Tensions between residents of neighborhoods on both sides of Mosholu Parkway remain high after a shooting two months ago, but a coalition of community groups, elected officials, police and concerned residents have spent the summer working to alleviate some of the underlying problems.

Those involved with the coalition, known as the Safe Streets task force, say that although some tangible results have been achieved, there is still a long way to go.

After the shooting in early May, which hospitalized four young Ghanaian men from Tracey Towers, residents from the building, young and old, broke down emotionally and cried out for help during two town hall-style meetings at the 871-unit complex.

(Two suspects from the Knox-Gates section of Norwood were arrested for the shooting, but the victims refused to press charges and the suspects were released. Residents from Tracey and Knox-Gates say there is a long-standing and violent beef between the youth and young adults in both communities.)

A bevy of elected officials attended the second meeting and vowed to work to create solutions that would benefit the teens and young adults in both the short and long term. After the meeting, Deputy Borough President Earl Brown said he would organize all the relevant stakeholders to identify resources and implement a plan of action.

Last Friday, those stakeholders gathered for the fourth time (minus Brown who was on vacation and the elected officials except Jamin Sewell, a representative for Council Member Oliver Koppell) and continued to hammer out a plan. Mostly, the discussions have centered on short-term goals, such as providing youth with programs and services as alternatives to violence and gang activity, and long-term goals such as empowering youth, engaging parents and generally creating a more peaceful environment.

‘Deficit of services’

"A lot of these things take time," Brown said before leaving for vacation. "We know there’s a deficit of services in the community, so it’s our challenge to identify the services that we need."

At the center of those services is the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC), the Norwood hub that provides everything from day care to senior art classes.

For the past few years, MMCC has run a part-time youth center inside Tracey. Usually that program shuts down during the summer, but thanks to Safe Streets discussions and additional funding from Koppell, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, and Tracey property managers, the youth center will remain open through August and run continuously through the school year.

MMCC is also expanding its umbrella to include management of the COVE, a youth center in Knox-Gates run by the Knox-Gates Neighborhood Association until a few weeks ago. As a result, the COVE is able to provide more programs and extended hours.

Tracey residents say it’s gang-affiliated teens and unemployed young adults who instigate much of the violence between the two communities, though no one would say the conflict is one-sided.

The short-term goal is to keep both groups busy, but in the long run, especially at Knox-Gates, the goal is to reach out to the disaffected young adults, many of whom are unemployed.

Don Bluestone, MMCC’s executive director, said he wants to eventually hire a "street worker" to build relationships with Knox-Gates’ young adults. That way, Bluestone explains, it will be easier to direct them to some of the educational and job training programs that MMCC already provides.

"You can’t refer them to those things [job training and education opportunities] without first gaining their trust," Bluestone said. "Now, that’s not going to happen overnight."

Brown said another long-term solution includes engaging parents. At the second town hall meeting, several young men from Tracey expressed the need for more discipline in their lives and implored adults to instill that discipline because no one else will do the job.

To this end, Brown brought to the table Council for Unity, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing violence in communities. In the future, the council is looking to implement locally a pilot parent-engagement program with the help of the city teachers union.

Meanwhile, the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition (NWBCC) is using its youth arm, Sistas and Brothas United (SBU), to organize and empower the youth in both camps. The coalition has a youth organizer in DeWitt Clinton High School, which students attend from both sides of the parkway, and has already begun to reach out to youth at Tracey Towers. Sometime in August, the group hopes to use area youth (from Tracey and Knox-Gates) in creating a concert in Van Cortlandt Park to foster dialogue, unity and peace.

Forging a peace

Following the shooting, in an effort to forge a peace, many adults (but not the youth) wanted police to designate the area between Tracey and Knox-Gates an Impact Zone, which would have temporarily flooded the neighborhood with foot-patrolling rookie cops. When in play, Impact Zones have proven effective, but on Friday at the meeting, Deputy Inspector James Alles, the commander of the 52nd Precinct, nixed that plan, saying downtown wouldn’t authorize it. The biggest reason, he said, was that statistics didn’t back up the need. Tracey residents say many incidents go unreported because the victims are illegal immigrants and fear deportation. Alles said if victims report crimes anonymously then the police can at least record them to identify larger trends.

Now, despite hitting snags including not being able to secure a Police Athletic League play street for Tracey youth on Paul Avenue (it was too late in the summer) and SBU still negotiating with property managers about how to go about outreach efforts in Tracey buildings (they reached a compromise at the Friday meeting), and the slow allocation of anti-violence funding that Koppell hopes to secure, there appears to be movement and, perhaps more importantly, dialogue.

It’s even created some unusual alliances. Sam Gillian, the president of the Tracey Towers Tenant Association, is used to butting heads with management over repairs and rent hikes, but now he’s working with them to create solutions to social problems as part of the Safe Streets task force.

"I didn’t sign up for this," said Gillian, an ex-teacher with a dry wit, "but that’s okay. I like problems."