SPECIAL GRADUATION SECTION INSIDE Winner of Vol. 72, No. 22
What’s inside?
the Pulitzer Prize Thursday, July 8, 2021
$1.00
With COVID in rearview, what about foreclosures?
And the beat plays on
n State, federal laws have helped so far, but the moratorium can’t last forever
Title IX expands Biden won’t let ghosts from the past stop him from protecting students who need it most. Page A5
By JOSEPH DE LA CRUZ jdelacruz@riverdalepress.com
BRIAN ASARE
Suzanne and Seeing Voices took the An Beal Bocht stage on June 26 to play their role in the reintegration of live music into the West 238th Street pub’s routine. After the less-than-sing-song height of the coronavirus pandemic, An Beal is once again booking live music.
An Beal’s post-corona comeback n Known for tasty refreshments and homey atmosphere, it’s not just tunes, but writing and live plays, too By SOPHIA ROMANO
A farm upstate So, whatever happened to Rudy the Rooster? Don’t worry, he has a great new home. Page A3
Intern
W
hen sitting at the bar at An Beal Bocht Café, it’s easy to see why the pub is a neighborhood favorite. “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac plays from the kitchen. Plenty of natural light shines through the doors. The collection of bottles behind the bar and the vintage wooden signs on the surrounding walls provide a feeling of well-worn comfort. The West 238th Street Irish bar and restaurant shares its name with a popular Irish novel. “An Béal
Bocht,” meaning “the poor mouth,” and is regarded as one of the greatest pieces of Irish literature of the 20th century. The book is regarded as remarkably funny with a hint of darkness to complement. And this description could easily be applied to the café itself, with its witty regulars and their brooding jokes. “You’re an enabler,” An Beal regular Steve Kam scolded bartender Caitlin Seword, who smiled deviously while handing him another beer. For as long as Seword can recall, Sundays from 4 to 7 p.m., always have been reserved for sessions of live “trad” music — short for “traditional” — a session whose performances feature instruments like fiddles and accordions. “We’re trying to keep it as Irish as possible,” Seword said. Yet within this cultural parameter that the bar strives to maintain at least on “trad” night, An COMEBACK, page A4
Alexis Lorenzo is scrambling. So far, many have held onto their homes — even if they can’t pay — thanks to foreclosure moratoriums enacted at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. But as COVID-19 slowly disappears, so are the days remaining for these protections to stay in place. It’s almost impossible to tell what will happen when these moratoriums are finally lifted, but Lorenzo — the director of foreclosure prevention at Bronx Legal Services — is standing by ready to help. And that help could be needed as early as this summer. “Usually homeowners get to advocates and legal experts after already being fleeced a couple of times by bad actors,” Lorenzo said. And she’s not referring to the government or even banks — instead those people taking the little that’s left in AlExIS some homeowners’ bank accounts, leadloRENzo ing them to believe they can help. Instead, Lorenzo said, they “do bad things” like “filing documents that sign over the deeds to their house to predators.” Preparing homeowners for the expected wave of foreclosures is no easy task — even for legal experts with experience taking on these very kinds of legal housing issues. Lorenzo and Bronx Legal Services are working with a consortium of advocates, non-profits and city agencies to help many who may be most vulnerable to foreclosures once the moratoriums are lifted. In fact, they’ve created what they call the Anti-Displacement Homeowner Help Desk, a new initiative designed to educate homeowners on FORECLOSURES, page A4
Cuomo’s pen ready to silence loud vehicles n Albany, NYPD may have new weapon to crack down on ATVs, dirt bikes, mufflers
‘I don’t know one person who actually went to a shop and purchased the equipment and had it installed.’
By ETHAN STARK-MILLER estarkmiller@riverdalepress.com
Goats are GOAT They work rain or shine, with an audience or without. These goats are making Vannie look fantastic. At least as long as they stay a little hungry. Page A10
Backfire that sounds like gunshots and revving engines have become all too familiar sounds over the past year. The barrage of loud vehicular noises has hardly gone unnoticed. In fact, it’s one of the more complained-about quality-oflife issues in this corner of the Bronx. At least according to Community Board 8 public safety committee chair Ed Green. “We have people upset about it all the time,” he said. “I mean, it was very bad last year, and we seem to be getting a similar amount of complaints” this year. The noise comes from several sources, Green said. But the main “one is a lot of these souped-up vehicles making noise with loud muffler systems.” Fortunately for Green, lawmakers in Albany — and the New York Police Department more locally — have taken some steps to try and turn down the volume. One of those lawmakers is Brooklyn state Sen. Andrew Gounardes who sponsored the SLEEP — or Stop Loud and Excessive Exhaust Pollution — Act in the up-
ANTHONY WILSON performance car hobbyist
HIRAM AlEJANDRo DURÁN
Car enthusiast Anthony Wilson says owners of souped-up cars often purchase noisy modified exhaust systems online instead of in person. He says the SlEEP Act from state Sen. Andrew Gounardes intended to raise fines on auto body shops that sell and install these parts, won’t be very effective in stopping people from attaching these devices to their cars. per chamber, a bill he says would ban the sale and usage of devices that amplify the sound of a car’s engine. “We’re trying to tackle the problem of these illegally modified cars with exhaust
mufflers that sound like jet engines at the airport, or sound like shotguns or things like that,” Gounardes said. They have “really been terrorizing the streets for the last year.”
Although Gounardes has heard this problem firsthand from his own near the Belt Parkway, he said people from all over the state contacted his office after he introduced the SLEEP Act to tell him about similar issues in their own backyards. These noise-making muffler enhancements are already illegal, Gounardes said, but there aren’t many cars getting ticketed for them because the fine is currently just $150. That means drivers who already spend several thousand dollars modifying their mufflers aren’t going to be deterred by what otherwise could be considered just pocket change for them. To fix this, Gounardes said, his legislation would increase fines for those driving LOUD CARS, page A4
Teachers prepare for switch back to in-person classes n Online learning brought some challenges, but also innovation, providing window to student lives By MAYA MITRASINOVIC Intern
It was an all-new way to teach and learn — and both school administrators and teachers scrambled to figure out how to do it. The coronavirus pandemic created a sudden need for remote learning, and despite its rocky start, became an accepted norm for more than a year. Now that Mayor Bill de Blasio has ordered campuses to reopen in the fall, these same school administrators and teachers are trying to figure out what the coming academic year will look like. Yet, while the adjustment to online and hybrid
learning brought on many challenges, with those challenges came opportunities for creative solutions. “Attendance was really low,” said Jake Jacobs, an art teacher at Bronx Park Middle School in Allerton. “I think the real challenge for kids was that some kids were supervised at home, and some kids had no supervision at home. Or some kids were taking care of their younger siblings. And so, it was very low.” Christian Aviles, a Spanish teacher at DeWitt Clinton High School, found there were deeper issues at play. “The hardest part was not necessarily technology,” he said. “It was figuring out how to establish rapport with the students — how to connect, as a human, to students.” Clearly, this lack of connection was caused by technology. But in some cases, Aviles said, technolIN-PERSON SCHOOL, page A4
HIRAM AlEJANDRo DURÁN / File
like the rest of the city, teachers at Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy had a difficult adjustment to online learning. However, this past year gave educators unique insights into their students’ lives, allowing them to reconsider traditional teaching methods.