Bronx News Network

'Gun Hill Road', Not Your Typical Bronx Tale

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Editor’s note: A version of this story appears in the latest issue of the Norwood News, out on streets now.By Alex KratzOne of the great pleasures of watching “Gun Hill Road,” a new independent film by Bronx native Rashaad Ernesto Green that debuted in front of a New York audience during the first-ever Bronx Week Film Festival in mid-May, is its familiarity.Look, there’s New Capitol diner on Kingsbridge Road and Jerome! Is he getting on the 2 train or the 4 train? Wait, isn’t that the bodega on Gun Hill Road in Norwood?“The Bronx itself is a character,” Green said during a question-and-answer session after the screening.While the setting, characters and dialogue all feel like the Bronx, the storyline deals with difficult topics — most notably, transgender lifestyle choices and how they play out in Latino families — that are only now starting to be discussed openly in the borough.The history of Bronx-based film is filled with crime stories and gangster tales (think: “A Bronx Tale,” “Fort Apache, The Bronx,” or “The Wanderers”). And “Gun Hill Road,” shot entirely in the Bronx, contains some of those elements. It begins with a prison cafeteria stabbing carried out by the main character, a father played by Bronx-native Esai Morales, who has lived a life of crime.But the heart of the story centers around how Morales’ character, having just been released from prison, deals with the discovery that his teenage son is transgender.

Bronx News Network

Bronx News Roundup, June 3

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A federal appeals court has ruled that the city can bar religious institutions from conducting services in public schools on weekends. Coincidentally, the ruling stems from a case brought by the Bronx Household of Faith in 1995. That church, which uses PS/MS 15 on Andrews Avenue for services, has led the creation of a new youth basketball league in Devoe Park. The Norwood News just profiled the program this week. Picture the Homeless, a northwest Bronx group we recently profiled, is partnering with Hunter College’s Center for Community Planning and Development to identify vacant land in the borough to help make their case that there is available land to ease the burden on the city’s bursting-at-the-seams shelter system.

Bronx

Divinely Inspired, a Youth Basketball League Takes on the Bronx's Devoe Park

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A new hoops league that preaches Christian values plays at Devoe Park every Saturday. (Photo by Adi Talwar)Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in the latest edition of the Norwood News, out on streets now. Shane Barker, a 16-year-old University Heights resident, does not usually use Devoe Park, the triangular and hilly green space that sits on the corner of Fordham Road and University Avenue and is just blocks from his home.“Me and my brother don’t come down here because there’s troublemakers,” he says.But today is different. It’s a gorgeous, sunny Saturday morning and Shane, sporting cornrows and the wispy beginnings of facial hair, is one of 70 kids participating in a newly-formed basketball program created by a Bronx-based group called the New York City Christian Athletic League.Aided by word of mouth and an infusion of funding from local Councilman Fernando Cabrera, the hoops program is flourishing in a park that has become synonomous with trouble.The league’s founder, Edwin Santiago, and his “right-hand man,” Frank Abarca, both attend Bronx Household of Faith, an evangelical Christian church that meets at PS 15/291 on Andrews Avenue in University Heights.In 2005, Santiago, who lives in Soundview and works part-time at Horace Mann, started a men’s softball league that has grown to the point where it now includes 10 other city churches. He wanted to expand the league to include youth leagues, but only recently decided to take “a leap of faith” and go for it.