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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2019 16 pages • Vol. 42, N Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint o. 46 • November 15–21, 2019
Photo by Kevin Duggan
A new sculpture called “Unity” opened on Tillary and Adams streets
in Downtown Brooklyn on Nov. 9.
City unveils new artwork D’town
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
This sculpture has a point!
The city unveiled a new sculpture
in Downtown Brooklyn on Saturday,
depicting a giant bronze arm pointing
its index finger at the sky to represent
Brooklyn’s ambition and togetherness,
according to its creator.
“The spirit of Brooklyn has always
been about upward mobility and connection
to roots,” said Hank Willis
Thomas in a prepared statement. “The
large-scale sculpture of a bronze arm
pointing toward the sky is intended to
Advocates rally against over-policing after cops cuff churros vendor
By Mark Hallum and
Colin MIxson
for Brooklyn Paper
Elected officials and transit advocates
are treating a viral video of police
harassing a churros vendor at the
Broadway Junction subway stop as
Exhibit A in their campaign to stop
Governor Andrew Cuomo from hiring
500 new cops to police the city’s
subway system.
“We can’t avoid connecting this directly
to the 500 additional officers,”
said state Sen. Julia Salazar. “They’re
bullying teenagers, hurting the trust
between people and police, and bullying
vendors.”
Salazar partnered with advocates at
Riders Alliance and the Street Vendors
Project to organize a protest outside
Broadway Junction on Monday, where
they were joined by the vendor, named
Elsa, who became internet famous after
footage of police cuffing her and
confiscating her snack cart on Friday
accrued nearly 2 million views.
“I’m here alone and no one helps.
I’m here 4 years but it wasn’t like this,
this guy is very racist,” Elsa said at the
rally. “I feel terrible, I tell them give me
tickets but don’t take away my stuff, it’s
all I have to work for my kids.”
The incident follows a viral video of
police beating teens at the Jay Street-
MetroTech subway station, which
sparked its own demonstration that
saw hundreds of disgruntled straphangers
flood the public plaza outside
the MetroTech Center, before storming
through Downtown Brooklyn, vandalizing
cop cars and chanting antipolice
slagoans.
Meanwhile, Cuomo plans to spend
Strong arm
UNDERGROUND FIGHT
as much as $900 million over the next
10 years hiring hundreds of new cops
to crack down on fare beaters throughout
the city’s transit system.
The nine-figure spending spree,
Photo by Mark Hallum
which was calculated by the Citizens
Budget Commission, would combine
with the MTA’s current $740 million
deficit to create a more than $1 billion
funding gap within the next four years,
and advocates say Cuomo’s crazy to
hire cops when he could be investing
in the subway.
“Cuomo made this decision,” said
Rebecca Bailin of the Rider’s Alliance.
“He’s using MTA money that should be
going to increasing service, and he’s
using it to police New Yorkers.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio backed police
officers when asked about the churros
incident at a press conference Monday,
calling the vendor’s un-permitted activity
“an emergency,” while claiming
the NYPD has become a more progressive,
community-focused organization
under his administration.
“Sometimes we’re going to have a
situation that’s an emergency, or a situation
where officers have to respond
as best they can under tough circumstances,”
siad de Blasio. “The point to
me is to continue to evolve policing in
a direction that we are closer and closer
to communities, and that’s what we’re
trying to do.”
This isn’t the first time the city’s
faced backlash for cracking down on
unlicensed vendors.
In April, the city will pay $188,000
to 300 vendors, who filed a class action
lawsuit claiming the Department
of Health and Mental Hygiene had confiscated
and destroyed the carts of vendors
after issuing violations for un-permitted
activity.
And another churro vendor wound
up in handcuffs at the Myrtle-Wyckoff
Avenues station on the Ridgewood/
Bushwick border just before the Broadway
Junction rally kicked off Monday,
Bushwick Daily reported.
Silvana Diaz contributed to this
report.
A Brooklyn churro vendor cuffed by police spoke at a rally at Broadway
Junction subway on Monday. The arrest has prompted more
debate about the Governor’s plan to increase police presence in the
subway system.
See ARM on page 11
Brazen dognapping!
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
Some lowlife stole a dog from
outside a Bushwick McDonald’s
on Thursday.
Owner Harrys Leroy tied up
his two dogs outside the fast-food
joint on Broadway near Gates Avenue
at around 10 pm on Nov.
7, only to return a few minutes
later to find one of the pooches,
an American bully named Havoc,
had been snatched, according to
girlfriend Nicole Polsinelli.
The remaining mutt, a pitbull
mix named Rogue, remained outside
the McDonald’s, but she’d
also been untied and the owners
suspect it was the canine’s
guard-dog sensibilities that saved
her from being dognapped along
with her brother, according to
Polsinelli.
“I’m assuming Rogue probably
snapped at him,” she said.
“She’s protective.
Polsinelli claims a manager at
the eatery offered to provide police
a copy of their surveillance
feed, but said she’s already frustrated
with detectives at the 81st
Precinct, who told her they may
have to wait days for a subpoena
to nab the footage.
“I told them my dogs miss-
Havoc was nabbed off the streets of Bushwick on Nov. 7.
