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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2020 6 pages • Vol.Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint 43, No. 15 • April 10–16, 2020
STAYING AFLOAT
Gowanus Dredgers call on landlords to help out small businesses
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Landlords of small businesses in Gowanus
should reduce or cancel rent for
April and May as entrepreneurs struggle
to make ends meet amid the coronavirus
outbreak, contend members of the
Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club.
The move would save the neighborhood
around the noxious canal from going
back to its rough-around-the-edges
days of yore, according to the group.
“Our 20 year old organization remembers
the dark days of Gowanus prostitution,
drug deals and feral dogs and we
fear that we could be heading in that direction
if our neighborhood (where you
own property) returns to vacant storefronts,”
reads a March 27 letter to local
property owners, penned by heads
of the boat club.
The boaters’ letter pleads with local
commercial landlords to give their
struggling tenants a break, claiming it
will ultimately help them in the end, allowing
them to pay their rents once the
pandemic subsides.
“We want this business to pay you
full rent in June thru sic December and
they can only pay you if they survive
April and May,” read the letter, signed
by Brad Vogel, the club’s captain, and
Owen Foote, the club’s treasurer.
The boat club has since distributed
the letter to local businesses to send on
to their landlords. They plan to publish
which building owners were generous
enough to reduce or cancel rent for those
Strange days Photo by David Berry
Wild ‘Bigfoot’ spotted in Bed-Stuy
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
Is this fur real?
As most of the city remains quarantined
in fear of COVID-19, Bigfoot
has taken to the streets!
A Bedford-Stuyvesant resident said
he saw a person dressed as the furry
creature wandering down Fulton Street
by Washington Avenue on April 1.
The witness said the sight of the confused
Sasquatch carrying a Century 21
bag made him do a double-take.
“I was simply walking to the pharmacy
and stopped in my tracks when I saw the
guy,” said David Berry, who filmed the
encounter. “It was hilarious!”
Berry suspected that the costume,
which might have been related to
April Fools, doubled as useful protective
gear.
The sighting comes as animals infiltrate
parks and streets across the globe
in response to the global COVID-19
lockdown. A group of wild turkeys was
seen in a California park on March 20,
and a herd of goats took over a deserted
town in Wales on March 31.
By Jessica Parks
Brooklyn Paper
As state regulators crack down
on plastic bags, a new type of trash
is taking over city streets: disposable
gloves and face masks, which
have been in heavy use as residents
of all five boroughs try to
decrease their risk of contracting
COVID-19.
“I was shocked at the amount of
gloves and masks that was all over
the streets, on stoops, on railings,”
said Bernadette Morrissey, a Madison
resident and vice-president of
the Madison-Marine-Homecrest
Civic Association.
The new-age litter emerges in
contrast to a universal germaphobia
imposed on New Yorkers, who
have been advised to keep a physical
distance of six feet from one
another and to sanitize after touching
publicly-used objects like doorknobs
and railings. Some residents
worry the scattered protective gear
could be contaminated.
“Do they not realize that’s not
helping the situation?” Morrissey
asked. “What if there is the virus
on those gloves and somebody is
going to pick it up?”
Mayor Bill de Blasio touched
on the trash’s hazards on WNYC’s
two months by April 1.
Advocates have called for rent freezes
and deferments for businesses and residential
tenants during the unprecedented
health crisis, but neither Mayor Bill de
Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo
have yet to enact such a policy.
The kayakers previously launched a
series of raffles to support local businesses
along and, earlier this month,
rode off into the noxious canal holding
signs urging Gowanusaurs to help
their neighboring enterprises.
The club has also put together a list of
local businesses, whether they are still
open, and what support they need.
The owner of one local pierogi restaurant
said that rent reduction or suspension
would be one less thing to worry
about as small businesses face daily uncertainty
during the current crisis.
“We’re in a fog, everything changes
minute to minute and I feel like we’re all
on survival mode and we’re all focused
on getting through each day,” said Helena
Fabiankovic, one of the owners of
Baba’s Pierogies on Third Avenue near
Carroll Street.
The entrepreneur — who, like eateries
around the city, has had to switch
to take out and deliveries only — said
that small shops such as hers help keep
the neighborhood alive in these trying
times.
“Just seeing the lights on and the gates
up,” Fabiankovic said. “I think being
open makes people feel a little sense
of normalcy.”
Photo by Brad Vogel
Pilot ‘open streets’ program scrapped
By Robert Pozarycki
for Brooklyn Paper
The mayor’s office announced
April 6 that it suspended its “open
streets” pilot program that provided
designated areas for New
Yorkers to safely exercise amid
the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the mayor’s office,
the spaces were not used to
the level that justified the continued
assignment of up to 80 police
officers per location. The officers
were required to close the roadways
to vehicular traffic and ensure
that pedestrians were practicing
social distancing.
Mayor Bill de Blasio launched
the open streets pilot program in
March after a public outcry from
Governor Andrew Cuomo about
large crowds of people in parks
and other public venues amid the
ongoing outbreak.
Closing certain streets to vehicular
traffic and opening them
to pedestrians was seen as a way
to reduce density while still giving
New Yorkers a place to exercise
or get fresh air safely.
But the mayor’s office, in an
April 6 statement, said the open
streets weren’t heavily used by
residents.
