Talk Bronx New York

Ministries for Peach and Justice

When Alexie Torres-Fleming, the director of Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, was growing up in the 1960s, she would sit at the window of her ninth-floor housing project and watch the South Bronx burn.

“There was a period where I was really ashamed of my community,” said Torres-Fleming, 43, who was raised with her three siblings by Catholic Puerto Rican immigrants in public housing during the epidemic of drug abuse and gang violence.

“If you’re black or brown and you grow up poor the way we did, the message you get is that you’re only going to be successful when you can get out of the ghetto.”

After fleeing the Bronx in her 20s to live and work in Manhattan, Torres-Fleming met human rights icon Luis Garden Acosta, who mentored her at his Williamsburg activist group, El Puente. Inspired by the power of grassroots community organizations, she returned to the South Bronx to ignite local activism.

She joined a community action group at Holy Cross parish. In 1992, after the church led a march against crack houses in the area, drug dealers set the church ablaze in retaliation.

But Torres-Fleming was more devastated over the drug epidemic in her neighborhood. Read more..

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Bronx Community College Automotive Program Receives National Certification

The automotive training program at Bronx Community College of The City University of New York has received certification by the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) and The National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE).

To achieve this coveted recognition, the program underwent rigorous evaluation in areas such as instruction, facilities and equipment. The certification in engine performance, electrical and electronic systems, and suspension and brakes is a great boost for BCC’s automotive program that has gone through significant change in recent years.

BCC’s designation to lead CUNY’s sustainability efforts provided the opportunity to refocus the College’s Automotive Technology Program, in existence for nearly 15 years.

Over the last 17 months, Clement Drummond a 35-year automotive industry veteran, has worked to create a leading-edge training program that includes state-of-the-art labs, equipment and teaching facilities; and a comprehensive curriculum for associate in applied sciences degree (A.A.S.), and one-year automotive technician certificate program.
Additional focus on alternative fuel and hybrid cars also expands the scope of the program’s offerings.

In collaboration with the Center for Sustainable Energy and the Office of Institutional Advancement, the BCC automotive program has received three grants in support of curriculum updates as well as facilities and equipment upgrades totaling $1.2 million.

“This is great news for automotive-minded young people,” said Donald Seyfer, NATEF Chair.

“Because this program increases cooperation between local education and industry leaders, it gives added assurance that Bronx Community College’s graduates will be employable entry-level technicians. As a result of the quality education provided by Bronx Community College, the motoring public will benefit since better repair technicians will join the work force.”

Upon completion of the evaluation, NATEF recommended that Bronx Community College be certified by (ASE), a national non-profit organization that tests and certifies repair technicians, in addition to certifying automotive training programs.

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Horace Mann Yields Surge as Schools Stuck By Auctions

Horace Mann School, the $29,000-a- year preparatory school in the Bronx, and dozens more New York educational and cultural institutions just got stuck between the collapse of auction-rate bonds and an expired New York law.

Rates on $60 million of the securities sold by Horace Mann in 2002 rose to 5.4 percent last month from 3.4 percent. At nearby Riverdale Country School, where tuition is $35,250 for grades six through 12, interest jumped to 11 percent from 3 percent.

Interest costs almost doubled for borrowers in the $330 billion auction-rate bond market this year after banks stopped buying unwanted securities for the first time since they were created in the 1980s. Unlike local governments across the country, the New York institutions can’t convert the bonds into other types of debt after a state funding law expired Jan. 31.

“It’s a horrible situation,” said Andrew Alper, former chairman of the New York City Economic Development Corp. and a board member at Riverdale. “The only solution is to pay the bonds off or to pay a higher interest rate.”

Horace Mann officials declined to comment. Graduates of the 121-year-old school, located on 18 acres overlooking Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, include venture capital investor Alan Patricof, founder of private equity firm Apax Partners, and Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer, who in 2004 received the Alumni Council Award for Distinguished Achievement when he was attorney general, resigned as New York’s governor this month amid allegations that he patronized prostitutes.

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The Bronx Library Center is a popular branch of the expanding New York Public Library system.

 An area designated for children at the Bronx Library Center.

NY Public Library Announces $1 Billion Expansion 

Last week, when the New York Public Library announced a $1 billion expansion, including a transformation of its flagship building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street using a $100 million donation by the Wall Street financier Stephen A. Schwarzman, it signaled both a great opportunity and a great temptation.

It is a great opportunity because with such resources, what might not be possible? The library’s “main branch” (as I still refer to it), with its famed reading room, has become ever more alluring in recent years, but there is so much to be done to expand its majestic promise outward.

Not too long ago I stumbled away from a small branch library in high-minded despair; it seemed to specialize in stained paperback best sellers while shelves of classic fiction were stocked with scarcely more than “Oliver Twist.” Barnes & Noble, I thought, offered better browsing possibilities, and maybe that was why its stores seemed to be supplanting libraries as gathering places where books were read and conversations begun.

It seemed as if neighborhood libraries, like those that are part of the New York Public Library as well as the Brooklyn and Queens library systems, were doomed to become less compelling than a retail chain.

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St. Pius V School in the Bronx Being Closed

Diana Santana was making her usual morning rounds at St. Pius V School in the Bronx on Wednesday when the principal, Violeta G. Domingo, pulled her aside to tell her something. As she spoke, Ms. Domingo stumbled over her words, and her voice cracked. Ms. Santana, who has two children at the school, sensed something was wrong.

The principal finally let it out.

“We are closing,” she said. “They are closing us down.”

On Friday, the Archdiocese of New York made public its announcement that St. Pius was one of six schools that would close for good in June because of financial struggles and declining enrollments. St. Pius has 229 students in prekindergarten through eighth grade, 75 fewer than it had in 2004, the archdiocese said.

Ms. Santana, who is the public relations officer for St. Pius’s parent-teacher association, said she cried when Ms. Domingo told her the news.

“It’s devastating,” Ms. Santana said on Saturday. “It’s really devastating. There’s no words to explain how I feel right now.”

Ms. Santana said that St. Pius, open for 95 years, is more than a school. It is the hub of a close-knit community in the mostly Hispanic Mott Haven section of the Bronx, linking generations. Ms. Santana graduated from St. Pius in 1971. Three of her children have graduated from the school, and she now has twin daughters there in seventh grade, a grandson in second grade and a granddaughter in first grade.

“I feel like we’re being robbed out of something we need in this community,” Ms. Santana said. “It’s a family thing.”

Most St. Pius students live within walking distance and come from poor backgrounds, Ms. Santana said. Everyone, teachers, parents and students, knows one another, she said.

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