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Friday, March 8, 2013

It’s Great to be Irish This Month


100 PERCENT
By Robert Press

BRONX, NEW YORK, March 8- The month of March is Irish Heritage Month and there will be celebrations of Irish Heritage throughout the month and borough. This Sunday the 15th Annual Bronx St. Patrick's Day Parade happens in the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx. This year our good friend Mr. Joesph McManus (the State Committeeman of the 80th A.D.) is one of the Grand Marshals of the parade, along with Ms. Rosemary Lombard, and Father Steven Norton. The Throggs Neck St. Patrick’s Day Parade starts at noon and goes down East Tremont Avenue from Lafayette Avenue turning right at Harding Avenue where the parade ends a few blocks down by Quincy Avenue. The route change was done a few years ago to accommodate the ever growing number of marchers.

The very next day the Bronx Chamber of Commerce is having its Irish Heritage Luncheon at the F & J Pines Tavern. Congressman Joesph Crowley, Robert Walsh Small Business Commissioner for NYC, Kevin McCabe of News 12, James E. McQuade owner of Schuyler Hill, Mr. Joseph McManus State Committeeman 80th A.D., Kevin Butler Bronx Borough Commander FDNY, and Virginia Gallagher Pilot Cove Manor Housing Development Fund are listed as guests of honor. For more on this BCC luncheon and the cost to BCC members/non members to attend you can check out my blog at www.100percentbronx.blogspot.com February archive on the lower left for Join us on March 11th with the link to the Bronx Chamber of Commerce. You can e-mail Gabrielle@bronxchamber.org., call 718-828-3900 or go to the BCC website at www.bronxchamber.org for more information on this and other BCC events and how to join the BCC. I will list the many others Irish Heritage events as they happen here or on my blog.

The Department of Environmental Protection (better known as the DEP) is launching a “Water & Sewer Line Protection Program”. The introductory price is listed at $11.98 for this insurance on your water and sewer line from your house to the city connection. American Water Resources (AWR) a nationwide company was selected by the New York City Water Board as the exclusive service line protection provider of the NYCDEP. As it was explained at the meeting I attended, it was estimated that typical water line repairs can cost between $3,000 to $5,000. Sewer line repairs average between $10,000 to $15,000, and it was stressed that many water and sewer lines are up to 100 years old or older. AWP will send out a professional NYC-licensed master plumber within 4 – 12 hours in most cases. You need to know the many exceptions to this protection policy however. The fee will be added on to your water bill and collected by the NYCDEP. Yes the NYCDEP does get a fee for doing this, and how much or where the fee goes could not be explained by the DEP person doing the presentation.

The old Soundview Health center that had many problems and was closed down last year has gotten a new owner, and is open for business. The Stevenson Family Health Center operated by the Institute for Family Health opened the new health center at 731 White Plains Road in an effort to preserve the communities access to critical primary health services following the closure of the Soundview Health Care Network. You can call 718-589-8775 from 8 AM – 8 PM for more information on the new Stevenson Family Health Center.

You can check my blog for information on the Russian National Ballet performance on Sunday March 10th at the Lehman College Center for the Performing Arts. Go to the archive section on the lower left for February and scroll down to the Russian National Ballet for times and prices of the performances.

This coming week several candidates for the 15th City Council District are having fund raisers. I will try to attend them all and report back to you next week on the candidates and their events. It now looks like up to a dozen people are in the race for the 15th council district seat, with no real favorite now that Mr. Rademe Perez is not running. That could be changing very soon however.

If you have any comments about this column or would like to have an event listed or covered in this column or on my blog you can e-mail us at 100percentbronxnews@gmail.com or call 718-644-4199 Mr. Robert Press.

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