Editor’s Note: The following is an extended version of the story that appears in our latest print edition.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams joined local Bronx elected officials on Thursday evening, March 14, for a visit to the Kingsbridge underpass, a well-known gathering point in the Fordham Manor neighborhood for undomiciled individuals and for drug use, and long-plagued by unhygienic conditions.

 

Located underneath the Grand Concourse and East Kingsbridge Road, the mayor was accompanied by District 15 City Councilmember Oswald Feliz and Assemblyman George Alvarez (A.D. 78).

 

Feliz later said of the tour, “Really appreciate @NYCMayor & Assemblyman @GALVAREZNYC for touring the Kingsbridge Underpass tonight. Quality of life issues here are escalating, affecting the entire community, & utterly unacceptable. Look forward to working together to ensure our community can live [with] dignity.”

Norwood News recently reported on the arrest of 16 people who were charged with, among other offenses, drug trafficking, at nearby Valentine Avenue in the vicinity of East 192nd Street, located on the opposite side of the Grand Concourse.

 

Meanwhile, on Friday, March 8, as reported, a 15-year-old male was shot at the entrance to the Kingsbridge Road subway station located on the Grand Concourse and East Kingsbridge Road.

 

With the permission of her mom, Norwood News spoke to a 10-year-old student from the area after the shooting on March 8. She said she felt sorry for the innocent people in her neighborhood who “have to pay for what other people do.” Asked if she got training at school on mass shootings, she said, “Not really. We just got fire drills and lockdown practice and sheltering…like to stay inside the building when there’s stuff happening around. Today, we had a lockdown practice.”

Asked how it made her feel when she has to do the lockdown training, she said, “It makes me feel, like, scared. Even if it’s a joke, sometimes I get scared. I just don’t want it [anything bad] to happen [for real].” Asked if she felt others took the drills seriously, she said, “Some people do joke about it.” She went on to say that people should be careful when going out in the area and to pay attention to their surroundings. “Keep your awareness just like on,” she said.

 

The mayor later referenced his visit to the same locality during a press conference on Tuesday, March 19, at City Hall. In the context of quality-of-life, mental health, and sanitation concerns across the City, the mayor said, “Since the start of this administration, our team has worked tirelessly to ensure that everyone has access to public spaces. Two years ago, yesterday, we launched an effort to make our public spaces across the city clean and welcome to all New Yorkers.”

He continued, “By bringing together agencies from across the city government to do this important work, we’ve been able to visit 10,376 locations [and] of those visited, 10,187 ended in a clean site. That’s a 98% success rate, something that I committed [to], removing encampments off our streets and off our subway systems; a promise made and a promise kept.”

 

Adams said, “We continue to do that every day. Sometimes it’s just as simple as just cleaning up the area. Someone could have left a bag there. Someone could have just dumped an item there, and we just zeroed in. Our police precinct personnel [are] playing a real role in it.” Gesturing to accompanying photos of the underpass, displayed on slides at the press conference, he added in part, “Last [week], I went up to The Bronx. The councilman shared that this was a real problem, and we’re going to take further steps here.”

The mayor acknowleged that there was a lot of drug use in the area, saying, “Even when we were there, a person was injecting themselves with drugs while we were on this site. We did a clean-up there but there are more things we can do to prevent this problem from reoccurring. In two years, we have connected more than 3.5 times as many New Yorkers in need of shelter as the last administration did in their final two years.”

 

In this regard, Adams praised the work of Deputy Mayor for Health & Human Services Ann Williams-Isom, who was present during the press conference, and her team. “Between our work on the cameras in the subways, we have connected more than 7,000 people with care and shelter. This is a promise that we made, that we were not going to abandon our neighbors and just walk past them and act like we didn’t see them there. That is why we’re going to continue to lean into this issue and come up with good results.”

At the same press conference, the mayor responded to the fact that Lorna Beach-Mathura, a resident of Florida and former resident of Brooklyn, filed a lawsuit in the State of New York the previous day, March 18, under the Adult Survivors Act against Adams, citing an alleged sexual assault in 1993, when both she and the mayor were employees with the Transit Bureau of the NYPD.

 

According to court-filed documents, having been passed over for promotion, Beach-Mathura, a Black, female NYPD employee, alleges she sought help with her career from Adams, both in his capacity as a police officer at the time and as a leader in the NYPD Guardians Association, an organization which advocates for the rights of Black employees.

Beach-Mathura, who holds a doctoral degree in educational leadership and who works in education according to her LinkedIn profile, alleges that instead of helping her, Adams allegedly asked her to perform oral sex on him after he allegedly drove her to a vacant lot.

 

Court papers show the lawsuit has also been filed against the NYPD Transit Bureau, the NYPD Guardians Association, and three other “unknown” entities, which are also defendants.

 

The Adult Survivors Act is New York State legislation enacted in May 2022 which amended state law to allow alleged victims of sexual offenses for which the statute of limitations had lapsed to file civil suits for a one-year period, from November 24, 2022, to November 24, 2023. During the press conference, Adams said he and the press were already aware of the commencement of legal proceedings by Beach-Mathura in relation to the lawsuit since November 2023. The mayor denies the allegation.

Norwood News previously reported that the mayor’s iphones/ipads were seized by the FBI in the context of a separate, ongoing investigation into the mayor’s 2021 campaign finances. The mayor denies any wrongdoing.

 

Norwood News asked City Hall, the NYPD, and the City’s law department, which is representing the mayor, if the NYPD Guardians Association and Transit Bureau also deny the allegations. We did not receive an immediate response.

 

Meanwhile, as reported, local residents and educators in the Fordham Manor area around Poe Park and the Kingsbridge underpass have long complained about the prevalence of open [outdoor] drug use in the area.

Many agree services are needed to assist those with addiction issues but have called for such services to be provided at a venue located away from young children who are habitually witnessing, at very close proximity, the effects of such open, outdoor drug use in plain sight.

 

They argue, for example, that the distribution of clean syringes by outreach workers should be handled at a venue or center situated away from schools. The matter was raised once again at a public safety forum held at P.S. 246 in Fordham Manor on Nov. 30 last year. P.S. 246 is located opposite Poe Park, a well-known site for open drug use.

Meanwhile, prior to the tour of the area, Feliz had earlier participated in a virtual community input discussion on the renovation of Poe Park playground on Feb. 28, together with local residents, including members of Friends of Mosholu Parkland, NYC Parks, and Partnership for Parks.

 

Some of the slides from the presentation given by NYC Parks during that discussion are attached, including an overview of a typical project timeline.

Some of the items discussed included flood hazard zones, managing storm water, heat mitigation, tree preservation, an accessible and inclusive redesign of the park, welcoming entrances, other design ideas like seating areas, green spaces, spaces for gathering/events, as well as water and other play features.

 

Of the mayor’s latest visit to the area, Feliz concluded, “@NYCMayor also joined us at Poe Park, and also the building I grew up in. We did lots of baseball/wiffle ball here. He promised to join us for baseball, after we’re done resolving these challenges!”