Friends of Williamsbridge Oval Fight for Continued Financing of Local Horticulture Program

Below is a letter that was sent by the Friends of Williamsbridge Oval to the Norwood News. The letters intent is to help the organization restore funding for horticulture programs that help keep the Bronx beautiful. With budget cuts everywhere we wish them well in their efforts. Please see below.

Gt

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Dear Norwood News Editor:

The community group, Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval, is deeply disappointed that Mosholu Preservation Corporation (a non-profit operated by Montefiore Hospital) has decided to eliminate their horticulture program in the Norwood and Bedford Park community. This elimination means that the new, beautiful plantings and new construction erected this last Fall in the Williamsbridge Oval’s new playground area by the Oval's Recreation Center will suffer greatly.

For the last few years, MPC has been an integral part of Norwood and Bedford Park by being invaluable in making our communities more livable, lively, and connected. MPC did creative and innovative work preserving and enhancing the neighborhood that hosts Montefiore Hospital's clients and employees.

After months of systematic distancing by Mosholu Preservation Corporation from the community, it is disheartening to know that MPC (part of a major and profitable neighborhood institution such as Montefiore Hospital) is abandoning the neighborhood via leaving its parks (which are, no doubt, the anchors for a healthy community) to fend for themselves while the Parks' Department "does more with less" while relying on private entities and local non-profits to help manage parks.

Sincerely,
Friends of the Williamsbridge Oval
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Longwood Resident Profiled in Times

First, we want to thank all of you for the well wishes and the kind words. Baby, big sis, and mom are doing well. It's going to take a while to get back to full blogging capacity, but we figured we pass on some hearsay and conjecture into the blogosphere.

Here's a little article from this weekend's real estate section in the NY Times profiling Longwood resident Roberto Garcia, who works as a director of community relations Montefiore Medical Center. Now you know we're suckers for Bronx-related real estate stories, but what makes this even more interesting is that Mr. Garcia is rumored to be on the short list to replace the recently retired Dart Westphal as head of Mosholu Preservation Corporation. MPC is an affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center and is the publisher of the Norwood News, the Bronx News Network blog, and a growing number of local Bronx neighborhood papers.

Anybody have any substantive info on this? Who else is on the short list? Are these rumors wildy speculative?

~ErLu