As the head of the venerable Horace Mann School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, Westchester county native and veteran educator Thomas Kelly admits that it’s all about the teaching.

“Each and every moment that we are together is a teachable moment, one in which both students and teachers challenge each other to mine their worth for all it’s worth,” said Kelly, who has been involved in teaching since his junior year in college and whose daughter Emma Rose has been a student at the school since he took the helm eight years ago.

Kelly, who holds several education degrees including a Ph.D. from Columbia Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and Teachers’ College, said that “hands down, it’s the life of the mind that looms large for everyone within the Horace Mann family.”

He adds that the school’s rigorous academic program is what keeps students motivated and energized, always thinking in entrepreneurial ways. In addition, said Kelly, there is the strong sense of community at Horace Mann School. “At every layer, there is a connective tissue that allows us to both celebrate and care for each other in highly personalized ways.”

The Mann school, with 1,816 students and 240 faculty members, has been in existence for 125 years and functions as a complete private school serving grades N-12 with an 18-acre main campus in Riverdale and a 275-acre outdoor education center in Bethlehem, Conn. The school is one of the 10 largest day schools in the country and was ranked as the second best prep school in the country by Forbes magazine in 2010.

Notable alumni include Pedro Alvarez, a 2005 Mann graduate who now plays Major League baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates, as well as Samuel Newhouse, a media executive who is one of the top 50 richest Americans.

According to Kelly, some highlights of the school include special events, such as the sixth-grade trip to Colonial Williamsburg, climbing atop a 50-foot Cooperative Adventure Tower at the Dorr Nature Laboratory in Connecticut, or the Middle Division Read-In day, when all students celebrate the same piece of literature.

Kelly said he is especially thankful for the school’s John Dorr Nature Laboratory, where by way of scripted experiences, middle-division students learn essential team-building and healthy risk-taking skills, all while developing a greater appreciation for the physical environment and the need to think carefully about each individual’s carbon footprint.

Speaking more generally about Horace Mann’s academic offerings, Kelly said, “From the core academics to the arts, to the programs at John Dorr, to athletics, and to our robust co-curricular programs, all aspects of the teaching-learning process are valued equally at Horace Mann School.”

Parents of Horace Mann students had nothing but glowing comments on the school and its stellar reputation. “We feel very fortunate to have found the perfect school for our son—one that constantly stimulates him to stretch his mind and exercise his curiosity within an environment that makes him feel safe and nurtured and that makes learning fun, with unparalleled resources to make it all possible,” said Susan, a parent of a 2019 Mann School graduate.  “What more could a parent wish for?” she asked.

Via Wiki Commons

The New York Times is reporting Con Ed may have overcharged numerous electricity consumers this summer because of limited access to meters during the lockout. Many customers were charged more than ever despite, in some cases, being out of town for much of the summer.

(by Alissa Fleck)

At first, reports the Times, Con Ed blamed July’s supposedly unusually warm weather conditions. After the Times called their bluff, explaining July was in fact not as hot as July of 2011, Con Ed changed their tune, blaming “union troubles,” according to Gothamist.

Con Ed decided charges based on meters in Staten Island, Westchester County and the Bronx which the company could read remotely during the lockout. A spokesman for Con Ed said meter readings in those locations were “10 to 15 percent higher than what [they] anticipated [them] to be during July.” Because of this, the company decided to add approximately 10 percent to electricity consumption estimates for customers whose meters were not read in July, reports the Times.

Reportedly, Con Ed will adjust consumers’ bills to the appropriate amount if they can prove they were overcharged. The bigger issue seems to be Con Ed taking its customers for a bunch of rubes.

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

New shelters are opening across the City, as a record number of homeless New Yorkers  hits the streets. According to the New York Times, the 43,731 homeless people currently in shelters is an 18% jump from last year. The City has already had to open five shelters in the Bronx, and two in Manhattan and Brooklyn each, to accommodate the rising population.

Gothamist reports this rise in homelessness directly coincides with the City cutting Advantage, a program which helps subsidize apartments for formerly homeless people who maintain employment for two years. A weak economy and rising housing costs are also to blame, according to Patrick Markee, a senior policy analyst with the Coalition for the Homeless, reports the Times. 

