This Francisco Reyes ll photo of a man washing his dog is one of hundreds that will be displayed in a photo exhibition by the collective Seis del Sur this spring.

Photo exhibit will feature insiders’ view of ’70s and ’80s South Bronx

A chance meeting at a photo exhibit at Hunter College’s Center for Puerto Rican Studies in 2010 led six South Bronx photographers who have shared a common vision of life in the neighborhood for over thirty years to join forces for the first time.

David Gonzalez, Angel Franco, Ricky Flores, Edwin Pagan, Francisco Reyes II, and Joseph Conzo Jr., whose black and white photos were featured at the Hunter exhibit, had spent the 1970s and 1980s documenting the area and its people. But although they had crossed paths while living in and photographing the South Bronx over the years, they had not had the chance to work together.

But when they met at Conzo’s exhibit, they realized they had been photographing some of the same places all along, just from different perspectives.

Flores noticed that one of Conzo’s photos featured a bodega he had photographed extensively during the ’80s.

Gonzalez, an award-winning writer for The New York Times, posted a photo on Facebook he had taken of a window in his childhood home on Beck Street. Flores responded by posting a photo he had taken of the same window, from a different angle.

Flores posted a photo of the building at 800 Fox Street in Longwood burning down. Coincidentally, it had been one of Conzo’s favorite hangouts.

Realizing the commonalities in their work, the men decided to pool their visions as photographers, and called their collective Seis del Sur, or Six From the South.

The name,” says Flores, “is a reference to the 6 train that runs through the community, and the fact we are six Boricua men from the South Bronx.”

Each brings his own distinct vision of the neighborhood to the group. Franco, the oldest of the six, spent his time off from work as a photojournalist in the ’70s following officers from the 46th Precinct, whose violent reputation led it to be labeled “The Alamo.” Today, with a police scanner in his car, Franco continues the work he began in the Fordham section of the borough, as a photographer for the Times.

In Angel Franco's photo, a boy sits in wait at the precinct.

Pagan, a filmmaker and cinematographer, and Flores, a photojournalist for The Journal News in Westchester, first met as teenagers, documenting one of the most turbulent periods in the borough’s history through their photos. Mostly self-taught, they each focused on documenting their surroundings, friends and family.

Pagan recalls sharing his prints with his mother while growing up.

My mom would ask ‘who’s that?’ and I would respond, ‘I don’t know,’” says Pagan, who was accustomed to taking his camera everywhere, though at the time he did not consider what he was doing an art form.

I was just excited and passionate about taking photos,” he explains.

Reyes, who lived in the South Bronx during the early ’70s while working there as a street photographer, taught photography at United Bronx Parents, the organization Conzo’s grandmother, community activist Evelina Antonetty, helped establish. Growing up, Conzo looked up to Reyes as a mentor. After 35 years of friendship, the men still take photographs together.

Conzo was a chubby kid with an Angela Davis afro who picked up his first camera at the age of nine. Early on in his career, he trained his lens on Latin music stars like Tito Puente and Charlie Palmieri, and later documented the birth of Hip Hop, taking the genre’s “baby pictures,” as Gonzalez dubbed them in a 2005 Times article he wrote about Conzo.

Like the rest of the Seis, Conzo took photos of his friends, family and surroundings, during a time when many photographers from elsewhere were sent to cover the South Bronx on assignment. For him, “the group’s pictures represent what they saw and felt, going beyond the urban blight that others tended to focus on.”

The group’s first show is slated for early summer, and has been two years in the making. One of the primary objectives, says Gonzalez, will be to try to dispel the negative light the South Bronx has been cast in over the years.

These pictures are our story, told from inside the neighborhood and our hearts,” says Gonzalez.

When Gonzalez returned to Longwood in 1979 after four years studying at Yale, he discovered that the landscape of his youth had been obliterated. To cope with the shock, he turned to his camera, to try to make sense of the changes.

Ultimately, I chose to take photos of life and people,” he said. “What distinguishes our work from that of so-called ‘parachute photographers,’ was that we focused on signs of life, as opposed to the rubble.”

The show will be held at the recently founded Bronx Documentary Center in Melrose and will feature a multimedia component, as well as a curriculum to engage young people from local schools. Michael Kamber, founder of the center and a colleague of Gonzalez’ at the Times, views the show as a homecoming and a chance to share the borough’s past with younger audiences.

