Rep. Edolphus 'Ed' Towns’ Statement on the Death of Hope Reichbach

“I am deeply saddened by the tragic news of the death of Hope Reichbach. She certainly was a rising political star with so much talent and a genuine concern for the community she passionately served. More importantly a life with so much promise has been cut short at such a young age. Brooklyn has indeed lost a tremendous gift. My prayers go out to Judge Gustin Reichbach and his family, as well as to the staff of Councilman Steve Levin”.

‘Civil’ Obedience! State Designates Wallabout as an Historic District by Thomas Tracy - The Brooklyn Paper

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A portion of Wallabout will become a new historic district, preserving Civil War-era homes like these on Vanderbilt Avenue. Community Newspaper Group / Andy Campbell

The historic beauty of a swath of Civil War-era homes in an isolated corner of Fort Greene has finally been recognized.

More than 200 properties located within five blocks of Wallabout bounded by Myrtle, Park Washington and Clermont avenues were added to the New York State Register of Historic Places this week — a pivotal step for building owners hoping to tap into public preservation grants that will help them refurbish and restore the 150-year-old structures many in the area cherish.

“[The Wallabout area] is one of the oldest communities in Brooklyn,” said resident Gary Hattem. “It’s a history and a story that we want to pass on to future generations.”

Hattem’s right to say that Wallabout has a lot of history: it’s filled with homes from early 19th-century Brooklyn as well as brownstone additions from borough legend Charles Pratt (the same Pratt who gave his name — and money — to found Pratt Institute a few blocks away). Many residences were built between 1830 and 1930.

Several Greek and Gothic Revival townhouses — replete with porch swings — can also be found along the quiet tree-lined streets that give Wallabout its charm.

The neighborhood’s addition to the state register may be a boon to those who own a historic home, but it does nothing to protect the area from out-of-scale construction — only city landmarking can do that.

If the city designates the area as a historic district, all new buildings must contribute to “a coherent streetscape [and] a distinct sense of place” — language that restricts the 10-story modern condo.

“[The landmarking] would great for the block — it means we won’t have any more of that,” longtime resident Bill Washington told us, pointing to a seven-story black and gray steel condo at 122 Vanderbilt Ave., which he considers a modern eyesore. “This block has come a long way in the last 30 years, and we want to keep it that way.”

The city has yet to make Wallabout a historic district, although a public hearing on it was held last fall and a decision is expected by the summer.

Until then, the state grant money should help the local economy.

“We see it as a job creator,” said Michael Blaise Backer, executive director of the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project. “This will be a huge opportunity for local laborers when these brick buildings and brownstones start getting restored.”

The Wallabout neighborhood was initially built to accommodate laborers who moved eastward to work at the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard, which has its own unique history.

But that piece of Brooklyn’s past may soon disappear. Despite a long fought battle to get the Army National Guard to preserve two 19th-century buildings on the Flushing Avenue side of the Navy Yard, the Army has backed away from its promise.

Rep Ed Towns and Assembly Member Darryl Towns Christmas Party Held at Brooklyn Job Corps Center on December 16th...

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Bees in Brooklyn Hives Mysteriously Turn Red by Susan Dominus - NYTimes.com

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David Selig of Red Hook, Brooklyn, a restaurant owner and amateur beekeeper, was disappointed that instead of honey his bees had produced a red concoction more reminiscent of maraschino cherries, or of cough syrup.

Cerise Mayo expected better of her bees. She had raised them right, given them all the best opportunities — acres of urban farmland strewn with fruits and vegetables, a bounty of natural nectar and pollen. Blinded by devotion, she assumed they shared her values: a fidelity to the land, to food sources free of high-fructose corn syrup and artificial food coloring.

And then this. Her bees, the ones she had been raising in Red Hook, Brooklyn, and on Governors Island since May, started coming home to their hives looking suspicious. Of course, it was the foragers — the adventurers, the wild waggle dancers, the social networkers incessantly buzzing about their business — who were showing up with mysterious stripes of color. Where there should have been a touch of gentle amber showing through the membrane of their honey stomachs was instead a garish bright red. The honeycombs, too, were an alarming shade of Robitussin.

“I thought maybe it was coming from some kind of weird tree, maybe a sumac,” said Ms. Mayo, who tends seven hives forAdded Value, an education nonprofit in Red Hook. “We were at a loss.”

An acquaintance, only joking, suggested the unthinkable: Maybe the bees were hitting the juice — maraschino cherry juice, that sweet, sticky stuff sloshing around vats at Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Company over on Dikeman Street in Red Hook.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” said Ms. Mayo, a soft-spoken young woman who has long been active in the slow-food movement. She found it particularly hard to believe that the bees would travel all the way from Governors Island to gorge themselves on junk food. “Why would they go to the cherry factory,” she said, “when there’s a lot for them to forage right there on the farm?”

