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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2019 12 pages • Vol.Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint 42, No. 44 • November 1–7, 2019
OVERDUE REPAIRS
Libraries struggling to meet $247 million funding shortfall
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Somebody lend them a hand!
Brooklyn’s more than century-old
library system is feeling its age, and
the borough’s beloved book lender is
struggling under the weight of decades
old buildings that require multimillion
dollar renovations.
The city has committed an unprecedented
$278 million in capital
funding to prop up Brooklyn Public
Library over the next 10 years,
but the book lender remains $247
million shy of meeting its repairs
quota, and experts say only the taxpayers
can prevent Brooklyn’s beloved
libraries from literally falling
apart.
“We’re an old city, an aging city,
and the library is no exception,”
said Eli Dvorkin of the Manhattanbased
economic policy think tank
Center for an Urban Future. “No
matter how you slice and dice it,
the city has to invest more.”
The nation’s sixth-largest booklending
system, Brooklyn Pwublic
Library consists of 59 branches with
an average age of more than 60 years
old. One of its most senior branches,
the Andrew Carnegie-built Pacific
Branch in Park Slope, debuted in
1904 and suffers from nearly $12
million in unfunded repairs, including
interior and exterior renovations,
along with needed heating
and electrical upgrades.
Meanwhile, the Williamsburg
branch on Division Avenue has a
$14.7 million shortfall, the Sheepshead
Bay branch needs $10.6 million
for drainage repairs, air conditioning
upgrades, and rent, and the
DeKalb branch on Bushwick Avenue
requires $9.4 million for general
repairs inside and out.
Worst of all is the library’s grand
Central Branch in Prospect Heights,
Photo by Kevin Duggan
Najim Shakeeb uses the 115-year-old Pacific Library in Park
Slope, which awaits nearly $12 million in repairs.
which the library lists as requiring
$63.5 million worth of “various improvements.”
These unfunded repair tabs are
what remain after considering the
nearly $280 million in public funds
the city will provide the library system
between 2020 and 2029, most
of which is being allocated towards
small, easily managed projects, such
as fixing roofs or air-conditioning,
and not overhauling decades-old
structures, according to a senior
finance official with the organization.
“We have lots of piecemeal projects,”
said Karen Sheehan, the library’s
executive vice president for
finance and administration. “We
don’t have a reserve of capital dollars
that are earmarked for the major
overhauls.”
And in lieu of another $200–
300 million taxpayer-funded windfall,
Brooklyn Public Library has
been forced to explore alternative
strategies for generating revenue,
including some deals that readers
have found unsavory.
In 2014, the book lender sold the
historic Brooklyn Heights branch at
Cadman Plaza West for $52 million
to developer Hudson Companies ,
which razed the building in 2017
and is in the process of erecting a
38-story luxury condo tower, which
will feature a three-story library
branch at its base come 2020.
The deal relieved the library system
of an ailing branch and paved
the way for construction of a new
one, but local bookworms nonetheless
condemned the scheme as
a deal with the devil, and accused
library executives of pandering to
developers.
“The public’s interest has not
been the primary concern,” Pearl
Hochstadt, a Brooklyn Heights resident
since 1953, said back in 2014.
“There’s been too much consideration
for real estate interests.”
Other partnerships have been less
controversial. The library system
partnered with a nonprofit affordable
housing developer, the Fifth
Avenue Committee, in 2016 to demolish
the old Sunset Park Library
and redevelop the site on Fourth
Avenue to feature a much larger
branch, along with 49 units of affordable
housing due in 2020.
“The old library was about
12,000 square feet and was one
of the busiest in our system,” said
David Woloch, executive vice president
for external affairs at Brooklyn
Public Library. “It was essentially
bursting at the seams and we’re
going to get a library that’s about
20,000 square feet.”
The library is also taking advantage
of a 2011 settlement with Exxonmobil
over an oil spill in Newtown
Creek to replace its Greenpoint
branch, and has worked out a deal
with Brooklyn Children’ Museum
to move their Bower Street branch
into the Crown Heights cultural institution.
But for all of Brooklyn Public
Library’s wheeling and dealing,
the book lender remains buried
under the weight of aging buildings
that need immediate repairs,
according to Woloch, who claims
the city must act if it wants to salvage
a library system that isn’t getting
any younger.
