Dinowitz gains Kingsbridge Heights in proposed new district

The New York Legislative Task Force will release its proposed new district lines today, but some maps are beginning to trickle out.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz sent over a copy of his proposed district. LATFOR proposes cutting chunks of Norwood out of Mr. Dinowitz’s Assembly District 81, but adding the area around Jerome Park Reservoir in Van Cortlandt Village and Kingsbridge Heights.

This would mean Mr. Dinowitz’s district would more closely follow the lines of Community Board 8.

The change will bring Mr. Dinowitz back to his roots, representing the Kingsbridge Heights neighborhood he grew up in, as well as Bronx High School of Science and Lehman College, both of which he attended.

Mr. Dinowitz would also represent DeWitt Clinton High School, Walton High School, PS 86, Harris Field, the four Bronx buildings that help make up the Marble Hill Houses, those remaining buildings in the Amalgamated Housing Cooperative not currently in his district and the two lonely Riverdale buildings taken away from him a decade ago during the redistricting process (2400 and 2500 Johnson Ave.).

“I was happy to get anything back that I previously had in the district, especially in Kingsbridge Heights,” he said. “I have a lot of personal ties to a lot of these places.”

Mr. Dinowitz said he was not happy to lose parts of Norwood, but was glad he was able to keep the Mosholu Montefiore Medical Center and Williamsbridge Oval Park.

Mr. Dinowitz needed to pick up about 7,000 people to keep pace with the rest of the Assembly. The proposed district would contain 126,402 people, up from his current total of 119, 653. Mr. Dinowitz said each Bronx Assembly district will have fewer people than most upstate districts, but that redrawing the lines that way was necessary to maintain 11 Bronx districts without having any of them cross over into Westchester.

“I think they did a great job, I hope it stays this way,” he said.