Local residents came out in force last week to vigorously oppose a city plan to blast away rock with explosives at the Jerome Park Reservoir. The controversial plan is the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) contentious Croton Water Filtration Plant project currently under way in Van Cortlandt Park.

When Norwood artist Ibrahim Gonzalez met film maverick Melvin Van Peebles in the Bronx three years ago, the two offbeat characters felt a strong connection and became immediate friends.

For Gonzalez, who dabbles in several artistic media but is best known as a conga-playing Bronx bandleader, the encounter also produced a sort of mid-life artistic epiphany that he hopes will propel him to new heights in his career.

An exclusive listing of entertainment, arts and community activities for our readers northwest Bronx and throughout the entire borough.

Young actors of the PS 56 after school program, known as "The Norwood Heights Players," performed the Broadway musical, "Annie," during a free show, held at the East 207th Street school, on Friday, June 20. The group put on a stellar performance for a near-capacity crowd. The show was directed by Elizabeth Corrao and Tashima Nole.

The 100-plus graduates of the fifth grade at PS 291 were joined by parents and relatives for graduation ceremonies at the school, located in University Heights, on Friday, June 20. Guest speakers included Yankee staffer and children’s author Ray Negron and Maxine Zalez from the attorney general’s office.

It was Bronx Week last week, but that doesn’t mean the Bronx got its due from City Hall. Just the opposite.

On June 16, the mayor announced, with great fanfare and even rock icon David Byrne by his side, that the city was going to do something unprecedented and really groundbreaking by creating a car-free zone for three Sundays over the summer along a seven-mile stretch in Manhattan. The idea, they said was a big success in London, Paris, and even Bogota!

"…We have never been afraid to try new ideas, especially the ones that have the potential to improve the quality of life," the mayor said.

If they had looked in the files, or maybe even asked a civil servant at the Department of Transportation (DOT), they would have discovered the idea was not at all new, and was implemented in the Bronx almost 20 years ago.

An annoying tendency regarding the filtration plant project is that the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is inclined not to listen to the ratepayers and citizens who are funding all of this.

Concerned residents, some of whom have become experts on the issue, turn up at hearing after hearing and tell the DEP important things.

Agency officials don’t really listen; they just "explain" why they’re right, as if all it would take for the community to agree is to have it explained in words we poor foolish citizens can understand.

But that’s not so. Local activists were right that the DEP could do with a smaller plant and filter less water or use another technology like membrane filtration, rather than just spend money like – well, like water, actually. They were right that the plant would never go in the Jerome Park Reservoir. They were right that you couldn’t build something 20 feet high at the street and call it underground. And they were right that that the city had to get state legislative approval to

The article in your May 29 issue, “Bronx Schools Lacking in P.E. Department,” implies that schools are responsible for keeping its students in shape, and by not having sufficient physical education facilities, the obese from losing weight.

In the May 29 – June 11 issue, your article, “Report Says City and Yankees Deceptively Stole Parkland”), focuses on the New York Park Advocates’ report on replacement parks for the new Yankee Stadium. In it, the authors contend that the city did not fully replace the 25 acres of parkland taken for the stadium. If these numbers hold up under scrutiny, compensating the missing acreage is required by law. There are two ways this can be done: