January
The DOE announced that brownstone Brooklyn’s overcrowded Districts 15 and 13 would be sharing a new school, to be built on the present site of District 13’s P.S. 133, on Baltic Street and Fourth Avenue. District 13 parents protested the demolition of their historic building and worried that their kids would get the short end of the stick.
The Bridge Project, a three-year collaboration between the Brooklyn Academy of Music and London’s Old Vic Theatre, makes its debut at the BAM Harvey Theater with Tom Stoppard’s adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, directed by Sam Mendes. He then directed the cast of British and American actors in Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale at BAM before taking them across the pond to perform the double-bill in London.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, who is yet to be promoted to Administrative Judge, presides at hearing over the Brooklyn House of Detention expansion.
Three years after the ghoulish scandal was exposed, Bensonhurst funeral home owner Joseph Nicelli is sentenced to eight to 24 years for his role in the infamous body parts scandal. (In March, final body-parts defendant, Lee Cruceta, is sentenced to eight to 24 years.)
When the cash-stripped MTA proposed elimination of many bus routes, lawmakers launched a petition and protest drive. (In May Albany came up with a bailout plan and the MTA action is stopped. But in December the MTA again announced a new fiscal shortfall and again proposed the same cuts for early 2010 setting off a new round of petitions and protests.)
An estimated 75 people joined a rally in the bitter cold in DUMBO to protest the development by Two Trees Management Co. of an 18-story building they believe is “too tall” and “too close” to the Brooklyn Bridge and would permanently block views of the bridge and from the bridge.
February
Jury selection begins for retrial of accused cop killer Lee Woods; codefendant Dexter Bostic meanwhile is sentenced to life without parole for killing Officer Russel Timoshenko. In an unprecedented act, at sentencing, Bostic recites the 19th-century poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley.
Work is stymied halfway through a $3.6 million reconstruction and expansion project on the Fort Hamilton Branch Public Library due to termite damage to wood floors.
Andy Lewis, the former executive director of the Better Brooklyn Community Center was arrested on charges that he defrauded the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Child Food Program of more than $500,000 meant to feed warm meals to low-income children. Lewis is better known as the director of Boerum Hill’s “Toxic Preschool,” shut down in 2007 by the Department of Health after being exposed in a story in the Brooklyn Eagle.
The Fireman’s Fund insurance company is living up to its name with a high-tech grant to a Brooklyn firehouse, Engine 280/Ladder 132 at 489 St. John’s Pl. Since 2004 Fireman’s Fund has issued grants to more than 1,100 firehouses nationwide, but this is their first in Brooklyn.
Officials and parents expressed dismay after the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn said it was considering closing at least 14 of its elementary schools and merging others
The city’s Economic Development Corp. (EDC) has acquired eight properties in Downtown Brooklyn — 213-221 Duffield St., 209-211 Duffield, 408-414 Albee Square (aka Gold Street), 225 Duffield, 223 Duffield, 116 Willoughby St.; and 402, 404, 406, 416 and 418 Albee Square — needed for the construction of Willoughby Square Park and the parking garage beneath.
Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein announces that 26 schools would open in 22 newly constructed school buildings at the start of the 2009-10 school year. Among them is the first high school for Sunset Park. The Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) votes unanimously to give landmark status to the Alice and Agate Courts in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the city’s 93rd historic district. Described as “a quiet enclave of 36 late 19th-century Queen Anne-style row houses,” it is the ninth historic district outside of Manhattan designated under the Bloomberg Administration.
March
Forever Blue, a new book about the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for sunny Los Angeles, is launched at the Brooklyn Historical Society with none other than Peter O’Malley — the son of maligned Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley — in attendance. It was under O’Malley’s stewardship that the Dodgers went west, and Brooklyn will never forget it, despite his son’s and Forever Blue author Michael D’Antonio’s attempts to defend the decision.
Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (BGI), celebrating its fifth anniversary, announces that the Department of Transportation has committed to producing a master plan for the entire 14-mile Greenway route. Renaissance Plaza, which includes the Marriott Hotel building that houses the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and New York Law Department, is evacuated after fire.
