Sound Shore

I caught the annual “Gallery Walk” at the Thomas A. Edison Elementary School in Port Chester Thursday night, when the school pretends it’s a museum and the children serve as docents, explaining their own work to the community. It was truly a kick. The place was packed.

And you know how educators are constantly wringing their hands over how to get immigrant and Latino parents more involved in the schools? Well, there are lessons to be learned from Edison.

Anyway, I wanted to provide a transcript of the one-on-one lesson I got (and recorded) from a 7-year-old student, Alejandro Cotrina. He was standing dutifully next to the second grade exhibit called Our American Heroes, and I asked him to tell me a little about those heroes.

Am I right that this is an astoundingly complete summary for a 7-year-old?

“Well mostly I know a lot about Martin. He married Coretta Scott King. He didn’t want fights. He didn’t want violence, he wanted nonviolence. He stopped segregation. He said the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech – that was a famous speech. He’s very famous. He helped us all be friends.

“And he liked peace. He learned that he should use nonviolence from Mahatma Gandhi.

“Abraham Lincoln stopped the slavery. He still did wars. He really did a lot. He married Mary Todd. Mostly the good part is he stopped the slavery.”

… I’m not sure at what age I learned about “the slavery,” much less segregation and Mahatma Gandhi. But only a child could boil down Martin Luther King’s work as simply and clearly as, “He helped us all be friends.”

That’s Alejandro in the photo at left. More photos after the jump.

Lucas Rodrigues of the Westchester Scorpions reacts following his goal against William Courtney, goalie for the Rye Bobcats during a youth soccer tournament at the Rye Brook Athletic Field March 20, 2010. The event, which is in it’s fourth year, attracts over 1500 boys and girls, ages nine through fifteen from Westchester and Connecticut, playing in multiple divisions of play over a course of two days. To see a gallery of photos from the event, click here.

“Portrait of America” Road Tour is not a traveling art show or a monsters of folk compilation. It’s a tour meant to promote participation in the U.S. Census and the van is stopping in New Rochelle tomorrow.

The tour heads to New Roc City from 2 to 6 p.m., where census staff will do interviews, have announcements, and give out educational material and promotional freebies — census Frisbees and key chains, anyone? Twelve vehicles have been making the rounds across the country since January, and the New York wheels are dubbed “Liberty.”

Estimates show that for every individual that does not complete the census and mail it back, the city of New Rochelle loses $30,000 annually, said New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson.  “Over $400 billion in federal monies will be allocated annually, and we want to be sure New Rochelle gets its fair share,”  he said.

For more information on the Road Tour, visit 2010census.gov/roadtour. For information on the City of New Rochelle’s Census efforts visit www.newrochelleny.com/census2010 .

Blind Brook players watch the closing seconds of the Class C state semifinal game at the Glens Falls Civic Center this afternoon. Blind Brook fell to Maple Hill 50-46.

Look for complete coverage of the state basketball championships in tomorrow’s edition of The Journal News and at Lohud.com. To view a gallery of online photos from today’s game, click here.

An older female common dolphin in the waters behind the Hampshire Country Club prompted several calls to Mamaroneck village police Thursday afternoon.

The animal was in distress in a small cove of water behind the club, police said.

There is one designated agency for dealing with protected and endangered animals in New York state, the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research & Preservation.

Foundation Executive Director and senior biologist Robert DiGiozanni said the dolphin succumbed shortly before his team arrived in the early evening.

Right now, DiGiozanni is saying that other calls of a dolphin in waters off New Rochelle were probably referring to this same animal.

She was an older female, he said. Preliminary examination revealed she was suffering from several minor ailments and passed due to old age.
Pathology test will be run, DiGiozanni said.

This kind of aquatic life is returning to this area, he said. Last summer 100-150 bottle nose dolphin were spotted in Long Island Sound and a humpded back whale was in New York Harbor, DiGiozanni said.

It is becoming less and less unusual to see these animals locally.
Federal law mandates that people stay at least 50 yards away from these protected and/or endangered species, DiGiozanni said.

Because his is the only local entity authorized to respond to calls for help for these animals, DiGiozanni urges people to call the non-profit foundation’s hot line, 631-369-9829 not only for animals in distress, but to report sightings so that they can be kept track of.

Traffic was diverted from Wynnewood Road and Pelhamdale Avenue on Route 1 as firefighters clean the street after a stolen car crashed into a tractor-trailer carrying gasoline in Pelham Manor early this morning. The incident started in New Rochelle, whose police force said they stopped a blue 2004 Toyota Corolla for a traffic infraction. The car pulled over, but made an illegal U-turn and sped off when the officers stopped.

From left, second graders, Xiomara Torres and Leslie Barajas, both, 7, place a sticker on a parents program during the Gallery Walk at Thomas A. Edison School in Port Chester. Each year the students work on art work that reflects a theme and then the school is transformed into a museum where the students are docents explaining the artwork on display.

What a mess Route 1 in Pelham Manor has been since early this morning, after a stolen car hit a tractor-trailer truck, causing it to jackknife and triggering a gasoline spill. That led police to close the road between Wynnewood Road and Pelhamdale Avenue, and it remained closed late this morning. Read the full story here. Reporter Leslie Korngold snapped this picture of the aftermath:

Just in time for the Town of Rye’s 350th anniversary this summer, it’s seeking another study on whether to put itself out of existence.

Yes, it’s nice out there, and it’s going to get nicer. Lots of folks were out today at Rye Town Park, and I didn’t mind going out to do some reporting.

On the beach, volleyball was in full swing. Here is Mohamed Haioui, who lives in Fairfield, Conn., serving it up.