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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2019 20 pages • Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint Vol. 42, No. 24 • June 14–20, 2019
The Dykes on Bikes had their traditional lead position in the parade.
Brooklyn smiles fi ll Slope parade
KEEP OFF THE LAWN
Ritzy new Dumbo development includes massive private park
Photo by Kevin Duggan
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
It’s not the People’s Playground!
Developers unveiled plans for a luxury
residential development in Dumbo
that includes a private arboreal paradise
exclusive to the building’s wellheeled
tenants.
The new development — dubbed
Front and York after the cross streets
that bookend the block-sized Jay Street
housing complex — will feature an enclosed
park lush with trees and perennial
flowers curated to produce a “blooming
sanctuary for all seasons,” according
to the building’s website.
The private paradise — equal in size
to roughly five basketball courts — will
be offered exclusively to residents, and
tenants can rest easy within their floral
sanctuary knowing a full-time security
force stands between them and
the unwashed masses outside.
In addition to the botanic hideaway,
Front and York will host a variety of
palatial amenities, including a pair of
rooftop pools ringed by cabana chairs,
along with co-working lounges, pro-quality
kitchens and private dining rooms,
according to Julia Callahan, a spokeswoman
for the development.
The complex will appear as a ninestory
ring studded by two 21-story towers
that will feature 320 rentals and 408
condos, with a garage hosting 727 underground
parking spaces, according to
Callahan.
The condos will be placed in the tower
sections of the development, and feature
their own fully-staffed lobbies and coach
gates, or porte-cochères, while the rentals
will be spread across the building’s lower
The development boasts its own 25,000 square-foot gated garden with mature trees and flowers for exclusive
use by residents.
Williams New York
sections, the spokeswoman said.
Construction on the project began last
year and is slated to be “substantially
complete” by 2021, she said.
The prices for the luxury units will
be revealed later this year, according
to the spokeswoman.
“We look forward to sharing details
on the residences later this year,”
she said.
The Manhattan and Dumbo firms
CIM Group and Livwrk, together with
Kushner Companies, the family owned
real estate firm formerly headed by President
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner,
bought the former parking lot for
$345 million from the Jehovah’s Witnesses
in 2016, in a sale that also included
the church’s Watchtower complex
in Brooklyn Heights.
Prior to selling the property, the religious
group convinced the city to permit
a 2004 rezoning allowing the construction
of a four-building residential
complex.
But the church would never lay a brick,
and the rezoning instead allowed the
other developers to pursue their own
luxe building scheme as-of-right, without
committing to a lengthy approval
process, which usually results in concessions
that include affordable housing,
or public green space.
Kushner’s firm backed out of the project
last year when it sold its reported
2.5-percent stake in both properties.
By Paul Schindler
Brooklyn Paper
It was a Saturday evening love fest
in Brooklyn.
In a June 8 twilight parade down Park
Slope’s Fifth Avenue that drew thousands
and lasted for hours, the crowd
— both activists and elected officials
marching and spectators lining the sidewalk
for the event’s 15-block stretch —
emphasized over and over again that
love, acceptance, and diversity were the
key words defining LGBTQ Pride in the
city’s most populous borough.
And if the evening was centered on
queer pride, it was also a celebration of
pride in the special qualities of Brooklyn
and of New York City as whole.
For spectator Rosin Kaplan, who
Donna Aceto
Love & pride
See PRIDE on page 8
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
They couldn’t build a park, so
they’re building a case!
The former developer of the recently
revived Willoughby Square
Park is suing the city for allegedly
thwarting their construction of the
long-delayed green space Downtown
on Willoughby Street, according
to court documents filed
on May 24.
The Long Island-based developer
American Development
Group’s head Perry Finkleman is
taking the city to court for working
to “sabotage” his group’s efforts
to construct the park with a
high-tech underground garage beneath
it, before cancelling communications
with the firm on Jan.
30, according to an affidavit first
reported on by Curbed.
The organization filed the legal
documents with the state’s
supreme court one day after the
development agency revealed its
plans to revive the years-in-themaking
1.15-acre park between
Gold and Duffield streets, with
construction beginning in 2020
without subterranean parking and
with a monument dedicated to the
area’s abolitionist history — at a
fraction of the original cost.
The city’s economic development
arm will finish construction
by 2022 while footing the $15 million
cost itself instead of the previous
$80 million it had arranged
with Finkleman’s firm, according
to an agency spokesman.
They will also open a third of its
space within a month while they
finish the park’s final design, according
to Christian Ficara.