An eviction notice is posted on one of the doors of the long-defunct Busy Chef, Oven and Blue Pig food businesses on Henry Street directly south of Cranberry Street, mystifying passers-by who assumed that the proprietors had vacated the huge space long ago. For those who don’t remember, the three contiguous businesses were a local fixture for about a year until they closed in July 2008 in the wake of a scandal involving manager Dan Kaufman.
Frustration over over-zealous ticket agents peaks in certain neighborhoods. Following intervention by local politicians, chief traffic enforcement officials agreed to alert agents to the problem and ease up on certain circumstances
Radio host George Weber, of Henry Street in Carroll Gardens, is stabbed to death by teenager John Katehis after the two reportedly met up for an evening of drugs and rough sex. Katehis, a self-described Satanist, is charged with murder.
April
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominated the Gowanus Canal as a federal Superfund site, which would dispatch federal funds to the cleanup of the toxic waterway, but could also, some fear, deter private developers from investing in the area and the city from pursuing its own clean-up plan. A decision on the designation is still pending in Washington.
The Eagle reports in the first week of April that the non-profit Center for the Urban Environment abruptly closes its doors after 30 years of service. The center gave urban tours in all five boroughs and had programs in over 300 schools throughout the city. Founder John Muir says before closure, “everything spoke of prosperity.”
Famed author and Brooklyn Bridge authority David McCullough takes a stand against Two Trees’ proposed Dock Street project and joins a press conference announcing his stance in DUMBO. “To build an 18-story tower beside that bridge would be an absolute desecration,” he told the crowd.
The Brooklyn Navy Yard celebrates the opening of its Perry Building, the nation’s first multi-story green industrial facility. On track to receive LEED gold certification, the building has wind turbines, rooftop solar panels, reflective roofing, the use of recycled rain water in toilets, recycled building materials and high-efficiency lighting fixtures, among other green features.
In related news, Poly Prep Country Day School, is given a Lucy G. Moses Preservation award by the New York Landmarks Conservancy for the recently built addition to its lower school in Park Slope. The addition earned the school a LEED silver certification, making it the first LEED-certified school in New York City and the first LEED-certified primary school in New York State.
After at least four years of attempts, a Business Improvement District comes to Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. Stretching along Fifth Avenue from Dean Street down to 18th Street, the Park Slope Fifth Avenue BID is self-funded with a budget of $300,000.
The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) is best known for serving, in the words of its famous 1950s ad campaign, the “dashing commuter” from Nassau, Suffolk or Eastern Queens. But the LIRR was also instrumental in the growth of Brooklyn. Actually, Brooklyn was where it all began. This was brought out at the New York Transit Museum’s exhibit, “The Route of the Dashing Commuter: The Long Island Rail Road at 175,” which ran at the museum in the decommissioned Court Street subway station. The appeal of a woman known as the “Undercover Mother,” who disguised herself as a sexy thirtysomething to woo a juror into confessing improprieties regarding her son’s murder conviction, is dismissed.
Former Brooklyn Congressman Vito Fossella pleads guilty to drunk driving charges and agrees to spend two weekends in jail.
“Hipster Grifter” Kari Ferrell, an alleged conwoman believed to be hiding in Williamsburg, is tracked down by local hipsters and Salt Lake City police.
Police crack down on a long-suspected drug-dealing den on 93rd Street in when it raided two crack houses, with DA Charles Hynes indicting six alleged crack-dealers after numerous neighborhood complaints.
“Toxic Preschool” boss Andy Lewis appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court and was told he has one more chance to prove he had given up cocaine before being shipped off to a residential treatment center. Judge Matsumoto ordered immediate and ongoing drug testing. (In July, Lewis is jailed after he tested positive for cocaine for the ninth time while free on bail. Lewis blames the test results on a cocaine-laced cigarette someone gave him.)
