August 2–8, 2019 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 AWP 9
Let there be light!
Stuy-Heights church gets $30K to renovate window
By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
A 146-year-old Stuyvesant Heights
house of worship’s prayers have been
answered — by preservationists!
The New York Landmarks Conservancy
blessed Stuyvesant Heights
Christian Church with a $30,000 grant
to repair a massive stain-glass mural
at the aging house of worship.
The leader of New York Landmarks
Conservancy announced the donation
on July 24, describing the money as
an offering to Kings County’s divine
architecture.
“We feel it is very important to help
maintain religious structures that provide
a sense of history and place to
communities,” said Peg Breen. “Many
also provide social service and cultural
programs that benefit people beyond
their congregations.”
The 1873-built red brick church —
located at 69 MacDonough St. near
Tompkins Avenue — exists as charm-
New York Landmarks Conservancy
Cuomo decriminalizes pot
New bill more lenient on small marijuana possession
Thief steals $40K from car
Now on
NYPD
FROM THE PAGES OF BROWNSTONER.COM
Carroll Gardens condo asks $1.3M
Stephen Zacks
Brownstoner
Some may take offense to
the conspicuous Union Jack
rug in the living room, but let
it not prejudice you against
this otherwise generously proportioned
and sprightly decorated
two-bedroom condo
in Carroll Gardens.
It’s unusually spacious, in
fact, for essentially a floorthrough
in a circa 1860s
Italianate brownstone. The
25-foot-wide volume allows
for a second bedroom big
enough for a king or queen
size bed, with a room labeled
the master bedroom
here staged as a shared children’s
room.
A pitfall of the current configuration
however is that
there is no internal hallway
within the apartment. The
entrance leads past the one
bathroom to the capacious
and nicely outfitted galley
style kitchen. Pivot right
and you’ve entered the Order
of British Empire living
room and, past that, a separate
dining room, an office
with built-in bookcases
that can double as a den or
a dressing room, according
to the floor plan, and finally
the bedrooms. Circulation to
the second bedroom is either
through the master bedroom
or through a public hallway,
though as a fourth floor unit,
the common hall may afford
relatively few passersby.
Halstead
The two-bedroom condo was last sold in 2007 for $865,000 and is back on the
market.
The listing helpfully offers
an alternative floor plan
that provides an alternative
entrance, carves a passageway
from the second bedroom
directly to the interstitial
office, and combines
the living and dining rooms
in case the flow is less than
ideal, and we can see the advantages.
Some may prefer
to keep the currently separate
dining room, which has
space for lots of bookcases
and could look good with
dark-painted walls.
The apartment preserves
some vintage details such
as tin ceilings, picture rails,
wainscoting, recessed panels
in the front windows, and one
marble mantel in the master
bedroom. It also has a decent
amount of closet and storage
space compared to most floorthrough
apartments in Italianate
brownstones.
The galley kitchen seems
to have plenty of counter
and storage space, and
room enough for a table and
chairs. It has been updated
with Shaker-style cabinets,
white subway tile backsplash,
a stone countertop, wide builtin
fridge and wood floors.
The black and white bathroom
has also been updated
in a classic prewar style, with
porcelain hex tile floor, white
subway tile walls, a Deco-era
tub and brightly colored accessories.
85 1st Place is on a block
with deep front gardens close
to Carroll Park and the F and
G trains at Carroll Street. Presumably
the walkup, which
went condo in 1999, is self
managed; it has five floorthrough
units spread over
five floors, all owner occupied.
There is additional storage
in the basement. The unit
has relatively low monthlies
of $400 in common charges
and $183.63 in taxes.
By Bill Parry
for Brooklyn Paper
Gov. Andrew Cuomo
signed legislation Monday
morning further decriminalizing
marijuana use in New
York state — a moved praised
by lawmakers as a step to balance
the scales of criminal
justice in the borough.
The new law will reduce
the penalty for unlawful
possession of marijuana to
a violation punishable by a
fine, and by creating a process
for individuals who have
been convicted for possessing
small amounts of marijuana
to have their records
expunged.
“Communities of color
have been disproportion-
Gov. Cuomo
File photo
ately impacted by laws governing
marijuana for far too
long, and today we are ending
this injustice once and for
all,” Cuomo said. “By providing
individuals who have
suffered the consequences of
an unfair marijuana conviction
with a path to have their
records expunged by reducing
draconian penalties, we
are taking a critical step forward
in addressing a broken
and discriminatory criminal
justice process.”
Cuomo first proposed the
further decriminalization of
marijuana in 2013, and again
in the 2020 budget. The bill
will take effect in 30 days.
“This law is an important
step in righting decades of injustice
caused by the state’s
current drug laws. Decriminalizing
marijuana and expunging
records for those
with low level offenses will
go a long way towards helping
our communities, and especially
people of color, who
have been devastated by
them,” Assembly Speaker
Carl Heastie said.
Queens Councilman Rory
Lancman, the chair of the
Committee on the Justice
System, had declared in June
2018 that, “No one should ever
be arrested for smoking marijuana,
period.” He applauded
the Cuomo signing.
“Marijuana enforcement
has unjustly targeted brown
and black New Yorkers,
and decriminalizing marijuana
use is a meaningful
step forward that will keep
thousands of people out of
our criminal justice system,”
Lancman said.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Police are looking for the
fiend who nabbed a backpack
stuffed with cash from a car
parked on Joralemon Street
on July 11.
The thief broke into the
victim’s car near Hicks Street
through a passenger-side
window at 1 p.m., smashing
the glass with a cross wrench
and nabbing the bag that contained
a whopping $40,000,
cops said.
Investigators claim the
backpack bandit fled on
Joralemon Street towards
Brooklyn Bridge Park, and
was last seen wearing a blue
hoodie, brown shorts and
black sneakers.
Anyone who provides
police with information
leading to an arrest can
expect up to a $2,500 reward
through the NYPD’s
Crime Stoppers program.
The public can phone their
tips to (800) 577-8477, log
into the Crime Stoppers
website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.
com, tweet
@NYPDTips, or text tips to
274637 (CRIMES) then enter
TIP577.
All calls are strictly confidential.
Police suspect this man
of breaking into a car on
Joralemon Street.
ing example of classic 19th-century
gothic-revival architecture, and serves
more than 3,500 people through various
community outreach programs
— including a pre-school, after-school
programs, and bi-monthly food pantries,
according to Rev. Sharon Codner
Walker.
But the last roughly century and a
half haven’t been kind to church’s 40-
foot, stain-glass window located on the
building’s Tompkins Avenue side, according
to Codner-Walker, who said
the conservancy’s check will fund repairs
to the window and ailing wooden
frame.
The Landmarks Conservancy —
founded in 1973 — has provided loans
and grants totalling over $52 million
to various historic buildings around
the state. This year, the organization
provided $256,000 in “Sacred Sites
Grants” to 23 religious institutions in
New York, according to the group’s
president.
Stuyvesant Heights Christian
Church will spend a $30,000
grant to renovate this stain glass
window on Tompkins Avenue.
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