Gjonaj Strives to Curb Illegal Dumping with Clean-Up Day

By JANAKI CHADHA After a long and cold months, with temperatures climbing, it seems like spring has finally sprung. To help get community parks ready for the new season, local Assemblyman Mark Gjonaj is hosting clean-up events in the area, one of which will take place at an ad hoc dumping ground on Mosholu Parkway on Saturday, April 25.

Hit and Run on East Gun Hill Road

A traffic agent was seriously injured on East Gun Hill Road by a driver that did not stop, the Norwood News has learned. Police cordoned off the busy stretch by East Gun Hill Road and Putnam Place shortly after noon, and reopened it an hour later. The victim suffered broken bones, according to a police source. The driver involved in the hit-and-run incident has not been found yet. The victim was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center and was listed in critical condition. The Norwood News will have more information as it comes.

Progress Moves, Though Slowly, On Proposed Oliver Place Park

By WILLIAM MATHIS Community Board 7’s efforts to see the building a new park in a rundown lot on the outskirts of Bedford Park advanced some, albeit minimally, during a meeting with representatives from various city agencies Wednesday night.

Related Cos. Documents Reveal Little in Way of Deal

By DAVID CRUZ Further insight into the New York Comptroller’s Office approval of a multi-billion dollar real estate firm’s purchase of Bronx properties paid with city pension funds came short, despite a Freedom of Information request from the Norwood News. The documents came amid the president of the real estate firm meeting privately with community stakeholders to apologize.

Inquiring Photographer

This week we asked readers their thoughts on a recent incident where police chased teens smoking marijuana from the lobby of a building onto a roof, where one teen fell to his death. What was the crime again? It shouldn’t even be considered a crime, and all it does is clog up the courts and the jails. It doesn’t make sense. Winston Bailey, Belmont

Weekend Shootings Surge Following Dormant Season

By DAVID GREENE In a weekend that saw rising temperatures, there was a noticeable uptick in gunfire across the borough that left at least nine victims wounded in a nine-hour period.

April “Falls” Day

WHAT’S AN APRIL FOOLS Day without April “Falls” Day?!? Senior citizens at the PSS (Presbyterian Senior Services) Parkside Senior Center learned a lesson in staying balanced and preventing falls at the April Falls Day wellness fair on April 1. Experts from LiveOn NY, Parkside Senior Center, and Montefiore Medical Center were on hand to conduct balance assessments. They helped these seniors stand tall.

Organ Donors Sought for Registration Drive

By JENNY SHARP Leo Trevino Jr, manager of Montefiore Hospital’s Organ and Tissue Donation Initiative, says that he is constantly astounded by the generosity of New Yorkers in their willingness to donate an organ to save the life of a stranger. “There are families that I know cannot buy a gallon of milk and they give this gift of life without asking anything in return” said Trevino.

Lehman Center’s Spring Lineup Infuses Cultural Arts in Disadvantaged Borough

By JENNY SHARP For Eva Bornstein, director of the Lehman Center for the Performing Arts, advocating the necessity of art in a community comes with a ferocity in language that’s tangible. “Without art, we are monkeys in the trees, eating and surviving,” Bornstein told the Norwood News.