16
COURIER LIFE, SEPTEMBER 22, 2019
‘We’re all at great risk’ ‘Sopranos’ actor calls on
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
You try to get out, but they
reel you back in!
An actor from the
iconic HBO mob drama
“Sopranos” demanded
Brooklyn Bridge Park
stop holding all-ages fi shing
workshops, saying
they’re teaching kids to
torture animals — for
fun!
“Most children have a
natural empathy for animals,
and that kindness
should be nurtured, not
undermined by teaching
kids that it’s okay to hook
fi sh and yank them out
of their natural environment
for ‘fun,’” Edie Falco
— a Brooklyn native who
played Carmela, the wife
of fi ctional New Jersey
mob boss Tony Soprano
— wrote in a letter on behalf
of the animal rights
group People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals
to the semi-private corporation
in charge of the
waterfront green space.
“May I hear that you’ll
make this year’s clinics
the last?”
The park organization’s
partner group in
charge of programming,
the Brooklyn Bridge Park
Conservancy, debuted the
six workshops in May,
where experts and marine
biologists teach budding
anglers young and
old the basics of line fi shing
from Pier 5.
But the thespian said
that the fi sh can suffer
permanent damage
or even die from being
pulled out of their natural
habitat by a hook through
their mouths.
“Fish who are handled
by humans can suffer
from the loss of their
protective scale coating,
making them vulnerable
to disease, and one study
found that the injuries
caused to their mouths
after they’re hooked can
impair their ability to
eat,” Falco said. Instead,
Brooklyn Bridge Park
should teach kids about
caring for the environment
by “trash fi shing,”
a practice of fi shing garbage
out of the water that
Actor Edie Falco
Taylor Jewell/AP
a father and son devised
in Detroit, Michigan,
which the animal rights
activist group honored.
“‘Trash fi shing’ could
be an educational and
helpful alternative to
your clinics that would
show children how to be
good stewards of the environment,”
she wrote.
The corporation’s
chief shot back at the actor
activist saying that
the program’s expert fi shers
handle the marine life
with care by using barbless
hooks, which cause
less damage to the animals
before they are released
back into the East
River.
“I do not believe we
teach kids to harm fi sh,
we teach them to fi sh respectfully
and responsibly,”
said BBP President
Eric Landau.
Landau said that the
animal rights activists
had reached out to him
last month with a letter,
which he responded to, before
they got the high-profi
le performer on board to
vouch for their cause.
The honcho noted that
catch-and-release fi shing
was a common practice
in parks across the Five
Boroughs, adding that
the Conservancy’s program
has been a success
and that he would green
light it if they ask to run
it again next year.
“I can’t speak to
whether the Conservancy
is going to do it again, but
we felt it was a positive
and successful program
and if the Conservancy
did want to do it again, I
would not deny them from
doing that,” Landau said
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
AND JOE HITI
Call it a Grand failure.
Cyclists are calling a
more than mile-long stretch
of protected bike lanes spanning
Grand Street in Williamsburg
an unmitigated
disaster, slamming transit
offi cials for using plastic
fl aps in lieu of solid concrete
barriers, which permit
illegally parked cars to
force riders into traffi c.
“If this is their response
to mounting cyclist and pedestrian
fatalities in the
city then we’re all at great
risk,” said cyclist Philip
Leff. “I’m incredibly disappointed
by DOT’s execution
of that bike lane.”
The bike lanes — which
will stretch between Rodney
Street and the Grand
Street Bridge when they’re
completed later this month
— eschew permanent concrete
barriers, or medians,
and instead employ a combination
of cheaper safety
devices, including using a
row of parked cars to separate
drivers from cyclists,
and installing painted buffers
and plastic fl oppy bollards
the agency calls “delineators.”
These light, plastic fl aps
are designed to bend when
struck by a vehicle, and
provide no barrier to the
scoffl aw motorists who routinely
park their cars in the
bike lanes, according to one
frequent rider.
“People that have experience
riding are used to
it, but people that don’t are
getting hurt,” said Israel, a
Bushwick resident and bike
messenger, who declined to
provide his last name.
During a recent midmorning
survey, dogged
Brooklyn Paper intern Joe
Hiti encountered rampant
obstructions on both eastbound
and westbound bike
lanes, including eight illegally
parked cars, several
delivery and box trucks,
welders sawing off the back
of a pickup truck, mechanics
changing tires, and delivery
men unloading refrigerators.
A trailer serving as a
temporary construction
Trucks and cars block a section of the bike lane between Catherine Street and Morgan Avenue that
transit offi cials plan to repaint green and add fl appy plastic delineators to. Photo by Joe Hiti
offi ce was placed smack in
the bike lane opposite Catherine
Street, where the
green paint comes to a sudden
halt and spray-painted
arrows and orange traffi
c barriers divert cyclists
around the structure —
and right into a row of vans
at the entrance of a nearby
auto shop.
A delivery man for FedEx
said he was forced to
park his truck in the bike
lane during stops, because
the new loading zones were
taken up by illegally parked
private vehicles.
“Even though we have
commercial spots to park
in, residents are still parking
there,” said the delivery
guy. “It takes no more
than three minutes for me
to make deliveries — but I
can’t park anywhere.”
Hiti also discovered several
fl oppy bollards lying
broken on the road, demonstrating
just how well they
stand up to a two-and-a-halfton
vehicle.
In response to the complaints,
a spokeswoman for
the Department of Transportation
said the agency
will continue to augment
the bike lanes with additional
safety measures in
the coming months.
“We are currently in
the process of fi nishing all
touch ups, including reinstalling
delineators where
necessary, and expect this
work to wrap up by the end
of this month,” said Lolita
Avila. “We are also looking
for locations where we can
add additional protection to
prevent vehicles from parking
in the bike lane, this
work will continue through
the fall.”
But fi xing a few sheets
of fl imsy plastic remains a
poor excuse for a protected
bike lane, according to Leff,
who said if the agency really
wanted to protect cyclists,
it would start over and use
materials that work.
“The worldwide gold
standard is some kind of
concrete curb that’s impossible
to drive over,” Leff
said. “Any strategy that
relies only on tickets and
enforcement won’t work
— there should be physical
structure to discourage
that behavior.”
Brooklyn Bridge Park to
Cyclists blast Williamsburg’s Grand Street bike lane halt fi shing workshops