The Week in Rewind spotlights some of the editorial work of the Bronx Times for the week of April 28-May 5.
What does the future hold for Bronx CUNYs as enrollment plummets and cuts loom?
Three Bronx CUNY schools — Bronx Community College (BCC), Hostos Community College and Lehman College — have different unique origin stories prior to become longstanding education institutions in the borough.
However, as enrollment at the three colleges continue year-after-year declines dating back to 2020 and campuses face major cuts in the months ahead, students and faculty of Bronx CUNY colleges are expressing apprehension, and at times, dissatisfaction with the school network.
Officials and faculty across the three Bronx CUNY schools told the Bronx Times that retaining students has been a challenge stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
CUNY’s average class size has fallen from 21.5 students in Fall 2019 to 19.9 students per class in Fall 2023, according to CUNY. These declines have been felt across the board at CUNY’s community colleges, including at BCC and Hostos, which have seen a roughly 30% drop in headcount since fiscal year 2018.
Dropping enrollment, in addition to cuts proposed by Mayor Eric Adams — more than $68 million to the public university system — majorly impact the city’s two-year community colleges. CUNY officials have ordered budget cuts across their 25 campuses, according to a February order by CUNY Chief Operating Officer Hector Batista.
Railroad employees who saved tot from Metro-North tracks honored at Yankee Stadium
The New York Yankees honored six Metro-North Railroad employees who saved a toddler while on duty last month before the team’s Monday game against the Cleveland Guardians.
The Bronx Bombers recognized the six during a pre-game batting practice and ceremony before the first pitch of Monday night’s matchup.
On the afternoon of April 6, Metro-North employees aboard a Hudson Line train just north of Tarrytown in Westchester County spotted a young child on the northbound tracks. Video surveillance released by the MTA on April 24 chronicles the communication between employees who sprung into action.
Locomotive Engineer William Kennedy, who was operating a southbound train, sent out emergency radio communication to nearby train crews after he saw the child on the other side of the tracks. A northbound train headed by Locomotive Engineer Shawn Loughran proceeded at a slow rate of speed and then stopped when he and an engineer trainee could see the child — who had walked across the northbound tracks and was approaching the electrified third rail — in the distance. Assistant Conductor Marcus Higgins jumped out of the stopped train and ran toward the three-year-old boy.
Nearing a century old, landmark Bronx County Courthouse set to undergo much-needed facelift next year
The landmark Bronx County Courthouse building, also known as the Mario Merola Building, has stood tall in the Grand Concourse section of the Bronx for 90 years. But efforts to extend the aging building’s lifespan require fixing unsafe conditions stemming from the building’s façade that date back several years.
Façade work on the courthouse is currently in design, according to a spokesperson from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, the agency managing the landmark building. After designs are finalized later this summer, the project will begin construction next year following the selection of a contractor and finalized cost estimates, officials confirmed with the Bronx Times.
According to the city Department of Buildings (DOB), there are 48 open violations on the buildings, and on April 13, the building was flagged for a hazardous façade, which had been an issue dating back to 2004. Other DOB violations over the past few years include flagged elevators and failure to maintain and update inspections to the building’s sprinkler and boiler systems.
Earlier this year, two months of “minor repair” work had been done on the Grand Concourse side of the building that wrapped up on April 1.
Façade and other maintenance work on the building’s 161st Street side is set to be finished by the end of August.
CB11 ethics committee recommends board apology months after Just Home hearing
The Community Board 11 Ethics and Disciplinary Committee is backing a complaint against the full board over a raucous September public hearing about the “Just Home” proposal to house formerly incarcerated individuals in the district.
The complaint was submitted by Diana Finch, a CB11 constituent, on Oct. 5, 2022, but the ethics committee didn’t hear it until April 24. Finch told the Bronx Times that the committee felt like the community board’s procedures needed to be reviewed before considering her complaint, causing the delay.
Finch said in her complaint — which was obtained by the Bronx Times — that since the board didn’t enforce or follow its code of conduct at its Sept. 29 public hearing, there was “a confrontational atmosphere of threat and violence, further dividing the community the Board serves, and fostering misinformation about the Just Home project.”
The Just Home proposal — which still needs to be voted on by the NYC Health and Hospitals Board and the New York City Council — would convert a vacant building on the Jacobi campus in Morris Park to house homeless individuals with medical needs released from Rikers. The project would be operated by the nonprofit Fortune Society.
The board’s Sept. 29 hearing was largely a free for all, in which those who tried to speak in support of the proposal were heckled and shouted down. Jacobi police officers were called on-site, but no one was removed from the event.
For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes