The Bronx Ink

Alex Rosenblum, 74, grew up as an athlete playing hockey and tennis. Being active was a huge part of his life until he had his first heart attack at 42. Rosenblum’s cardiologist told him to “take it easy.” 

Taking his doctors advice Rosenblum bought a place down in Florida and spent his winters there — he noticed people were playing a game that looked familiar — it was a lot like tennis. 

It was called pickleball.

“It’s a social game, there’s a camaraderie there,” Rosenblum said. 

Pickleball is the fastest growing sport for the second year in a row according to The Sports & Fitness Industry Association, and now,  Rosenblum is asking the Parks Department to create more pickleball courts in the Bronx. 

“I saw the courts in Florida and I was a longtime tennis player. And I thought, ‘hey, I can do that,’” Rosenblum said. But when he came back to Riverdale he could hardly find anywhere to play. 

Pickleball is played on a badminton-size court with a paddle and ball. It’s commonly played with two people per team with points scored by the serving team. 

According to the national USA pickleball site there are more than 4.8 million participants across the country. 

In the Bronx, there’s one designated court to play pickleball. It’s located near the southwest playground in Van Cortlandt Park. During COVID, there was a pickleball craze and so the Parks Department created a court as an experiment, said Stephanie Ehrlich, Executive Director of the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance. 

But it’s a “poor design,” according to Rosenblum. It’s part of a paved game court, allowing people to freestyle any game they choose without having the structure needed for a pickleball court, he said. 

Rosenblum noticed that Seton Park, just a couple miles from Van Cortlandt park, had six tennis courts that could easily be turned into a couple of pickleball courts; other pickleball players in the community felt the same way, according to Rosenblum. 

Rosenblum started to contact community leaders and the Parks Department on behalf of other pickleball players in Riverdale. He sent dozens of emails and letters requesting pickleball courts be added in Seton Park.

At a Parks and Recreation meeting last Wednesday night, Rosenblum was hoping to announce his ideas to the Parks Department in-person but they failed to show.  

“I had hoped that somebody from the Parks Department would be here to view the status report but that’s not the case,” Bob Bender, the Interim Chair of the Parks and Recreation Committee said. 

Instead Bender read a statement from the Parks Department. They said that the park is concerned the tennis courts cannot be adequately transformed into a pickleball court in Seton Park, but they are looking into putting a pickleball court in a different area.  

“I’m surprised that the Parks Department says that you can’t convert it because all over the country they take a tennis court and they could squeeze in four pickleball courts…easily,”  Rosenblum said.  

In an email to BronxInk, a spokesperson for the Parks Department stated the department was exploring two additional locations for new courts in the Bronx and is in discussion with the community board to make this happen. 

“It’s always our goal to provide a balance of access between all of the various sports and activities that our regular park visitors enjoy,” said Dan Kastanis Senior Press Officer of NYC Parks. 

Tennis and pickleball player Carol Stricker said she’s been reaching out to politicians and community leaders for over a year about the tennis courts at Seton Park. 

“If they were to fix up the courts they can certainly take one of the tennis courts or two of the tennis courts and put pickleball lines on it,” Stricker said. 

There are 11 pickleball areas in the city and the Bronx has one court that’s located in Riverdale, according to NYC parks data. Each pickleball area has multiple courts on them, except in the Bronx. 

New York is one of the regions in the U.S. with the largest number of total participants in the sport, according to a USA Pickleball fact sheet  As the pickleball community grows in NYC so does the need for courts. Co-Founder of NYC pickleball, Eric Ho, said the difficulty in New York is there are limited courts.  

Ho, 33, said he picked up his first pickleball paddles in the summer of 2020 with his wife Ray. 

“We were looking for anything to toss around just like everyone else who was desperate to get outside,” Ho said. 

He said it was hard to find anyone playing in New York at the time and he didn’t realize what a pickleball community was supposed to look like until he went down to Memphis to visit his in-laws. 

When Ho and his wife came back to New York City in March of 2021, they started to find small groups all around the city. 

He recently left his job to be a full time pickleball coach and to run NYC pickleball. He and his wife created the website for players around the city to connect and learn about the sport. 

“People are looking for places to play in New York and they just haven’t been able to figure it out through the parks department. Nothing’s been super clear,” Ho said.

Earlier this month, the Department of Transportation took Riverdale Avenue and put it “on a diet.” The project known as a “road diet” transformed the avenue from a two-lane traveling road to one. A bike lane and a turning bay were added to the road that stretches from West 254th to West 263rd Street.  

The project was the result of efforts that started back in March of this year between DOT and local elected officials, DOT wrote in an email.  

From 2015 to 2019 there were three traffic fatalities along the stretch and 66 total injuries, according to DOT. They added that two of these fatalities were senior-aged pedestrians which demonstrated the need for a safer street.

However, residents are concerned about the new project which was completed on Sept. 5. because of increased traffic, double parking during school hours and congestion due to sharing the lane with city buses. 

The Traffic and Transportation Committee of Community Board 8 held a meeting on Sept. 15 where residents showed up to voice those concerns. 

Riverdale resident, Eric Miooan, was one of several who spoke out against the road diet. 

Taking out a lane is “like cutting off somebody’s leg and saying you’ll get used to it,” Miooan said. 

Community Board 8 rejected DOT’s proposal due to not receiving enough traffic studies to change the road, according to Community Board 8 meeting minutes.  The board also said that the plan didn’t take into account merging traffic and parking. 

Across the nation, road diets have been known to help reduce speed and accommodate other modes of traffic like bicycling, according to the federal highway administration. 

DOT proposed that the 60-foot-wide road be divided into smaller sections. The road is still the same width but a lane for bikes has been added and a turning bay, leaving a smaller amount of room for cars. 

At the Sept. 15 meeting, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D) spoke of how shocked he was that DOT delivered the new road so quickly.   

“It’s an absolute insult that the DOT could have moved this quickly,” Dinowitz said.

He said that it normally takes the department months to complete projects like this but they finished the road diet in eleven days. 

First Deputy Commissioner Margaret Forgione of DOT said they got the project done quickly because the department wanted it finished before children in the community went back to school.

On the other hand, Dinowitz said he’s been pushing for left turn signals on Riverdale Avenue for years now. 

“Put in the left turn signals, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out the battle in the flow of traffic and make the decision to put in left turn signals,” Dinowitz said.

There was a protest on Riverdale Avenue on Sep. 7 after the project was finished, where City Council Member of District 11, Eric Dinowitz (D) called on DOT to take a look into community concerns. 

“We’re calling on the DOT to take into account actual community concerns and to be a collaborative partner in projects or proposed projects, instead of completely ignoring the community,” Dinowitz said. 

DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez attended the traffic and transportation meeting on the 15th to listen to the community’s concerns and get feedback. 

One member Yesenia Jimenez explained how she almost got into a car accident earlier that week because people aren’t used to the new road. 

Laura Spalter, Chairperson of CB8, said she got a phone call from the board office earlier that week that two cars had gotten into a sidewalk accident, and were found up on the curb of the Skyview Shopping Center on Riverdale Avenue between 258th and 259th street because of the new conditions. 

“If somebody had been walking on the sidewalk they would be dead,” Spalter said.  

Spalter also spoke at the protest earlier this month saying that the Traffic and Transportation Committee voted against the plan repeatedly.  

DOT said that they would come back in a year and reassess—if they see no changes or an increase in accidents at that time, then they’ll “go from there.” 

DOT has done similar projects in the Bronx that have shown to reduce total injuries between 22 percent and 47 percent, and citywide road diets have reduced deaths and serious injuries by 30 percent on average, according to research from DOT. 

“So we do expect to see that here and we will be monitoring it,” Forgione said. 

Shawn Garcia, Bronx and Uptown Organizer for Transportation Alternatives, is in support of road diets across the city and responded to a tweet from the commissioner on Sept. 15 just hours before the meeting.  

“Appreciate the commissioner @ydanis pushing forward this work, especially despite the small anti-road diet forces in Riverdale. The racial and class equity issues here are so apparent.” 

In an interview with The Bronx Ink, Garcia said that Community Board 8 isn’t representative of Riverdale as a whole. 

“We don’t want to wait for the next person to die or a child to get hit by a car,” Garcia said. 

Dozens of people gathered Sunday afternoon in Riverdale to honor Ruth Mullen – a neighborhood activist who was killed by an MTA express bus while crossing the street outside her home on Johnson Avenue in early September of last year.  

Mullen, 68, was an activist in her community, and was a part of a local political group of women called the Huddle. 

