Latest Edition of the Norwood News is Out!

Hello Fellow Readers! David Cruz, editor-in-chief of the Norwood News, here with another edition of the Norwood News, bringing you plenty of Bronx community news you can use! This week we bring you stories that have a direct impact on your life! We first begin with a proposal to bring a homeless shelter by a nonprofit provider with a checkered past. The plan is still in the talks phase, though sources tell us the developer has been eyeing one Norwood location that’s across from an elementary/middle school. Read reaction from parents and community stakeholders.  Venturing inside the cover you will read a story


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New Affordable Housing Rules Attempt to Prevent Discrimination

As Norwood continues its building boom of affordable housing, with more projects under way, securing a unit could improve for applicants placed on so-called “landlord blacklists” following changes in the City’s affordable housing lottery and screening processes. With affordable housing often cut off to New Yorkers who may carry a poor credit score or had once sued their landlord, the new rules mandate landlords and developers disregard those considerations when renting a City-subsidized affordable housing apartment. The revised rules came after City officials solicited feedback over the fairness the housing lottery, a selection process that merely qualifies an applicant to


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Park Reservoir Tenants Call on Bylaw Change Following Amalgamated Plan Switch

The civil war continues at a Mitchell-Lama complex in Van Cortlandt Village. Following opposition to a plan by the Board of Directors to replace management services by Amalgamated Houses for another, more than 100 cooperators living at Park Reservoir approved a proposal to modify the building’s bylaws to prevent its management firm to be replaced without two-thirds support of tenants. But the proposal, approved 111 to 35 in favor, must be approved by the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), the agency that oversees Mitchell-Lama cooperatives. If this amendment is approved, cooperators could thwart the board’s yearlong plan


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Latest Edition of the Norwood News is Out!

Hello fellow readers, The newest edition of the Norwood News is out with 20 pages of Bronx community news you can use. We begin with a familiar story: The Kingsbridge Armory. The latest in this poor, ongoing saga is the Kingsbridge National Ice Center’s attempt at wanting to purchase the enormous property from the City of New York. Read about those attempts by the developers attorneys who are using every legal maneuver in the book to grab a hold of the property. Here in Norwood, we feature a story on the District Manager of Community Board 7, Andrew Sandler, facing the possibility


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Editorial: Participatory Budgeting Could Work If Only It Weren’t So Slow

The premise is deceptively simple: If you were given $1 million of taxpayer money to build a project for the city, what would it be? With Participatory Budgeting, an initiative that’s become cornerstone to many New York City Council legislators, including Norwood Councilman Andrew Cohen, that wish could indeed come true. The initiative is once again under way, and council members want your help. But in the three years since it’s been instituted in the Norwood side of Cohen’s district, what’s really been lacking in PB is participants. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t exactly make


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Explosion at Alleged Marijuana Grow House Kills Firefighter, Injures 12

A firefighter chief is dead and twelve others were injured following an explosion of a home in Kingsbridge, which is now under suspicion for housing a so-called “grow house.” Battalion Chief Michael Fahy, a 17-year veteran with the FDNY, was struck with debris from the exploding home at 300 W. 234th Street as he directed operations from outside the home. “It’s a terrible loss for the family, for the Fahy family,” FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said at a news conference at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, where Fahy was rushed to. “It’s a loss for the Fire Department family. We are a


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Public & Community Meetings

COMMUNITY BOARD 7 will hold its general board meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 20, at 6:30 p.m. at Sister Annunciata Bethell Senior Center, 243 E. 204th St. CB7 committee meetings are held on the following dates at the board office, 229 E. 204th St., at 6:30 p.m. unless otherwise noted: Housing, Land Use & Zoning Committee on Sept. 21; and Economic Development Committee on Sept. 27. For more information, call the Board office at (718) 933-5650. THE 52ND PRECINCT COMMUNITY COUNCIL will meet Sept. 22 at 2455 Sedgwick Ave. (across from Fordham Hill Oval Cooperative) from 7 to 9 p.m. For


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New NYPD Top Cop Has Police Roots in Norwood

The new police commissioner is no stranger to the Bronx, as are a major number of high ranking brass now helping him run the department. Days before he was named by outgoing Police Commissioner Bill Bratton to succeed him, then NYPD Chief of Department James O’Neill stood before a convention of community and ethnic press invited to hear from him. Asked about noise issues in Norwood, he quickly smiled and revealed he knew Norwood well. He had been the second in command at its precinct. “I was the captain of the Five-Two in 1998,” O’Neill said, referring to his time


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BCHS Embarks on Digital Preservation of Relics

Something old will soon be new again If someone wants to dig up the Bronx’s past, they would have to email the Bronx County Historical Society for assistance. For a fee, a librarian would sift though a trove of aging artifacts, with some in such poor shape that handling them would compromise them even more. For documents available to the public, a trip to the Society’s archives is the only way to access them, depriving out-of-towners the chance for more efficient research of the borough. It’s a reason why the Society, a private not-for-profit, will launch an ambitious archiving project


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