Seth Diamond, the commissioner of homeless services, told the Times the program was very effective, and its abrupt end has made things difficult. Illegal hotels in the City are now being transformed into shelters, while some still retain long-term residents alongside the formerly homeless tenants.

The Times also reported neighbors frequently only receive a few weeks notice of homeless shelters cropping up in their areas. Emergency procedure allows for these shelters to be instituted by the City, without the City consulting Community Boards (though they must be notified in advance). Homeless shelters are required by New York law, though there are often limits on how long a person can stay.

“The current shelter census is the highest ever, officials said; the number does not represent the total homeless population in the city, because some people avoid the shelter system,” reported the Times. There are currently 228 homeless shelters in the City.

—Alissa Fleck

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

One 9-year-old Bronx boy is sure to be traumatized for awhile following an incident last Wednesday. NBC reports a man, who appeared to be about 50, pushed the young boy into a wall after following him into his apartment and then robbed him, before making off on a bicycle. The boy, Jacky Saunders, had made a brief errand to a nearby bodega to buy soap for his aunt, and had about $19 in cash in his hand. The robbery took place in the Fordham section of the Bronx, and the perpetrator is still on the loose.

The NY Post is calling this just the latest in a string of crimes, targeting children, a so-called “kiddie crime wave.” Saunders is at least the fourth victim of a crime involving an adult robbing a child, since early July, reports the Post. A 2-year-old and 3-year-old, respectively, were recently robbed around the City of jewelry they were wearing.

—Alissa Fleck

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

by Alissa Fleck

Violence is on the rise in the City this summer and cops blame everything from heat waves to the recession to tensions caused by—the ultimate hot-button issue—stop-and-frisk (or would that be the impending soda ban?). Unfortunately, either way, the City’s housing projects seem to suffer most in times like these. While it’s nearly impossible to point to the City’s most dangerous projects, here we report on conditions in four of the most problematic and dilapidated repeat-offenders.

 4. Sheepshead-Nostrand

“Cops Resond to Call for Jumper at Nostrand Houses, Turns Out to be Elevator Repairman” reads a recent headline from Sheepshead Bites, Sheepshead Bay’s self-proclaimed “only independent news blog.” The story continues: “If you saw heavy police activity turn up near [Sheepshead-Nostrand Housing Projects] at around 2:30 p.m. today, the answer is no, it wasn’t another violent incident in the [projects]. It was just an elevator repairman.”

Nonetheless, this mishap speaks volumes about what you can expect at Sheepshead-Nostrand on any given day. The blog also reported the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) recently recommended the NYPD implement terrorism task force technology in this Bed-Stuy housing project. A commenter on the blog speaks to the level of disrepair in the project: “What this goes to show is that seeing a repairman on a roof actually fixing something gave the residents such shock, that they could not comprehend as to why anyone would be up there.”

3. Brownsville Houses 

Brownsville is the highest housing project concentration area in Brooklyn, and generally considered one of the City’s most dangerous neighborhoods. There are 18 projects in the mile and a half stretch of Brownsville, including the Brownsville development, which contains 27 buildings.

James Brodick, project director of Brownsville Community Justice Center, described Brownsville as 100,000 people “living on top of each other,” which certainly sounds like a recipe for disaster. Brodick also offered up generations of poverty issues and territorial disputes as deeply rooted causes the Brownsville projects have so much consistent trouble avoiding infamy’s spotlight.

2. Marcy Projects

News One For Black America released a list of “The 7 Most Infamous U.S. Public Housing Projects.” Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects ranked #2. While news reports point to the human danger in Bed-Stuy’s Marcy Projects, a perhaps greater concern is three-foot rats might get to you before anyone else does.

1. Pelham Parkway 

It might be enough to say residents of the Pelham Parkway Complex in the Bronx, which recently witnessed the murder of an 88-year-old grandmother, refer to a section of the project as “Siberia” and refuse to set foot there. City Councilman James Vacca, who oversees the Bronx district that includes Pelham, knows exactly where Siberia is located. Violence spills over into the community, he reports, which manifests in the numerous shootings at stores just across the street. Again, violence and disrepair—a general overarching sense of apathy and hopelessness—seem to go hand-in-hand.

Vacca pointed to things which discourage Pelham residents most: “urine in the hallways…buzzer systems that do not work…inadequate lighting…the quality of life…the crime.” It’s essentially the lawlessness that pervades when people sense they’ve been forgotten.

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

Two are dead and six were wounded in shootings in the Bronx and Queens this past Sunday. These primarily drug-related shootings follow a long streak of summer violence, including a 3-year-old being struck with a stray bullet.

The weekend following the Fourth of July saw seven deaths and 21 injuries from shootings and stabbing violence, reports Gothamist. Seventeen people were shot on the Fourth of July holiday. Between July 2 and July 8, a total of 77 were shot in the City.

Mayor Bloomberg said the Fourth of July traditionally sees a large number of shootings in the City, but this year is particularly out of control. Joe Coscarelli at New York Magazine called the recent shootings “at best a statistical anomaly and at worst a disturbing new trend.”

The Magazine reports the numbers have jumped from last year: “There have been 12 percent more shootings on the year so far, and murders are up to 21 from 18 at this point in 2011 — a jump of almost 17 percent.”

On the issue of whether there is a correlation between heat waves and shooting spikes, a police source recently told the New York Post: “Warm weather means shorter tempers, and the people know that police are doing less stop-and-frisks, so more people carry guns.”

It’s the perfect storm this steamy summer—cops do blame hotter temperatures for the rise in violence, though they also point to recent scrutiny aimed at stop-and-frisk procedures.

Until the recent heat wave, the murder rate was “on pace to be the lowest in years,” reported Business Insider.

—Alissa Fleck

Photo by longislandwins. Photo courtesy of Flickr Commons.

Stop and Frisk has long divided New Yorkers who disagree over what constitutes appropriate policing strategies in the protection of city streets from violent crime. In some neighborhoods where these practices are nothing short of commonplace, activists are as fired up as ever in their efforts to reform local law enforcement.

The polarizing Stop and Frisk program has been a topic of major contention in the city recently as its use by the New York Police Department has increased exponentially over the last several years. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has forcefully defended the practice, saying that the stops “save lives” by “preventing violence before it occurs, not responding to the victims after the fact.”

Still, many critics argue that the program is ineffective and violates civil rights. They also claim that it disproportionately targets racial minorities.

According to data compiled by the New York Civil Liberties Union, 41.6% of all stops made in New York City 2011 were of black and Latino men between the ages of 14 and 24. By comparison, this group accounts for just 4.7% of the city’s population.

One group fighting against such inequalities is the Bronx Defenders, a non-profit organization that provides free legal representation and other services to Bronx residents who have been charged with crimes. The Defenders hosted a block party yesterday to engage community members in the issues facing the Bronx residents. Attendees mingled, played basketball, snacked on Italian ices — and learned about various services available in their neighborhood.

“Besides bringing together the local community, we want to let them know about the different campaigns we’re working with through our office,” said Patricio Martinez, a policy and communications development intern for the Defenders. “Particularly with Stop and Frisk, we’re working with several groups to stop racial profiling and start holding the NYPD accountable.”

He said these groups include NYCLU as well as campaigns such as Communities United for Police Reform. Representatives from both passed out literature at yesterday’s event.

Another Defenders volunteer, a long-time resident of the Bronx, first found his way to the non-profit not to help provide legal counsel, but to solicit it.

“I started as a client,” said former defendant Riko Guzman. “After that they helped me go to college. Then I came by and started helping out and offering my services.”

Guzman has been working for the organization since February.

“His story really shows what the Bronx Defenders are all about,” Martinez said.

Now, Guzman is determined to help put an end to Stop and Frisk policies, starting with communities in the Bronx. He outlined what he said are the three key goals of the movement to eliminate these kinds of police stops.

First, he said, is to once and for all eliminate racial and discriminatory practices in law enforcement.

