‘HE WAS LARGER THAN LIFE’
Brooklyn mourns death of Grand Prospect Hall owner Michael Halkias
BY ROSE ADAMS
The owner of the iconic
Park Slope events venue
Grand Prospect Hall, Michael
Halkias, died from COVID-19
on May 6. He was 82.
Halkias’ death sent shockwaves
throughout Brooklyn,
where community leaders and
friends remember him as a passionate,
generous fi gure.
“He was a Brooklyn character
for sure in the best sort of
way,” said Randy Peers, president
and CEO of the Brooklyn
Chamber of Commerce. “He
was larger than life.”
Halkias and his wife Alice
bought Grand Prospect Hall
in 1984 and turned the extravagant
Prospect Avenue building
into an opulent catering hall.
The space became a New York
icon because of its long-running,
popular commercials,
where Alice Halkias declares
in a Greek accent, “We make
your dreams come true!”
Saturday Night Live spoofed
the famous commercial in February
of 2019, and the pair appeared
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on Jimmy Kimmel Live
in October to remake the ad
with Mets player Pete Alonso.
Grand Prospect Hall, a Victorian
banquet hall built in
1892, attracted big names such
as dancer Fred Astaire and mafi
oso Al Capone during its heyday
in the early 20th century
— and boasted some of the borough’s
oldest treasures, such
as Brooklyn’s fi rst reported elevator,
which functions to this
day. But by the 1980s, the landmarked
building had fallen
into disrepair: its walls had
been painted black, molding
had been stripped off the walls,
and the chandeliers were gone,
Halkias told Brooklyn Paper
in 2004.
The couple spent 20 years
restoring the sprawling, 12-
room banquet hall to its former
grandeur, Halkias said. Now,
the venue has been featured in
movies including Wes Anderson’s
“The Royal Tenenbaums”
and Francis Ford Coppola’s
“Cotton Club,” and continues
to host countless weddings,
music festivals, and events.
They also maintained deep
roots within the community,
hosting dozens of community
events each year, according to
local business leaders.
“He was always a pleasure
to work with. He made our
dreams come true,” said Mark
Caserta, the head of the Park
Slope Business Improvement
District, which has hosted its
annual food event “Taste of
Fifth” at the venue for seven
years.
Peers, the former community
board chair in Sunset
Park, said the the couple
wouldn’t charge the community
group for hosting meetings
or public hearings at the
space.
“He would always open the
doors to Grand Prospect Hall
to us for whatever we needed.
He never charged us for those
types of events,” he said, noting
also that Alice and Michael
made a great team. “She kept
him very balanced. He’d want
to give everything away and
she would say, ‘Wait a minute!'”
Brooklynites will remember
Halkias for his sense of
humor and generosity, Peers
added.
“He had a heart of gold,” he
said.
Michael Halkias, the owner of Grand Prospect Hall, died on May 6 from
coronavirus. File photo
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Making Sense of the Census
Texting
Counts
By Julie Menin, Director of NYC Census
2020
In December of last year, NYC Census
2020 launched the City’s first-ever
community awards program focused on
census-related education and organizing,
the Complete Count Fund. The more
than 150 awardees serve all 245 New York
City neighborhoods in more than 80 languages.
As New Yorkers continue to shelter in
place, Complete Count Fund awardees have
had to find new ways to conduct outreach.
To that end, NYC Census 2020 has partnered
with Complete Count Fund awardees
to launch a brand new digital organizing
campaign across messaging apps like
WhatsApp, WeChat, KakaoTalk, and Viber
to help spread the word about the 2020 Census.
The campaign is based around 15 new
group chats housed on these platforms,
each designed for a different New York immigrant
and language community, from
Russian to Korean to Urdu and beyond.
These apps often serve as the primary way
community members speak to each other,
especially as they are social distancing.
Each group will act as a hub where trusted
community leaders can share key census
information and resources that other volunteers
can use to help get out the count
across their own networks.
It’s no secret that many of the communities
suffering most from COVID-19 include
immigrants and people whose first
language is not English. And as we at NYC
Census 2020 know, these same communities
tend to suffer some of the worst undercounts
in the census, which results in
them getting far less than their fair share
of funding for important public resources
like hospitals and emergency services.
These communities desperately need a
complete count to get the resources they deserve.
And to reach a complete count, New
Yorkers need ways to share information
from trusted sources and encourage their
friends, families, and neighbors to participate
in the 2020 Census.
Many New Yorkers have already been
doing similar work forming local mutual
aid groups and other groups to share information
and resources as we fight COVID-19,
but language barriers can leave many behind.
We welcome all who speak one of the
over 200 languages spoken in New York
City to join our efforts by joining a WhatsApp
group at nyc.gov/census.
Fill out the census now at my2020census.
gov.
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