The riverdale press 65th anniversary 06 23 2016

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A special anniversary section Thursday, June 23, 2016 TOP PHOTO, Press founders Dave and Ceil Stein hard at work with their typewriters at their 3501 Riverdale Avenue office in the 1950s. Bottom photo, reporter Anthony Capote reflects the changes 65 years have wrought as he works at his computer on the Press website.

R C IV O O ER NG F D R ED AL AT IT E UL O PR A R IA ES TIO L S N EX O S T C N6 O EL 5 T LE YE HE N A C R E! S

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THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

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ixty-five years ago, a heavy-set man looked thoughtfully at the sheet of coarse yellow paper in his bulky manual typewriter. He took a puff on his cigarette. Then pounding the keys with four fingers, he typed the concluding words of the most important essay he had ever written: “It is our earnest desire to serve all of Riverdale.” Those words written by David A. Stein in the bedroom of his apartment on Greystone Avenue appeared in print in the spring of 1950. They introduced Mr. Stein’s neighbors to a new newspaper, The Riverdale Press. That first issue, an eight-page tabloid, would fit in four pages of today’s paper. But through all the changes — the growth of the newspaper mirroring the growth of the community, the technological revolutions that have transformed the way we gather and deliver information, the increased complexity of life in New York City and its northernmost neighborhood — the newspaper’s mission has remained constant. How to chronicle this story of change and growth, of a newspaper and the community it serves? We have chosen to do so through the major stories of the past 65 years. Almost every person who has presided over The Press’s newsroom is represented in these pages, along with the paper’s matriarch and sons, the co-publishers through 2008. From the beginning, The Press has been an advocate, conducting an open dialogue with readers, community leaders and officials in Riverdale and beyond. Some of our coverage has won the extravagant praise of Pulitzer Prize judges, some of it failed to arouse our readers; but all of it reflects how Riverdale has evolved, and represents many of the paper’s abiding concerns. The Riverdale Press grew from a Riverdale Neighborhood House newsletter, which Dave Stein, an editor at the Associated Press, volunteered to edit. Our roots in the community are deep and we look forward to many more years of discovering and telling the stories that make the northwest Bronx such a special place. The history gathered here was compiled and written by past and current Riverdale Press staff.

THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

‘The Press’ turns 65

THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

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‘The Press’ turns 65 First edition

Riverdale gets a paper, and a pool’s the story The inaugural issue of The Riverdale Press was seven pages long, cost 5 cents and led with the promise of a swimming pool at Riverdale Neighborhood House. “Water discoveries make Neighborhood House pool opening virtually sure,” the headline read. In the spring of 1950, geologists were brought in to examine a ridge of rock that had formed a natural dam near the site of what would become a neighborhood staple. With the help of topographical maps, it was discovered that a bed of water lay 12 feet underground. The discovery meant the swimming pool would be a reality within months. Shortly thereafter, the

pool opened to the public on a perfect summer day with sunshine, pristine blue skies and a $1 admission fee. That summer also marked the opening of the Riverdale Yacht Club and the Corn Exchange Bank on Riverdale Avenue. Also spotlighted in The Press was an Indian trading post on Bailey Avenue, run at the time by Crazy Bull, the great-grandson of the legendary Chief Sitting Bull. The pool remained a front-page highlight throughout most of the year. By August, the pool season culminated with an aqua show featuring 20 synchronized swimmers, nine aqua clowns and a soldout audience of 800.

1950

THE FIRST EDITION of ‘The Riverdale Press’ is dated April 20, 1950.

Polio strikes

Riverdale does its part to help The year started out with Mildred M. McCaffrey, the Bronx county chairwoman, announcing that the “polio incidence in the Bronx in 1950 was heavy.” “We must not let our fight against infantile paralysis lag,” she added. Riverdale responded by collecting donations to fight the disease that had struck the community for six months. The Bronx was hit hard that year with 182 cases reported, up from 140 in 1946, according to The Press. St. Margaret’s church collected $182.24 on a Sunday for the March of Dimes campaign. All together the neighborhood collected $3,233.95 for polio research. That same spring, Marble Hill Houses opened to 1,682 families as part of a push to provide low-income public housing to New Yorkers. Families had to earn less than $4,900 a year to qualify for an apartment in 1951. Officials from the New York Housing Authority said the housing complex would provide a community room, nursery school and a child health station. Also in Marble Hill, the congregation of St. Stephen’s Church celebrated its 125th anniversary.

Tot in danger

1951

Miracle save of baby highlights the year

Riverdale Press file illustration

RIVERDALIANS are urged to give.

1952 A baby in a stroller rolled downhill on Riverdale Avenue, when his mother stopped to talk to a friend near West 236th Street. The women were so engrossed in their conversation that neither of them noticed as the baby sped toward a retaining wall. A man driving north on the avenue saw the stroller, got out of his car and ran on an intercept course. He caught the stroller only seconds before it struck the wall. Later in the year, a late-night fire in a 130-year-old home was only prevented from becoming a funeral pyre for the eight children, seven adults and two family pets that lived there because of the quick action of one of the residents. She was woken by the heat of the flames and quickly woke the others up. The families lost more than $10,000 in property, but no one was hurt. And later in the year, in Spuyten Duyvil, a series of burglaries ended in a high-speed car chase and arrest. Residents heard a series of pistol shots echo through the air, followed by the sound of screeching tires. The three burglars had just stolen $300 in property from a home near Johnson Avenue when several police cars cornered them. They tried to escape in a 1948 De Soto convertible, but couldn’t outrun the police and crashed into an embankment on Palisade Avenue.

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1953 - Re-zoning remakes the neighborhood Riverdale’s face was altered forever in 1953 as zoning changes were debated by everyone from contractors to homeowners. The final decisions shaped the character of the entire area. The small single- or two-family homes that dot North Riverdale are there because big buildings were locked out. The same goes for the quaint homes in Kingsbridge between Waldo and Kingsbridge avenue, and the commercial strip along West 231st. The zoning change also allowed for the creation of the apartment towers along Riverdale’s shores.

1954 - Hurricane Hazel rips up Riverdale

1953 - 1971

1958 - The stars align for big shoot in Riverdale Hollywood came to Riverdale in 1958. Several residents braved the cold as camera crews from Columbia Pictures shot scenes at the abandoned Seton Hospital grounds in south Riverdale. The scenes would only comprise two minutes of the film Bell, Book and Candle, starring Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak and Jack Lemmon.

1959 - 50th Precinct catches both toddlers and criminals

1955

Hurricane Hazel blew across the ocean and fell upon Riverdale and Kingsbridge in a mad fury. This neighborhood was among the hardest hit areas in New York.

1956 - Neighborhood, giving together Riverdale and Kingsbridge grew by thousands of people during the 1950s, equaling their development during the previous half-century.

1955 - Explosion rips through part of Kingsbridge 1957 - Sputnik fills the sky An explosion rocked Kingsbridge in June 1955. It was caused by chemicals used to bleach flour at a manufacturing plant. Windows rattled for a quarter-mile, though there was just one reported injury.

In October 1957, a group of high school students walked into the Fieldston School “ham” radio shack to listen to Sputnik (the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth) as it raced by in the skies.

The 50th Precinct was kept busy throughout 1959, with multiple car accidents, burglaries, robberies and even a dramatic rescue. In October 1959, then 2-and-a-half-year-old Frank Feeney was injured when he snuck onto the fire escape outside his second-floor apartment on West 238th Street, unbeknownst to his parents. Police Officer Winston Gumbs noticed the child dangling from the railing and rushed to get help. He sent grocer Charles Dankers up the fire escape, but before Mr. Dankers could reach the second floor, the boy slipped, bouncing onto the first-floor fire escape before tumbling again and into Officer Gumb’s outstretched arms.

1960 - Local college given its own nuclear reactor Manhattan College asked for, and received, a nuclear reactor from the Atomic Energy Commission, which loaned the college 5,500 pounds of uranium valued at $100,000.

1961 - Businesses, building bustle A population jump in North Riverdale invited more business to the area, including two new banks. Further south, on Kappock Street in Spuyten Duyvil, the skyline forever changed when three massive apartment buildings were planned for the nine-acre site between Johnson, Netherland and Kappock streets

1962 - Riverdale is hit by salon fire Women with their hair pinned up in curlers ran out of a beauty salon on West 235th Street after a fire broke out in the shop’s basement on April 5.

1964

1963 - Kennedy’s boyhood home weeps File photo

MOTHERS WITH STROLLERS block Van Cortlandt Parkway.

Flags were lowered to half-staff in Riverdale and the rest of the country in late November, following

THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

‘The Press’ turns 65

THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

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‘The Press’ turns 65 the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

1964 - Mothers make stand for safer street Thirty women with baby strollers blocked traffic along Van Cortlandt Parkway West for 40 minutes in May 1964, to draw attention to a dangerous intersection.

1968

1965 - Riverdalians join the national fight for equality Riverdalians joined in the fight for civil rights in 1965, with 300 people gathering at the Monument on Riverdale Avenue to march to St. Stephen’s Church in Marble Hill. The march protested the bloody events that occurred at the voter registration drive in Selma, Ala. The march included activists from Manhattan College and members of the Riverdale Committee in Defense of Human Rights.

1966 - Walnut crime easily cracked by 50th cops 1966 was the year of one of the most bungled crimes in Kingsbridge history. Daring, but not terribly bright, thieves broke into the Agress Seed and Nut Co., located at 3441 Kingsbridge Ave., through a skylight. When the owners of the company opened for business the next day, they found typewriters, adding machines, cigarette lighters, paperweights and a petty cash box missing. Thankfully, the teenagers who had done the deed were hungry, stealing walnuts and snacking on them on the walk home. Police followed the well-marked trail to the thieves’ location.

1967 - Blizzard brings two deaths in its wake A 12.6-inch blizzard caused the death of two people in Riverdale in February 1967, with one man dying of a heart attack outside of St. Margaret’s Church while trying to walk through the storm.

1968 - Riverdale mourns Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In early April 1968 Riverdale joined to rest of the nation in paying tribute to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Flags were lowered to half-staff at public buildings throughout the community and many cars were seen driving with their headlights on during the day to pay tribute to the slain civil rights leader.

1969 - Anti-war demonstrations hit local schools As in the rest of the country, civil unrest took a

File photo

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. speaks. toll on the Riverdale/Kingsbridge area. Student protests over a number of issues, including the Vietnam War and social and racial inequalities, were reported at both John F. Kennedy and DeWitt Clinton high schools, leading to a number of arrests.

1970 - Adults look to end Johnson ‘happenings’ Call 1970 the year of the troubled teen. Dozens of articles in The Press chronicled the concerns of parents, merchants, police and the teens themselves about sparse recreation facilities, burgeoning drug use and worries about the Vietnam War and the draft. Riverdale Neighborhood House, the Kiwanis Club and the Riverdale Mental Health Association spearheaded efforts to keep parents informed about the dangers of

drugs.

1971 - Re-zoning fight leads to accusations of racism Advocates for minority housing charged that a local zoning plan was designed to exclude people of color from the neighborhood, since Mayor John V. Lindsay’s administration had announced it would partner with the Association for Middle Income Housing to build high-rise homes for lower-income families at Faraday Woods. The owner of the property later stunned the community by announcing he had sold the property to the Soviet Union for construction of a high-rise residence for its United Nations diplomats.

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THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

CONGRATULATIONS RIVERDALE PRESS ON YOUR ANNIVERSARY

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‘The Press’ turns 65 At home in the dome

Youth is served with schools and a place of its own

1972

File photo

THE DOME gave teenagers their own space in Riverdale.

The two stories that dominated the year both involved teens and construction, but they couldn’t have been more different. Efforts to create a public high school to serve Riverdale and Kingsbridge go back to 1966, when the precursor to Community Board 8 endorsed a proposal for an educational park on the site of a defunct rail yard between the Harlem River and West 230th Street. The first school on the site was to be John F. Kennedy High School, but nothing about its planning or development came easily. Parents demanded that the school serve Riverdale and Kingsbridge, but the Board of Education hoped to offer space to students from a much broader area. Eventually, a compromise was struck, giving students from northern Manhattan, as well as the northwest Bronx, access to the school. A lack of buses and teachers contributed their own problems At last, JFK’s September opening went off without a hitch despite an initial population that was about 10 percent larger than the planned-for 1,600 students. By contrast, Riverdale Neighborhood House’s Seton Park Dome Project seemed to be accomplished instanta-

Crime spree

Burglar proves keeping fit can lead to a huge payday This was a year of spectacular — though, thankfully, non-lethal — crimes. Every year The Press chronicles the comings and goings of con artists, car thieves, robbers and burglars. But in October and November the arrest of a daring terrace-hopping cat burglar and a bungling bunch of jewel thieves got streamer headlines. The 50th Precinct was aglow with success after lifting fingerprints from the scene of one of the terrace burglar’s crimes. Detectives William Novotny and Floyd Miclo tracked down the perpetrator, Willis Sample, to what they described as “his luxurious lair at 1515 Macombs Road in the Bronx.” The police described the “real pro” as a six-foot-two athlete who had been responsible for 35 to 40 burglaries in the borough from June to September, netting $50,000 in cash and jewelry. The terrace burglar enjoyed a long run before being tracked down, but for a trio of wouldbe jewel thieves in Kingsbridge, the crime spree

ended almost as quickly as it began. Julio Jove and his employees were getting ready to close Jove’s Jewelry Store on Broadway near West 231st Street when three gun-toting robbers burst through the door. The masked leader of the gang ordered Mr. Jove to open the cash register and hand over jewelry. But Mr. Jove kept enough composure to inch toward the front of the store, then ran out yelling, “Help, police!” Spooked, the robbers all ran off in different directions. Fast-responding police had already arrived at the jewelry store. “It was so quick,” Mr. Jove said. “All they asked was ‘which way did they go.’” Three officers gave chase, cornering two of the bandits on the rooftop of a West 230th Street apartment building. At first, the third bandit got away, but he made a foolish mistake. He had used his own station wagon as the get-away car. When he reported it stolen, he led police right to his own address.

neously. It was the brainchild of youth worker Pyser Edelsack. He was enamored of geodesic domes as a counterculture symbol and he was betting that the opportunity to build one would lure teenagers away from their hangouts on Johnson Avenue and the Monument. Mr. Edelsack and Richard Stein — a just-graduated architecture student who later became the publisher of The Riverdale Press — convinced the board of RNH that the teens could build a dome themselves at minimal cost that could house a wide variety of teen activities. Despite miles of red tape and concerns the dome would become a hangout for drug-addled teens, it finally opened to great fanfare. An attendee at the opening ceremony wryly remarked that the it had taken less time than the long-awaited park — still unfinished at the time — in which it stood. Ironically, by the time Seton Park opened in 1976 the dome had run its course. Parks Department restrictions on its use, budget restrictions and management changes at Riverdale Neighborhood House made it untenable. By 1977 it was demolished.

1973

File photo

WILLIS SAMPLE, a.k.a. the Cat Burglar.

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THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

Congratulations to The Riverdale Press! 65 Years of Integrity and Neighborhood

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Congratulations to the Riverdale Press on your 65th Anniversary and for being an integral part of our Bronx neighborhood. We admire your triumphs in award-winning journalism and your commitment to in-depth coverage of issues and events that impact our community. Best wishes for continued success. Õ˜

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Head of School Damian J. Fernandez and the Ethical Culture Fieldston School Community

THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

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‘The Press’ turns 65 Hurry up and wait

Seton Park plan stalls, motorists face rationing

1974 Preservation

Naturally, It’s yes for Greenbelt Ten months of hearings and negotiations ended in a designation of par ts of Riverdale as a Special Natural Area District — only the second in the city, the other is in Staten Island — in which steep slopes, mature trees and rock outcroppings were to be protected from development. Borough President Robert Abrams called it “a major step in preserving the natural features of our environment.” The district includes “par ts of Spuyten Duyvil, Riverdale and Fieldston, which are of unique and significant ecological and geological value.” a Press ar ticle noted, “The area’s flora is unique in its variety, age and size; there are more than 70 varieties of trees. In the Fieldston section there is an impressive urban forest… [as well as] numerous bushes , shrubs, vines and ground cover… As a result, an abundance of small animals and birds flourish there.”

Great beginnings and screeching halts. Important neighborhood institutions began life in new homes this year. Two others didn’t fare so well. Riverdale Senior Center gained approval to create a home-away-from-home for local residents of a certain age in the still-underconstruction Century Building at 2600 Netherland Ave., and the Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy completed the construction of a new school on Palisade Avenue near West 254th Street. The 50th Precinct moved into its new headquarters on Kingsbridge Terrace along with a host of new services including an Emergency Services Unit and a full-time ambulance. Meanwhile, construction at Seton Park was grinding to a halt. The long-awaited park at Independence Avenue between West 232nd and West 235th streets was supposed to have been ready by mid-May. Instead, the contractor shut down the job and sent

his workers home because, he said, he needed to be paid for blasting away an unanticipated quantity of rock on the site. Work wasn’t completed until 1976. Riverdale was also slowed by the 1974 gas crisis. Thanks to a sales boycott by Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, gas supplies were being rationed across the country. Jim Honeycutt, the owner of a Sunoco station on West 230th Street, described the daily tension at his garage — with round-the-block lines forming long before his 6 a.m. opening. “They start to wait at 4 a.m.,” he said, “because they know I’m going to pump every morning at 6. I start early because I want to give gas to the people who need to get to work in the morning, people like dairymen, postal workers and doctors.” “At some local stations guns and knives have been pulled,” a Press article noted, “as tempers rise and frustrations mount.”

1975

‘Press’ archive

RIVERDALE’S GREENBELT became a reality after many hearings and much political wrangling.

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C18

‘The Press’ turns 65 At last

Thousands celebrate Seton Park’s opening day It’s not surprising that after waiting more than two decades for a park to be planned, designed and completed, residents would want to kick up their heels. At the opening ceremony for Seton Park they weren’t disappointed. The Press called it “an event of community togetherness.” A gaggle of politicians was on hand, of course, to make speeches. They included Parks Commissioner Martin Lang, U.S. Senator James Buckley, two state senators, Assemblyman Oliver Koppell, Councilman Stanley Simon and Community Board vice chairman June Margolin [Eisland]. The throng of well-wishers, estimated in the thousands, heard Msgr. John Doherty of St. John’s Church

give the invocation. Sports celebrities were on hand to give pointers to local kids, including baseball’s first designated hitter, Yankee and Riverdalian Ron Blomberg and former Knick Cal Ramsey. Riverdale Neighborhood House used its dome as headquarters for an impromptu flea market and food court serving food from the Golden Gate restaurant on Johnson Avenue and Marie’s Cookery on Mosholu Avenue. The New York Botanical Garden sold plants for a nickel next to booths offering flowers, kisses and rides “for the little ones.” As The Press noted, “All contributed to the atmosphere of gaiety and fun typical of a small town on a holiday.”

$1 million lost

Under attack

Fire rips through Johnson Avenue

Greenbelt gets first test from developer

As Maggi Waters told it in the June 30 issue: “Shock and disbelief were reflected in the faces of Johnson Avenue businessmen hastily called to the scene of a major three-alarm fire that destroyed their stores Friday night. Typical was the comment of Aaron Bennett, owner of the Johnson Food Center, ‘My whole life is gone — in five minutes,’ he said.” More than 1,000 residents watched the blaze, which gutted eight stores and the Union Dime Savings Bank. Loss was estimated at well over $1 million dollars. The fire started at 10:30 p.m. in the kitchen of the Blue Bay Restaurant. The entire roof of the structure collapsed before the flames were doused three hours later. More than 80 firemen responded to the alarm, with companies coming from as far as away as Throgs Neck.

1976 File photo

SETON PARK’S construction was oft-delayed, and far over budget.

1977

File photo

THE DELAFIELD ESTATE nearly become trendy ‘cluster housing.’

A group of local investors thought they had a perfect way to handle the requirements of Riverdale’s new “greenbelt” law when they announced their plans for the fabled Delafield estate and its stately mansion. The developers intended to build 72 condominium units of trendy “cluster housing.” By creating closely grouped townhouses, they said, they could preserve the garden-like character of the site. Other residents were skeptical, questioning everything about the project from the density of the clusters to the developer’s ability to finish and market the units. Over the next seven months, newly constituted Community Board 8 held a number of hearings and led tours of the site. The builders won the confidence of some of their neighbors, but the majority of the board echoed the sentiments of organizations like the Friends of the Greenbelt and refused to give their blessing to the project. By the end of December, the City Planning Commission unanimously voted against the plan. It was years before the site was finally developed by another builder, and on a smaller scale. A small cluster of semi-detached houses was built, but the rest of the site has returned to nature — with vines and weeds covering most of the land.

19C THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

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C20

‘The Press’ turns 65

1978

Ress archive

THE Y as it was first imagined isn’t too far from the final result.

Riverdale YM-YWHA finally finds a home that’s all its own “Creation is a patient search,” The Press noted, quoting Le Corbusier, a Swiss-French architect. The quote seemed a fitting way to lead a story about the Riverdale YM-YWHA’s quest for a home. In 1971, Bronx Y trustees thought they had hit upon the ideal location at West 246th Street and Henry Hudson Parkway, but vehement opposition from the site’s neighbors in Fieldston forced the Y to withdraw. It must have seemed as if the Y would never find a place to house its ambitious list of activities. Then the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Academy abandoned its plans for a private school on Arlington Avenue near West 256th Street. The steel superstructure of the building was already

in place and, this time, neighbors were welcoming.

Proposed parkway changes leaves out emergency access Each time you head up the Henry Hudson Parkway after crossing the bridge from Manhattan, say thank

Reel threat

1979

Dale Theater’s attempt at XXX is thwarted by neighborhood

File photo

OFFICERS CONFISCATE XXX movies.

you to Rolf Von Hall. In 1978, the iconoclastic president of the Spuyten Duyvil Association raised a ruckus when he read about the City Department of Transportation’s plans to renovate the ribbon of highway that slices through Riverdale. He realized what traffic planners had failed to notice: exits and entrances like the one at West 227th Street are vital for police and emergency vehicles. Mr. Von Hall rallied community opposition to the plan and needled the community board into action. Eventually, the DOT went back to the drawing board. Though exits were closed and the highway was narrowed, access points for emergency vehicles were retained.

“We are going to move swiftly to prevent this garbage from happening,” said Tom Travers, president of the Kingsbridge, Riverdale, Marble Hill Chamber of Commerce. The garbage he was referring to was the Dale Theater’s switch in March from family-oriented movies to XXX pornography. One day the dilapidated movie house on West 231st Street near Broadway was showing “The Wiz,” a few days later “Love Slaves” and “Sweethearts” were on the marquee. An ad hoc committee of civic leaders including Borough President Stanley Simon, Assemblyman Oliver Koppell, Councilwoman June Eisland, parents association presidents and Msgr. John Doherty of St. John’s Church organized a boycott and round-the-

clock picket in front of the theater. With editorial support from The Press, threats of eviction by the owner of the building that housed the theater and 29 straight days of picketing that deterred film-goers, the operator of the theater gave up and closed its doors, leaving Riverdale with a single movie theater – the Twin Cinemas in the Skyview shopping plaza. “The people won this,” said Police Officer Tom Acheson. “This was the people’s victory,” said Mr. Koppell. “Community pressure was responsible,” said Stanley Simon. “We stopped porno!” chanted a jubilant crowd of picketers.

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C22

‘The Press’ turns 65 Preserving the land

Greenbelt law strengthened as area is pressured In the years since its passage, the Special Natural Area District law — creating a protected “greenbelt” west of the Henry Hudson Parkway and in Fieldston — was a continually tested brake on large scale development. Its adherents formed an organization, Friends of the Greenbelt, to monitor every application that came before the community board and give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. The Friends most notable successes came in battles against townhouse complexes at the Delafield Estate on West 246th Street and at Chapel Farm, just north of Fieldston. The group forced delays in construction at Delafield, for instance, until zoning laws were tightened, permanently preventing high rises from being built on the site. Not content with the role of watchdog, the Friends also actively campaigned for changes in the law to further curtail development and enlarge the boundar-

ies of the greenbelt and down-zoning of sites where high-rises might be built. They found enthusiastic allies, not just on the community board, but at the City Planning Commission, as well. Though land use was the big story of the year, other controversies cropped up, too. Among them was the question of what to do with the Holland Care Center, a nursing home developed by Eugene Hollander, disgraced in a scandal surrounding a state school for mentally handicapped children. Eventually, the West 231st Street building did open as a nursing home under different management. Also in the news was the outrage of the North Riverdale community at the attempted conversion of the historic Riverdale Inn to a topless discotheque, resistance to construction of group homes for “retarded” adults and frustration with the crippling affects of a transit strike.

1980 File photo

THE GREENBELT has been jealously protected by Riverdalians.

In memoriam

1981

Riverdale mourns ‘Press’ founder

Gold rush

Co-ops, co-ops, co-ops, co-ops Story of the year? How about the story of the last five years — it was the co-oping frenzy that took landlords by storm, starting with a modest mid-rise building at 3840 Greystone Avenue in 1978. By August of 1981, The Press, reported, tenants in 50 buildings from Kappock Street to West 261st Street and from Palisade Avenue to Broadway had received “red herrings,” preliminary offering plans with red lettering on the cover page, “black books,” offerings approved by the state attorney general, or accepted conversions. Tenants greeted the wave of change with a mixture of enthusiasm and dread. Those who could afford to purchase their homes were tantalized by the opportunity for a real estate killing. Some even bought multiple apartments at insider prices. Others feared eviction if they couldn’t afford to buy. Almost weekly, The Press reported new developments in battles between landlords and tenants and struggles to have the state legislature strengthen laws protecting tenants. At one point, the paper codified its coverage in a sought after booklet that became a tenants’ handbook.

1982 File photo

DAVID A. STEIN

On a Monday in mid-April when the sanctuary of Riverdale Temple is usually quiet, 600 mourners thronged to say farewell to David Stein, the founder of The Riverdale Press, who had died on Thursday, April 8. In an emotional ceremony, the temple’s rabbi, Stephen Franklin, was joined by Brother Stephen Sullivan, president of Manhattan College, the Rev. Robert Rudie, Jr., rector of Christ Church, Dr. William A. Tieck, minister of Edgehill Church, Rev. David D. Cockcroft, minister of the Riverdale Presbyterian Church, all close friends of the late publisher. Fred Friendly, Edward R. Murrow professor of journalism at Columbia University and past-president of CBS News delivered a stirring eulogy. “David A. Stein was a professional editor and successful publisher at a time when they are an endangered species.” he said, “One of the most famous editorials in his Press years ago was ‘Who Gives a Damn About Riverdale?’ David Stein did, and that was contagious — his caring strengthened the glue that holds Riverdale together. Riverdale is sui generis. It is a blessed habitat without a government of its own, part of a crazy quilt pattern of county, city, state and federal voting constituencies. “What makes Riverdale more than just a fancy mailing address is a weekly ‘country’ newspaper that David and Celia Stein conceived three decades ago. They made a difference. Riverdale, Fieldston, Kingsbridge, Marble Hill, Spuyten Duyvil, often with diverse interests, were stitched together not by some kind of political force, but by a newspaper, The Riverdale Press.

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C24

‘The Press’ turns 65

1984 Packed classes

Schools are bursting at the seams Throughout the year The Press highlighted the growing crisis of overcrowding in local schools. One report stated, “At PS 7, classes are meeting in closets. At PS 122, 50 kindergarteners share a room. The schools have dismantled libraries to gain space for teaching.” School board members called crowding the district’s number one problem, but despite intensive lobbying and complaining, their frustrations mounted as, they claimed, the central Board of Education dragged its feet and bungled lease negotiations for additional space.

S U File photo

LONG WAITS for ambulances led to at least one fatality.

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Emergency

6

Residents die as ambulances arrive late

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For years The Press received complaints about inadequate ambulance service. Some residents even got together to fill the void with KVAC — the Kingsbridge-Riverdale Volunteer Ambulance Corps. But frustrations boiled over in June when friends of a 40-year-old Skyview man who suffered a heart attack put in a distress call to 911. KVAC’s new ambulance had been stolen and though the group’s tottering old ambulance was nearby on Netherland Avenue, it was dealing with another patient. Police records showed that the city ambulance took more than 20 minutes

1983 to arrive, although EMS insisted that it had received the call only 10 minutes before. The man died before reaching the hospital. Just two weeks later, a car accident tested the system again, and it was found wanting. This time the operator told her caller that no EMS ambulance

was available and KVAC’s ambulance was in the shop. Two KVAC volunteers grabbed their medical bags and raced to the scene. It was more than half an hour before EMS arrived. Spurred by the two events, organizers of a successful campaign to save “Sister Tree,” an ancient sycamore on Corlear Avenue, turned their attention to KVAC and launched a campaign to replace the stolen ambulance. It took many months, but with large and small contributions the community raised the funds for a brand new, fully equipped vehicle.

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C26

‘The Press’ turns 65 Nowhere to go

Community centers’ budgets shink despite increased need Outbreaks of rowdiness and even vandalism — fueled by beer drinking — by teenagers were nothing new when they came to light in 1985, but jostling among community centers for scarce funds to deal with the problem was unprecedented. The Kingsbridge Heights Community Center complained bitterly that Community Board 8 was showing favoritism

1985

to “up the hill” agencies like Riverdale Neighborhood House and the Riverdale Community Center in doling out its funding recommendations. Eventually a compromise was reached and harmony was restored.

KHCC programs provide a safe place for kids to play after school. File photo

Year of scandal

Principals abandon principles to play politics Guilty! Scandal brings down Stanley Friedman

Culminating one of its most comprehensive investigative efforts, the March 6 issue of The Press revealed that positions as principals and assistant principals at Community School District 10 schools had become patronage plums doled out from lists provided by the Riverdale Democratic Club and the Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club. “School board members loyal to [bitter rivals] Borough President Stanley Simon and Assemblyman Oliver Koppell take the political activity of job applicants into account when the board deliberates over appointments.” The Press reported, adding that teachers who hoped to get promotions felt compelled to work in campaigns and attend political functions “without conviction, or even against their convictions, because they see it as the only way to advance their careers.” The revelations led to an investigation by Bronx District Attorney Mario Merola, who found no indictable offenses, but issued a scathing report on the practices of the two clubs. Ultimately, the state legislature took up the issue and outlawed political involvement in school board elections. Corruption and political chicanery were among the principal arguments that led to the demise of locally elected school boards and the assertion of mayoral control of the city’s schools.

1986 SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS loyal to Oliver Koppell, above, and Stanley Simon, right, took political activities into account when considering applicants for principal jobs in the district.

A series of scandals that shattered Mayor Ed Koch’s hopes for a fourth term in office and led to the suicide of Queens Borough President Donald Manes had its roots in the Bronx. Democratic leader Stanley Friedman, Borough President Stanley Simon — both Riverdalians — and Congressman Mario Biaggi were ultimately caught in snares set by a number of prosecutors, including the district attorneys of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Manhattan, as well as a man who first came to prominence with his prosecution of Mr. Friedman, U.S. Attorney Rudolf Giuliani. A chart in an October issue of The Press chronicled the growing litany of investigations plaguing the movers and shakers of The Bronx. Here are a few: • Citisource: U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani charges Citisource with seeking a city contract to build hand-held computers for meter men and meter maids by cheating and bribery. Stanley Friedman and four others are tried for fraud and bribery. • Cable television: Mr. Giuiliani and Mr. Merola investigate allegations of payoffs in return for granting Cablevision the franchise to bring cable TV to the Bronx. • Wedtech and Freedom Industries: Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau investigates stock deals involving Bronx defense contractors Wedtech and Freedom Industries and the family of Rep. Mario Biaggi. Wedtech was the largest contributor to Mr. Simon’s campaign. Ultimately, the Wedtech scandal reached all the way to the Reagan White House. Attorney General Edwin Meese was named an unindicted co-conspirator.

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C28

‘The Press’ turns 65 Housing fight

Mayor plans 1,000 homes near Kennedy High Beginning in late 1986 with a series of discreet meetings with elected officials and members of Community Board 8, Mayor Ed Koch’s representatives unveiled a proposal to build a huge apartment development on the eightand-a-half acre site next to John F. Kennedy High School where PS 37 and the IN-Tech Academy now sit. The mayor targeted the lot for his affordable housing initiative and said as many as 1,000 units could house families earning $25,000 to $48,000 dollars per year. Almost immediately the plan faced a buzz saw of opposition with parents associations, school unions and youth workers taking the lead. They argued that the addition of so many new residents would strain already overburdened school and recreational facilities to the breaking point. Instead, they urged enactment of a plan proposed in the mid-60s to use the site as an educational park. The battle raged throughout the year with newly appointed Borough Presi-

dent Fernando Ferrer carrying the fight to the city’s then-powerful Board of Estimate. At the eleventh hour, the mayor blinked, reducing the size of the project to 750 units and promising to build a new school on the site as well as a school at what is now the Staples shopping center. Urged on by editorials in The Press, opponents vowed to continue struggling against the plan in court. It was finally abandoned after David Dinkins ousted Ed Koch from City Hall in the 1989 mayoral election. Already reeling from spiraling rents, declining sales and a previous fire, the Johnson Avenue-West 235th Street shopping area was devastated by a threealarm fire on the night of Feb. 10 that gutted 13 stores. A Yonkers man who had checked into the Westchester Medical Center with burns on 25 percent of his body was charged with setting the blaze at the Rock Bottom clothing store where he worked as a handyman.

1987 File photo

Mayor Ed Koch’s proposed housing plan put him on the defensive.

Long-awaited

1988

Wedtech trial finally begins, Bronx pols jailed

Illustration by Joe Papin

A PROMINENT CARTOONIST shared his drawings from the trial with ‘The Press.’

Two years after the investigation of political corruption involving a little-known Bronx defense contractor was announced in The Press, Rep. Mario Biaggi and Stanley Simon, the borough president forced from office by the scandal, went on trial in March. Prosecutors charged that Mr. Simon agreed to accept bribe money in the form of pre-paid gambling sprees and contributions to local synagogues, his political club and his re-election campaign. In addition, they said, the contractor picked up the tab for meals at Riverdale and Arthur Avenue restaurants for campaign workers. Mr. Biaggi insisted that witnesses — who claimed that Wedtech stock was given to his son’s law firm in return for the congressman’s influence — were attempting to frame him to cover up the role of Reagan White House officials, including U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III. The case dragged on throughout the spring and summer before the jury finally got to deliver a verdict in mid-August. Both men were found guilty of racketeering and bribery.

29C THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

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C30

‘The Press’ turns 65 ‘Press’ fire bombed

Support of free speech leads to fierce attack When disaster strikes, you find out who your friends are. And in the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday, Feb. 28, The Riverdale Press learned that it had a lot of friends. Two deranged followers of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini tossed Molotov cocktails through the front window of the newspaper’s Broadway offices, igniting a blaze so hot that it melted the computers on reporters’ desks. As dawn broke on the smoldering wreckage, hundreds of neighbors, friends, readers and colleagues — along with mayoral candidates Ed Koch, David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani — gathered on the sidewalk to offer moral support, coffee, pastries and sandwiches. The venerable Harlem-based Amsterdam News offered its facilities for publishing, local realtors quickly found temporary office space and the city’s daily newspapers put up a $50,000 reward — still unclaimed — for information leading to the arrest of bombers who told a 911 operator that they were acting on the ayatollah’s fatwa against novelist Salman Rushdie. Khomeini had threatened death to anyone who sold Mr. Rushdie’s book, Satanic Verses. A editorial had run in The Press the previous week criticizing national chain bookstores for bowing to the threat and pulling the books from their shelves, and praising a local store, Paperbacks Plus, for steadfastly continuing to sell the book. Publishers Bernard and Richard Stein — staunch believers in the First Amendment — thought the editorial represented uncontroversial “apple pie and motherhood” American values. The bombers didn’t see it that way. In an act of defiance, every community newspaper in New York State and dozens around the country reprinted The Press editorial. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan had it printed in the Congressional Record. For continuing to publish without missing an issue, the Society of Professional Journalists gave The Press its coveted First Amendment Award.

1989

File photo

FIREFIGHTERS inspect the damage to ‘The Press’ office.

Over board

Local school superintendent stands accused of racism

1990 File photo

Embattled school District 10 Superintendent Fred Goldberg.

Education District 10’s superintendent, Fred Goldberg, stood accused of racism for failing to attend a tenure review hearing for a teacher under his supervision. Board of Education lawyer Lacy Wheeler claimed that Mr. Goldberg only decided against attending on finding out that Mr. Wheeler was black. Mr. Goldberg’s explanation varied between a claim that he was unable to attend because the hearing was scheduled for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, and that he was didn’t want to work with Mr. Wheeler because he didn’t know him. Mr. Goldberg had spent nine years in his job, but the investigation that followed led to his firing on April 26, with Riverdalian Lynne Silverstein casting the deciding vote. Even after the firing, the local board was

so dysfunctional that its members were called before New York City’s school chancellor and told to clean up their act or face dissolution. 1990 was also a year of passings in the Riverdale/Kingsbridge Area. The last person to grow up at Wave Hill when it was still a private house died at the age of 99. Dorothy Perkins Freeman spent her childhood years in the Glyndor House and swam in swimming pools especially constructed for her use. In 1960 she moved out and passed her home into the safekeeping of New York City for all to enjoy. Her decision to preserve her home for all time came in the same year that the Riverdale Historic District was created, ensuring that Wave Hill wouldn’t be the only sacrosanct property in the area.

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THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

C32

‘The Press’ turns 65

1991

Bronx burning

Incinerator fight riles up Riverdale

At war

1992

Iraq and crime define the year In 1991, the United States was headed into recession and war in Iraq, and Riverdale wasn’t immune to either event. Soldiers were mobilized and served, while The Press reported from the home front, talking to soldiers’ families and telling the story of their long, tense wait. The Press also ran a series on budget cuts that were affecting every aspect of life in Riverdale, including senior centers, police and schools, all facing the ax as the year wore on. The crime rate was high. Murders, muggings and car thefts took up much of the space on front pages that year. And it wasn’t just street crime that concerned people: stories of political patronage and corruption led many papers, leading to intervention by the larger city Board of Education. Longtime Riverdale Press police reporter Maggi Waters died in a tragic fire at her Kingsbridge home that summer.

File photo

THE INCINERATOR fight led to dramatic protests.

Perhaps the biggest story of 1992 was the discovery of a plan to build a large medical waste incinerator at Bronx Lebanon Hospital. The hospital did its best to present the borough with a fait accompli, doing little to test the effects the smoke from the incinerator would have on the health of everyone in the Bronx. There were reports that the mafia was involved in trying to get the incinerator built on the sly. The Press returned to the issue time and again during the year, working to expose the truth of a project never intended to be fully understood by the public. During the year, the project moved forward, but as awareness grew, public pressure and protests to block the incinerator continued to mount. Riverdale itself had its own problems. Residents were so concerned about overcrowding in classrooms that The Press devoted an entire series to the issue, along with editorials calling for more seats to be made available for the growing community. There were also notable firsts and lasts in 1992. Wave Hill allowed the first wedding to be celebrated on the property of the living museum in a push to raise money. Many couples, both prominent and less so, have held their nuptials in the garden since. Less happily, a landmark named the Riverdale Inn, once home to bootleggers and drinkers both, burned to the ground.

Troubled schools

Violence on the upswing in Riverdale/Kingsbridge

1993 File photo

KIDS PLAY near a container for asbestos taken out of classrooms.

There was little, it seemed, to be celebrated in the city or the Riverdale/Kingsbridge area in 1993. Classrooms remained crowded and crime grew. Children brought guns into school. A sub-machine gun was found at MS 143, and the student who carried it claimed that he brought it in only to keep it out of his sister’s hands. Another student was shot as he tried to enter the lobby of John F. Kennedy High School. People were so worried about the direction the local area was heading that a front-page article in The Press on March 4 asked the question “Do fires spell doom?” Fire trucks were being called out so often that there was concern Riverdale could soon become the burnt out South Bronx. Adding to the gloom, accusations of corruption on the District 10 school board made headlines

nearly every week, raising questions of favoritism, patronage and kickbacks in the hiring of principals and for other posts in the school system. Local schools were also found to have asbestos in classrooms, forcing many to close during abatement and leading to even greater overcrowding. What would eventually become the Croton Water Filtration Plant was first proposed in 1993. There was a push to place it at the Jerome Park Reservoir, but opposition to the plan began within days, with local residents questioning both the need for the plant and its location in such a scenic open space. At the end of the year, longtime Assemblyman Oliver Koppell was appointed as the state’s attorney general to finish out the term of Robert Abrams, who had resigned.

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A

newspaper is only as good as the people who produce it and The Press has been blessed over the years to have the best — from editors like Joe Fitzpatrick, Tom Watson, Louise Jamieson and Pam Frederick, photographers like Alan Zale, Mekea Hurwitz Fishlin, George Gutierrez, Gretchen McHugh, Susan Markisz and Marisol Díaz, avertising managers like Susan Feiner and Phyllis Steele — to name but a few — as well as production people and back office staff. We culled our photo files to share with you some of our favoirite images.

At left, the early 1980s editorial staff gets its first training session on using a computer. Clockwise from left rear, Gretchen McHugh, Larry Dublin, Bernard Stein, Richard Stein, Louise Jamieson, Maggie Waters, Celia Stein, Tom Watson and the trainer. Photo by Alan Zale

At right, Press staffers posed as spies while reading ‘illicit’ literature during Banned Book Week in 1992.

Below, Deputy Editor Tom Watson shows a school group how the paper is created in 1996. Photo by Gretchen McHugh

Riverdale Press file photo

Maggie Waters, at left in photo above, was the long-time crime reporter for The Press. Here she discusses one of her columns with founding editor and publisher David Stein. At left, Phyllis Steele came to The Press in the early 1980s and found a home that lasted for nearly three decades.

Photo by George M. Gutierrez

At right, Dave and Ceil Stein enjoy a light moment as they sort mail in 1966. Photo by Aaron Feinstein

Photo by George M. Gutierrez

THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

‘The Press’ turns 65

THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

C34

‘The Press’ turns 65

1995

A

Failing school

t

JFK graduates few students, Croton site is floated

Photo by Susan B. Markisz

VANDALS defaced Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale.

Schools in chaos

Guns appear in local schools while District 10 stands divided Schools remained on top of the Riverdale/Kingsbridge agenda in 1994, with violence and overcrowding matched only by the misbehavior of the school board. Guns were brought into school by students and fights in hallways and outside of school buildings were common. The school board itself was investigated by federal authorities for corruption, but while that was going on, a plan to divide District 10, the largest in the city school system, was also in play. The hope was that by breaking up responsibility for 37,000 students, reforms might be made more easily. The plan didn’t just fall flat, it proved incendiary as charges of racism were

1994 leveled over a proposal that would have separated largely white, relatively affluent Riverdale from largely black and poor neighborhoods. A similar issue was raised when plans for PS 37 were drawn up, over the question of who would attend the school. Racism and anti-Semitism struck in other places, as well. Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale was

painted with swastikas and pro-Palestinian slogans on March 10. The vandals were not caught, but the attack brought neighbors and political leaders together in condemning the attack. There were also important changes in neighborhood leadership. Dr. Matthew Spetter, the force behind the founding of the Riverdale Mental Health Association, retired after 34 years at the center. The Press described a community that lovingly thanked him for his work. Attorney General Oliver Koppell was defeated in a primary battle, and returned to private life. Jeffrey Dinowitz took Mr. Koppell’s former seat in the State Assembly.

G P p p r t

A controversial proposal to cut Schoola District 10 in two was dropped at the be-fi ginning of the year, but problems at lo-o cal schools didn’t improve much. Fewer than 25 percent of John F. Kennedy Highp n School seniors graduated that June. Other issues that would plague theR Rivedale/Kingsbridge area for years tow s come also heated up in 1995. In August, Van Cortlandt Park be-a came the target ofm Fewer city planners lookthan 25 ing for a place toa site a new water fil-p percent tration plant, ratherz of John F. than the nearby Jerome Park ResKennedy ervoir, though the High decision was far from final, and imSchool mediately drew opseniors position from the graduated community. Also in Van Cortin June landt Park, the 50th Precinct’s comof 1995 mander, Capt. Ans thony Kissik, who p was an avid hunter, ran across the first s coyote to be seen in the Bronx, accorda ing to The Press. The headline ran, “Is b coyote on the prowl? Howl we know?” K Msgr. John Doherty, a beloved figure s in the Riverdale/Kingsbridge area, retired from St. Gabriel’s parish in 1995. A o spiritual and civic leader, he died in early T 2010. e The year also marked the 50th annio versary of the liberation of the Nazi con3 centration camps at the end of World War s II. i The Press interviewed many survivors i who shared with their neighbors many T of the horrors they’d experienced.

R

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Whether it’s breaking news, crime reports, coverage of politics, schools or the environment, only The Riverdale Press is dedicated to unbiased reporting about YOU and all the things in the community that matter to you. Don’t miss a single week of our prizewinning coverage and money-saving ads. Subscribe today! Visit riverdalepress.com and subscribe instantly online, e-mail subscriptions@riverdalepress. com or mail the form below to The Riverdale Press, 5676 Riverdale Avenue, Bronx, NY 10471

A taste of sin

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It will be a rebuilding year and the DeWitt Clinton for both the JFK Knights Governors, page B8.

Vol. 67, No. 27

Industries spur job growth in borough By Isabel Angell

iangell@riverdalepress.com When the Barnes & Noble Avenue in Manhattan closed on Fifth 2014, Esther Alvarez was in Januar y out of work. But after several month s of looking for a job, she landed at the Sports Authority in the recently opened Broadway Plaza mall on Broadway betwee 230th and West 231st streets n West . “I live in the Bronx, so I saw an ad that they were hiring and it worked out,” she explained. Ms. Alvarez, 28, is workin g parttime while she attend s school at Borough of Manhattan Comm unity College. Her supervisor Elijah Gual, 20, said he got this job throug h Workforce1, a city program that helps match job seekers and employers. Mr. Gual, for one, is happy with his placem ent. “I love my job,” he kept saying in an interview. Mr. Gual and Ms. Alvare z said most people at the store and the rest of the mall found out about their new jobs through Workforce1. The Bronx has hit its lowest unemployment rate since 2008, part to new retail center thanks in s like Broadway Plaza. The jobless rate was 8 percent in the second quarte according to a new reportr of 2015, from the city comptroller’s office. This time last year, it was 9.7 percen t. The new data showed the lowest unemp loyment rate in all five boroughs since the financial crash of 2008. “We actually just hired a new sales associate,” said Mr. Gual.

Thursday, August 20,

2015 $1.00

BUILDING BOOM

Activists welcome Simone’

By Shant Shahrigian

sshah@riverdalepress.com Activists who succes fought Montefiore Medic sfully ter’s plans to build a large al Cenfacility on Riverdale Avenue near West 238th Street are tentatively welcoming a developer’s plan B for the site. They said the Simone Development Companies’ propos al for a 14-stor y, 60,000-squar e-foot, market-rate apartment buildin better than their origina g is far l idea of building a large health care center

for Montefiore, which cancel plan in March after month led its s of opposition from community members and elected officials. “We were pleasantly surpris ed. We’re not enamored about the size of the building, but the consensus is this is much better for the neighborhood than anythi ng like the medical center they were going to put in,” activist Stuart Gartne in a phone interview after r said an Aug. 12 meeting of Comm unity Board (CB) 8’s Land Use Comm ittee, in which a Simone repres entative and

s plan B

an architect presented their plans. Those entail 24 one-be apartments and 24 two-be droom droom units in 12 stories, with 40 units of parking and a ground floor lobby and about 2,500 square with a feet of retail space below. “We would like the buildin be a condominium, depend g to how the market is poised ing on ,” Guy Leibler, the president of Simone Healthcare Development , said at the CB 8 meeting. Vehicles will access the building, located on the lots at 3733,

3735 and 3741 Riverdale Ave. along with 3644 Oxford Ave., through an entrance on Oxford Avenu e. Mr. Leibler said he expect 22 months of constr uction s 18 to to start next spring, with rock removal taking place in the months before then. Land Use Committee Chairman Charles Moerdler asked Mr. Leibler to consider building a community space instead of stores, though the developer said he planne d on ing shopping options similar bringto the mom-and-pop establi shments (Continued on page alA4)

Stagg’s Cannon Place plans worry neighbors

By Shant Shahrigian

sshah@riverdalepress.com The Stagg Group is movin g to build a 10-stor y apartm ent with 121 units near a retainibuilding holding up Cannon Place ng wall in dependence, though resideFort Inwary of what they describ nts are ed as the developer’s duplicitous tactics. Former Borough Presid olfo Carrión, who works ent Adas sultant representing Stagg a conto the community, recently presented the developer’s plans at two meet-

ings with local elected official members of the Fort Indepe s and ndence Neighborhood Associ ation (FIPNA), which previously fought back another developer’s plans at 3469 Cannon Place. “For us, the balance is as much in there as possib getting le while at the same time ensuri ng that we improve the quality of life neighborhood,” Mr. Carrió in the n said in a brief phone interview on Tuesday. But Northwest Bronx Assem blyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and FIPNA (Continued on page A4)

Board says it can’t fight developer

The drop boils down to continued growth in three indust ries, to Lehman College econom according ics professor Dene Hurley: all that new retail, healthcare and wholes ale food distribution. Ms. Hurley attributed that growth to the boroug h’s relatively cheap rents and access ibility. “There is huge deman d services majors at Lehma for health n,” Ms. HurBy Shant Shahrigian ley said, crediting the interest to the sshah@riverdalepress.com fact that hospitals and other healthcare facilities are the major employers With modest apartm in the Bronx. ent buildings and townhouses, Between the vast Hunts plenty of green space and an all-arou duce market and the New Point prond tranFulton Fish quil atmosphere, the Market, the Bronx domin lots around ates the city’s Blackstone Avenue and wholesale food industry. West 238th Street are quintessentia “A lot of these jobs, l Riverd ale. they are not But dozens of reside high-level management nts say a positions” like developer’s plans to build one might find on Wall an eightStreet, story apartment buildin ley said of the three indust Ms. Hurg at 640 ries. “These W. 238th St. and at least are low to mid-level manag one other ement posistructure of yet-to-b tions. They will definit e-determined ely help. They propor tions around the have to start somewhere,” corner will she added. ruin their homes by greatly “A lot of these are good, dimindecent and ishing their value and solid jobs with good pay,” completely she continblocking the sunlight. ued — especially the jobs in healthcare (Continued on page and food distribution. A4) (Continued on page A4) AN ARCHITECT’S rendering of the apartment buildin g on Riverdale Avenue Illustration courtesy of proposed by the Simon Simone Development Companie s e Development Companies.

Residents celebrate life in Marble Hill

By Shant Shahrigian

sshah@riverdalepress.com The music was blaring , children were playing and barbec ues were blazing at the public housin g along Broadway on Saturday. In other words, it was Marble Hill Day. The annual event draws a number of past residents back to the neighborhood to join in the revelry with current tenants. Attendees also noted the party is a chance for individ uals to get to know their neighbors at the 11 Marble Hill Houses. “During the normal course of the year, a lot of the reside nts don’t really interact with each other,” said Tony Edwards, 55, the vice president of

the Marble Hill Tenan ts’ Association, which helped organize the a way of trying to introdu party. “It’s ce new residents to the old ones.” Sonia Vasquez, 32, apprec iated the chance for her childre n to enjoy two moon bounces on the Marble Hill Houses’ wide, recently mowed lawn. “They like it. They get to kids from around here,” meet other Ms. Vasquez said of her 3- and 8-yearold “They get to play togeth daughters. er, play with friends, have some summ er fun.” A few paces away, former Marble Hill resident Kema Robins on, 25, was relaxing on a bench with her friend Iris Adams, 29, a current tenant. Smoke wafted from a nearby grill while Ms. Robinson recounted her upbringing GIRLS from Marble Hill (Continued on page in have their faces painte Photo by Adrian Fussell A4) festival on Saturd d during Marble Hill Day, ay afternoon. More photo a community

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Vital information

THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

C36

‘The Press’ turns 65 Aha!

50th’s parking ticket quota revealed Parking tickets, development and the Hudson River Greenway dominated the front pages of The Riverdale Press in 1996. A source within the 50th Precinct gave the paper specifics about the quota system for giving out parking tickets. The precinct, the source said, was required by the city to pass out 5,000 violation notices every month. Then as now, official word was that parking tickets are only given out when infractions are spotted by officers, not solely because the city needs a steady stream of income. Down by the river, discussions about creating a path that would reach from Battery Park in Manhattan north along the Hudson to Spuyten Duyvil, through Riverdale and all the way up the river to Albany. Plans were drawn up, meetings were held, but practically speaking, little got done. Instead of green space growing in the Riverdale area, it was increasingly under attack by development. Near the end of the year, a developer proposed an 18-story building for seniors called the Atria. Opposition was so fierce that it spurred an effort to rezone the entire Riverdale/Kingsbridge area.

1996

File photo

THE GREENWAY was to follow the banks off the Hudson.

Reactions

As the incinerator fight ends, a battle over schools begins A desire for an additional local high school finally became a proposal to expand MS 141 up to twelfth grade. Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz immediately backed the proposal, but it soon brought controversy to Riverdale and Kingsbridge over the issue of where the students would come from. On the other end of the spectrum, another source of controversy finally ended. The Bronx Lebanon medical waste incinerator was shut down by the Department of Environmental Conservation on July 3. Riverdalian Alisa Eilenberg, who spent six years of her life working to prevent the incinerator from being built and then trying to get it shut down, was recognized by The Press for her unstinting effort. Also shut down was a small nuclear

test reactor at Manhattan College Other local institutions also closed. Riverdale’s Twin Cinemas in the Skyview shopping center was shut down by the marshal’s office in August after being unable to pay the bills. Various efforts to save the theater were futile. And Broadway’s last Woolworth’s also locked its doors for good. A little further up Broadway, it wasn’t an ending that gained notice, but rather the arrival of something new. The Tortoise and the Hare bronze statue just north of Manhattan College Parkway arrived in Van Cortlandt Park. Less welcome were continued maneuvers to place the Croton water filtration plant in the park. And, The Riverdale Press began printing color photos.

1997

File photo

THE TORTOISE AND HARE has become a beloved symbol.

37C THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

Swimmers get their feet wet on a sultry evening shortly after the opening of the Riverdale Neighborhood House pool. It still offers respite from the heat today.

It all began at Riverdale Neighborhood House 65 years ago the RNH board asked David A. Stein to produce a newsletter promoting the construction of the community’s first swimming pool. In short order that newsletter grew to become The Riverdale Press. RNH congratulates The Press — and the other great organizations that began under our umbrella for their years of community service Since our founding in 1872, Riverdale Neighborhood House has partnered with the residents of the Northwest Bronx to build and sustain a healthy and productive community. Riverdale Neighborhood House delivers first-rate educational and social services to the entire community: children, teens, seniors and families. Our programs strengthen the social fabric of our community and enhance the quality of life for our neighbors.

Riverdale Neighborhood House NOW CELEBRATING 144 YEARS OF SERVICE TO THE NORTH BRONX 5521 Mosholu Avenue (718) 549-8100 www.riverdaleonline.org

THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

C38

‘The Press’ turns 65 A new century begins

2000

Schools work out kinks, bring in metal detectors

File photo

DR. ERIC KANDEL receives the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Sweden.

Twin tower terror

A year is defined by a single day In every corner of the world, every cor- ever more serious. A proposed developner of America, but especially every cor- ment for enormous super-luxury housner of New York, 2001 elicits memories es near Fieldston was taken to court, of the destruction of the Twin Towers in and temporarily blocked. a terrorist attack. It was felt everywhere, Another effort to preserve the area’s and this neighborhood was not immune. environment met with some success. Riverdale and Kingsbridge residents From the ashes of the plan to estabwere among those killed on lish a greenway path and park Sept. 11. along the riverbank, Riverdale The Press was going into proPark, near the Riverdale Metduction that day, but still man- Census ro-North Station, were anaged to include an editorial and shows nounced. coverage of the attacks. Down the hill, the proposed Other events may pale in more site of MS 368, between Tibbett significance, but there was still diversity and Riverdale avenues at West much to report in Riverdale. 230th Street, was approved afin the Census results revealed ter teachers and parents had a changing, more diverse area expressed concerns about posRiverdale/Kingsbridge area, sible chemical contamination with immigrants from Latin America at the site. Numerous tests confirmed and the Caribbean bringing their own there was no danger to human beings in way of life to the neighborhood. the former rail yard, The Press reported. Crime declined for the seventh year In politics, Oliver Koppell won the in a row, The Press reported, while the race for City Council, and became Rivereffort to regulate growth in the area got dale’s representative Jan. 1, 2002.

With the expansion of the David A. issue in the area, came under fire beStein School, MS 141 to include a high cause of a comprehensive plan to limit school and the creation of MS 368 ap- construction taking shape in Commuproved, concerns over space and loca- nity Board 8. tion became paramount. The Press ran a series looking at all At the newly minted David A. Stein the neighborhoods that make up the Riverdale/Kingsbridge AcadRiverdale/Kingsbridge/Kingsemy, MS/HS 141, plans were bridge Heights and Marble drawn up for the school to be Dr. Eric Hill area, examining what zonexpanded with new classrooms ing changes and current develKandel and science labs. opment plans would mean for The problem for MS 368 receives each. was the chosen location for the Nobel Other notable events of the building, right next to John F. year? Singer Pete Seeger was Kennedy High School. Par- Prize for named Principal for the Day at ents and others worried about medicine PS 7, a bear was sighted in Van the potential contamination on Cortlandt Park, Riverdalian the site, which had formerly Dr. Eric Kandel became the housed trains. second area resident to win the Nobel 2000 was also the year JFK, consid- Prize for Medicine, after Rosalyn Yalow, ered one of the most dangerous schools a Kingsbridge resident, in 1977. The Press also celebrated its 50th in the city, got its first metal detectors. Development, always a hot-button birthday that year.

2001

Photo by Mekea Z. Hurwitz

SEPT. 11 WAS ELECTION DAY, but the early morning attack on the World Trade Center brought everything to a halt. Here a poll worker anxiously listens for news after two planes rammed into the Twin Towers.

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‘The Press’ turns 65

2002

Parks in the news

New beginnings

On Jan. 11, Ceil Stein, co-founder of The Riverdale Press and wife of David A. Stein, and mother of the co-publishers at the time, Bernard and Richard Stein, died. She had helped to guide the paper from the beginning and was known throughout the area for her cooking column “Ceil Selects.” A little later in the year, after many legal and political challenges, the New York City Council voted overwhelmingly to build the Croton water treatment facility in Van Cortlandt Park on part of the Mosholu Golf Course. Gov. George Pataki also approved it, and construction was set to start. It was also decided that Van Cortlandt Park would be the site of the World Archery Championship with thousands streaming into the park to watch. Another park also had cause for a celebration, if more modest. Paul Cymerman, a holocaust survivor who had taken charge of the Spuyten Duyvil Playground, providing toys, clean sand and monitoring behavior for many years, was honored by the city Parks Department. The playground was officially named what everyone had always called it: Paul’s Park. Open space was also at the forefront in many other parts of the neighborhood, with the community board actively working to set limits on development. The Fieldston Property Owners Association voted on the neighborhood’s landmarking proposal, and the preservationists won a narrow 53 to 47 percent victory, leaving much ill will in its wake. World events, large and small, also had an impact on the Riverdale/Kingsbridge area in 2003, with local soldiers shipping off to fight in the second Iraq

At Vannie, Stones invade, lake gets a cleanup There was no single overwhelming story in 2002, though a number of events that would shape the local area’s future took place. The David A. Stein Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, MS/HS 141, inaugurated its expanded campus in January, and honors classes were created there and at the Robert J. Christen School, PS 81. At John F. Kennedy High School, violence — including one killing — and low test scores led officials to consider breaking the campus into multiple smaller schools. Thousands of local students were forced to take summer classes. The lake in Van Cortlandt Park was reborn after a years-long cleanup effort, which included dredging and large-scale landscaping. But perhaps the biggest MICK JAGGER event in Vannie in 2002 was the landing of a yellow blimp with the Rolling Stones aboard to kick off a concert tour. The Press issue of May 9 shows pictures of Mick, Keith and the gang grinning on the Parade Ground. Other unlikely events included the discovery of dozens of white-feathered chickens wandering over the hillside and crossing the road for no evident reason near Spuyten Duyvil Metro-North Station. Officials described the incident as a Santeria ritual gone awry. And confirming the belief already held by many Riverdale/Kingsbridge residents, S&S Cheesecake was rated as the city’s best cheesecake.

Ceil Stein, ‘Press’ co-founder, dies

File photo

CELIA L. STEIN worked on every aspect of ‘The Riverdale Press’ and was famous for her cooking column, ‘Ceil Selects.’ war. But there were also the fruits of more peaceful efforts to be celebrated. In the Cambodian town of Boeung Krasar, where Riverdalians had financed a land mine cleanup effort, there was enough money left over to build a school. Press co-publisher Richard L. Stein and his

wife, Hilary Baum, attended the school opening ceremony. The crime situation continued to improve within the bounds of the 50th Precinct. Car theft, which had peaked with 2,931 vehicles stolen in 1992, was held below 300 for the year.

FOURTH GRADERS at a school built by Riverdale contributors, welcome representatives of their benefactors. The local chapter of the United Nations Association also cleared a minefield surrounding the children’s village. File photo by Richard L. Stein

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‘The Press’ turns 65 Milestones for schools

Target comes to Marble Hill, IN-Tech gets new digs New zoning rules intended to restrict development in the Riverdale/Kingsbridge area were approved by the City Council, though battles over individual projects, such as the currently stalled Tulfan Tower on Oxford Avenue, lingered on for years after. The battle over the Croton water treatment plant continued with lawsuits, a battle over who would get the construction jobs on the site, whether they would be union jobs and how many people from the Bronx would be mandated to work there. Construction was completed on the Target store at River Plaza on West 228th Street, bringing the first big-box store to the area and causing concern among local merchants, many of whom felt they were losing business to the big chain. Work was also completed on the new home for IN-Tech, which had been turned into a high school as well as a middle school. In earlier years, the school was located in rented space in the private Whitehall co-op building in south Riverdale. It was also an important year for the David A. Stein Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, MS/HS 141. The first seniors to graduate from MS/HS 141 were in the class of 2004. At the John Peter Tetard School, MS 143 in Kingsbridge Heights, years of terrible test scores finally led the city’s Department of Education to close

File photo by Mekea Z. Hurwitz

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG celebrates the opening of the River Plaza shopping center in Marble Hill by making a purchase at Marshall’s. the school. The Department of Ed had recently replaced the New York City Board of Education, putting schools under the direct control of the mayor’s

office. Politics in the local area had a shaky time of it in 2004. Guy Velella, a longtime state senator, pleaded guilty to

conspiracy charges related to bribery and was sent to jail, while an investigation into state Sen. Efrain Gonzalez Jr.’s finances got under way.

Construction begins

Winners and losers in the battle for public space

2005 File photo

CONSTRUCTION begins at the Croton Water Filtration Plant.

Work began on the Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park in Januar y, but after only a week a restraining order brought construction to a halt. The cause of action in the case was the claim that by putting the construction in a poor, minority neighborhood, the government was guilty of environmental racism. While the case went back and forth in the courts during the year, costs for the plant began to rise sharply, stirring an outcr y. Still, construction started to seem inevitable to many who had opposed it, and the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park gave up the cause in May. Other construction projects were also at the forefront of the issues facing the community, including plans to build Kingsbridge Crossing, a mall in

what had long been a parking lot used by those who wanted to visit the mom and pop shops near West 231st Street and Broadway. The project called for building a large shopping space with 16 floors of apartments above. Construction and parking were also linked to trouble in other parts of the local area, with new apartment buildings bringing many new cars into the area along with the homeowners. Not all was lost in the battle for public space, though. After years of delays, Riverdale Park, near the Riverdale Metro-North Station, opened in 2005. Also that year, Bernard L. “Buddy” Stein retired as editor of The Riverdale Press that year, passing the job to his brother Richard, the longtime design chief and general manager.

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2006

2007 Notable endings

Costs soar at filtration plant site

File photo by Mekea Z. Hurwitz

4455 TIBBETT AVE. was the first house built in Fieldston.

Neighbor vs. neighbor

Fieldston designated historic district This was a contentious year for the Riverdale/Kingsbridge area. Mt. St. Vincent and Manhattan colleges broke off a cooperative agreement that had lasted for 40 years, allowing students to use lab space and other facilities on both campuses. The reason for the split was never made public. In the Jewish community, two polarizing figures at Riverdale Temple broke the congregation apart. Rabbi Steven Burton and Cantor Leslie Friedlander both had supporters within the synagogue, The Riverdale Press reported, but they found it impossible to work together. Both of their contracts were up for renewal in 2006, and a vote was called

for among the congregation. Both Rabbi Bur ton and Cantor Friedlander received majority suppor t in separate ballots, so the synagogue of fered new contracts to them. When the cantor accepted, the rabbi moved on. With him went a group of his suppor ters. A new congregation was formed, Shaarei Shalom, and Rabbi Bur ton was chosen to lead it. Despite fears both synagogues wouldn’t be able to survive on their own, both are still active as of this date. Another source of controversy was finally resolved in 2006. Fieldston was declared an historic district by the New York City Council in a near-unanimous

vote, over the vocal protests of many Fieldston homeowners. This was also the year that the man behind construction of the tower on Tulfan Terrace, James Murray, was indicted for fraud and fled the country, leaving only a stalled skeleton looming above Riverdale Avenue. Also in 2006, three new schools began accepting students including the Ampark School in Van Cortlandt Village and the two schools formed in the space that once housed MS 143: the Marie Curie School for Medicine, Nursing and the Health Professions and the New School for Leadership and Journalism, MS 244.

Costs at the Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park skyrocketed from an estimate of less than $1 billion to more than $2 billion. Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who had opposed the facility from the first minute it was proposed, began calling for a probe into where all the money was being spent. Despite his best efforts, work on the site began — again. 2006 was also the year of some notable endings. Grace Belkin, Community Board 8’s first district manager, who took the job in 1977 and was known by virtually everyone in JUNE BINGHAM the Riverdale/ BIRGE Kingsbridge area, stepped down, making way for Nicole Stent, the current incumbent. Cornyn’s Coach ‘n Four, another Riverdale institution though it was located a block into Yonkers, closed. According to The Press, the bar and restaurant was a favorite place for Riverdale politicians, grandees and others to celebrate victories and anniversaries. Happily, the owners heard the plaintive cries of loyal patrons, reconsidered and reopened. The other passing was that of June Bingham, the descendant of one of New York’s most prominent political and banking families. She died at 88. A Press appreciation had this to say: “Her first husband, Jonathan B. Bingham, was a groundbreaking reform Democratic congressman and her second husband, Robert Birge, is a financier with a master of divinity degree. She was the mother of four children, grandmother of 10 and great-grandmother of 14. But she was very much her own woman.” In the same year, The Riverdale Press published online for the first time.

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‘The Press’ turns 65

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‘The Press’ turns 65 Great Recession

2008

Farewell to local shops, state senator When the nation’s economy crumbled, Riverdale wasn’t immune. The last bookstore in the area, PaperbacksPlus on Riverdale Avenue, closed. Other stores also shut their doors on the south Riverdale shopping strip, leading many to wonder where they would have to go to get basics, including groceries. Though home prices continued to rise in the first part of the year, sales began to slow dramatically. The planned mall in a Kingsbridge parking lot began to shrink as tenants proved hard to find. Ground was never broken. Cost overruns at the Croton Water Filtration Plant began to affect people’s water bills, as the price of construction was paid for out of that tap. The city’s comptroller began an audit on activities at the plant site. In elections that year, Riverdalians were faced with a strange choice: State Sen. Efrain Gonzalez Jr., who was under indictment for allegedly funneling $400,000 in state funds to his family, was challenged by former state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr., who had faced ethics issues of his own. The Riverdale/Kingsbridge

File photo

THE GASH created by the the Croton Water Filtration Plant will eventually be covered by a golf course. area’s dominant political group, the Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club, went with Mr. Gonzalez. The voters picked the current officeholder, Mr. Espada. Questions over the location of gifted and talented programs for elementary school children raised specters of racial

and class divisions that still lingered after the creation of the David A. Stein Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, MS/ HS 141, and IN-Tech Academy, MS/HS 368. Also in 2008, the milkman made his last stop in Riverdale after telling Elizabeth Pimentel of Fieldston that there

simply wasn’t enough demand to justify future deliveries. In June, The Riverdale Press passed from the hands of the Stein family to another pair of brothers, Stuart and Clifford Richner, owners of the Herald newspapers on Long Island.

Sweetness fades

Bomb plots, hate chants and Stella D’oro plant closing It was a tough year for the Riverdale/ Kingsbridge area. Four men came down from Newburgh, N.Y., in an alleged attempt to blow up two Riverdale synagogues on Independence Avenue in May. Police cars were sent to every synagogue in the local area to offer security to worshipers, and continue to faithfully appear every Saturday morning. The men accused in the alleged plot face trial in 2010. Other blows included the closing of the Stella D’oro bakery on Broadway after more than 70 years in operation. A strike over wages and benefits went on for nearly a year before the National Labor Relations board decided that the company’s owner, Brynwood Partners, had negotiated in bad faith. When the company was ordered to allow workers back into the plant under the threat of having to pay them back wages, Brynwood decided to close the factory and sell the brand. A

Photo by Chris LaPutt

A BITTER STRIKE preceded the demise of the Stella D’oro bakery. deal that sent the brand name to Ohio was completed in October. At PS 24, accusations against the

principal began bubbling out in March. Principal Philip Scharper was accused of conducting strange Buddhist

rituals at the school, forcing teachers to participate in ceremonies and creating a list of teachers he hated. None of that was ever substantiated, but parent complaints about administrative matters began to crop up as attention was focused on the school. Mr. Scharper never told his side of the story. On May 18, Mr. Scharper was sent to a Department of Education administrative center, or “rubber room,” and was removed as principal soon after. As of 2010, he is working as an assistant principal outside of District 10. Also in 2009, plans for redeveloping the vacant Kingsbridge Armory into a giant mall ignited a battle over the importance of paying a living wage to the employees who would eventually work at the stores inside. When the City Council voted against the mall plan without a living-wage guarantee, Bronx lawmakers called it a victory for the borough.

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Force of nature

2010

Tornado strikes the Bronx

File photo

A MASSIVE TREE lies across Riverdale Avenue at West 254th street on June 25, 2010.

2011

On July 25, 2010, a tornado, the first in the Bronx since 1974, whipped through Riverdale, toppling trees and power lines into houses and cars. The brunt of the destruction, created by winds around 100 miles per hour, was felt by north Riverdale from Palisade Avenue to Fieldston Road, between West 250th and 261st streets. Although the storm lasted only five minutes, the destruction was widespread — 160 trees were lost — and took weeks, even months, to clean up. As insurance claims adjusters and tree repairers descended on Riverdale, residents bemoaned the damage to their property, houses and cars.

2012 Child victims

Abuse scandal rocks HM BRONX DA ROBERT JOHNSON, left, speaks as Police Commissioner Ray Kelly looks on at an Oct. 28, 2011 press conference about police officers indicted for ticket-fixing.

Ticket fixing case touches 50th It started as an investigation into an alleged crooked cop. Three years later, 16 Bronx officers were arrested and hundreds, including union delegates in the 50th Precinct, implicated in a widespread ticket-fixing scandal that severely frayed relations between the Bronx District Attorney’s office and the New York Police Department in 2011. When their brothers and sister-in-arms were charged in Bronx Criminal Court on

Oct. 28, as many as a thousand Police Benevolent Association members crowded into a packed courtroom, in the hallways of the courthouse and in a mass outside. It was a raucous scene as cops and their supporters chanted against the commissioner. “Ray Kelly, hypocrite,” they cheered. Several cases relying on cops who were suspected ticket fixers were delayed or thrown out.

The Horace Mann School community shook in June 2012 in the wake of a magazine article accusing three nowdeceased teachers of sexually abusing students from 1973 to 1993. The story, “Prep-School Predators: The Horace Mann School’s Secret History of Sexual Abuse,” written by an alumnus, documented charges against Mark Wright, Stanley Kops and Riverdale resident Johannes Somary, and took the school’s past and current administrations to task for failing to take proper action. The Riverdale Press investigated the story in the weeks and months that followed, as current students and alumni spoke out. More than 2,000 joined a private Facebook group, called Processing Horace Mann, and new sexual abuse claims emerged. The Horace Mann Action Committee made up of a dozen or so school alumni, was born. The group called on the current administration to acknowledge the charges

of abuse and to launch an independent investigation. The story led thenCity Council Speaker Christine Quinn to investigate how private schools handle reports of sexual abuse, and she asked the Bronx District Attorney’s Office to investigate. It ultimately concluded they no charges could be pressed since the abuse took place outside the state’s statute of limitations.

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‘The Press’ turns 65

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‘The Press’ turns 65 Spite of the devil

Deadly train derailment in Spuyten Duyvil

2013

File photo

THE AFTERMATH of the Dec. 1, 2013 train derailment near Spuyten Duyvil Station.

The calm of a sunny Sunday morning was shattered at around 7:20 a.m. on Dec. 1, 2013 when a southbound Metro North commuter train jumped the rails as it rounded the curve into Spuyten Duyvil station, killing four passengers and injuring 63 others. The diesel locomotive slid so far towards the Harlem River that it was obscured from the view of observers on the station bridge. What was visible was a tangled mass of passenger cars lying on their sides, another teetering at a forty-five degree angle. The two cars furthest to the rear remained on the tracks fully detached from the train. “I just heard and then felt a shudder and it turned over,” said passenger Steven Ciccione, 29, a Long Island resident who was sitting on the right side of the third car when the train crashed. “People were falling on top of me and screaming. People were also trying to help each other.” While investigators early on concluded the train was traveling almost three times the speed limit at the time of the crash, Metro Transit Authority (MTA) members questioned what could have been done to prevent the deadly crash at a recent board meeting.

2014

After long struggle, Kennedy high school closes From homecoming to graduation, The Press set out to document John F. Kennedy High School’s last year in 2014. In December 2010, the Department of Education announced the school on Terrace Avenue, one of eight — now seven — schools at the John F. Kennedy Educational Complex, would be phased out, replaced by additional grades at two new charter schools. Many felt the school, which was plagued by low test scores, violence and overcrowding in its last years, was set up to fail by the Department of Education, with claims that DOE policy favored smaller schools over its larger ones. “Throughout the year, Kennedy was placed on the last rung on the public school ladder,” said JFK’s class of 2014 valedictorian

Treanda Foster, 18 in her graduation speech. “They did not see how hard we worked to maintain our school community while having our school community taken away from us.” It was a bittersweet end for the high school, as a brawl interrupted graduation festivities on the Manhattan College campus on June 26, resulting in student injuries and the arrest of a parent. In spite of the low points, many said they were sorry to see the school close. Bronx Theater Principal Charles Gallo, who graduated from JFK in 1979, stopped by Maestro’s Caterers on May 30 to catch a glimpse of JFK’s last prom. “I had to come. It was my school,” he said. “It’s the end of an era.”

File photo

THE JFK football team during halftime of the 2013 homecoming game.

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‘The Press’ turns 65 Epidemic hits home

The year of the drug bust Residents were taken aback when police and drug enforcement agents revealed that Riverdale and Kingsbridge had become a hub for illicit drugs by snaring millions of dollars worth of heroin and cocaine in cars and apartments on quiet local streets. In 2015, the relatively calm and safe neighborhoods of Riverdale and Kingsbridge saw four major drug busts. The first, on May 17, saw a quiet street near Van Cortlandt Park swarmed with federal agents who seized 154 pounds of heroin and more than $2 million in cash from an apartment at 210 W. 251st St. Officials said it was serving as a stash house for one of the biggest heroin rings in the Northeast. The record-breaking raid was the largest bust by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in New York State and the fourth biggest in the na-

tion. Less than two weeks later, authorities arrested five people in a Kingsbridge apartment in a raid that spanned locations in Long Island, New Jersey and Upper Manhattan and netted a total of $5 million in heroin, $115,000 in cash and two guns. In September, authorities found $30 million in heroin during a raid on a Kingsbridge Heights apartment and another nearby site. Three months later, in mid-December, agents from the NYPD’s narcotics division seized 136 pounds of cocaine in Kingsbridge and near Allerton Avenue in the Bronx. The drugs had a street value of about $3 million. “This is a nice place to live — that’s the problem,” said Captain Terence O’Toole, the commanding officer of the 50th Precinct. “Even drug dealers want to be safe.”

2015

THE 2016 ‘RIVERDALE PRESS’ STAFF. Back row: reporter Anthony Capote, sales rep Scott Berkowitz, editor Shant Shahrigian, sales reps John Morehouse and Mark Sacks and photo editor David ‘Dee’ Delgado. Front row: reporter Lisa Herndon, general manager Celia Weintrob and classified manager Cheryl Ortiz.

Courtesy DEA

HEROIN and a gun confiscated from 210 W. 251st St. on May 15, 2015.

65 YEARS of COMMUNITY SERVICE We’re proud to bring you the news every week

BACK ROW: Reporter Anthony Capote, Ad Sales Specialist Scott Berkowitz, Editor Shant Shahrigian, Ad Sales Specialist John Morehouse, Ad Sales Specialist Mark Sacks, Photo Editor David “Dee” Delgado. Front row: Reporter Lisa Herndon, General Manager Celia Weintrob, Classified Ad Manager Cheryl Ortiz.

2016 has been another banner year for the Riverdale Press, winning Best Community Newspaper awards from both the New York Press Association and City University’s Center for Community and Ethnic Newspapers. But most of all, we are proud to work hard at a paper with such a long and rich legacy, honored to be part of this vibrant and diverse community, and looking forward to the next 65 years. From the staff of

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47C THE RIVERDALE PRESS - Thursday, June 23, 2016

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