August 30, 2020 Your Neighborhood — Your News®
Month xx–xx, 2019
LOCAL
CLASSIFIEDS
PAG E 11
City planner
pushes Gowanus
rezoning before
de Blasio leaves
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Department of City Planning
director Marisa Lago will push
to complete the vast Gowanus rezoning
before Mayor Bill de Blasio
leaves offi ce and elections shake
up the City Council.
“There is so much potential in
Gowanus for creation of housing
and a signifi cant amount of affordable
housing, for job generation, for
improvements to the public realm,
for enhancements to transit, it can
be a win all around,” Lago told the
head of the New York Building
Congress Carlo Scissura on his
virtual interview series “Espresso
with Carlo.”
With de Blasio leaving offi ce at
the beginning of 2022, and 51 of 55
Council members term-limited out
of reelection in 2021, the sprawling
rezoning faces an uncertain future
— but Lago said she “would hope”
to complete the roughly sevenmonth
Uniform Land Use Review
Procedure for the project before a
new mayor is sworn in.
The planning honcho said that
DCP is currently fi nalizing an environmental
review necessary for
the lengthy public process, but did
not provide a specifi c date for when
the procedure will formally start.
Sinkhole swallows cement truck
BY KEVIN DUGGAN &
TODD MAISEL
A cement truck plunged into a
sinkhole on Livingston Street in
Downtown Brooklyn Aug. 24.
The 80,000 pound truck sank
into the Flatbush Avenue-bound
bus lane near Bond Street just after
1 pm on Aug. 24, but luckily no
injuries were reported, according
to an FDNY spokesman.
The truck, owned by East Williamsburg
fi rm U.S. Concrete, hit a
plate in the road covering a trench
for the installation of sewer pipes.
Firefi ghters rushed to the
scene of the submersion shortly afterward
and were still working to
get the truck out of the hole on the
east-bound red painted lane of the
roadway at 4:45 pm, according to
the spokesman.
The fi rst responders notifi ed
utility companies including National
Grid to secure underground
gas lines that were imperiled by the
collapse. Offi cials for the Department
of Environmental Protection
were also on the scene because of
the sewer lines being replaced.
LOVE ON
THE CANAL
Man proposes on Gowanus boat
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A Gowanus couple got engaged
while canoeing on the neighborhood’s
namesake canal on Aug.
22. Jamison Pence proposed to
his girlfriend of three-and-a-half
years Emma Borochoff while they
were paddling near the Carroll
Street Bridge on Aug. 22, and the
groom-to-be said he chose Brooklyn’s
Nautical Purgatory because
of their shared love for the neighborhood.
“Gowanus is really ingrained
into our relationship,” Pence said.
“We’ve lived in Gowanus for two
years now and we walk past the canal
every single day.”
The lovebirds wanted to boat
the notoriously toxic channel for a
while, and the dirty waters were a
great setting, despite its pollution,
according to Borochoff.
“It was unique and special and
totally weird, so it was great,” she
said.
Pence organized the stunt a few
weeks in advance with help from
the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe
Club, whose captains assigned boat
club photographer Nicole Vergalla
to capture the joyous moment.
“I felt like doing it on the Carroll
Street bridge would have been
too easy, so I wanted to add a bit of
a challenge,” Pence said.
The Dredgers gave the couple a
silver-colored boat to distinguish
them from the other red vessels on
the canal that afternoon, so Vergalla
knew who to look out for.
Once they approached the
bridge, a group of friends on the
span distracted Borochoff, while
Pence snuck up from behind and
got down on one knee to ask her the
all-important question.
“Then I saw Jamie out on the
knee, I was surprised, I had no
idea,” she said.
The couple plan to get married
in their native Maryland, but
Pence said he was glad to share the
moment with his friends and the
neighborhood.
“It was great that we were able
to share that moment with more
people,” he said.
Jamison Pence proposed to Emma Borochoff while in a canoe on the noxious
Gowanus Canal on Aug. 22. Nicole Vergalla
A truck fell into a trench on Livingston and Bond streets. Photo by Todd Maisel
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