Halloween in Norwood, the Bronx

A school night with homework deadline did not deter hundreds of children from coming out for Halloween trick-or-treating on Monday. I took these photos on Bainbridge Avenue and East 204th Street. Click here for a slide show .
The pirate's expression in the image below is exactly how I felt while making photographs on Halloween.



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Home and Business Fair tonight in Norwood will speak three languages

A number of nonprofit groups are coming together to host a resource fair for homeowners and small business owners this evening at the Mosholu Branch of the New York Public Library. In an effort to support the growing Bangladeshi population in Norwood, information will be provided in Bangla as well as English and Spanish.

Organized by University Neighborhood Housing Program, the resource fair will bring Queens-based Chhaya CDC and citywide groups such as the Legal Aid Society, the Parodneck Foundation and NYC Business Solutions together with local groups including the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition's Weatherization Assistance Program and the West Bronx Housing and Neighborhood Resource Center.

Homeowners who attend the resource fair which runs from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, will be able to learn about foreclosure prevention options including loan modifications, find out about free legal assistance that may be available, and receive a free weatherization kit while learning how to cut energy costs. Additionally, attendees can find out about assistance with immigration and get help starting or expanding a small business, including getting certified as a minority or women owned business (MWBE). Resources will also be available for first time home buyers, as well as information on credit workshops and free tax preparation services.

The event will be held in the basement of the Mosholu branch of the New York Public Library (285 East 205 Street between Bainbridge and Perry Avenues). More information is available on UNHP's website, or by calling 718-933-2539.

Norwood Campers Celebrate at Sal's Pizza

Campers from St. Brendan's Church Play Camp got an end-of-summer treat last week, with a pizza party at Sal's Pizzeria on E. 204th Street.

The group of 20 tykes were treated to pizza and sodas on the house, said counselor Maritza Rivera, who snapped this shot of the group with owner Sal Calce.

"They were excited and had a blast," she said. "It was a great experience for the kids."

RizzQue Business: Get Your Sexy On at New Bronx Dance Studio

RizzQue owner Jeanette Cardona (foreground) and instructors like Philicia Edwards (background) have brought pole dance fitness to Norwood. (Photo by Adi Talwar)

By Rachel Sander

Jeanette Cardona originally planned on naming her new Webster Avenue dance studio and boutique Casa Cardona. But considering the studio’s offerings, which include instruction in both belly and pole dancing, Cardona decided instead to take a risk and be bold, maybe even a little risqué, in naming her new business.

Armed with a catchy new name, RizzQue Studio and Boutique, and a diverse arsenal of dance clothing as well as traditional, risqué and kid-friendly dance classes, Cardona’s Norwood-area studio is thriving.

Following Piano Theft, Norwood Residents Say 'You Can't Take Away Our Hope' (VIDEO)

Norwood residents young and old helped paint the new community piano in Oval Park. (Photos by Rachel Sander)

Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval Park and a number of helpful local residents gathered today in the park to paint the recently-donated piano that will replace the Sing for Hope Pop-Up Piano that was stolen earlier this week.

It remains a mystery who took the piano and how they were able to remove the hulking instrument from the park, but the Norwood community is celebrating today and once again feeling hopeful. More than two dozen kids and adults chipped in to give the piano a bright new paint job. (See video at the bottom of this story.)

Fire on E. 204th Street in Norwood (Updated)

Above are photos of a fire last night at 305 E. 204th St. in Norwood. We'll have more details for you later. All photos by Adi Talwar.

Update: A few details. A spokesman for FDNY said 12 units, or about 60 firefighters, responded to the fire call at 3:22 a.m. The fire was under control by 4:03 a.m. The blaze was contained to the second floor, which serves as the offices for Aleseda Management and Realty. They are still investigating the cause of the fire.

[Editor's note: Here's a link to Adi's personal account of the blaze.]

New, Improved Foodtown Rises From the Ashes

Slideshow: Watch as Foodtown burns to the ground and then opens up last Saturday. (All photos by Adi Talwar)

By Jordan Moss and Lulaine Compere

Norwood’s popular Foodtown supermarket which was razed in a suspected incident of arson at the end of 2009 is back in business.

The store, now 50 percent larger with many more offerings, has taken up two neighboring storefronts that were home to a diner and a dental office that were also destroyed in the blaze.

“We expanded the store, we have a bigger seafood department, bakery department, produce department, and we have expanded the deli,” said Noah Katz, a member of the family that has owned the store since 1956.

