10 AWP Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 July 19–25, 2019
Curtis Harris of Crown Heights has a go at Double Dutch jumping ropes.
Good ‘Thing’ in Bed-Stuy
Spike Lee’s block party draws a crowd
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The centers of attention
City to invest in Boerum Hill and Gowanus community centers
The Gowanus community facility’s closure deprived a generation of youths important
social skills, according to Ed Tyre, the local tenants association’s head.
Photo by Kevin Duggan
EDITORIAL
Blame game
NYPD, DA’s offi ce must
work together to keep
guns off Brooklyn streets
NYPD data revealed
that shootings are up
in northern Brooklyn,
and rather than collaborating
on a way to buck the alarming
trend, Kings County law enforcement
honchos are pointing
fingers and playing the
blame game.
Chief of Department Terence
Monahan, while applauding
the NYPD’s effort
in getting guns off the street
during a July 8 press conference,
blamed Brooklyn District
Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s
office for failing to keep gunmen
locked up.
According to Monahan,
shootings in Brooklyn
North — which spans Crown
Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant,
and East New York, among
other neighborhoods — have
increased from 79 to 101 yearto
date. Monahan aimed his
criticism specifically at Gonzalez’s
youth diversion program,
where offenders between
the ages of 14 to 22 who
plead guilty to weapons-possession
charges can partake
in a 18- to 24-month educational
program as an alternative
to incarceration.
The program has been
linked to an improvement in
public safety, according to a
spokesman from the DA’s office,
who noted a direct correlation
between enrollment
in the DA’s diversion course
and the borough’s safest year
on record. The spokesman
argued that the program —
which applies only to those
guilty of possessing, but not
using, a firearm — allowed
Brooklyn youth to avoid a future
life-of-crime that awaits
many ex-inmates.
In fact, the spokesman said
the Police Department should
focus on closing open cases
rather than assigning blame.
Having both sides point
fingers at each other is counter
productive.
One doesn’t have to look
far to understand why the DA
believes in his office’s youth
diversion program; it provides
non-violent offenders a second
chance to get their lives
back on track.
But sometimes, there are
offenders who do not take
advantage of their second
chances and wind up returning
to a life of a crime. And
therein lies the controversy.
It’s impossible to predict
the future. No one can definitively
say that those who complete
the educational program
will stay out of trouble.
But it’s worth giving them
their second chance.
The NYPD should be
working with the DA’s office
to educate the young offenders
and help steer them away
from a crime-filled future. Instead,
both sides are playing
the blame game, choosing to
point fingers rather than reach
their common goal of keeping
Kings County streets safe.
Law enforcement needs
to stand together and show
a united front against crime.
Once that happens, it becomes
easier to envision a safer future
for Brooklyn.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
The city will invest more
than $9 million into two
community centers located
at public housing complexes
in Gowanus and Boerum Hill,
Council Speaker Corey Johnson
announced Thursday.
The New York City Housing
Authority and Council
will invest close to $4.5
million to renovate and reopen
a long-shuttered community
center at the Gowanus
Houses, and will spend $4.9
million to refurbish and expand
the Wyckoff Gardens
facility, offering residents a
place to gather and enjoy educational
programming, according
to Johnson.
the at the July 11 press conference
outside the Gowanus
Houses.
The Gowanus center currently
offers limited senior
programming, but most of
the building has been shuttered
for the last 14 years, and
the structure suffered severe
flood damage due during Superstorm
Sandy in 2012.
Local youth, meanwhile,
have been more-or-less disenfranchised
from the community
center, according to
one prominent resident, who
went so far as to blame the
poor social skills displayed
by younger residents on the
lack of city-subsidized programming.
“They don’t know how to
interact with other people and
because of that lack of education
that they should have had,
they were deprived of something,”
said Ed Tyre, president
of the Gowanus Houses Resident
Association.
