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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2020 14 pages • Vol.Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint 43, No. 2 • January 10–16, 2020
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MTA to debut cell service in repaired L-train tunnel
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Straphangers will soon be able to call
their friends — underwater!
State transit honchos are signaling their
intent to give cell phone service to L-train
riders as they traverse the underwater tunnel
between Williamsburg and Manhattan,
according to Metropolitan Transportation
Authority head Pat Foye.
“Providing full connectivity to our
millions of customers is a part of our
continued push to modernize the MTA
system,” said Foye in a statement. “We’re
working to deliver full connectivity
across our system and allow our customers
to use their commuting time to
meet their needs, whether it’s texting
with friends and family or communicating
with coworkers.”
When completed, the sub-East River
stretch of the L train between Bedford
Avenue and First Avenue stops would
be the first to offer cell service to subway
riders in an under-river tunnel, according
to Foye.
The transit agency is looking for
companies to build and operate wireless
broadband infrastructure in the tube
and hope to have it installed during the
tunnel’s ongoing reconstruction, which
started in April and is slated to wrap in
the latter half of 2020.
The transit agency is currently accepting
bids from private companies to
build and operate the wireless broadband
infrastructure in the tube — which
they hope is up-and-running by mid-
2020, according to the solicitation request,
which gives interested compa-
Photo by Kevin Duggan
The L-train tunnel between Williamsburg’s Bedford Avenue station
and Manhattan could soon have cell phone service.
nies until Jan. 13 to apply.
“Proposals with a schedule providing
for completion of the Project as early as
Second quarter 2020 will be viewed favorably
by the MTA,” the Request For
Proposal reads.
The agency has not yet zeroed in on
candidates in the bidding process, according
to spokesman Aaron Donovan
— but they’ve previously worked with
companies like AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile,
and Verizon to roll out broadband
on its Metro-North lines in Manhattan,
and with communications firm Transit
Wireless to bring phone connectivity to
all underground subway stations.
The MTA is also installing similar
technology in Long Island Rail Road’s
tunnels beneath Atlantic Avenue with
wireless provider Boingo, and maintains
cell service in the Battery Tunnel with
a consortium of cell carriers.
‘Building bridges’
Thousands cross river in stand against anti-Semitism
By Jessica Parks
Brooklyn Paper
A procession of more than 25,000
people marched across the Brooklyn
Bridge on Sunday in defiance of a wave
of anti-Semitism that’s rocked the borough
in recent weeks.
“Today we are building bridges,” said
Eric Goldstein, head of the United Jewish
Appeal Federation, which helped
organize the march. “Jews and Jews,
Jews and no Jews, all people of goodwill
together.”
City and state politicians joined
marchers in the 1.5-mile journey to
Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn Heights
from Manhattan’s Foley Square.
The march follows two recent attacks
against Jewish Brooklynites, including
an assault by two knife-wielding fiends
against a teenage boy on a bus in Sheepshead
Bay on New Year’s Eve. That attack
was followed less than 24 hours
later, when on New Years some goon
punched a 22-year-old Hasidic man in
the throat, while shouting anti-Semitic
slurs on New Years Day.
The New Years assaults followed four
prior assaults in Brooklyn coinciding with
Hanukkah, which drew widespread condemnation
from state and city officials,
who increased police patrols in Jewish
neighborhoods throughout the city.
And the wave of anti-Semitism has
not been confined to Brooklyn. A Dec.
10 shootout at a kosher grocery store
left five dead — including two victims
hailing from Williamsburg — in
Jersey City, while a machete rampage
left five members of an ultra-Orthodox
congregation in upstate Monsey
suffering heinous wounds.
State and city politicians joined marchers in the 1.5-mile march.
Photo by Corazon Aguirre
Mayor: Bklyn House of D offi cially closed
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
The Brooklyn House of Detention
officially closed today, after
the city relocated all detainees at
the Atlantic Avenue holding facility
to other lockups around the
city, according to the city’s chief
corrections official.
“Thanks to exceptional work
by our staff, everyone has been
safely moved out of the Brooklyn
Detention Complex,” said Department
of Corrections Commissioner
Cynthia Brann.
The Department of Corrections
started the process of vacating the
jail’s roughly 390 inmates to other
facilities on Nov. 18, with most
prisoners going to either the Manhattan
Detention Complex — also
called The Tombs — or the Vernon
C. Bain Center in the Bronx, according
to officials with the Mayor’s
office, who said that the jail
has been effectively out of commission
since mid-December, which
is also when the jail stopped taking
in new detainees.
Officials plan to demolish and
build a taller jail as part of Mayor
Bill de Blasio’s $8.7 billion plan to
close the Rikers Island jail complex
by 2026, and move inmates there
to four new, or expanded jails in all
boroughs except Staten Island.
The city chose to shut the Kings
County facility first due to lack
of air conditioning and programming
space, officials said.
Staff moved about 20 House
of D inmates to Rikers Island,
all of whom were over the age of
49-years old, and who were assigned
to housing units specifically
geared toward older detainees, or
those requiring higher security.
