6 AWP Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 September 13–19, 2019
17 Eastern Parkway
Brooklyn, NY 11238
718 638 7600
www.uniontemple.org
A Reform Jewish Congregation
We invite
your family
to join us
for Rosh
Hashanah &
Yom Kippur
Free for everyone!
Sept. 29–30 & Oct. 8–9
Tot’s Services • Children’s Services • Adult Services
Childcare is available
For details and schedule, visit
HHD.union-temple.org or call 718-638-7600
Rachel Salazar, PT
Man leaps into Gowanus Canal
Cyclists suffer double jeopardy!
Bikers hurt after colliding with two cars in Prospect Heights, Ft. Greene
Garbage truck hits Gowanus e-bike rider
Pedal to the metal
L train delayed due to bicycle on tracks
If you care for someone with Alzheimer’s,
we haven’t forgotten your needs.
We can connect you with local individual and group support,
wellness and cultural activities, in-home assistance, and more.
Call Care NYC today at 877-577-9337.
CARE NYC is a free service across the five
boroughs. For more info, email
CareNYC@scsny.org or call 877-577-9337.
Dinosaur Bar-B-Que
604 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Sunday, September 22, 2019
12:00 PM to 12:30 PM
William F.- Patient
Complimentary lunch will
be provided. Self Parking
is available.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Call it a baptism by mire!
A man was hospitalized after
leaping into the Gowanus
Canal Saturday night — on
purpose!
The 53-year-old Gowanusaur
hopped the fence at Bond
and Fourth streets and plunged
into Brooklyn’s Nautical Purgatory
at around 10 p.m., according
to Detective Sophia
Mason, a spokeswoman for
the Police Department.
A police officer discovered
the man swimming in
the noxious waterway and
rushed to the water’s edge to
fish him out of the filthy waterway,
which is home to sewage,
toxic waste, and even trace
amounts of the clap!
The officer snatched a hold
of the man from the shore, and
held on desperately while waiting
the department’s Emergency
Service Unit and the
Fire Department to arrive
and they were able to get the
man out of the canal’s haunting
depths, according to the
spokeswoman.
Paramedics brought the contaminated
swimmer to Methodist
Hospital for treatment to
a back wound and for psychiatric
evaluation to find out why
he jumped into the canal and
he remains in stable condition,
according to Mason.
Emergency services also
brought the hero cop to the
Park Slope medical center for
treatment to some scrape and
bruises he sustained trying to
get the guy out of the water,
she said.
While the man survived
his dive into the fetid canal
tainted by chemicals, raw sewage,
sexually transmitted diseases,
and animals’ corpses ,
one environmental activist advised
against going for a casual
dip there any time soon.
“The waterway has been
used as a dumping grounds
for more than a 100 years —
that’s the legacy that he fell
into,” said Christoper Swain.
“It’s like swimming through
a dirty a diaper that someone
dumped oil, gasoline,
and trash in.”
Swain has swum in the canal
several times — albeit,
clothed in a protective drysuit
— as a stunt to encourage
a more brisk cleanup of the
federal Superfund site.
Coming into contact with
the dirty water can easily
lead to infections, according
to Swain, who advised
anyone who makes physical
contact with the fetid waterway
to seek immediate medical
attention — and maybe
take a bath.
“If you have exposure to
your eyes, ears, mouth, or any
open wounds — any of those
could be a pathway to infections
from pathogens in the canal,”
he said. “Rinse off, go to
urgent care, update your vaccinations
and keep your eye
out if you develop a rash or
an infection.”
By Jenna Bagcal
for Brooklyn Paper
Head for the bright lights of
Citi Field this winter!
The Flushing stadium will
play host to the first-ever Hello
Panda Festival from Dec. 6 to
Jan. 26, 2020. The landmark
event will stretch over the
space of more than 13 football
fields, featuring more than 120
handcrafted lantern displays,
global food vendors curated by
the World’s Fare, live performances,
modern art exhibits,
and a holiday market.
“Hello Panda’s mission is
to not only give New Yorkers
and visitors something they’ve
never seen before but also deliver
an experience they can’t
find anywhere else,” said Winston
Wang, general manager
of CPAA North America, the
group behind the event.
The festival’s lantern display
is sure to delight with
more than 300,000 LED
lights and several interactive
elements. Some of the world’s
leading lantern artisans will
handcraft and paint over 120
displays to reflect the tradition,
innovation and creativity
of the Chinese art.
Attendees can explore six
different lantern theme parks,
including Dream World, Holiday
Wonderland, Discovery
Zone, Interactive Music Zone,
Sports World, and Community
Interactive Zone. Display
highlights include the world’s
tallest Christmas tree lantern,
a huge fairy-tale castle, and a
98-foot-long light tunnel.
Food will also be a major attraction,
through a partnership
with the World’s Fare.
“The World’s Fare is honored
to partner with Hello
Panda to celebrate culture in
the most diverse city in the
world,” said Joshua Schneps,
the Fare’s CEO.
Hello Panda will feature
both traditional and modern
cultural arts through live performances,
galleries and a holiday
market across six giant
heated tent areas.
