New Skate Park

New Skate Park For Norwood

Riverdale Report

By Robert Press

BRONX, NEW YORK, JULY 30- Last week Councilman Andrew Cohen, along with Bronx Parks Commissioner Hector Aponte, Community Board 7 Parks Committee Chair Barbara Stronzer, CB 7 District Manager Dustin Engelken, and dozens of local skateboarders took the first step in creating a new skateboard park area in the Williamsbridge Oval in Norwood.

Councilman Cohen announced that he has allocated $750,000 of capital expense funds for the construction of this skate park in the Oval. Bronx Parks Commissioner Aponte said “NYC Parks is appreciative to council member Cohen for this allocation towards building a new skate park in the Williamsbridge Oval. Cohen said that the skate park had been a request of Community Board 7, and Norwood residents for quite some time. This idea goes as far back as 10 years ago, and after the project was supported by CB7 it will now become reality he added. The expected date of the first shovel going into the ground however could be years from now as the Parks Department is so backed up from projects from the Croton Filtration Plant mitigation money. Some projects that were to be finished years ago are still on the drawing board. Go to my blog at www.100percentbronx.blogspot.com to read more and see a photo of everyone at this announcement.

This past Saturday night the movie Frozen was shown in Seton Park in Riverdale by KRVDC with help from State Senator Klein. Almost 400 people were on hand including Councilman Andrew Cohen, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, Community Board 8 Chair Dan Padernacht, Senator Jeff Klein, and even Senator Klein's opponent for the September Democratic primary former Councilman Oliver Koppell. The forecast of rain held off, and everyone had a cool time. You can go to my blog and check the KRVDC listing in the archive on the lower left to see what other upcoming events that KRVDC has lined up for you. More movie nights and two street festivals.

Otherwise things were very quiet this past week in the Jeff Klein/Oliver Koppell 34th State Senate race, and it was to quiet if you ask me. Senator Klein touted out several more union endorsements while challenger Oliver Koppell touted the endorsement of the Amsterdam News, an upper Manhattan newspaper. There is however always next year for Koppell, as I told him Saturday night. Next year will be the race for Bronx District Attorney. Koppell is certainly qualified for Bronx DA having been state Attorney General before. I said to then Councilman Oliver Koppell at the 2011 Bronx Democratic County Committee Dinner that he would make a great candidate for Public Advocate. By the way Oliver I missed you at this year's Bronx Democratic County Committee Dinner last week.

Finally it looks like the summer street repaving is starting in Community Board 8 as a few streets are being milled down and repaved. One such street is Bailey Avenue between the Van Cortland Park Avenue exit off the Deegan Highway and West 238th Street where the new BJ's shopping center is scheduled to open soon. I wonder if that is so the trucks can get to BJ's on a smooth road that didn't need to be repaved? Now if only the city can fix and repave the real streets that need it since the Con Edison street construction has done a great job of helping to ruin many of the streets.

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.