Bronx News Roundup, Aug. 16

A car splashes through a puddle on Southern Boulevard in Bedford Park
during yesterday's record-setting  rainstorm. (Photo by David Greene)

Weather: Good news! The torrential and record-setting rains from the last two days have finally ceased. Skies will stay overcast today (with some light showers this afternoon) with fall-like temperatures in the high 60s. The sun will return and things will warm up again tomorrow.

Story of the Day: Street Name Honors Pregnant Traffic Agent Killed in Tragic Accident
The corner of Webster Avenue and E. 188th Street has been renamed Donnette and Sean Sanz Place, after a 33-year-old Bronx traffic agent who was struck and killed by a van three years ago while crossing the street on her lunch break. Sanz was seven months pregnant at the time and her unborn son, named Sean, died later. The man driving the car that struck her, Walter Walker, 72, had a history of license suspensions and served six months behind bars for criminally negligent homicide.

Quick Hits:
Speaking of Bronx re-namings, a newly opened South Bronx park, Charlton Thompson Garden, honors two soldiers killed during the Korean War.

Everyone should check out this beautiful Time slideshow of photographs by Stephen Shames, who spent decades, from 1977 on, chronicling the lives of young people in the Bronx. His shots, compiled in his recently released "Bronx Boys," captures some quintessential scenes of urban life (kids playing in fire hydrants, a boy sleeping out on the fire escape) as well as some more tumultuous spots in the borough's history (street fights, kids shooting up).

New Street Name Honors Longtime Local Bishop

Editor's Note: this article was first published in the July edition of the Tremont Tribune, out and online now.

The section of Crotona Parkway in front of St. Thomas Aquinas Church is now
 Bishop Francisco Garmendia Place, in honor of the parish’s late pastor.
(Photo by Jeanmarie Evelly)

A busy stretch of Crotona Parkway was renamed last week to honor the late Bishop Garmendia Francisco, the first Hispanic bishop to serve the Archdiocese of New York and a longtime presence in East Tremont, known through the years for his work with the neighborhood’s new immigrant populations.

“He loved his people,” said Betty Cleary, who worked for years as Garmendia’s secretary. “He would go to door-to-door through the neighborhood. Everybody was his family.”