Bronx Chamber of Commerce Holiday Party: Make OUR Holiday Party YOUR Holiday Party!

Bronx Chamber of Commerce Holiday Party & Toy Drive Wed | Dec 12 | 5:30pm | Villa Barone Manor Let OUR Holiday Party be YOUR Holiday Party! An excellent opportunity for large and small businesses to host their office, department or company party as part of ours. Buffet | Wine | Beer | Music | Dancing Ugly Sweater Contest Raffles and Prizes Fun Photos with Santa Everyone gets a souvenir photo to take home Donated Toys will be distributed to Children in Need by Unique People Services It will be an evening of fun and memories We hope to see you there! Information or to RSVP: 718-828-3900 or phil@bronxchamber.org.      Phil Cardone Events, Communications & Grants Director Bronx Chamber of Commerce "The Network for Business Success" 1200 Waters Place, Suite 106 Bronx, NY 10461

Throggs Neck Veterans Parade

  The Throggs Neck Veterans Parade began at Lafayette and East Tremont Avenues, went across East Tremont Avenue, turned down Philip Avenue over the Throggs Neck Expressway turning right and ending Bicentennial Veterans Memorial Park reviewing stand. The photos should tell the rest of the story.

Above - People lined East Tremont Avenue to see the Throggs Neck Veterans Parade.

Below - State Assembly members Michael Benedetto and Nathalia Fernandez march with Councilman Mark Gjonaj, and State Committeeman Thomas Messina.

Above - Grand Marshal Captain Robert Doonan was driven to the reviewing stand by Community Board 10 Vice-Chair John Marano.

Below - Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. congratulates one of the marchers. 

Above - An army car that was used in World War Two.

Below - Two vehicles used in later wars.

Above - The Honorary Marshal Airman First Class John Powers family and friends.

Below - Parade Grand Marshal Captain Robert Doonan with his two Honorary Parade Marshals at each side.

Twenty-two flags were placed at the foot of the reviewing stand to commemorate that twenty-two veterans commit suicide every day. There were twenty-two flags held in place also. 

BOROUGH PRESIDENT DIAZ & AT&T HOST YOUTH BASEBALL AWARDS BRUNCH

   In between the Throggs Neck Veteran Breakfast, and the Throggs Neck Veterans Parade Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and AT&T East Region President Marissa Shorenstein held their annual celebration for youth baseball teams who participated in this year's Borough President's Cup held at Yankee Stadium. The two teams were the Champion Bronx Bombers, and the Grand Slam Little League. During the event Bronx Borough President Diaz Jr. told of how he became a third baseman looking up to New York Yankee third baseman Greg Nettles. He added that he also played center field and did some pitching. 

Above - Parents and their children listen to Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. speak of how he and his brother played little league baseball, and what positions the BP played. 

Below - AT&T East Region President Marissa Shorenstein presented each team with thousands of dollars in gift cards to Modell's Sporting Goods to help pay for equipment for the upcoming baseball season. 

A set of requirements of at least a B- grade average, ninety percent or better attendance record, and a demonstrated commitment to community service is required of each student to compete in the Borough President's Cup.

Councilman Mark Gjonaj Veterans Day Parade Breakfast

  The Annual Throggs Neck Veterans Day Parade Breakfast held at Villa Barone every year was missing something this year. As you can see the room was packed as usual, but a key figure was missing, that being the current 34th State Senator Jeff Klein. Senator Klein lost a close primary race in September to Ms. Alessandra Biaggi who will become the next State Senator from the 34 district when she is sworn in at the state capital on January 2nd. 

  The breakfast went on however without Senator Klein as the honorees included Grand Marshal Captain Robert Doonan of the U.S. Army, Honorary Marshal Airman First Class John Powers of the U.S. Air Force, Honorary Marshal Sgt. Major Paul Golluscio U.S. Army, the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Ms. Judy Lanci President of the Theodore Korony American Legion Post, and the Spirit of Patriotism Award was given to World War II Navy Veteran Pat Simone.