Samuel Gompers High School students Joseph Duarte (gesturing) and Sony Cabral (in hat) pleaded with city officials not to close the Melrose high school at a public hearing in Brooklyn in February. Photo by Claudia Bracholdt.

DOE will replace troubled high school with charter school

Melrose is going to lose what used to be its largest high school. Four weeks after the Department of Education’s Panel for Educational Policy finally decided to let Samuel Gompers Technical High School phase out, the school’s teachers are frustrated with a decision a lot of them already had expected.

The teachers are demoralized,” said substitute teacher Peter Mayer.

Mayer had been an English teacher at Gompers for 30 years. Now he is retired, but he frequently works as one of the school’s substitute teachers. He said he felt that the DOE planned the school’s closure since the school began struggling years ago.

Last December, the city suggested the school phase out because of its low performance and drastic loss of students. Gompers received a failing grade from the city for 2010-2011 and lost about 600 students since 2008, according to the city’s Accountability Report. Last year, the graduation rate was 41 percent.

In early February, the DOE held a hearing at Gompers, one week before its Panel for Educational Policy’s was scheduled to decide the high school’s fate.

About 300 students, alumni, parents, staff and teachers gathered in the school’s auditorium to convince the Department of Education to give Gompers another chance, to no avail.

Mayer said he feels that the school is being closed because the city seeks to privatize public education.

Businesses want to get their hands on education, there is a lot of money there,” he said, adding that the hearing at the school was only for appearances.

Some students said they feel disadvantaged because their school is underfunded and lacks resources.

How are we supposed to meet the city’s expectations, when our history books end after the cold war?” asked Joseph Duarte, a sophomore at Gompers.

He said he could answer a Regents question about 9/11 only because he lived in New York when and after the attacks happened.

A week after the meeting at Gompers, students and staff rented a bus to attend the Panel for Educational Policy’s hearing at Brooklyn Technical High School. The auditorium was full of chanting students, teachers and public education advocates.

The audience chanted over the microphone throughout the hearing, drowning out the panel members. One group continually repeated what speakers said, until the chanted message filled the auditorium.

In the end, all the chanting didn’t help.

The DOE says it plans to replace Gompers with a smaller “transfer school” for students who have struggled in other schools, and a charter school. The two would likely open in the Gompers building in the fall for a new class of ninth grade students.

The charter school would be administered by New Visions, a non-profit organization that has run 80 public and charter schools throughout the city since the 1990s, including two it currently runs in the Bronx.

Tim Farrell, New Visions’  Director of Communications for Public Schools, said the organization would make sure to serve the community’s students – all of them.

We care about the individual needs of special education students and English learners,” said Farrell.

He said that the charter school that will probably be located in the Gompers will focus on the humanities. He added there won’t be any academic pre-selection of students. Students will be selected by lottery. Area residents will receive preference.

Replacing Gompers with a charter school is nothing new, says one education expert. Closing down low-performing public schools and putting charter schools in their place seems to be a “mission” of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former DOE Chancellor Joel Klein, says Jeffrey Henig, a Political Science and Education professor at Columbia University.

New York City’s DOE has been unusual in how aggressively it has worked to try to cooperate with charter school communities and to even provide these schools with school buildings,” he said.

For whatever reason, the mayor and especially Chancellor Klein decided that to bring the rapid change they wanted to see, it would sometimes be easier to work with a new set of actors,” he added.

A new gourmet supermarket is planned in Melrose.

Owner says shoppers will pay more, but will eat healthier

An entrepreneur is set to bring a gourmet market to Melrose, hoping to take a bite out of fast food culture with healthier alternatives.

Developer DeVon Prioleau says the Fresca Gourmet Market he is planning to open in the new Boricua Village complex on E. 161^st St. and Third Ave. will help provide the community with the same access to high-quality food more affluent parts of the city have long enjoyed.

“The Bronx can ill afford another liquor store or sneaker store,” Prioleau said.  “I want to give people other options.”

Prioleau, 29, said the  supermarket will be “reminiscent of a Fifth Avenue store rather than a Third Avenue deli.”

In 2008 the Department of City Planning conducted a citywide “Supermarket Shortage” study, in which it identified the South Bronx as one of four underserved high-density population centers severely lacking in fresh food venues. Over a quarter of all adults said they don’t eat any fruits or vegetables on any given day, according to a follow-up study released in November.

