State Senator (and part-time blogger) Jose Marco Serrano, son of Bronx Congressman Jose Serrano, will appear on immigration-obsessed CNN host Lou Dobbs' show tonight between 6:30-7. He will be defending a new DMV policy that allows New Yorkers, regardless of their immigration status, to apply for a driver's license.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
News Roundup, Tuesday, Oct. 9
The most disseminated story coming out of the Bronx is the sad tale of a 17-year-old who is facing charges in the death of his infant son in West Farms. According to reports, the young father wrapped the crying child in blankets, which suffocated him.
Here's a Daily News profile of Donna Futterman, who run the HIV/AIDS program for Monterfiore Medical Center.
The Monroe-Clinton rivalry is the best high school baseball rivalry in the city (though Monroe usually prevails. Soon, two players, one from each school, will ship off to Oklahoma to pursue their baseball dreams at a community college there. Danny Almonte, who gained national notoriety after dominating the Little League Series as a pitcher several years ago until it was discovered that he was two years too old, will be joined by Clinton's Juan Carlos Perez.
The Aquinas Housing Corporation, which is supported partially by City Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera, unveiled 73 new affordable housing units yesterday in West Farms.
Two dozen struggling Bronx middle schools will receive extra funding from the city.
Here's a more in-depth look from the Times at the Million Trees Initiative that kicked off in Bronx earlier today.
Bette Midler Brings Trees to the Bronx
Call it the "Wind Beneath Our New Trees."
Performer Bette Midler, who founded the NY Restoration Project (NYRP), Mayor Bloomberg and a slew of other city officials and characters (including two deputy mayors, the cast of Wicked and Big Bird, to name a few) made their way to the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx to plant trees as part of a new city initiative.
Backed by public and private money, the Million Trees NYC iniative is part of the city's PlaNYC, which is designed to make Gotham into the Big "Green" Apple. Bloomberg says the trees initiative will increase the city's "urban forest" by 20 percent.
"To walk under the branches of a tree that you have planted connects you to the roots of our past and the aspirations of our future," Midler said, according to a press release.
At the event, where Bronx officials were scarce (save Bronx Parks Chief Hector Aponte), workers planted about 50 trees at the intersection of 164th and Teller.
Just 999,999,950 to go.
Update: Whoops. Make that 999,950 to go. (Still a rough road ahead though, according to reader Nick.)
Monday, October 8, 2007
News Roundup for Oct. 8, 2007
Here’s an update on when the
The News and The Times highlight affordable, renovated apartments in Parkchester.
On Oct. 15, Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation will formally announce the opening of Jacob’s Place, an affordable housing development on
Murder on Decatur
Continuing a recent uptick in violence in the northwest Bronx, a 25-year-old man was shot to death late Friday night on Decatur Avenue in Norwood. The victim was shot several times during what police believed was a home invasion. The name of the victim has yet to be released and police say the investigation is ongoing.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Links and News Round-up, Friday, Oct. 5
Here's a few links and news stories as the week comes to an end here in the Bronx.
A couple crime stories to get us started:
U.S. Marshals arrested a Bronx man in Wilmington, Del. for allegedly shooting a 24-year-old man who was sitting on milk crate in Williamsbridge.
Two brothers from the northwest Bronx were convicted earlier this week for drug trafficking and murder. According to evidence presented at the trial, Pedro and David Gonzalez operated a large drug depot, selling marijuana and crack cocaine at East 196th Street and Crescent Avenue. Pedro was implicated in the murder of Eugene Soto, who was shot to death on Valentine Avenue in 1996.
A little local politics: The Daily News' Bob Kapstatter reports that Bronx Dem Boss Jose Rivera is throwing his weight around to help his son, City Council Majority Leader Joel, in his upcoming race for Bronx borough president against Ruben Diaz (and possibly Jose Marco Serrano).
Some sports: As everyone probably knows by now, the Yankees fell hard in the their postseason opener, getting shellacked by the Cleveland Indians, 12-3. Here's a story from an Australian paper about how Yankees fans expect nothing but big things (read: a championship and a clutch performance) from $25 million-a-year superstar Alex Rodriguez. Good quotes from local fans, but also a serious lack of baseball knowledge.
Yanks-Indians, game two, starts a little after 5 p.m.
And finally, a little history: Great story today in the Times Metro section by Manny Fernandez about the turnaround on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx. Thirty years ago today, President Jimmy Carter visited this devastated block of rubble and vacant lots. It looked like Berlin after World War II, but it was really just the victim of city/landlord/tenant neglect and extreme poverty.