Above - Assemblyman Michael Benedetto, Assemblywoman Nathalia Fernandez, and Councilman Mark Gjonaj went around to greet the veterans and their families.

Below - The Throggs Neck Parade Grand Marshal Captain Robert Doonan speaks to a veteran and his wife.

Bronx Chamber Of Commerce Veteran's Luncheon

  Thursday the Bronx Chamber of Commerce held its annual Bronx Veterans Luncheon. Veterans from the past wars gathered at Masteros Caterers to salute their comrades who fought with them and those who did not make it home. The Chamber honored five retired and one active service members.

  Seated above are the honorees, Retired Sergeant First Class Peter C. Del-Debbio, Retired U.S. Marine Joe Faix, Retired U. S. Marine Lance Corporal Carrie H. Taft, Active National Guard and NYPD officer Sergeant Jena K. Quadland, Korea War Veteran Richard J. Naclerio, and Retired Navy Specialist Michael Borrero. 

Above - The crowded room as the Veterans celebrate their friends after the award ceremony. 

Below - More veterans and their spouses.

Above - Bronx Chamber of Commerce Chairman Joseph Kelleher is happy to introduce the new President of the Chamber Ms. Lisa Sorin as they are interviewed for Bronxnet Television.

Below - BCC Chairman Kelleher also showed off his singing talent during the luncheon.

Above - Everyone applauded the singing of BCC Chairman Joseph Kelleher.

Below - The final note of the luncheon, the playing of taps for those veterans who have died.

FRIDAY - MAYOR DE BLASIO HOLDS MEDIA AVAILABILITY ON SNOW STORM RESPONSE

Mayor Bill de Blasio: …I’m frustrated too. I’m frustrated as a New Yorker who was stuck in traffic, like so many other people were. I’m frustrated as the Mayor of this city that for so many reasons people didn’t get what they should have had last night. Look, again, I have found a long time ago New Yorkers like straightforward explanations. They don’t like to be toyed around with. In truth, this was a kind of perfect storm. It emerged bigger and later than anyone expected, obviously affected the whole tristate area in a very severe way. We had exceptional dynamics like the 20-car pileup on the George Washington Bridge, knocking out the outbound lanes of the George Washington Bridge – something I can’t remember every happening before. We had the early time of year and the impact on the trees – and an extraordinary number of trees falling, something that hasn’t typically happened in a lot of our storms. But all of that gets back to a core reality, which is the timing. 

So, we went into Wednesday night with estimates from the National Weather Service in the one-two inches of snow range. That’s not a snowstorm that any of us would be afraid of. That’s not a snowstorm where we’re going to use all of the emergency measures and tell people don’t go to work, and stay off the roads. We’ve had – I remind you, a lot of us have been through this together – The biggest snowstorm in New York City history – 28 inches, 29, whatever it was in the final analysis. There are times where we need to tell people, don’t even think about going to work, clear the roads, leave room for Sanitation. Wednesday night, we had no indication of that. Thursday morning, we had no indication of that. I said earlier, I referred to what has typically been the 11 am National Weather Service report. It turns out that the timing yesterday was later even than usual in terms of when we got the report – it was 12:36, yesterday. It was the first indication of three-to-five inches of snow. And again, normally, three-to-five inches of snow would not have posed this kind of problem. 

It ended up coming exactly at the wrong time. It basically concentrated as the rush hour was beginning – heavy wet snow – heavier, faster than anyone expected. So, there are a lot of reasons why things ended up the way they did. But that said, we are trying to learn some lessons and figure out what we can do better. 