Cerise Mayo, a beekeeper in Red Hook and Governors Island, found that her wandering bees were returning with red coloring, probably acquired at the factory of a company that produces maraschino cherries.

It seems natural, by now, for humans to prefer the unnatural, as if we ourselves had been genetically modified to choose artificially flavored strawberry candy over strawberries, or crunchy orange “cheese” puffs over a piece of actual cheese. But when bees make the same choice, it feels like a betrayal to our sense of how nature should work. Shouldn’t they know better? Or, perhaps, not know enough to know better?

A fellow beekeeper sent samples of the red substance that the bees were producing to an apiculturalist who works for New York State, and that expert, acting as a kind of forensic foodie, found the samples riddled with Red Dye No. 40, the same dye used in the maraschino cherry juice.

No one knows for sure where the bees might have consumed the dye, but neighbors of the Dell’s factory, Ms. Mayo said, reported that bees in unusually high numbers were gathering nearby.

And she learned that Arthur Mondella, the owner of the factory, had hired Andrew Coté, the leader of the New York City Beekeepers Association, to help find a solution.

Mr. Mondella did not return phone calls seeking comment, but in an interview, Mr. Coté said that the bees were as great a nuisance to the factory as Red Dye No. 40 was to the beekeepers. (No, Ms. Mayo was not alone: David Selig, another Red Hook beekeeper, also had bees showing red.)

A “honeycomb” from Mr. Selig’s hives.

“Bees will forage from any sweet liquid in their flight path for up to three miles,” Mr. Coté said. While he has not yet visited the factory, he said that the bees might be drinking from its runoff, and that solving the problem “could be as easy as putting up some screens, or providing a closer source of sweet nectar.”

Could the tastiest nectar, even close by the hives, compete with the charms of a liquid so abundant, so vibrant and so cloyingly sweet? Perhaps the conundrum raises another disturbing question: If the bees cannot resist those three qualities, what hope do the rest of us have?

A story of the perils of urban farming, this is also a story of the careful two-step of gentrification. Red Hook embodies so much of Brooklyn culture — an infatuation with the borough’s old ways, just so long as those do not actually impinge on the modish design and values.

The maraschino cherries that emerge from the Dell’s factory have probably graced thousands of retro-chic cocktails and sundaes in Red Hook itself, or at least in Williamsburg. Finding some solution to the maraschino juice bee crisis — to all urban clashes of culture — is part of the project of New York, a wildly creative endeavor in and of itself.

All summer long, friends of Ms. Mayo were forever pointing out the funny coincidence that her first name means “cherry” in French; as a slow-food advocate with the last name Mayo, she was already accustomed to such observations.

Mr. Selig, who owns the restaurant chain Rice and raises the bees as a hobby, was disappointed that an entire season that should have been devoted to honey yielded instead a red concoction that tasted metallic and then overly sweet.

He and Ms. Mayo also fear that the bees’ feasting on the stuff could have unforeseeable health effects on the hives.

But Mr. Selig said there was something extraordinary, too, about those corn-syrup-happy bees that came flying back this summer.

“When the sun is a bit down, they glow red in the evenings,” he said. “They were slightly fluorescent. And it was beautiful.”

E-mail: susan.dominus@nytimes.com

Photos by: Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

Thomas Edison Film From Moving Train Shows Subway System Only Marginally Improved In Past 111 Years (VIDEO) - The Huffington Post

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Sixteen years after the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883, Thomas Edison made this film from the front car of the BMT train that once crossed the bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

Although the train which Edison rode in 1899 appears to be moving at roughly the same speed as the modern-day BD and Q trains which crawl across the Manhattan bridge, it seems that the view has improved slightly in the past 111 years.

Shot in scratchy black-and-white film in September, 1899, the film shows glimpses of the Manhattan skyline along with the steel girders and tall stone arches of the bridge itself.

WATCH:

Public Meetings in Brooklyn and Queens on the Future of Floyd Bennett Field...

Public meetings are being held about the future of Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, the 1,400 acre unit of Gateway National Recreation Area. 


Floyd Bennett Field is one of New York City's largest public spaces, it provides many environmental, recreational, and cultural benefits to the people of Brooklyn and beyond, but its full potential has never been realized. 

The National Park Service is now drafting a plan to shape Gateway's future, and Senator Charles Schumer and Congressman Anthony Weiner have formed a Blue Ribbon Panel to provide recommendations about Floyd Bennett Field for this plan. 


Be sure your voice is heard by the people creating the plan for Gateway's future and your elected officials.   

Please join this important conversation.

Click on image to enlarge...

Questions? Contact Maya Borgenicht with the Regional Plan Association at maya@rpa.org or 917.652.6359.

For more information, go to www.rpa.org/floydbennett.

