The Bronx Ink

A 22-year-old man, Ahiyut Endhie, from the Bronx has won Sunday’s 53rd Atlantic City Marathon, according to the Press of Atlantic City.

Endhie clocked two hours, 26 minutes, 28 seconds to finish the 26.2-mile race ahead of 900 other full marathon runners. Nearly 3,500 people entered four races including 3.1, 6.2, 13.1 miles and the full marathon.

Lansdowne, Pa., resident Sheila Klick was the women’s winner in 2:56.06.

Bronx residents affected by Hurricane Irene now have until Oct. 28 to apply for government aid, NY1 reports.

A center will be open at the Bronx Borough Hall, 851 Grand Concourse, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Oct. 7.

For more information, call 1-800-621-3362 or visit www.fema.gov.

Ana Brito talks to staffers at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. clinic health fair. (MOHAMMED ADEMO/The Bronk Ink)

A woman living in the Morrisania section of the South Bronx has a 50 percent higher risk of dying from cancer than women in the rest of the New York City and a 15 percent higher rate than the rest of the Bronx. Regular screenings and early detection can significantly lower the number of breast cancer related deaths. That was the message of the annual Breast Cancer Awareness and Health Fair held Oct. 1 at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Health Center.

The health fair drew around 200 children and parents to the parking lot on Franklin Avenue, where they received health information, food, and music. The goal was to reach the whole family, organizers said. “We are here to make sure that the community knows what we offer and children receive recommended vaccinations,” said Sandra Tramble, a medical records clerk at the clinic.

The health center is part of the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital’s BronxCare network system. Staffers from across the clinic’s various departments welcomed visitors with a smile and a small gift to take home. They handed out backpacks, books, socks, shirts, and notebooks to children. Parents received information on vaccinations and sexually transmitted diseases along with free condoms and nutrition guides. Volunteers gave out fried chicken, French fries, and beverages to visitors as they made their way through the exit door.

On the third floor of the clinic, a team of 10 volunteers and four doctors performed an initial breast examination. According to the New York City Department of Health, breast cancer kills over 1,200 people in the city every year but 23 percent of women 40 and older have not had a recent mammogram. In Morrisania, where one in three people live below poverty line, the number is even higher.

For some of the clinic’s staff, the fight against cancer is a very personal one. “I lost my aunt to cancer,” said Valencia Johnson, a patient care technician. “It is an unfair disease that doesn’t discriminate along cultural or economic lines.”

Seven of the 21 people who came to the breast cancer awareness event were referred to a hospital because doctors found potential problems during a physical exam.

Mariam Brown, who has worked at the Center for over 10 years, said she’s known patients who died from breast cancer and those that survived. “I had patients who came back saying, good thing we came to you early,” said Brown. “I enjoy talking to patients about breast cancer because I feel like I am doing something about it.”

As part of its national Breast Cancer Awareness month activities, the clinic is offering initial breast cancer screenings throughout October. A community health survey released in 2006 shows nearly one in three adults in Morrisania are uninsured or underinsured. Angela Aguasvivas, a social work assistant at the clinic, said many of the clinic’s patients are undocumented.

To offset the medical cost for qualified uninsured and underinsured patients, the clinic offers a program called ” community healthcare benefits”. Eligibility and discounts are based on annual income and household size. Those who don’t qualify for these benefits are referred to other clinics for free mammograms.

“But no one is turned away,” said Aguasvivas.

Local education workers forged an unexpected alliance with the Occupy Wall Street protesters Tuesday, when hundreds from each group converged in front of City Hall to denounce the city’s plan to fire more than 700 school workers, many from the South Bronx, by the end of the week.

It seemed an odd alliance, at first. The multiracial group of mostly middle-aged school aides and kitchen workers, wearing bright blue District Council 37 hats and green t-shirts, were fighting for their jobs.

The mostly young, white Occupy Wall Street protesters, wearing just about anything, have been fighting for a broad spectrum of issues. The group that has been camped out in the financial district for 17 days is growing in numbers around wide-ranging targets such as  corporate greed, government cutbacks and Mayor Bloomberg’s policies.