Second, to politically empower areas classified by the NYPD as “high impact zones” — where there is increased police presence due to high crime rates — which Guzman claims are a target for Stop and Frisk because “the police think that nobody will care.”

Finally, he said, there needs to be more of a “mutual agreement” between cops and the residents of the communities they serve, in order to bolster trust rather than fear.

According to Guzman, another way for people to help combat discriminatory practices and racial profiling is to exercise their right to observe and report. For instance, he described a new app for smartphones that allows a user to videotape police encounters and to send the footage directly to the NYCLU.

“It automatically sends the video the second it stops recording,” Guzman explained, “so even if the police destroy your phone, it still gets sent to NYCLU.”

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

More than 100 neighborhoods around New York City have applied for “traffic calming measures,” according to a statement issued by Transportation Alternatives, after Mayor Bloomberg unveiled his new “slow zone” program. The Department of Transportation has so far granted 13 safe zones, which reduce the speed limit in designated neighborhood areas from 30 mph to 20 mph. Speed bumps and additional signage are also being implemented in these zones.

Transportation Alternatives reports a pedestrian has an almost 100 percent chance of surviving a collision with a car moving at 20 mph. Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said: “the likelihood of dying after being hit drops from 70 percent to 5 percent if drivers reduce speeds from 40 mph to 20 mph.” The majority of all crashes fatal to pedestrians also take place on neighborhood streets, and speeding is the primary cause of these accidents, taking 45 lives in 2010.

Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Paul Steely White called the decision “a victory for these neighborhoods.”

The DOT implemented the first safe zone in the Bronx last year and has since been taking applications for others. Installation of a safe zone requires approval from the local community board. TA’s Michael Murphy said the decision is also influenced by the rate of traffic crashes in a given area.

“Speeding on our streets is really a matter of life or death,” said Sadik-Khan. Others, however, are more suspicious: “The DOT’s programs seem to be doing everything they can to increase congestion,” said Robert Sinclair, an AAA spokesman.

The 13 approved zones are expected to be installed by 2013, reports am NY. 

The locations currently planned are:

* The Bronx: Mt. Eden, Baychester, Eastchester, Riverdale
* Brooklyn: Boerum Hill
* Manhattan: Inwood
* Queens: Corona, Elmhurst, Jackson Heights/East Elmhurst, Auburndale
* Staten Island: New Brighton/St. George, Dongan Hills, Rosebank

—Alissa Fleck

Photo Courtesy of Wikicommons.

by Adel Manoukian

The watch list of the worst landlords in the city is now a whopping 330 after public advocate Bill de Blasio announced the latest additions to the list today.

The landlords, who own 360 buildings in total, have made the cut due to a minimum of two hazardous housing code violations. These violations include lack of heat or hot water, lead paint, and toxic mold.

The official watch list is on craigslist.org and landlordwatchlist.org to help apartment hunters distinguish the bad from the good. The list has removed 255 buildings that have addressed their violations this past year.

The new worst landlord in the top spot is College Management, owned by Eli Abbott, which has three buildings in the Bronx.  The buildings, located on 1259, 1265 and 1269  College Avenue have a combined total of 724 housing code violations. As a result, tenants have teamed up with Community Action for Safe Apartments-New Settlement Apartments, Bronx Legal Services and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest to secure a court-appointed “7A Administrator” who will make the much-needed repairs to the buildings that have such issues as infestation of rats and crumbling bathrooms.

Right behind College Management is Maritanc Corp., which has 651 hazardous violations in a single building. 1071 Home Corp was at the top of the list last year with 753 hazardous violations and five buildings on the list. This landlord has only improved slightly, now in third place with 649 hazardous violations in four of its buildings.

“It takes years of neglect for a building to deteriorate to the point where it ends up on our Watch List,” explained De Blasio in a statement released today. “But with enough public pressure and strong tenant organizing, we can turn these buildings around and make life better for thousands of New Yorkers.”

De Blasio launched the watch list in 2010 to show residents the shameless repeat offenders whose buildings have fallen into an awful state, causing danger to potential residents. Since its start, the online Watch List has been viewed more that 400,000 times.