Results tagged “bronx”

When parishioners at The Glory of Christ Church in the Parkchester section of The Bronx arrived for service on Sunday morning, they found their church—located in a formerly run-down synagogue that they'd lovingly rescued from decay—reduced to a smoldering ruin. The fire, which broke out around 4 a.m., took 100 firefighters to extinguish and is being investigated as a hate crime. The walls were spray-painted with a pentagram, "666," and "Hail to Satan," along with, "We hate Jews and Christians" and "GET OFF OUR BLOCK." After stealing $300 from the offering box, vandals stacked chairs in the sanctuary and set them on fire.

The Bronx street where police fired 41 shots at an unarmed black man in 1999 has become an unlikely tourist attraction, according to the Daily News.

Today's lesson: If you consumed enough booze to have a blood alcohol level of 0.22—the legal limit is 0.08—you shouldn't be driving! The Post reports, "A public-school teacher whose blood-alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit struck an off-duty cop's car early yesterday in The Bronx, sources said." Plus, cops "found a small amount of marijuana in her purse. Dana Grippon...was [driving] westbound on East 161st Street in Melrose at 5:15 a.m. when she tried to turn onto Courtland Avenue," and ended up colliding with a car going in the opposite direction. The off-duty cop driving the other car "suffered bruises and minor neck injuries." Grippon was charged with DWI and drug possession.

Some more details have emerged about yesterday afternoon's three-car accident on the Bruckner Expressway that claimed the life of a SUV driver and left former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw unharmed but shaken. According to the Daily News, the SUV driver, "A police source said [Suejaes] Estrada, of the Bronx, was speeding. It was unclear whether she was wearing a seat belt."

The four men, arrested back in May for plotting to blow up Bronx synagogues and shoot planes at a National Guard base in Newburgh, NY, will be tried in June of next year. Lawyers for the four defendants had contended that the men were entrapped by the fed's informant, who promised/gave them money and fried chicken dinners, luring them into the plot. But the AP reports the judge "ruled that prosecutors don't have to disclose before trial any payments from a federal informant" to the defendants.

Mayor Bloomberg ignored a letter from an elderly woman begging him to stop the Parks Department from planting two trees in front of her Bronx home, where she's lived for 45 years. 76-year-old Irene McKenzie says leaves from the new trees will be enormous burden, and they'll also aggravate her sensitive allergies when they bloom. But tree-hugging Mayor Bloomberg did nothing to halt the inexorable advance of the trees, and a week before Thanksgiving they were planted, turning her life into a living nightmare:

In the aftermath of three November shootings in which innocent Bronx teens were gunned down, friends of one of the victims are urging witnesses to come forward. Following the death of 17-year-old Issi Ariel Dominguez — who cops believe was not the intended target when a gunman fired into a crowd after a party this weekend — friend Ruthie Gomez told NY1: "You better snitch, we are going to find him. We are going to find whoever did it, I don't care."

While it was previously reported that crack pipes were found in former Knick Dean Meminger's rented room in the Bronx, the NY Post spoke to an FDNY source who said, "We have not found a crack pipe in his room," though the source did acknowledge "at least one crack pipe was found in the building." A four-alarm fire started in the SRO—and later spread to other buildings— and Meminger was found unconscious by firefighters. He is recovering in a burn unit.

This is a pretty crazy time to be a teenager in the Bronx. Another adolescent was gunned down this weekend — this time fatally — with a bullet meant for someone else.

Terrible: Three people were shot when gunmen opened fire in a Bronx store, near East Fordham Road, and it seems that at least one of the victims was a bystander. WABC 7 says the shooting started outside, with two people working inside the florist getting wounded, while the Daily News reports the shooting occurred inside "when the gunman barged in around 6:15 p.m." The store owner's wife was hit in the leg, while a 47-year-old and 25-year-old were also hit. The News adds, "Investigators believe the 25-year-old was the gunman's intended target, a police source said. It was unclear if the two male victims knew each other." No arrests have been made; all victims are in stable condition.

