"While Washington, D.C. may be 250 miles away, the people of my Congressional District are always forefront on my mind, and everyday I have the honor of serving you in Congress, your concerns will be paramount."

• Secured $4.7 million in Federal funding for the Little Angels Head Start Program to prepare children for elementary school
• Delivered more then $7.1 million in funding to Bronx area public schools to provide greater technology in the classroom, better after-school programming and increase English language programs for Limited English proficient students
• Brought $400,000 in Federal funding to the Neighborhood Enhancement and Training Services Center on Purdy Street for the development of a new computer lab for neighborhood residents
• Leading the charge to strip out discriminatory language that shortchanges children in the Bronx from their fair share of Federal education dollars
• Fought for and won $100,000 for an EPA study of the air and noise pollution surrounding Parkchester resulting from LaGuardia Airport
• Introduced legislation to increase the Federal budget by $10 million for bilingual health services at Community Health Centers, like the one on White Plains Road on the Parkchester/Morris Park line

Parkchester

Parkchester is a neighborhood in the eastern Bronx, bounded to the north by East Tremont Avenue, to the east by Purdy Street, St. Raymond Avenue, and Olmstead Avenue, to the south by McGraw Avenue, and to the west by White Plains Road. It was once the site of the New York Catholic Protectory, a self-sufficient farm and trade school for wayward boys opened by the Christian Brothers after the Civil War, which had a bakery as well as printing, carpentry, shoemaking, and tailor shops. The playing fields were also used by semiprofessional baseball teams for many years. Between 1938 and 1942, a complex designed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company was built on a site of 129 acres (fifty-two hectares) as one of the first large- scale housing developments in the United States that was not itself a city. There were 12,273 units divided among buildings of seven to thirteen stories each, standing in four quadrants around landscaped grounds; amenities included a large shopping area with more than a hundred stores (among them the first branch outside Manhattan of Macy's), a movie theater, and a bowling alley. The design of the residential buildings was based on three core plans-and five wing plans (and their variants). A wing consisted of two dwelling units, each having two to five rooms. The facades were of sheer brick, patterned at the tops of buildings and around entrances, and there were also small decorative sculptures. Parking could accommodate three thousand automobiles. Storefronts were in the moderne style, with curving facades, art deco detailing, and stylized signage. The development was named for two adjoining neighborhoods, Park Versailles (a name that went out of fashion) and Westchester. In the mid 1960s the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, the developer of Parkchester and its original owner, was accused by the city's commission on civil rights of limiting tenancy to whites. The neighborhood became more diverse racially as a result, and in 1968 Metropolitan Life sold Parkchester to the large real-estate firm Helmsley—Spear, which converted the southern quadrant of the project into a condominium. In the 1980s many new immigrants settled in Parkchester, mostly from Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, the Soviet Union, India, China, and the Philippines.

John McNamara: History in Asphalt The Origin of Bronx: Street and Place Names (New York: Bronx County Historical Society, 1984)
John McNamara: McNamara's Old Bronx (New York: Bronx County Historical Society, 1980)

Gary D. Hermalyn and Robert Kornfeld: Landmarks of the Bronx (New York: Bronx County Historical Society, 1990)

Gary D. Hermalyn, Encyclopedia of New York City, Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson. New Haven, Yale University Press. 1995.