“Rather than doing the work in
drips and drabs and fixing an air
conditioner and a couple of years
later a roof there, the smart way to
do this work — it requires planning
and it requires more funding — is
to do as much of the work holistically,”
he said. “The longer we go
without tackling those needs the
larger they get.”
Photo by Kevin Duggan Noise cancelers
Federal lawmakers Jerry Nadler (D–Red Hook) and Nydia Velazquez (D–Williamsburg)
introduced legislation to curb helicopter flights outside City Hall on Oct. 26.
Push to ban non-essential helicopter fl ights
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Brooklyn Heights residents
called on Mayor de Blasio to
unilaterally ban non-essential
helicopter flights from a Lower
Manhattan heliport, claiming the
choppers’ racket is making life
in their bougie brownstones unbearable.
“Mayor de Blasio could with
a stroke of the pen close down
the Downtown Manhattan Heliport,”
said Brooklyn Heights resident
Roberto Gautier at a rally
on Saturday.
Hizzoner could single-handedly
curb rampant noise pollution
and safety hazards by closing
the launch pad at Pier 6 to
non-essential chopper traffic,
which is owned by the city’s
quasi-public business boosting
Economic Development Corporation,
according to one Manhattan
legislator.
“The Mayor has it in his control
today to shut down the Downtown
Heliport, we urge him to do
that,” said Councilwoman Helen
Rosenthal (D—Manhattan).
The Oct. 26 rally on the steps
of City Hall aimed to gin up support
for a federal bill that would
completely ban all private charter,
commuter, or tourist flights over
the city’s airspace — while still
allowing for whirly birds flying
for purposes of government, military,
law enforcement, infrastructure
maintenance, emergency or
disaster response, research, and
the news.
The federal ban would outlaw
recently-launched ride-share
chopper flights above the Five
Boroughs and the city’s waters
— including Uber’s sky taxi and
Blade, which shuttle well-heeled
passengers from the heliport to
the city’s outer-borough airports
at upwards of $200 a pop.
But, while that bill slowly
works its way through a preoccupied
congress, the gathered demonstrators
called for the Mayoral
ban to provide temporary relief
in the interim.
Helicopters could still take off
from New Jersey or outside the
city limits under a possible ban
from the mayor, but it would alleviate
the noise until when and
if the feds push through their new
law, said Gautier.
“That’s different because for
this proposed legislation to get
through, it’s not going to happen
See NOISE on page 4
Ceramic shop at center of fi restorm
Activists demand Bed-Stuy studio close over offensive Halloween display
By Alejandra O’Connell-
Domenech
Brooklyn Paper
Residents rallied on Saturday to demand
the closure of a Bedford-Stuyvesant
ceramics studio after the nonprofit’s codirector
placed Halloween decorations
that looked like black children hanging
from nooses in her home last week.
The co-director, Dany Rose, has since
quit her position with Artshack Brooklyn
amid the public uproar, but the public
outcry continues.
“All I know is they have got to go,”
said Reverend Kirsten John Foy, found
of the Arc of Justice, to a crowd of about
50 protesters outside of Artshack at 1131
Bedford Ave..
Rose first received pushback for her
decorations on Oct. 23, when a Facebook
post of the brown paper dolls hanging
from white string went viral. Rose removed
the decorations, which were inspired
by the horror movie “Annabelle,”
after receiving concerned phone calls
from parents of students from nearby
PS 11.
“I grabbed my chest, I couldn’t believe
it,” said Bed-Stuy resident Marilyn
Burns, when her granddaughter showed
her images of the decorations online.
The protest took place a day after
Rose sent a short letter of resignation to
the studio’s board of directors.
But to Foy, Artshack appeared more
concerned about Rose’s well-being,
rather than the community, in allowing
her to resign rather than not immediately
firing her. Foy insisted that
Artshack do more to demonstrate that
the action was not in line with its belief
system.
“Rose is the tip of the iceberg, now
we are dealing with the other 90 percent
of the iceberg that we can’t see because
it’s submerged,” said Foy.
The protesters said the fight was far
from over, and that there would be a further
call for action in the weeks ahead.
The Arc of Justice announced on its Instagram
account that it would launch a
boycott of Artshack at all of its locations,
as well as an educational program.
Founding Director of Artshack Brooklyn,
McKendree Key, said in a statement
on Artshack’s website that the organization
will “address the systemic
racism that inherently pervades whiteowned
businesses in historically black
neighborhoods.”
