Editor’s note: The Bronx Breakdown is a re-imagined and re-invigorated version of what we once called “Friday News & Notes,” which was lacking in both an interesting title and consistency. We’ll be experimenting a little in this space, but for the most part, the weekly Breakdown, which will appear Friday afternoons, will consist of (1) a subjective breakdown of the week’s biggest and most intriguing news stories, (2) tidbits and newsbits we’ve come across and thought you should know about (3) a youtube clip, probably from Bronx Assemblyman and amateur Scorsese, Jose Rivera and (4) recommendations for things to do in the Bronx this weekend. So settle in, grab a cup of coffee or a Bronx Brewery Pale Ale and enjoy the Breakdown.

A Fond Farewell to Sal the Pizza Man
Writing about the retirement of legendary local pizza man Sal Calces, now former owner of Sal’s Pizza on Bainbridge Avenue, for this week’s edition of the Norwood News was bitter sweet. Bitter, because it means Sal, a Norwood-area fixture for more than three decades, won’t be around anymore. His warmth and charisma will be greatly missed by me and countless others. But sweet because it’s fun to write about someone that people genuinely love.

It also meant spending a good hour just talking to Sal in the restaurant he put his whole life into for 31 years. There were a couple of interesting details that came out of our conversation and other interviews I conducted that didn’t make it into the print piece and I wanted to share them here.

Sal will miss the restaurant and his customers more than they will miss him. He truly loved his customers; he called them his “people” and his “family.” But even more than that, Sal won’t know what to do with himself without the responsibilities that came with running Sal’s Pizza and Restaurant. When I went to interview him, he was hauling supplies up from the basement storage room. At 62, he was still intimately involved in every aspect of the restaurant’s operation, flitting back and forth from kitchen to front counter to checking in with customers as they ate.

He told me he never spent more than a few days away from the restaurant at a time, even when he would go back to Italy to visit family. Once, in the mid-1980s back when Sal’s was a smaller shop on East 205th Street, he said he went back to the old country for two weeks and when he returned: “Everything was different. Everything tasted different. It all changed. I don’t know what happened.” From that point on, he vowed to never be apart from his beloved pizza shop for more than a short time. Two and a half decades later, he’s still upset about the time “everything changed.” But that’s probably what kept people coming back. They could count on Sal’s. (And people do come back, even after they’ve moved out of the neighborhood.)

There’s an interesting circular feel to the story that also makes it sweet. Sal seemed to appreciate the fact that he was handing the business off to a relatively young man. Sal was 31 when he opened Sal’s in Norwood in 1980. The new owner, Musa Nesheiwat, is 32 and from what I gathered talking to him earlier this week, he’d like to enjoy a Sal-like run as owner.

He’s also instituting a delivery option, an idea Sal steadfastly refused to entertain despite the demand for it. Nesheiwat says people call all the time asking for delivery service even though Sal’s hasn’t sent a pie out of the shop unless it’s in the hands of a customer for more than 30 years.

One other note: When I took my family to Sal’s last week, he offered to take my 10-month-old daughter for a minute while I unloaded all of my stuff. She took to him right away, smiling and giggling as he made funny faces and noises at her. “She likes you,” I told him. Sal smiled and shook his head: “I don’t know what it is, babies, kids, they love me.” That’s Sal. He exudes a warmth and caring nature that is difficult to explain but easy to like. Jordan Moss, the former editor of the Norwood News, stopped by on Wednesday evening to say goodbye on Sal’s last night at Sal’s. Moss said people were crying as Sal stuffed free bottles of wine into their take-out orders. Cheers, Sal.

VIP to Return
Speaking of local restaurants, we hear VIP Restaurant, which was forced to shut down after a fire broke out in an apartment five floors above it way back in late July, will be re-opening on Monday. That’s not set in stone, but gas service was restored today and that was the last remaining obstacle. We’ll keep you posted.

Bronx Household of Faith Putting Faith in Supreme Court
This past spring, I wrote an in-depth piece about the Bronx Household of Faith’s efforts to continue holding worship services inside PS/MS 15 in University Heights. City attorneys have vigorously fought to keep churches from worshiping inside public school walls and won an appeals court decision on June 3 upholding their position. But Bronx Household, backed by Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a conservative Christian legal group (Bronx Household Pastor Bob Hall calls it “the ACLU for Christians”), appealed the decision all the way up to the Supreme Court. (The Daily News wrote about this Monday.)

Hall says the Supreme Court will decide by Monday whether or not it decides to review the case. If it doesn’t take the case, the ruling in favor of the city will be upheld, church’s will be out of schools starting Jan. 1 and Bronx Household will once again be in search of affordable worship space, which is scarce to say the least.

Bronx Household and the ADF believe the city’s exclusion of private religious groups violates their Constitutional rights under the First Amendment. This ruling will affect dozens of other church’s who hold worship services at city schools, including Love Gospel Assembly. Their building burned down more than a year ago and while they raise funds to repair it, they’ve been congregating at MS 399.

Alleged Bronx Political Corruption Update
The Bronx’s two most legally-challenged politicians — former State Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. and Councilman Larry Seabrook — filled headlines again this week. Espada, facing a trial on criminal corruption charges, experienced a minor victory when a judge ruled this week that his Soundview Healthcare clinics can stay open — for now — in the hopes that a deal can be struck with the state’s Medicaid Inspector, which cut the health network off in September because stands accused of abusing Medicaid funds for his own personal gain. The trial is supposed to begin early next year.

Meanwhile, Seabrook’s trial, also on corruption charges, concluded this week with Bagel Larry’s lawyers arguing that prosecutors were relying on flimsy and highly circumstantial evidence. Prosecutors responded by saying Seabrook’s a crook and they indeed proved it. Either way, it’s clear Seabrook is directly responsible for mishandling and wasting hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, as the Times’ Jim Dwyer points out in his column today.

What You Should Do This Weekend
This is another plug for Norwood News photographer Adi Talwar’s exhibition in Chelsea, which opened last night and features many local photos that appeared in the paper (only in giant, beautiful prints). The Illuminated Metropolis Gallery, where it’s showing until the end of December, is open on Fridays (1-5 p.m.) and Saturdays (12-6 p.m.). Check it out.

Yideo Clip of the Week
Earlier today we launched a new feature on Breaking Bronx called “Bronx Stars of Tomorrow”, periodic profiles and Q&As with young Bronx people doing exciting and exemplary things. Today, we published a Q&A with Brian Gilbert, a multi-talented young man from Co-op City who plays a role in “Son of No One,” a movie currently out in theaters starring native Bronxite Al Pacino and a few other big name stars. It turns out Gilbert, who also writes screenplays and is a part-time Little League coach, is also a rapper. Below is a video he’s featured in. Look out Donald Glover and Common, a new actor/rapper, with Boogie Down blood lines, is entering the arena.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.