Bronx News Roundup, Oct. 24

More than 6,000 bikers participated in yesterday's 17th annual Tour de Bronx, a bike ride that circles the entire borough. (Video) If you went and have photos, send us one at bronxnewsnetwork-at-gmail.com. We'll post some!

From the Daily News today: PS 8 in Bedford Park has as many as 40 students in a classroom but new legislation requiring the Department of Education to provide more details in their reports on school capacity won't fix the perennail rampant overcrowding in local schools, parents say. What will? Building more schools.

The issues of whether the Bronx Household of Faith can use PS 15 for its Sunday services is a national issue with this latest report from UPI.  Norwood News had this in-depth report back in June.

Supermodel Tyra Banks surprised 400 students at the High School for Teaching and the Professions at the Walton campus in Kingsbridge Heights last Wednesday, bringing her Get Schooled Foundation agenda to the college bound.

A nun who has been in her Hunts Point Parish for 49 years celebrated 60 years in the Sisters of Charity despite her being dismissed, along with other church staff, by the church's new pastor. 

Councilman Fernando Cabrera talks about his legislation to require the NYPD to release crime data for sectors within precincts, an issue raised by the Norwood News and BxNN.

Twelve people are running the New York Marathon to support the large social service organization BronxWorks.

Speaking of BronxWorks, it was one of eight organizations citywide to be awarded a city contract to develop an Innovative Senior Center. According to the Nonprofit Press, "Innovative Senior Centers will be held accountable for producing vibrant programs, high participation rates and better health outcomes for older New Yorkers."

Shootings are up in the Bronx and throughout the city.

Affordable housing construction projects, including some in the Bronx, are under scrutiny by the city and feds for wage infractions and kickbacks.

The HUB business district on East 149th Street now has a Facebook page.

Bronx Underground is having a Halloween Party on Oct. 29.

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.