Bronx News Roundup, April 12

A Bronx teen who was beaten outside of Jonathan Levin High School of Media and Communications back in September is suing the Dept. of Education and the city for $6 Million. The student claims security guards shut the door as he tried to escape a gang fight.

More cases related to tax fraud in the Bronx and Manhattan have came to light. The New York Times writes about a Bronx man who was denied his tax return from H&R Block due to identity theft.

A woman from the Bronx is being charged with stabbing her boyfriend in the chest in her Arthur Avenue apartment.

A van driven by a Bronx resident, Luis Vargas, crashed into a wall off Route 9W, killing a 22-year-old passenger and injuring 14 others in the van. Vargas is being charged with a DWI and is facing further action by the Orange County grand jury.

 Harold Maldonado Jr. is now the director of the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club. Maldonado has worked with the club since it started in 1969.

"Dozens" of family members and friends rode in a memorial bike ride for Bronx health activist Megan Charlop, who died in a bike accident on March 17, on Saturday afternoon. [Check here for more on the bike ride later.]

Hundreds of people, along with city officials, gathered last Friday for the grand opening ceremony of the new Macombs Dam Park and the Joe Yancy Track & Field near the new Yankee Stadium.

Check out New York Magazine's list of "The Most Livable Neighborhoods in New York." Some Bronx neighborhoods have made it on the list including Riverdale (38th), Co-op City (45th) and a few others.

Petro-Bronx, an organization funded by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, is giving grants to several south Bronx nonprofit groups.

Bronx News Roundup, March 19

Here's the Times' coverage of Megan Charlop's life and death. The much-loved director of community health for Montefiore Medical Center's School Health Program was killed on Wednesday while riding her bike. Her funeral was this morning.

More on the opening of Kips Bay Boys & Girl Club's new community center on University Avenue. Adolfo Carrion, the former Bronx borough president who now works in DC, was in attendance and hinted at a possible return to New York in the coming years to pursue citywide office.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz believes Gov. Paterson's soda tax doesn't go far enough. Instead, he would like to see a tax on all products that contain sugar, to raise revenue and combat obesity.

A Bronx man is suing the city after cops accused him of attempting to solicit sex from a prostitute. While the charges were later dropped, he spent 24 hours in custody and was forced to miss his father's funeral.

The Bronx DA is expanding its "bait car" program, in an effort to catch more car thieves.

Last Saturday in Morris Heights, a man threatened a taxi driver with a handgun and attempted rob him. In the struggle that followed, the robber bit the driver on the neck, arm, and back before fleeing.

A New Community Center for the West Bronx

For years, the building's doors were bricked up and covered in graffiti (Photos by Alma Watkins)

This morning, community leaders and local residents attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club's new community center.

The Frederic R. & Margaret Coudert Clubhouse is located in the long-vacant Hebrew Institute Yeshiva building at 1835 University Ave., just north of West Tremont Avenue.

Those present included Adolfo Carrion, the former Bronx borough president who now works for the Obama administration in Washington, DC. It was Carrion who, as district manager of Community Board 5 in the early 1990s, first started advocating for a community center in the building.

As a city councilman in the late '90s, he got Kips Bay involved and, over the years, provided millions of dollars in funding.

Still, it's been a long road - nothing came easy, and the years dragged out.

According to Alma, the photograher who took these photos, Carrion was tearing up a little during his speech. He said he couldn't put into words how much it meant to him to see the renovation complete.

The four-story center boasts a gymnasium, a game room, and a computer room, among other things, and will serve hundreds of local children every day after school.

“We just felt that it was an underserved part of the community,” Daniel Quintero, Kips Bay's executive director, previously told the Mount Hope Monitor. “We all have our talent within and what I think the Boys  Girls Club does is that we tap into it and nourish it and bring it out.”

We'll have more about the new clubhouse in the next issue of the Monitor.

Adolfo Carrion, the former Bronx BP, was one of the driving forces behind the project

Boys & Girls Club Coming to University Heights

The Hebrew Institute of University Heights, an abandoned Hebrew school on Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard, is being turned into a community center by Kips Bay Boys & Girl Club. The 30,000-square-foot building has been vacant for 30 years - so this is exciting news. Construction started in May and is expected to wrap up in about a year.

The Institute was built in the 1920s, when the borough's Jewish population was soaring. By 1930 the South Bronx alone was home to more than 260 synagogues, according to this Web site. Today there's just one.

(Photo by Ariel Elghanayan)

Mount Hope's New Community Center

Here's a shot, taken today, of Mount Hope Housing Company's architecturally striking community center, which will open this summer. The center, on 175th Street at Walton Avenue, will serve up to 2,000 people at day. Later this year, a gymnasium will be built alongside. More here.

Talking of community centers, Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club has begun renovating the former Hebrew Institute building at 1835 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The project, 15 years in the making, has been beset by various construction and funding issues. Work began in May and is expected to take 12-14 months. More here and here.

Bronx News Roundup for Sept. 21

Cops shot and injured an armed man in Williamsbrige early Friday morning. The man, a passenger in a stolen car, was wielding a kitchen knife, cops said.

New York City's unemployment rate was 5.7 percent in August, unchanged from July, but up 1 percent from August 2006. The Bronx has the highest rate out of all the boroughs - 7.8 percent in August, down from 8.1 percent in July.

The Bronx Borough Board still hasn't voted on the new Yankee Stadium parking subsidy deal, according to StreetsBlog. Here's a Norwood News editorial about the parking garages.

Yesterday's Sun looked at how the Mets and the Yankees are getting on with their new ballparks. Construction crews, say the paper, are working at breakneck speed to get ahead before winter comes.

Bernie Williams, the former Yankees outfielder and now a guitarist in a jazz band, performs tomorrow night at Utopia's Paradise Theater, on the Grand Concourse. The evening also features a play starring Williams' former teammates, Jim Leyritz and Darryl Strawberry. Proceeds will go towards the Kips Bay Boys & Girls Club of America. Kips Bay, by the way, are looking at opening a new community center in University Heights, in the long-vacant Hebrew Institute.