It takes most actors decades of hard work and hundreds of auditions to get to Broadway. Ten-year-old Zipporah Gatling is already there.

Various stories, including: Funds for Green Products, BP Details Investment, and Serrano Honored.

For the second straight year, the Norwood News received awards for its coverage from the Independent Press Association-New York at the organization’s annual conference and awards dinner on Dec. 15.

CB7 Roundup: While an initial step toward final approval, the board’s decision is only advisory. The city’s Board of Standards and Appeals must still review the plan before it grants a permit, which is necessary because the tower is not on Fordham’s campus. The Federal Communications Commission must also give its OK. The tower, which will rise 160 feet above the top of the building, has already been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration. Fordham officials hope to commence with the construction of the tower by summer or early fall. Construction will require three three-day lifts of concrete, steel and other material from a crane on the street to the roof. The work within and on top of the building will take six months.

2004 was not the borough’s finest hour in the public policy arena. Most Bronx politicians in the machine’s fold continued to support the construction of the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park. The project will adversely affect Norwood and surrounding communities in numerous ways. The Eastview site in Westchester was much more suited to an industrial facility of this kind, but the politicians were seduced by more than $200 million in park improvement funds offered by the DEP in exchange for their support.

Local Region 1 has submitted a proposal to the city Department of Education (DOE) to close MS 143 and, in its place, create a new middle school and allow a small high school currently sited there to expand.

A police officer from the 52nd Precinct maced a 17-year-old Walton High School student on school grounds on Dec. 17 in an incident that advocates believe is the latest consequence of the Kingsbridge school’s rampant overcrowding.

A judge has dismissed one of the four lawsuits brought by opponents of the filtration plant planned for Mosholu Golf Course in Van Cortlandt Park.

University Heights is in the midst of a housing building boom the likes of which it hasn’t seen in decades.At least seven projects are under way or in the works in a neighborhood that developers have historically ignored. Many of the projects, which range from three-family homes to high-end rentals, already have waiting lists.