Hundreds of west Bronx bus riders are calling for the city to make traveling from Fordham Road to Manhattan easier by restoring local service to Manhattan and restoring a bus stop that was eliminated with the debut of the new, supposedly faster Select Bus Service.

The lights are on inside the Engine 79 and Ladder 37 firehouse in Bedford Park, but no one is home. The building is closed for renovations through the end of the year, and possibly into January.

A little more than 300,000 people live in the 33rd Senate District, which includes the entire readership area of the Norwood News.

The incumbent, State Senator Efrain Gonzalez, is charged with stealing more than $400,000 in taxpayer money from nonprofits he controls. Sure, a jury could possibly declare him innocent, when he finally gets to trial, but that doesn’t absolve Gonzalez from the sin of setting up and funding ghost groups that do virtually nothing for constituents, wasting precious taxpayer money. Court papers and reporting by the Norwood News found zero evidence of any work the nonprofits have done.

Gonzalez’s legal troubles blew a cavernous opening in the usual Machine-erected brick wall protecting incumbents.

If you thought a small army of young, ambitious pols would be jumping through, ballot petitions in hand, you’d be wrong.

Instead, we get Pedro Espada, a former south Bronx state senator, who at least deserves credit for identifying a district where the ethically challenged excel.

Espada heads a group of south Bronx health care centers. Three of his executives pleaded guilty to diverting $30,000 from family care and AIDS treatment programs to Espada’s 2001 bid for Bronx borough president (he lost by just a few points to Adolfo Carrion). The state attorney general’s office said the health center officials even took food "intended for AIDS patients and [gave] it instead to Espada campaign workers," according to a New York Times report.

In recent weeks Espada has been pushing free food giveaways, including one on Gun Hill Road and DeKalb Avenue in conjunction with his Burnside Medical Center.

What a coincidence that these events overlap with his Senate bid!

Regarding your article “Rapid Bus Line Premieres on Fordham Road” in your July 10-23 issue, I agree with many of the sentiments expressed by another reader, Judy Noy. I would like to add that the elimination of the west- and east-bound Fordham Road/Sedgwick Avenue stops in the new Select Bus Service (SBS) routing creates hardship on the area population, which has ballooned over the years. It also creates havoc on the Fordham Hill Co-op residents. This Co-op, located nearby, consists of nine buildings, 17 stories each, and 1224+ units. Many of its residents are seniors and young children. If the

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The latest crop of superheroes to hit the Bronx won’t all come from the box office this summer. A stop by the bare corner in front of the recreation center at St. James Park reveals a lunch table chock full of brand new neighborhood superheroes created by students from MS 399 in Fordham on East 184th Street.

After this past school year, the city’s Department of Education (DOE) closed both Evander Childs in Williamsbridge and Walton in Kingsbridge Heights – two storied, but recently underperforming high schools in District 10. Both schools stopped accepting students in 2005. In their absence, the 11 smaller schools on the two campuses – including Hoffman’s – which have been phased in over the past four years, will gain some much needed elbow room.

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe (3rd from right) was joined by a phalanx of Bronx elected officials and community representatives at Devoe Park on Aug. 14 to celebrate the re-opening of the park after extensive renovations. The park has new spray showers, seating, landscaping and play equipment.  Three other Bronx parks also re-opened on the same day as Devoe: Story Playground, Soundview Park and Aqueduct Lands Playground. The total cost came to $14 million and comes out of a $200 million pool of mitigation funds related to the construction of the Croton water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park. 

The daily routine of many Bronx public high school students goes something like this: get to school an hour early to be herded through metal detectors, eat lunch at 10 a.m. in a crowded cafeteria, and go home without having had any art, music, or science classes. Experiences like these brought more than 60 Bronx youth, educators and activists to a press conference and rally on the steps of City Hall on Aug. 7

A listing of local programs, services and events for our readers in the northwest Bronx.