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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, AUGUST 23, 2020
The scene of the crash at East 87th Street, which injured 10 occupants
of an MTA bus and four others. Photos by Lloyd Mitchell
BY TODD MAISEL
Three teenagers stole
an SUV and caused a multicar
pileup during a highspeed
chase in Canarsie,
leaving 14 people injured
on the evening of Aug. 13,
according to police.
The alleged teen carjackers
took the Toyota
Highlander near East
Flatbush, before spinning
through Brooklyn’s street
— causing police to briefl y
give chase, before peeling
off at around 6 pm to avoid
involvement in a potential
collision.
Minutes later the teens
ran a stop sign at E. 87th
Street and Avenue M in
Canarsie, striking an MTA
bus — which was then
forced into oncoming traffi
c, where it collided with
a westbound BMW SUV,
causing both vehicles to
end up on the sidewalk, according
to police.
The three teens, the female
driver of BMW, nine
bus passengers, and the
bus driver all sustained
non-life-threatening injuries
in the crash, police
said.
“The fi refi ghters were
working to cut the woman
out of the BMW,” said Kim
Stevens, a Canarsie resident.
“It is a miracle she
survived.”
Police arrested the
16-year-old driver and a
17-year-old passenger of
the ill-gotten Toyota on a
slew of charges, including
grand larceny, reckless
endangerment, fl eeing an
offi cer in a motor vehicle,
and unlawful possession
of marijuana
One E. 87th Street resident
recalled the screeching
noise disrupting the
otherwise calm neighborhood,
and the carnage of
the crash’s aftermath.
“I was in my house,
and I heard a loud bang,”
said William Samuels.
“I came out and I see the
bus and the BMW leaning
against a brick wall of the
house and people were
screaming.”
Greening up Gowanus
A conceptual rendering of a park at Public Place in Gowanus. Justin Gallagher
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
They want to put the
green in Gowanus Green!
A group of Gowanus open
space advocates are pushing
to halt the city’s plans to
build a mixed-use affordable
housing development on a
polluted brownfi eld site next
to the noxious canal, saying
city builders should turn
the six-acre lot into a park
instead.
“I think there’s a big
push to densify and I think,
if we’ve learned anything
from COVID, we need to
think about how we build
our cities and how we focus
on open space,” said Mac
Thayer, who lives across
the street from the site near
Smith and Fifth streets.
Thayer co-founded the
group Gowanus Lands with
fellow local Corey Smith,
and the duo recently released
renderings for their
proposed park that would be
constructed in place of the
government’s current plans
— which call for a 950 unit
housing complex dubbed
Gowanus Green that would
be erected after state environmental
honchos are
overseeing a cleanup of the
toxic site.
Their aspirational illustration
shows the canalfront
space covered in fi elds
of grass sloping toward the
water, with trees, winding
paths, benches, and park goers
milling about on the oasis
abutting Brooklyn’s Nautical
Purgatory.
“The renderings are really
more of a fi rst concept,
we’re just trying to spark
people’s imagination and
give them a sense of what it
could be,” Thayer said. “People
have suggested dog runs,
farming, or community
gardens — we’ve had one
person suggest an aboveground
pool.”
The city has been eager to
develop the publicly-owned
lot — which used to house
a gas works plant until the
1960s — since the Michael
Bloomberg administration,
most recently relaunching
the project as part of the impending
neighborhood-wide
rezoning late last year.
The gas company that operated
the plant years ago
was consumed by modernday
National Grid, and in
2019, the utility company
was tasked with a two-year
state-supervised cleanup of
the soil to get toxic coal tar
out of the ground in an effort
to make the place safe to live
on.
The proposed joint
scheme by the departments
of Housing and Preservation
and City Planning would add
some 2,000 residents to the
area, housed in 100 percent
sub-market-rate apartments
varying in height between
nine and 28 stories tall next
to brownstone Carroll Gardens
— one of the priciest
nabes in the borough.
Thayer, however, said
he’s collected more than 700
signatures for the city to
consider the park plan as an
alternative.
Spokespeople from both
city agencies noted that offi -
cials have crafted their plan
for the site and the larger
neighborhood rezoning after
years of input by residents
and that the schemes
address a diverse set of local
needs.
“Affordable housing and
open space are two essential
aspects of the Gowanus
Neighborhood Plan,” said
DCP spokesman Joe Marvilli
in a statement.
Thayer said Gowanus
Lands is not steadfast
against housing development
on the site, but he
wanted to add the group’s
proposals to the many city
and advocacy organizations
that have been hashing out
what to do with the space
over the years.
“Our group is certainly
not against development,”
he said. “We are seeking to
respectfully add our voice
to the conversation in accordance
with the public process.”
Stolen SUV causes
multi-car pileup in
Canarsie, 14 injured
Gowanus locals release renderings for proposed park,
countering city’s affordable housing plan