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A Friendly Bustle, With Oases Nearby

IT was either the Bronx or Queens.

Jason Velez, 32, a financial adviser, and his girlfriend, RoseAnn Monterroso, 28, a consignment shop manager, had decided to move in together. He owned a one-bedroom in Bedford Park and worked nearby in Belmont. She owned a one-bedroom in Jackson Heights and commuted to Midtown.

They looked in Queens but decided they would get more for their money in Bedford Park — whose proximity to public transportation and major highways provides easy commuting to both Manhattan and Westchester.

“There’s the Bronx stigma,” said Mr. Velez, who grew up in Parkchester. “I thought it would be hard to convince her, but the more she saw, she started liking it.”

She sold her place, he sold his, and they bought a two-bedroom in his co-op on East 201st Street for $178,000. They plan to redo the bath and closets with a custom job, not prefab units.

“We’ll take the extra money,” Mr. Velez said, “and instead of buying something we don’t like, we’ll create something we do like.”

But Bedford Park is about more than affordability to Mr. Velez. It’s about friendliness. For instance three weeks ago his broker, David Abreu, who lives next door, visited a Manhattan comedy club to witness what Mr. Velez had billed as his first foray into stand-up. (In fact, Mr. Velez is no comedian: halfway through his “set,” he pulled Ms. Monterroso onstage, dropped to one knee and proposed. She said yes.)

Once heavily Irish and Jewish, Bedford Park in the 2000 census was 58 percent Hispanic, 17 percent white, 13 percent black and 7 percent Asian. There is a large mix of new arrivals, among them Guyanese, Albanian and Vietnamese. A Korean commercial strip occupies a block of East 204th Street.

John Dhauraj, a Guyanese immigrant who has owned a three-bedroom house on East 203rd Street for 19 years, was chatting one recent afternoon with a neighbor, Cholelle Miranda, who grew up locally and rents a place in a six-story brick apartment house two doors down. Their block is typical: tree-lined and backing up to the woodsy Mosholu Parkway, with early 20th-century single-family and multifamily houses sandwiched in among apartment buildings.

“This block is still a community,” Ms. Miranda said, and Mr. Dhauraj added, “We look out for each other.”

Like many in this middle-class area, both feel pinched by the economy.

“Let me put it to you this way,” said Mr. Dhauraj, 63, who used to work in building maintenance. “Since I retired, I got to look at the pennies. When I was working, I never looked at pennies.”

Fortunately, Mr. Dhauraj bought before the wave of subprime lending. The Bronx is the seventh-ranked county in the nation for foreclosure-related decreases in home values, according to the Center for Responsible Lending.

But several factors insulate Bedford Park. Rental apartment buildings, which constitute a majority of housing here, are mostly immune. Typical homeowners have lived in their homes for a long time, so are less susceptible to the recent proliferation of risky loans.

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Fordham University and New York Botanical Garden Form Acadmic Deal 

Hey, waitaminute!

Was that Fordham University and the New York Botanical Garden holding a love fest this week?

After all those years of bitter feuding over a gangly Erector set-like campus radio station transmission tower looming over the garden, a whole new period of peace and love seems to have sprouted.

In the latest embrace, officials from the two Bronx institutions signed an agreement Wednesday to cross-pollinate academic programs.

A joint graduate program will permit students to receive a master’s degree or doctorate from Fordham, “drawing upon the intellectual and physical resources of both the university and NYBG,” they said in a statement.

Garden President and CEO Gregory Long, who pointed out the two institutions have been “next door neighbors” for 115 years, joined Fordham President, the Rev. Joseph McShane, to officially ink the deal.

“There has never been a moment in American history when education, and research and concern for the biodiversity of the world, have been more important,” said Long.

McShane called it “a momentous occasion that links us, two institutions that reach across Southern Boulevard, to work together for the common good.”

Things were not always so rosy between the two neighbors.