When the two groups joined forces, a loud cheer erupted.  “Our children are behind us,” shouted Eddy Rodriguez, president of District Council 37, the city’s largest municipal public employee union that represents parent coordinators, kitchen workers, classroom aides and other school workers.

Other DC 37 leaders immediately acknowledged the potential for solidarity. “We’re gonna join them down there,” said Lillian Roberts, the union’s executive director, from the stage overlooking Broadway referring to the protesters in Zuccotti Park. “Their fight is our fight.”

Union officials predicted that the South Bronx would be one of the hardest areas hit by the cuts. Among the total layoffs, 46 are expected to come from Bronx schools.  Morrisania’s District 9 would lose 8 percent, and Hunts Point’s District 8 would lose 5 percent of its total school workers, a union spokesperson said.

One Highbridge resident who works as a direct support assistant at Public School 73 where his three children attend said he expects to keep his job, but he’s worried about others in his school.

“No teacher wants to leave a classroom dirty. They’re going to pick up a broom,” said Evans Quamina, who is also president of Local 443. He was referring to the janitors in danger of losing their jobs.  “If the focus is on keeping classes clean, the kids aren’t learning anything.”

Bronx resident Ella Arouz found out last week that she was being laid off from her job as a health aide worker at Brooklyn International High School, a position she’s held for the last 15 years.

“Those are my babies,” the Nicaraguan immigrant said about her students. “I watched them grow. I helped them get glasses. I taught them to care about their health. Who will help them now?”

An Occupy Wall Street protester said she understood firsthand the importance of school workers in children’s lives. “My school aides encouraged me to go to class,” said Alex Krales, 22, who attended New York City public schools. “They kept me out of fights and made me feel unique in an overcrowded school.”

A 26-year-old anti-Wall Street protester said he understood that the layoffs would be felt most by low-income women in the city. “I am here to stand with my fellow union workers,” said David Pugh, a security guard from Brooklyn. “We need to protect and defend the most vulnerable members of society.”

Other Bronx residents who joined the rally were dismayed by the potential job losses. “These adults, the counselors and health aides, are the first line of intervention for kids,” said Liana Maris, an outside program coordinator at Crotona International High School in the Bronx. “They end up providing emotional safety, especially if the youth can’t get it at home.”

Riverdale resident Shekema Brown, 37, is not a school worker, but came to the rally to show her support.  “I suggest not laying off the workers, said Brown “and finding the money somewhere else.”

Union officials claimed that DC37 had offered other cost saving solutions that the city rejected in June. “The Bloomberg administration’s plan to lay off school support staff shows a reckless disregard for the well-being of New York’s 1.1 million school children and their families,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts in a press release. “Principals were mandated to make these cuts by the city apparently to close a budget gap. Yet when the union offered a proposal generating real savings to bridge the budget gap and save the jobs of these valuable workers, the city cut off discussions.”

At Tuesday’s protest, one fired school worker wept quietly on the edge of the crowd. “I served those kids breakfast and lunch everyday,” said Catherin Rozell, who said she recently lost her nine-year job as a school aide at P.S. 270 in Brooklyn. “And now I have nothing.”

City council spokesperson Justin Goodman said the council will be holding hearings on the layoffs soon.

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.

Saturday morning a couple was loading groceries into their SUV in the parking lot of a Bronx supermarket when a carjacker jumped in the driver’s and drove off in their car. NBC New York reported this morning that it didn’t take long for the thief to realize that he also had a child in the backseat. He stopped a few blocks down, left the child out on the street and continued with his car theft. The young boy is safe with is parents.

Thursday night a young Bronx man was walking his girlfriend home when he was fatally shot. The New York Post, on September 16, reported that Jose Webster, age 16, was walking down Teller Avenue when two men approached him and picked a fight. The fight resulted in a shot to Webster’s chest. Webster’s girlfriend, Aniik Wallace, crouched over his body and begged him to stay with her, witnesses said.  Webster died at Lincoln hospital. His mother and Wallace are planning a candlelight vigil for Webster this Sunday at the basketball court on Webster Avenue at 169^th Street in the Bronx.