The Riverdale Press

About The Riverdale Press

The Riverdale Press is a weekly newspaper serving the Northwest Bronx neighborhoods of Riverdale, Kingsbridge, Kingsbridge Heights, and Van Cortlandt Village in New York City. Founded in 1950 by husband and wife David A. Stein and Celia Stein, it is one of a handful of American weeklies to win a Pulitzer Prize — awarded in 1998 to editor Bernard L. Stein for editorial writing. The paper is equally famous for the 1989 firebombing of its offices, carried out in retaliation for an editorial defending Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, after which the paper published on schedule with a front-page editorial headlined "We will not be silenced."

The paper's website is riverdalepress.com.

Founding by the Steins (1950)

The Riverdale Press was founded in 1950 by David A. Stein and Celia Stein, a husband-and-wife team who built the paper into the voice of the Northwest Bronx. In the 1950s, the young paper threw itself into the civic battles that would define Riverdale's character: it fought to rezone the neighborhood to preserve private homes and open space threatened by development, played a key role in the creation of new public schools to accommodate residents of newly built apartment buildings, and helped rescue a large tract of land in Spuyten Duyvil for a park. Later, it advocated for the creation of a special natural area district to protect the area's distinctive trees and rock formations.

These early campaigns established the paper's identity as a crusading community newspaper — deeply local, unafraid of developers and officials, and committed to the physical character of the neighborhood it served.

Bernard Stein Takes the Helm (1978)

In 1978, Bernard L. Stein succeeded his father as editor, and under his leadership the Press gained a national reputation as a crusading newspaper. "The Riverdale Press courted controversy and cast a tough, skeptical eye on local officials, who ignored the paper at their peril," The New York Times later wrote of the Stein era.

Bernard Stein brought an unusual background to community journalism: a Columbia University graduate, he had been arrested in the 1964 Free Speech Movement sit-in at UC Berkeley, helped found the Berkeley chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, and spent 12 years as a scholarly editor on the Mark Twain Papers at Berkeley's Bancroft Library before returning to New York when his father fell ill. His brother Richard Stein served as the paper's general manager and was responsible for its design, including the creation of the paper's flag — its nameplate — used almost continuously since 1971. On David Stein's death in 1982, the brothers became co-publishers.

Investigative Triumphs

Under Bernard Stein, the Press produced investigative journalism that belied its small size. It was the first newspaper to disclose corruption on the city's community school boards. Its reporting on the construction of the largest medical waste incinerator in New York State, in the South Bronx, led to the indictment of the chair of the local community board and eventually to the shuttering of the incinerator. For that effort, the paper earned the Deadline Club's highest honor, the James Wright Brown Public Service Award — beating out Newsday and Forbes magazine, the runners-up.

Under the leadership of Bernard and Richard Stein, the newspaper won more than 300 awards for excellence in news coverage and writing, and it was named the best weekly newspaper in New York State eight times.

The 1989 Firebombing

At about 5 a.m. on February 28, 1989, two men hurled firebombs — Molotov cocktails — at the Press's offices. No one was hurt, but the first floor of the two-story building was consumed by flames. The bombing came five days after the paper published an editorial defending the right to read Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses, while the editorial was still on newsstands. A call to 911 claiming responsibility said the paper had been bombed in retaliation for the editorial; Iran's then-spiritual leader had issued a fatwa condemning the book as blasphemous and calling for Rushdie's death, and a bookselling chain had pulled the novel from its shelves — the act the Press's editorial had criticized.

No arrest was ever made, though an FBI investigation concluded the bombing was related to the Press's defense of the novel. In the weeks that followed, the paper's owners received further telephoned bomb threats. A defiant Press published on schedule the day after the bombing, with a front-page editorial headlined "We will not be silenced." The Society of Professional Journalists honored co-publishers Richard and Bernard Stein with its First Amendment Award — the Eugene S. Pulliam First Amendment Award — for their courage in continuing to publish despite the destruction of their offices.

The 1998 Pulitzer Prize

Nine years after the firebombing, Press editor and co-publisher Bernard L. Stein won the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing. The Pulitzer judges honored what they called his "gracefully-written editorials on politics and other issues affecting New York City residents." The prize made the Riverdale Press one of the very few weekly community newspapers ever to win a Pulitzer, and it cemented the paper's national reputation.

Stein, who taught journalism at Hunter College and the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, won the Lisa and Richard Witten Award for Excellence in Teaching in his final year at Hunter in 2014. In 1986 he had been named "Writer of the Year," and he served as the first Center for Community Journalism's Journalist in Residence, visiting journalism programs across New York State to speak about the importance of the community press.

Sale to Richner Communications (2008)

In June 2008, Bernard and Richard Stein sold The Riverdale Press to another pair of brothers, Stuart and Clifford Richner of Richner Communications, publishers of 28 Long Island community newspapers. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. The Steins remained on the masthead as publishers emeriti, and Bernard Stein continued to write editorials for the paper. Stuart Richner said at the time that no immediate changes were planned.

Coverage and Community Role

The Press covers the Northwest Bronx neighborhoods of Riverdale, Kingsbridge, Kingsbridge Heights, and Van Cortlandt Village — an area with a distinct identity within the Bronx, marked by its parks, private homes, apartment complexes, and civic institutions. Its reporting spans local politics, development and land use, schools, parks, public safety, and neighborhood civic life, with the skeptical, accountability-driven voice that defined the Stein era.

The paper's influence has long exceeded its circulation of roughly 10,000: its investigations have moved prosecutors, shuttered an incinerator, and drawn the attention of national media — demonstrating the outsized power of a well-run community newspaper.

Legacy

The Riverdale Press stands as one of the great success stories of American community journalism: a family-founded weekly that fought developers, exposed corruption, survived a terrorist firebombing without missing an issue, and won the highest prize in American journalism. Its history — from David and Celia Stein's 1950 founding through Bernard Stein's Pulitzer and the paper's continued publication under Richner ownership — is a testament to the proposition that small newspapers, rooted in the places they serve, can matter enormously.

The paper's storefront presence on the Northwest Bronx's commercial streets and its deep ties to local civic associations, houses of worship, and schools have made it a fixture of daily life in Riverdale and Kingsbridge for more than seven decades — a run of continuous community service that few American weeklies can match.