Bronx News Roundup, April 19

Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend, now for some Bronx news!

Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo's grandson remains chief of staff even after pleading guilty to embezzling $115,000 from a Bronx nonprofit organization. Richard Izquierdo Arroyo was president of the organization at the time and is due for sentencing in June.

MS 399, located on East184th Street, is among the list of 19 middle schools and high schools Bloomberg has plans to "phase out" due to poor performance. Many of the schools have new principals and have improved but that doesn't take them off the list and it doesn't stop new schools from coming into their buildings to replace them. (This Village Voice piece was written by former Mount Hope Monitor intern Rob Sgobbo.)

Former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión, who is currently the head of the White House Office of Urban affairs is rumored to be interested in running for lieutenant governor. Liz Benjamin says Carrion is bored with his job and has more details here.

The head of the Bronx Detective Bureau has been accused of sexually harassing a detective with unwanted messages and texts.

Bronx community leader Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter has announced that she will challenge State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada, Jr. in the Democratic primary in the 33rd District. (We were at the announcement and will post more details soon.) Meanwhile, Stuart Appelbaum, head of the retail workers' union, which partnered with Hunter and the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition to defeat the city's plans to turn the Kingsbridge Armory into a mall, is poised to endorse Pilgrim-Hunter.

Two men were found shot on Friday in the Edenwald section of the Bronx. Both were rushed to Jacobi Medical Center where one was pronounced dead and the other is in critical but stable condition.

Latinos Wanted! The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has enrolled 2,000 Bronx participants and is looking for 2,000 more for its Hispanic Community Health Study. The Bronx is among the four sites chosen by the NIH.

As of last Wednesday the Bronx census mail-back rate was third in the city.

Inside a 'Failing' Bronx Middle School

MS 399 in Fordham is being phased out by the DOE (File photo by A. Watkins)

Rob Sgobbo, a former BxNN intern who's now a student at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, has been blogging in the Huffington Post about his experiences at MS 399, where he's spent time these past few months talking to students and observing classes.

The school, on East 184th Street, is being phased out by the Department of Education - a decision the school community has criticized. For a long time, MS 399 was plagued by poor test scores, violence, and high staff turnover, but teachers and parents say a corner has been turned in recent years.

That sentiment - that the school is on the up, and that the DOE acted rashly in ordering it closed - is one Rob, a former teacher himself, agrees with.  You can read his posts here.

Two new schools - Creston Academy and East Fordham Academy for the Arts - moved into the building last fall. MS 399 has dropped a grade and will close for good in June 2011.

Reviving a Long-Forgotten Pool

When Principal Angelo Ledda arrived at MS 399 two years ago, the school’s 25-meter indoor swimming pool was filled with black, viscous water. “Like a scene out of a horror movie,” he said.

Today, the water is gone, and construction is under way to return the pool to its former glory. Ledda anticipates it will open next summer.

Swimming pools at city public schools are a rarity because of the high construction and maintenance costs, said Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Education. There are only 40 in operation in the 1,200 schools across the city, and no new ones have been built recently because of rising construction costs.

The pool at MS 399 (on East 184th Street) has been out of action for 15 years. More here.

(Reporting and photo by Rebecca Chao)

May's Mount Hope Monitor

The May edition of the Monitor is now online. This month, stories include:

In Mount Hope, a Nonprofit Collaboration
Several Bronx-based community development organizations have begun holding monthly meeting at Mount Hope Housing Company’s offices on Morris Avenue, to discuss ways they can join forces and survive the economic downturn.

'No Hitting Zone’ at St. Barnabas
At St. Barnabas Hospital’s Child Advocacy Center, the “No Hitting Zone” is not only an area where parents are asked not to swat their kids, but a larger initiative to create healthy family relationships.

Murdered Toddler Remembered
In Mott Haven, recently, 32 children lay down on a sidewalk and played dead. The “lie in,” on 141st Street at Beekman Avenue was held on April 16 to mark the second anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre in which 32 people were killed, as well as the third anniversary of a Bronx tragedy: the murder of two-year-old David Pacheco.

Roberto Clemente’s Pools Won’t Open This Summer
In summers past, when the mercury climbed to blistering highs, west Bronx residents could cool off in Roberto Clemente State Park’s Olympic-size swimming pool, beside River Park Towers at the edge of the Harlem River. From late June through Labor Day, it attracts hundreds of visitors a day. But not this year: the pool will be closed for renovations.

Opinion: Public Education at a Crossroads
Vincent Wojsnis, a Bronx middle school teacher and a UFT chapter leader, believes mayorol control of the city's public schools - which is up for review in June - has been a disaster.

Man Tried to Hire 'Hit man'
A Davidson Avenue man, languishing on Rikers Islands on a rape charge, attempted to have the woman he’s accused of raping murdered, police say.

