Employment

Neighborhood Notes on Redistricting, Bronx Bus Redesign, Booster Vaccinations & More!

Missing Local People  A 10-year-old boy has been reported missing from Jerome Park. For more information, click here A 23-year-old man has been reported missing from Olinville. For more information, click here. A 13-year-old girl has been reported missing form Laconia. For more information, click here. An 85-year-old man has been reported missing from Williamsbridge. For more information, click here.     COVID-19 Updates On June 24, 2021, New York State ended the State disaster emergency (PAUSE order) declared on March 7, 2020, to fight COVID-19. On Sept. 15, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a series of universal mask requirements designed


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Environmental Review Completed for Metro-North Penn Station Access & Four New Bronx Stations

By SÍLE MOLONEY
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced on Monday, Sept. 27, that the environmental review process for the Metro-North Penn Station Access Project is complete. The milestone makes four new stations in the Bronx as well as direct Metro-North service to Penn Station from the Bronx, Westchester, and Connecticut a step closer to reality.   Acting MTA chair and CEO, Janno Lieber, said it was an important milestone for a project and will give people in several, transit-deprived areas of the East Bronx access to jobs, education, health care and everything New York and Connecticut have to offer. “By making use


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State Comptroller: Bronx Residents Have $353,393,103.00 in Unclaimed Funds

By SÍLE MOLONEY
New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli recently announced that Bronx residents have $353,393,103.00 in unclaimed funds waiting to be paid.   According to the State comptroller’s office, banks, insurance companies, corporations and the courts are among the many organizations required by law to report dormant accounts to the State comptroller. These organizations must attempt to notify residents by mail regarding such dormant accounts, and publish the information in newspapers.   According to the City, monies paid to the courts for legal matters, are held in an interest-bearing, NYC Department of Finance common trust account. Deposits and withdrawals of court


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Bronx “COVID Ditty” Show Wins International Film Festival Awards

By SARAH HUFFMAN
During the height of the statewide shutdown in 2020, brought on by the need to curtail the spread of the deadly coronavirus, actor, director and writer, Steve Greenstein, like many others, was subjected to long periods of boredom.   Lack of work in New York City’s normally thriving entertainment industry prompted him to begin taking walks around the Bronx’s Kingsbridge neighborhood, where he took the time to observe how the pandemic was affecting his community.   His thoughts on this prompted Greenstein to begin writing the web show series, “COVID Ditty,” fulfilling a dual need in the actor to stay


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CUNY Professors, Students Continue Protests against Budget Cuts ahead of Return to In-Person Learning

By DAVID GREENE
Before the return to in-person learning this fall, a group made up of staff and students at some Bronx-based City University of New York (CUNY) colleges, vowed to continue their “caravan” protest tactic of driving lines of vehicles past the homes of two CUNY college presidents, to continue to demonstrate their opposition to lay-offs of almost 2,000 adjunct professors that took place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as reported.   The protestors say CUNY is sitting on $4.8 million in CARES Act funding and funding from the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA) which could be


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UPDATE Neighborhood Notes on 9/11 Commemoration, Back-to-School Events, Help with Flooding & More

  9/11 Memorial Events Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and the Supreme Court of Bronx County is hosting a 9/11 memorial service on Monday, 13th Sept. at noon, at Lou Gehrig Plaza. See attached flyer for more information.   Partnerships for Parks announced that on Saturday, October 16th, nearly 1,000 volunteers will gather in parks across the city for Fall IMP-act Day, the group’s annual citywide park beautification day.   For the 20th anniversary of 9/11, volunteers will begin planting 70,000 daffodil bulbs which will bloom in the spring of 2022, honoring the lives lost to the terrorist attacks through the Daffodil


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UPDATE: Ridgewood Savings Bank Sedgwick Avenue Branch to Remain Open Finally

By SÍLE MOLONEY
Ridgewood Savings Bank (“Ridgewood”) announced Wednesday, Sept. 1, that its Sedgwick Avenue branch, located at 3899 Sedgwick Avenue in the Van Cortlandt Village section of the Bronx, will finally remain open. In May, the bank had announced the branch was expected to close, as reported, much to the disappointment of residents.       “We are very pleased to make this announcement,” said Leonard Stekol, Ridgewood Savings Bank chairman, president and CEO. “It’s truly exciting to remain a part of this great community and to continue to provide the award-winning banking services and community programming to which our customers are accustomed.” 


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Chase Bank Branch on Burnside Avenue Reopens

By JOSÉ A. GIRALT
  After an almost two-year wait, a new Chase Bank branch has opened at 7 E. Burnside Avenue, just east of Jerome Avenue on the border of Fordham Heights and Mount Hope, close to the University Heights border. A former Chase branch located at 5 W. Burnside Avenue closed in October 2019, serving a blow to the local community. The impact of that closure was compounded by the subsequent closure of a local Amalgamated Bank branch in September 2020, as reported.   Elected officials, including Congressman Ritchie Torres (NY-15) and Assemblyman Victor Pichardo (A.D. 86) delivered remarks at the grand


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NYC Urges Bronxites to “Shop Your City,” as Small Business Commissioner Tours Fordham Road

By JOSÉ A. GIRALT
  Last spring The New York Times described Fordham Road as one of the city’s “retail zones [that] have bounced back.” The article included data that described the Bronx as a borough that had lost 40 percent of its businesses, had the highest rate of COVID-19 deaths, and an unemployment rate near 18 percent. Yet, the biggest shopping district in the Bronx, Fordham Road with its 175 storefronts, located between Washington and Jerome Avenues, has retained a 3 percent vacancy rate, the same as before the pandemic hit.   The significance of the robust numbers is not lost on city


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