November 22–28, 2019 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 AWP 3
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Wednesday, December 4, 2019
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Dime Community Bank
149 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11249
Learn about SBA Financing
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F E AT U R E D S P E A K E R
Kevin Gallagher
SVP and SBA Lending Group Leader
Dime Community Bank
Dime Community Bank is the best business bank
in New York and a Preferred Lender for SBA.
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Why the ceiling fell
MTA negligence, inspection fl aws led to collapse: Audit
Photo by Eric Chan/Twitter
One commuter suffered a minor injury and refused
medical attention in a partial ceiling collapse at the
Borough Hall station in Brooklyn in 2018.
issued in our 2010 report been
fully implemented, it is likely
that the extensive station damage
and costly repairs could
have been reduced, if not prevented.”
Pokorny’s office found
the MTA inspectors falsely
determined that immediate
repairs were not required at
the Borough Hall station—
despite repeatedly noting its
deteriorating ceiling.
The incompetence and
negligence led the MTA to
spend an “exorbitant” $8.3
million in a likely unnecessary
emergency repair involving
the installation of a temporary
protective shield over
the platform and tracks, according
to the OIG. One commuter
suffered a minor injury
and refused medical attention,
the MTA and FDNY reported
at the time.
The inspections are the
responsibility of the MTA’s
“Maintenance Of Way”
(MOW) engineers. Pokorny’s
office has recommended that
the MTA train those inspectors
to identify and document
unusual construction and materials
during their work; that
those workers should be required
to disclose when they
can’t assess materials and seek
outside consultants when necessary,
among other proposals.
Pokorny’s office said the
IG had urged the MTA to
seek outside consultants for
unusual construction materials
in its 2010 report, but
the authority has been reluctant
to do so. Terra cotta
work is present in 13 of the
MTA’s 472 stations, according
to the IG.
The MTA in its response
agreed with the recommendations.
It said it has begun
working to institute special
procedures for inspecting
special features and new internal
audits will take place
each quarter to make sure
those procedures are being
followed.
“For years the MTA has
been using outside consultants
to perform special structural
inspections and surveys, in
addition to NYC Transit inspections
that occur annually,”
said MTA spokesman Tim inton
in a statement. “When the
century-old Borough Hall station
ceiling proved defective,
engineers assessed the materials
involved, shielding the
structure, until a full rehabilitation
could begin as part of
the new capital plan.”
Brownsville man faces
life for mass shooting
Court Justice Danny Chun
on Monday, where prosecutors
charged him with seconddegree
murder, assault, criminal
possession of a weapon,
and reckless endangerment for
turning a local get-together
into a bloody face-off between
rival groups, according
to District Attorney Eric
The massacre erupted
when Williams allegedly began
fighting with 38-year-old
Jason Pagan at the annual ‘Old
Timers Day’ block party —
where hundreds of community
members gathered in the
Brownsville Playground on
Hegemony Avenue and Sackman
Street on July 27, according
to the authorities.
The defendant then allegedly
drew a gun and executed
Pagan with multiple gunshots
to the head and torso, setting
off a firefight amid the crowds
— during which 11 innocent
people were shot, according
to Gonzalez’s office.
Police cuffed Williams on
Oct. 16 after investigators received
tips from locals, and
multiple eyewitnesses identified
him as the man who
sparked the mass shooting.
The authorities are still
looking for the second shooter,
cops said after Williams’s arrest.
Williams was ordered held
without bail.
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By Vincent Barone
for Brooklyn Paper
Years of negligence and
“serious flaws” in inspection
techniques led to the high-profile,
partial ceiling collapse in
the Brooklyn Borough Hall
station last year, according
to a new audit.
The report issued Tuesday
from the MTA’s inspector
general found that the transit
authority had identified the
defects that led to the collapse
two years earlier, in
2016. But inspectors failed
to grasp the seriousness of
the degradation because of a
lack of expertise in inspecting
the decorative terra cotta
tiles adorning the centuryold
station.
But the MTA had also
been aware for nearly a decade
that it didn’t have the
proper knowledge to assess
those more uncommon subway
fixtures; the inspector
general released two previous
audits on the matter—
once in 2010 and again in
2012—following a similar
collapse of brick ceiling of
the 181st Street station in
Washington Heights.
“It is extremely fortunate
that no one was seriously injured
in the Borough Hall ceiling
collapse last June,” said
MTA Inspector General Carolyn
Pokorny in a statement.
“Had the recommendations
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
An alleged gunman faces
life in prison for igniting a
mass shooting at a Brownsville
community gathering that left
one dead and 11 injured, according
to authorities.
Brownsville resident Kyle
Williams, 20, was arraigned
before Brooklyn Supreme
Our wrap-around
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CARE NYC is supported in part by a grant from the New York State Department of Health
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