In addition to repairs,
the new funds will provide
the Gowanus center with a
rounded suite of educational
programing to serve locals of
all ages, with cultural, artistic,
and educational services
provided through the Cornerstone
Program, a city-run initiative
that produces events
and classes hosted at public
housing facilities.
And the center will remain
partially open throughout construction,
with $50,000 earmarked
for tutoring and recreational
programs, although
the Department of Design
and Construction, which
will manage the Gowanus
center construction, could
not say when that program-
“These spaces are places
where neighbors meet to
socialize, to participate in
cultural and educational
activities, to share their experiences,”
Johnson said at
ming would kick off.
The $4.9 million earmarked
for the Wyckoff Gardens center
— which offers afterschool
and youth programs,
as well as senior services —
will fund a new kitchen, as
well as classrooms for skills
and job trainings, according
to Johnson.
Despite Thursday’s fanfare,
the Housing Authority
could only provide a start date
for the Wyckoff Gardens project
— expected to enter the
design phase in September —
and some community members
remain skeptical of the
city and its promises, saying
it wouldn’t be the first
time they’ve suffered false
starts.
“We have heard about announcements
of funding in the
past, at least three times,” said
S.J. Avery, a member of the
Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition
for Justice. “What we
are looking for now are start
dates. We need to know when,
where, and how. That’s the
next step and we’re sure you
can make that happen.”
One community activist
said that the facilities will
help housing residents organize
politically, and advocate
for issues including the federal
cleanup of Brooklyn’s Nautical
Purgatory — the Gowanus
Canal — as well as a planned
rezoning of the neighborhood
being pushed by Mayor Bill
de Blasio.
“Right down the street you
have the Gowanus Superfund,
and you have the Gowanus
neighborhood-wide rezoning,”
said Michael Higgins
Jr., of the local activist group
Families United for Racial and
Economic Equality. “There’s
a number of different things
and intricacies that need to
be explained and understood
by the residents and how it’s
going to impact them going
forward.”
Council will fully fund
the Wyckoff Gardens project,
while the Housing Authority,
at $3.5 million, will chip in the
lion’s share of money for the
Gowanus center, with the rest
— including $475,000 from
Councilman Stephen Levin’s
(D–Boerum Hill) discretionary
fund that’s languished in
bureaucratic limbo since 2014
— coming from the city’s legislature.
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By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
They did the right thing
— and partied!
Spike Lee fans celebrated
the 30th anniversary of the
auteur’s seminal film “Do
the Right Thing” at a block
party in Bedford-Stuyvesant
on June 30.
The Oscar-winning director
hosted his annual blowout
on the same Stuyvesant Avenue
block where he filmed
the Academy Award-nominated
flick — between
Quincy Street and Lexington
Avenue.
And, like his film, the
blockbuster party featured a
star-studded lineup featuring
actors from the film, including
actor Rosie Perez, and hip
hop greats such as rap group
Public Enemy, who provided
the soundtrack to the movie
with their rousing anthem
“Fight the Power,” according
to one party-goer.
“My favorite part was
when Public Enemy came
on the stage, the actual music
from the film, and mingling
with people,” said
Frank Loftoa, a Brownsville
resident.
Lee has hosted his famous
block parties for years , celebrating
his movies, along
with black artists such as Michael
Jackson and Prince.
The 1989 film highlights
racial tensions in the neighborhood
during the hottest
day of the year, which
eventually culminates in a
tragic death of a young black
man.
Photo by Caroline Ourso
Lee’s classic struck a
chord with many Brooklyn
film goers, who were drawn
to the film’s exploration of racial
themes, Loftoa said.
“What was going on with
the racism and the cultural
differences,” said Frank
Loftoa. “It was phenomenal
around that time.”
One Crown Heights granddad
came to the party with his
family, where he showed off
his skills at a classic Kings
County pastime — Double
Dutch jumping ropes — noting
the game isn’t just for
the ladies.
“I hadn’t done that in
years, it was wonderful to
do it again,” said Curtis Harris,
the manager of the Green
Earth Poets Cafe in Crown
Heights.
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