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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2019 12 pages • Vol.Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint 42, No. 39 • September 27–October 3, 2019
Wheelchair-bound Antonio Graham was arrested for allegedly
murdering a man in Crown Heights on Sept. 17.
Man charged in C’Heights slay
Bus-ting Cuomo’s chops!
Straphangers rally to demand more transit investment
PLUS: CUTS FOR B46
One weird order
Cops cuff man in bizarre Thai eatery attack
BAFFLING SCAFFOLDING
12-year-old sidewalk shed costs taxpayers half a million and counting
16 Yet another cyclist killed
CYCLISTS KILLED
IN BROOKLYN
By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
The city has spent more than
$1,000 every week since 2007 to
maintain sidewalk sheds around a
Downtown Brooklyn courthouse
that’s cost taxpayers roughly half
a million dollars — and construction
hasn’t even started yet!
The Brooklyn Supreme Court
Building at 360 Adams St. has
been surrounded by the low-hanging
scaffolding since the middle
of George W. Bush’s second term
in office, and the city has been
cutting $4,340 checks to a private
contractor in monthly rent ever
since, according to a spokesman
with the Department of Citywide
Administrative Services.
The scaffolding remains in
place to ensure that the building
complies with a city law requiring
sidewalk sheds be erected around
buildings deemed to have “an unsafe
façade condition,” thereby
preventing falling debris from
squashing hapless passersby until
repairs are made to the building,
according to a spokesman
with the Department of Design
and Construction.
However, twelve years and
more than half a million dollars
into the boondoggle, city building
honchos have taken only preliminary
steps to fix the building’s
problems.
Reps with the Department of
Design and Construction began
to examine the building’s flaws in
April of this year, and construction
is not expected to begin until
2021, according to a spokesman
with the Department of Design
and Construction.
By that time, taxpayers can expect
to shell out another roughly
$70,000 in rental fees for the scaf-
The heavy-duty construction
equipment is in place
around the courthouse in
Downtown Brooklyn because
city building honchos
have filed multiple reports
indicating that the building
façade is unsafe — but repair
work had been delayed
for several years.
Photos by Aidan Graham
folding, assuming prices stay the
same.
The law requiring the city safeguard
pedestrians with sidewalk
sheds first passed in 1979 in response
to the death of a college
student who was killed by a falling
chunk of masonry in Manhattan.
In 1998, City Council strengthened
those regulations with Local
Law 11 — also known as the Façade
Inspection and Safety Program
— that requires licensed
engineers to inspect the façade
of large buildings every five
years.
One Brooklyn man said he
wasn’t pleased to hear about the
exorbitant scaffolding fees — but,
then again, he wasn’t exactly surprised
either.
“They probably could’ve just
fixed it for the same amount of
money and been done with it,”
mused Park Slope local Seb
Campbell. “But, that’s the city
for you.”
Another passerby complained
about congestion caused by the
construction equipment.
“It makes it crowded by the entrance
because there’s bars everywhere
in the center of the sidewalk,”
complained Cypress Hills
resident Tatiana White.
And while the costs continue
to pile up, the sidewalk sheds create
a gaping eyesore around the
prominent Downtown edifice —
which sits at the foot of the Brooklyn
Bridge and is flanked by Borough
Hall, Camden Park, and two
major throughways.
“It’s like they just made it part
of the building,” said White. “But,
then you should make it look better.”
First constructed in 1956, the
courthouse building was the brainchild
of architectural firm Shreve,
Lamb & Harmon — which also
masterminded the iconic Empire
State Building.
By Aidan Graham
Brooklyn Paper
Cops arrested a one-legged,
wheelchair-bound homeless
man for allegedly beating another
man to death with a metal
rod in Crown Heights.
Prosecutors charged 50-yearold
Antonio Graham — who had
previously been arrested a staggering
45 times — with felony
charges of manslaughter, assault,
and criminal possession
of a weapon, according to a complaint
filed by the Brooklyn District
Attorney’s office.
The suspect allegedly began
arguing with the victim
on Schenectady Avenue between
Lincoln and St. Johns
Places shortly before 5 am on
Sept. 17, when the confrontation
turned deadly and Graham repeatedly
plunged the metal bar
into 60-year-old Gary Smith’s
face, according to court documents.
