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Hit & Run

The search continues today for a hit and run driver who killed a 30-year-old Harlem law student. Officials say Kris Bellamkonda was helping his girlfriend, who was on crutches, cross Lenox Avenue at 122nd Street when a Sport Utility Vehicle struck him.

It happened early Saturday morning shortly after the couple got out of a cab. Bellamkonda walked onto Lenox Avenue to try and stop traffic to allow her to cross the street.

"It was raining," said Derek Hill, Bellamkonda's brother-in-law, in an interview with the New York Times. "He wanted to make sure she was safe getting to her apartment. He was leading the way."

At around 4:15 am an S.U.V. struck Bellamkonda. A witness told WABC 7, "Once he hit the guy, he stepped on the brakes and the guy went up in the air. He fell back onto the hood of the car and he stepped on the pedal again to take off." Another witness said that cars go way too fast in the area and run lights. The way cars speed during early hours makes us crazy - there are way too many incidents of this.

Bellamkonda was in his second year at Cardoza Law School and was renovating a brownstone on West 131st Street.

Electric Shock

Talk about shockwaves. A plan for a Con Ed substation in East Harlem is negatively reverberating through the neighborhood and many say the future power substation, to be located on Park Avenue between 129th and 130th streets, is dangerous.

“Con Ed has a bad record and no community should blindly accept anything they do without close inspection. This is nowhere near over,” said former New York City council member Bill Perkins in an interview with the Amsterdam News.

Opponents of the plan had a chance to voice their fears earlier this week at a meeting with Con Ed officials, saying the electromagnetic fields posed a health concern as did issues of asbestos and asthma.

David Gmach, Con Ed director of public affairs, said that the Harlem substation was being built because of the growth Harlem has seen in the last 10 to 12 years.

Last Sunday, a Staten Island resident was the latest in a growing list of New Yorkers electrocuted by simply stepping on a manhole cover.

The substation is expected to be in operation by summer of 2008.