Bronx News Roundup, July 21

Veterans at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Hospital, in Kingsbridge, are learning to channel their post-war tension into music as volunteers teach them to play musical instruments.

Ruben Diaz Jr., ex-Yankees Roy White and Darryl Strawberry and Yankees scout Cesar Prescott, gathered to remember late team owner George Steinbrenner before a baseball tournament on Randall’s Island yesterday.

Don Coquí, an authentic Puerto Rican restaurant in New Rochelle, is celebrating its first anniversary this month. Its owner, Jimmy Rodríguez, is the founder of Jimmy's Bronx Cafe and the son of the founder of Marisco del Caribe in the Bronx.

The city Administration for Children's Services will fund Rosalie Hall, a center for pregnant teens, for another year. Although the number of beds must be reduced from 16 to 10, the funding may allow the center to provide birthing services and full-time residency for young mothers and their children.

Christopher Benfey, a professor at Mount Holyoke and contributor to the New York Review of Books, wrote about his experience attending “Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers,” at the Botanical Garden on the New York Review of Books website this morning.

The Point, a community development organization in the South Bronx, which reclaimed vacant land in the city for a 400-square-foot garden, is setting an example for Detroit and other American cities. The Center for American Progress released an article about the benefits of urban farms today.

Bronx native Latisha Ryer, 35, was arrested on charges of possessing and selling crack cocaine in Port Jervis today.

The Daily News reported that teens jumped fences to swim in the Bronx River yesterday, in spite of the recent deaths in the area.

Bronx News Roundup, July 15

It's been a sad week for the Yankees. A funeral is being held today in Baldwin, Long Island for legendary announcer Bob Shepphard, who died Sunday at the age of 99.

Meanwhile, a private service is planned for this weekend for owner George Steinbrenner in Florida.

Here in New York, impromptu tributes to "The Boss" are shaping up at Yankee Stadium for this weekend, as the team returns for a home game tomorrow night.

Espada challenger Gustavo Rivera tripped getting off a bus on the Grand Concourse and landed face first on the sidewalk, City Hall News reports. Ouch! But he's not letting the injuries ruin what was otherwise a good week--he's been endorsed by a major political group and is one rival down now that Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter has ended her campaign. 

Speaking of Pilgrim-Hunter: she's being lauded for her decision to drop out of the race by Rivera and his endorser, Bill Samuels of the New Roosevelt Initiative. The fewer the candidates, the better the chance to oust Espada, they say.

In other election news: Gail Goode, a former Bronx assistant district attorney, submitted her signatures to the Board of Elections yesterday to challenge U.S. Senator Kristen Gillibrand. Today is the deadline for state primary candidates to get their petitions in if they want to be on the ballot this fall.

Allegations that the principal of John F. Kennedy High School misused school funds was old news to some, who say the Kingsbridge school had a history of misconduct. 

Bronx News Roundup, July 14

If you haven't heard, Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter dropped her bid to oust Pedro Espada from State Senate yesterday. We broke the story last night, The Times has more on it today.

The Wall St Journal reports that million-dollar homes in Villanova Heights, a community in the estates section of Riverdale, are not selling. Read the story here.

County Executives of America wants to bring free broadband wireless service to more than 400,000 Bronx County households. The plan says it will create 15,000 job opportunities in Bronx County.

Officials told The Times yesterday that a plan to demolish the Sheridan Expressway in the South Bronx would increase local traffic.

Bronx politicians are urging St. Barnabas Hospital to allow residents and interns to form a union.

A new Willis Avenue Bridge, which links Manhattan to the South Bronx, is making its way down the Hudson River this week.  The bridge will eventually make its home in the Harlem River to replace its nearly 110-year-old predecessor.

Reactions to Steinbrenner's Passing

There's been an outpouring of obituaries and statements from public figures this morning following the death of legendary Bronx Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who passed away from a heart attack today at his home in Tampa, Florida. He was 80 years old.

"This is a sad day not only for Yankee fans, but for our entire City, as few people have had a bigger impact on New York over the past four decades than George Steinbrenner," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement. 

"He committed himself and all of the Yankees' resources to one thing and one thing only: winning. And he won quite often," Governor David Paterson said in a press release. "Opposing players and fans may have bristled at his outspoken leadership over the years, but it was only because they wished they had a Steinbrenner of their own."

A number of Bronx politicians, including Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., released their own statements (we included Diaz' words in our news roundup earlier today). Click the jump for more.

