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Bronx Policeman Helps Family Bury Their Child

A Bronx policeman rallied a neighborhood to help a family lay a two-year-old son to rest.

Police say Officer Dimas Cortez aided the family of Josian Garcia Camacho, who died last Tuesday in Mott Haven after sticking a key in an electrical outlet.

Police say when Cortez asked what he could do for the family, they handed him a funeral estimate of $4,700, which they could not afford.

Cortez then got the La Paz Funeral home to provide a free coffin and funeral services.

Cortez said he had to step up and help the family however he could.

“It’s our next door neighbor,” said Cortez. “If you look right behind me, the first house that’s connected to the precinct is the house that the child lived in. So we kind of took it a little more personal than that as our neighbor. Not only a child, but as our neighbor.”

Cortez also got fellow officers and firefighters to chip in $2,500 so Camacho could be buried in Mexico, where the family is originally from.

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Mo’ Mo Gridder’s Barbecue Coming to the Bronx

Fresh from attending the Bronx Food and Arts Festival on Sunday, Dave Cook of the highly recommended food site Eating in Translation reports that Hunts Point barbecue rig Mo Gridder’s – famous for its St. Louis cut smoked rib platter served in the parking lot of an auto center – is moving into its very first restaurant space without axles.

Owner Fred Donnelly will open Mo Gridder’s II in the Belmont Section of the Bronx, in the space vacated by Roberto restaurant at 632 East 186th Street at Crescent Avenue. Barbecued pulled pork and smoked brisket will soon be just a squishy, sesame seed bun’s throw from Arthur Avenue. Score one more for the Bronx – most of which, at least food-wise, has been down so long that up looks like a pallid Domino’s slice.

Mo Gridder’s was closed yesterday and today for its own annual tune-up, so there’s no word yet if the new restaurant space will feature the legendary $34.95 oil change (up to 5 quarts), suspension-steering-brake check, and St. Louis-cut smoked rib platter special on its menu.

In the meantime, the original Mo Gridder’s location in Hunts Point has expanded its regular hours (to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Friday) for the summer, and prices haven’t budged since Peter Meehan’s January 2007 review for the Times. During normal hours, Mo Gridder’s even sells bottles of its own vinegary sauce for $5.

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Dozens Of Bronx Residents Evacuated From Building

With their belongings in hand and their loved ones at their side, displaced residents of 2194 Barnes Avenue left their home Monday night for temporary housing. Tenants of 13 apartments were evacuated after inspectors found a large crack in the basement wall of the building.

“I don’t know where we’re going. My son just came out of the clinic. He has a very bad throat infection, running a fever,” said one tenant.

“They said we could go in and get a few things,” said another. “I grabbed my cat. I grabbed my clothes. And we had to leave.”

The building’s porter says he told the landlord about the growing crack on several occasions — but was ignored. So he called 311.

“I moved in the building on November 10th, 2006 and ever since that time, my brother kept telling the landlord because his daughter’s bedroom was already caving in,” said porter Elvin Jose Olmeda.

There are 40 apartments in all. While the building has no outstanding violations, Olmeda and tenants say there are many other issues including leaks.

“The roof is leaking, but we try to do the best we can to repair the job,” said Olmeda. “But he never wanted to do the right thing.”

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M.T.A. Cuts Delay Some Big Projects Until 2010

The subway station at Smith and Ninth Streets is one of 15 in Brooklyn that will not be renovated as scheduled. Four stations in the Bronx also will wait.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority released a cascade of grim financial assessments on Monday that mean delays in subway station renovations and other major improvements, as well as possible cutbacks in service and increases in fares and tolls.

In a series of public meetings of authority board committees, officials said the authority would be forced to cut projects valued at $2.7 billion from its 2005-9 capital spending program, largely because of soaring costs on construction projects already under way.

The projects being cut include 19 subway station renovations and important projects for the modernization of subway signals and repair facilities. The authority’s chief executive, Elliot G. Sander, said those projects were expected to be included in the authority’s next five-year spending plan, which begins in 2010. But he acknowledged that the authority did not yet know how it would find the financing for that plan.

Officials also said the revenues from taxes on real estate transactions, which have buoyed the day-to-day operations of the transit system in recent years, were falling off at an alarming rate, resulting in a shortfall this year of $122 million. Revenues from the real estate taxes are on track to end the year about $280 million below budget projections.

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