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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2020 14 pages • Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint Vol. 43, No. 11 • March 13–19, 2020
Coronavirus cases climb in Brooklyn, and disruptions loom
Private schools shut down
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Historians and activists gathered
in Downtown Brooklyn on
Saturday to rebrand Gold Street
after 19th-century civil rights icon
Ida B. Wells, who took up residence
on the street during her prolific
campaign against lynching.
“No stop on her journey was
more important than Brooklyn,”
said Dr. Paula Giddings, who authored
Wells’ biography ‘Sword
Among Lions: Wells and the Campaign
Against Lynching.’
Civic leaders unveiled the official
co-naming of the roadway as
“Ida B. Wells Place” — complete
with newly minted street signs at
the corner of Myrtle Avenue, and
an informational plaque detailing
her life in the borough.
Born into slavery just months
ahead of the Emancipation Proclamation,
Wells fled Memphis in the
1890s after threats to her life, and
took up residence in Kings County
— where she published influential
manifestos on lynching in the black
newspaper New York Age.
During her time on Gold Street,
Wells worked with other black female
activists on several campaigns
for civil rights and women’s suffrage,
and co-founded the National
Association of Colored Women in
1896, according to Giddings.
“It was in Brooklyn where a seed
was sown to turn the gathering of
women here to join others across
the nation to form the first black
national organization of women in
the country,” she said.
Wells’ great-grandson attended
the weekend’s ceremony,
and used the event to pay tribute
to New York’s history of providing
haven to refugees like his greatgrandmother.
“She got so much love in Brooklyn,
New York, as an exile in her
own country the way New York
has opened its heart to immigrants
from all over the world,” said Benjamin
Duster IV.
New York Times journalist
Nikole Hannah-Jones claimed
Wells’ legacy had been her inspiration
for the newspaper’s 1619
Project, which commemorated
the 400th year of of the first African
slaves to arrive on American
shores and reimagines the legacy of
slavery in the United States.
“While I’d always see white men
held up as a model of being an investigative
reporter, here was this
woman — literally born into slavery
— who was doing the type of
courageous investigative reporting
that I hoped to do one day,”
said Hannah-Jones.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
After first seeking developers
to construct both housing
and a new park on public land
in Gowanus, officials now say
the Parks Department may manage
and fund construction of the
proposed green space using taxpayer
dollars as part of the controversial
land deal on the banks
of the Gowanus Canal.
“The City is currently evaluating
different models for construction.
Once constructed, the
open space will be transferred to
NYC Parks,” said Department
of City Planning spokesman Joe
Marvilli in a statement.
The developers selected to
develop affordable housing
and a retail strip at Smith and
Fifth streets — Hudson Companies,
the Bluestone Organization,
Jonathan Rose Companies,
and local nonprofit Fifth
Avenue Committee — were also
supposed to fund and maintain
a 1.5 acre green space when the
city first pushed for a rezoning
of the six acre lot in 2008,
the project’s Request for Proposal
shows.
However, officials are now
considering offloading those
costs onto the city’s Parks Department,
thereby allowing the
developers to construct more
Downtown commemorates
civil rights activist Ida B. Wells
City may need to fund park in Gowanus deal
The Harlem Historical Society,
which had been a driving
force behind the push to honor
Wells at her once-Brooklyn residence,
is also pushing for several
other civil-rights commemorations
in the area — including co-naming
a section of Duffield Street as
Abolitionist Place, and a push to
baptize the long-stalled park on
Willoughby Street as Abolitionist
Place Park.
Photo by Corazon Aguirre
The society’s director, Jacob
Morris, also submitted a proposal
to the city’s Economic Development
Corporation to install a memorial
dedicated to Wells and four
other local civil rights activists at
the planned green space.
“This is not the end,” Morris
said. “We want a memorial at Abolitionist
Place Park a block and a
half away to honor Ida and her sisters
in freedom.”
below-market-rate housing on the
public land, according to the local
council member.
“The park is going to have to
come from public funds,” said
Councilman Brad Lander (D–
Gowanus). “In scenarios where
the developers pay for parks …
you generally don’t have mostly
affordable housing.”
Indeed, officials revealed last
December that the project had
grown by nearly 200 units over
what was originally proposed in
2008, ballooning from 774 units
to 950. Along with that, the rate
of affordable units went from
roughly 70 percent of the development
to 100 percent below-market
rate housing, and planners have
added a five-story school to the
project, according to Matt Creegan,
a spokesman for the Department
of Housing and Preservation
— which is working with DCP on
the scheme.
The new plans would further allow
for buildings varying in height
between nine and 28 stories, a re-
Fare thee Wells
Wells’s family next to the new street sign at Gold Street and
Myrtle Avenue.
Park perk punted
The city and a group of developers want to build 950 residential
units on the brownfield site known as Public Place.
Photo by Amalia Arms
See GOWANUS on page 5
By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
The number of confirmed coronavirus
cases continue to climb in
Kings County as fears mount about
how the novel virus will impact
the lives of Brooklynites.
“It’s going to be a long battle,
undoubtedly — months,” said
Mayor Bill de Blasio at a Monday
press conference. “That’s what’s
on everyone’s mind. There’s a
lot of fear out there. There’s a lot
of anxiety, there’s a lot of confusion.”
Since an 80-year-old woman became
the first confirmed patient
in Brooklyn on March 5, at least
a half-dozen more patients with
ties to the borough have tested
positive for the virus, according
to the mayor.
A New Jersey man who serves
as a healthcare at the King David
Nursing Home on Cropsey Avenue
in southern Brooklyn contracted
the virus late last week, according
to local Councilman Justin Brannan,
who said that all the seniors
who came in contact with the in-
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
The city has finally kicked off a yearsin
the-works project to make the Brooklyn
War Memorial at Cadman Plaza Park
wheelchair accessible, according to officials.