That report – called “FoodWorks” and issued by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn – cited the lack of healthy options, coupled with rising prices for nutritious foods and steadily low prices for unhealthy alternatives, as factors contributing to soaring rates of diabetes and other diseases caused by poor eating habits.

The report recommends increasing financial and zoning incentives for grocery stores that open in underserved communities, as part of the city’s Food Retail Expansion to Support Health (FRESH) project.

Over 13 percent of South Bronx residents suffered from diabetes in 2009, and 70 percent of its adults were considered overweight or obese, according to a report released by the city’s Department of Health. But according to a report issued that same year by the Bronx District Public Health Office, 40 percent of respondents said it was difficult to find fresh and affordable produce in the area.

May May Leung, who teaches public health at Hunter College, said chronic illnesses like diabetes and obesity can be reduced by making nutritious food affordable and easily accessible for the city’s lower-income residents.

“Modifying the environment is an important component” to help people change their eating habits, she said.

Prioleau, a Bronx native, says he saw a business opportunity in his “untapped and unexposed” home borough, combined with financial incentives for increasing the availability of fresh, nutritious food through the FRESH program.

He says he has secured nearly a million dollars already, through loans from private sources, as well as from the city.

The young entrepreneur says South Bronx residents regularly put up with “ghetto fabulous supermarkets with bread that’s a day old and food that’s expiring,” and adds that while the neighborhood will benefit from higher-quality food, he has no choice but to pass higher costs on to customers. He said prices will be 50 cents to a dollar per item higher than what local shoppers are accustomed to paying.

Mercy Cruz, 41, has lived in the neighborhood for 22 years.  “Food here is spoiled and old.  It’s just not good,” she said.   Cruz would welcome the new supermarket in Melrose, but said she worried low-income families “might have a problem with higher prices,” then added, “sometimes you have to pay a little extra to get better quality.”

Raymond Arias, 50, who has been selling fruits and vegetables from a nearby stand for the last five years, doesn’t think his small operation will be impacted by the new gourmet market. “Maybe I can go work for them,” he said, laughing.

Prioleau says he is going through the certification process so the market can accept food stamps, and added the store will carry over 4,000 products that reflect the tastes of the area’s diverse ethnic groups. In addition, he says other services, such as cooking classes, will be offered.

Fresca Gourmet Market is slated to open its doors later this year,  and Prioleau would like to see three more stores open in the next five years.

“The wheels are in motion,” he said.

From December through April, those who subscribe to the farm share program will get monthly deliveries, making Corbin Hill the first year-round supplier of local produce with a specific emphasis on low-income neighborhoods in New York City.

Full price for a winter share is $240 for the five-month season. Corbin Hill also offers a special subsidized price of $150 for the Winter Farm Share to those eligible for SNAP benefits.

Each month the program will deliver 15-20 pounds of root vegetables and hearty greens that do not need to be refrigerated to local drop-off points.

The produce comes from Corbin Hill Road Farm and several others in Schoharie County, 40 miles west of Albany.

This summer more than 500 participants in the South Bronx and Harlem received weekly deliveries of fruit and vegetables.

In addition to providing fresh, wholesome food, the project is also dedicated to fostering a relationship between rural farming communities and urban neighborhoods. In August, when Hurricane Irene devastated farms and towns in upstate New York, Corbin Hill shareholders collected donations for storm victims.

In the future, Corbin Hill plans to create an upstate-downstate exchange program for young people.

Applications may be picked up and filled out at WHEDco, 50 E. 168th Street or The Point Community Development Corp., 940 Garrison Avenue or be submitted by visiting http://www.corbinhillfarm.com/join.html.

Photo by Tim Hetherington/Magnum Photos. This photo is one of a series taken by the late Tim Hetherington as part of an exhibition at the Bronx Documentary Center on Courtlandt Ave.

Gallery shows work of photographer killed in Libya

The inaugural exhibition at the new Bronx Documentary Center on Courtlandt Avenue highlights the final works of a major talent whose life came to a tragic end thousands of miles away – while its founders reflect on the tribute they’ve built for their fallen friend.

Visions: Tim Hetherington is a stirring collection of 16 never-before-seen photographs taken during the conflict in Libya by the late photojournalist who was killed while covering the uprising last spring.

Along with the pictures – including the final image he ever captured – the exhibit includes a multimedia installation with video clips of Hetherington discussing his life’s work.

“People felt excited and we feel we got it right,” said Project Director Danielle Jackson.