City Island residents have finally gotten rid of the NYPD firing range on nearby Rodman's Neck in the Bronx, which has been disturbing their peace since the Kennedy administration. Last week the City Council approved the site of a 40-acre Police Academy in College Point, Queens, where the NYPD will relocate training to an enclosed firing range. But some residents say their aural nightmare endures!

Police arrested two 3rd graders and a 5th grader suspected of bringing a box cutter and a knife to their Bronx elementary school on Wednesday. According to the Post, a school safety agent nabbed a 9-year-old with a box cutter inside P.S. 2 on Franklin Avenue in Morrisania at around 9:30 am. When questioned, the student ratted out his accomplices — an 8-year-old and an 11-year-old — who reportedly were plotting an assault against a faculty member.

The family of the 15-year-old girl who took a stray bullet to the skull last Monday has something incredible to be thankful for today: doctors expect the teen to make a full recovery. After performing brain surgery to remove the bullet from Vada Vasquez's skull, doctors put her in medically-induced coma and cautioned relatives that she would most likely suffer some degree of brain damage. But now surgeon Narayan Sundaresan believes that although the bullet damaged her left temporal lobe, the area of the brain responsible for speech, she still "can make a full recovery."

Dean Meminger, the former Knicks great nicknamed "The Dream," is in a burn unit at Jacobi Hospital after suffering injuries from a four-alarm fire in the Bronx. The Fire Department is continuing to investigate the cause of the blaze, after reports that crack pipes were found in a building where the fire was started—and some of the crack pipes may have been in Meminger's rented room.

The 15-year-old Bronx girl who was put in a medically-induced coma after taking a stray bullet to the skull has spoken for the first time since the incident, eight days ago. A source tells the Daily News that Vada Vasquez's first word was "Mom." Her condition has been upgraded to stable and a spokeswoman at Lincoln Hospital says, "She's improving. She's in stable condition and recognizes family members."

As dozens of people remain homeless after a Sunday four-alarm fire destroyed homes in the Claremont section of the Bronx, now fire officials suspect the fire began from a crack pipe—and many crack pipes were found in a room of an SRO rented by former Knicks great Dean "The Dream" Meminger. Meminger, 63, suffered smoke inhalation and is in critical condition at a burn unit in Jacobi Hospital.

The mother of the 16-year-old Bronx boy accused of shooting a rival gang member and an innocent young bystander gave her first interview with the press yesterday. In a teary sit-down with the Post, Zelita Mighty explained that she tried to keep her son, Carvett Gentles, away from the gang culture that grips the area around East 169th Street and Boston Road—where her own father was shot nine times in the back when she was a teen. But at some point over the summer, she claims "Zico" [Carvett's nickname] went from being an engaged student who would "proudly bring home attendance and science awards" to a distant young man mixing with his older cousins and uncle—members of the Gorilla Stone Blood gang.

A fire broke out in a Bronx home last night around 9:20 p.m. and quickly spread to neighboring homes, becoming a four-alarm blaze. Ultimately, it took over 200 firefighters and three hours to put out the fire on Findlay Avenue in the Claremont section. Now 45 people (and one cat) are left homeless.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter was in the Bronx on Friday, to settle his World Series bet with Mayor Bloomberg. The two mayors decided not to do a cheesesteak-cheesecake bet (Senators Schumer and Gillibrand did that with Senators Casey and Specter) and instead agreed "that the losing mayor would travel to the winning city to join the winning mayor in a volunteer service project, while wearing the winning team’s jersey." So Nutter wore a jersey with the number 55—for Hideki Matsui—while Bloomberg wore a #27 jersey (for the Yankees' 27th World Series win) while they painted the halls of J.H.S. 131, the Albert Einstein School.

Vada Vasquez, the 15-year-old Bronx student who was shot in the head Monday afternoon by suspects targeting someone else, was taken off her ventilator and remains in critical condition. The intended target spoke to the Daily News, "I'm so sad about what happened to her. I feel terrible. She's innocent, like I'm innocent."