In January, officials announced
the city had failed to close a deal
with the developer, whom they
chose for the project in 2013, and a
May 23 press release for the project’s
second coming described the
original proposal as financially
unfeasible.
“The previous proposal involved
a financially unfeasible
underground garage whose rampways
will now be converted into
useable green space,” it read.
Finkleman alleges that even
though his company invested
some $7 million in the project
over the years, the agency did
not play fair by making unreasonable
demands within a tight
six-week timeframe between Dec.
10 of last year and a Jan. 27 deadline
in anticipation of cutting its
ties with the company.
His lawsuit demands the city reinstate
the previous agreement for
them to construct the park.
The city agency allegedly demanded
a bond in early January to
finance the project, even though
the developer had already gotten a
written commitment for a $75 million
loan on Dec. 31, which Finkleman
says was an unfeasible demand
at such short notice.
“NYCEDC had to have known
that it would be impossible to obtain
a bond on such short notice.
Finkleman’s company did its best
to satisfy NYCEDC’s 11th-hour request
for a bond, but it was simply
not feasible,” the filings read.
The project was also set back by
the nearby 34-story office tower
— One Willoughby Square —
which did not remove support pylons
to make room for the park’s
construction, as well as the failure
to reach a final agreement between
the Finkleman and the quasi-governmental
business-boosting organization
the Downtown Brooklyn
Partnership to negotiate the
handover of the space to the latter
group upon completion, the
Listen all y’all, it’s a ‘sabotage’
Snubbed Willoughby Square Park developer sues the city
filings show.
Another spokesman for EDC
spoke a recent community meeting,
revealing that his agency was
disappointed with the developer’s
actions but that they would
continue with their new plan regardless.
“We wished that things would
have worked out but we are moving
forward with the plan that we
worked out,” Ricky Da Costa told
Community Board 2’s Economic
Development and Employment
committee on June 4.
The park was one of the main
selling points of a controversial
2004 rezoning of the area that allowed
for officials to raze residences
there, some of which were
rent-stabilized while others were
believed to once have been stops
on the Underground Railroad network
which ushered slaves to freedom
during the first half of the
19th century.
Ever since, glitzy high-rises —
including the Kings County’s tallest
tower, the 68-story Brooklyn
Point — have spruced up around
America’s Downtown in the last
15 years.
Builders were working on-site on June 5. One third of the
space will be open to the public within a month, according
to EDC spokesman Christian Ficara.
Measles shuts down another school
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
The city announced the closure
of yet another Williamsburg
yeshiva for violating the Health
Commissioner’s measles order
on Tuesday.
Central UTA Boys Division at
762 Wythe Ave. is the 10th school
the Health Department shut for not
complying with an April 9 order
by Health Commissioner Oxiris
Barbot, which she issued after the
highly-contagious illness swept
through Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish
communities.
Her department shut down the
northern Brooklyn school on June
11 for letting students and staff
onto its campus despite not providing
documentation that they’d
been vaccinated, and the school
will have to produce those records
before they can reopen, according
to the city agency.
The educational facility between
Penn and Rutledge streets
was also slapped with violations
for not having an adequate staff-tostudent
ratio and for not providing
the department with vaccination
and attendance records within a
deadline given by officials.
The health honcho’s order requires
anyone above the age of six
months living, working, or going
to school in certain Williamsburg
postal codes to get vaccinated with
the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine
(MMR).
Officials have to date confirmed
588 cases of the highlycontagious
malady across the five
boroughs since the outbreak began
last October, three quarters
of which occurred in the northern
Brooklyn nabe.
The city started issuing summonses
to people last week, sending
them to 173 people across the
city so far, with 68 of those having
been cancelled after the violators
presented proof that they’ve
been vaccinated, according to the
department.
Those who continue to defy the
city’s orders face a first-time fine of
$1,000, which doubles if they keep
ignoring the summonses.
The number of infected New
Yorkers does show signs of declining,
according to Barbot, but
she urged the public to continue to
work with her department to stem
the epidemic.
“School staff, parents, and health
care providers need to continue
playing their role in bringing this
outbreak to an end,” said Barbot.
“We’ve seen our weekly case counts
decline, but the reality is, this outbreak
is not over, and the Health
Department will continue to use all
the resources and strategies available
to us. We urge anyone who can
get vaccinated to do so.”
Symptoms can appear anytime
from seven to 21 days following
exposure, according to the Health
Department.
The Health Department forced the Central UTA Boys Division
at 762 Wythe Ave. in Williamsburg to shut its doors
for allowing students and staff without vaccination records
onto its campus on June 11.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
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