Organic produce and frozen goods are new additions as are an olive and cheese counter and a section with a variety of coffee beans called Brewed Awakening.

Katz led the design of the new store, he said, and his pride in the store’s bright, spacious new look was palpable throughout a quick tour on Tuesday.

The supermarket’s total makeover includes wider aisles for shopping carts and strollers, modern lighting, and a number of large photos of a Bronx gone by, including Mosholu Parkway in 1911 and the intersection of Fordham Road and Valentine Avenue in 1951. Katz chose the images with the help of the Bronx County Historical Society.

How Many People Live in Bangladesh?

OK, this little factoid about Bangladesh  is only tangentially relevant to everyday Bronx life (but not totally irrelevant as last I checked there were about 900 Bangladeshis living in the Norwood section of the Bronx), but how many people do you think live in Bangladesh? Give up? 156 million people. Yup, it's the 7th largest country in the world. Egypt, which is how I came across this, is the 16th largest with about 80 million. Here are the 15 countries ahead of Egypt.

Jerome-Gun Hill Road BID Street Festival on Saturday

This is a photo from last year's Jerome-Gun Hill Road BID festival. This year's festival is happening on Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.. Stop by. It's always a good time.. If you're not familiar with this particular street festival (as you can tell, tis the season for them), Jerome Avenue from Gun Hill Road to Mosholu Parkway is blocked off for a boisterous block party, complete with food, fun activities for kids and a packed lineup of performers. Honored guests include MTV's DJ Skribble and freestyle artist Judy Torres.

The Mysterious Death of Norwood 'Fixture' Billy (Peanut) Murphy

Born premature on Aug. 25, 1962, Billy Murphy was a tiny baby who looked like a little "peanut," one of his older brothers said at the time. The name stuck. Even as a grown-up, everyone knew him as "Peanut."

Last Wednesday night, a gimpy-legged "Peanut" Murphy walked out of Whalen Park, on the corner of 205th Street and Perry Avenue in Norwood, where he drank Cobra malt liquor -- on most nights and days for the past two decades -- to pick up some more beer. Probably from the Family Grocery, near Rochambeau Avenue, where we worked for a time (and was paid in beer and cigarettes, according to a friend).

The next day, Murphy lay brain dead at St. Barnabas Hospital, his face and head swollen to the point that he was nearly unrecognizable. Vicar Bob Rainis of Epiphany Lutheran, where Murphy often slept and received the sacrament, said Murphy was so badly beaten and bruised, he mostly identified him by the shamrock tattoo on his forearm.

Rainis read Murphy his last rites on Saturday and he died early Sunday morning, at the age of 47, just 10 days before his birthday.

While most believe Murphy fatally hit his head as the result of bad fall, many believe that even if he did fall (which he was prone to as a heavy drinker with bad legs, the result of a scaffolding accident that left him permanently hobbled.), he was savagely beaten beforehand. In other words, Murphy was murdered.

Police could not be immediately reached for comment, but we'll keep trying.

McKeon Funeral Home, located just a block from Whalen, is taking care of all the funeral arrangements. There will be a wake starting at 5 p.m. tomorrow at Epiphany Lutheran on E. 206th Street, just down the street from Bainbridge Avenue.The funeral service will begin at 7 p.m.

By all accounts, Murphy was a nice guy who struggled mightily with alcohol and stubbornly refused any public assistance aside from the kindness of friends and the congregation at Epiphany Lutheran.

"He's the sweetest man I ever met," said Jeanie Brady, one of Murphy's friends, who lives near Rochambeau and 206th Street. "He used to help everyone but himself."  

Brady called Murphy a "piece of fixture in the neighborhood."

"Believe it or not," Rainis said, "Billy was one of our greatest ambassadors. He would talk to people walking by the church and say, 'You coming to church on Sunday? You should. You're going to love this place.'"

Rainis, a former cop, said he's not sure if police have classified Murphy's case as a homicide, but he and many of his friends at Whalen Park believe it was just that.

"I believe he was killed," said Savcho Sanev in a thick Bulgarian accent. Earlier today Sanev, who calls Murphy his "brother," and four of Murphy's other friends, sat on a bench at Whalen Park, drinking Cobras and mourning their loss.

Some speculated that Murphy's beating may have come at the hands of opportunistic teenagers who saw the small drunk homeless man as an easy target. Others said it could have been a gang initiation. Others said maybe he fell really really hard this time.

But Murphy's Whalen Park friends say police told them they were treating the case as homicide and that they told them that Murphy sustained 10 broken ribs, not something likely to happen from a simple fall, however intoxicated he may have been.

