Bronx News Network

Bronx News Roundup, Thursday, April 14

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Weather: Enjoy the mid 60s temperatures and sunshine broken up only by the occasional cloud. To the news!Story of the Day: During a 9-year-stretch between 1986 and 1995, 65 bodies (65!) were found in the Bronx’s Pelham Bay Park, the city’s largest park at 2,700 acres. “It’s vast, vast territory,” Lloyd Ultan, the Bronx borough historian, told the Times in an article about the New York area’s many body-hiding hot spots. “A lot of it is wild. It would take a long time for anybody to find anything there that shouldn’t be there.” The article, which stems from the 10 bodies recently found in the Long Island shore brush, says that Pelham Bay Park used to a be a dumping ground for bodies and gives a couple of examples of the grizzly discoveries made at the east Bronx park.

Bronx News Network

Residents Cheer Reopening of Mosholu Post Office; Annoyed It Took So Look

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The Mosholu Post Office on Jerome Avenue (finally) reopened this week. The post office, which closed due to structural damage last April, is once again open for regular business hours: Monday through Friday, 8 a.m to 4 p.m. “It was a pain in the butt that it was closed for so long,” Julissa Shapiro said. “But it’s great that it’s open now!”Darlene Reid, a spokesperson for the United States Postal Service (USPS), said an “Emergency Shutdown” was issued for the building last year due to the damaged ceiling. “It was leaking and pieces were falling down from the ceiling, which was a safety hazard for employees and customers,” Reid explains. The closure was extremely inconvenient for residents.

Bronx News Network

Fordham Student Comes in Second at Next Level of August Wilson Competition

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2nd place winner Chasity Tuck from Fordham High School for the Arts.Last month, three Fordham High School for the Arts students won the first level of the Annual NYC August Wilson Monologue Competition. Chasity Tuck, John Reyes, and Shantal Melendez were named the winners on March 22 for their outstanding performance of a monologue by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson to perform. The winning trio advanced to the next level of the competition on Tuesday April 12th where they competed against students from Curtis High School (Staten Island), Hillcrest High School (Queens), Repertory High School for Theatre Arts (Manhattan) and Brooklyn Theatre Arts High School (Brooklyn).Cheyene Van Dyke from Curtis High School in Staten Island won first place. But it was our Chasity Tuck from Fordham High School in the Bronx who took second place. Cheyene, Chasity, and third place winner Tyronickah Buckmire from Brooklyn, will compete at the National Competition on May 9, at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway, against students from Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, Seattle and Atlanta.

Bronx News Network

Bronx News Roundup, Wednesday, April 13

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Weather: Nasty, cold, windy, drizzly. I think I saw my breath this morning. If we can make it through today, tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful – warm and sunny. Story of the Day: Environmental Injustice!The Bronx has long fought against the idea that it is simply a dumping ground – for city-funded homeless shelters, massive (and over-budget) water filtration plants in our parks and, of course, actual garbage. Some 60 percent of the city’s garbage is dumped in two areas saturated with waste transfer stations: Newton Creek in Brooklyn and Hunts Point here in the Bronx.

Bronx News Network

Bronx Electeds Demand Equitable Trash Burden

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Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and Council member Annabel Palma, the head of the Bronx Council delegation, joined up with other Council members and environmental justice advocates at City Hall today to rail against Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to shelve the building of four new waste transfer stations – three Manhattan and one Brooklyn.As it stands now, some 60 percent of the city’s waste is taken to transfer stations in Newton Creek (Brooklyn) and Hunts Point in the South Bronx. The new stations would have eased this saturation, which residents say leads to foul odors and heavy truck pollution. “If approved, this proposal [to not fund the new transfer stations] almost exclusively concentrates the burden of handling NYC’s solid waste in a handful of low-income communities of color in Brooklyn and the Bronx – yet again,” it said in a press release sent out by the New York Environmental Justice Alliance. The release also warned that the city was considering creating “waste to energy” facilities, which would use incinerators and “whose siting may be restricted to environmentally overburdened communities of color” – like Hunts Point. “It is only fair, and environmentally responsible, that each borough handle its own garbage.

Bronx News Network

Vacca Holds Out On Living Wage; No Hearing Date Yet

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City Councilman James Vacca is the only Bronx member of the Council who has yet to throw his weight behind the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act-the bill that would require developers of retail projects receiving taxpayer subsidies to pay workers $10 an hour with benefits, or $11.50 without.This week, his spokesman Bret Collazzi said the councilman is waiting for an official hearing to be held on the legislation before he takes a stance. “He’s open to the idea, but he’s not there yet,” Collazzi said. “He’s met with both sides, he’s interested in it, but he won’t make a decision until the hearing.”The fate of a hearing lies in the hands of

Bronx News Network

See 'The King's Speech' Tomorrow Evening

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Lots of quality free entertainment coming out of the two neighboring northwest Bronx hospitals tomorrow. As we mentioned yesterday, North Central Bronx will be holding a lunchtime concert. And at 5 p.m., Montefiore Medical Center, in honor of World Voice Day, will be hosting a screening of the Oscar-winning film, “The King’s Speech,” which recounts the story of the King of England overcoming his stuttering problems. See details below in our oft-updated Bronx Events calendar. Editor’s note: What did we miss? Send details to bronxnewsnetwork[at]gmail.com.

Bronx News Network

Bronx News Roundup, Tuesday, April 12

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Weather: Light rain is expected here in the Bronx sometime after noon, with temperatures dropping into the 40s as night falls on our lovely borough. To the news!Story of the Day: Kazimiroff Boulevard Re-Renamed It is said that Dr. Theodore L. Kazimiroff, a jack of many trades (dentist, naturalist, Indiana Jones wannabe) and the Bronx’s first historian, once removed a tooth from a lion’s mouth in the Bronx Zoo. He had become such a legendary borough figure that, just a year after his death in 1980, a section of the winding road that runs from East Fordham Road to Allerton Avenue and cuts between the New York Botanical Garden and Fordham University was remaned Dr. Theodore L. Kazimiroff Boulevard.For years, the Garden and Fordham complained that the new street name confused drivers who wanted access to its institutions. (Current Bronx historian Lloyd Ultan was skeptical about this claim). In any case, they finally got their way Monday when Mayor Bloomberg signed into law a bill, sponsored by Bronx City Councilman Oliver Koppell, renaming the street Southern Boulevard, as it was known before it took on Kazimiroff as its namesake.

Bronx News Network

60 Budget Fixes from the Independent Budget Office

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Following is a press release we just received from the Independent Budget Office, a nonpartisan city agency, announcing a report that looks at 60 ways to cut spending or increase revenue to plug the hole in the city’s budget. We thought it was worth reprinting here. We’d love to hear your suggestions, too, on where the city might find some untapped revenue, and where it can cut. So comment away. Here’s the release …