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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2019 12 pages • Vol. 42, No. 3 Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint 5 • August 30–September 5, 2019
Photos by Kevin Duggan
(Left) Jovita Revilla (left) became a United States citizen after arriving in the country from the Philippines almost 20 years
ago and celebrated outside Brooklyn Federal Court with her daughter Abby Salazar. (Right) Nasir Hussein and his mother
Najma fled Burma as refugees some five years ago and were delighted to finally call America their home.
‘It’s a wonderful feeling’
More than 200 new citizens naturalized at D’town courthouse
VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE BARS,
BRIDGING THE GAP
Slick new stairway could make Squibb Bridge redundant
they want to fully extend an existing
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replace it with a second, $6.5 million
span that won’t open until
summer 2020 — a year after the
new Watchtower development is
complete.
Multiple requests for comment
to Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation
The Jehovah’s Witness complex
was made inaccessible to the public
by design, according to one of the
architects in charge of the revamp,
who said that he and his team want
to open the group of buildings back
up to the community.
“It was really a very inwardfacing,
kind of an introverted big
Max Touhey
thing that was more of a barrier to
the waterfront than a connector
to the neighborhood,” said Robert
Fuller, an architect with Manhattan
design firm Gensler.
The walkway would connect
Brooklyn Heights to Dumbo and
Brooklyn Bridge Park much the
same way the shuttered Squibb
Bridge was supposed to, which
runs from Squibb Park at Columbia
Heights, over Furman Street,
to Brooklyn Bridge Park in front
of 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge.
However, it remains up to developers
Livwrk and CIM Group, as
well as potential tenants whether
City fi xes ‘Space Jam’ court in Williamsburg
Photo by Kevin Duggan
GET YOUR
VOTE
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
A twice-shuttered, multi-million
dollar bridge that’s proven
Brooklyn Bridge Park’s biggest
boondoggle could become redundant
following the redevelopment
of a former Jehovah’s Witness complex
in Brooklyn Heights.
A developer’s scheme to revamp
the Jehovah’s Witnesses’
Watchtower complex may include
an open pathway connecting
Columbia Heights and Furman
Street when it opens this fall, which
would save people from the long
walk to Doughty Street needed
to reach Brooklyn Bridge Park,
and perform the same function
that Squibb Bridge was designed
for until it closed — for the second
time.
The high-concept, $4 million,
Ted Zoli-designed span debuted
in 2013 , only to close the following
year due to what attorneys for
Brooklyn Bridge Park described
as an “inherently flawed” design
that became “unstable” and “deformed”
in a lawsuit against engineering
firm HNTB, who park operators
sued to recoup the bridge’s
roughly $3 million repair tab.
The bridge reopened in April
2017, only to shutter once again
the following year, after park leaders
discovered that wood planks
used in its construction were decaying
due to “higher than expected
moisture levels.”
Now, Brooklyn Bridge Park
wants to scrap the old bridge and
went unanswered.
2020 IN TODAY!
pathway leading from Furman
Street into the complex all
the way to Columbia Heights, according
to a spokesman Brandon
Levesque, who noted that the connector
remains a design proposal
by the architects.
The Watchtower connector
would come as one part of a largescale
renovation of the five interconnected
buildings that used to
house the religious group’s Brooklyn
headquarters until they sold it
for $340 million to development
firms Livwrk, CIM Group, and
President Trump’s son-in-law Jared
Kushner, the latter of whom divested
himself from the project
in 2018.
The sale also included a nearby
former Jehovah’s Witnesses parking
lot for an additional $345
million, which the developers
are turning into a 21-story twotower
condo complex with an expansive
gated garden at Front and
York streets.
The new mixed-use complex
will include 635,000 square feet of
office space — about 11 football
fields — along with 17 terraces and
balconies with expansive views of
the Brooklyn waterfront and the
distant isle of Manhattan.
Additionally, about 35,000
square feet of ground-floor space
will be set aside for retail, with another
15,000 square feet reserved
for hotel space at 58 Columbia
Heights, according to Carroll.
The fate of one of the building’s
most recognizable features,
the iconic “Watchtower” sign atop
30 Columbia Heights still hangs
in the balance.
Workers tore down the original
sign in late 2017 and the developers
have yet to decide what they
will replace it with, or whether
they plan to keep the still-standing
temperature and time reader
on top of it.
“This is still a work in progress.
Once we have something definitive
regarding the sign, we will
share that with the public,” said
Levesque.
The city ruled in November
2018 the owners can put their own
branding on the sign and a rendering
on the project’s website shows
“Panorama” in red lettering with
the clock still intact.
The three brick and timber
buildings at 50 and 58 Columbia
Heights, and 55 Furman Street
date back to the 1870s.
Pharmaceutical company
Squibb Pharmaceutical erected
25 and 30 Columbia Heights in
the 1920s and occupied those
spaces until the Jehovah’s Witnesses
moved in 1969 and expanded
the buildings several times
until they sold them to the cadre
of developers ahead of a move upstate
in 2016.
