3 Wellness Appointments to Help Kids Get Ready to Learn By Dr. Greg Carnevale Chief Medical Officer, UnitedHealthcare of New York Bronx Voice September 5, 2025 NEW YORK - While many families may be trying to squeeze in the last of summer activities, gather supplies and begin school year routines, it’s also a great time to check in on children’s mental and physical well-being. A child’s health can influence their growth, development and academic performance. To help set children and teens up for success this school year, it’s important to stay up to date with wellness appointments, including annual physicals, dental checkups, comprehensive eye exams and mental health assessments. Here are a few things parents can consider to help support their children’s well-being: It’s ok to talk about mental health Mental health challenges are on the ri...
Mayor Eric Adams and CUNY chancellor Felix Matos Rodriguez celebrate Hostos Community College taking over a historic shuttered post office along the Grand Concourse in the South Bronx, Sept. 3, 2025.
More than a hundred CUNY staffers, students, elected officials and union construction workers from Laborers Local 79 gathered at the post office at 558 Grand Concourse to celebrate the coming facility that would increase capacity for programs like nursing, surgical technology, occupational therapy and home health care.
Hostos graduated approximately 2,500 students in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and health programs this year, said the chancellor. The redevelopment, a block away from Hostos and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, would allow the South Bronx community college to double its number of graduates.
“Now we will deliver, not mail, but we will deliver thousands of jobs to Bronxites and other people in this city,” said Adams. “This is the feeder that's going to build an entire economic stimulus for this entire area. Why the hell did this post office remain vacant all this time? It would not have remained vacant in central Manhattan, but people wanted to ignore this borough.”
CUNY agreed to a 35-year lease with real estate firm Maddd Equities, which bought the property in July for $44 million. The university will pay $15.5 million the first year of that lease, with an annual escalation of 3%, according to a contract approved by its board of trustees in a special meeting last month.
The university has an option to buy the property outright during the first five years of the lease “at a fixed five percent (5.0%) capitalization rate on the next future years’ net operating income,” according to the contract.
Maddd Equities, which is also leading the long-awaited re-development of the Kingsbridge Armory four miles to the north, is responsible for all elements of construction ensuring that the facility is ready for a planned unveiling in the fall 2028 semester.
‘What’s Best’
A budget shortfall led the United States Postal Service to propose shuttering 17 post offices in The Bronx in 2012, a year after it moved all Bronx mail processing operations to Manhattan. In 2014, the postal service sold the 175,000-square-foot building, which occupies a full block, for $19 million to Youngwoo & Associates which had hoped to establish a food hall, office space and storefronts inside.
“The most prominent features of the building are the graceful window openings set within marble arches which contrast handsomely with the smooth gray brick walls,” LPC officials wrote in 1976, noting that the two sculptures in front of the building, including one portraying a mother receiving a message from her child, “add further interest.” Inside the building are murals that celebrate America’s workers building homes, weaving clothes, laboring in factories and tilling farmland.
Hostos Community College planned to take over a historic post office along the Grand Concourse, Sept. 3, 2025.
Currently, the building houses a post office, while restaurant Zona de Cuba, owned by businessman and former mayoral candidate Fernando Mateo, is located on the roof of the building.
Hostos spokesperson Ivano Leoncavallo told THE CITY that the post office will retain the customer service location it leases on the north side of the building, where it occupies about 10,000 square feet on the ground floor.
The space occupied by Zona de Cuba will become part of the new Hostos facility, which Mateo welcomed in a phone call with THE CITY on Wednesday.
“What’s best for the youth, what’s best for education, what’s best for the city is what’s best for me. I’m all for it,” said Mateo, who noted his lease was not expiring but declined to provide further details.
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