Talk Bronx New York

 A Library With a Past Ponders Its Future

TWO years ago, a lanky teenager named Adolfo Abreu who lives in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx got involved in a campaign to turn the shuttered Fordham Library Center into a youth center. Unhappy about the dearth of activities available to him and his friends, he spent months rallying support for the cause, only to learn in late May that the city was eyeing the former library for use as an animal shelter. 

“I felt like, wow, they care more about animals than us?” said Adolfo, a high school freshman who serves as the president of Sistas and Brothas United, the youth branch of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, a local organization. “We’ve been fighting for this for years. That part of the Bronx is like a wasteland, and having an animal shelter isn’t going to improve it.”

The former library, a handsome three-story red brick building with arched windows, sits on a downtrodden block of Bainbridge Avenue near Fordham Road’s bustling retail corridor. It has been locked since 2005, shortly before the new $50 million Bronx Library Center opened one block to the west.

Adolfo Abreu isn’t the only one with grand visions for the building. Members of local community groups have envisioned the nearly 30,000-square-foot former library as outfitted with a computer lab, a boxing ring and an art studio, and accommodating activities like after-school tutoring.

The city’s health department is working to open animal shelters in Queens and the Bronx, which currently have only pet receiving centers. The agency has a contract with New York City Animal Care and Control, a nonprofit group, to operate shelters.

Jessica Scaperotti, a department spokeswoman, confirmed that the agency was considering the former Fordham Library as a site for a shelter, but said there was no timetable for the plan. The issue was reported in The Norwood News, a local newspaper.

Despite potential obstacles, leaders of the effort to turn the old library into a youth center said they would soldier ahead. Among them is Fernando Cabrera, the pastor of New Life Outreach International in Kingsbridge Heights.

“There are plenty of other places an animal shelter would be suitable,” Mr. Cabrera said. “The community isn’t going to stand for that here.”

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Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation Care Center Faces State Probes

ALBANY - A troubled Bronx nursing home and its operator are the targets of a three-pronged investigation by the state attorney general’s office, the Daily News has learned.

“There appear to be an array of violations in different areas that are not typical,” a knowledgeable source said.

Investigators are probing whether Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation Care Center committed Medicaid fraud by paying an employee at a nearby hospital to refer long-term patients to the facility, the source said.

Federal law prohibits such payments.

A second aspect is a result of a recent criminal referral from the state Workers’ Compensation Board, which claims the nursing home has not had workers’ compensation insurance to cover its employees in 13 months, the source said.

The Workers’ Compensation Board last Friday issued a stop-work order that would close the home unless it proves by Monday that it has coverage and pays the board $38,000 in fines.

Meanwhile, the source said the state attorney general’s charities bureau has been looking into questionable loans made by two registered charities - the Chaya Foundation and the CLF Foundation - run by Kingsbridge Heights owner Helen Sieger.

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Bronx community boards to meet

Community boards are the little City Halls of the city, dealing with local issues involving city agencies, and serving an advisory role in zoning and other land-use issues.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 1 (Melrose, Mott Haven) meets at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26, at CB1 Office, 3024 Third Ave. Call (718) 585-7117.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 4 (Highbridge, Mount Eden and Concourse) meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 24, at Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Murray Cohen Auditorium, 1650 Grand Concourse. Call (718) 299-0800.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 5 (Bathgate, Morris Heights, Fordham and Mount Hope) meets at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 25, at South Bronx Job Corps - Auditorium, 1771 Andrews Ave. Call (718) 364-2030.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 7 (Norwood, Jerome Park, Kingsbridge Heights and University Heights) meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 17, at the Botanical Gardens, Mosholu Gate Entrance, Visitors Center Café, E. 200th St. and Kazimiroff Blvd. Call (718) 933-5650.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 9 (Soundview, Clasons Point, Parkchester, Bruckner and Harding Park) meets at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 19, at CB9 Office, 1967 Turnbull Ave. Call (718) 823-3034.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 10 (Throgs Neck, City Island, Pelham Bay, Co-op City, Zerega, Westchester Square, Country Club and Edgewater) meets at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 19, at Middletown Senior Center, 3035 Middletown Road. Call (718) 892-1161.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 11 (Morris Park, Pelham Parkway, Laconia and Van Nest) meets at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 26, at 1200 Van Nest Avenue, Lubin Hall, Mazur Building. Call (718) 892-6262.

- COMMUNITY BOARD 12 (Wakefield, Williamsbridge, Woodlawn, Eastchester and Baychester) meets at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, June 26, at CB12 office, 4101 White Plains Road. Call (718) 881-4455.

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Obama Cites Case of Bronx Nursing Aide 

Senator Barack Obama was giving an address by satellite to the Service Employees International Union convention on Wednesday, when he unexpectedly began talking about a nursing home worker from New York City who died last month.

The worker, Audrey Smith-Campbell, died on May 13 after she had an asthma attack. Her family said the attack was caused by her employer cutting off the workers’ health insurance and the resulting inability to afford her asthma medication.

Ms. Smith-Campbell and 220 other workers at the Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation Care Center in the Bronx went on strike on Feb. 20 to protest the nursing home’s decision to stop paying for their health insurance. The strike continues after more than three months.

Ms. Smith-Campbell, who had worked at the home for 29 years as a certified nursing assistant, was known as one of the most dedicated strikers, picketing day after day. Describing her as a “66-year-old grandmother,” Mr. Obama said, “For 82 straight days she kept marching, she kept standing strong, right up to the day that an asthma attack took her life.”

Her daughter, Yvonne Young, said she had an asthma attack on Mother’s Day, shortly after she picketed that day. She died the next day. Ms. Young said her mother simply could not afford the $600 a month for asthma medication once the health insurance was cut off.

“We cannot accept this kind of injustice in the United States of America,” Mr. Obama told the 2,000 delegates at the S.E.I.U. convention in Puerto Rico. “We cannot tolerate this outrage of workers having to go on strike to get the benefits they promised.”

The nursing home’s owner, Helen Sieger, accused the union — 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East — of “using this woman’s death to gain support.”

“This shameless act screams of desperation and guilt,” she said.

In his remarks, Mr. Obama, now the presumptive Democratic Party’s presidential nominee, who has the union’s endorsement, said, “Audrey is no longer with us, but her spirit is with us.”

He added, “It’s driving me on this campaign.”

Mrs. Sieger sought to hold the union responsible for the termination of health benefits, saying that she had offered 1199 an interim agreement that would have offered health insurance.

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