Public Meeting in Brooklyn and Queens About Floyd Bennett Field Improvements

Brooklyn Meeting

Date: September 21st

Time: 6pm - 8pm

Location: Aviator Sports - Hangar 5 - Floyd Bennett Field

Queens Meeting

Date: September 27th 

Time: 6pm - 8pm

Location: Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center

New ‘Signs’ of Life Along Downtown Brooklyn’s History Trail by Gary Buiso - The Brooklyn Paper

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Between hope and history: Salvatore “Buddy” Scotto of the Brooklyn Preservation Council, state Sen. Daniel Squadron, Bob Furman of the Brooklyn Preservation Council and designer Paul Singer show off their signs.

Finally, there are signs that Brooklyn once had beautiful old buildings downtown.
The Brooklyn Preservation Council means that quite literally, in fact, as the non-profit group has begun installing historic markers in and around Borough Hall and Cadman Plaza to commemorate a rich architectural past that was razed in the name of progress.

“In Brooklyn, Robert Moses basically tore down everything that was old,” said Bob Furman, president of the council.

Urban renewal projects led by Moses began in the 1930s and lasted until the 1960s — and though the Master Builder accomplished great feats, a good deal was lost, Furman said.

The sign initiative, called the Borough Hall Area Historical Commemoration Project, is in its very early stages of development. It recently received a $1,500 grant from state Sen. Daniel Squadron (D–Brooklyn Heights) — but will need about $60,000 more to be fully realized. Two model signs were showcased this week in Borough Hall, an effort to engender support for the project.

The signs will point out such historical tidbits such as:

• Back in the 1860s, an area that is now Korean War Veterans Plaza, between Cadman Plaza West and Washington Street, was Brooklyn’s department store district.
• The Hall of Records and the County Courthouse — whose Manhattan twin, the Tweed Courthouse, remains standing — were torn down after the new Supreme Court Building on Adams Street opened in 1959. Part of the Hall of Records site was utilized for widening Boerum Place into Brooklyn Bridge Boulevard.

The signs, roughly 15 in total, will refer to the past, but also remain relevant, Furman said.

“Urban renewal and gentrification are still controversial. The question is, ‘How do you renew cities? Do you tear everything down, or do you preserve?’ ”

Towns, Longtime Congressman, Will Run Again by Gary Buiso - The Brooklyn Paper

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Rep. Ed Towns is hoping 15 is his lucky number.

Surrounded by family, friends and lawmakers, Towns (D-Fort Greene) this week announced his re-election campaign on the steps of Borough Hall, his 15th such announcement in a decades-long political career.

At the event, presided over by his son and heir apparent, Assemblyman Darryl Towns (D–Bushwick), the refrain sounded straight out of 1982 — the year America fell in love with an alien with a taste for Reese’s Pieces.

“We want ET! We want ET!” the crowd chanted.

But the cheers were for a more human ET — Towns, who began his first term as representative of the 10th Congressional District just one year after the sci-fi blockbuster, a career critics charge has been largely unremarkable, but boosted most recently by his selection as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a role that has given him national visibility.

On Monday, Towns was energized under a hot sun in a light gray suit and pink tie, pledging to unite a district that is home to the borough’s richest and poorest residents.

“We must come together!” Towns said.

Specifics were in short supply, but Towns said he planned to focus on promoting job growth, and pressuring banks that were rescued during the Great Recession to begin loaning money to businesses and individuals.

“Through this working-together-process, we can do better,” the lawmaker said.
Towns was introduced by former borough president Howard Golden, clad in a comfortable T-shirt and sweatpants. Back in 1976, Golden hired Towns to be his deputy borough president.

Colleagues heaped praise on the longtime lawmaker.

“He represents core Democratic ideals,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Coney Island), who pointed to Towns’s “fighting for the most vulnerable” of his district by working to preserve affordable housing. “Change is a wonderful thing — sometimes,” Nadler said to laughs.

But his 2008 opponent was less generous.

“I am sure there was a time that Mr. Towns was an engaged leader in Brooklyn,” said Kevin Powell, the former MTV-reality star and community organizer who pledged to take on Towns again this fall. “He is still operating in an old paradigm of machine politics — that he will [one day] pass the seat long to his son. That is not acceptable and that is not democracy.

“He has been purposefully invisible in the district, except to the handful of voters he needs to get elected every couple of years,” Powell continued.

In 2008, Towns defeated Powell in the primary with 67 percent of the vote compared to the challenger’s 33 percent.

“You can’t be invisible for 25 years in a district and expect to be elected again and again — that’s just insanity,” scoffed Towns spokesman Julian Phillips, who pointed to Towns’s support of a $60-million renovation of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, support of health care reform, and gun control as proof of his boss’s keen ear for his constituent’s concerns.

Supporters said they appreciated Towns’s everyman quality.

“He is a congressman you can speak to,” said Bedford-Stuyvesant resident Cecil Bruce.

Study Renews Plan for Brooklyn Trolley from Red Hook Up to Bridge Park by Rich Calder - NY Post

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This photo (specific date unavailable) were taken in downtown Brooklyn, near Borough Hall and the intersection of Court and Joralemon Streets. (h/t:The Tech - MIT's Oldest and Largest Newspaper)

After two decades of false starts, the city is finally back on track with plans to build a light-rail or trolley line connecting Brooklyn's most transit-starved neighborhood with its downtown area.

