Roberto Clemente’s Pools Closed for Second Straight Year
July 2, 2010
ROBERTO CLEMENTE’ STATE PARK’S OLYMPIC-SIZED SWIMMING POOL IS STILL BEING RENOVATED (PHOTO: J. EVELLY)
BY JEANMARIE EVELLY
There’s no relief in sight for Morris Heights residents looking to cool off this summer—for the second year in a row.
While most public pools opened at the end of June, swimmers at Roberto Clemente State Park will have to go elsewhere. The park’s three pools—a wading area, diving tank and Olympic-sized main pool—are still undergoing renovation.
Adults and children were irked when the pools were closed last summer at the start of construction, which was supposed to take only 12 months.
But the work is still not finished.
“It’s nowhere near ready,” said Leon Johnson, president of the nearby apartment complex River Park Towers, and a Community Board 5 member. “They’re talking about August, they’re talking about October. Nobody swims in October. From what I could see, it may be time to close the pool by the time it opens.”
Both the diving tank and main pool are currently drained; the latter is filled with dirt, wheelbarrows and construction debris.
Rachel Gordon, New York City regional director with the New York State Parks Department, said she doesn’t have an estimated date for when the renovations will be finished, or when the pools might open up again. The project is ongoing because it’s so extensive, she said.
“It’s a huge, huge, huge job,” she said. “They did an enormous amount of work. The improvements are absolutely dramatic.”
Workers are gutting and rebuilding the locker rooms and have installed a child’s spray pool and play area, she said. The main pool is being entirely refurbished and getting a new filter system, while the diving tank will get a new set of pipes.
But the pools’ new additions are doing little to appease some residents looking to stay cool.
“The kids are desperate for the pool,” said Irene Viruet, who lives in nearby River Park Towers with her 4-year-old son and 8-month-old daughter. “We moved in last year and were hoping it would be done by this year.”
Officials had insisted last year that renovations would be finished in time for this summer.
“I didn’t believe that it would open up this year,” Johnson complained. “And here we are again. The administrators should be held accountable for this.”
Frances Rodriguez, the park’s director, referred all questions to Gordon and her office.
“The whole park was built in 1973, a lot of things have to be redone,” Gordon countered. “They’re working every day. It’s just a huge amount of work.”
The restorations are part of a larger project to rehabilitate a number of Bronx parks, with money provided by the city to compensate the borough for parkland occupied during the construction of a water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park.
Editor’s Notes: For a list of alternative pools and spray parks in the Bronx, click here. And click here for our editorial on the pools’ closure.
Body of Bronx Woman Found in Harlem River
July 2, 2010
POLICE OFFICERS AND AN NYPD HELICOPTER SURVEY THE HARLEM RIVER, AFTER A BODY OF A WOMAN WAS FOUND IN THE WATER ON JUNE 29. (PHOTO: J. EVELLY)
By JEANMARIE EVELLY
The body of a young Bronx woman was found in the Harlem River on June 29, near Roberto Clemente State Park in Morris Heights, according to police. She was identified as 20-year-old Anjelina Wills, of Webb Avenue near Devoe Park.
The Office of Chief Medical Examiner declared her death a drowning accident. Wills had fallen into the river in Harlem in the early morning hours of June 27, a police spokesman confirmed. It’s believed she’d been attending a party near the water around 145th Street.
Wills’ body was spotted two days later near Roberto Clemente State Park. Police and park officials cleared residents from one section of the park–near the south end, by the Metro North train stop–and blocked off the area with barriers and police tape. An NYPD helicopter circled above and rescue boats were out on the river.
Several residents reported seeing the body. Joey Marshall, who lives in nearby housing complex Richman Plaza, says he called the police after he spotted something in the water from the window of his apartment.
“I saw the body floating,” he said. “It was crazy.”
Another man, who also lives in Richman Plaza and asked that his name not be used, said he was cooking dinner when he heard a police helicopter overhead. Using a pair of binoculars, he says he saw what appeared to be a young female floating.
“It’s a tragedy,” the man said.
Local Man Sees Something, Says Something
June 4, 2010
LANCE ORTON LIVES ON UNDERCLIFF AVENUE (PHOTO: J. FERGUSSON)
By JAMES FERGUSSON
On May 4, Lance Orton got a call on his cell phone.
He answered, and a woman asked, “Is this the real Lance L. Orton, Sr.?”
“I said ‘Is this some sort of prank?’” Orton recalled recently. “She said, ‘I have to check because I have President Obama waiting to speak to you.’ I said, ‘Is this a prank call?’ She said, ‘Sir, this is no prank call.’”
Sure enough, Obama himself came on the phone and thanked Orton for his vigilance.
“When I heard the president’s voice, it made the whole situation worthwhile,” he said.
