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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2019
BY CHANDLER KIDD
Community members donated
time and resources to
refurbish a memorial bench
in Marine Park honoring a
young man who died there
following a desperate search
in 2015.
Vandals had defaced the
tribute to late Marine Park
resident Brian Gewirtz,
scrawling “penis” and
other slogans across the
memorial bench, while the
Parks Department failed
to live up to promises to
maintain the bench, leaving
it up to kind-hearted
locals to clean the mess,
according to Gewirtz’s
mother.
“We put $2,500 into his
memorial bench and Parks
was supposed to keep up
with it, but it was the community
who got together
and helped clean it up,” said
Kathleen Lunz-Gewirtz.
Kathleen Lunz-Gewirtz
and her husband Steven
Gewirtz worked with local
elected offi cials and the city
to install the bench near
the park’s Salt Marsh Nature
Center off Avenue U in
tribute to their 20-year-old
son — an Eagle Scout, who
suffered autism and schizophrenia.
Brian Gewirtz vanished
into the park in 2015,
only to be f ound dead in the
Marine Park Golf Course
following a harrowing 44-
day search that February.
To honor Gewirtz, along
with the park he cherished,
his parents purchased the
bench shortly after the
discovery of his body, and
Parks workers installed it
that summer on the promise
that the agency would
maintain the memorial for
the next decade.
However, Lunz-Gewirtz
was devastated to discover
the city failed to live up to
its obligation, after locals
posted images on Facebook
of the desecrated bench earlier
this month.
“I was hysterically crying,”
said Lunz-Gewirtz. “It
brought me right back to his
death. It was like him dying
all over again.”
But the Facebook post
didn’t merely rile the
Gewirtz family, and locals
including Michael Carlin,
Vincent Pietrafesa, and
Lauren Belen met Steven
Gewirtz the following day,
when they repainted the
bench, trimmed the overgrown
hedges surrounding
it, and placed pumpkins as
decoration around the memorial.
“We were going to contact
the Parks Department,
but before we had a chance
the neighborhood stepped
up,” said Lunz-Gewirtz. “It’s
good we come from a good
community that cares about
these things.”
The Parks Department
praised the do-gooders for
rehabilitating the bench,
but declined to comment
regarding why the agency
didn’t fi x it.
“We always welcome
community support in keeping
our green spaces beautiful.
We sincerely thank
the community members
who rallied together to repaint
the bench dedicated
in honor to Brian Gewirtz,”
said Anessa Hodgson, a
spokeswoman for the Parks
Department.
In addition to the memorial
bench and his loving
family, Gewirtz’s memory
lives on in the Brian
Gewirtz Memorial Foundation
, which celebrates the
late Brooklynite’s life and
helps support causes he was
passionate about in life, including
the Boy Scouts of
America and funding camping
trips for children with
disabilities.
Community members donated
time and resources to
refurbish a memorial bench
in Marine Park honoring a
young man who died there
following a desperate search
in 2015.
Coney school gets
smart new look
BY ROSE ADAMS
A Coney Island elementary
school wrecked by
Superstorm Sandy will
benefi t from new science
and art facilities as part
of a $2.5-million renovation
of the grade school,
Councilman Mark Treyger
(D–Coney Island) announced
Friday.
PS 188 Michael Berdy
School — located on Neptune
Avenue between W.
33rd and W. 35th streets —
is getting an engineering
and robotics lab, a visual
arts room, a library, and a
new science room as part
of capital project, which
authorities claim will be
completed by spring of
2020, Treyger said.
The council funds will
also pay for a new digital
media lab, build a music
room with sound-proof
walls, and upgrade the
auditorium, adding new
air conditioning, lighting,
and audio technology
to the theater. Among the
school’s most cutting-edge
additions is its new hydroponic
lab — a room where
students learn to grow
plants in tubes, and can
take their veggies home,
according to the lab’s creator.
“They will engage
in project-based systems
learning, and at
the same time enjoy delicious
fresh produce that
they can taste and take
home to share with their
families,” said Manuela
Zamora, the executive director
of NY Sun Works,
a non-profi t installing
the lab.
The pre-kindergarten
through fi fth-grade school
will begin offering afterschool
music and arts
classes thanks to another
grant Treyger secured for
the school, and Council
will fund new in-school
counseling, health and
wellness services, and
therapeutic programming
— such as art classes for
kids who have experienced
trauma.
The renovations mark
a milestone for the elementary
school, which
sustained serious fl ooding
damage in the 2012
superstorm, destroying
the school’s boiler and
forcing classes to temporarily
relocate. Councilman
Treyger criticized
authorities as slow to install
a new permanent
boiler, making students
and teachers sit through
extreme temperatures after
a temporary climatecontrol
system went haywire
.
“It had a tremendous
impact on instruction
and learning,” Treyger
said,
Authorities only installed
a functional boiler
only in 2017, the Brooklyn
Eagle reported .
Treyger and Speaker
Corey Johnson secured
funding for the upcoming
renovations from the
2020 City Council budget,
and Treyger obtained a
Council community arts
engagement grant to
fund the new after-school
classes.
Before and after shots of a memorial bench defaced in Marine Park that locals repaired earlier this month. Photo by Michael Carlin
BRAND NEW: Councilman Mark Treyger announced the $2.5-
million renovations at PS 188, which will revamp the school’s
science and art facilities. Photo by Trey Pentecost
Good Samaritans fi x Marine Park memorial