City Island Cools Off
Following days of scorching temperatures, City Island received showers which will temporarily cool us all off.
Expect partly cloudy. A stray afternoon thunderstorm is possible. High 86F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.
Rent Stabilized Battle Heats Up
New York State legislators are at war in Albany over renewing the rent laws that protect tenants affecting some 200,000 Bronx apartments.
With that Emergency Tenant Protection Act set to expire by Wednesday, many politicians are pushing for tougher rent laws. They wish to eliminate the loophole which allows landlords to remove units from rent stabilization.
If this affects you or anyone you know, please tell them to contact our state representatives now!
NY Philharmonic Tunes Out
Classical music fans and NYC Parks lovers are disappointed because the New York Philharmonic has canceled its free 2011 summer performances this year. Calls to the public relations office of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation were deflected before the orchestra made its formal announcement.
The Philharmonic will be offering one free concert, with Andrea Bocelli singing, on September 15.
They also said the program should return next year.
Bronx Foreclosure Center Opens
The Bronx Foreclosure Center is located at Bronx Civil Court. The Center will be staffed by counselors who will give free legal and housing advice to those in danger of losing their homes.
All to often homeowners at risk of foreclosure don’t know their rights, or the help that is available to them. By having a Foreclosure Center in the Bronx Court House, homeowners at risk of losing the American Dream will be able to seek assistance faster and find ways to keep both their homes and their financial security.
NYC Severe Weather Warning
The National Weather Service is forecasting the heat index will exceed 100 degrees tomorrow June 9th. Additionally, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has issued an Air Quality Health Advisory for the New York City Metropolitan Area from 2PM to 10PM.
In response to these conditions, NYC Cooling Centers will be open.
Visit www.nyc.gov/oem or call 311 for locations and details on these advisories.
Bronx Beatles... Yeah, yeah...etc.
One of The Beatles has booked a concert at Yankee Stadium. Paul McCartney, who first played at Shea Stadium not 20 years ago today, but 46 years, with his other three colleagues is now coming to The Bronx to shake it up baby...etc.
BARTOW-PEL MANSION MUSEUM AND NYC PARKS SPONSOR ANNE HUTCHINSON FESTIVAL
Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum and the City of New York Parks & Recreation will celebrate the 420th anniversary of Anne Hutchinson’s birth with a festival at BPMM on Sunday, June 12 from 12 to 4 p.m. Hutchinson (1591-1643), a Puritan who eventually settled in what is now the Bronx, was an outspoken advocate for freedom of religion and equality of women in religious matters. She was eventually tried for heresy. The festival, which is free and open to the public, is one of a year-long calendar of Bronx events to honor her.
Games, crafts, storytelling, and more will be ongoing throughout the afternoon.
The Bronx Arts Ensemble, under the direction of Bill Scribner, will perform English madrigals of the 17th century, in costume. Quartet members are Kate Smith, soprano; Johanna Brom, mezzo; Joseph Rubinstein, tenor; and Robert Osborne, bass.
Shelley Volk will demonstrate colonial herbs and will discuss herbal medicine during the 17th century.
Visitors will have the opportunity to help plant an Anne Hutchinson herb garden at BPMM.
Maria and Michael Grillo will be performing as a 17th-century elementary school teacher and school master, respectively, and will discuss education and the role of women in Anne Hutchinson’s time. They will have period writing paper, quill pens, and hornbooks on display.
Native American storyteller Bobby Gonzalez will share tales celebrating Lenape Native American culture, including The Origin of Turtle Island, The Boy Who Lived with the Bears, and The First Corn.
Urban Park Rangers will demonstrate colonial games, such as hoops, and colonial crafts, such as corn husk dolls, and children will have the opportunity to participate.
The Festival culminates with a talk on Anne Hutchinson by Bronx resident Tom Vasti at 3:00 p.m.
Protest Planned on Proposed School Plan
Lehman HS is one of our local public high schools, whose future is in doubt. The UFT has filed a law suit to stop any shutdowns, They claim that Mayor Bloomberg has created a system that favors charter schools, while failing traditional schools.
Meanwhile, there are six Bronx schools, including Lehman, which is slated to close, will instead "restart" with oversight from a nonprofit group. However, the mayor's proposed budget cuts include more than 4,000 teacher layoffs, affecting 11% of educators in the South Bronx.
MOZART'S CHILDHOOD COMPOSITIONS, J. D. SALINGER LETTER, AND LORD BYRON'S DON JUAN MANUSCRIPT DISPLAYED AT THE MORGAN
ALSO INCLUDED IS THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT BANNING SLAVERY - The landmark thirteenth amendment, dated April 8, 1864, declared that "Neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States." This was the first change made to the Constitution since 1804, and represents the first substantial expansion of civil liberties since the ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791. The Morgan's document is written on vellum and countersigned by Abraham Lincoln.
BRONX - Do not give way to evil - "Ne cede malis"
City Island, The Bronx is the northernmost most point of all the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last bunch of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated. Located north of Manhattan and Queens, and south of Westchester County, the Bronx is the only borough on the US mainland. In 2011, the US Census Bureau estimated the borough's population was 1,400,761. The Bronx covers a land area of 42 square miles (109 km2). This makes the Bronx the fourth-most-populated of the five boroughs, the fourth-largest in land area, and the third-highest in density of population.
The borough is divided by the Bronx River into a hillier section in the west, closer to Manhattan, and the flatter East Bronx, closer to Long Island. The West Bronx was annexed to New York City (then largely confined to Manhattan) in 1874, and the areas east of the Bronx River in 1895. The Bronx first assumed a distinct legal identity when it became a borough of New York in 1898. Bronx County, with the same boundaries as the borough, was separated from New York County (afterwards coextensive with the Borough of Manhattan) as of January 1, 1914. Although the Bronx is the third-most-densely-populated county in the U.S., about a quarter of its area is open space, including Pelham Park, NYC largest, Woodlawn Cemetery, Van Cortlandt Park, the New York Botanical Garden and the Bronx Zoo in the borough's north and center, on land deliberately reserved in the late 19th century as urban development progressed northwards and eastwards from Manhattan with the building of roads, bridges and railways.