The city’s Parks Department began
work on the nearly $4 million renovation
in January after years of rescheduling
the start of construction. The project
consists of installing an elevator and a
ramp at the Downtown Brooklyn memorial,
which honors Brooklynites who
fought during World War II.
One veteran said it’s about time.
“After all these years they’re finally
doing something now,” said Marine Park
resident Jack Vanasco, 92, who served as
an army corporal form 1939 to 1947.
Contractors with the city set up a fence
around the shrine’s western section some
time at the beginning of the year, where
they plan to build a ramp. Workers will
also install an elevator from the ground
floor restroom to the first floor auditorium,
where a wall bares the names of
11,500 Brooklyn boys who fought and
died during the conflict.
The project is scheduled to wrap in
January 2021, according to the agency’s
capital project tracker, though its
launch follows years of delays since it
was first announced in 2017.
One local park steward who lobbied
for the upgrade is relieved that the city’s
slow-moving bureaucracy is finally moving
forward.
“We’re incredibly encouraged by this,”
said Cadman Plaza Park Conservancy
President Toba Potosky. “For too long
the city neglected the memorial.”
Potosky, who lives right across the
street from the park, noted that he’s seen
the fence, but has yet to witness workers
break ground on the site.
The overhaul was originally supposed
to start in 2018, but was stalled for a
year due to an accounting error, parks
honchos claimed.
The agency then pushed the start
date back for several months to November
because of trouble with the
elevator manufacturer, and yet again
missed that deadline because they had
to do some last-minute asbestos remediation,
according to spokeswoman Anessa
Hodgson.
The city built the granite and limestone
memorial in 1951 under the auspices
of then-Parks Commissioner and
master builder Robert Moses, who
planned to erect a similar monument
in each of the five boroughs. However,
only the Kings County memorial ever
materialized.
The interior hall was open for special
events and by appointment until the
early 1990s, when the city shuttered it
due to lack of accessibility features and
after the passing of the 1990 Americans
with Disabilities Act.
Vanasco, a Fort Greene native, said
he hopes to see the tribute back open in
his lifetime so he can honor his fallen
brethren.
“We have at least 25 to 30 people that
are friends of ours from the neighborhood
that are on that wall,” he said. “Most
people don’t even know about it.”
HITTING HOME
fected individual have been tested
and show no signs of the virus.
CItywide, more than three dozen
patients have contracted the virus,
the mayor said on Tuesday.
In an effort to stop the spread,
the city has ordered over three
dozen people into mandatory quarantine,
and at over 2,000 people
remain in voluntary quarantine,
according to de Blasio.
One of the biggest concerns for
city health officials is getting the
federal government’s Food and
Drug Administration to approve
the use of “automated” testing,
which would speed up early-detection
of infected individuals and
help prevent communal spread.
“Automated testing would allow
us to do not only hundreds,
but potentially thousands of tests
in a single day and get same day
results,” he said. “We’ve asked for
days now, we are awaiting that approval.
We need that approval.”
But while the access to tests remain
limited, Borough President
Eric Adams demanded an equitable
system for how those tests
are administered.
“Who is receiving those tests?”
Adams said. “We want to make
sure it’s not based on economics,
it’s not based on demographics,
it’s based on a strict protocol of
guidelines, and we don’t want that
protocol to be overlooked based on
where the hospital is located.”
In the meantime, the city’s chief
executive recommended avoiding
crowded places — such as crowded
subways.
“If you have the option of walking
to work or taking a bike to
work, please do.”
Following the advice of health
experts to practice “social distancing,”
a number of popular events
around the city have been canceled
— such as the NYC Half
Marathon, which was scheduled
to run through Brooklyn and Manhattan
on Sunday. A number of
other events are currently in flux
as officials are considering cancellations,
such as the restaurantboosting
Taste of Fifth at Grand
Prospect Hall, which is slated for
April 1.
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
A number of Kings County
private schools have opted to
close as a precautionary measure
to prevent the potential
spread of the coronavirus —
including Brooklyn Friends
School in Downtown Brooklyn,
which sent a letter to parents
announcing their decision
on March 9.
“Out of an abundance of precaution
and care, we are cancelling
classes in all divisions and
our Family Center as of 6:00
this evening,” wrote the school’s
principal, Crissy Cáceres. “As
our Spring Break is to begin at
week’s end, I know that this news
comes as sudden to you.”
The private school, with two
locations on Pearl and Willoughby
streets near MetroTech
Center, will remain closed at
least until the end of their spring
break on March 23, Cáceres announced.
The school’s leaders decided
to close the school after learning
that a community member
may have been exposed to a relative
who has been exhibiting
coronavirus symptoms, Cáceres
said. The relative has not been
able to access a test to confirm
the diagnosis.
“Due to the shortage of tests,
the individual displaying symptoms
does not have access to
testing at this time,” Cáceres
wrote.
The ritzy private school, which
serves students from preschool
through high school, is one of a
handful that announced preventative
closures. Brooklyn’s Poly
Prep Country Day School and
Saint Ann’s School will both be
temporarily shuttered, as well as
a growing list of educational institutions
in the other four boroughs,
according to the New
See SCHOOLS on page 6
Signs of progress at War Memorial
The city started work to bring
the Brooklyn War Memorial up to
code in January.
Photo by Amalia Arms
HOW TO PROTECT
YOURSELF
SEE PAGE 6
New Yorkers take precautions including wearing masks as more cases are reported.
Photo by Paul Martinka
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