Parents at George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School in Downtown Brooklyn say they were worried about air quality, traffic safety and sound issues as they face years of demolition and construction next door. A new City Tech academic building at the corner of Tillary and Jay streets is to be built on the site of Klitgord Auditorium and the Westinghouse parking lot.
May
In the ongoing battle for bicycle lanes in Williamsburg, the Department of Transportation announces a new street plan for Kent Avenue in May. The street was changed from a two-way to a one-way, northbound street in order to maintain a two-way bike path while returning hundreds of parking spaces to neighborhood residents, who had protested for months over the lack of parking and the impropriety of cyclists (prompting many to identify the battle as a cultural clash between the local Hasidim and the growing hipster population). It seemed like a happy solution until someone pointed out the new one-way traffic arrangement diverted truck traffic onto nearby Whythe Avenue.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden holds Sakura Matsuri, the 28th annual Cherry Blossom Festival. The garden’s assortment of trees is the largest and most diverse outside Japan.
As had been expected, the “G” cross-Brooklyn subway route — often thought of as the stepchild of the transit system — will now be extended from its current southern terminal, Smith-9th Street, to the Church Avenue F station.
Kings County Supreme Court Justice Sylvia Hinds-Radix and Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Barry Kamins are named as Brooklyn’s new administrative judges. The restructured positions will put each in charge of all civil matters and criminal matters in the Brooklyn courts, respectively.
Eagle Legal Editor Ryan Thompson publishes legal analysis of the myriad of lawsuits facing Bruce Ratner and the Atlantic Yards project, writing that litigation-related delays will likely continue into the year 2010 or longer.
Bruce Ratner celebrates the topping off of his first residential building in Brooklyn, with fanfare. It is a 34-story, 360-foot-tall, 335,000-square-foot rental tower with metal and glass facade at 80 DeKalb Ave. in Fort Greene, which includes affordable units.
June
Borough Hall Greenmarket celebrates its 25th anniversary. Festivities include a seafood cook-off, pizza baking and a solar panel demonstration.
When the U.S. Postal Service announced closing and consolidation plans for several dozen branches in Brooklyn, a vigorous petition and protest campaign took place. Within two months the USPS reassured customers that most, if not all, would not be closed.
Transportation Alternatives holds its fifth annual Tour de Brooklyn. The 23-mile ride starts in KeySpan park and travels through South Brooklyn, Green-Wood Cemetery (which doesn’t normally allow bikes), Prospect Park and concludes back in Coney Island. Bicyclists from all over — Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Virginia, even California — joined the leisurely ride.
Students, teachers and parents bid a bittersweet farewell to the teachers they had known all their lives at a final picnic for Most Precious Blood School in Bensonhurst. Despite a campaign that included obtaining pledges of more than $100,000, marches and even a YouTube appeal, Most Precious Blood School received word from the Diocese of Brooklyn that it would be one of many schools to be shut down.
Brooklyn woman Tameeka Lewis is sentenced for being booking agent in prostitution scandal that netted then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
“Fix the Ditch” has been the cry of neighborhood residents in Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and the Columbia Waterfront District for years. The “ditch,” or “trench,” is the below-ground, but uncovered portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that runs through the area. The city’s Economic Development Corporation releases a request for qualifications for a study of the highway section in question. This study is funded by a $300,000 grant secured by Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez with the support of Community Board 6 and local groups.
Bernard Madoff, called the “devil” and “the evilest man in history,” is sentenced to 150 years in prison.
July
As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uneasily monitors the spread of the H1N1 (swine flu) virus that appears to be hitting more children and young adults than the elderly.
The City Council votes overwhelmingly in favor of the city’s Coney Island Redevelopment Plan aimed to transform Coney Island into a year-round entertainment complex. Coney Island will get a new amusement park, high-rise hotels, restaurants, retail stores, movie theaters and the city’s first new rollercoaster since 1927. (In December, a grassroots activist group files a lawsuit challenging the Bloomberg administration’s rezoning, saying it severely reduces the amusement area and allows the insertion of hotel towers along Surf Avenue — “inviting developers to tear down Coney Island’s handful of remaining historic buildings, including Nathan’s Famous and several structures that are more than a century old.”)
