Bronx News Roundup, Wednesday, June 1

Welcome to June, Bronxophiles. Here's today's lineup of Bronx news!

Weather: The National Weather Service is issuing a "hazardous weather outlook" warning, which could amount to nothing, or severe thunderstorms. After a high of 89 today, it's supposed to cool off tomorrow, down to a less stifling 76 degrees. 


Story of the Day: Education Leaps Should Be Taken with a Grain of Salt
Education guru Diane Ravitch writes an op-ed in today's NY Times dispelling the myth of huge short-term gains at schools that have been re-vamped/re-started/re-invigorated by some manner of policy or strategy shift. On the 10th anniversary of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which set a goal of having every child in the United States reading at or above their grade level by 2012, Ravitch says this "utopian mandate" is mission impossible. The public (and news media) should be wary of political attempts to show gigantic leaps in performance at urban schools who cater to traditionally low-performing students.

Which brings us to the Bronx. In 2005, Mayor Bloomberg trumpeted the success of his DOE takeover by holding a press conference at PS 33 on Jerome Avenue, just south of Fordham Road. The school boasted a ridiculous 49-point jump in its percentage of fourth graders who had met state standards in reading -- from 34 percent in 2004 to 83 percent in 2005. By 2010, that number was back down to 37 percent (where many Bronx schools are at).

Ravitch says we can close and re-open schools and/or fire teachers and principals as much as we want, but if we really want to improve education, we need to focus on improving families, "our most important educators." She goes on to say: "If every child arrived in school well-nourished, healthy and ready to learn, from a family with a stable home and a steady income, many of our educational problems would be solved. And that would be a miracle."

Quick Hits:
The two fledgling Bronx beer start-ups -- the Bronx Brewery and the Jonas Bronck's Beer Company -- are preparing to unleash their suds at city bars this summer (the Bronck's Woodlawn Weiss perhaps as early as next week). Neither company, however, will actually brew its beer in the Boogie Down.

Speaking of the nectar of the gods, the Bronx's first beer garden, Nicky's BBQ & Beer Garden, is scheduled to open this week on East Tremont Avenue. 

Here's an architecture review of the new Poe Park Visitor's Center, which is set to open soon (I guess, we'll look into it).

Last weekend's outbreak of gun violence makes this weekend's gun buyback effort that much more urgent.

The Times' Clyde Haberman writes that while the outbreak is unsettling, we're nowhere near the dark days of the early 1990s when the city's murder count was 2,245. For the last decade we've averaged 547 murders.

The city's Department of Small Business Services is going to focus on diversifying retail at four commercial districts, one of which will be Southern Boulevard. They want less nail salons, more food options. 

Rent reform advocates in the state senate, including Bronx Democrats Ruth Hassel-Thompson and Adriano Espaillat, are making a final push to strengthen rent regulations by the June 15 deadline.

Bronx State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr.'s outspoken efforts to keep gay marriage unlawful is leading to backlash from gay rights groups, websites and bars (one Brooklyn gay bar is hosting a "F--- Ruben Diaz festival") and, he says, has led to death threats being called into his district office.

Bronx News Weekend Roundup, May 31

Weather: The holiday weekend has ushered in a wave of summer-like weather. Today will remain sunny with a high of 81 degrees. Scattered storms are in the forecast for tomorrow.

Story of the Day: Bronx Woman Murdered While Holding 2-Year-Old Son
A woman was shot and killed Sunday night in East Tremont while walking home with her youngest child, who was found crying next to his mother's body on a Park Avenue sidewalk near 178th Street. Claudia Millan, 29, was shot in the head just a block from her home, where her brother and three other children were waiting for her. Her two-year-old son Jah-mere was found unharmed other than a cut on his calf. Police have no suspects as of yesterday.

The tragic act of violence came at the end of a bloody Memorial Day weekend: eight people were shot to death in seven different shootings across the city, according to the Daily News, including 16-year-old Johnny Moore, who was killed in Mott Haven on Sunday night, supposedly during an argument over a basketball game. On Friday, three other people--including a five-year-old girl--were injured in a shootout in Soundview.

Quick Hits:
A 14-month-old girl is in critical condition at Jacobi Hospital after falling five stories out of her apartment window on Monday morning.

Hip-hop pioneer and spoken word poet Gil Scott-Heron, who grew up in the Bronx for most of his teeange years and attended the Fieldston School in Riverdale, died on Friday at the age of 62.

A Bronx man was arrested Friday for calling in a bomb threat to television station W-PIX11--because he no longer wanted to see reruns of the Charlie Sheen sitcom "Two And A Half Men." Freddy Caldwell threatened to detonate the building if they didn't stop running the show, according to police.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Bronx native, has received a whopping $1.2  million to pen a memoir for Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

A section of a South Bronx street, on Cortlandt Avenue and 156th Street, was renamed this weekend to honor Sgt. Jose Velez, who was killed in Iraq five years ago at the age of 35.

City beaches--including the Bronx's own Orchard Beach--officially opened to visitors this weekend.

An intersection at the corner of Olinville and Waring Avenues will finally be getting a traffic light installed, to the relief of parents and administrators at nearby PS 96 who say several accidents have taken place there.

This fall, a group of entrepreneurs are set to unveil the first beer named after the borough this fall--the Bronx Pale Ale. 

Ricard Azzopardi, who works as a spokesman and aide to Bronx State Senator Jeff Klein, chased off a would-be rapist who was attacking a woman on the street outside of his home in Albany.

Editor's Note: BxNN will keep posting this clock in our daily news roundups -- tallying the days until the NYPD releases neighborhood sector crime stats, which we requested from them via a Freedom of Information Law request last year. For some background, see our Norwood News' editorial here.

Bronx News Roundup, March 4

Good news: The snow from last week is almost all melted.

Bad news: It may snow tomorrow.

Bronx news:

Some coverage of the MTA hearings at the Paradise Theater on the Grand Concourse last night. (We'll have our coverage of this later today.)

A Bronx Community College student has received a $200,000 fellowship to study at Harvard University.

Police say a body pulled from Easchester Bay yesterday afternoon is that of the missing Scarsdale doctor who disappeared on Sunday.

The Riverdale Press talks about how the owners of the new Bronx Brewery are continuing a long borough tradition of brewing beer right here in the Bronx (well, they're stationed out of Yonkers, for now). The Bronx Brewery recently premiered its new brew, Riverd(ale), at the Bronx Ale House.

Here's a little story (from Fox News!?) on some hero cops who escorted a Long Island woman through the blizzard last week to the Montefiore Medical Center where she received a new liver.

Another story from The Riverdale Press talks about how Bronx residents in Kingsbridge and Riverdale are still waiting to feel the positive effects of recent stimulus funds.

Here's an article that has to do with a recent news story in Philadelphia, where a Principal used a laptop webcam to spy on a student and accuse him of using drugs. Skip to the middle of the article to read a particularly weird quote from a Bronx school administrator, who says spying on students through laptops is "always fun." Yeesh.

Borough Prez. Ruben Diaz Jr. recently launched a new website. Check it out here.

Several Bronx men with connections to a marijuana grow house were recently arrested after the property was busted.