"I'm so (expletive) sad," Sanev said. 

Street Trees Need Public Attention

 Quinn Cushnie demonstrates watering techniques on Putnam Place in Norwood earlier today.

In case you haven't noticed, this summer has been hot and dry. Now, that dry, hot heat has put at risk thousands of recently planted trees in the city, including the 250 new "street trees" planted in Norwood through the mayor's MillionTreesNYC initiative.

The "street trees" -- trees planted along city sidewalks -- need weekly attention and watering to remain healthy and the Parks Department is calling on the public to help out. "We can use all the help we can get," explained Hector Aponte, the Bronx Parks Commissioner. "Anybody with a bucket of water can pitch in."

Friday morning, across the street from Williamsbridge Oval Park (and outside the offices of the Norwood News), Aponte, along with Jennifer Beaugrand and her horticultural crew from the Mosholu Preservation Corporation (MPC) demonstrated how to creatively and efficiently keep street trees watered.

The demonstration stressed a gradual process of hydration, a week-long technique of watering trees through water conservation. Quinn Cushnie, a crew member from MPC, showed how a 15-gallon bucket of water, fixed with two small holes at the bucket's bottom and placed strategically next to a tree, would slowly drain water into the soil and roots of a tree as needed. "It is a slower process that gives the tree water when needed instead of drowning the top soil all at once," Cushnie said.

Cushnie also showed how the newly planted "street trees" were equipped with irrigation bags - small green bags attached to the base of trees - which function similarly to the slow water-letting of water buckets. The bags allow for crews to fill them up with water once a week and then forget it until they need refilling the next week.

Aponte and MillionTreesNYC offered an assortment of tips for residents on how to exploit excess water throughout the home to water their local street trees. Excess water from bathtubs, melted ice from coolers and dripping water from air-conditioning units can be used to hydrate trees without wasting water from a hose.

MillionTreesNYC has more tips on watering "street trees" on its website: milliontreesnyc.org.

Story of the Day

For the story of the day, I thought I'd bring some attention to our story on the murder of life-long Norwood resident Michael Lorge, who was shot in the head multiple times while on his way to work on Valentine's Day 2009. Click here for the whole story. (You may want to print this one out. It's lengthy.)

[Above, the photo shows pallbearers taking Lorge's body out of St. Brendan's Church at this decidedly local affair. Funeral arrangements were handled by Norwood's own McKeon's Funeral Home.]

Bronx News Roundup, March 22

Here's some Bronx news for you on this rainy Monday:

Making history yet again, President Obama's health care reform bill gets passed with a 219-212 vote. Here's the NY Times breakdown of the bill.

Yesterday, a 23 year-old Bronx man was arrested and charged with murdering his girlfriend's 22 month-old daughter in a Soundview apartment. According to a spokeswoman for the city's medical examiner, the baby suffered blunt impact wounds and cuts of the liver and other organs.

A Bronx father of two, Orlando Salgado, was stabbed to death Friday night near E. 197th Street and Webster Avenue after trying to defend a teenager who was involved in a dispute earlier that day. The teenager was able to get away unharmed.

Montefiore Medical Center has opened the only pancreas transplant program in the Bronx and Westchester. It will treat people with severe, end stage diabetes.

Anti-abortion protesters stake out at Mott- Haven abortion clinic in national 40 Days for Life Campaign.

A Malian Cultural Center opens here in the Norwood section of the Bronx. It is the first of its kind in the United States. It is dedicated to the people from West Africa's Republic of Mali.

On Friday night, police shot a 30 year-old man armed with knives, who was threatening to kill somebody inside an apartment in a Mott Haven building. Officers demanded he dropped the weapons, he ignored the demands while approaching the officers. He was shot twice.

A Bronx man was shot to death after asking a neighbor to quiet down so his children could get some sleep, Sunday night. He was shot in the chest by the neighbor, who fled the scene but returned to turn himself in.

The MTA revises its plans to cut transit services.

Murder on DeKalb Ave. (Updated)

A man identified as Victor Anderson, 26, of Brooklyn, was murdered early last Saturday morning on Dekalb Avenue, just north of Gun Hill Road in the Norwood section of the Bronx.

Police say they responded to reports of a man shot in front of 3535 DeKalb Ave. at 12:55 a.m. They found Anderson with a gun shot wound to the head. He was transported to North Central Bronx Hospital just two blocks away, but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Neighbors say police were knocking on doors at near-by apartment buildings until at least 2:30 a.m., but police say they have no suspects at this time and that the investigation is ongoing.

