Su Winner of Vol. 76, No. 6
What’s inside?
the Pulitzer Prize
Thursday, January 23, 2026
$1.00
Scares on the stairs at Knolls
Somber reflection on Martin Luther King Day
Weather has delayed needed repair work — many residents are worried about safety
White beauty
By OLIVIA YOUNG oyoung@riverdalepress.com
Three inches of snow on Sunday were enough to create a memorable landscape. Pages 6-7
The set of stairs between Kappock Street to Knolls Crescent —connecting residents to Ben’s Market on one side and a bus stop on the other — is increasingly difficult to navigate. Currently, several orange traffic barrels line the steps, with a level sectioned off by caution tape and a wooden plank nailed to the foot of one step. A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation said the agency is aware of the conditions and repairs are currently underway as weather permits. The steps show visible signs of wear, with cracks running throughout the concrete and chunks missing, surrounded by debris and salt scattered to prevent slipping.
Plenty of traffic
Viral Grandpa When grandchildren posted their birthday surprise on TikTok it went viral in a hurry. Page 3
What’s on? There’s plenty of fun to be had and scholarly pursuits, too, all listed in What’s on. Pages 8-9
Catholic churches gather for praise and protest
Riverdale has a special place in Dr. King’s story
By OLIVIA YOUNG oyoung@riverdalepress.com
By MICHELLE MULLEN mmullen@riverdalepress.com
Snow from Sunday’s flurry still coated the ground as dozens of Bronxites gathered at the Church of the Holy Nativity on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to join together in chorus and honor the civil rights activist’s legacy. Held by the Bronx Interparish Councils, a coalition of 19 Catholic churches across the East, South and northwest Bronx, the two hour service touched on themes of unity and equality, while also criticizing aggressive actions by Immigration Customs and Enforcement, ICE, agents. º Continued on page A4
Martin Luther King Jr. is most often remembered through the places that shaped his public legacy — Birmingham, Selma, Washington and Memphis. Less widely known is Riverdale’s role, where he worked, spoke and briefly found refuge during some of the civil rights era’s most pivotal years. His connection to the neighborhood ran largely through Dr. Clarence B. Jones, King’s personal counsel, adviser, draft speechwriter and close friend, who lived in Riverdale for many years. In a 2011 Washington Post essay, Jones described how Continued on page A5
Riverdale Y holds a day of service Page 5
Abuse of power, then and now Page 10
File photo by Peter Simon
The stairway attracts a heavy foot traffic, especially from residents heading to the Knolls Crescent retail strip from nearby apartment buildings such as Riverpoint Towers. A few told The Press they worry someone could be injured. Longtime resident Vik Levitsky was recently walking down the steps in the rain with her husband and noted how deteriorated they had become. “You could see the amount of just loosened grit and little bits of rock and stuff,” she explained. “It’s an area that has a lot of young kids, people with carriages, a lot of elderly people that use walkers… It’s just safer if the steps are intact and have their edges.” Levitsky’s nephew, Anthony Buckenberger, lives nearby, and said the stairs worsened from salt and shoveling after last month’s heavy snowfall.
Damage at every level A few years ago, while on the job as a firefighter, he suffered a knee injury, and has to be especially cautious on the Kappock steps. Buckenberger worries for his young son as well, who at seven is “pretty reckless” and has to be reminded to hold onto the railing while making his way down. “Since it’s used so greatly, [the department] should just come in and redo the whole staircase, because there’s damage at every level,” he added. On social media, dozens of residents responded to a post Buckenberger made, encouraging others to file 311 complaints and contact their local elected officials. Council Member Eric Dinowitz pointed to the Department of Transportation as bearing the responsibility for the stairway remaining in such a rough condition. “These are the staircases that we use to
Dr. Martin Luther King speaks at Fieldston School in 1964.
Continued on page A5
Repair schedule keeps getting pushed back
Soccer teams play on unsafe Vannie field By MICHELLE MULLEN mmullen@riverdalepress.com
For years, the soccer field at Van Cortlandt Park Stadium has deteriorated under heavy use, riddled with holes repeatedly patched through makeshift fixes. This month, following safety concerns flagged by the Riverdale Soccer Club, Bronx Community Board 8, or CB8, urged the Parks Department to move forward with a longfunded turf replacement approved years prior. In a sharply worded letter sent to Parks Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa on Jan. 13, CB8 expressed “dismay” over the continued delay of a state-of-goodrepair turf replacement funded in Januar y 2023, now stalled until at least 2027. Despite mounting risks, the city has continued issuing permits for play, even as referees have canceled matches on a
field they deemed unsafe. “The band aids are just not enough,” said Debra Travis, chair of CB8’s Parks & Recreation Committee. “We don’t need another band-aid, we need surgery.” The deterioration of the 13-year-old field has accelerated in recent years, despite the city’s decision to fund a state-ofgood-repair replacement — a designation typically reserved for urgent, like-for-like fixes. In some areas, the turf has peeled back entirely, exposing the stone sub-base beneath. The worst damage is concentrated directly in front of the goals, where players routinely dive, slide and fall. “Holes are opening up to the point where you can see the gravel underneath,” said Matt Seeman, president of the Riverdale Soccer Club. “That’s not a playable surface, and it’s not safe for kids.” Founded nearly three decades ago, the Riverdale Soccer Club serves more than
500 children each fall, with roughly 100 playing or practicing weekly at Van Cortlandt Park Stadium, according to Seeman. As conditions worsened last year, he said the club raised concerns repeatedly with the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance in the spring and summer. After additional complaints in early fall, minor repairs were made that allowed the season to proceed, but those fixes quickly came undone. “They’ve made so many repairs that they actually left a roll of turf to the side so they can use it to make repairs,” Seeman said. “At first, they were making small repairs, maybe one or two square feet. Then this past year it was so bad that they repaired like 20-by-10-foot sections.” Referees, Seeman said, have increasingly intervened, canceling games after inspecting the field — a dynamic that has heightened frustration among parents and coaches.
“When referees are calling games because the surface is unsafe, but permits are still being issued, something is clearly wrong,” he said. The soccer field sits inside Van Cortlandt Park Stadium, a 3,000-seat facility constructed between 1937 and 1939 as part of the federal Works Progress Administration. While the stadium itself has undergone periodic upgrades — including concrete repairs in the 1990s, reconstruction of the quarter-mile running track in 1998 and installation of a synthetic turf infield in 2009 — Community Board minutes note that the soccer surface has steadily deteriorated, outpacing routine maintenance. Frustration has been fueled not just by the field’s condition, but by the timeline. Although the artificial turf replacement was funded as a state-of-good-repair project in 2023, Parks officials now say construcContinued on page A4