The city Transportation Department expects to select a consultant within the next two months to study running the mile-long line from the Red Hook waterfront to Atlantic Avenue at the edge of Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is in walking distance to several subway and bus lines.

The study could also look at extending the route another half-mile east, directly to the transit hub at Borough Hall.

DOT plans to finally take advantage of a $300,000 federal grant that Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn) secured for the six-month study in 2005.

Velazquez said the project is crucial for Red Hook, since the isolated neighborhood is facing brutal service cuts to its already-limited bus service -- the B61, B77 and B71 lines. The neighborhood has no subway; its nearest train line -- the F -- is more than a mile away.

Bob Diamond, president of the Brooklyn Historic Railway Association, which has tried to create a trolley line since 1989, estimated the project would cost $10 million to $15 million to complete.

Velazquez has requested $10 million of the funds needed for the project from a pending House transit bill.

Nearly a decade ago, the BHRA proposed a trolley route running from existing tracks at the Van Brunt Street waterfront, north up Richards Street and then Columbia Street, before hitting the park at Atlantic Avenue and then heading east to Borough Hall.

Light-rail lines are much cheaper and quicker to build than subway lines and use far less energy. They run on existing streets, normally without the need to eliminate parking spots.

Our Neighborhood - Times Newsweekly

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Except from article...

The building of the Ridgewood Reservoir at present-day Highland Park—and the many celebrations in the City of Brooklyn when the new water supply began delivering, in the late 1850s—spread the name of Ridgewood throughout America’s fourth largest city. In fact, glasses of water in the parts of Brooklyn tied in to the new distribution system were soon known to all as “Ridgewood highballs.”

Walmart Eying Brooklyn Shopping Center for First New York City Location by Erin Durkin - NY Daily News

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"Walmart exploits workers ... and we want no part of that," said one Brooklyn politician. Beck/Getty

Walmart is eying a proposed Brooklyn shopping center for its first New York City location, Crain's New York reported.

The retail giant is scoping out the Gateway II shopping center near Jamaica Bay. Even though the proposal isn't official yet, community groups already are planning protests.

Walmart is reportedly also checking out other unidentified sites in the city.

Earlier efforts for outlets in Staten Island and Queens were scuttled by protests from labor and community groups, prompting then-Walmart CEO Lee Scott to declare that opening in the city wasn't "worth the effort."

Now, New York is back on the big-box chain's radar.

"We know that New Yorkers want to shop and work at Walmart, and as a result, we continue to evaluate potential opportunities here," Walmart exec Steven Restivo told Crain's. "New Yorkers want quality jobs and affordable groceries, and it remains our goal to be part of the solution."

The plans of developer RelatedCos. for the 630,000-square-foot Gateway II center, near Starrett City, were approved by the City Council, meaning Walmart could move in without the Council's signoff.

Opponents already are gearing up for a fight.

"They'll have the battle of their lives," said City Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn). "Walmart exploits workers ... and we want no part of that."

Supermarket lobbyist Richard Lipsky said the developer could face a lawsuit because environmental studies didn't consider the amount of traffic a store like Walmart would generate.

Brooklyn’s Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead Is an Old Dutch Farmhouse by Ralph Blumenthal - NYTimes.com

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Near Kings Highway in the Madison section of Brooklyn, the Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead, a colonial-era Dutch farmhouse, is one of only a few such buildings remaining in the city. Built by Hendrick H. Wyckoff in 1766, it has been owned by only three families. Mr. Wyckoff sold the home to Cornelius W. Bennett in 1835 and it remained in the Bennett family until 1983. Photo: Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

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WITH a spinning wheel in the attic, flintlock rifles on the walls, foot warmers at the hearth and a horse-drawn sleigh in the barn, Annette and Stuart Mont are well-equipped for 18th-century colonial farm life.

Except they are living in Brooklyn in 2010.

Home is an antiques-crammed pre-Revolutionary white Dutch farmhouse and barn that rise like ghostly apparitions amid apartment clusters and buzzing traffic on East 22nd Street and Avenue P in the Madison section. The Monts, who bought the place fully equipped for $160,000 in 1983, are only the third family to occupy what is known as the Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead since it was built around 1766.

“It’s a living museum,” said Mrs. Mont, 69, a retired psychotherapist and teacher.

But a plan for the city to acquire the 4,000-square-foot home, which was designated as a landmark by the city in 1968 and put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, has broken down in acrimony.

The Monts say that starting a decade ago, city officials offered to buy the house and its contents for $2 million while letting them stay on rent-free as caretakers, but that the officials reneged on the deal last year. Franklin Vagnone, executive director of the Historic House Trust, which helps the parks department preserve historic houses located in city parks, called the place “a wonderful artifact” but said the city “was unfortunately not able to negotiate terms with the current owners.”

