Dear Fellow Readers:

How much does your neighborhood mean to you? For some, it’s a place to reside. For others, it’s a place to build a family. Whether transient or a mainstay, we are all products of a neighborhood, charged up by its tempo and space.

In the Bronx, a kaleidoscope of communities east and west, north and south, give the borough a uniqueness unlike most of the city. If you look to the west, a bustling Fordham shopping district sees some 80,000 people overrun the ever-growing strip while City Island, resting at the eastern tip of the Bronx, offers a noise-free community more so than in all the five boroughs. Longtime Norwood resident Betty Diane Arce refers to her neighborhood as a little village. We happen to think so too (more on the neighborhood can be found on the next page).

In this neighborhood edition brought to you by the Norwood News, we take you around some neighborhoods in the borough, talking to residents on what makes their neighborhood a special one. The perspectives will range, particularly the first-person narrative piece on City Island found on page 8. For each neighborhood we profiled lay a common denominator: a resident’s pride. You’ll hear from residents who break down why their neighborhood fits them.

Admittedly, with only 12 pages for this edition, we wish we could have included more communities. The Bronx holds a special place in my heart. It’s one of those boroughs whose climb from its darkest days makes it a true underdog story. It’s one of those boroughs still trying to reclaim a golden period once seen during the 1800s when it was seen as a new frontier. To build upon its recent successes is to use these solid neighborhoods as its foundation.

Lastly, good or bad, communities have a way of transforming its residents. Like a human body, a neighborhood’s lifeblood is comprised of its residents. If it’s good blood, then good things will happen. Bad blood, something different altogether. Good communities don’t just happen. It takes neighbors talking to one another to build upon a common good. The American writer, Pearl S. Buck, wrote that people isolated from others “will not succeed as a human being.”

“His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration,” Buck concluded.

So pass along the Norwood News’ “In Your Neighborhood Edition.” We haven’t devoted an entire edition to one theme in our almost 28-year history, and we thought this could certainly break the ice in our endeavor. Depending on the response of this edition, we could revisit this topic again in the near future.

Of course, we wouldn’t be able to gauge readers without them reaching out to us. Send letters of praise or criticism to David Cruz, editor-in-chief of the Norwood News, at dcruz@norwoodnews.org. We hope you enjoy this edition and come back to the next edition on Sept. 1 when we resume our regular news coverage.

David Cruz
Editor-in-Chief
Norwood News