Though prosecutors say he gave a written and videotaped confession, the 16-year-old Bronx boy accused of shooting two teens on a crowded street Monday afternoon pleaded not guilty at his arraignment yesterday. As his mother wept in the third row of the courtroom, Carvett Gentles and four other young men—all members of the "Gorilla Stone Blood" gang—were arraigned and sent to Rikers Island without bail. Gentles lawyer maintained his client's innocence, insisting, "He does well in school, he comes from a nice family." But some members of this "nice family" happen to be the older gang members who allegedly handed Gentles the gun and told him to shoot—because he was the only one without an arrest record.

A 16-year-old boy has confessed to the Monday afternoon shooting that left a Bronx girl in a medically-induced coma. Carvett Gentles, a sophomore at Bronx Leadership Academy who rarely attended class, had no criminal record before this week, and police believe that's why the .40-caliber pistol used in the shooting was passed to him, in a street version of "hot potato." The four other young men who were with him Monday afternoon all have extensive arrest records, and those boys—also members of a Bloods gang spin-off called "Gorilla Stone Blood"—passed the gun around until it ended up in Gentles's hands.

Police have arrested five young men allegedly involved in the altercation that led to the shooting of innocent bystander Vada Vasquez, a 15-year-old Bronx girl who was chatting with a friend after school Monday afternoon when a stray bullet struck her in the head, shattering inside her skull. She is currently in critical condition and on a ventilator. The bullets were directed at Tyrone Creighton, 19, who was hit in the back as he fled five men who had confronted him outside a bodega near Bronx Latin School. Police believe revenge was the motive.

Take 100 middle school students, dozens of soccer balls, and one confined space and what do you get? A lawsuit! The staff at Intermediate School 219 in the Bronx used that dangerous recipe to pass by a rainy day last year. One dodgeball expert told the Daily News, "The force of those balls going across the gymnasium, especially thrown by middle school students, could be quite strong."

A 15-year-old Bronx teen, not too far from her school in the Morrisania section, was shot in the head by a stray bullet yesterday afternoon. She had apparently walked into a dispute between two men—the Daily News reports, "As Vada Vasquez underwent emergency brain surgery, cops hunted for a bicycle-riding gunman who fired wildly at a man suspected of being a snitch." The apparent target of the gunfire, a 19-year-old man, was also shot in the abdomen and leg and taken to a hospital.

For well over two years now, Bronx gym teacher and coach Dan Smith has been sidelined in one of the Department of Education's infamous "rubber rooms," thanks to an allegation of sexual misconduct in March 2007. But while other teachers (over 600 hundred of them!) use their rubber room time to play Sudoku and nap, Smith has been hatching a plan to get out.

As if watching NFL football wasn't torture enough, a Bronx man claims he was literally tortured by his guests at his Super Bowl party last year. Michael Terry, 40, says he invited his drug-dealing neighbors over to watch the big game, but after the Giants defeated the Patriots, his guests overstayed their welcome, and used his apartment to sell drugs to other buyers. When he tried to throw them out, Terry says they handcuffed him to a chair and put him through hell.

Dios mio; on Saturday Nestle is opening its first U.S. "Nestlé Pure Life Mercado del Agua" (Water Store) to "bring the benefits of Nestlé Pure Life Purified Water to the Hispanic community." And they've got Hispanic TV personality and Pure Life spokesperson Cristina Saralegui to appear at the grand opening to help target the demographic. In the press release announcing the store, Saralegui (the Hispanic Oprah) says, "It is my privilege to join Nestlé Waters in celebrating the grand opening... I want to help increase awareness for our community about how drinking water is critical to living a healthy lifestyle."

The story of the 13-year-old who jumped to his death from his Mosholu Parkway apartment building keeps getting more tragic. The Bronx teen's mother — who was cooking dinner for her son when he took his own life — saw him take his fatal leap, the Daily News reports.

Following the suspension of a Bronx English teacher who assigned 11th graders a short story about tragic masturbation attempts, students have defended the instructor while adults have expressed skepticism over his decision. Louella Hatch, whose grandson attends the Bronx School of Law and Finance, is one of the adults who objects to teacher Greg Van Voorhis' assignment of "Guts" by "Fight Club" author Chuck Palahniuk. "Well, I really don't go for that. Well, I'm old fashioned anyway, but I don't like things like that," she said. "If it is true, he can't still be around the school, you know?" she added.