Dramatic crime drop, Buddy Stein wins Pulitzer

1998

Just rewards

In some ways, 1998 brought a sea change to the Riverdale/ Kingsbridge area. Crime, which had dominated headlines in previous years and made the relative safety and prosperity of the area seem tenuous, cooled so far that a front page article in The Press nearly lamented the fact that police were confronting mere quality of life concerns, rather than murder and car theft.

It was also a year in which two people who helped define Riverdale in very different ways died.

Elizabeth Haxall, née Dodge, was the last member of the founding Dodge family to live in Riverdale. Her great-grandfather helped to develop the cliffs and forests of the northwest Bronx into what would become Riverdale.

The other death was that of Fred Friendly, a man who helped to define the very nature of television news. Mr. Friendly worked as the producer and creative genius behind Edward R. Murrow, the host of the groundbreaking See It Now, which brought the lives of important political figures and celebrities into the homes of millions in the 1950s. Mr. Friendly later became the head of CBS News, where his commitment to the integrity of journalism eventually led to clashes with other executives and Friendly’s departure in 1966. He lived in Fieldston.

In the same year, plans to create a new high school at MS 141 were tied to the creation of a new school near the campus of John F. Kennedy High School, MS 368. The question of where students would be drawn from to attend each of the schools brought accusations of racism, with concerns that only Riverdalians would be allowed into the new MS/HS 141 and students only from poorer and black and Latino families would be sent to the new school.

It was also the year Press editor and co-publisher Bernard L. “Buddy” Stein won a Pulitzer prize for his editorials on issues ranging from freedom of speech to his championing of environmental causes. Specifically, the Pulitzer committee cited his “Gracefully written editorials on politics and other issues affecting New York City residents.”

State Sen. Eric Schneiderman was elected to his first term in office.