For more on the Charlotte Street turnaround, read Jill Jonnes' seminal book about the trials, tribulations and, finally, triumphs of the Boogie Down: South Bronx Rising. An updated version now contains a whole chapter about the efforts of activists in the northwest Bronx. This should be required reading for everyone living or working in the Bronx. You can read most of South Bronx Rising here. Seriously, you should read this.
Have a great weekend. Bronx Columbus Day parade starts at noon on Sunday at Morris Park and White Plains Road.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
UNHP Responds to DEP’s 18% mid-Year Water Rate Proposal
DEP’s threat to go to the Water Board for an 18% mid-year rate increase has placed the cost of water in New York City back in the spotlight. City Hall and DEP are apparently hoping to get the City Council to enact legislation to allow the sale of stand alone water liens to bolster revenues from water bills. (Currently, water liens can only be sold if there is an accompanying tax lien.)
Everyone interested in maintaining a safe water supply that is affordable to all New Yorkers should take advantage of the opportunity offered by this political gamesmanship to publicly raise the real issue: the cost of water is out of control and threatens the economic futures of many New Yorkers.
Water bills currently pay for (1) the operation of the system, (2) the debt service on bonds for capital projects related to water and (3) a rental payment to the City of New York. Better collections will help DEP’s financial picture, but other steps must be taken. For instance, the Water Board’s rental agreement with City could be re-negotiated. Few people know that the Water Board’s rental payment this year is $154 million; reducing or eliminating that payment would be a big help this year for the Water Board budget.
Additionally, DEP’s capital budget needs to be examined to determine the necessity of certain projects, the timing of projects and the real costs of projects in construction. For example, the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park started out as a $1.2 billion job and now the costs are estimated to be $2.8 billion.
The importance of preserving the infrastructure to maintain an ample source of clean water is obvious. But the existing housing stock is an equally important part of the city’s economic infrastructure. Neither can be replaced and both require long-term capital investment. The housing infrastructure’s capital needs will be starved by the cumulative effect of water rate increases that are now being forecast.
We urge the Mayor and City Council to work with the community to develop a comprehensive answer to the water issue.
Jim Buckley, Executive Direcor
Gregory Lobo Jost, Deputy Director
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Bronx News Roundup for Oct. 3
Two detectives from the Bronx Warrants Violent Felony Squad were injured this morning in a shootout in a alleyway off Webster Avenue at 188th Street. The assailant, who was uninjured, was arrested at the scene. Both cops have now been released from hospital. The incident comes less than month after a undercover transit worker was shot and badly hurt on a Bronx subway station.
The Bronx has the city's highest infant mortality rate at 7.1 deaths per 1,000 babies born, according to 2006 figures released yesterday. The city average is 5.9 deaths per 1,000 born. The national average is 6.8.
Two cops from the 44th Precinct turned themselves in Sunday to face charges that they assaulted a man outside a Yonkers bar after a bar fight spilled out onto the street. Both men say they're innocent. The 44 serves Highbridge and the surrounding neighborhoods in the southwest Bronx. While crime is down 5 percent on 2006 figures, it's been a difficult 12 months. Last December, approximately 100 people gathered outside the precinct to protest what they saw as police brutality in the fatal shooting of Timur Person, a 19-year-old local resident who reportedly had a gun in his waistband.
The second trial of Edgar Morales, an accused gang member charged with the 2002 murder of a 10-year-old girl, began Monday at State Supreme Court in the Bronx. Morales is being charged not only with murder but with terrorism, under a state law passed just after 9/11. He is thought to be the first gang member charged under the new law. Prosecutors claim that Morales was part of the St. James gang, whom they say committed a string of crimes in the west Bronx. Morales’ lawyer says his client was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, and is being sacrificed to protect the real shooter.
The New York Post reports that the son and daughter of a Norwood woman killed by a city bus last year is suing New York City Transit for negligence. The November 2006 death represented the third time in less than a year that a pedestrian had been killed at Bainbridge Avenue and Gun Hill Road.
Bronx schools are better accommodating the needs of their growing Muslim student populations, according to the Daily News. It comes at a time when a coalition of local and citywide groups is trying to get the Department of Education to incorporate two Muslim holidays into the official school calendar. More here in the April 19 edition of the Norwood News.
Two Norwoodians’ Perspectives From Afar
Thanks to their proud parents, I just came across the blogs of two young men – native Norwoodians – who now live very far away.