MS 399 Protest Walk

On Feb. 12, over 150 protesters from the Middle School 399 community rallied a second time outside the school, located on 184th Street at Creston Avenue, in preparation for a one mile march to the Community District 10 Education Council Meeting at MS 45 to contest their school's closure. They held their first rally in December.

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The Inauguration and other bits and pieces

We're getting to this a little late, but here's a roundup of today's Bronx news:

The Inauguration
The Bronx Lab School on Gun Hill Road was one of many Bronx schools to hold screenings of this afternoon's inauguration.

Mount Hope Monitor contributor Rebecca Chao visited MS 399 on 184th Street where hundreds of excited (and occasionally emotional) students watched proceedings in the school's auditorium. “He [Obama] makes us feel powerful, hopeful," said one eighth grader before the speech. "If he can do it, anyone can do it.” Afterwards, Student Council members, responding to Obama's can-do attitude and call to public service, said they were inspired more than ever to reverse the DOE's recent decision to close their school.

Bronx Congressman Jose Serrano had this to say:

Today our national dream of equality for all was one step closer as we watched the inauguration of President Barack Obama. This man who came from such an unlikely background to the presidency has become the repository of our hopes and dreams. Now he will have the chance deliver on the promise of his message. We will stand side-by-side with him and put our collective strength to fixing our nation.

As a boy from Mayaguez, Puerto Rico that grew up in the projects in The Bronx, and came to serve in the U.S. Congress, I believe in unlikely journeys and the power of the American dream.

More here.

Other news
Councilman Jimmy Vacca is co-sponsoring a bill that's sure to be popular with car owners.

State Senator Pedro Espada has once again failed to file a required financial disclosure report.

In September, Jonas Bronck Academy, a middle school, will move into Fordham Place, the building that houses Sears and Best Buy. The school is currently located on Manhattan College Parkway in Riverdale.

One of Bob Kappstatter's anonymous sources thinks he/she knows why Borough President Adolfo Carrion's confirmation as Obama's director of urban policy is taking an age and a day.

New in the Mount Hope Monitor

The January edition of the Mount Hope Monitor is now online.

Stories include:

Tenants living in 1892 Morris Ave. have taken taken their nonprofit landlord, Mount Hope Housing Company, to court for neglecting the building and ignoring their maintenance requests.

In better news for Mount Hope, we heard today that the organization's beautiful but much delayed community center has moved a step closer to opening. According to staff, the Temporary Certificate of Occupancy has just come through, meaning it can be "legally occupied." Soon is the operative word.

A look at who's eyeing Council Member Helen Diane Foster's District 16 seat. (We tried - and failed - to get Foster on the phone to clarify whether or not she'll seek another four years in office. Her chief-of-staff, Jim Fairbanks, said "she hasn't told me" when asked about his boss' future plans.)

More on Middle School 399 and the DOE's decision to gradually shut it down. The 700-plus student school is housed in a majestic building on 184th Street, just three blocks from PS 79, another school that's being phased out. MS 399 will be replaced by two smaller middle schools that will occupy the same building.

Bronx News Roundup Dec. 18

Most "Bronx" stories on the Web and in this morning's papers focus on Ashlee Simpson, baby "Bronx Mowgli," and husband Peter Wentz, who's likely in the doghouse this morning following an interview with Howard Stern in which he probably said a little too much.

Here's the other stuff:

Chanting "Phase out Klein, not 399!" parents, teachers, and UFT representatives held a rally outside MS 399 in South Fordham yesterday, to protest the DOE's decision to close the school. Several other schools are also being shut down for poor performance in this latest round of cuts. All received a D or an F grade in the DOE's Progress Reports released in September. Rather than being closed immediately, the schools will be phased out gradually over a number of years. Earlier this year, it was announced that another local school, PS 79, would also be closing.

Newly recovered e-mails suggest (prove?) that Mayor Bloomberg aides bullied tax assessors into exaggerating the cost of the new Yankee Stadium (specifically the cost of the land), so that the Yankees could get their hands on $1 million in tax free bonds. More here.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz thinks Ruben Diaz Jr. would be a good choice for borough president, if current B.P. Adolfo Carrion lands a much rumored position with the Obama Administration. In truth, Dinowitz was never likely to support another probable candidate, Joel Rivera, the City Council majority leader. Dinowitz and others fought bitterly this fall with Rivera's father, Jose Rivera, over the leadership of the Bronx Democratic Party.

The funeral of Cardinal Avery Dulles, the respected theologian and Fordham University professor, is being held today, following his death last Friday. The BoogieDowners have more.

A 30-year-old woman was stabbed to death in Crotona Park East on Wednesday afternoon.

There have been several big drug busts in Bronx housing projects over the past two weeks.