Here's a video of Tết (Vietnamese New Year) celebrations inside the temple, which serves the Bronx's growing Vietnamese population. (As we saw last year, there's also a Cambodian Buddhist temple not too far away — and, more memorably, another one in Brooklyn.)

This was the school's second championship in five years.

Speaking of teenage Bronx chess players, a high school freshman named Justus Williams was ranked as the top 9th grader in the US at the most recent national championships. In a stereotype-shattering performance, his school, the little-known Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics (not to be confused with the famous Bronx Science), located in what's said to be America's poorest congressional district and fielding a team of kids all raised by single parents, won the 12th-grade championship as well. Back in 2010, when he was 12 years old, Justus became the youngest black chess master in history. A year later, there were only thirteen chess masters in the country under the age of 14, and three of them (all of whom achieved the title before turning 13) were African-Americans from the NYC metro area.

This is one of two incredible gateways at PS 15/291 in the Bronx. (You can see them in their entirety here and here.) I have to admit: before today, I never realized that Colin Powell was possessed by the devil. Or that Helen Keller was related to Medusa.

There've been a few modifications since last year.

Also, I think I just found Waldo.

The borough's home of Prince Hall Freemasonry

This kitty finds some respite from the cold, courtesy of a plastic-covered mattress left out on the sidewalk.

This shuttered synagogue is another reminder of Canarsie's disappearing Jewish community.

This former 1,470-seat theater has been a source of neighborhood frustration ever since it closed in early 2004. More than two years later, plans to turn it into a church had never materialized, the exterior was falling further into disrepair, and the marquee, frozen in time, still displayed the names of the final movies that ran here: Cheaper by the Dozen, My Baby's Daddy, Torque, and The Return of the King.

By late 2006, however, the owners had begun fixing up the place, intending to transform it into a restaurant and banquet hall. The Canarsie Courier ran a photo of the ongoing renovations, saying: "Work is still in progress, but, as is evident above, the soon-to-be banquet hall will finally make the former blight on the shopping strip a site of which we will be immensely proud."

Well, now it's more than six years later, and I'd have to imagine that any feelings of immense pride have vanished by this point. The exterior certainly looks better than it did, but the building is still boarded up without a trace of life. While there was talk of siting a new charter school here as recently as a year ago, there's no sign that anything has come of that proposal. But, hey, at least all the plywood gives local event promoters ample space to paste up their flyers!