“She said many times that it would take someone to be killed there for a traffic light to be put in,” Sue Dodell, a member of the Huddle said. 

Jim Bradley, Mullen’s husband of 30 years, spoke to the crowd. The one-year anniversary of her death is this week and while Bradley wanted to celebrate Mullen’s life he also wanted to use this time to rally friends and neighbors to get involved in making the community safer. 

“She worked at the polls, you can work at the polls. Get involved in organizations, engage with people. Change happens one person at a time,” Bradley said.  

The intersection is a heavily used bus route and there can be little visibility due to the multiple slopes, according to notes from a city council committee meeting last year. Many community members complained about cars and buses rolling through the stop signs. 

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera showed his condolences at the rally. 

“There is a level of responsibility that we all have to be activists, and to try to change our community for the better. That is what Ruth did. I’m hoping that we all continue to do that,”  Rivera said. 

During the rally there was a man driving who started to make a scene. He was honking at the cars slowing down. “That’s the problem,” Rivera said, pointing to where the man was. 

In August, New York Mayor Eric Adams announced that speed cameras in school zones citywide will be turned on 24/7. Rivera was a part of this decision and said it’s already made a difference. Signs about speed traps were also put up with the intention to slow drivers down. 

Abigail Martin, Female leader of the 81st Assembly District (D), said there’s intersections all over the city that are in need of stoplights and other safety measures. 

“I would like to see more attention from the mayoral administration given to the Department of Transportation because it’s really a quality of life issue that affects everybody,” she said. 

A traffic light was installed at the intersection on Kappock Street and Johnson Avenue at the beginning of August, almost a year after Mullen’s death.  

At the rally Elizabeth Cooke-Levy, a member of the Huddle, announced that they renamed their political group to the Ruth Mullen Riverdale Huddle in her honor. Bradley continued his wife’s legacy by encouraging everyone to follow in her footsteps and advocate for what’s right and push for safer streets.

“Get involved, that’s what Ruth would say. It’s important to get out there and vote,” Bradley said. 

As early as Wednesday morning, motorists in the West Bronx experienced shortages and limits on refueling their vehicles in many stations. Today, stations are  completely closed, The Riverdale Press reports.

A supply terminal in Brooklyn is awaiting a third-party pipeline and gasoline barges to replenish depleted stock after a buying frenzy in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

The new skating rink under construction in Van Cortlandt Park. (MARGARET BADORE / TheBronx Ink)

For the past three decades, any Bronx child who wanted to learn to figure skate or play hockey had to travel to either Yonkers, Rye, or one of Manhattan’s outdoor park rinks.

“When I started skating the closest rink was Rye Playland,” said Lauren Hunt, 27, who grew up in Throgs Neck and is now the skating school director at World Ice Arena in Flushing, Queens. Few of her friends in Throgs Neck knew how to skate. “I was fortunate enough to have a mother who was willing to drive to Westchester and beyond.”

A new city ice skating rink in Van Cortlandt Park is expected to  to change this. Scheduled to open on November 15th, the new outdoor rink promises public skating sessions, performances and a skating school where children and adults can take classes.

Van Cortlandt Park was once home to a seasonal rink near the tennis courts, but it has been closed since 1983. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans to bring an ice rink back to Van Cortlandt Park during his State of the City address at the beginning of 2011. A partnership between RD Management and Ekstein Development, which runs rinks elsewhere in New York City, won the bid to build it from the Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy.

According to project manager Ron Kraut, the conservancy hopes to attract 50,000 to 60,000 visitors between November 15 and March 1. During the same four-month period last winter, World Ice Arena had over 82,000 visitors and City Ice Pavilion in Long Island City saw just under 33,000 skaters.

The rink’s management tapped Alana Kelton to run the skating school in part because her in-laws owned the prior Van Cortlandt Park rink, once known as Kelton’s Tennis and Ice Skating.  “I was familiar with the Riverdale area,” she said. Kelton has been teaching ice skating for over 40 years and is also the director of skating at the Hommocks Park ice rink in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

The skating school plans to follow the Ice Skating Institute’s learn-to-skate program, which is geared towards teaching new students the fundamentals. These classes teach basic skills needed to play hockey, figure skate or just ice skate for fun. Kelton said she likes the Institute’s program because the levels progress sensibly and allow skaters to move up quickly.

