On the last day of June, the sidewalks of Kingsbridge Road were filled with happy merchants, face-painted children and clowns with balloons.

It was the scene at the first annual Kingsbridge Road Kickoff, which aimed to attract shoppers and local residents with discounts and free samples from various neighborhood stores.

A listing of programs, services, announcements and events for our readers in the Bronx and beyond.

A listing of arts, entertainment and recreational events for our readers in the Bronx and beyond.

For a school named after a Cuban salsa legend, one might expect celebratory Latin jams to ring through the hallways on graduation day at the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music.

Instead, in the hours leading up to the school’s graduation ceremony last week, it was more like quiet family time. Soon-to-be graduates donning caps and gowns gathered in the classrooms of the Walton Campus school, enjoying their last few hours as a class. Between rounds of snacks and board games, the students shared their fondest high school memories.

Before 1973, the gritty, sparsely-populated, heavy-commercial feel of Webster Avenue fit nicely under the rattling tracks of the elevated train that ran from the north Bronx into Manhattan. But now, 37 years after the tracks were removed, many local residents feel the wide north-south corridor’s grimy aesthetic is outdated and in dire need of a makeover.

A new public art project created to promote music in the five boroughs this summer is already off key in the Bronx.

Two of the four Bronx pianos in the new, "Play Me, I’m Yours," arts program – one at Fordham Plaza and another at Sackerah Woods Playground in Van Cortlandt Park – were seriously damaged by overzealous young Beethovens within the first week of the exhibit.

It was an early weekday morning. State Senate candidate Gustavo Rivera and a handful of his volunteers worked the rush hour crowd on the downtown platform of the Fordham Road 4-train station.

While lawmakers in Albany have yet to come to an agreement on a state budget for the next fiscal year-despite being nearly three months past deadline-the New York City Council and Mayor Michael Bloomberg agreed on a $63 billion city budget on June 24.

Tolentine was one of 50 senior centers in the five boroughs that the Bloomberg Administration had slated for closure, because of cuts laid out in the city’s 2011 budget.

But last Thursday night, the unexpected happened. Approximately half of these centers, including Tolentine, were handed a reprieve when Bloomberg and City Council speaker Christine Quinn struck a deal to restore funding.