Riverdale momentum

Local residents and business owners have begun devising strategies to save the long-desolate Riverdale Avenue commercial corridor.

In July, we reported on the first of 2008's closures on the block. Earlier this month, we watched more change, and documented a group of local residents who got together to figure out what they wanted to see in their neighborhood. We weren't the only ones watching — as we filed stories, community leaders and local residents worked behind the scenes.

Now another group of businesses has begun to form a Greater Riverdale Chamber of Commerce.

It's unclear how many businesses, if any, are already on board with this effort. But two headliners in the effort, Joe Gordon and Charles Moerdler, are people who have been grumbling about the state of Riverdale's empty lots for months if not years.

Mr. Gordon used to work for City Councilman Oliver Koppell. An affable veteran of both civil engineering and city politics, he's well-connected in the worlds of politics and real estate. He can often be found behind the scenes, shepherding large projects through the planning and review process, and could be described as somewhat of a mix between an engineering and a political consultant.

Mr. Moerdler is Community Board 8's land use committee chair. A former city buildings commissioner, he is a founding partner at the litigation practice of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.

Despite their influence in affairs at the city and state level, both of these men pay attention to what's going on in their own backyard. Mr. Gordon works on projects in Riverdale quite often. Mr. Moerdler has repeatedly offered to take, pro bono, a case on behalf of Board 8 to sue Con Edison for damage done during their work in Riverdale; he says he's picked up such cases in the past. And he has told reporters many times that he fears abandoned construction sites and vacant lots will be the harbingers of widespread blight in the Bronx akin to what he saw in the 1970s and 1980s.

Abuse of power

All he wanted was to get out of a parking ticket.
But Kingsbridge firefighter Christopher Santana went about it all wrong and ended up with a $1,000 fine from the city Conflict of Interest Board instead.
The fine was issued on Monday, after Mr. Santana admitted he had used his position a firefighter to avoid getting a ticket.
The Engine 46 fireman brazenly parked his Cadillac SUV — with the license plate BRAVEST1 — in front of a fire hydrant at the corner of Van Cortlandt Park South and Gale Place and then left a smarmy note begging traffic agents not to ticket him last May.
“I’m really a fireman,” he wrote. “Thank you for your courtesy.”
Last March, The Riverdale Press wrote a story about several off-duty police officers abusing their power, after neighbors called the paper to complain.

Madoff watch: Another Bronx victim

The proprietor of Stuyvesant Fuel Service, the Bronx-based company that supplies heating fuel to clients around the city — including Riverdale — is another victim of the Bernie Madoff scandal, the Daily News reports.

Martin Rosenman, the proprietor of the family-run business, gave Madoff $10 million of his money in early December, according to court documents. Now he's suing to get it back before it goes into a fund that'll be used to pay all the folks Madoff swindled by using money from new investors to pay old ones — a Ponzi scheme Madoff estimated would cause up to $50 billion in damage.

Mr. Rosenman is not the only Bronx victim to suffer at Madoff's hands. Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy lost $1.3 million because the fund it had invested in had been given over to Madoff's care, The Press reported in mid-December.