Public Safety

Alex Johnson doesn’t crumble working under often brutal conditions, erecting walls, joining girders and welding steel as a carpenter.

But his first day of college terrified him.

“I was scared as hell,” said the 33-year-old Bronx resident. “I didn’t think I could do it.”

Johnson enrolled last September in a special two-year-old program organized through the New York City District Council of Carpenters that helps members earn associate’s and bachelor’s degrees.

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Residents of a city-run senior citizen’s housing complex in Crown Heights are fed up with inadequate security after two home invasion robberies this year and three similar incidents in the summer.

Tenants living in the William Reid Apartments, a single large apartment building at 728 East New York Ave., are calling for the New York City Housing Authority and the 71st Precinct to provide additional protection.

“We are very, very vulnerable,” says Hyacinth Forrester, 79, president of the tenant’s council for the past 20 years. “I don’t feel safe, not with what’s happening right now.”

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Prompted by growing numbers and a spate of attacks against African immigrants, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.  is forming an African Advisory Council.

FDNY Chief Brad Walls surveyed the facade of the Whitestone Shopping Center as his firefighters from Battalion 47 approached the flamed-filled Lollipops Diner.

Before the firefighters could turn their hoses on the blaze, the restaurant’s front window melted and the fire jumped to the awning. The overhang burst into flames and rained melted plastic onto the sidewalk like a fire-laden waterfall.

Concerned for his firefighters’ safety, Walls pulled back the battalion.