Bronx News Roundup, July 13

Yankees' owner George Steinbrenner died in Florida this morning after suffering a heart attack. He was 80 years old. Already, the accolades are coming in thick and fast, including this statement from Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr:

Today I join 1.4 million Bronxites, and Yankee fans across the world, in mourning the passing of a great man, ‘The Boss,’ George Steinbrenner. During his tenure as owner of the New York Yankees, Mr. Steinbrenner did everything in his power to create his own winning tradition in the Bronx, an effort that resulted in seven World Series championships. While other baseball fans were jealous of this success, Yankee fans, like myself, loved him for it. Both the Bronx and New York City have lost a giant today—in baseball and in charity—and my deepest condolences go out to the Steinbrenners and the entire New York Yankees family.

In other news, Sonia Sotomayor, the Bronx-raised supreme court justice, is writing a memoir.

As we mentioned in our story of the day, plans to do away with the Sheridan Expressway are gaining traction.

More on State Senator Pedro Espada's press conference outside the Bronx Board of Elections yesterday, during which he claimed "God is on my side." Here's our coverage of the event.

Bob Kappsatter's weekly political column includes news of Assemblyman Nelson Castro messy divorce, and a look at which Bronx Council members have been awarded the most member item money.

Tentative plans in are place to bring free broadband Internet access to the Bronx, the borough with the highest percentage of households without it.

Bronx detectives believe they know who's responsible for the 1981 murder of 20-year-old Janet Agosto.

In Westchester Square, traffic cops spend their days guarding their colleagues' private vehicles, which are often parked next to expired coin meters, according to the Post.

Bronx schools are set to receive a large slice of the $37 million in capital funds Bronx BP Ruben Diaz, Jr. has at his disposal in fiscal year 2010.

Last Saturday, at a Bronx firehouse on East 150th Street, local residents gathered to commemorate the lives of fire victims and to celebrate the city budget deal which saved several firehouses from closure.

At New Stadium, a Distant Crowd

Just before the first pitch at the new Yankee Stadium was thrown, the bat that Babe Ruth used to hit the first home run in the old Yankee Stadium was placed across home plate. Afterward in the dugout, Yankee players and staff alike, were seen marveling at the 40+ oz. hickory club that the Great Bambino brandished. It was a spectacular end to what had otherwise become just one of any another thrice yearly self-aggrandizing Yankee pre-game spectacles.

There was, however, something different about this game (other than the new digs). Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated and Peter Abraham of the Journal News both noticed it. Despite the historic game and its pitchers duel (through six innings), the crowd was eerily quiet. Muted, even.

Verducci took the polite root, blaming this very un-Bronx crowd on the stadium's construction. He noted:

Only time will tell, as its opening day hinted, if the Yankees lost something in gaining such an elegant manor. For as much as the Yankees planned for and built a worthy heir to its two forefathers, neither money nor architects can create the atmosphere that makes a building a ballpark. For one day, and even before the Indians turned a pitchers' duel into a 10-2 rout with a nine-run seventh inning, Yankee Stadium sounded nothing like the old place. It sounded much quieter, much more refined.

Verducci: New Stadium an instant classic

Verducci went on to point out the most striking difference between the old and new parks, the upper decks. In the old stadium, when you sat in the upper deck, you still felt near to the game. The seats were practically draped over the lower decks and onto the field. In other words, you got some bang for your buck. Not so, anymore.

The Yankees made a dramatic statement with their new stadium. They said, "if you think you can get away with seeing our ballgame for (relatively) cheap (as compared to the prices in the lower decks), then you had better pack binoculars....Also, make sure to bring said binoculars in a plastic bag, no backpacks are permitted on the premises."

There was more to the quiet than the distance, though. Abraham may have hit the nail on the head when he wrote that "You have to wonder if the Yankees priced the real fans out of the place and are left with a wine-and-cheese crowd." With the average price of a ticket at Yankee Stadium at $72.97, outside the bleachers ($14), Yankee games are no longer an event for the average fan.

In the mid-to-late 1990's, George Steinbrenner raised a stink about attendance. Due to traffic congestion and safety concerns, he said not enough fans were coming to games. Steinbrenner challenged fans in 1998. He said that if the Yankees drew 3 million fans, he would "consider" keeping them in the Bronx, instead of finding a new home for them in upper-Manhattan.

While the Yankees would go on to bring in 3 million attendees that year, the extra attendance apparently only guaranteed the fans that the Yankees would stay in the Bronx. The Yankees' devoted followers heeded Steinbrenners call and streamed into the old Yankee Stadium and when the new Stadium was built, they found themselves in a Bronx home with fewer, but more expensive seats, completely devoid of the intimacy that had made the old place the greatest stadium in baseball. Those fans have now been taken out of the game.