November 1–7, 2019 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 AWP 3
Michael and Alice Halkias, and Pete Alfonso filming the clip for Jimmy Kimmel Live.
DREAM TEAM
Mets all-star spoofs an iconic local ad
Bike lanes trashed!
Garbage cans block Ninth Street stretch
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By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
He’ll make all your dreams
come true — except if you
dream of the playoffs!
New York Mets all-star
Pete Alonso stopped by Grand
Prospect Hall to freshen up
the Park Slope banquet hall’s
iconic television ad during a
recent episode of Jimmy Kimmel
Live, which spent the
week filming at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music.
“When it comes to special
events and weddings, the
Grand Prospect Hall is a big
homerun,” said Alonso.
The 2019 National League
Rookie of the Year stands
alongside the grand halls
owners — Michael and Alice
Halkias — as they tour
the glitzy event space, from
Photo by Michael Glozman
the Chopin Room to the comically
large chandelier above
the grand ballroom.
The original Grand Prospect
Hall advertisement has
become a local legend since
it first aired in 2009 thanks
to its small budget and big
promises — pledging to make
“all your dreams come true”
— and has now been spoofed
by both Kimmel and Saturday
Night Live .
The ad aired 20 times a
day on local television stations
at its peak, according
to the Daily News .
By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
Talk about trashy.
A Park Slope lawyer says
he witnessed workers from the
Department of Sanitation creating
barricades out of garbage
cans along the Ninth Street
bike lane to protest cyclists.
Sloper Adam White noticed
several walls of trash
cans blocking the protected
bike lane on his ride into the
Prospect Park YMCA early
Saturday morning.
The cyclist at first chalked
the hazards up to simple negligence
— until he spotted municipal
trash haulers deliberately
placing the cans in the
lane. When he confronted
them, White says one of the
waste collectors went on a
long rant about cyclists, who
he accused of riding recklessly
and wreaking havoc on city
streets.
“He was going ‘you bicyclists
this’ and you ‘bicyclists
that,’” White said. “That’s
when I realized this was an
intentional act.”
White tried reasoning with
the saboteurs, saying he respected
them and their work,
but the garbage men refused
to clean up their mess.
“I literally said ‘I love you
guys, why are you doing this?’
I guess they thought I was being
sarcastic,” he said.
White, an attorney who represents
crash victims, said he
knows a thing or two about
the danger cyclists face on
the road, but that he’s never
seen a professional driver intentionally
create hazards for
bikers.
“When you have professional
drivers out there with
that mindset it’s kind of scary,”
White said. “We can’t tolerate
that sort of act of deliberate
hostility.”
DSNY drivers have killed
two pedestrians in the past
year, including Alberto Leal,
a Crown Heights resident who
was killed in October of last
year when a sanitation driver
turned the wrong way onto a
one way street. Another pedestrian
was killed by a DSNY
salt truck driver in the Bronx
in January .
Department of Sanitation
Photo by Adam White
workers created
several barricades out
of garbage cans.
The Sanitation Department
says it is investigating the incident
and may take disciplinary
action, depending on its
findings.
“The Department is investigating
the report, and could
take disciplinary action, depending
on our findings,” said
DSNY spokesperson Belinda
Mager.
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