Norwood News Presents: This is Your Neighborhood

Dear Fellow Readers: How much does your neighborhood mean to you? For some, it’s a place to reside. For others, it’s a place to build a family. Whether transient or a mainstay, we are all products of a neighborhood, charged up by its tempo and space. In the Bronx, a kaleidoscope of communities east and west, north and south, give the borough a uniqueness unlike most of the city. If you look to the west, a bustling Fordham shopping district sees some 80,000 people overrun the ever-growing strip while City Island, resting at the eastern tip of the Bronx, offers

New York City kids converged at Norwood’s Williamsbridge Oval Park for a day of flag football, softball and other adrenaline-inducing activities at the annual Summer Sports Experience Jamboree. The event, sponsored by the New York City Parks Department, drew an estimated 1000 young people to the Aug. 17 event. At its heart, the all-day event encouraged exercise at New York City’s parks. Photos by Miriam Quinones. [URIS id=21604]

Fighting a Hospital in Puerto Rico…From 1600 Miles Away

By DAVID CRUZ

Jose Cotto, living a seemingly solitary life on Decatur Avenue for the last several years, replays the circumstances leading to his mother’s death, Santa Torres, at a hospital in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. She died June 6, 2014, a day after undergoing simple surgery on a fractured hip from a fall while seeing her daughter in Puerto Rico. But after receiving several multiple doses of morphine Torres, 89, passed away from a heart attack. Torres’ main residence was in the Bronx. Living with her son for several years, the two were inseparable. These days, the apartment she lived in

By ADRIANNA LOMBARDO

A quintet of musicians forming the Bardekova Ensemble put on a free performance at the Poe Park Visitors Center in Fordham on July 10. The music troupe is a non-profit organization funded through the Bronx Council of the Arts. They bring free or low priced concerts to the Bronx community, an area lacking in music performances when compared to the rest of the city. These free concerts are open to the public. Members from the Bardekova Ensemble have performed with members of the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera. Members of the Bardekova Ensemble include Richard Parately (flute), Akari

Hello Faithful Readers, The month-long edition of the Norwood News is out with plenty of Bronx community news you can use. With our July-August edition, are some interesting stories intended to pique your interest. We first begin in Bedford Park with a tenants meeting involving Ved Parkash, dubbed the city’s worst landlord. Hear what tenants living in his buildings had to say about conditions, which have drawn the ire of city officials. Also, hear what Mr. Parkash had to say of his buildings. Moving into the pages of the edition you’ll read up on Mosholu Montefiore Community Center‘s respected executive director,

Body Camera Survey The NYPD wants your opinion on its officer body-worn cameras. Take the questionnaire or submit comments at nypdbodycameras.org. TV Production Training Workshops on television production are available through BronxNet Television, the borough’s official public access television station, from July 12 through Sept. 3, at either Mercy College or Lehman College. Registration fee is $90 for in-studio training and $100 for field production. For more information, call (718) 960-1181. Free Summer Meals Free summer meals for children age 18 and under is available until Sept. 2 at public schools, community pool centers, New York City Housing Authority complexes,

The latest edition of the Norwood News is out with plenty of community news you can use to make you a more aware Bronx resident! This week we have 16 pages packed with news happening in the Norwood area and surrounding communities. Our page one story takes us to the heart of the neighborhood and accusations of welfare fraud by a popular halal deli on East 204th Street. A raid rounded up members of the family-owned operation. David Greene spoke with the son of the owner. See what he has to say. We then turn to an editorial found on

By Bronx Community Health Leaders

Don’t think there are opportunities in the Bronx to achieve your dreams? Think again. Julissa de La Cruz is a young, single mom, living in the Bronx, but any standard narrative ends there. Every Tuesday night she gathers young Bronx college students at Family Health Center, Montefiore’s primary care site, to cultivate their dreams of becoming doctors and serving their communities. The group of 40 students – some of whom are the first in their families to attend college – is named Bronx Community Health Leaders (BxCHL), a yearlong peer network support group where its recent crop of students graduated. Members start

By DAVID CRUZ

In the last three decades, employees from Montefiore Health System made it a point to join hundreds of people in marching at the Gay Pride Parade in Manhattan. Teams of hospital employees, decked out in rainbow-colored shirts, would amble along Fifth Avenue in solidarity with members of the LGBTQ community, in which many call Montefiore their go-to hospital or their employer. This year, and perhaps in perpetuity, a first-ever float bearing the hospital logo will roll out at the festal parade, joining a cavalcade of other floats that send its message of support to the gay community. It also serves