City council passes a rezoning proposal for the section of DUMBO east of the Manhattan Bridge almost unanimously, with a vote of 46 to 1. New guidelines will allow for mixed-use development and encourage affordable housing.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden unveils plans for a new Visitor Center pavilion. The new building will be the garden’s first green structure and will apply to receive LEED gold certification.
The battle of the “tallest” buildings in Downtown Brooklyn continues with the announcement of a 58-story residential tower on Willoughby Street between Bridge and Duffield streets by AvalonBay Communities, already building a major complex nearby at Myrtle Avenue, Gold Street and Flatbush Avenue Extension called Avalon Fort Greene.
Following weeks of protests over the firing of beloved principal Jim Flanagan, parents at St. Saviour Elementary School receive word that a new principal, Maura Lorenzen, had been chosen by Pastor Daniel S. Murphy. (In August, Pastor Murphy turns down a mediator’s recommendation that Flanagan return to St. Saviour for one more year, as co-principal. Flanagan led St. Saviour for 26 years. Since he was fired, devastated parents picket repeatedly in front of the church, send appeals to Bishop DiMarzio and other church officials, and collect 681 signatures on a petition.)
The Waterpod Project, an experiment in sustainable living designed and inhabited by artists, docks at Governors Island. Built from recycled materials and eco-friendly products, Waterpod is a traveling educational barge measuring 120 by 18 feet.
The “L” train, or 14th Street-Canarsie line, is been rated the second-best subway line in the city, Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign says.
Darryl Littlejohn, a former bouncer, is sentenced to life without parole for the brutal rape and murder of 24-year-old grad student Imette St. Guillen.
August
PETA names a sandwich from Williamsburg vegan restaurant Foodswings as one of top ten faux chicken sandwiches in the country. The “Chick’n Caesar Club” tastes just like chicken.
Nestled in the Lefferts Gardens neighborhood, just a few blocks away from Prospect Park, is Lincoln Road between Rogers and Bedford avenues. In the summer and spring, the block’s front stoops drip with honeysuckle, hibiscus, hydrangeas, rhodadendrums, Montauk daisies and black-eyed susans, and nary a weed is to be found, which is why it is named the 2009 Greenest Block in Brooklyn.
A three-level tower apartment in The Clocktower Building at 1 Main St. in DUMBO goes on the market with one of the highest asking prices ever — $25 million.
After coming within seconds of winning the Kings County Supreme Court’s annual court officer/intern basketball game, the interns are defeated again for the 16th straight year.
A multimillion dollar Ponzi scheme, which snared Conservative Party boss Michael Long, begins to be uncovered in Bay Ridge. More than 40 investors sue alleged schemer Philip Barry in Brooklyn federal court.
Teenager Fabian Henderson is indicted for throwing his pit bull off a Red Hook rooftop.
A devastating fire in an apartment building on Third Avenue at 68th Street left all its families homeless. The Guild for Exceptional Children gives them a temporary safe haven and the community united in supplying clothing and new household items.
Along with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Brooklyn Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez is calling for funding for a Red Hook trolley, or streetcar, system. In her request for funding for the Fiscal Year 2010 surface transportation bill, she has included $10 million for “design and construction of a light rail system along the Brooklyn waterfront from Red Hook to Downtown Brooklyn.”
City Polytechnic Academy of Engineering and Technology (City Poly) is named as the city’s first school where students can earn both a high school diploma and an associate’s degree through a five-year course of study in partnership with New York City College of Technology.
Off-duty Brooklyn officer Michael Rakebrandt foils Dunkin’ Donuts robbery in Ditmas Park. The ice-cream freezer, however, is shot.
September
Brooklyn Arts Council, with dozens of other cultural institutions, commemorates September 11 with a Memorial Sing Project. Twenty-three songs are performed in remembrance of that day.
Robert Redford visits the Brooklyn Academy of Music in a rare public appearance to speak about his life and work.