The new rink will be primarily aimed at recreational skating. “We’re going to focus on what the community wants,” said Kristi Tortorella, the general manager. “It’s mainly there as a service for the community, rather than being a competitive facility for skaters.”

Terence Mulvey, a Riverdale resident, said he thinks a nearby rink will be good for the area. He is considering enrolling his 7-year-old son in skating lessons. “Just yesterday, he expressed an interest in playing hockey,” said Mulvey.

For Kraut, the ice rink is a social gathering place where young people, families and children can find a common interest. “Our objective is to teach the Bronx how to skate.”

One of the Bronx’s most prolific perverts makes for a creepy neighbor at a Riverdale co-op – and a source of serial frustration for cops, the New York Daily News reports.

Gerard Patrick Matthews, 51, has been busted 18 times in the city and Westchester County since 1990 on 29 counts of public lewdness, exposure, assault and obscenity.

He has been convicted more than a dozen times, serving several short jail stints.

A Bronx landlord of a Riverdale building is being sued by the Justice Department for race discrimination, News Junky Journal reports.

A Manhattan U.S. Attorney filed the civil rights violation lawsuit against the landlord for allegedly discriminating against African-Americans seeking apartments.

According to the civil rights violation complaint, Loventhal Silver Riverdale LLC, Goodman Management Co. and superintendent Jesus Velasco had “engaged in conduct constituting illegal discrimination” since at least April of 2009.

It’s a rainy Monday afternoon on the corner of 235th Street and Johnson Avenue in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. On any other Monday many storefronts would be open and ready for business in this predominantly Jewish neighborhood, but many businesses catering to this community closed at noon for Passover.

With an estimated population of 21,600 observant Jews, according to The Jewish Community Study of 2002, Rabbi Judith S. Lewis, of the Riverdale Temple still says the community is diverse.

People of various ethnic backgrounds and of different ages, scurry along the sidewalks attempting to stay dry. While others park along the street to grab last-minute items, like Manischewitz and packages of matzo in bulk.

The strip is a world market, loaded with ethnic restaurants from Chinese and Indian to Thai and Japanese, with Italian eateries too, none of which are crowded, because many have rushed home already to prepare the seder.

Although he expects business to be slow the week of Passover, Salim Ahmed, owner of Cumin, a local Indian eatery, keeps his restaurant open for other customers who may be in the mood for some spicy cuisine.

“It’s usually like this during Passover,” Ahmed says, looking around his empty restaurant. “This year Easter’s this week too, so I know it’ll be slow.”

He says he decreases the number of staff working and also prepares less food to adjust to a slow week. But he’ll probably see some regulars during the week like modern Jewish families or those who don’t practice.

Ruben Velazco displays the seder plate available at Liebman's Delicatessen in Riverdale, Bronx. (Photo: Sonia Dasgupta/ The Bronx Ink)

Liebman’s Delicatessen, off 235th Street, is the only business that is busy, with customers rushing in and out the front door with their orders of potato kugel, coleslaw, sweet-smelling brisket and roasted chickens.

The deli, which has been in the neighborhood since 1953, serves traditional foods and isn’t Kosher for Passover, according to its owner, Yuval Dekel, who grew up in the neighborhood and worked at the family business his father bought in 1981.

“I was thrusted into this business after my pops passed in 2002,” says Dekel, who runs the deli alongside his wife and brother-in-law.

“Most of the Kosher establishments are closed, but they should remain open since Passover is the busiest day of the year,” he adds.

As customers pile into the restaurant to eat a quick lunch with family, the staff promptly fills orders. Dekel says the restaurant rents a refridgerated truck for the holiday to hold the extra orders of meat and poultry. The menu stays traditional to cater to the families and people who have been coming there for years.

“We also have people order ahead for the holidays,” he says. “This year there’s been a lot of chopped liver, but also brisket, roast chicken, stuffed cabbage and matzah ball soup.”

The only changes to the menu since Dekel took over are two chicken marinades — olive oil with rosemary and thyme with lemon.

“If I changed too much, people wouldn’t come,” he says.

Although other Jewish restaurants cleaned their entire store over the weekend for Passover, he says Liebman’s operates through the weekend until 5 p.m. on Monday when they close for the week.

As the afternoon wears on, the number of pedestrians on the street decrease as some head to local synagogues and others join families to celebrate the holiday.