Photos by Kevin Duggan
A new outdoor stairwell
(above left) will connect Columbia
Heights to Furman
Street as part of the revamp
of the former Jehovah’s Witnessses’
Headquarters, connecting
Brooklyn Heights to
Brooklyn Bridge Park much
the same way the shuttered
Squibb Bridge (above right)
was intended to. (Left) The
stairs will extend to this gate
between 50 and 58 Columbia
Heights. But will the gate
be open to the public?
The walkway comes as part of a facelift of the former Jehovah’s
Witnesses’s Brooklyn Heights headquarters, which
will feature some 635,000 square feet of office space across
five buildings. Columbia Heights runs between the two
buildings shown above.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
They a-tuned for their mistakes.
The city reopened a Williamsburg
basketball on Aug. 23 after
repairing a slippery Looney
Tunes-inspired paint job that had
made it unsafe to play.
Workers for the city’s Parks Department
added a layer of clear
paint mixed with silica sand after
local ballers complained that a
paint job by cartoon studio Warner
Bros. created a slipping hazard
that made it unplayable.
Park workers also widened the
court by about four feet on both
sides, repainted its lines, and replaced
its backboards to address
other unwanted changes that locals
griped about.
One local was as overjoyed to
see the Rodney Street court back
in action and as he was surprised
at the city’s quick reaction to the
looney face lift, which this paper
was first to report on Aug. 15.
“I’m super impressed, I didn’t
think we would get as quick a response,”
said Williamsburg resident
Paul Travisano. “I’m really
happy they decided to address both
at the same time.”
This reporter confirmed the
court was no longer slippery as
of Monday morning, when I conducted
a very scientific slip test
— running, jumping, and then attempting
to slide — which demonstrated
a satisfactory amount
of friction.
Warner Bros. partnered with the
city to renovate the blacktop between
S. Fourth and S. Fifth streets
to promote an upcoming sequel to
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
They let freedom ring!
More than 230 people became
United States citizens at a
packed naturalization ceremony
in Brooklyn Federal Court Thursday
morning.
The Cadman Plaza E. courthouse
was filled with brand new
Americans hailing from all corners
of the globe during the Aug.
22 event, which was presided
over by Judge Pamela Chen,
who spoke about the country’s
strength through its diversity, according
to one Queens woman in
attendance.
“I thought it was nice for the
judge to recognize that a lot of
the people who were a part of this
ceremony came from all different
countries,” said Abby Salazar.
“The diversity is what makes
this country special and think that
was a nice recognition.”
Salazar joined her mother Jovita
Revilla, who came to The
Land of Opportunity from the
Philippines nearly 20 years ago
and was delighted to receive
her citizenship after all those
years.
“It feels exciting. I’m happy,
of course, and it’s almost two decades,
so it’s a wonderful feeling
that finally I’m an American citizen,”
Revilla said.
The courthouse hosts largescale
naturalizations in its ceremonial
courtroom four days a
week, from Tuesday to Friday —
sometimes twice a day — yearround.
As many as 260 people
attend the ceremonies, according
to Ogoro Francis, a spokeswoman
for the District Executive
Office of the Eastern District of
New York.
The street outside the building
near Tillary Street was filled with
elated families posing for pictures
with their freshly-minted documents,
which some of them received
after leaving their countries
to seek refuge in the U.S.
of A.
One man and his mother fled
Burma some five years ago and
the two were relieved to finally
have a country to proudly call their
own after years in limbo.
“It’s overwhelming and emotional
because finally we became
permanent citizens,” said Nasir
Hussein, who became an American
along with his mother Najma.
“Previously, you know, as a
refugee you don’t have any state
and any citizenship and now we
finally got confirmed that this is
our country and we can proudly
say that the United States is our
country.”
One mother, who came to the
States from Colombia four years
ago, celebrated her new nationality
and said that citizenship
will allow her to take care of
her family.
“I am happy, it’s important
for my life and it’s very good
for my daughter and family that
the United States is giving me
this opportunity,” said Giovanna
Triana, who was there with her
daughter Nicole.
Playing in Tune
The city reopened the Rodney Park North basketball
court on Aug. 23 with wider sides, new lines, and clear
backboards, after a botched Looney Tunes-inspired paint
job had made it unplayable.
the classic 1996 animated sports
comedy “Space Jam” with the
on-court mural featuring largerthan
life images of Bugs Bunny,
Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird, Sylvester,
Lola Bunny, and Taz, on
Aug. 1.
But the cartoon characters
proved too slippery to play on,
and the makeover also changed
the court’s three-point line to professional
standards, which Travisano
and several upset ballers
who vented their frustration on
the social media complained was
not appropriate for a community
basketball court.
The makeover was part of a Parks
program called Creative Courts ,
which entitles organizations to paint
a mural on “dated” sports courts for
up to a year, according to the department’s
website.
But after the botched job, the
city closed off the court on Aug.
15 and started working on painting
the extensions that same day,
a social media of a local basketball
club shows .
They also swapped out the
backboards which had the faces
of Looney Tunes characters on
them with clear boards, which
shows that the people in charge
of the repairs knew that would
be less distracting for players,
according to Travisano.
“It seemed like someone who
knew basketball went to the course
and said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s
very distracting,’” he said.
Travisano was happy to have
the court just a couple blocks from
his apartment and said that other
Brooklynites were already eager
to shoot some hoops.
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