The fifth annual “Green Brooklyn… Green City” fair is held at Borough Hall, hosted for the first time by the Council on the Environment for New York City, (formerly hosted by the now-closed Center for the Urban Environment).
The City Council, in a 40-0 vote, signs off on the designation of the Prospect Heights Historic District. Three Brooklyn synagogues — the Ocean Parkway Jewish Center in Kensington, the Shaari Zedek Synagogue in Bed-Stuy and the Kol Israel Synagogue in Crown Heights — are selected for listing on the State Register of Historic Places, nominated by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.
The Manhattan Bridge is not the oldest and it’s not the longest bridge over the river, and has even been plagued by a series of structural problems, but it is finally given its moment in the sun when the New York City Bridge Centennial Commission held a week-long centennial celebration for the Bridge.
The 27th annual Next Wave Festival kicks off at BAM with a performance by Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche and renowned dancer/choreographer Akram Khan. The U.S. premiere of In-l and the beginning of Next Wave is also a landmark night for BAM Executive Producer Joseph Melillo, the creative visionary behind BAM’s programming. It is the 25th anniversary of his joining the venerable arts organization.
Brooklynites will never forget the brutal fight for dominance among the swans of Prospect Park Lake. Parkgoers Anne Katrin-Titze, 42, and her companion Ed Bahlman, 59, raise the red flag after they saw Honeybear, a cygnet, was suffering daily attacks from a vicious family of rival swans that were aggressively vying for the prime real estate in front of the Prospect Park Boathouse, where park-goers are known to throw bread to the waterfowl. Park officials chose not to intervene, allowing nature to take its course, though Titze and Bahlman still patrol the lake, keeping an eye on things.
The grassroots movement for creating an all-volunteer Bay Ridge Food Co-op makes significant progress with an all-out membership drive and scouting out possible sites.
Posing as a pimp and a prostitute, two activist filmmakers infiltrate advocacy group ACORN’s Downtown Brooklyn office and secretly videotape staffers advising them on how to commit fraud and conceal their illegal activity — even suggesting the hooker bury her money in a tin can in the backyard.
Feds begin to unravel suspected 9/11-anniversary bomb plot of Najibullah Zazi, who is seen on video buying stockpiles of bomb-making materials in Colorado. A Queens imam is immediately charged in Brooklyn for lying to authorities about his communications with Zazi. Media storm descends on Downtown Brooklyn as Zazi is brought to New York and arraigned.
The 2009 School Progress Reports (unofficially known as “School Report Cards”) came out, and once again parents and school administrators scratch their heads at the results. An astounding 98 percent of all city schools earn an A or B this year, up from 78 percent last year.
Three months after the leak of an unofficial, preliminary “hangar”-type design for Bruce Ratner’s Barclays Arena disappointed many, the firm releases a new design for the 675,000-square-foot arena that was hailed as an architectural step forward. According to the Associated Press, the price for the project is $800 million, reduced from an earlier estimate of $1 billion.
October
The New York City Department of Health confirms 57 cases, or probable cases, of mumps in Borough Park. Borough Park is predominantly Orthodox Jewish, and many of the children attended summer camp in Upstate New York.
It is announced that a new public library will soon rise in Kensington. The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) broke ground on the new site, a vacant lot at 4207 18th Ave.
Dozens of concerned residents of State Street in Boerum Hill turn out at a meeting to hear Brooklyn Friends School headmaster Dr. Michael Nill, answer questions and present plans for a new lower school at the corner of Hoyt and State streets. Residents worry that a school at that corner would bring additional traffic, noise and garbage, and lower property values.
The 36th annual Bay Ridge Third Avenue Festival is the first with a “green” theme.
The Court of Appeals hears oral arguments on the constitutionality of using eminent domain to seize land at Atlantic Yards so that Bruce Ratner can build a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets. Eagle reporter Samuel Newhouse travels to Albany on bus rented by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn to cover the case.