It had been a whirlwind few days for the 57-year-old Vietnam vet who lives in Morris Heights. On Saturday, May 1, he was selling T-shirts in Times Square – as he has for more than 20 years – when he saw wisps of smoke coming from a parked S.U.V.
He alerted a nearby police officer on horseback, who went to investigate, sparking a chain of events which began with an evacuation of the area, and ended with the arrest, two days later, of Connecticut resident Faisal Shahzad.
Shahzad has been charged with an act of terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.
At first, when he saw the smoke, Orton didn’t think ‘bomb.’ Instead he was worried the gas tank might explode. Only later, inside the police station in Times Square (where Orton spent the night answering questions) did he realize the severity of the situation.
“They had this big computer screen which was zeroed in on the car,” he said. “I saw the bomb squad along with the FBI….and the propane and gasoline [canisters]. That’s when it hit me how heavy this situation was. Because I was sitting as close to that car as I’m sitting to you. [If it had blown] there wouldn’t have been enough of me to even have been buried.”
Early the following morning, Orton and a handful of men he works with were allowed to pick up their T-shirts and tables and head home. But dozens of reporters, desperate for information, had other ideas.
Not that Orton was too interested in talking. “I said listen, we haven’t had any sleep, we’ve been up all night, and we haven’t eaten, or used the bathroom.”
Before getting into a cab, he did give them one quote, however. “If you see something, say something,” he said.
After some sleep, Orton was much more willing to talk about his experiences. He was interviewed by Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show, he met Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and, of course, he chatted with Obama. He also travelled up to Albany where, at the suggestion of Assemblywoman Vanessa Gibson, he was honored by both houses of the Legislature. “He potentially saved the lives of thousands,” says Gibson.
Though Orton’s cell phone has just about stopped ringing, he’d like to stay in the spotlight so he can shine attention on two issues dear to his heart: veterans’ rights and affordable housing. (Last October, Orton was evicted from the apartment he rented on 163rd Street in Washington Heights. He said a new landlord had run the building into the ground and begun forcing out elderly tenants, with the hopes of upping the rents. When Orton defended them, and tried to form a tenants association, he too was thrown out, he says. Since then he’s been living on Undercliff Avenue with his father, a situation he calls far from ideal.)
Back in Times Square, Orton says he’s recognized all the time. Everyone, from locals to tourists, wants a piece of him, he says. “People are lining up, they want their T-shirts signed, they want me to hug their kids, they want me to take pictures with the entire family,” he said, sounding slightly exasperated. “I can’t tell them no.”
Often, someone will call him a hero. So does he feel like one? “I don’t feel like a hero,” Orton said. “I’m a Christian, I feel blessed that, a) It didn’t blow up, and b) That the good Lord put me in that seat, because I believe if it was anyone else, they would have just dismissed it.”
In Month of May, Four Teens Shot Dead In Local Area
June 4, 2010
By JAMES FERGUSSON
Two men were shot dead near PS 279 on Walton Avenue in the early hours of May 23. Police identified the victims at Raffy Taveras, a 19-year-old who lived on Morris Avenue, and Irving Cruz, also 19, of Harlem.
There were no immediate arrests. According to a police source, the shooting was gang-related.
Police have posted flyers in the area asking for the public’s help. “Help us… Help you,” it said. Those with information are asked to call Det. Morales at the 46th Precinct at (718) 220-5216. All information will be kept confidential.
Writing on her blog, a teacher at PS 279 said the school custodian had to arrive early the next day to clean up the blood so the students wouldn’t have to step in it.
The teacher, lamenting the lack of news coverage the murders received, wrote: “[T]he coverage is pretty ho-hum, like it’s totally unsurprising, and therefore okay, that this happened. Compare that reaction to the nation-wide hysteria over the [University of Virginia] student who was killed [in early May]. Not that her death wasn’t a tragedy, but was her life really worth so much more than theirs? If they had grown up where she did they wouldn’t have been running around with gangs, and if she had grown up where they did she probably would have been written off in a few lines in a police blotter.”
Two weeks earlier, at about 2 a.m. on May 9, two youths were killed when a gunman opened fire at a birthday party at 1776 Weeks Ave., an apartment building just north of the Cross Bronx Expressway.
Quanisha Wright, 16, and Marvin Wiggins, 15, were pronounced dead at St. Barnabas Hospital. A 20-year-old woman was also treated for a gunshot wound to the arm.
According to news reports, a group of men had gate-crashed the party earlier that evening, and were thrown out after behaving inappropriately with some of the female guests.
Two of them came back later, this time with a gun, police say. An argument ensued and one of the men – Robert Mitchell of Schiefelin Avenue, police say – opened fire. Witnesses told police that Marvin and Quanisha were killed in the melee as they tried to defend others. Neither were involved in the earlier altercation.
