14 Pit Bulls Saved From Concourse Blaze

By DAVID GREENE

A worker with Animal Care and Control of New York removes one of 14 pit bulls from a Grand Concourse apartment yesterday. (Photos by David Greene)

Firefighters battling a blaze on the Grand Concourse in Fordham Heights rescued 14 pit bulls that had apparently been living in the sixth-floor apartment. 

Authorities say the fire broke out on the top floor of 2186 Grand Concourse, at just before 3 p.m. on Monday, March 7. Witnesses say some of the dogs were overcome by the smoke and firemen gave several of the animals oxygen. 

Animal Care and Control of New York City reported removing a total of 14 dogs: nine adults, 1 pup and four newborns. An official stated that just one dog was injured in an apparent accident that occurred as the animal was being transported out of the building. That dog suffered a small gash on his noise, but the injury was not serious. 

Building super Brian Rivic was boarding up the heavily damaged apartment. He said the dogs' owner was apparently at work when the fire happened. 

"He has a lot of dogs but he takes care of them," Rivic said of the still-unidentified owner, adding, "He makes a few trips, he walks them in the morning and in the afternoon."

Neighbor Umberto Portuondo, who lives downstairs, said he was aware of the dogs.

Bronx News Roundup, June 21

The Times profiles Father John Flynn, the retiring longtime pastor of St. Martins of Tours church whose presence has become a fixture in the Crotona area since 1981. He presided over his last mass (pictured above) on Sunday.  The Tremont Tribune wrote about Father Flynn in March.

The city is holding a hearing today on a proposal that would turn the Grand Concourse -- from 153rd Street to 167th Street -- into New York's newest historic district. Back in the day, "If you lived on the Concourse, it was a sign that you had made it," Bronx Borough Historian Lloyd Ultan told the Post.


 The Daily News writes about a couple of Bronx teens looking for work in a tough job market this summer.

A bail hearing for the four men accused of plotting to bomb two Riverdale synagogues is set for today. Protesters, friends and relatives say there's not enough evidence to keep them in jail. The defendants say they were coerced into the plot by FBI operatives.

As of yesterday, police were still looking for a teenage mother and her daughter who went missing.

An 18-year-old refugee from Sierra Leone who lived in the Bronx was stabbed to death early Sunday morning in Washington Heights. Another man was shot and killed hours later in Melrose.(On early Saturday morning, a 27-year-old man was found dead on Perry Avenue, in Norwood, with multiple gun shot wounds.)

A career military man who grew up in Mott Haven was killed at a Georgia  Army base.

Bronx News Roundup, Oct. 20

In Claremont, there is tension between American-African residents and their West African neighbors.

Despite leaving him be in last month's primary, the Bronx Democratic Party would still like to see the back of Councilman Larry Seabrook.

Bronx residents and community leaders and are becoming increasingly frustrated by the Department of Homeless Services' penchant for opening homeless shelters and cluster-sites (where homeless families are moved into existing apartment buildings), without informing the community until the last minute. The Norwood News has also written about this issue.

A father-of-two was shot dead near his home in Longwood on Saturday night.

A look at the shopping and dining options along Eastchester Road.

Five Westchester Square businesses, destroyed in a major fire last spring, have managed to reopen elsewhere in the neighborhood.

A Bronx social worker has written a play about the horrors of domestic violence, based, in part, on her own abusive marriage.

As we reported yesterday, the City Planning Commission has approved Related Companies' plan to redevelop the Kindgbridge Armory. Here's Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.s reaction, and here's why it's not all bad news for those wanting Related to sign a community benefits agreement.

A Bronx cat has had a lucky escape after crawling inside a car engine, getting stuck, and going for a two-mide ride. The Post's headline: This Engine is Really Purring.

Bronx Art Scene -- Celebrating Concourse's Centennial at Bronx Museum

Happy birthday to the Bronx's own Champs-Élysées. Originally called the Grand Boulevard, the Grand Concourse celebrates its 100th year in 2009. The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse at 165th Street, presents an exhibition series commemorating the Grand Concourse's centennial, from March 5 through July 20. For more information, call (718) 681-6000 or visit www.bronxmuseum.org. (Painting by Daniel Hauben, courtesy Bronx Museum of Art).

Did anyone go to the Concourse symposium at the museum over the weekend. If you did, please do tell.

For a complete listing of Bronx art happenings and other events, click here.

Following April Fire, Tenants Continue to Wait for Repairs

In April a major fire tore through 1749 Grand Concourse, a cavernous 278-unit apartment building known as the Lewis Morris. More than 40 people were injured and one person died. Thanks to fire proofing most of the apartments escaped unscathed, but the building’s lobby, and corridors on several floors, were badly damaged.

Today – some four months later – tenants are still waiting for many of the repairs to be done. They're without cooking gas (they’re using hot plates instead). There’s still a strong smell of smoke. Approximately 20 windows remain boarded up (pictured below right), according to Nilsa Rivera, the president of the tenants association. At least one stairwell is still blocked off. Several corridors have yet to be cleaned and given a paint job (pictured above). Several apartment doors have yet to replaced (pictured bottom). One of the elevators is still broken. Apartments on the lower floors still have problems with damp caused by water from the firefighters hoses. The building’s fire alarm system isn’t yet up and running. Meanwhile, the building’s HPD violations are creeping up. Before the fire there were 400; as of this morning there's 527.


In truth, there has been some progress. The alarm system is currently being installed. Most of the 70 or so apartment doors that were burnt in the blaze have been replaced. Several corridors have been refurbished. Work has been done on the building’s soot-cloaked lobby. Management is working to get the gas turned back on – a painstaking task that involves installing new gas pipes in each and every apartment.

But tenants are still angry – as they were in May when we last wrote about the building – with what they see as a slow, stuttering, and amateurish clean-up operation.

Last Thursday, Earl Brown, the deputy Bronx borough president, toured the building. In a telephone interview yesterday he said: “Management appears to be acting in good faith, but there are some concerns… tenants have a right to be frustrated.” In particular, he said, the broken and boarded up windows could have been replaced sooner, and the blocked stairwells reopened. Brown said that the borough president's office had been meeting with tenants and the management company, SG2 Management LLC, to ensure management keeps to some sort of schedule.

Since February the building has been owned by city investors Stephen Siegal, Andrew Goldberg, and Jeffrey Goldberg. The purchase was part of a bigger deal that saw 51 apartment buildings and something close to $300 million change hands.

The Monitor's Out

The latest edition of the bilingual Mount Hope Monitor has been published. Stories include a look at how repairs are coming along (or not coming along as the case seems to be) at 1749 Grand Concourse, following a deadly fire in the 278-unit apartment building on April 8. Nilsa Rivera, the president of the building's tenant association, says the tenants feel like they've been forgotten.