Bronx News Roundup for March 30

Ashlee Simpson’s kid isn’t the only person named Bronx in the world.

A planned 911 Call Center in Morris Park is about to clear a hurdle. But others remain.

A three-alarm blaze destroyed a block of businesses in Wakefield on Sunday, but no one was injured.

Complicating efforts to pass tenant-friendly legislation in Albany is the fact that state senators have received lots of dough from landlords and their lobbyists since January 2007, according to the Daily News. The list includes Bronx State Senator Jeff Klein who reportedly received almost $240,000 in campaign contributions.

The Boogiedowners say – and show – that the temporary pedestrian walkway around the New York Botanical Garden’s stalled parking lot project (at the corner of Bedford Park Boulevard and Webster Avenue) is obstructed.

Sen. Gillibrand spent Saturday in the Bronx.

Bronx News Roundup Nov. 7

Plans to put a 37-story 911 call center in Morris Park have been put on ice, after the estimated cost increased to nearly $1 billion.

A University Avenue man was involved in a tense standoff with police yesterday, after allegedly stabbing and seriously injuring his girlfriend.

In July, WFUV, the radio station run out of Fordham University, interviewed the Bronx-raised singer-songwriter Regina Spektor. The hour-long interview, in which Spektor talks about her music career and childhood, is now online.

One of the two men convicted of the 2006 murder of Dr. Leandro Lozada, a popular pediatrician who ran a medical clinic on Kingsbridge Road, will serve 40-years to life in state prison, a judge a ruled. More about the murder here.

It could be that Bronx State Senators Ruben Diaz Sr. and (newly elected) Pedro Espada aren't as rebellious are previously thought.

Studs Terkel, the author and radio broadcast personality, died last Friday aged 96. Terkel once lived with his family on Bathgate Avenue, and following his death the NY Times paid a visit to his old, and much-changed neighborhood.

Bronx BP Adolfo Carrion has "quietly dumped a slew of staffers" according to the NY Post because of "mandatory belt tightening." In all, 16 of his 77 staffers have been let go. In a July editorial titled "Nix the Beeps" the paper accused Carrion and his fellow borough presidents of spending big and doing little. In a letter later that week, Brooklyn BP Marty Markowitz hit back:

We provided you with substantive information, but balance wasn't your goal. Then again, when The Post can't even get the Bronx Borough President's name right in an editorial - it's Adolfo not "Alfonso" - why should we expect you to get the facts straight?

News Roundup for July 11

The New York Times reported on a plan to put up an office buildings on Fordham Road, a traditionally commercial strip, across from the Metro North station in the space where the Sears building is currently covered in scaffolding. We wrote a story on this exact subject in February. Unfortunately, the link isn't working, but believe us, we were all over this.

In today’s Daily News, it was reported that Montefiore Medical Center can now move ahead and buy Our Lady of Mercy Medical Center. The north Bronx hospital would be taking over Mercy as well as responsibility for its debt.

There was yet another power outage in the Bronx this morning, this time affecting East Tremont and Hunts Point areas. According to 1010Wins, 650 customers were still without power by 9.a.m, down from the 1,250 without power by 6 a.m. The cause is still unknown.

A NY1 article mentioned yesterday the city’s plan to build a 911 call center in the Bronx.

The area, however, has been recognized by the Office of Emergency Management as likely to flood in hurricanes, so there is a question of the location’s reliability in times of need.