3
JULY 12, 2020, BROOKLYN WEEKLY
Willie Paredes, one of the owners of Brooklyn Tattoo on Smith Street. Photo by Kevin Duggan
BK tattoo parlors face uncertain future as
they reopen with limited capacity
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Tattoo parlors across Brooklyn
began inking up customers once
more as the city entered the third
phase of reopening on July 6 — fi -
nally giving a much-needed lifeline
to struggling businesses ravaged
from months of closures due to the
coronavirus pandemic.
“It was one of the worst things,
to have to close your shop and pay
rent,” said Leonardo Torres, the
owner of Torres Tattoos in Greenwood
Heights. “But thank God we’re
able to open again and it looks like
we’re going to be able to get back on
track.”
The city and state permitted tattoo
parlors and nail salons, which
had been closed since March, to reopen
across the Five Boroughs, provided
they adhere to several city
and state guidelines — including
limiting their shops to 50 percent
capacity, requiring all patrons wear
masks, and regularly disinfecting
work stations.
Those businesses now join other
so-called personal care services,
like hair salons and barber shops,
that were reopened during Phase 2
on June 22.
Tattoo artists are well-accustomed
to wearing protective gear,
which they’d regularly don since before
the bug to avoid infections from
other diseases like hepatitis and
HIV while working with needles
— but now they must ask their customers
to follow similar safety measures
too, according to one Carroll
Gardens ink smith.
“A lot of the stuff we had in place
just for ourselves, ironically, now
we have them for our clients,” said
Willie Paredes, one of the owners of
Brooklyn Tattoo on Smith Street.
“Hand sanitizing and wearing
masks has been something for us
for a while.”
Paredes and his business partner
Adam Suerte have yet to actually
start tattooing customers
again, as they continue the process
of rearranging the interior layout of
their business to make sure everyone
has adequate space to socially
distance.
“The biggest thing is that we
make sure we don’t open before
we’re ready,” he said. “We’ve had to
keep people at bay a bit.”
The tattoo artist said the majority
of customers were left hanging
in March, with appointments and
tattoos that were halfway done, but
he said he’s not taking any chances
as he starts resuming service by appointment
only, which the state recommends.
“We assume everyone walking
through the door has COVID-19,”
he said.
Paredes posted a sign at his front
door informing customers that
they’ll only be allowed to enter at
their time of appointments, and that
they won’t be allowed to bring any
friends inside during the ink sessions.
“Normally we would allow one
guest with the client — that’s pretty
much gone,” he said.
Torres has implemented similar
policies and also has a batch of prebooked
sessions that he had to postpone
due to the coronavirus, but lamented
that business will be slower
to start due to the new restrictions.
“Probably we’ll lose a little bit
more money, because we’re working
with appointments only,” he
said.
The past and future loss of revenue
hits hard for the manager of one
Prospect Lefferts Gardens tattoo
shop, who worried that they won’t
make enough money to pay back
rent they still owe from the months
of closure — and added that many
customers are suffering fi nancial
distress due to COVID-19, and won’t
be able to afford tattoos for the time
being.
“Customers said they have to
wait because they don’t have a job,”
said Alex Juarez, who runs The
Catrina Ink on Flatbush Avenue.
“We’re not going to be able to pay the
rent that we owe. I tried to talk with
the landlord but they don’t help.”
B’Bridge Park opens
new space at Pier 2
Pier 2 Uplands opened at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Alexa Hoyer
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Greenspace gurus at
Brooklyn Bridge Park opened
a freshly-minted lawn adjacent
to Pier 2 on July 6 — adding
new, hilly parkland to
Brooklyn’s front yard.
“10 years after opening the
fi rst section of the park, we
are incredibly excited to today
open the Pier 2 Uplands, now
one step closer to fi nishing
Brooklyn Bridge Park as originally
designed,” said Brooklyn
Bridge Park Corporation
president Eric Landau in a
statement.
The more than 3-acre
space next to Pier 2 marks the
second-t0-last section of the
sprawling waterfront redevelopment,
according to Landau,
who lauded the opening as a
way for locals to enjoy the outdoors
amid COVID-19.
“Parks have always been
essential, but during this
time, open space is more critical
than ever,” he said.
The section’s development
cost $17 million and includes
a 6,300 square foot lawn, 1,300
new trees and shrubs, a soundattenuating
berm, and a play
area with water sprinklers,
according to offi cials.
At the park’s perimeter, the
non-profi t Brooklyn Bridge
Park Corporation, which oversees
the park, built a sloping
grassy mound of earth that
will reduce noise coming from
the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
and Furman Street, as
well as camoufl age the area’s
existing maintenance building.
Last summer, parks gurus
removed 10 parking spaces
along Furman Street, replacing
them with fi ve spaces for
bus layover parking for school
trips and an expanded Citi
Bike dock, while adding a new
parking lot near Pier 2.
Locals lauded Brooklyn
Bridge Park leaders for including
their wishes into a revised
design of the park in 2017, after
resident watchdogs asked for
the stone seating to be removable
so that park-goers could
sled down the hill come wintertime
and for planners to include
the bus drop off, so that
the people-movers wouldn’t
clog the busy streets.
Pier 2 Uplands is the penultimate
section of the morethan
a-decade redevelopment
of the former industrial waterfront
into a 1.3 mile long, 85
acre park, which the corporation
broke ground for in 2008.
For the fi nal stretch, the
organization plans to install a
pedestrian plaza beneath the
Brooklyn Bridge, which the
city’s Landmarks Preservation
Commission approved on
May 19, and which is slated to
start construction in the fall
with completion scheduled for
December 2021.
Locals have pushed for
that fi nal section, currently
dubbed “Brooklyn Bridge
Plaza,” to be renamed after
Emily Roebling, who oversaw
the completion of the borough’s
iconic span in the 19th
century. Landau has previously
said he is supportive
of that renaming, but would
want to do it through Mayor
Bill de Blasio’s offi ce ahead of
the square’s opening.
Nearby, Brooklyn Bridge
Park also opened a rebuilt
metal Squibb Bridge on May
4 leading from Brooklyn
Heights to the park’s Pier 1.
ON PINS AND NEEDLES