The Wyckoff-Bennett Homestead is one of at least a dozen old Dutch houses, wraiths from a long-bygone age in various states of repair and bastardization, that still grace the County of Kings. There are some others scattered throughout the city, down from more than 70 that were intact as recently as the 1950s.

A handful are privately owned, like an even older house in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn that the Monts rented before buying theirs. Others are maintained as museums, including the oldest dwelling in the city and its first designated landmark, the Pieter Claesen Wyckoff House on Clarendon Road in East Flatbush, dating from 1652. On Thursday, city officials opened bids for relocating an old Wyckoff barn from New Jersey onto the Clarendon Road farmhouse property, for the first barn-raising in Brooklyn in 150 years.

The Monts’s home, near Kings Highway, is a curved-roofed paragon of Dutch-colonial architecture, and remains filled with original furnishings — dishes, silverware, quilts, toys, clothes, Bibles, daguerreotypes, even an edict of April 3, 1776, ordering householders “to preserve for the KING’s Use” bushels of rye, wheat and barley to provision the redcoat army.

A sword on the wall is etched with the royal crown and initials for George Rex III. And two Hessian mercenaries quartered there during the Revolution, Captain Toepfer of the Ditfourth regiment and Lieut. M. Bach of the Hessen-Hanau Artillerie, scratched their names and units into windowpanes, the graffiti sections now displayed proudly in two small picture frames.

(And of course the Monts say there is a ghost, the supposed one-legged owner of a single old boot found in the attic, who clomps around opening and closing doors.)

“This is not stuff we acquired,” said Mr. Mont, also 69, chief financial officer of a beauty-products company in Carteret, N.J. “This was left by two families over 250 years.”

The house is not officially open to the public, but the Monts, lovers of history and architecture, who sit on the boards of similar properties in Brooklyn, often play host to school groups and other interested visitors.

“Oh my God, this place is a gem,” Ron Schweiger, the Brooklyn borough historian, said after a recent tour. It was built in what was then Gravesend by Hendrick H. Wyckoff, whose forbear landed in New Amsterdam in 1637. (The family name had been Claesen, but the British, who took the colony from the Dutch in 1664, pressured settlers to adopt English names.) In 1835, the house and 100-acre farm were sold to Cornelius W. Bennett, whose ancestor was perhaps the first settler in what became Brooklyn, in 1636.

It remained in the Bennett family until Cornelius’s great-great-granddaughter, Gertrude Ryder Bennett, a poet and the author of two books on the house — “Living in a Landmark” (1980) and “Turning Back the Clock” (1982) — died childless in 1982, leaving behind handwritten notes on the provenance of many objects in the house.

She was born in 1900, around the time the city put in the street grid requiring the south-facing house to be jacked up and turned to the west, wiping out the original barns and slave quarters. A new barn, still standing, was built in 1899, the date scratched into a beam. Some century-old straw remains.

In the books, Ms. Ryder Bennett recalled watching horse races on Ocean Parkway, visiting the Canarsie Indians, and growing up by kerosene light — her grandmother feared both newfangled gas and electricity.

The federal government also had a chance to acquire the property, the Monts said, when the Bennetts took steps in 1975 to deed it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But the government failed to complete the acquisition, according to the Monts. Jenni Brewer, a spokeswoman for the trust in Washington, said no one there remembered the matter and no records could be located.

Ms. Ryder Bennett’s widower sold the house to the Monts, who claim no colonial pedigree. “We go back to Europe,” Mrs. Mont said, “but most of my family was wiped out in the Holocaust.”

She grew up in Sheepshead Bay, he in Bensonhurst; they met at Brooklyn College and married in 1961. From 1975 to 1982, when their son and daughter were young, the Monts rented part of the Stoothoff-Baxter House, less than two miles away, at 1640 East 48th Street. That house goes back to 1747, with an addition built in 1811 by John Baxter, who moved the house several blocks from its original site.

The house’s owner, Ken Friedlander, 58, a teacher, bought it in 1994 for $280,000, along with a trove of old papers, including a receipt for a slave whom Baxter bought for $325 in 1810.

The Monts said the city first approached them in 1999 with what became an offer of $2 million for their four lots, house and barn, plus the right to match any bid for the contents. And, they said, they were to be allowed to live out the rest of their days in the house rent-free.

As a first step, which was urged by the Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, the City Planning Commission on Dec. 5, 2007, approved the remapping of the property as a public park.

But the Department of Citywide Administrative Services wrote the Monts last Feb. 26, offering $1,387,000, including the contents, which it said had been appraised at $92,035. The offer, the agency said, had been discounted to offset theoretical rent — about $40,000 a year for the Monts’ expected life spans of 15 more years.

The Monts said they were insulted, and talks with the city collapsed. “Let my kids worry about it,” Mr. Mont said. “I’ll die some day.”