So, the first thing we’re going to do is there will be a full audit review of everything that happened with the City agencies. We’re also going to sit with our State partners because everyone is connected here – MTA, Port Authority, everyone – we all have to work it through together. Deputy Mayor Fuleihan’s timing is impeccable – his team at the Office of Operations will lead that review. I think we’re going to find that a lot of this was exceptional and unusual and some of it beyond our control, but we’re also going to find areas where we can do better. The central concern I have is that we have as a City done well when we can get information out to people early and in a clear way. We don’t do as well when we don’t get information to folks. This one is tough because the information broke so late and I do think, in retrospect, we could have tried to say at 1 pm, let’s say, we’re headed for a much bigger situation, go home immediately, you know, leave work early. That might have helped. I think unfortunately to some extent the die was cast at that point – people had already brought their cars into the City. It might have had a helpful effect, but I’m not sure it would have averted the essence of what we went through.

So, we want to do that review because we need to do better, but we also understand the essence of all of this is having good information on a timely basis, and unfortunately that just was not the case yesterday.

At this moment, after a very difficult time yesterday, and I’ll say, I know everyone’s feeling – among the agencies here – we’re all unhappy with what happened, but I also want to say people worked very, very hard to try and address the situation that was exceedingly difficult. The agencies, I want to give particular thanks to the NYPD and the FDNY who spent the whole night trying to undo traffic jams and get trees out of roads under very adverse circumstances. I know Sanitation was trying to do all they could do, and a lot of times the core problem was they could not get to their locations because of the traffic. They needed to go back for salt and there was no way to get back to their resupply. So, people worked very hard, very intensely. 

I want to say, as we got into the morning and finally Sanitation had the ability to get out into roads that were not clogged by traffic – I think they did a good job on the overnight, clearing up as much as possible and making things move better this morning. We still had some issues early in the morning in the Bronx. But, you know, in the final analysis, under very, very adverse circumstances, I want to just say, I think a lot of City agencies did everything they could do. But the essence of this, even if you say it’s, you know, an exceedingly unusual set of events that came together, we still can’t let it happen again and we have to learn from it, we have to drill for it. It was – in the final analysis, just over six inches of snow. That should not be able to have this impact on this city and we have to figure out a way in the future to make sure that that does not happen again. 

Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, Department of Sanitation: So, yesterday, into the morning – we make our plans the day before because obviously we need to call people in – we were planning for a one-inch event, which is going to be primarily our salt spreaders. We did add plows to that in the late morning when we started to get that rumblings that maybe something else would happen. At that point in time, our staffing going into the afternoon, was allowing us to up to about 700 plows. We can – when we get very, very big, our biggest number for a blizzard would be about 1,600. So, there were points in time when we were between about 350 and 700 on the plowing side, depending on how many staff we had in, because we were in three shifts, we were not split. 

They already all had been working that day. So, everybody did work that day, but some had worked midnight to eight on the overnight before, some were working six to six, and some were working, starting at 4 o’clock. All of them worked overtime but we were in a three unevenly split shifts.

Mayor de Blasio: I just want to amplify this. So, imagine you’re in Kathryn’s shoes and you’re hearing one inch, two inches, and that’s salt only – or salt essentially. And then suddenly, you know, literally, it’s afternoon when you hear for the first time this thing has suddenly jumped up. Now, I will say, one of the things we’re going to work on – and this is not a diss on the National Weather Service, they do extraordinary work – but, you know, we have been burned a few times, not because they’re not trying but because weather’s unpredictable. I think we’re going to start being even more conservative. But even if you said, let’s throw on a few more inches, as Kathryn said, our biggest – you know, when you have a blizzard, 20 inches, 25 inches, 28 inches – like, that’s when it’s all hands on deck. When it’s two inches, three inches, four inches, you couldn’t imagine something like this possibly becoming what happened yesterday. Nonetheless, we have to figure out how to make the right adjustments. 

Again, that’s why I try to give you an extensive straightforward opening, that I think there were some limits about what we could do honestly. And again, my job is to offer New Yorkers straight-talk, not platitudes. If the fuller facts became available after 12:30 and rush hour began – rush hour officially begins at 3:30-4 o’clock – we were already in a really bad situation. 

