Bronx News Roundup, July 21

Veterans at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Hospital, in Kingsbridge, are learning to channel their post-war tension into music as volunteers teach them to play musical instruments.

Ruben Diaz Jr., ex-Yankees Roy White and Darryl Strawberry and Yankees scout Cesar Prescott, gathered to remember late team owner George Steinbrenner before a baseball tournament on Randall’s Island yesterday.

Don Coquí, an authentic Puerto Rican restaurant in New Rochelle, is celebrating its first anniversary this month. Its owner, Jimmy Rodríguez, is the founder of Jimmy's Bronx Cafe and the son of the founder of Marisco del Caribe in the Bronx.

The city Administration for Children's Services will fund Rosalie Hall, a center for pregnant teens, for another year. Although the number of beds must be reduced from 16 to 10, the funding may allow the center to provide birthing services and full-time residency for young mothers and their children.

Christopher Benfey, a professor at Mount Holyoke and contributor to the New York Review of Books, wrote about his experience attending “Emily Dickinson’s Garden: The Poetry of Flowers,” at the Botanical Garden on the New York Review of Books website this morning.

The Point, a community development organization in the South Bronx, which reclaimed vacant land in the city for a 400-square-foot garden, is setting an example for Detroit and other American cities. The Center for American Progress released an article about the benefits of urban farms today.

Bronx native Latisha Ryer, 35, was arrested on charges of possessing and selling crack cocaine in Port Jervis today.

The Daily News reported that teens jumped fences to swim in the Bronx River yesterday, in spite of the recent deaths in the area.

Drug Czar To Visit Mary Mitchell Center in Crotona

Gil Kerlikowske, the director for the White House Office of Drug Control Policy, will be visiting the Mary Mitchell Family and Youth Center on Monday to launch a nationwide anti-drug campaign.

Staff at the Mary Mitchell Center, at 2007 Mapes Ave., have been in touch with Kerlikowske's office since last November, when several drug-related shootings took place nearby--with one happening just beside the center's playground, where students from the after-school program were playing at the time. Later that same day, at nearby 2000 Prospect Ave., a burst of gunfire left 19-year-old Felix DelValle dead. Another teen, 17-year-old Phillip Carr, was arrested and charged with the murder.

Since then, the Mary Mitchell Center staff have stepped up their efforts to draw citywide and national attention to the issues of drug and youth violence that plague many low-income neighborhoods.

On Monday, Kerlikowske will take a tour of the center and then hold a press conference to announce the launch of the "Influence Project," a nationwide anti-drug program that aims to engage teens in conversation about the pressures that influence their decisions.

Check back on Monday for our coverage of the event.