Councilman Recchia Sets Up Bensonhurst Fire Victims Fund

To assist the families affected by the devastating fire in Bensonhurst, Councilman Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., with the support of Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has joined with the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty to set up the Bensonhurst Fire Victims Fund.

Since the fire early Saturday morning, Councilman Recchia has been meeting with the families, the Guatemalan consulate and local community leaders, including William Lombardo, owner of the Coney Island Memorial Funeral Home, who has generously agreed to help cover the funeral services.

“These families lost everything they had,” said Councilman Recchia. “Many of them have only the clothes on their backs, and they need our help. New Yorkers consistently show a charitable spirit when tragedy strikes. We need that charitable spirit right now. I am asking New Yorkers to dig deep into their pockets and help however they can.”

Checks should be made out to “Bensonhurst Fire Victims Fund c/o Met Council” and sent to:

Bensonhurst Fire Victims Fund

c/o Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty

80 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

The fund will be accepting donations to help pay for shelter, clothes, food and other funeral costs for families impacted by the blaze.

“I’m honored to join forces with Councilman Recchia, Mayor Bloomberg and the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty to help the victims of this devastating fire,” said Speaker Christine C. Quinn. “New Yorkers have come together to generously help those in need in times of tragedy before, and I want to encourage all New Yorkers to do the same for the families affected by this horrific fire.”

“Last weekend’s tragic fire in Bensonhurst took five lives and left many others in dire need of our help,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “Working together, our Community Affairs Unit, City Council and community organizations like the Met Council is helping these families get the support they need to get their lives back on track. Fire marshals and police investigators acted swiftly and made an arrest yesterday."

“Tragedies do not discriminate - they can happen to anyone at any time,” said Rep. Michael McMahon. “As we've seen recently in Haiti, however, in moments of tragedy what matters is how we come together. This horrific fire not only makes us realize how fortunate we are, it also moves us to unite and help the members of our community who have lost everything. The people of Brooklyn are known for their generosity and I hope that everyone will help in whatever way they can. There is no donation too small.”

“I commend my colleague, Domenic Recchia, for his leadership in establishing this fund to help those who need it the most right now,” said Council Member Elizabeth Crowley, Chair of the Fire & Criminal Justice Committee. “I encourage all New Yorkers to give what they can, and to also take this as an opportunity to make sure their smoke detectors are working properly."

Tank Bursts on Sichem Defiance Tanker Ship in Brooklyn's Gravesend Bay by Kevin Deutsch and Erin Durkin - NY Daily News

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A 400 foot cargo ship carrying ethanol, benzene and fuel oil, had a pressure explosion in a cargo hold this morning in Gravesend Bay near the Verrazano Bridge, setting off a massive rescue response as the crew of 18 worked to contain the damage and keep the ship from listing anymore than it was after the accident. A fireboat goes out to the distressed ship. Maisel/News

A 400 foot cargo ship carrying ethanol, benzene and fuel oil, had a pressure explosion in a cargo hold this morning in Gravesend Bay near the Verrazano Bridge, setting off a massive rescue response as the crew of 18 worked to contain the damage and keep the ship from listing anymore than it was after the accident. A fireboat goes out to the distressed ship.

A tank burst on a ship carrying thousands of gallons of ethanol in Brooklyn's Gravesend Bay Sunday morning, officials said.

The Coast Guard evacuated the bay after an overpressurized tank ruptured and part of the deck collapsed on the Sichem Defiance, a 443-foot tanker.

None of the 18 people on board were injured, and no ethanol spilled into the water.

The tanker, owned by Indian company Eitsen Chemical, was offloading 55,000 gallons of ethanol when the tank burst around 9 a.m.

The Coast Guard also cleared out a 1,000-yard area around the ship as a "precautionary measure," Lt. Eric Hanson, Coast Guard Sector New York's command duty officer, said.

A crowd of onlookers gawked at the ship listing offshore. "I'm just stunned," said Robert Ramos, 41, of Coney Island. "It just kept listing over and over. We thought it was going down."

Hipsters, Hasidic Jews Fight Over Bike Lanes In Williamsburg - The Huffington Post

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The war over Williamsburg has taken yet another turn.

In response to last week's removal of bike lanes in the traditionally Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn, a group of local bike riders took it upon themselves to repaint the lane lines running down Bedford Avenue.

The Hasids had asked the city to remove the bike lanes from the neighborhood, claiming the influx of bikers posed a "safety and religious hazard."

In an interesting twist, the group of guerrilla line painters reportedly included members of the Hasidic community who are not opposed to the lanes.

Last year the religious group complained to the community board that many of the young, female cyclists who rode through the neighborhood were "hotties," who "ride in shorts and skirts," both of which are against their dress code.

According to the New York Post, "a source close to Mayor Bloomberg said removing the lanes was an effort to appease the Hasidic community just before last month's election."

SEE HOW THEY DID IT:

Rep. Ed Towns Statement Honoring Shirley Chisholm’s Birthday...