No, no – I will say, personally, I had heard that the number went up, but per se, going up to three-to-five inches was not going to be a major weather event. We go through three-to-five inch storms all of the time. It was my own personal experience – left Gracie Mansion for an event at 6:30 and a few blocks into it, suddenly there’s this crazy traffic on the FDR and there’s no other place to turn. Something obviously was unusual and we all started – I started calling everyone and people started calling each other from their own experiences. But I think it’s really important to note, the thing that I think we would have had a shot at is with the right messaging, very, very quickly, we might have been able to get some people off the road and have a better chance of clearing it. The problem is, even hearing three-to-five inches would not have set off a sense of alarm. You couldn’t have imagined what we saw. If I just said to you, we’re going to have three-to-five inches of snow, you wouldn’t in a million years have pictured what ended up really happening. We’ve had much worse snow and never had something like that. So, this is a tough learning experience because we got something we never would have been able to predict from those numbers. I think the reason we have to do a review is, I’m sure there were some ways to pivot, but I’m trying to be honest with you, I think in essence the die was cast. Could we have gotten better information out, I think so. Could we have made some tactical moves that improved the situation, I think so. Could we have changed the basics? Not that late is my fear.

Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza: Sure, so I’ll do both. So we did have a number of children last night that were on bus routes that were delayed. Some were delayed from one-two hours. There were a good number that were delayed from anywhere from two-five hours. The last student this morning, with the help of NYPD, because the bus was stuck, got home at about 3:00 am. So, it is absolutely not the circumstances we want for our children. But I do want to say this – our first priority is to make sure that children will be safe and yesterday every student got home safely. We had no incidents of students being injured. So for us we’re very grateful for that. We had extraordinary work that was done by our bus drivers yesterday. Bus drivers that sat with children waiting for their parents who were also stuck in the same traffic to come pick up the students. We had students that were coming back from a college visit in Pennsylvania that were stuck, because they couldn’t get into the city. We had teachers and administrators and school support personnel that stayed with students. We had teachers and support personnel stay overnight in some of our school. Some of them because they couldn’t get home because the roads weren’t passible and some of them because they stayed there so late with children that they wanted to make sure that everybody was okay. So this was a cascading event. We don’t want that. It was a perfect storm as the Mayor has mentioned. It hit right when those buses started to roll taking kids home.

KZA Realty Group Closes Three Commercial Deals That Bring Jobs And Street Traffic To The Bustling Bronx

  KZA Realty Group recently closed three commercial leases in the Bronx, a borough that is seeing bustling real estate activity in all sections.

“Businesses large and small are contributing to a renaissance in the Bronx by bringing jobs and vitality to their neighborhoods,” said Kathy Zamechansky, president of KZA Realty. “There has never been a better time to take advantage of everything that the borough has to offer.”

A former Radio Shack location at 3587 East Tremont Avenue includes a parking lot with room for 10 cars that will be shared with the neighboring Bruckner Hobbies store.

Owner Gianmarie Realty signed a 10-year lease for the 2,056 square foot space with Lam Mark Trading of Flushing, Queens. Kathy Zamechansky represented both parties.

Co-op City continues to see continued interest in its commercial properties. Green Earth Apothecary, a health food store that will carry vitamins, supplements, herbs, soaps, books and reflexology products, is coming to 153 Dreiser Loop.

They also customize herbal formulations to address high blood pressure, weight loss, asthma, stress reduction and postpartum protocols.

The five-year lease on the 1,161 square foot space includes a five-year renewal option. Zamechansky represented the owner, Riverbay Corp. Sherry Scanlon and Zamechansky at KZA Realty represented the lessee, Bridget Bonaparte, a resident of Co-op City.

At 469 East 147^th Street (also known as 493 Brook Avenue), BX Properties Realty and Blue Sky Development Partners signed five-year lease with a one year renewable option for the 700 square foot space located in a new affordable housing complex. Zamechansky represented the buyer and the lessee, also represented by Sherry Scanlon at KZA Realty.