For years, the stretch of DeKalb Avenue, north of Gun Hill Road, has been a hotbed for the drug trade. Two years ago, federal authorities took down an extensive network of drug traffickers and associated gang members several blocks north of where the shooting took place.

It was the first murder in the 52nd Precinct in months, but the second shooting incident in the last two weeks.

We first published this on the Norwood News' Facebook page, which you can access by going to facebook.com and searching for "Norwood News."

Update: Deputy Inspector John D'Adamo, the commanding officer of the 52nd Precinct, says his investigators are actively pursuing the case and tracking down some promising leads. He also said that despite the area's reputation for drug activity, the murder "is possibly not narcotics related." It is the first murder in the precinct since D'Adamo took over command of the precinct on Oct. 27. Trying now, to track down when exactly the last murder was.

Another Fire in Norwood in 51 days.

By now most of you have read the News and seen the destruction caused by the early morning fire on 204 street in the Norwood section of the Bronx.
The phone rang at 4:45 am and I thought "It cannot be another fire". The last time I had received an early morning call it was October 31 and we lost more than 10 businesses on Bainbridge ave. Here are some of the photographs I made while I watched my family's favorite store burn (Foodtown). "Where are we going to buy ice cream" was my 5 year old daughters reaction. The last quarter of 2009 has not been good for Our community. We are a close knit community here in Norwood. Thanks to my friend's call I was one of the first photographers to get to the location. You can see the empty snow covered lot created by the October 31st fire in the last photograph of the slide show

Fire in Norwood on 204th Street

Residents of Norwood awoke this morning to sounds, smells and sights of another devastating fire to the local business district and greater community. The FDNY received calls for the fire around 4:30am and by 6:30am over 160 firefighters had responded to subdue the blaze. The fire raged through the building that houses Foodtown and the American Diner, in the heart of the commercial strip on 204th Street. These photos were taken from the hallway of an apartment building on Rochambeau Avenue, images eerily similar to the fire on Halloween that destroyed a building and 12 businesses on Bainbridge Avenue. This fire now leaves two gaping wholes in what was an otherwise vibrant neighborhood commercial corridor.

Tree Lighting on Mosholu Parkway

Thursday December 10th: The good people of Norwood and its surrounds assembled in cold weather at the intersection of Bainbridge Avenue and Mosholu Parkway. They came out to be a part of the tree lighting ceremony organized by Community Board 7. St. Brendan's school choir sang Christmas carols while the adults cheered. Politicians and local dignitaries were present. I enjoyed making photographs of my community I hope you enjoy them too.

Many Faces of Halloween

I made these photographs walking around Norwood on Halloween evening.
Hope you enjoy them.

Fire Guts 14 stores in Norwood.

October 31 2009: An early Saturday morning 5 alarm fire gutted 14 stores on the corner of East 204 street and Bainbridge ave. After receiving a phone call from a friend, I rushed to the location at about 3:30 am. The air was filled with a light drizzle and thick heavy smoke. Our brave fire fighters fought hard to bring the fire under control. Its with a sad heart I bring you these photographs as this is a big blow to my neighborhood.

Partial list of businesses effected by the fire:
1) Yasmins Barber Shop
2) Candy & Grocery
3) Plaza Rio Nilo Records
4) Dunkin' Donuts
5) ZNS Realty Corp
6) Bainbridge Fish Market
7) Neighborhood Gift & Wireless
8) European Minimarket
9) Bainbridge Bakery and pastry
10) El Diamante Poblano II Restaurant
11) Betty's Place
12) Ming Wong

Bronx News Roundup Feb. 4

Police are searching for a man who has targeted, attacked, and robbed at least three women in their apartment buildings in Norwood. The attacks have taken place in apartment buildings on Valentine Avenue, Strong Street, and Creston Avenue.

A public hearing on proposed MTA changes, which would eliminate the Bx 34, will be held tonight at 6 p.m. at Lehman College in the Lovinger Theater.

Firefighter Brendan Cawley, 35, survivor of the 2005 “Black Friday” fire blames the building’s tenants for the deaths of his colleagues, Lt. Curtis Meyran, 46, and Firefighter John Bellew, 37.

The family members of Amadou Diallo reflect ten years after his death. Diallo’s case became infamous after it was reported that police fired 41 times at him, even though he was unarmed at the time. Diallo, an immigrant from Guinea, West Africa, and Soundview resident, was 23 years old when he was killed.

A survey by the Citizen’s Committee of New York City finds that Bronxites are the least satisfied with their borough.