Graham had wheeled away
from the crime scene by the time
police officers from the 77th Precinct
arrived and found Smith lying
unconscious in a pool of his
own blood, according to police.
First responders took Smith —
who lived four blocks away from
where the incident took place
— to Kings County Hospital,
where doctors pronounced him
dead from what the city’s medical
examiner would later rule
blunt force trauma to the head,
according to authorities.
Cops cuffed Graham on Sept.
20 and found the murder weapon
in his possession, according to
court documents.
Photo by Paul Martinka
ONE LEG,
46 ARRESTS
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Transit advocates rallied to demand
Governor Cuomo pump money into the
city’s bus system amid looming service
cuts at a Downtown Brooklyn protest
on Sept. 17.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Chairman Pat Foye warned at an
emergency board meeting last month
that he and his team were looking at
ways to slash service to plug a $1 billion
budget deficit by 2023.
“We’re reviewing the possibility of
new subway and bus service adjustments
in the fall,” Foye told the New
York Post . “That is painful for all of
us, but that is the reality.”
Foye’s gloomy announcement came
after the agency cut busses and increased
wait times along the B38, B54, and B15
— among other buses across the Five
Boroughs — while adding longer articulated
buses to the first line.
“We need to be talking about how to
add more service how to make services
more reliable,” said Stephanie Burgos-
Veras, a member of Riders Alliance.
“We need the Governor to find a revenue
source to make sure that they’re filling
the gap in the operating budget.”
The cuts shaved $7 million off the agency’s
operating budget and were inspired by
the routes’ relatively low ridership figures,
according to transit honchos, who argued
that adding the longer vehicles along the
B38 would decrease bunching.
But the agency’s scheme to enhance
service by eliminating buses
hasn’t worked out as planned, according
to activists, who say bunching issues
still persist almost three weeks after
the changes rolled out.
“I’ve waited for more than 40 minutes
for the buses to arrive, just to have three of
them come together at the same bus stop,” said
protester Pedro Valdez-Rivera, who regularly
rides the B38 and sometimes uses the B54, and
is also a member of Riders Alliance.
Officials plan to launch a complete
and year-long overhaul of the borough’s
bus system this fall.
The agency also plans to invest in the
bus network as part of its gigantic $51.1
billion capital plan.
Protesters called for greater bus funding at a protest in downtown Brooklyn on Sept. 19.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Police on Tuesday announced
the death of an e-bike rider struck
by a garbage truck in Gowanus
earlier this month.
Bronx resident Abul Mohammed
Bashar, 62, lingered in critical
condition for 10 days following
the brutal crash, perishing on
Sept. 18.
The cyclist was crossing 12th
Street at Third Avenue on Sept.
8, traversing a crosswalk there
when the 33-year-old dump truck
driver struck him as he made a
left turn onto 12th Street, according
to police.
Paramedics rushed the victim
to Methodist Hospital, while the
33-year-old motorist remained at
the scene, authorities say.
Police have not made any arrests
and the investigation remains
ongoing, cops said.
Bashar is the 16th cyclist to be
killed by a motorist in Brooklyn
this year and the 21st to die citywide,
compared to 10 during all
of 2018.
His death came three days before
a truck driver struck a 14-yearold
biker in Queens on Sept. 21,
bringing the death toll up to 22
cyclists killed.
IN 2019
22 IN CITY OVERALL
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
Police busted a man suspected
in a bizarre assault on employees
at a Columbia Street Waterfront
District Thai restaurant on
Saturday, in which he allegedly
raved that workers were staring
at him before going berserk, authorities
confirmed.
“It was scary,” said Nana
Dirounian, a waitress at the Thai
eatery on the corner of Columbia
and Kane streets.
Dirounian said that she and
three other employees took a meal
break around 4:20 pm, when a
63-year-old man walked into the
restaurant exhibiting strange behavior.
“He was acting weird, smiling
by himself,” Dirounian said. “He
didn’t even look at the menu.”
See BIZARRE on page 4
SEE PAGE 3
Photo by Kevin Duggan
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