“The idea was to have Tim live on,” said Michael Kamber, Heatherington’s close friend, colleague and founder of the new Center.  “To see kids learning and watching videos of Tim, he is.”

The center was initially conceived by award-winning photojournalists Kamber and Hetherington, whose ambition it was to forge a nonprofit educational center and gallery dedicated to the support of documentary projects from around the world.

But their goal went beyond showcasing projects that highlight the intersection of art, ideas and journalism.  Hetherington felt the space was a perfect opportunity to provide the underserved population in the South Bronx with access to documentary projects, along with events and programs for all ages.

“Tim was all about reaching nontraditional audiences,” Kamber explained.

Marty Rogers grew up in the neighborhood and recalled when the site was a candy store in his youth.  He attended the center’s opening and stopped by a few days later to collect promotional flyers to spread the word.

“It’s fabulous and a great resource,” he said.  “They have a message and the skills to help people form ideas about the world.  I’m telling people they have to swing by.  These guys are for real.”

The new venue is a welcome addition that will expose young people from the neighborhood to an art form they have would otherwise have no access to, say the project’s facilitators.

“For many kids, their only exposure to photography is taking pictures for Facebook,” Jackson said.

Hetherington’s final images are being used as a catalyst to educate local youth about basic photography principles and encourage critical thinking, interpretation and discussion about the conflicts he covered around the world.

Kamber first showed Hetherington the ground floor location in January soon after he purchased the recently renovated historical landmark building adorned with ornate white trimmings and a steep mansard roof.  But before Hetherington had a chance to work alongside Kamber on the center, he was killed in Misurata on April 20, 2011.

“When he died we knew we had to do it,” Kamber said. “For a lot of us it was about working out our grief.”

Ideas started to take shape mere weeks after Hetherington’s death.  A dedicated team of volunteers was behind design and construction efforts, supporting their cause primarily “out of our pockets,” Kamber said.

“It was such an amazing effort by so many people,” said Jackson.

Kamber said four soldiers featured in Hetherington’s Academy Award-nominated film “Restrepo” came to New York and helped build the hanging displays for the photographs.  They all shared pizza, beer and stories on the floor of the new venue that evening.

Hetherington’s parents visited the center and helped paint the walls just days before Visions opened.  Kamber said they have also donated Hetherington’s library of books, flap jacket and helmet.

Small donations and fundraising have also helped with the launch, and Jackson said A Kickstarter.com campaign was planned for the coming weeks.  One group that is providing financial assistance for Visions is the Committee to Protect Journalists – one of three organizations designated to receive donations in Hetherington’s honor.

“It’s a strong means to showcase what journalism is about, the risks it entails and the understanding it engenders,” said Gypsy Guillén Kaiser, the director of advocacy and communications for the organization.

Melrose resident Elina Taft said she was moved by Hetherington’s photographs .

“We take life for granted,” she said while looking at an image of two young Libyan boys and an older man holding explosives.  She said she planned to return soon with her 21-year-old son.

“I’m hoping it enlightens and empowers people to learn more about the world, she said. “Not just for the kids, but also adults.”

 Visions: Tim Hetherington is scheduled to run through December 2.

Photo by Giovanny Fausto Pinto Friends from Villa Cuerno on Brook Ave in Melrose.

On a late summer evening a crowd of fifty-and-sixty-something Latinos and Latinas gathered to unwind over drinks, cards, and dominoes.

Nearby, under a tree made to resemble a palm tree, a DJ spun classic salsa with a few reggaeton songs mixed in. A vendor prepared alcapurrias, a Puerto Rican delicacy made from fried smashed yucca or green bananas filled with seasoned meat, along with other cuchefritos, or fried appetizers.

All around, new construction projects were going up, including a towering silver complex with new condos. In their shadows, the 55-and-over crowd had come to relax.

What seemed like a scene out of a flourishing Florida retirement community was in fact the intersection of Brook Avenue between 156^th and 157^th in Melrose.

The men and women who gather here call their sliver of sidewalk Villa Cuerno, translated as “village of horns.”The name harks back to a steamy past, the details of which vary depending whose interpretation you hear.

“I come here every weekend,” said 63-year-old Jose Santoviey as he sat with four friends on a makeshift wooden bench.“In Puerto Rico you go out into the streets to socialize and enjoy. It feels like Puerto Rico here.”

