JFK graduates few students, Croton site is floated

1995

Failing school

Less than 25 percent of JFK Kennedy seniors graduated in June

A controversial proposal to cut School District 10 in two was dropped at the beginning of the year, but problems at local schools didn’t improve much. Fewer than 25 percent of John F. Kennedy High School seniors graduated that June.

Other issues that would plague the Rivedale/Kingsbridge area for years to come also heated up in 1995. In August, Van Cortlandt Park became the target of city planners looking for a place to site a new water filtration plant, rather than the nearby Jerome Park Reservoir, though the decision was far from final, and immediately drew opposition from the community.

Also in Van Cortlandt Park, the 50th Precinct’s commander, Capt. Anthony Kissik, who was an avid hunter, ran across the first coyote to be seen in the Bronx, according to The Press. The headline ran, “Is coyote on the prowl? Howl we know?”

Msgr. John Doherty, a beloved figure in the Riverdale/Kingsbridge area, retired from St. Gabriel’s parish in 1995. A spiritual and civic leader, he died in early 2010.

The year also marked the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II. The Press interviewed many survivors who shared with their neighbors many of the horrors they’d experienced.