Visitors can also view a collection
of galleries featuring
works of emerging global artists
and can join sessions of papercutting,
sugar painting, embroidery,
and cotton candy art
led by artist instructors.
Hello Panda at Citi Field
(123-01 Roosevelt Ave. in
Queens, www.hellopandafest.
com). Open daily, 5–10
p.m., Dec. 6 through Jan.
26, 2020. $22–$28.
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
Two cyclists suffered nonlife
threatening injuries after
smashing into separate cars
in Prospect Heights and Fort
Greene on Thursday.
Brian Douglas, a 26-yearold
delivery man for Uber
Eats, was riding his bicycle
heading north along Vanderbilt
Avenue at 4 p.m. on Sept.
5, when he struck a woman’s
silver sedan as she crossed the
roadway heading east along
Atlantic Avenue, according to
the driver, who only gave her
name as Ms. Ava.
Paramedics rushed to treat
Douglas, who was unable to
lift his head at the scene, and
A 26-year-old sustained serious injuries after colliding
with a car in Prospect Heights.
Paul Martinka
rushed him to a nearby hospital
for treatment.
The driver of the sedan
claimed she had a green light
when Douglas struck her vehicle,
leaving a dent near the
front passenger-side wheel
with his bike.
Douglas declined to comment
when reached via phone,
saying “I can’t talk, I’m on
meds.”
A friend of Douglas, who
gave his name as Nigel, said
the cyclist moved to New
York City from South Carolina
about a year ago, and
had taken up working as a delivery
man for Uber Eats to
make ends meet. It’s unclear
if he was delivering food at
the time of the incident.
Police could not immediately
comment regarding
that collision, but provided
information regarding another
crash in Fort Greene at
6:33 p.m. on Sept. 5, when a
36-year-old cyclist smashed
into a 55-year-old woman’s
2010 Ford on Navy Street
near Park Avenue.
Paramedics rushed the cyclist
to Methodist Hospital in
stable condition, cops said.
Police did not issue any
summonses related to the
crash, according to a spokeswoman
for the police department.
Additional reporting by
Paul Martinka and Kevin
Duggan.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
A cyclist is in critical condition
after a garbage truck
driver smashed into him at a
Gowanus intersection Sunday
night.
The 62-year-old man was
riding north on an e-bike
on Third Avenue when the
33-year-old man behind the
wheel of the dump truck coming
from the opposite direction
struck him while making
a left turn onto 12th Street
around 9:30 p.m., according to
a spokesman for police.
Paramedics rushed to the
scene and brought the biker
to Methodist Hospital with a
head wound and he remains
in critical condition, according
the spokesman.
The driver remained on the
scene but cops did not arrest
him and the investigation is ongoing,
according to police.
The collision comes two
days after two cyclists where
struck by drivers at separate incidents
in Prospect Heights and
Fort Greene on Sept. 6.
Last week, Fort Greene cyclist
Robert Donald died after
Brownsville man Korey
Johnson allegedly smashed
his car into him in Bushwick
on Sept. 2.
Donald was the 15th Kings
County cyclist to have been
killed by drivers and the 20th
citywide this year, compared
to 10 biker fatalities in the
Five Boroughs during all
of 2018.
LIGHT SHOW
Hello Panda Festival brings
lights, food to city in winter
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
L train straphangers were
forced to endure long delays
during the Tuesday morning
rush after some numskull
left a bicycle on the tracks
at Broadway Junction.
Manhattan-bound trains
were delayed for half an hour
after a train’s brakes were
activated by a two-wheeler
at the station near Jamaica
Avenue at around 9:30 a.m.,
according to Liz Gutierrez,
a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority.
One Bushwick commuter
heading across the East River
was stuck at the nearby Wilson
Avenue stop for almost half
an hour on a platform packed
with surly straphangers.
“I just waited, and waited,
and waited,” said Aaron
Ghitelman, who works for
the real-estate search platform
Localize.city. “It was just frustration.
Everybody was rolling
their eyes. A lot of people
just left and bailed.”
The Authority also halted
Canarsie-bound L trains at
Myrtle-Wyckoff and Broadway
Junction stations during
the snafu.
Workers cleared the tracks
by 10 a.m. and restored service
back to normal, according
to Gutierrez.
The service interruption
is the second on the line this
week that Ghitelman encountered,
and follows Monday
morning delays caused by a
suspected track fire in Williamsburg,
which it turned out
originated from a nearby manhole
cover, a spokeswoman for
the agency previously said.
Trains were delayed between
Bedford Avenue and
Manhattan around 9 a.m. that
day and the Bushwick straphanger
transferred to the more
reliable M train instead, but
said that the announcements
about the L train’s closure
were unclear and like something
out of a skit on Saturday
Night Live.
“It was the worst announcement
I’ve ever heard. It was
one of those SNL moments,
it was just so f------ vague. It
sounded like they were saying,
‘this train isn’t quite running
to Manhattan,’” he said.
“I want just one day with an
easy commute this week,
that’s all I’m asking.”
Hello Panda
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