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

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

The City Council voted nearly unanimously on Monday to defeat a developer’s proposal, backed strongly by Mayor Bloomberg, to turn the Kingsbridge Armory into a shopping mall.

The vote was 45 to 1. Only Helen Sears of Queens dissented. Council members said it was the first time they had defeated an economic project backed by the Bloomberg administration.

During the holiday season on Kingsbridge Road, colorful, festive items from local mom and pop shops spill out onto the sidewalk as passersby cheerfully make their purchases. However, many feet above the holiday crowds, the empty towers of the Kingsbridge Armory loom over the street like an eerie castle-and they will remain that way for the foreseeable future.

After listening to the Department of Education’s underwhelming report on new school construction, Deria Senac called for an intervention of supernatural proportions to solve the northwest Bronx’s overcrowding crisis. "We need a volcanic intervention to create more land for schools," she said.

The Bedford Park community is giving themselves a pat on the back and rightfully so. After months of petitioning, rallying elected officials, and pleading their case to postal agencies, they accomplished their mission of removing their local post office, the Botanical Station located on Webster Avenue, from the national list of post offices being considered for consolidation.

This fall, local trainer Todd Belin sent out dozens of e-mails and text messages a day telling his clients to eat better and exercise harder. "I’m trying to motivate them, get them fired up!" said Belin, the program director of Belin Sport and Fitness, who sent out motivational texts and e-mails to ensure his fitness camp participants reached their goal of collectively losing 100 pounds in one month.

"It’s supposed to look like a raven taking off," said Zach Hudson, an education assistant at the Bronx Historical Society, referring to the design of Poe Park’s new visitors center. The structure’s floor plan pays homage to the ‘The Raven,’ the famed poem by Edgar Allan Poe, the park and center’s namesake.

Earlier this month, the Norwood News and the Mount Hope Monitor (the News’ sister paper, both are part of the Bronx News Network) took home three awards at the New York Community Media Alliance’s 8th annual Ippies awards dinner.