Plaza Construction is tapped and ground is broken for the planned $16.5 million restoration and addition to the Brooklyn Navy Yard’s historic exhibition and visitor center, involving the restoration of Building 92, a three-story mid-1800s brick building and former Marine Commandant’s House plus the construction of a new addition — both with an expected completion date of February 2011.
Greenlight Bookstore gets a green light! This much-anticipated shop celebrates its grand opening in late October. Situated in the heart of Fort Greene at 686 Fulton St., the bookstore evolved out of extraordinary neighborhood collaboration — the Fort Greene Association essentially drafted Park Sloper Jessica Stockton Bagnulo to open a store in the neighborhood after she won a $15,000 grant through the Brooklyn Public Library PowerUp! competition with her business plan for a bookstore. Soon after, the Fort Greene Indie Bookstore Initiative was formed, which helped Bagnulo find investors, as well as a partner, Rebecca Fitting. Further proof that supporting small businesses is just a Brooklyn way of life.
The pumping mechanism for the Gowanus Canal’s Flushing Tunnel, which brings fresh water from the Buttermilk Channel off Red Hook into the canal, is soon scheduled to be upgraded with a more modern, effective design. The Flushing Tunnel and pump originally opened in 1911, an official response to the heavy pollution and bad odors in what was once one of the Northeast’s most active industrial waterways. It broke down in the 1960s, and was dormant until it was rebuilt and finally reopened in 1999.
November
The Cobble Hill Association’s fight against Grammy-winning singer Norah Jones’ plans to put 10 new windows into the side wall of her newly-purchased Amity Street brownstone continues to escalate, even though the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) denied the association’s request to rescind approval of Jones’ plans.
The Clarett Group announces the completion of its 51-story 491-unit rental building, The Brooklyner, at 111 Lawrence St. in Downtown Brooklyn, now the tallest in the borough.
Brooklyn-born and raised Kevin “K’bez” Hunte, a member of Brooklyn-based dance company Creative Outlet, competes as a finalist on the season six of the Fox reality series So You Think You Can Dance. A liquid form of marijuana make its debut in Brooklyn.
Hunger spreads pitiless grip even into well-off Brooklyn Heights, and the food pantry at First Presbyterian Church on Henry Street scrambles to meet the growing demand, with the help of local schools and community supported agriculture. In November, the vestibule of the church overflows with hundreds of bags of edibles collected by students at Packer Collegiate Institute and Saint Ann’s School.
Brooklyn Law School’s Second Look Clinic celebrates the exoneration of Fernando Bermudez, who was wrongly imprisoned for 18 years for a murder he did not commit.
December
A Streetcar Named Desire, directed by Liv Ullman and starring Cate Blanchett, comes to BAM’s Harvey Theater to rave reviews, almost instantly selling out its run of just over a month.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe break ground on the restoration of McCarren Pool on the edge of Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The $50 million revitalization of this Works Progress Administration-era facility is part of PlaNYC, the city’s long-term plan to build “a greener, greater New York.”
At the one-year anniversary of the night that Bay Ridge woman Laura Garza disappeared, after meeting sex offender Michael Mele in the Manhattan nightclub Marquee, police continue to search for her body and prosecutors continue to build murder case against Mele. He is detained for unrelated crimes, but may be released on parole by before the new year.
Fabian Henderson, who pled guilty to throwing his pit bull Oreo off a rooftop, skips his court date, and sentencing is adjourned to next year. Oreo, meanwhile, was euthanized weeks earlier because of behavioral problems, despite protests and offers to adopt the dog.
Students and teachers Hally Bayer and Lynette Degrossa from the Mary McDowell Center for Learning visit the office of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (sister newspaper to the Brooklyn Heights Press, INBrooklyn and more) to learn about making a newspaper.
Andy Lewis, director of Boerum Hill’s infamous “Toxic Preschool,” is sentenced to 18 months on charges of misappropriating more than half a million dollars in U.S. Department of Agriculture funds meant to feed low income kids.
By Brooklyn Eagle (www.brooklyneagle.net)