The loose-knit group of friends, which still numbers about 30, has been kicking back at this street corner on spring and summer weekends for decades, but now finds its longevity threatened by the heated local housing boom.

Long before the Melrose Court Condos were built in the mid 1990’s, the space the buildings now occupy was an empty dirt lot, recalled Altagracia Ozuna, 40, the group’s youngest member. Residents had built shacks and stores on the lot in the early ’80′s and dubbed the small shantytown Villa Alegre, or happy village.

Players from local softball teams and other residents started coming to Villa Alegre to drink and listen to live Latin music back then. Even Latin jazz legend Eddie Palmieri once graced a makeshift stage on the field, recalledOzuna.

But the happy village’s reputation soured. Members of the softball teams would get drunk. There were frequent trysts in an outhouse on the grounds. Soon Villa Alegre became Villa Cuerno, cuerno referring to devil’s horns in colloquial Spanish.

The fire department came and condemned Villa Cuerno. The pejorative name stuck. But the group stayed together, moving around frequently before settling back near their original spot.

Many recall the glory days of Villa Cuerno when the party would last until 3 a.m.

While the rendezvous have diminished, there is still plenty of flirting among the group members, many of whom are grandma’s and grandpa’s. Some walk with the aid of canes.

Grandchildren of regulars occasionally come to visit, but young people are not a part of Villa Cuerno.

“There’s no young people because they fight, do drugs, they bullshit. Here we are about family,” said Santoviey angrily. “Here we relax. We talk about family, about Puerto Rico.”

In recent years the group has kept a low profile, but Villa Cuerno regulars worry that tenants from the newly built Via Verde and Procida Houses complexes will want them out.

“This is the last year,” said one woman.

Azuna suggested they could merge with the nearby community garden Rincon Criollo, and use their base as a future hangout but, Rincon’s founder Jose “Chema” Soto worries about clashing objectives.

“We are a garden culture, fruits and plants. Over there they sell beer. That’s a place of business. I just don’t want that in here,” said Soto.

While there is a sense that this my be Villa Cuerno’s last year in its current location, some, like 63-year-old Edwin Ayala, remain defiant.

“While we are still alive we will be here. This was and is my life,” said Ayala. “This is where I left my wife and this is where she left me.”

The change comes a day after widespread reports that a Bronx grand jury had begun voting indictments in the ticket fixing scandal that has implicated officers and their union delegates, who allegedly made traffic tickets go away for favored people.

The investigation began in the 40th Precinct in December 2008 when police began looking into the relationship of an officer in the precinct to a local drug gang. Wiretaps caught the officer talking about fixing tickets, and the police and Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson launched a wide-reaching probe.

The NYPD tabbed Deputy Inspector Christopher J. McCormack, A 38-year-old Bronx native, as the precinct’s new leader on Tuesday, Sept. 27. McCormack had been serving at the 20th precinct in Chelsea.

Nikas referred questions to the Police Department’s Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, whose office did not respond to a telephone call and email. The New York Post reported that Nikas had asked to be transferred to be able to spend more time with his family.

As recently as two weeks ago, at the monthly Police Community Council meeting, Nikas spoke about how excited he was about the upcoming school year.

Roy Richter, president of the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents NYPD brass from the rank of captain on up said there was no link between the unfolding scandal and Nikas’s departure. He said precinct commanders often work 100 hours a week and Nikas left for personal reasons.

According to press reports, as many as two dozen officers and union officials are likely to be indicted for fixing tickets and hundreds more will be disciplined by the Police Department.

“It’s unfortunate the Bronx D.A. has taken two and a half years with this investigation,” Richter said. “I think it minimizes the incredible commitment that being a precinct commander takes. It takes an incredible toll not only on him but on his family.”

The new commander has worked stints in three other Bronx precincts, including one for a special operations unit in Soundview. The day after receiving word he would be taking the helm in the 40th Precinct, he addressed the community board’s monthly meeting. Addressing the recent increase in stabbings and shootings, he acknowledged, “There are some concerns here,” and added “It’s not about locking people up, it’s about stopping crime.”

Event organizers Danny Barber (left) and P.O. Irizarry (right) talking with a local resident at National Night Out on Crime (photo credit: Flonia Telegrafi)

Advocates and police partner at Night Out Against Crime

By Kathy Conkwright

conkwright@motthavenherald.com

The first time Angel Irizarry and Danny Barber met one another six years ago, they butted heads.

”I didn’t really like Danny,” said Irizarry, the community affairs officer for PSA-7, the  NYPD branch assigned to patrol public housing complexes in Melrose.

“I’m not sure why. I think we were just coming from two different positions,” he said, recalling their first tense exchange at a local meeting between community and police.

So he thought at the time.

Barber, an outspoken tenant advocate from the Andrew Jackson Houses in Melrose, had his own less-than-flattering opinion of anyone in a blue uniform with an NYPD badge at the time. To him, Irizarry was no different than the others.

Now close friends, Barber and Irizarry joined forces to organize National Night Out on Crime, an annual event held to strengthen police-community partnerships. This year’s Night Out was held at the Andrew Jackson Homes on Aug. 2nd.

Serving up free food, drink, music, a large Spiderman contraption for kids and the spectacle of police officers break dancing, Barber and Irizarry hoped to help thaw relations between residents of Mott Haven and Melrose and local law enforcement.

Although they represent different sides of the community, Barber and Irizarry have tried to bridge the growing divide between cops and residents by getting the two to talk to one another.

“For some reason we’ve lost that connection,” Irizarry said, “especially here in the South Bronx where there’s a real  ‘us against them’ mentality.”

“We do have officers who get crazy and overreact,” said Barber’s brother, event organizer Russell Alston. “But we also have young men, young women and old men who give police a hard time. It goes both ways.”

Irizarry takes rookies on a tour of the neighborhood when they join the department, to meet shop owners, clergy, elected officials and local organizers – all in an effort to learn the neighborhood and forge bonds.

Irizarry’s path to policing started in an unlikely place. He grew up five blocks from Yankee Stadium, and began his career as a community organizer working for a non-profit organization in Highbridge.  By the age of 21 he was coordinating an anti-violence program in the Dinkins administration.

“I didn’t have opportunities. I didn’t have a father,” he said. “I understand that state of confusion and no sense of direction.”

Captain Erik Hernandez, Executive Officer for PSA-7, line dancing with residents

“I want the community to see that we are people, not just robots,” Captain Erik Hernandez, Executive Officer for PSA-7, explained after finishing an impressive round of line dancing alongside community members and police officers.

“A lot of times, he said, “we are just seen as law enforcement and not helping people. I want them to see the human side of crime reduction.”

While flipping hundreds of burgers for residents and police at National Night Out, a soaked towel covering his head to block the smoke and sweat, Alston pointed out that the event gives police a chance to meet people on neutral ground and learn who lives in the neighborhood.

“It makes me feel safer,” said an Andrew Jackson Houses resident named Gerri, “because any other time when the police are around I don’t feel that safe. We really need this to bring the community together.”

But one young man who wouldn’t give his name said the once-a-year outdoor event didn’t change his mind about police. “This is just one day,” he said. “Tomorrow they’ll be back at it the same way.”

“We won’t be here dancing, kids won’t be jumping,” Hernandez responded, admitting that it’s impossible for the police to have a great relationship with the community every day. “There is crime and it is a necessity to enforce the law. Our biggest challenge is to keep this momentum going after today.”

The day before the event there was a homicide just down the street, he pointed out.

“Violent crime happens every day,” Hernandez said, “particularly in this neighborhood.  Sometimes people can feel helpless. We hope this event can give them a sense of hope.”

The complex at Concourse Village that houses four schools will be more carefully monitored for contaminants.

Parents and community leaders have won a victory in a long-running debate over environmental hazards in the Mott Haven school campus at Concourse Village near E. 153 Street.

The court ordered the School Construction Authority to conduct a new environmental review of plans to monitor the four new schools in the Mott Haven school campus to insure that toxic chemicals covered up in building the schools and its athletic field will not poison future generations of students. Those plans must be open to public scrutiny.

In the July 7 decision, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court sided unanimously with a lower court’s 2008 decision that found the city had violated state environmental law by building the Mott Haven complex without including the long-term monitoring plan in its environmental impact statement.

The schools were built on a former rail yard, contaminated with mercury, lead, benzene and tetrachloroethylene, a chemical used to clean metal. Former industrial sites are called “brownfields,” and are cleaned up under a state program, so the city contended that it had followed state guidelines.

A group of parents and local residents comprising the Bronx Committee for Toxic Free Schools filed the lawsuit against the city in 2007 to stop construction of the complex. They argued the cleanup should have been more carefully evaluated. Later that year the City Council unanimously approved the plan to build, but on the condition that a more thorough evaluation be conducted.