U.S. Rep. Edolphus “Ed” Towns (NY-10) issued the following statement today in honor of Honorable Shirley Chisholm’s 85^th birthday:

“Today, we celebrate the life of Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to Congress, who also became one of New York’s most revered public servants. In honor of Congresswoman Chisholm’s 85^th birthday, I recently introduced H. Res. 926 to recognize her groundbreaking accomplishments, rare strength of character and belief in the potential of a new America. Congresswoman Chisholm’s ‘Unbought and Unbossed’ political style allowed her to break through many back doors and glass ceilings, blazing a pathway for generations of women and people of color.

“Born and raised in Brooklyn, Congresswoman Chisholm came to Washington where she served seven consecutive terms representing Brooklyn. She was a champion for increasing federal support for education, health care for seniors and children, and other social services for all Americans.

“In 1976, Congresswoman Chisholm was one of the original founders of the Congressional Black Caucus. The CBC now proudly represents more than 40 members of congress and aims to help improve the socioeconomic circumstances of African Americans and other under-served communities.

“As one of her closest friends and former colleagues, I am honored to serve areas of Brooklyn that were once part of Congresswoman Chisholm’s district. Let us remember Congresswoman Chisholm today in all her greatness, not just because she was the first African American woman in Congress, but because she was daring to be herself, while making history.”

At Broadway Triangle Hearing, Some Lopez-Reyna Tensions by Azi Paybarah - NY Observer

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I poked my head into the Council Chambers a few minutes ago, where Dan Garodnick was presiding over a rather well-attended Council hearing about a proposed rezoning at the Broadway Triangle.

That's a 31-acre piece of property whose rezoning is supported by Assemblyman Vito Lopez, the Brooklyn County Democratic Leader.

Critics like City Councilwoman Diana Reyna said many residents in the area were left out of the public review process before the rezoning was drafted. Reyna, whom Lopez tried to oust in this year's Democratic primary and general election, is now helping lead the opposition to the rezoning.

I got to the hearing just before three women sat down to testify in favor of the rezoning, saying it will bring much-needed affordable housing to the area.

One of the women said the plans shouldn't be delayed "because of political interests," clearly a reference to Reyna.

Before the women left, City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez asked them a few questions, including their place of employment.

One by one, each of the three women said they worked for the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Center. That's the one that was founded, and is run, by Lopez.

Rep. Towns Votes to Extend Unemployment Benefits, Homebuyers’ Tax Credit, Business Tax Relief...

U.S. Rep. Edolphus “Ed” Towns (NY-10) issued the following statement, following the passage of H.R. 3548, the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 403 - 12.

“This is another crucial step to provide immediate relief to struggling New Yorkers and their families by providing an extension of unemployment benefits, homebuyers’ tax credit, and tax relief for businesses and military families.

Those who receive these benefits will be putting money right back into our local economy when they do things like buy groceries and make their mortgage payments on time. Families in my district will receive an additional 14 weeks of unemployment benefits, and workers who exhausted, or will soon exhaust their benefits, will be eligible for a total of 20 additional weeks of emergency unemployment compensation.

This legislation is also taking immediate steps to help stabilize our small businesses and strengthen our housing market. The bill includes an extension of the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit through April 30, 2010, and provides a $6,500 credit to new purchasers who have lived in their current residence for five years or more. It also helps military families struggling to make mortgage payments by making those payments tax-exempt.

While we continue working to turn this economy around, I am proud to support this effort that is are crucial to growing our economy and to putting it back on sound footing.”

Did Parks Rig Reservoir Survey? by Michael Lanza - Queens Chronicle

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The skewed results of a public survey presented last Tuesday is leading many Ridgewood Reservoir advocates to ask: is the Parks Department stuffing the ballot box?

Parks’ announcement of the results of a 253-person survey — which indicated a strong preference for replacing the reservoir basins with active recreational facilities — came as the city agency simultaneously presented data from public hearings showing overwhelming community support for preserving the site in its natural state.

The sudden shift in support indicated by the survey sparked serious questions and outlandish charges among area preservationists.

“Parks used people that Parks felt were going to give them the answers that they wanted,” said Steven Fiedler, a Community Board 5 member and reservoir preservation advocate.

But a recent disclosure by the Parks Department suggests that allegations refuting the poll’s integrity may have merit.

Three out of four local groups enlisted to help distribute the survey — the Cypress Hills Local Development Corp., Brooklyn East Youth Sports and Recreation and East Brooklyn Congregations — are vocal advocates for replacing the basins with ballfields.

The fourth group, the George J. Walker Community Coalition, did not have a confirmed position as of press time.

At the center of the controversial survey is Bishop David Benke, the leader of East Brooklyn Congregations and a board member on the Cypress Hills Local Development Corp.

“Anybody with Benke is gonna go with ballfields,” Fiedler said.

Benke has been among the most vocal advocates for ballfields — lobbying the City Council with a public presentation at City Hall earlier this year.