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RETC Brings Tech Savvy to Underperforming Bronx Middle Schools

Fordham University’s RETC—Center for Professional Development is helping bring 30 Bronx middle schools up to speed in 21st century instructional technology.

The RETC, along with the New York City Department of Education’s Bronx Office of Instructional Technology (OIT) and the National Staff Development Council (NSDC), has received a $1 million, two-year grant from the federal Department of Education.

“We’re going to train assistant principals, teachers and technology people how to teach better using technology,” said RETC director Steven D’Agustino, Ph.D. “If classes are more integrated technologically, students will be more engaged in their learning, which will take place in a more project-based way and be more effective.”

The first training session, attended by nearly 60 teachers, administrators and technology coordinators, occurred May 9 on Fordham’s Rose Hill campus. Over the next two years, developers from RETC will make site visits to the schools as part of the program, titled Transforming Leadership into 21st Century Schools: Inclusive, Innovative and Interdisciplinary (I3).

While one benefit of the grant program is that administrators and staff will receive Internet and Computing Core Certification, known as IC3, its success will be measured by whether the test scores of English language learners improve, said Crystal Lindsay, director of the Bronx OIT.

“The entire school building will be transformed into a 21st-century environment,” Lindsay said. “Administrators and teachers will be empowered to teach using technology, but we must improve academic achievement.”

The public and non-public schools participating in the program are those that have been deemed “in need of improvement” by the New York State Department of Education as part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2001.

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Bronx Hospitality, Unnoticed by the Tourist Guides

The folks who published AAA’s 2008 New York tour book had a hard time recommending any hotels in the Bronx. They could only find one, in fact, a rather bland-looking building a mile north of Yankee Stadium by a service road to the Major Deegan Expressway

Hey, the hotel fared better than restaurants, since the automobile club’s guide does not list a single place to eat in the Bronx. As far as the guide goes, Arthur Avenue, Morris Park Avenue or City Island do not exist.

This 45-room Howard Johnson is the only hotel listed for the Bronx in AAA’s 2008 New York tour book.

It is an odd distinction for that lone hotel, a Howard Johnson of no particular architectural distinction. And given the borough’s long battles against hot sheet motels that rent rooms by the hour, a casual observer might assume this place was no different.

But it is a real hotel catering to real tourists. One day last week, the parking lot was filled with cars from out of state, most belonging to guests who had come to see the Yankees play Cleveland. Retirees from Oklahoma and families from upstate New York eagerly hauled suitcases upstairs as they prepared to change into baseball jerseys and take in a game.

Chadd Morris and Brandon Bebout had driven eight hours from Cleveland to score game tickets. They asked a local police officer for the nearest hotel and were directed to the HoJo.

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Fordham Honors An Artful Dodger Broadcaster

You might say the signature call of baseball’s greatest living radio announcer is the sound of silence.

That ability to let the moment tell the story is one reason why, even though Vin Scully has spent the last half-century living 3,000 miles from his Bronx birthplace, he will be honored tomorrow night by his Bronx alma mater, Fordham University radio station WFUV (90.7 FM).

Scully’s voice, one of the many irreplaceable treasures the Dodgers took with them when they abandoned Brooklyn in 1957, has over 59 years called many of the most indelible plays from America’s best game.

It has not overcalled one of them. When Elston Howard grounded out to Pee Wee Reese on Oct. 4, 1955, giving the Brooklyn Dodgers their only World Championship, Scully said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world.”

When Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run in April 1974, Scully reported, “It is gone” and said nothing for 25 seconds, letting the cheers tell the story.

When Mookie Wilson’s ground ball went through Bill Buckner’s legs in 1986, Scully told TV audiences, “The Mets win it!” and then remained silent for more than three minutes as celebration erupted.

In 1988, when a crippled Kirk Gibson hit a two-out, two-strike, two-run ninth inning homer to win a World Series game off baseball’s best reliever, Scully again said, “It is gone” and remained silent for 67 seconds. Read more..

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