While they failed to stop the schools from being built, they hailed the court ruling for establishing a precedent that the city will have to follow in the future.

We are thrilled by this decision,” said Jane Maisel, a public school teacher and member of the committee for toxic free schools, in a statement released by New York Lawyers For The Public Interest, which brought the suit along with the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges.

The Department of Education simply cannot approve a contaminated school site without a comprehensive plan to protect children from the contamination,” Maisel continued.

But although parents may be elated that the courts have ruled in their favor for the second time in three years, the city may still decide to appeal the ruling to the state’s highest court.

In an emailed statement, Carrie Noteboom, senior counsel for the city’s law department, said the city will go ahead with the court’s recommendations.

The School Construction Authority “has already completed a thorough cleanup and implemented a state approved monitoring plan,” Noteboom said. “The Court decided that this plan should undergo additional public review, and SCA is prepared to do that.”

The Mott Haven store is headquarters for games.

On a recent Friday evening, Jaquell McQueen and Shawn Kelly met up at a store in Melrose to unwind from the stresses of the work week by fighting a battle to the death.

They were at Collectibles by Armada, a store that specializes in comics, manga, action figures and games to play Yu-gi-oh, the Japanese trading card game based on a comic book and cartoon of the same name. The cards represent monsters, spells and traps, and the goal is to use them to subdue the opponent.

Before they started the match, Kelly carefully rolled out his lucky suede playmate, obtained as a tournament prize, while McQueen set up a new deck of cards to practice with. When it was time to start they rolled a six-sided die to decide who was going first. Kelly won the toss. They wished each other good luck and began the Duel.

Collectibles by Armada serves as a clubhouse for people as old as McQueen, 24, and Kelly, 26 and as young as 10- or 11. Street slang and card game jargon competed with the sounds of Hip-Hop radio station Hot 97 as players of all shapes and sizes came together.

As the match wore on, with McQueen’s winged beast cards were proving ineffective against Kelly’s gladiator warrior cards, friends walked over to watch, bumping fists as salutes.

The two men traded tales of their girlfriends’ jealousy of the store. “Oh she was, like, ‘You playing the game too much, putting it before me,’” said McQueen.

“I just told my girl, ‘Would you rather me be out smoking, drinking, getting in trouble?’” responded Kelly, a regular who has been coming to the store since it first opened three years ago.

Collectibles by Armada is the invention of Rob Armada, who opened his store on Third Avenue in June 2008. The shop is lined with collectible toys old and new, including Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, a Scarface doll and countless action figures. It stocks the latest comics and just-released packs of trading cards as well as rare toys, some valued at thousands of dollars.

“We have a Batmobile that’s worth $1,500, and that Spiderman hanging from the ceiling is worth about $3,000-$4,000, said Armada, pointing to his treasures. The Spiderman outfit “was a replica a theater got during the first Spiderman movie,” Amarda said. “The suit is built to fit Tobey Maguire.”

Armada, who was born and raised in the Bronx, says he was impressed with the way the Melrose neighborhood has changed for the better. He points to the new apartment buildings nearby and the opening of the clothing store Forman Mills as examples.

The store offers memberships for $15 a month, which gives customers access to tournaments, in-house storage bins to hold cards and a place to play after school. The store also holds events for Pokémon Cards and Magic the Gathering.

More than 300 people have signed up for memberships. Armada says part of his success is making kids feel at home and treating them like family.

“Rob is an awesome dude–mad respect,” said McQueen of Armada.

About a year ago, an 11-year-old member underwent open heart surgery. The youngster had no health insurance. Armada placed a box in his shop with the boy’s picture and asked customers for donations. The drive raised $1,000. In addition, young customers donated Yu-gi-oh cards.

Armada contends that schools need to incorporate activities that interest children, such as Yu-gi-oh, into their lesson plans.

“We have to educate kids in things they like,” he said. “They say kids can’t read and do math, but they know how play a card game with elements of both,” he pointed out.

In the future Armada would like to partner with a non-profit to provide computer graphic arts classes at the store.

Basheen Soto, 29, from Castle Hill, also known as KYO, is the local registered Yu-gi-oh judge, security guy, and jack-of-all-trades at the shop. He said the store means the difference between peace and trouble for some young people.

“Some of these kids here could have been out selling drugs now,” he said. “Instead they are here playing.”