Mike Dunford, a Hawaii-based graduate student, posted this beautiful piece about the lasting impression and life lessons of his Little League coach.
Here’s an excerpt:
When I was a kid, baseball was very important to me. It was very important to most of the boys growing up in my neighborhood. Almost all of the boys (and a handful of the girls) at my school signed up for Little League most years. The season started with a parade - and what kid doesn't like to be in a parade - and ended with everyone getting a trophy. It was great.
The only problem was that I wasn't very good at baseball. That wasn't much of a handicap the first couple of years, but as games got more competitive I found myself spending less time playing, and more time sitting. And sitting takes a lot of the fun out of the game. Little league went from being something I loved to something I didn't care about. But then I wound up on Mr. Preda's team.
And Aaron Charlop-Powers writes insightfully about his experiences and impressions of life in
Today is Gandhi’s birthday. My roommates ask me if I know who he is, smirking as they poke the helpless American, a test and a joke. I am almost offended that they might think I don’t know who he is, parts of me want to ask back, do you know who Gandhi is? It is just a question and it is meant to test me in part but they mean well. Still, this question screams of a deeper problem: no one knows how to relate to me, understand what I am doing, or how I am here. Sometimes the phrasing of this fellowship is hollow despite its best intention to sloganize our work here, and yet there is no resonance at all, from hollow language or my attempts to tell people what I am doing. American Jewish World Services (AJWS) has devolved into just another acronym, pronounced like ‘address’ with a j instead of the double d sound. That I could be a college graduate who has read about Gandhi, who is understanding of his message and sympathetic to the people he tried to uplift just does not register with my roommates or anyone else I meet, the culture of my good will butting heads with the dominant culture of this city.
Monday, October 1, 2007
News Roundup for Oct. 1
Gothamist recently had this tasty feature about a couple of good spots to find bánh mí--Vietnamese sandwiches-- in the Bronx. While the article tends towards Christopher Columbus journalism -- i.e., "discovering" what is already well-established-- it is still worth the read.
A Bronx County Family court judge has agreed to permanently resign after landing in hot water for violating court rules and frequently insulting those who entered her courtroom. The state Commission on Judicial Conduct had been investigating Judge Marian R. Shelton for incidents such as referring to a Carribbean man's appearance as "bizarre" and his braids as "stupid things" ; and referring to another man as a "pig." Incidentally, Shelton was appointed by Mayor Guiliani in 1998.
Last Tuesday, The ESPN miniseries "The Bronx Is Burning" -- about the whirlwind year that was 1977 in New York City -- was released on DVD. To mark the occassion, the Web site undergroundonline.com interviewed two members of the '77 Yankees ; Graig Nettles and Mickey Rivers. Read what they had to say about the accuracy of the ESPN miniseries.
Aspiring South Bronx filmmakers have garnered some media attention over the past few weeks. On the heels of Ben Sisario's September 13 article about Mott Haven's Ghetto Film School, yesterday's New York Times had this piece by Joseph P. Fried about two Bronx high-schoolers working on autobiographical short films. The two students are part of the Media Fellowship, a program offered by the Downtown Community Television Center.
A Remedy for Rising Foreclosures
Foreclosures in the Bronx jumped to an all-time high for the 3rd Quarter of 2007, according to Bronx nonprofit University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP). 441 one-to-four family homes went into foreclosure during the most recent quarter, topping the previous high of 438 set in the 1st Quarter this year.
While the majority of the foreclosures occurred in the East Bronx, both the Northwest Bronx and the South Bronx continue to display an alarming number of foreclosures, despite having fewer 1-4 family homes. In fact, the largest percent increase in the most recent quarter was in the Northwest Bronx, where filings jumped 39% to 74.
It is against this backdrop that UNHP will host its Homeownership Preservation Workshop, Thursday October 4th from 6:30 – 8:30 PM. Bronx homeowners will learn what they can do to avoid foreclosure, and have the opportunity to speak to foreclosure prevention counselors from local non-profits. In addition, two large area lenders, Chase and Washington Mutual, will also be on hand to speak with their borrowers. The workshop is free, and will be held at Concourse House, 2751 Grand Concourse at the corner of E 196th Street.
For more information please contact Eric Fergen, UNHP’s Outreach Coordinator at 718-933-2539 or fergen@unhp.org.
Founded in 1983, University Neighborhood Housing Program is a nonprofit organization working to create, preserve and finance affordable housing in the Bronx.
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