BID. Check out these fantastic shots by Síle Moloney

Bronx Tenants to New NYCHA Chair: Deliver

By CHRISTY RAE AMMONS AND SHA-NIA ALSTON

New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) recently hired Gregory Russ as the new chairman with a salary of over $400,000. Tenants in public housing and city officials are concerned. Russ has managed housing before, but never anything the size of NYCHA. In Minneapolis, he managed 6,300 units, and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he managed 2,700. NYCHA has 400,000 New Yorkers living in 170,000 apartments, which is a difference of 163,700 units from where Russ started. “He managed a quarter of what NYCHA has,” said Linda Bailey, a tenant in Gun Hill Houses. “How are you going to manage this? What can

By SÍLE MOLONEY

Within moments of Leandra Feliz emerging from a vigil held at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Belmont, on the evening of June 20, ahead of a planned procession to mark the first anniversary of the murder of her 15-year-old son, Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz, the heavens suddenly burst open. Feliz’s face broke into a broad smile, amid applause from onlookers, as she raised her eyes and arms skyward in an apparent secret moment of connection with her deceased son. Dressed in jeans, boots and a t-shirt depicting an image of Junior, she faced off against the media

The Buzz of a New Mural, Courtesy of UNHP

By MICHAEL TURAY

Alfredo Bennett, commonly known as the Royal KingBee, led the ceremonial ribbon cutting that unveiled his eye-catching mural on a brickwall at 45-57 W. Tremont Ave., a 51-unit apartment complex near Kingsland Plaza in Tremont, on June 19. A round of applause and loud cheers followed as the Bronx native grinned proudly. The mural–a kaleidoscopic honeycomb that includes KingBee’s signature metallic-style bee–included with phrases such as “Reclaim” and “Save our Swarm” spray painted. In a way the mural captures the story of the apartment building, which, in the 1990s, had been completely rundown. This new display is a far cry

Neighborhood Notes: Free Immigration Service

Editor’s Pick It’s My Park Partnerships for Parks presents It’s My Park at Mosholu Parkland’s Welcome Garden, Mosholu Parkway North and Bainbridge Avenue, June 22 from noon to 3 pm. Activities include face painting, storytelling, acoustic guitar music, and planting on the sidewalk gardens. For more information, visit www.partnershipsforparks.org/calendar. Onstage Lehman Center for the Performing Arts, 250 Bedford Pk. Blvd. W., presents bachata artist Frank Reyes, June 29 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $45 to $85; $125/VIP (includes preconcert wine and hors d’oeuvres reception at 6:30 p.m. in the Havana Café). For more information, call (718) 960-8833/4/5. The NY Botanical

By PROF. ANTHONY RIVIECCIO, MBA PFA

When I graduated with my BA from college in Business Economics, I did what every person did in 1987: got a business entry desk job or a job in Wall Street. Starting on Wall Street from 1992 to 1997, I learned the “hidden secret” about how some can make” a million dollars real quick! Stockbrokers got paid, not based on their advice and expertise, but on the product they sold for a commission. Now is that in someone’s best interest? This was how Wall Street was born in the 1920s, but in the 1970s there was a “no commission” movement.

By SHA-NIA ALSTON & SÍLE MOLONEY

When Dr. Joan Kong arrived as the new principal of PS 11X in Highbridge in September 2011, the first thing she checked out was the school’s library and immediately assessed that it was not fit for purpose. “This is not a library,” she said, at that time, to Roseanna Gulisano, the school’s librarian. “So we are going to start from here and we are going to make this a real library, where kids have the opportunity to read, to enjoy reading, to love books and have the opportunities that they wouldn’t have gotten at home or [by] going to the