Thief makes off with friendly pooch in Bushwick
ing, this is a life not a toy, and
they’re not doing anything,”
Polsinelli said.
A spokeswoman for the Police
Department confirmed that the
dognapping is currently being investigated
as a petty larceny, but
wouldn’t say whether detectives
had attempted to procure the surveillance
footage.
Meanwhile, the couple have
canvased the area posting fliers
and turning to social media looking
for their hapless hound, who
Polsinelli described as short and
stocky, and weighing 85 pounds.
He’s mostly black with a white
chest and snout, and very good
boy.
“Havoc is super friendly,” said
Polsinelli. “Please help us.”
Havoc’s sister Rogue was not
taken, perhaps because she
is more wary of strangers.
An ‘A’ for
expense Medieval fi ghter slashed in face on the L train
Ritzy private
school to open
in Downtown
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
A glitzy new private school is
opening in Downtown Brooklyn
— charging youngsters more than
$45,000 to attend the “first modern
school” in the world, according to
its founder.
“If you really look for a world
class K-through-12 education —
they’re yet to be seen,” said Chris
Whittle. “Our mission is to actually
create the first modern school, and
because it’s very hard to be modern
without being global, to also create
the first global one.”
The Whittle School and Studios
will operate out of 10 floors
above the Macy’s in the Fulton Mall,
where 2,000 students — including
400 boarders — will study a curriculum
that includes Chinese language
classes for preschoolers and features
weekly field trips every Wednesday,
according to Whittle.
The school — which opened two
campuses in Washington D.C, and
A ROUGH KNIGHT
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
Some wacko slashed a modernday
knight in the face aboard an L
train in Williamsburg on Nov. 8,
after the chivalrous straphanger
prevented him from assaulting
another man.
The victim — who dons plate
armor to engage in armed duels
as part of the Society for Creative
Anachronisms and New York City
Armored Combat League — sustained
a seven-inch gash amid the
attack, and said Medieval warfare
has nothing on the city’s transit
system.
“My sport involves swords and
axes, but the only thing I’ve gotten
from that is a torn ACL and
a couple broken bones, and here
I finally get a scar,” said Zorikh
Lequidre.
Lequidre said that he boarded a
Brooklyn-bound L train at Manhattan’s
Union Square subway station
at around 10 pm, when he noticed
the knave repeatedly hurling
a smaller man off the train, and
yelled at him to knock it off.
The villain then started shouting
at the victim, resulting in a
back and forth that ended when
the other man snarled “suck my
dick,” to which Lequidre quipped
The new school will feature large workshop spaces used for independent projects.
another in China last September
— will focus on written assessments
rather than letter grades, and
will encourage students to work in
open-plan “studios,” according to
school honchos.
The spiffy school isn’t cheap, as
preschool tuition will top $48,000
— excluding $1,500 lunch fee —
and older grades may cost thousands
more, according to the
schools Communications Director
Li Jing.
The Brooklyn private school’s
campus is opening its preschool
in fall of 2020 — and its elementary,
middle, and upper schools
will open their doors the following
year, Ling said.
Executives plan to have 30 Whittle
Schools up and running worldwide
within the next 20 years, and
will encourage students to travel
to the different locations for their
studies, school reps said.
But the new Whittle Schools
aren’t the namesake founder’s first
foray into education.
In 1991, Chris Whittle founded
the Edison Schools, a network of
for-profit charter program that he
predicted would open 1,000 campuses
nationwide, but which only
operated 133 schools at its peak
with mixed success, according to
the Washington Post.
Twenty years later, Whittle
founded Avenues: The World
School — another private school
which charges $56,400 a year
— and touted a similar, international
focus at its founding, but
has only managed to open three
locations.
Whittle did not comment on the
differences between the Whittle
School and Avenues, but the Brooklyn
school’s incoming principal said
that the new facility’s language immersion
program sets it apart.
“To be able to start a language
in preschool and lower school, and
have it really be part of your education
process — you’re really going
to graduate with a level of linguistic
fluency and cultural fluency is
really exciting,” said Larry Weiss,
who formerly worked as the principal
at Brooklyn Friends School
and Saint Ann’s.
Still, some may question the
school’s steep price tag, but the
founder said the cost was necessary
to foster the school’s growth
internationally within a short time
frame.
Zorikh Lequidre sustained a seven-inch gash amid an assault
Courtesy Zorikh Lequidre
on the L train in Williamsburg. (Right) Zorikh Lequidre
in armor circa 2017.
“only if it comes with horseradish,”
eliciting some chuckles from
his surrounding straphangers.
The nut then attempted to hock
a loogie at the victim, but managed
to hit another man instead,
according to Lequidre, who said
the hapless bystander’s girlfriend
had to talk him down from fighting
the creep.
It wasn’t until the train pulled
into the Lorimer Street stop in
Williamsburg that things turned
bloody, and the lunatic slashed
Lequidre across the left cheek before
scurrying out the door.
“He took a swipe at me, and
I thought he just scratched my
cheek,” he said. “I waited until
the guy turned around and left,
then I put my hand on my cheek
and realized, oh yeah, I am bleeding.”
Detectives with the 94th Precinct
are investigating the attack,
See SLASH on page 4
The Whittle School
Courtesy Nicole Polsinelli
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