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Volume XIX • Number 39 • October 11 - 17, 2012 •
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Early AM fire guts Kappock St. apt. injures 2 By DERVEDIA THOMAS Soot everywhere, blown-out windows, broken glass on the floor and the smell of something burning—the scene was dismal in the twelfth-floor apartment at 735 Kappock Street hours after a fire left an elderly couple hospitalized last Friday. Building Superintendent Enrique Alcosta said he believes the fire may have been caused by a short in the cable from the couple’s air conditioner. According to Alcosta, longtime tenant Alfons Afon, whom Alcosta estimates to be around 90 years old, discovered the fire coming from his living room air conditioner and tried to put it out on his own at around 7:30 a.m. “He likes to do things himself,” Alcosta said.
Firefighters on the roof.
The fire department arrived at the scene at around 8 a.m. after being called by a tenant on the sixth floor. By that time, both Afon, who wears an oxygen mask, and his wife, Ellen, whom the super said is in her 70s, were hospitalized after sustaining injuries. “He looked bad,” Alcosta said. “His whole face was black.” He also said Afon’s wife had inhaled a lot of smoke. The couple has lived in the building for about 50 years. Next-door neighbor Claude Littlefair, who has lived in the building for 40 years, called the situation puzzling. “How can this happen for no reason?” she said. “I live alone, and it’s scary because sometimes I go away for a while.” The sound of the fire engines and the “commotion” in the hallway prompted her to open her apartment door. “The hallway was full of smoke,” she said. “How could they be breathing in that smoke?” Sixth-floor resident David Shapiro, 65, saw the fire trucks outside when he was coming back from a walk. “It’s terrible, I know the people,” he said. In his 40 years of living there, Shapiro said he has known of only one other fire
A freak fire may have started in the air conditioner in this 12th floor apartment at 735 Kappock St. Extensive damage was done to the home of two elderly residents who were hospitalized as a result. in the building, and that was blaze started since the matter is A building employee said 30 years ago. still under investigation. But he on Tuesday that Alfons Afon Alcosta said that about 40 did say the Alfons’ living room had sustained third-degree percent of the tenants are senior was completely destroyed, while burns and was in intensive citizens. the other rooms in the two- care at Jacobi Medical Center. Fire Marshall Robert Cox said bedroom apartment sustained The hospital would provide no he could not confirm where the smoke damage. information.
Milton Fein, 77, educator, influenced schools here for decades
Milton Fein was an educational leader here for decades.
By ANDREW WOLF Milton Fein, the principal of P.S. 7 for more than a quarter century, died this past Monday at the age of 77 after a long illness. When he retired in June of 1998, he was the city’s most senior elementary school principal. In the community, he was a singularly important figure whose career helped shape education in all of the schools in the northwest Bronx. Fein, who grew up and lived most of his life in Riverdale, had been known for the aggressive and spirited leadership he gave to his school and to his colleagues, the principals and administrators of District 10. Within six months of assuming the helm of P.S. 7 in 1971, he was elected as the District 10 union representative of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, a post he held until his retirement.
Born in The Bronx, Fein spent most of his childhood in Riverdale. His family was related to the Breakstone cottage cheese empire. His mother, Helen, was an artist, whose family owned Bloom’s, a well-known Bronx retail establishment with stores on Fordham Road and on the 149th Street Hub. His father, Joseph, ran the country’s largest wool processing business (“he made sure your pants didn’t shrink”) and lived in Riverdale until his death. After a detour in New Jersey, where Fein attended kindergarten, his family settled in North Riverdale. His grandfather had built a house on Tyndall Avenue in 1910, and the Feins moved in next door in the mid-1940s. He attended P.S. 81, but was transferred into P.S. 7, the school he would come to lead, for the third, fourth, and fifth grades to be part of an “intellectually
gifted class.” Mr. Fein’s father had also attended P.S. 7 as a child. “We had the same teacher for all three years,” Fein noted. “Her name is Elizabeth C. Clarke, and she lived in north Riverdale.” Ms. Clarke proved to be a big influence on young Milton. “She was very much ahead of her time. She did things then that are looked on as avant garde today,” Fein recalled. In 1997, Ms. Clarke toured the P.S. 7 building with her former student. “A P.S. 7 teacher asked me what kind of student Milton was,” Ms. Clarke recalled, “and I told her that ‘he kept me on my toes.’ The teacher replied, ‘well he keeps us on our toes, too.’” After the fifth grade, Milton Fein returned to P.S. 81, which was then a K to 8 school. With no local high school in Continued on Page 11