Blue Sky, a real estate development, consulting and brokerage businesses, focuses on assembling development sites for affordable housing and non-profit real estate deals in the Bronx.

KZA Realty Group has significantly added to the tremendous real estate expansion in the Bronx, recently closing three major commercial leases in the bustling borough.

About KZA Realty Group

KZA Realty Group www.kzarealty.com is a commercial real estate brokerage and development consulting firm based in New York City. Founded in 1998 by real estate professional Kathy Zamechansky, KZA specializes in commercial planning, project management, community and government relations, finance, marketing, and communications. Ms. Zamechansky is the President of the Bronx Manhattan North Association of Realtors and a member of several community and business organizations in the Bronx and Harlem, including the Board of Directors of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation, Board of Governors of the Bronx, the Manhattan Board of Realtors, the Board of Directors of the New Bronx Chamber of Commerce, the Harlem Business Alliance and the Advisory Board for the Fund for the Future Women Leaders of the Bronx. In 2009, she was named one of the 25 Most Influential Women by The Bronx Times Reporter and was awarded the Realtor of the Year by the Manhattan North Association of Realtors (BMAR). She may be contacted directly via cell at (347) 386-9452 or email at kzama@aol.com.

Two Alleged Associates of Gambino Organized Crime Family Indicted for Arson and Extortion

Defendants Charged with Setting Fire to Victim’s Car to Induce Protection Payment

  An indictment was unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn charging Peter Tuccio and Jonathan Gurino with arson and arson conspiracy, extortion and extortion conspiracy and using fire to commit a felony.  The defendants were arrested today and are scheduled to be arraigned before United States Magistrate Judge Steven L. Tiscione.  

Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and William F. Sweeney, Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), announced the charges.

“As alleged in the indictment, the defendants delivered a frightening message in the form of fire to force a businessman to pay protection money to a high-ranking gangster,” stated United States Attorney Donoghue.  “Today’s charges against two alleged crime family associates demonstrate that whether you are a made member or a young associate looking to advance in a crime family, the end result is the same – prosecution and prison.”  Mr. Donoghue thanked the New York City Police Department and the New York City Fire Department’s Bureau of Fire Investigation for their assistance in the investigation.

“Organized crime families have long relied on extortion and threats of violence in exchange for so-called ‘protection,’” stated FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Sweeney.  “As alleged, the defendants set a man's car on fire to send a message, but now they are the ones feeling the heat as they face justice for their crimes. As long as organized crime families and their associates continue to act outside the law, the FBI and our partners will investigate and bring charges against them.”

As alleged in court filings, a captain in the Gambino Organized Crime Family (referred to herein as Co-Conspirator-1), had been extorting a local businessman $400 per year.  During 2015, the businessman began dodging Co-Conspirator-1 to avoid making payments.  On December 3, 2015, Tuccio, Gurino and Gino Gabrielli observed the businessman leave a smoke shop in Howard Beach and drive away.  The three men followed at a high rate of speed and confronted him outside a pizzeria.  Tuccio asked, “how’s Co-Conspirator-1?” and commented on the business owner’s car, a 2014 Mercedes Benz.  The businessman fled into the pizzeria.  Later that night, the businessman heard a loud noise and saw that his car was on fire.  Shortly thereafter, the businessman paid Co-Conspirator-1.  As detailed in court filings, the businessman’s home security video system had recorded Gabrielli pouring a substance on the Mercedes, the car erupting in flames, and Gabrielli running away with his pant leg on fire.  Shortly thereafter, Gabrielli and Tuccio were caught on surveillance video entering Jamaica Hospital. 

Gabrielli pleaded guilty to arson in August 2016.

The charges in the indictment are allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.  If convicted, the defendants each face a 15-year mandatory minimum sentence. 

The Defendants:

PETER TUCCIO

Age: 25

Queens, New York

JONATHAN GURINO

Age: 25

Queens, New York