“Given the low utilization of the
open streets and the growing number
of officers out sick, this is not
something we can prioritize at this
time,” the statement noted.
As of April 5, according to
police, 18.6 percent of the entire
NYPD workforce — including
6,718 uniformed members
— had called out sick due to the
coronavirus.
The open streets program affected
four roadways across the
city, including Bushwick Avenue
between Johnson and Flushing Avenues
in Brooklyn.
The mayor’s office says it is
Slopers feed health heroes
By Jessica Parks
Brooklyn Paper
Brooklyn is paying it forward!
Healthcare workers patronizing
Park Slope’s La Bagel Delight are
treated to free meals during the
ongoing coronavirus outbreak, as
members of the community have
begun paying for their food in advance
for when doctors and nurses
arrive at the eatery.
“Yesterday, the line was out of
the door. The neighborhood took
care of a lot of nurses,” said coowner
Frank Bavaro. “It’s a wonderful
thing that people are doing.”
The feel-good initiative started
when one local do-gooder called
the Seventh Avenue bagel shop asking
to foot the bill for a meal delivery
to Methodist Hospital across
the street.
Since deliveries to the medical
facility are difficult, Bavaro suggested
adding money onto a gift
card instead — and cashiers would
use that to pay for hospital staff’s
food orders.
“We keep the gift card, and when
healthcare workers came in, we
would just select the gift card,” Bavaro
said.
After that initial act of kindness,
Park Slopers have been calling into
Gloves, face masks plaguing Brooklyn streets
Do-gooders treat hospital staff at bagel shop
Gowanus Dredger Gary Francis urges locals to support neighborhood
businesses.
Experiment on Bushwick Ave. was underused “open to reviewing other innovative
ways to open public space to
New Yorkers and may adjust course
as this situation evolves.”
“The brave men and women
of the NYPD never back away
from a challenge when the safety
of New Yorkers is at stake,” said
Jane Meyer, deputy press secretary
for the mayor’s office. “We
are suspending this pilot because
we must protect them like they are
protecting us, and not enough New
Yorkers are utilizing this program
to justify its continuation at this
point in time.”
Danny Harris, executive director
of Transportation Alternatives,
took to Twitter following
the announcement to chide
de Blasio for his decision.
“As more cities around the country
are following NYC’s lead on
#openstreets, we are disappointed
that @NYCMayor is now taking
away this critically important
program from New Yorkers
who need safe space for #PhysicalDistancing
during this crisis
in our city,” Harris tweeted.
“Given @NYGovCuomo is picking
up jogging and @NYCMayor
is taking daily walks in Prospect
Park, they should lead by example
to ensure that New Yorkers who
must be out have safe space for
social distancing by opening, not
closing more of our 6,000 miles
of streets to people.”
Stretches in every borough but Staten Island were temporarily
closed to vehicular traffic during the outbreak of coronavirus
disease as part of a pilot program.
Photo by REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
The new pollution
“The Brian Lehrer Show” Friday
morning, stressing that wearers of
the precautionary gear must properly
dispose of them to prevent
spreading the infection.
“Not only is it littering, it is dangerous
littering,” the mayor said on
the radio show. “When something
needs to be discarded you can’t
leave it around because it could
create its own danger.”
While Morrissey noticed the uptick
of litter on her block, a Georgetown
resident told Brooklyn Paper
that a high volume of disposable
gloves and masks are being left
in parking lots, which are more
common in southern Brooklyn’s
car-heavy neighborhoods.
“People should properly dispose
of them, instead it’s all over the
parking lot,” said William Tainowitz.
“It’s insane.”
Meanwhile in Madison, Morrissey
worries about the additional
litter clogging up the area’s
Brooklyn streets are being
littered with used gloves
and face masks, like these in
a Georgetown parking lot.
catch basins and flooding the
neighborhood.
“If we get a heavy rain, these
things will be swept into the
storm basins on the corner and
we will start having flooding,”
she said. “So that is a major concern
here.”
The city Sanitation Department
has noted their reliance on
residents to help keep the city’s
streets and sidewalks clean and
reminded that there are penalties
in place for litterbugs.
“New Yorkers are our partners
in keeping the City healthy, safe
and clean. To that end, residents
should not litter,” said Spokeswoman
Dina Montes. ”And remember,
littering is against the
law and can result in a $100 summons.”
The protective gear can be disposed
of with other garbage, she
said.
Photos courtesy of William Tainowitz
Donations have been pouring in to cover a cup of coffee
or lunch for healthcare workers at La Bagel Delight.
and adding anywhere from $5 to
$100 onto the card, which has now
been used to purchase dozens of
bagels, lunches, and cups of coffee
for medical workers on the
frontline of the pandemic.
“The other day it went up to
$900 and then it went down to
$400, and then back up to $800,”
Bavaro said. “It just took off.”
Park Slopers have begun promoting
the initiative on various
social media accounts, like Facebook
and the neighborhood network
Nextdoor, offering locals
an easy way to show their appreciation
for the medical professionals.
And the kindness hasn’t gone
unnoticed, according to Bavaro,
who said the nurses and doctors
have been very grateful for the
support.
“They love it, they think it’s
great that they are being appreciated
and feel great being recognized,”
he said.
Anyone looking to contribute
can call La Bagel Delight at
(718) 768-6107.
Photo by Google
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