The Bronx Ink

It’s hard to imagine, but 107-year-old Bronx resident Louise (Big Momma) Mitchell can remember going to pick cotton in Georgia when she was 5, with “not a penny to show for it.” The New York Daily News honored her latest birthday.

Mitchell now lives in Morris Heights with house-call medical care. Instead of completing school past the third grade, Mitchell went to work. After the cotton fields, it was washing clothes for a wealthy landowner, the Daily News reports.

Eventually, she relocated to New Jersey to work as a housekeeper, and then did the same wealthy Jewish households in Manhattan, but lived in Harlem and in the South Bronx.

She said young people “should pray to God their life isn’t hard like mine.”

A group of Bronx apartment buildings is going through their fourth sale in five years, reports Crain’s business news. Bluestone Group had purchased the buildings for $10 million a little more than a year ago after they’d been foreclosed on, and promised tenants that the buildings would be renovated.

Turns out, they were bluffing. The buildings were sold to Bronx-based Gazivoda Realty Co. for $17.6 million, which Crain’s attributes to a notice that tenants received late last week and to the real estate trade publication Real Deal.

Department of Housing Preservation and Development officials told Crain’s that they’ve been in contact with the new buyer to make sure they “take the interests of current tenants to heart.”

The six building-struggle started in 2006 when Ocelot Capital Group, which no longer exists, bought the buildings for $16.5 million, but then abandoned responsibilities.

Four cops faced disciplinary action in July after playing football with a 7-year-old boy at a Bronx housing project, reports the New York Daily News. The officers say the oversensitivity of the misconduct charges will impact the relationship officers have with their community.

Deputy Chief James McNamara, commanding officer of the Bronx Housing Bureau, apparently saw the cops tossing the football with the boy on the Fourth of July and was “irate,” according to the Daily News report.

Two of the four officers are fighting the disciplinary charges, but face harsh consequences if they are found guilty of failing to remain alert on the job.

Bronx assistant district attorney Jennifer Troiano, arrested in August 2010 for driving drunk and causing a three-car crash on Major Deegan Expressway, will get to keep her driver’s license, the New York Daily News reports, even though she refused to take a Breathalyzer test after her arrest.

At the time of the arrest, Troiano admitted having had drinks but wouldn’t take a Breathalyzer test, according to the Daily News’ story, so her license was automatically suspended until her court date. The Daily News obtained the transcript to the December hearing, and it appears the judge found fault with the arresting officer, who could not explain how the officers decided Troiano was drunk without a Breathalyzer.

Troiano’s suspension was lifted, but she’ll still go on trial for the DWI charges.