Representing his parish in Bushwick, the Lutheran minister argued that Highland Park is simply too far a trek for his followers. Artificial and natural barriers are forcing Bushwick residents around the reservoir to access Highland Park, which they say is already too crowded and poorly maintained. He argued that the third basin is filled with invasive plant species and that eight of the 51 acres at the reservoir could be set aside for community baseball fields.

“That 8 acres does not really need to be a nature reserve, there’s nothing in there that needs to be preserved,” Benke said “Let’s use that for some sort of active use.”

But even he acknowledged that Parks’ decision to solicit their groups undermined the survey’s integrity.

“They said, ‘we need some people to hand out these surveys,’” Benke said. “You could make your case. You could say there are questions about the validity of a survey handed out by people who have already taken a position.”

The minister — confident that another survey would show similar results — said he would support a new survey distributed by an independent group.

Parks officials did not respond to allegations of bias within the survey.

The reservoir’s declining condition has become the center of a battle between preservationists and developers in recent years.

City Comptroller Bill Thompson shot down proposals by Mayor Mike Bloomberg to convert the reservoir into a sports field last summer, citing the ecological importance of the space.

“This plan flies in the face of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s widely hailed environmental blueprint, which bemoans the loss of the city’s natural areas,” Thompson wrote, protesting the plan. “The Parks Department’s own scientific consultants have warned against disturbing the reservoir, an area they call ‘highly significant for the biodiversity of New York City and the region.’”

Parks recently announced plans to slash development funds for the reservoir in its revised capital budget — cutting funds for Ridgewood Reservoir and Highland Park by more than half — from $48.8 million to $19.8 million. Approximately $7.7 million already allocated during phase one to restore lights and fencing around the reservoir will not be influenced by the cuts.

The cut was a mixed blessing for those who opposed razing the reservoir site to create ballfields — casting doubt on the most expensive of the propositions.

Three initial plans to develop the site included preserving the site as a natural habitat, filling in the reservoir basins and replacing them with baseball and soccer fields and a hybrid plan where only one of three basins — the largest one — would be converted into a recreational sporting area.

The reservoir, located on the border of Brooklyn and Queens, was created in 1848 to provide drinking water to Brooklyn. But it was converted to a back-up in 1959 and finally taken off-line in 1989. The site is now a natural haven for plants, turtles, fish, frogs and more than 137 bird species —including eight rare species on the National Audubon Society’s “Watch List.”

Late Nite Calls by Mating Mockingbirds Has Carroll Gardens Flapping Mad by Ben Chapman - NY Daily News

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And you thought your neighbors were loud.

New Yorkers are being kept up all night by an influx of sex-crazed mockingbirds looking for hanky-panky just outside their windows.

Tormented residents complain the ear-splitting love songs are as annoying as car alarms.

"It's loud and shrill and grating," fumed John DiMartino, 37, an engineer from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

DiMartino had to buy earplugs to drown out the late-night love songs that started outside his apartment about three weeks ago. "It was making it hard for us to sleep."

Bird experts said the city's mockingbird population has exploded since the species first appeared here in the 1960s.

The numbers dipped over the last few years, but the population climbed about 10% in 2008 over 2007, according to a winter census conducted by volunteers with the National Audubon Society.

Male mockingbirds show off for females by imitating the sounds they hear - such as the whistles of other birds and even honking and traffic noise.

Eric Moore of Staten Island said he wishes the bawdy birds that squawk outside his St. George apartment every night would just get a room.

"I can't open the windows," said Moore, 42, a 3-D animator. "It's a hassle."

Christopher Layer said a mockingbird outside his Greenwich Village loft sounds like a Lexus that's about to be stolen.

"The bird has an amazing ability to imitate car alarms," said Layer, 40, a musician who plays the bagpipes in Shakespeare in the Park's "Twelfth Night." "He starts every night about 2 a.m."

Sometimes the birds attack.

"The mockingbird is very territorial and protective of their young," said Peter Dorosh, 48, a forestry technician at Prospect Park and president of the Brooklyn Bird Club. "It will harass any intruders on its breeding territory."

Bronx professional dog walker Carolyn Guarriello, 42, said she's been afraid of the birds ever since she was attacked by one on 236th St. in Riverdale a year ago. "I was traumatized," she said. "I'm thinking of the movie 'The Birds,' where they peck people's eye's out."

After a quiet winter, Guarriello is starting to see the birds return. "They're probably nesting here now," she said.

Not everyone is annoyed by the singing.

Queens bird watcher Arie Gilbert, 47, said he enjoys hearing the lusty love songs, even in the middle of the night.

"Sometimes you can be really surprised by the songs mockingbirds sing," said Gilbert. "It's wonderful to hear the sound of nature. It's just a happy sound."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2009/06/21/2009-06-21_we_could_kill_a_mockingbird_nyers_not_thrilled_by_bawdy_birds_latenight_trills.html#ixzz0JCzKqwNV&C