Leonidas Brito never made it to Santo Domingo

By Frances McInnis

December 9, 2009

Leonidas Brito was a quiet neighbor. The 52-year-old rented a single bedroom on the ground floor of 416 East 173^rd Street, a building of crumbling and mismatched orange and red brick with black fire escapes snaking down its front wall.

Guillermo Neiras, 24, who lived in the apartment directly above Brito for several years, said in a recent interview that he rarely heard the small older man moving around below. Read the full story

Yankee wins, a working boiler, safe streets

Photo Credit: Andrew Lampard

As September gives way to October in Highbridge and the first cold winds are felt by its residents, many of those in the neighborhood have three hopes: the Yankees will still be playing, the boiler in the apartment building will still be working, and the neighborhood streets and parks will be safer. Read the full story

Reading Between the Crime Statistics in Hunts Point

Dried leaves swirled about Maria Ortiz as she stood sweeping the street outside the Mount Sinai Christian church. During the crisp autumn days, the summer’s sweltering heat and winter’s withering cold, Ortiz has kept the block between Coster and Spofford tidy for many of the 23 years she has been a member of Mount Sinai church in Hunts Point. “I see calm,” she said of the neighborhood. “I always clean out here and I don’t see what I used to: marijuana, needles, condoms. Now I could show you the garbage. I sweep up just what God brings – dried leaves.”

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