Bronx News Roundup, Sept. 20

A tragic car crash on Saturday killed six members of the Joy Fellowship Church, on East Gunhill Road, when their van overturned on the New York Thruway. The group was on their way to a church event in upstate Schenectady when a tire blew out on their van. The church's bishop, Simon White, and his wife, Zelda, were among those killed. A vigil will be held to honor the victims tonight.

Former Yankees managers Joe Torre and Don Mattingly will return to the Bronx tonight for a tribute to the late George Steinbrenner.

A Bronx woman was arrested after a fatal hit-and-run accident that killed a motorcyclist in Manhattan on Sunday night.

A section of Valentine Avenue in Bedford Park is being called "Heroin Avenue," for its rampant drug and gang problems. The area has long been a hotspot of violent activity for the 52nd Precinct. 

Former beat cop Anthony Mango, who patrolled the St. Mary's Park Houses in Melrose in the 1970s, inspired a young Kevin Taylor to join the force himself. Taylor is now an NYPD lieutenant in Manhattan.

A second beaver was spotted in the Bronx River this summer. It will join Jose, the first beaver to call the river home in over a century, who was first spotted back in 2007 and named after Sen. Jose Serrano.

An 11-year-old Throgs Neck girl who went missing last week has returned home safely, according to police.

Jose the Beaver No Longer Alone

For their September issue, Outside Magazine sent a reporter to the Botanical Garden to find and study Jose the beaver, the Bronx's most famous semi-aquatic rodent.

Jose, you'll be pleased to know, is alive and well. And, most exciting of all, he seems to have made a new friend. Not a mate exactly, rather a muskrat - nicknamed Sebastian. The two seem very close and are likely living together. (What would Rev. Diaz say?!)

Here's a Norwood News editorial, written last year, on Jose's decision to set-up home in the Bronx River, and what his arrival says about the borough's resurgence.

Jose, who's named after Congressman Jose E. Serrano, is the first beaver to be seen in New York City in 200 years.

Photo: NYT

Bronx News Roundup for Dec. 6

The Times takes a look at the 60-year-old Bronx Symphony Orchestra and a new system of arts funding that might make it more difficult for the symphony to continue.

I thought I had it good at Vassar College where the female to male ratio in the 1980s was 3:2. Well, here’s a story about a Bronx kid who is the ONLY male student Wellesley this year.

Parkchester native Pvt. Isaac T. Cortes, 26, who died in Iraq, is laid to rest.

River Park, which is next to a Bronx River waterfall at 180th Street and Boston Road gets new play equipment, a children’s amphitheater and more.

Speaking of the Bronx River, looks like Jose the Beaver has been busy doing some chompin’.

Council members, who get paid $112,500 a year discussed at a hearing yesterday how much outside work its members permitted and those lucrative additional stipends (which go to members who head a committee or subcommittee – which is almost all of them) known as “lulus.” Guess what? There’s not a heck of lot of support for doing things any differently. In opposing proposed changes, Bronx councilman Larry Seabrook said he “took an oath to serve, not an oath of poverty.”

And the Village Voice’s Tom Robbins takes a close look at two competing tenant harassment bills in the City Council. The one that is more favorable to landlords is sponsored by Council Member Maria Baez and Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera, both of the Bronx. The Mount Hope Monitor will have more on this when the upcoming issue hits the streets later this week.