Talk Bronx New York

News 12 The Bronx Celebrates 10 Years Of Local News Coverage

The borough’s first and only dedicated news channel marks its 10th year on cable television; The cable-exclusive channel made its debut in 1998 as the first 24-hour local news channel completely dedicated to covering news of the Bronx.

Bronx, NY (PRWEB) June 30, 2008 — News 12 the Bronx is celebrating 10 years as the first 24-hour local news channel completely dedicated to covering news of the Bronx. The cable-exclusive channel began bringing local news to the borough of the Bronx in 1998. Ten years later, News 12 continues to serve the Bronx community with its 24-hour news channel, and has expanded to multiple distribution platforms including an on-demand channel (News 12 Interactive, channel 612 on iO TV), a cell phone service (News 12 to Go), and on the world-wide-web (www.news12.com). All services are provided at no additional cost to Cablevision subscribers.

“It was a very easy decision to start up a News 12 franchise in the Bronx”, said Patrick Dolan, President of News 12 Networks. “It was clear that Bronx residents were interested in news coverage that reflected the borough they were so proud to call their own. Most news coverage in the area up to that point was focused on crime stories. When News 12 the Bronx launched and showed the real people of the Bronx on television - from the teachers to the firemen to the community leaders and more - we were embraced. We’re proud of our involvement in this incredible area.”

“The Bronx is an interesting place to live and work. It’s diverse. It’s dynamic. It has a wonderful sense of community,” said Leesa Dillon, News Director of News 12 the Bronx. “News 12’s commitment is to provide fair and unbiased coverage of the news that the residents of the Bronx need and want to know. It’s been so for the last 10 years and will continue to be so into the future ”

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BRONX BOYS OF SUMMER 

The borough’s parks are all being renovated at once, so local teams are sharing crowded turf.

Construction equipment behind them and other teams all around, members of the Love Gospel Assembly Little League found themselves betwixt and between at one recent practice

A view of the Croton Water Filtration Plant under construction, looking northwest from the roof of Montefiore Medical Center.

A stream of cash pouring into the Parks Department budget has created a rehabilitation bonanza at Bronx parks, but the mostly welcome windfall is also displacing community sports teams and visitors to parks across the borough.

As an incentive for Bronx officials to agree to the construction of the nearly $3 billion Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park by the New York City Department of Environmental Preservation, the agency agreed to give the Parks Department $220 million to $260 million for rehabilitation projects at 63 parks around the borough.

The deal had one major provision: The money had to be spent by 2009. Officials in the borough aren’t completely sure why that deadline exists, but the result is a rush to spend. As the weather warmed up and both children’s and adults’ baseball teams hit the diamonds, they faced a flurry of rehabbing that’s made it hard to play.

Although park renovation sounds like a great thing to many, critics also fault the undertaking for including too little community input, benefiting disadvantaged neighborhoods like Hunts Point, Soundview and Highbridge less than other areas, and even possibly contravening DEP’s own charter.

“It’s inconveniencing a lot of people with the construction they’re doing,” said Anthony Robles, president of the Bronx Panthers youth football team. The Panthers were booted from the Williamsbridge Oval Park, in nearby Norwood, due to a construction project. Robles said he learned of the Oval project “right when they were coming in with the equipment and closing off the fields.”

Having to share their field, members of the Love Gospel Assembly Little League were forced to move due to several rain puddles at home plate. Coach Rory Gilbert said, “We have to coexist – but I have permits for this field.” Referring to two other large groups, including the young football players currently using the field, Gilbert added, “But I’m getting ready to start batting and if they have a problem with that, I really can’t do anything.”

Obtaining a field requires that an applicant fill out a form and pay an $8 per hour fee, with a two hour use minimum, but one Parks Department staffer explained: “The big problem is if we have the availability.”

When completed, Harris Park – where fences went up in April and several teams are now sharing one field – will have four new ball fields, a multipurpose field as well as a new track, playground and an exercise equipment room with showers.

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Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion greets New York Army National Guardsmen. 

Bronx Dominican Heritage Celebration 

In case no one has noticed, Dominicans are the fastest-growing ethnic community in the Bronx.

And with gentrification pushing into the Dominican-American stronghold in upper Manhattan, large numbers of the Caribbean island natives who’ve made New York their home continue to cross into the Bronx.

The 2000 census showed 133,000 foreign-born and American-born Dominicans living in the Bronx. In 2005, more than 200,000 Dominicans called the borough home. Although the next census is in 2010, the federal American Community Survey shows Dominicans making the largest population gains in the borough of any immigrant group.

Last Wednesday night, a number of the borough’s Dominicans gathered in the Rotunda at the Bronx County Building to hold a Bronx Dominican Heritage Celebration as part of Dominican Heritage Month, with colorful dancing and singing and, of course, a few speeches about Dominican pride and accomplishment.

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Bronx Politicians & Yankees President Scrapple Over Breakfast

A breakfast meeting between Yankees President Randy Levine and Bronx lawmakers about the team’s new stadium erupted into a heated shouting match, with one assemblywoman so mad she stormed out.

The fireworks began after Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr. asked Levine for the number of Bronx residents hired to work on the $1.2 billion stadium.

When the Yankees president could not give precise numbers, Diaz and other lawmakers became visibly upset, several people who attended last week’s meeting said.

A few minutes later, Levine became embroiled in a second dispute with Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, who wanted to know why a community foundation that was supposed to dispense $800,000 annually in Yankees contributions to Bronx nonprofits had taken more than 18 months to hold its first meeting.

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Brandy Cochrane, 27, and others have been doing cleanups at University Woods Park since October 2006.

Battle Over University Woods For Condos

Abused and just about abandoned, a little Bronx park tucked away above the Harlem River is finding itself caught in a tug of war.

Once a dumping ground for carcasses of animals sacrificed in Santeria rituals, the community board wants to use hilly 3.3-acre University Woods Park for an affordable condo complex.

But some local activists have been working to clean up and save the park.

Two years ago, Community Board 5 approached developer Andrew Lasala about swapping the park for his property on the waterfront just north of it, which would be ideal for a greenway, said District Manager Xavier Rodriguez.

The state was interested in buying Lasala’s waterfront property, Rodriguez said, and there was interest in swapping it for the University Woods acres, which have been a haven for drug addicts and homeless people and last year was ranked as the worst park in the city by an advocacy group.

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