Mosholu Preservation Corporation (MPC), the nonprofit group that puts out this newspaper, celebrates its 25th anniversary this week. MPC was formed in 1981 by the trustees of Montefiore Medical Center to combat widespread housing deterioration in Norwood.

When other area groups reach such milestones, we often mark them with a profile in the paper.

But  MPC created the Norwood News to report on the community, not to report on itself. So, we try to refrain from using the paper to toot MPC’s horn. We do occasionally cover MPC projects in the community, like our work in Reservoir Oval and the redevelopment of various neglected properties in the area. But hopefully, we give the same or more coverage to scores of other area groups and individuals doing important neighborhood improvement work.

That’s because this paper exists to provide a way for local residents, organizations and institutions to communicate with each other and to amplify the agenda set by the community itself.

Much of MPC’s success has been working in tandem with a wide variety of Bronx organizations, whether it be the Norwood Street Fair in the ‘90s, the Jerome-Gun Hill Business Improvement District, improvements to Oval Park, or regular graffiti removal on several local thoroughfares.

So, we consider the celebration of our anniversary a celebration, too, of all the tremendous work that all of us have done together to make Norwood, Bedford Park, North Fordham and University Height better places to live, work and play.

About Those Trees…and Dogs
After our previous issue, we wondered if there would be any support for our idea that trees are not the place to put one’s trash or walk one’s dog. Lo and behold, early one morning about a week later, while picking up trash around our offices at the Keeper’s House, a Sanitation officer, in plain clothes, pulled out a badge to make sure we weren’t just throwing the dog poop into the street. So, we showed him the plastic bag filled with pounds of beer bottles, takeout containers and soda cups.

The officer told us he had been out since 4 a.m. ticketing dog walkers who don’t clean up because “we get a lot of complaints in this neighborhood.” We were surprised. So were the dog walkers. The officer told us people thought that dog droppings just disappear into the ground somehow. They don’t kill the plants that they’re left on top of, people said. They thought letting their dog urinate on the sidewalk was just fine! (It’s not; it’s supposed to be washed off with water or at least done at the curb so people don’t track dog urine on their shoes into their homes.)

And we know that when we pick up around the Keeper’s House we’re supposed to pick up and dispose of the little presents dog owners leave on our sidewalk and grass — grass  that is turning brown because dog droppings kill it. Well, we will. We promise. And we’ll replenish the supply of bags in the “Dogi Pot” dispensers, and our friends at the Parks Department and Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation will help.

And it looks like Sanitation will enforce the law if we demand it. Just call 311.