Mitchell, 24, has been charged with murder, as has Dexter Green, 20, who police say handed Mitchell the gun.
Quanisha had celebrated her Sweet 16 birthday party just days earlier.
Drugs Bust on Undercliff Ave. Leads to 15 Arrests
June 4, 2010
By JAMES FERGUSSON
For several years, José “Culebra” Delorbe and his associates ran a highly lucrative drug-dealing operation out of 1571 Undercliff Ave. in Morris Heights, the authorities say.
But their luck – and their freedom – ran out on May 12.
Delorbe, 39, was picked up by the police as he left a nightclub in Washington Heights early that morning. Later that day, the Undercliff building, where he lived, was raided.
In all, 15 people have been arrested and charged with drugs-related offenses. More than $100,000 in cash was siezed, along with 14 pounds of cocaine and heroin, a money-counter, and two guns.
“The residents of 1571 Undercliff Avenue in the Bronx deserve to live, work and raise their children without fear,” said DEA Special Agent John P. Gilbride in a statement after the raid.
“Today these residents and their children are safer than they were yesterday because violent, gun toting, drug slingers have been taken off the streets.”
The arrests follow a seven-month investigation – codename “Operation Cocaine Siesta” – by the Drugs Enforcement Agency, the NYPD, and other groups.
Delorbe, the authorities learned, was renting 11 apartments in all, enabling him to move his stash around. (The building’s superintendent, Jose Jimenez, has also been charged). He had customers from as far away as North Carolina, and provided them with valet services in a nearby parking lot.
Delorbe could be hit with a life-sentence because of a new “”major trafficker” state law that went into effect last year. To be prosecuted under this law, a defendant must have supervised four or more individuals and collected at least $75,000 from drug-sales in a six month period. Delorbe fits this bill, the authorities say.
At May’s 46th Precinct Community Council meeting, Calvin Solomon, the community liaison for the city’s Office of Special Narcotics, called the bust a “major take down.”
He told the audience that a block or tenants association could help dissuade other drug dealers from filling the vacuum Delorbe has left behind. “I think a stabilized block would really be a deterrent to stop this sort of thing happening in the future,” Solomon said.
According to news reports, tenants of the building had long-been aware of what was going on and were relieved to see it over. But one local resident, who lives up the block, said he was surprised when he heard about the raid.
“We had no idea this [drug-dealing] was going on right under our noses,” he said. “To see that in the newspaper, that was amazing. Really, a shock to me that it was so close to home.”
A New Top Cop for the 46th Precinct
May 8, 2010
By JAMES FERGUSSON
Deputy Inspector Timothy Bugge is the new commanding officer of the 46th Precinct. He replaces Inspector Kevin Harrington who’s been reassigned to Bronx Borough Command.
Prior to his arrival at the 4-6, Bugge was the commanding officer of the 4-2 in Morrisania. In a telephone interview, Harrington described him as a “decorated officer, very experienced.”
Harrington had led the 4-6 since March 2005, during which time crime has plummeted. (In the last two years alone, it’s down 21 percent. Citywide, it dropped 13 percent in the same period.) Typically, the NYPD changes precinct heads every two or three years. Harrington’s five year tenure, then, was a long one.
Harrington, a personable and outgoing 39-year-old, called the move “bittersweet.” “I met a lot of great people [in the community] and I have a lot of fine memories,” he said. “And I worked with some of the finest officers in law enforcement.”
Captain John Block, the precinct’s number two, has also moved on.
Both were well-liked in the neighborhood, and will leave a big hole, local residents who knew them said.
“First of all, they were accessible,” said Louella Hatch, the former president of the precinct’s community council, and a longtime Tiebout Avenue resident. “You could talk to them and they would use common sense to deal with you.”
Hatch said she admired Harrington’s hand-ons style, as did Sallie Smith, another local resident. “Not only could you talk to him but if a situation persisted he’d come and take care of it himself,” said Smith, who lives on Valentine Avenue and is a regular at the council’s monthly meetings.
“I hope that wherever he goes he does well, and that whoever comes in is concerned about community feelings,” Smith added. (Aside from keeping crime down, Smith would like the cops to stop parking their personal cars on sidewalks near the precinct, which makes it difficult for seniors such as herself to get around. She’s been complaining about this for more than 20 years – to no avail.)
Earlier this year, Bugge made headlines after a police officer working under him decided to sue the city. Anthony Minoia claims he was transferred to the unpopular night shift because he refused to write parking summonses, and that Bugge punched him. The city disputes Minoia’s version of events. Minoia has been suspended for insubordination and getting into an altercation with a superior, the Daily News reported.
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