Good news, loyal readers! Effective immediately, we will be turning the magazine into a FULL FOUR-COLOR ALL-GLOSSY FORMAT throughout! That’s right – instead of just the gorgeously-rendered glossy color covers you see each issue, each page will have the same shiny and luminous appearance, making for a much more enjoyable reading experience. What does this mean for you? Well, for one thing, we will be reducing the number of pages from 36 to 32, but fear not: we will also be reducing the type size slightly to make up for the page loss! Thus, you will still get the same amount of nostalgic goodness you look forward to every issue, but on fancier paper. Additionally, we will be eliminating the “Friend’s Referrals” previously on page 34, leaving more room for stories and articles. So while the format may be changing slightly, the reason you come back each issue – the love and life of the Golden Age of The Bronx – will remain strong. As always, we would like your feedback on these changes once they go into effect. Let us know what you think!

Now on to Bronx news.

As you know, we like to highlight in each issue the coming and goings of our favorite borough to keep everyone posted on important Bronx-related current events. It seems that there is a proposal to add ferry service to the borough which will enable Bronxites to travel by ferry in the same manner that commuters are now traveling to Manhattan. The proposal will add stops at the following locations: Riverdale, Fordham Road Landing, Roberto Clemente State Pk., Yankee Stadium, Hunts Point, Orchard Beach, Soundview Park, and Ferry Point Park.

In other news, our very own Van Cortlandt Park is getting a facelift. Four baseball diamonds and six soccer fields are set to open next spring in the park’s 65-acre parade ground area. Work on ten cricket pitches that are slated to open in the fall of 2010 is currently underway. A synthetic turf soccer and football field, as well as a remodeled picnic area and ball fields on the eastern edge of the park, will soon open to the public. Included in the renovation is the Van Cortlandt House Museum, which is the oldest building in The Bronx – constructed way back in 1748! – and now a national historic landmark.

The “Green Movement” in The Bronx is big and getting bigger. Rooftop gardens, vegetative walls and gleaming solar panels are being erected all over the borough and have become quite popular. A 10,000 square-foot green roof has been installed on the rooftop of the Bronx County Court House; Flat Rate Moving & Storage erected a 50,000-watt solar-powered system; Miss Grimble Desserts in Pt. Morris installed 168 solar panels; Habitat for Humanity installed a 2,400 square-foot roof garden at 715 Leggett Ave for its 50 apartments. We can be proud that our favorite borough is doing everything it can to help the environment, and is among the many cities in the country contributing more than its fair share to the Green Movement!

It looks like after years of speculation, the Kingsbridge Armory, the largest armory in the United States, may soon become a major commercial development. Related Companies, a major NYC developer, and the Kingsbridge community at large are at odds over the development plans. Members of the community want to ensure that new stores added by Related Companies will not compete with the existing stores on Kingsbridge Road. In addition, the community wants any newly available jobs to be filled first by local residents and at living wage salaries. Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz has refused to endorse the development plan until Related has agreed to pay all employees a “living wage.” It should be noted that Related has been given a $40 million tax exemption by the city. We’ll keep you posted on these developments as they play out.

Stella d’Oro, a Bronx mainstay since it originally opened in 1932 on Bailey Avenue, will be closing after seven long decades. In 1950, d’Oro moved its cookie factory and opened a restaurant on W. 237^th St. and Broadway. The Italian restaurant served the community of Kingsbridge and Riverdale until its closing in the 1980s. A lengthy teamsters strike followed, and was settled only recently when the workers were notified that the plant would be closing.

Remember the kid in your neighborhood who had the stickball bat and spaldeen, or the baseball bat and baseball who would take his equipment and go home if he didn’t get his way? The management at Stella d’Oro is like that kid. Except instead of just missing out on a game, employees lose their job security, and we all miss out on that fresh-baked cookie aroma that wafted through the air as we passed by that factory alongside the Major Deegan Expressway.

Speaking of delicious smells, I wanted to take a moment here to highlight one of the most notable aspects of The Bronx: It’s award-winning restaurants. Twenty-four  Bronx restaurants have just been highly recommended by Zagat, including: Riverdale’s Madison’s, El Malecon in Kingsbridge, and Pasquale’s Rigoletto in Belmont. Even with the sagging economy, these ratings hopefully will boost patronage at these and other well-known Bronx restaurants and add both figurative and literal flavor to their surrounding neighborhoods.

 Growing up in the decades of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s, most readers would immediately remember the radio and television show The Goldbergs, starring Gertrude Berg as the irrepressible Molly Goldberg. And, if you lived in or around the West Farms section of The Bronx all those decades ago, you could have easily run into this fictionalized character, because she technically “lived” at 1030 East Tremont Avenue, a stone’s throw from Southern Boulevard, P.S. 6, and Boston Road. Well, now the beloved actress will be immortalized in the brand-new documentary of her life entitled Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg.

It’s hard to believe that a television show about a Jewish woman dispensing philosophy in an apartment or perched on a windowsill in The Bronx could have been so popular, but we are glad that the actress (and the show) has been thrust back into the public’s eye where she so comfortably “resided” for so many years.

Let us not forget that in 1959, Gertrude Berg was the first actress to win an Emmy Award. At one point in her career, she was even voted the second-most-admired woman in America (behind Eleanor Roosevelt). Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg is a fascinating documentary with plenty of kinescopes of shows, but for Bronxites, regardless of their ethnicities, it’s about a loving nuclear family surrounded by supportive neighbors who didn’t need psychiatrists or psychologists to cope with life.