February 9, 2020 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
Month xx–xx, 2019
LOCAL
CLASSIFIEDS
PAG E 15
Anthony Ceretti points to the nearly 20-foot sand dune behind his mother-in-law’s Sea Gate house. Photo by Derrick Waterson
‘It’s like Lawrence of Arabia’
Massive wall of sand built up along Coney Island shoreline
BY ROSE ADAMS
A decades-long scheme to
shore up the southern Brooklyn
coast has resulted in a massive
wall of sand that’s built
up along the tip of the Coney
Island peninsula — causing
property damage, health problems,
drainage issues, and eye
sores, according to locals.
“It’s like Lawrence of Arabia
out there,” said Anthony Ceretti,
whose mother-in-law has
lived for decades in Sea Gate, a
gated community on the western
tip of the peninsula. “We
get hundreds of pounds of sand
on our deck each year.”
The first major fortification
project came in the mid-
1900s when the US Army
Corps of Engineers extended
a rock-based substance called
a terminal groin and added
35,000 cubic yards of sand to
the ocean side of the peninsula
in an effort to prevent future
erosion.
Over time, however, tidal
patterns shifted much of the
sand to the side of the peninsula
opposite the boardwalk —
which led to the creation of a
beach surrounding the northern
shore of Coney Island and
Sea Gate, according to one
longtime civic leader.
“There was never a beach
on the bayside of the peninsula,”
said environmentalist
Ida Sanoff, who formerly lived
in Sea Gate by Gravesend Bay.
“At low tide, we used to get
Continued on page 14
Brook-Crazy!
Scandal-scarred pol
considers comeback
BY ROSE ADAMS
A former Brooklyn assemblyman
who was accused of conspiracy
and health care fraud is eyeing
a political comeback and is busy
gauging his support for a potential
City Council or Borough President
run in 2021, insiders claim.
Alec Brook-Krasny — a former
Assemblyman in Bay Ridge, Dyker
Heights and Coney Island — has
been calling local leaders to guage
support for a possible Borough
Hall or in Council run,, sources
claimed.
“He gave me a couple of ideas
and asked me what I think about
it,” said a civic leader in southern
Brooklyn, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity.
Brook-Krasny vacated his Assembly
seat in 2015 to become the
chief fi nancial offi cer at a Sheepshead
Bay laboratory clinic, the
Post reported. Two years later,
prosecutors arrested Brook-
Krasny and 13 others for their
connection to a drug scam that allegedly
defrauded Medicare and
Medicaid and sold more than 6.3
million pill prescriptions to patients,
who then hawked the drugs
on the black market.
Prosecutors claimed that the
leader of the scheme directed patients
to Brook-Krasny’s clinic,
where he allegedly scrubbed evidence
of alcohol consumption from
the tests, allowing the pill-pushing
ringleader to prescribe opioids to
heavy drinkers despite the health
risks.
In September, Judge Maxwell
Wiley declared a mistrial on three
counts of bribery, and a jury acquitted
Brook-Krasny of his conspiracy
and fraud charges, the
Brooklyn Eagle reported.
Despite his recent legal troubles,
Brook-Krasny admitted that a
run for offi ce may be in the cards,
although he would not specify
which offi ce he’d prefer.
“I’m considering it,” he said,
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