“Since the moment we found out about
the racist Halloween decorations, I, and
dedicated board members, advisors and
staff have been working around the clock
to move forward with a plan for restorative
justice,” Key wrote, adding that
the nonprofit is working with community
development organization called
The Human Root.
“I believe in this work and I am humbled
and heartened by the opportunity to
better serve Bed-Stuy,” Key added.
Advocates rallied to demand nonprofit ceramics studio Artshake
close over a racist Halloween display.
Photo by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech
It’s Wegman-ia
Grocery’s Fort Greene branch
draws a crowd on opening day
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Thousands of shoppers lined up
during an early morning downpour
to be among the first to buy groceries
at a new supermarket in Fort
Greene on Sunday.
Upstate retail chain Wegmans
opened its first Five Boroughs
branch inside the Brooklyn Navy
Yard on Flushing Avenue, bringing
the comforts of spacious suburban
consumerism to Kings County, according
to one patron.
“You live in New York and you’re
used to grungy New York grocery
stores,” said Carolyn Schiff. “It’s really
big, it’s really clean, there’s a lot
of space to move around because it’s
not like a city grocery store where
everything’s cramped.”
The store opened its doors to
Brooklyn shoppers before dawn
at 7 am on Sunday, but customers
started showing up about an hour
earlier to get a good spot among the
whopping 700 parking spaces grocery
gurus built over the ruins of
admiral’s row and the hundreds of
mature trees that once grew within
the manufacturing complex.
“My friend arrived at 6:15 am and
she had a spot six cars away from the
entrance,” said Schiff. “I overslept,
I didn’t get there until 7:30.”
Traffic along Flushing Avenue
and Navy Street heading into
the food emporium was gridlock
throughout Wegmans’ opening day,
as drivers inched their way towards
the store’s massive 74,000-squarefoot
retail space.
Schiff said she chose to abandon
her rideshare and walk the remaining
few blocks to the supermarket
Thousands of shoppers braved the heavy downpour at the
Flushing Avenue outpost.
because of the traffic jam.
The masses of cars and people
continued throughout the day, with
vehicles moving at a snail’s pace
along Flushing Avenue and lines
snaking around the store.
All told, some 25,000 people
made the pilgrimage to Wegmans
on Sunday, breaking the company’s
all-time opening day record, according
to a spokeswoman.
“Despite heavy rainfall, hundreds
of people lined up around
the block before dawn yesterday,”
said Valerie Fox in an email.
Schiff, who comes from Wegmans’s
hometown of Rochester,
NY, moved to Park Slope almost
two decades ago and has been eagerly
awaiting the store opening
in her adopted home.
“I have a friend whose been teasing
me about this for two years,”
she said. “If you come from Rochester
you grew up with Wegmans.
It’s a way of life upstate.”
— Additional reporting by Jessica
Parks
Photo by Caroline Ourso
In light of boro bus revamp, locals plead:
Bring back the B71!
By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
A group of neighborhood activists
and local pols are renewing
their demand that the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority
restore the B71 bus line in light
of the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority’s plan to revamp
Brooklyn’s bus network and the
city’s scheme to stuff 20,000 new
residents in Gowanus through an
upcoming rezoning .
“The need for it has not abated
since 2010 when they took it away,”
said Council Member Brad Lander
(D–Park Slope), who created a petition
calling for the return of the
B71 . “This redesign is a great opportunity.”
Lander pointed out the bus once
served nine schools, three senior
centers, and multiple public housing
developments. It also provided
a direct link for Brooklynites who
Brad Lander
Local leaders propoposed extending the extinct bus
route through Red Hook and into Lower Manhattan.
lived near the waterfront to get
to the borough’s cultural center,
where Brooklyn Public Library’s
Central Branch, Brooklyn Museum,
Children’s Museum, Botanical
Garden and Prospect Park
are located.
As it stands, Carroll Gardens,
Gowanus and Columbia Street
Waterfront District residents have
to take a subway trip with one or
more transfers to get to the eastern
end of Brooklyn’s Backyard
by mass transit.
The petition comes in the midst
of a sweeping overhaul of the borough’s
bus system by the state-run
transit authority. Transit honchos
have been surveying riders in the
borough in an effort to speed up
and expand bus service, amidst a
See B71 on page 10
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