Winner of Vol. 69, No. 51
What’s inside?
Thursday, December 11 2025
By OLIVIA YOUNG oyoung@riverdalepress.com
Van Cortlandt Park hosts a 5K race honoring the world’s oldest runner. Page 7
$1.00
Contenders challenge long-time leaders Dalourny Nemorin hopes to unseat Ritchie Torres with progressive agenda
Bull run
the Pulitzer Prize
Daloury Nemorin, a public defense attorney of ten years, is challenging U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres to serve the 15th Congressional District, which stretches from Riverdale, to central and southern portions of the Bronx. Her progressive platform targets housing — including rent control, NYCHA repairs and homeownership opportunities — as well as affordability, climate justice, healthcare for all, immigrants’ rights and restoring congressional oversight. The district is one of the poorest in the nation, with a median household income of about $44,000, and 30 percent of residents below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But, disparities
are wide between neighborhoods, with Riverdale’s household income averaging at $75,000. “People in Riverdale are not a monolith, and speaking about them in a monolith is misgiving,” Nemorin told The Press. She wants residents to know middleclass issues like the rising cost of homeowners insurance, college affordability and securing a job post-graduation are a focus as well. Strengthening other neighborhoods in the district also helps Riverdale too, she added, by drawing more visitors who support small businesses in the community. Nemorin also touched on quality-of-life concerns. She believes residents’ opposition to the men’s shelter on Broadway and West 262nd Street and the migrant shelter on West 238th Street near Waldo Avenue stems from worries about their own wellbeing, not from a refusal to address the issues these buildings aim to solve. She wants to advocate for funding towards community-outreach programs that speak with residents, and work to address loitering, sanitation or other worries community members express. Continued on page A4
Evers begins battle for Assembly seat held by Dinowitz for three decades By MICHELLE MULLEN oyoung@riverdalepress.com
The basement of Connaughton’s Steak House was packed shoulder to shoulder as teacher, disability advocate and community activist Morgan Evers formally launched her campaign this week to unseat Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, setting up a June 2026 Democratic primary against a lawmaker who has held the 81st Assembly District seat since 1994. Her campaign reported raising more than $26,000 from over 200 donors at the launch, qualifying her for the maximum in public matching funds and hinting at an unusually competitive race ahead of June 2026. Evers opened her remarks with a sweeping critique of long-standing political leadership and a call for generational change.
Community action gains momentum amid ICE concerns
Golden Dream Asian pride Riverdalians marched with a purpose in a historic Pride Parade in Taipei, Taiwan. Page A6
By MICHELLE MULLEN mmullen@riverdalepress.com
What’s On? Enjoy birding at Wave Hill with naturalist Gabriel Willow. No experience necessary. Page 8
“I am humbled by the overwhelming response I have received across this district since I explored a run this summer,” she said. “It’s clear the people in the northwest Bronx are ready for change. While dangerous policies from Washington threaten New Yorkers every day, the 81st Assembly District has an entrenched politician who is more focused on building a political dynasty into a third decade of status quo governance rather than assuring us we have a trusted fighter who will protect us.” Evers is not new to political life. She previously served as a New York State Committee member for the district from 2022 to 2024, later helping to found the Unity Democratic Club with progressives who broke from the Benjamin Franklin Reform Democratic Club She pointed to a series of longstanding local issues — rising maintenance costs in cooperative housing, limited access to affordable childcare and widening gaps between wages and basic expenses — that she said have intensified, particularly in neighborhoods where working families have struggled to maintain stable footing. “I enter this race with a clear vision for Continued on page A4
Photo by Gary Jean-Juste
At 67, Carol Weingrod thought she might never realize her goal of giving skydiving a try. But thanks to program at Riverspring Living, she recently found herself floating on air at a skydiving simulator in Yonkers. She used the experience to show that Parkinson’s disease doesn’t have to be an impediment to accomplishment. See story on page A 4.
Across the city, New Yorkers are mobilizing to protect their most vulnerable neighbors amid rising anticipation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, crackdowns. Residents of Riverdale, Marble Hill, Kingsbridge and Espaillat Kingsbridge Heights joined the efunveils bill have fort with merchantto protect outreach initiatives, volunteers immigrants. where like Lois Harr visit barbershops, restauPage A3 rants, corner stores and delis with Know Dinowitz Your Rights materials for employees and pushes owners. The packets state include instructions what to do if ICE legislation. on enters a workplace, how to identify a lawPage A6 ful warrant and how to contact legal services. For immigrant workers who may not know their protections or who fear retaliation, the materials offer a bridge between practical steps. And on Dec. 6, more than 150 Bronx residents joined a four-hour boroughwide training hosted by Hands Off NYC, a coalition of unions, grassroots groups and faith partners preparing communities for potential federal enforcement. The program is part of a series rolling out across all five boroughs, each designed to help neighContinued on page A6
Cora Weiss was local, national activist for peace By OLIVIA YOUNG and MICHELLE MULLEN oyoung@riverdalepress.com
Cora Weiss, whose Waldo Avenue home served as headquarters for her efforts to promote nuclear disarmament, protest American involvement in Vietnam and forge a world without war, died on Dec. 8. She was 91. Weiss’s dedication to human rights sparked in ninth grade at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, where she became more aware of inequalities facing women and people of color. She would go on to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Later in life she served as executive director of the African American Students Foundation, which helped fund the Airlift to America — a project from 1959 to 1963 that brought over 800 East African students to the states for education, including President Barack Obama’s father .
Cora Weiss, along with Martin Luther King Jr. and Riverdale residents such as Theodore Kheel, Frank Montero and Clarence Jones, worked tirelessly for civil rights and world peace, founding numerous national organizations. During this period, in 1961, she moved to Riverdale with her husband Peter, an advocate as well as an attorney, and their children. Weiss became involved at the Riverdale Neighborhood House, and
soon a fellow Riverdalian told her about an activist group demonstrating against nuclear weapons testing called Women Strike for Peace. Local members started studying strontium-90, a radioactive chemical element found in nuclear waste and fallout that causes cancers in the bone, bone marrow and surrounding soft tissue. The group sent samples from their own children to be tested, and many came back positive for containing the element. The finding gave them credibility, and the first outlet they took it to was The Riverdale Press, run at the time by founders David and Celia Stein. “What I’m sure most people will remember is her energy,” former editor Bernard Stein said. “She was boisterous, loud, indefatigable.” She continued her efforts with racial Continued on page 4
Courtesy of Jaxon White and the Vineyard Gazette
CORA WEISS