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New York promotes the Bronx’s parks and gardens

Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is blooming!

Despite its urban image, the Bronx has 7,000 acres of park land, about 25% of its total area. In addition to Yankee Stadium and the Bronx Zoo, the borough’s green spaces include the New York Botanical Garden; a 19th century garden overlooking the Hudson River called Wave Hill; and Van Cortlandt and Pelham Bay parks, where you can bird-watch, play golf and ride horses.

New York City is touting the Bronx’s green attractions in a new promotion. “Most people don’t think of the Bronx like that. We want to open their eyes to the actual physical beauty of the Bronx,” said George Fertitta, CEO of NYC & Company, the city’s marketing and tourism organization.

CITY GUIDE: Where to sleep, eat and shop in New York

It’s quite a turnaround for a place that once symbolized urban decay. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning,” sportscaster Howard Cosell famously said during a 1977 Yankees game, as footage aired of a building in flames near the stadium. An epidemic of arson plagued the city at the time.

New York is a different place now, billed as America’s safest big city and attracting a record 46 million tourists last year. Many of those tourists are repeat visitors, and “their appetite for something other than Times Square and the Statue of Liberty is enormous,” said Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion Jr., who got an enthusiastic reception talking up the Bronx at a recent tourism conference in Berlin.

Green spaces only comprise part of the Bronx’s attractions. There is also Italian food on Arthur Avenue, a hip-hop music tour, a bed-and-breakfast called Le Refuge Inn, and saltwater swimming at Orchard Beach. For more information, visit the Bronx Tourism Council website at www.ilovethebronx.com or NYC & Company at www.nycvisit.com/bronx. Meanwhile, here are some highlights.

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Gay Pride Week: Bronx LGBT Community Is Increasing, More Accepted

Parkchester in the Bronx is one of the largest condominium developments in the world, and is now host to a growing population of lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender residents.

Salvador Cordero and Romeo Romero, party promoters in the area, say that Parkchester and the surrounding neighborhoods of Castle Hill and Soundview have plenty of proud gays who are not hiding any more.

“I guess on a good note, the Parkchester area is really safe,” said Cordero. “Going back a couple years, it was not easy to come out without getting beat up in the Bronx or anywhere in the city. This area has calmed down and become more gay-friendly.”

At Parkchester’s Mi Gente Café, there has been an LGBT-themed party every Tuesday night for the last three years.

“Anybody who comes, whether they come dressed up in drag, as a transgender person, as a lesbian, as a bi-sexual, we have such a mixed crowd here. I have never had a problem with the community,” said Romero.

The Mott Haven area has become extremely attractive to the LGBT community as well. A few art galleries have opened here, including one inside the Bruckner Bar and Grill, which owner Alex Abeles says attracts a mixed crowd that includes gays.

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City controller’s report blasts Bronx school overcrowding, lack of relief

Bronx schools are bursting at the seams and “flawed” planning is to blame, a new report by the city controller’s office charges.

“There are too many neighborhoods with overcrowded schools, elementary schools in particular, and no relief for years to come,” Controller William Thompson said in releasing the report.

The report compares the new seats provided in the city Department of Education’s 2005-09 Capital Plan with expected neighborhood population growth.

The study highlights several Bronx neighborhoods, including Soundview-Castle Hill, Throgs Neck and Highbridge, where activists have been advocating for a new middle school.

In District 10 in the northwest Bronx, Thompson’s report charges that “schools were over capacity in virtually every CSD 10 neighborhood.”

That finding mirrors the calls of local activists who have been pushing to include two new schools in the Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment project.

The DOE, however, has said it sees no need for new schools in the area.

Its 2005-09 capital plan provides for 36,500 new elementary and middle school seats in new school buildings or additions to relieve overcrowding.

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Teens’ TV Spot Gangs Up On The Gangs

“Thinking smart is not thinking gang colors.”

That’s the simple message of a new cable TV public service announcement made by a group of Bronx teens.

The effort is part of the Key to Success program, an anti-gang youth group founded by local activist Ronald Savage.

