October 25–31, 2019 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 AWP 5
City votes to close Rikers
Plan will mean a larger House of Detention in Downtown Brooklyn
a historic step in addressing the
city’s tainted history of incarceration,
according to the Brooklyn
legislator in whose district
the larger Kings County jail will
be built.
“This is a historic step forward
in our city,” said Councilman
Stephen Levin (D–
Boerum Hill). “Today is a result
of years of advocacy of people
who have lived first hand the
tortures of the jail.”
The plan calls for the infamous
jail complex on Rikers
Barry Park desperately
needs bathrooms,” said
Jim Morris.
Lastowecky and his fellow
committee members previously
scolded green space
gurus for not doing more
for gender-non-conforming
Brooklynites when they presented
a renovation of a comfort
station in Cadman Plaza
Park in March.
The board’s assistant district
manager agreed that the
park was in dire need of additional
bathrooms, and said
the Parks Department should
be looking at ways to increase
the number of toilets to accommodate
special events
at the Fort Greene green
space.
“You’re able to go into
whichever bathroom you want
to while we’re retaining the
maximum amount of bathrooms
— which I’m thinking,
four, really?” said Carol-Ann
Church. “When you have an
event, four isn’t going to be
nearly enough.”
The committee passed a
purely advisory motion to approve
the design, but Lastowecky
noted that he didn’t
want to wait decades for another
renovation to get it right
on gender-neutral facilities.
“Since this will take another
20 years before it’s
touched again we’re not approaching
it all over again, this
is a newer project, so I’m a little
disappointed,” he said.
Island — which houses some
7,000 inmates — to be decommissioned,
and paves the way
for construction of a 295 foot
886-bed jail facility on Atlantic
Avenue in Boerum Hill, replacing
the current 11-story 170-foot
building housing 815 beds.
Both Mayor Bill de Blasio
and Council Speaker Corey
Johnson were ardent supporters
of the jail plan, which was
harshly criticized for by antiincarceration
activists, pro-law
enforcement groups, and residents
living nearby the proposed
jail sites.
In an effort to close the massive
island detention center off
the coast of northern Queens,
the four new facilities will be
erected by 2026 in all boroughs
except Staten Island, because
there aren’t enough jailed people
from The Rock to justify a
separate facility there, the city
has argued.
In a separate vote, the council
banned any future detention
facilities from operating
on Rikers Island — which has
become symbolic of the nation’s
comparatively-high incarceration
rate.
Brooklyn legislators were
relatively split on the issue,
with nine voting for and six
against the plan.
Among the Kings County
yes-voters were Stephen Levin
(D–Boerum Hill) — whose district
the Brooklyn lockup will be
built in — Majority Leader Laurie
Cumbo (D—Fort Greene),
Brad Lander (D—Park Slope),
Antonio Reynoso (D–Bushwick)
Robert Cornegy (D–
Bedford-Stuyvesant), Mathieu
Eugene (D–Prospect Lefferts
Gardens), Justin Brannan (D–
Bay Ridge), Farah Louis (D–
East Flatbush), and Mark Treyger
(D–Coney Island).
The vote for building new
jails was not easy, but it will
be the best way to improve the
city’s system of incarceration,
according to one lawmaker.
“I don’t like voting to build
jails — of course I would rather
spend that money on housing,
on schools, on community centers,”
the pol said. “It is the most
likely path to incarcerating the
fewest people in the least inhumane
way.”
Freshman legislator Farah
Louis said while she supported
the plan, she remained skeptical
and noted that much more
needed to be done to address
the city’s broken criminal justice
system, and that the administration
should also work
to protect law enforcement officers
— such as her brother
who she said was stabbed in
the jail complex.
“This process — I believe
– will not solve or change the
problem but it will move the
problem,” Louis said. “My
hope is… that the administration
will earmark funds for
communities that by providing
for schools, recreation centers,
and a substantive restorative justice
plan to protect officers like
my brother who was over four
times at Rikers.”
Bushwick councilman Rafael
Espinal went further by
voting against the proposal be
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By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
The House of D expansion
is officially a done deal.
City Council voted to approve
a $8.7 billion scheme to
close the Rikers Island jail complex
and construct four smaller
borough-based jails in its place
on Thursday.
The controversial vote passed
by a substantial 36-to-13 margin
after months of infighting,
controversy, protests, and political
back-and-forth, to achieve
PARK...
Continued from page 1
closely aligned with — that’s
not the answer,” said the committee’s
vice chair Andrew
Lastowecky at the Monday
meeting. “I know certain
transgender people that
don’t feel comfortable with
this ‘identify with whoever
you are.’”
Parks officials presented
the committee with a $3.1 million
renovation of the bathrooms
at the Flushing Avenue
park, with plans showing
a complete gut renovation of
the interior, along with a new
roof, windows, masonry, and
accessibility upgrades.
The bathroom between the
park’s baseball field and playground
has not been renovated
since the 1980s, and the city
plans to finish the new design
by spring 2020, paving
the way for the comfort station’s
reopening the following
year, according to Parks
architect Julie Fisher.
Lastowecky proposed cannibalizing
parts of the comfort
station’s mechanical room
to make way for the genderneutral
stall, but a rep for the
Parks Department said that
there simply wasn’t room for
a whole other stall, while referring
to Mayor de Blasio’s
2016 decree essentially allowing
New Yorkers to use
whichever city bathroom they
preferred.
“We’re squeezing a lot
into this building and Commodore
cause the city wouldn’t match
the massive investment in the
lockup with money for the community.
“I cannot approve spending
$8.7 billion on new jails, without
a plan that would match that investment
dollar for dollar in atrisk
communities like the one I
represent,” Espinal said. “This
plan addresses how people are
incarcerated, but it doesn’t address
why people are incarcerated.
We can do better.”
Other Brooklyn lawmakers
opposed to the plan included
Chaim Deutsch (D—Sheepshead
Bay), Inez Barron (D—
East New York), Kalman Yeger
(D—Borough Park), Alicka
Ampry-Samuel (D–Brownsville),
and Carlos Menchaca (D–
Sunset Park) all voted against
the scheme.
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