Beneath its dark netting and scaffold-covered exterior, the historic Sears building at 400 E. Fordham Rd. is undergoing drastic restructuring. The shopping center will re-emerge in the next 16 to 18 months as Fordham Place, the Bronx’s first mixed-use development in more than 15 years.

No one seemed to know Florence Bock very well. But that doesn’t mean that no one cared about her. Neighbors would bring her groceries. When the mail started piling up at her house on Perry Avenue in 2005, her mailman-whose route includes our offices – came to us and told us about it. At least two other neighbors called the police.

Reverend Francis P. Scanlon, the relatively new pastor of the Shrine Church of St. Ann on Bainbridge Avenue, surprised his congregation recently by announcing the church’s very first Irish soda bread baking contest. Almost 90 percent of St. Ann’s congregation is of Hispanic descent and most had never even heard of the staple Irish bread leavened with baking soda. The competition began Sunday afternoon, March 11. The three judges – Father Scanlon, William Curran of McKeon Funeral Home, and parishioner Myra Smith – are Irish.

City and local Bronx officials continue to butt heads over a controversial confidentiality agreement that is threatening to delay, or even derail, the long-anticipated redevelopment of the Kingsbridge Armory. The Armory Task Force, an advisory group created by the city’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and made up of local elected officials and community leaders, was supposed to review and discuss the three Armory redevelopment proposals at a Bronx meeting on March 1.

Despite a reputation for secrecy and abuse, it appears most member item allocations – grants handed out by state lawmakers for projects and organizations in their districts – actually do find their way back into local neighborhoods, funding vital art, social and economic development programs.

On Friday, Feb. 23, Pilgrim-Hunter was among four New York City leaders honored by Congressman José E. Serrano and State Senator José M. Serrano during a ceremony commemorating Black History Month. Each received a State Senate proclamation and a statement to be placed in the U.S. Congressional Record.

Not too long ago a coyote was spotted at Woodlawn Cemetery. Turkeys patrol the woods of Van Cortlandt Park. Hawks soar over Tracey Towers. But no animal sighting has stirred as much national – and international – buzz as Jose the beaver, who has taken up residence in the Bronx River near the Bronx Zoo. Google the little guy and you’ll find there have been over 600,000 news items and almost 1,200 blogs mentioning the beaver.

Before the madness finally ended, a jolt of March basketball excitement surged through the northwest Bronx with the Lehman College women’s team’s victory over top-seeded Baruch College two weeks ago in the CUNY championship. The Lightning’s thrilling upset win, 52-51, marked the school’s first CUNY Championship and its first birth into the Big Dance – the NCAA Division III National Tournament.

Shareholders, property managers and a minority of the board of directors at the Fordham Hill Owners Corporation are outraged because they say a united majority (six out of nine) of board members are making sweeping changes to the co-operative housing complex without approval or even input from anyone but themselves. Some shareholders have even dubbed the majority group the "Fordham Hill Mafia."