Growing up in Castle Hill, Savage recalled seeing gangs terrorizing neighbors and knew there had to be a better way to live.

“I felt that being in a gang was not going to do anything for you,” said Savage, who also heads the United Coalition Association, which administers the program. “Now, I speak out and tell young kids not to get involved with gangs. I try to steer them toward getting a high school diploma.”

Savage started the Key to Success program to do just that. About 15 teens attend group sessions every Saturday at Intermediate School 131 in Castle Hill.

The teens work on leadership skills and talk about their families, school and life issues. All the while, mentors encourage them to stay in school.

The group also takes field trips to local attractions, and guest speakers such as local entrepreneurs and politicians are brought in to inspire the students.

“I want these kids to see that these people are just like them, that they too can achieve their dreams,” Savage said.

Last April, the Key to Success program started doing public service announcements with grant money from the City Council’s Anti-Gang Violence Youth Initiative.

“I feel we can reach a bigger population by having the PSAs on TV,” Savage said. “And hopefully, when the youths see it enough, the message will start to sink in.”

The announcements, which run on VH1, MTV2, E! and News 12, seem to be reaching their intended targets. Savage said neighborhood teens often stop him on the street to talk about them.

The program’s next project is to blanket school libraries across the Bronx with newly designed posters reading, “The Key to Success is Knowing the Importance of Staying in School.”

That message already hits home for 13-year-old Donnette Walker, who wants to be a lawyer.

“I like that they tell us to stay in school, and to be a leader, not a follower,” she said.

For Catisa Alvarado, 13, just having something to do on Saturdays is a plus.

“We’ve been bowling, to the Natural History Museum, the movies, everywhere,” she said. “It’s fun. Instead of doing nothing, I can go there and learn stuff.”

The program has been a godsend for her mom, Isabel Vargas.

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Abusive boyfriend charged with dismembering Bronx mother of two

The family of a Bronx mom whose body parts washed up along a creek near her home two years ago say they want her longtime abusive boyfriend to pay for the brutal death of beautiful Rawayti (Nita) Haimraj.

Joshua Nowrang, 44, stands charged with second-degree murder in the beating, strangulation and dismemberment of Haimraj, the 35-year-old mother of his son and daughter.

Pretrial hearings are scheduled to begin today in Bronx Supreme Court to decide if statements he made to police will be admitted into evidence. The hearing will focus on his whereabouts the night of the July 6, 2005, murder.

“We will be at every court hearing to make sure we get justice for my little sister,” said Harry Parasram. “Our family is still in shock over her gruesome murder. He shaved her head and cut it off, along with her legs and arms. Joshua cut my sister up like a chicken.”

Defense attorney Michael Leavitt said his client doesn’t know what happened to his longtime girlfriend, whom he met in their native Guyana two decades ago.

The prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Dan McCarthy, declined comment.

But the prosecution is expected to charge that Nowtang killed Haimraj and disposed of her body in Pugsley Creek near their Castle Hill home. According to published reports and Haimraj’s relatives, she was a victim of domestic violence.

“We kept telling her to leave,” said Parasram. “He was a bully and nobody liked him, but Nita didn’t want us to get involved.”

But when Haimraj didn’t answer her phone on July 6, 2005, her eight siblings went to her home. Nowtang told police that Haimraj wasn’t there when he returned from fishing in Pugsley Creek. When the siblings heard about it, they ran to the creek.

“Nothing could have prepared my sisters for what they found down there,” said Parasram. “They screamed and screamed when they found her head first and all her beautiful hair had been shaven off. Then they found her arms and her foot.

“One of my sisters was with Nita when she got a manicure and pedicure for the Fourth of July and she recognized the polish,” he said. “That’s how we knew it was really her.”

Other body parts washed up in Queens. The city medical examiner said the cause of death was neck compression and blunt impact injuries.

“My sister died a terrible death,” said Parasram. “I want him to pay for what he did to my sister. Nobody deserves this. Her children don’t have their mother and our family is still grieving.”

?SOURCE: NY Daily News

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