Bronx News Roundup, May 26

Weather: Another warm one. Partly cloudy for most of the day, with temperatures in the high 70s.

Story of the Day: Budget Cuts Threaten Firehouses (Again)
Mayor Bloomberg's proposed city budget could shutter 20 FDNY firehouses across the city, three of which are in the Bronx: Engine 60 in Mott Haven, Engine 46 in Bathgate and Ladder 53 on City Island. The move has spurred neighborhood protest rallies and one angry column from Daily News Bronx bureau chief Patrice O'Shaughnessy, who says the mayor should focus on fixing his budget instead of his "Orwellian" city park smoking ban (which went into effect yesterday).

It's not the first time the city has threatened to shut firehouses: much like the budget dance over senior center closures, Bloomberg has threatened the FDNY before only to restore funding at the last minute. Eddie Brown of the Uniformed Firefighters Association called it a "budget game the mayor plays with the Council, using the people as pawns."

Quick Hits:

A first-class hotel and banquet hall could be coming to the Hutch Metro Center in Pelham Bay, according to director Joseph Kelleher, per Bob Kappstatter's column. bringing a major hotel to the borough has long been a dream of Bronx political leaders, including Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.

Two Bronx high schools--John F. Kennedy and Herbert Lehman--are among five chosen by the city to get solar panels installed on their roofs. 

The Bronx River Art Center is showing off its students' work with a free reception and opening exhibit tomorrow afternoon,  at 4 p.m. at the BronxArtSpace, 305 E. 140th St.

Livery cab drivers in the outer boroughs are worried about competing with yellow cabs, as the city looks to increase their number outside Manhattan.

A fire broke out on the third floor of a Claremont nursing home yesterday, injuring two people.

In a poll, researchers at Baruch College found more people in the Bronx fear becoming the victim of a hate crime than in the rest of the city. The survey also found that Hispanic New Yorkers are the most fearful of being attacked.

A Bronx man was sentenced to seven years in jail for sexually abusing one of his patients at a nursing home in Morningside Heights, where he worked as a nurse's aide.

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, Thursday, May 19

Home stretch of Bronx Week(s). Let's get down to business. To the news!

Weather: Brief reprieve from monsoon season right now, but more rain and thunderstorms are possible this afternoon.

Story of the Day: A Bronx Underground Rock Scene Emerges
In a Throgs Neck church basement, the seeds of a Bronx rock movement are taking root. A decade ago, a trio of young Bronx musicians and music lovers -- Dave Rose, Anita Colby and Adam Fachler -- made a simple observation about their borough's music scene: It sucked. So they decided to build one themselves, creating Bronx Underground to put on and promote rock concerts in a borough identified as the birthplace of hip hop. For a few years, they used venues on City Island and other east Bronx locales until finding a permanent home at First Lutheran Church, near Country Club, where a growing list of bands are finding a fan base. Marc Makowski, an assistant music director at Sony, compared the scene to England in the 1960s. "Just like the Beatles," he told a writer for NY Press, "one band is going to break out and the rest will follow." Here's a 2009 clip from A Moment's Worth, one of the Bronx Underground-grown bands that could blow up:


Quick Hits:
We knew City Island's Engine 53 firehouse was on the chopping block, but now, after the mayor released the list of firehouses slated for closure, we know that two other Bronx firehouses could be gone as well: Engine 46 at 460 Cross Bronx Expressway (Mt. Hope) and Engine 60 at 341 East 143rd Street (Mott Haven).

In response to the investigation into widespread ticket-fixing by Bronx cops, the NYPD announced it will form a unit dedicated to preventing it from happening in the future.

While eight Bronx schools got a reprieve from closure and will be "re-started" with independent oversight, the teacher's union is suing the city to stop other schools, including the Bronx's John F. Kennedy High School, from being closed.  

Speaking of school closures, state officials say the Kingsbridge Innovative Design School, a charter school that just opened last year, will be closed at the end of year because of financial mismanagement. And St. Dominic's School in the Bronx's Van Nest neighborhood will also close, but the church will stay and get a facelift.

The hotel maid, who police say was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the now former head of the International Monetary Fund, is a widow and single mother from Guinea who lives a quiet life in the Bronx's Concourse Village neighborhood.

The NYPD was upset with the cancellation of the Bronx Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday. In the same column, Bob Kappstatter says Ruben Diaz Sr.'s anti-gay marriage rally drew about 1,500 folks, much less than the 10,000 that were expected.

A fundraiser is being held tonight for Assemblyman Nelson Castro, who survived a re-election bid last fall despite the Bronx Democratic party's best efforts to replace him. Apparently, other candidates are already lining up to take him on in 2012. 

Singer Johnny Mathis performs at Lehman Center this weekend.