Corrections honchos have reassigned
almost all of the jail’s 535
employees to other facilities as well,
except for a skeleton staff, which
will stay at the jail and operate the
bail window and oversee the final
phases of decommissioning.
The bail window at the 62-yearold
Boerum Hill lockup between
Smith Street and Boerum Place
will stay open and staffed until the
city moves it to the nearby Kings
County Criminal Court at Smith
and State streets.
The jail warden and less than
10 staff will stay at the House of
D, where they’ll focus on preserving
records and equipment,
and providing site security, officials
said.
The corrections agency and the
Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice
will solicit bids to demolish the
current 11-story, 170-foot, 815-bed
facility before the end of March,
and build an interim jail for the
department to transfer detainees
for court appearances during the
construction of the new 29-story,
295-foot, 886-bed jail facility in
keeping with City Hall’s massive
land use application which Council
approved on Oct. 17.
A spokeswoman for the agency
declined to say when the city plans
to demolish the old building or
break ground on the new structures,
but said that officials plan
to start bidding out for construction
of new jail no later than mid-
2021, and want to wrap construction
before Rikers Island closes
in 2026.
The Brooklyn House of Detention officially closed, Mayor
de Blasio announced on Jan. 2.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
Bus blockers beware
B44 to start issuing violations for lane sneaks
By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
It’s time for drivers to stay in
their lane!
Motorists caught blocking the
B44 select bus service lane became
subject to violations on Dec. 30,
after a 60 day grace period following
the installation of bus-mounted
cameras came to an end.
“Our message is loud and clear,
bus lanes are for buses,” said Craig
Cipriano, the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority’s bus czar.
Motorists caught on bus
mounted cameras blocking Brooklyn’s
first dedicated bus lane will
receive a $50 fine for their first violation,
with the penalty increasing
by $50 up to $250 for recidivist
scofflaws who are caught multiple
times during a 12-month period.
Since bus mounted cameras
were first activated at the start
of the 60 day grace period, B44
cameras captured over 7,000 violations
in the lane that runs up
Nostrand Avenue from Sheepshead
Bay through East Flatbush and
Crown Heights to Williamsburg.
Bus speeds have increased up to
17 percent in sections of the route
since automated enforcement began,
and that was before drivers
were even issued fines.
Cameras will work to capture
Bus czar Craig Cipriano at a bus-lane awareness announcement.
vehicles that drive in bus lanes
without taking the next available
right turn, and those that remain
parked in lanes for extended periods
of time — cars captured by two
separate bus cameras in the same
position will be ticketed.
Bus lane enforcement has been
proven to speed up buses on congested
thoroughfares elsewhere
around the city, such as on First
and Second avenues in Manhattan,
where travel times on the M15
have been cut by as much as 40
percent in some sections.
The B44 is Brooklyn’s secondbusiest
bus route after the B46,
and the first in the borough to get
the dedicated bus lane treatment.
When the lane was first implemented
back in 2013, commute
times were cut by up to 20 percent
in some areas, despite initial
concerns from local electeds
over congestion.
Speeding up buses is a key component
of New York City Transit
bigwig Andy Byford’s Fast Forward
plan which aims to modernize
the city’s aging transit infrastructure.
MTA
Thousands of swimmers, including a Statue of Liberty, dove into Coney Island’s icy waters on New Year’s Day.
Coney Island frolic, served up cold
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
It was a cold opening to the new
decade!
Thousands of teeth-chattering
Brooklynites rang in the new decade
by braving the frigid Coney Island
waters for the Polar Bear Plunge
— which has become an annual
tradition for thrill-seeking revelers
looking to kick off the new year,
according to one swimmer.
“At this point, it’s kind of a New
Year’s tradition to start the new year
off by challenging yourself,” said
Bay Ridgite Matt Huff, who uses
the event each year as a reunion for
him and high school friends.
Midday temperatures hovered
above freezing as the winter-time
beach-goers hit the shores, making
the 116th installment of the dive
slightly more tame than some colder
years, said one attendee.
“The first time I took the plunge,
there was snow everywhere, so this
time it wasn’t that bad,” said Bronx
resident Waleska Rolden. “It was
lot of fun.”
The 43-degree water especially
tame compared to 2018, when land
conditions dropped to a bone-chilling
7-degrees, according to the president
of the Polar Bear Club, which
organizes weekly swims in Coney
Island throughout the winter.
“We had a sunny day and decent
turnout,” said Dennis Thomas.
Around 3,000 people descended
on the beach for this year’s event,
with many donning creative costumes,
bringing food, and dancing
to the DJ on the boardwalk.
“The whole event was great,”
said Bay Ridge resident John Lubrano,
who jumped into the water
dressed as New York Giants
quarterback Eli Manning. “Tons
of positivity.”
To encourage swimmers to enter
Photos by Erica Price
the water, rows of drummers
played motivational music, according
to Thomas.
“It provides that last burst of energy
before they get into the cold
water,” he said.
Many swimmers said that they
liked participating in the plunge because
the cold water gave them a refreshing
start to the new year.
“2019 was difficult year for
me and my family, so I wanted
to start this year out with a bang,”
said Rolden.
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