INSIDE
WWW.BROOKLYNPDAPILEYR.C.COOMM 1 METROTECH CENTER NORTH • 10TH FLOOR • BROOKLYN, NY 11201
Slow going: Roger, a two-yearold
two-toed sloth, is one of the 21
animals featured in the “Survival of
the Slowest” exhibit opening at the
Brooklyn Children’s Museum on Oct. 26.
The Brooklyn Children’s Museum
Snooze fest!
See sloths and other sleepy animals at new exhibit
By Rose Adams Slow down, you move too
Brooklynites who
need to make the morning last
can take a lesson from a new
exhibit coming to the Brooklyn
Children’s Museum on Oct. 26.
“Survival of the Slowest ” will
feature about two dozen slowmoving
creatures who have
turned their lack of get-up-andgo
into a virtue — including a
creature named for the laziest
of the Seven Deadly Sins: the
sloth!
A two-year-old, two-toed
sloth named Roger will live at the
museum during the three-monthlong
exhibit, and professionals
will remove him from his case
three times a day to demonstrate
his extraordinary slow-moving
abilities, which, according to
a staffer at the museum, are
remarkable.
“He sleeps about 16 hours per
day,” said Winston Williams.
“They’re just unbelievably slow.
They move about 40 meters in a
day. It would take them 45 days to
cross the Brooklyn Bridge.”
The exhibit will feature plenty
of other sleepy animals, including
an iguana named Lizarnardo
DaVinci, a chameleon named
Chamuel L. Jackson, and two
tarantulas named Fuzz Lightyear
and Spinderella — along with
a handful of other, equally
amusingly named chilled-out
critters, including tortoises,
hedgehogs, and snakes. The
animals will be displayed in 19
distinct glass habitats, much like
they are in zoos, and youngsters
will be able to observe them
up close during multiple daily
demonstrations.
The museum will explore how
these animals work their extreme
slowness to their advantage, said
Williams.
“The exhibit kind of explores
how all these animals who you
wouldn’t necessarily choose to
evolve as, who are slow, how some
of them have taken advantage of
that,” Williams said.
Sloths, for example, blend
into their environment and only
have to consume a few hundred
calories a day — and sometimes,
the lazy mammals move so
gradually that food comes to
them.
“Algae grows on the sloth
because they’re so slow, they lick
it, and it produces fats,” Williams
said.
The exhibit, produced in
collaboration with an animal
education center in Canada called
Little Ray’s Nature Centres,
is the first of its kind in the
United States, although it made
its Canadian debut in 2018.
The exhibit will offer Brooklyn
children a rare opportunity to see
exotic animals in the flesh, said
Williams.
“We’re really excited about
the exhibit,” he said. “It’s going to
be many people’s first experience
with these animals up close.”
“Survival of the Slowest” at
the Brooklyn Children’s Museum
145 Brooklyn Ave. between St.
Mark’s Avenue and Prospect
Place in Crown Heights, (718)
735–4400. www.brooklynkids.
org. Oct. 26–Feb. 2. Open Tue,
Wed, Fri, 10 am–5 pm; Thu, 10
am–6 pm; Sat–Sun, 10 am–7 pm.
$13.
Your entertainment
guide Page 39
fast!
Police Blotter ..........................8
Education .............................. 35
Opinion ...................................30
Letters ..................................... 31
Standing O ............................33
HOW TO REACH US
COURIER L 2 IFE, OCT. 25-31, 2019
Rail pie in the sky
MTA eyeing billion-dollar passenger train through southern Brooklyn
BY ROSE ADAMS
Transit honchos are considering
a new billion-dollar passenger
train that would run
through southern Brooklyn,
Queens, and the Bronx in an
effort to better serve the transit
starved outer-boroughs, authorities
announced on Oct. 15.
“Over the last 15 years, over
half of job growth has been in
the outer-boroughs,” said Maulin
Mehta, a senior associate at
the Regional Plan Association,
which fi rst proposed the commuter
rail in 1996. “But right
now, a lot of the train service is
very Manhattan-centric.”
The Metropolitan Transportation
Authority will test
the feasibility of retrofi tting a
series of pre-existing freight
lines for use ferrying commuters,
offering crosstown service
from the Brooklyn Army Terminal
in Sunset Park to East
New York, before veering north
parallel to the L line through
Brownsville and Bushwick,
and on to distant Queens and
the Bronx.
The train, which the Transit
Authority has dubbed the Triboro
Line , would make 11 stops
at new and preexisting stations
in Brooklyn, providing connections
to the R, N, D, F, Q, 2, 3, 5,
and L trains. In all, the train
would make 22 stops between
Brooklyn Army Terminal and
Co-Op City in the Bronx.
Brooklyn trains would
travel on the Bay Ridge Branch
— a freight line that is currently
owned and operated by
Amtrak, Long Island Railroad,
and freight operator CSX.
The recently-announced
study will examine the feasibility
of roughly half the route
from Brooklyn to Astoria,
Queens, and would determine
the project’s potential construction
costs, impacts on the
community, and frequency of
service, according to Mehta.
Support for the Triboro
Line ramped up after Assemblywoman
The proposed train line would make stops in Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Midwood, and East Flatbush.
Regional Plan Association
Latrice Walker (DBrownsville)
proposed a bill
calling on the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority to
conduct a study for the project
in June.
Sadly, the project’s hefty
price tag makes the Triboro
Line a distant reality at best
— Mehta pegged the projected
cost between $1 billion and $2
billion, which would eat up a
sizable chunk of the transit
authority’s $5.7 billion budget
for all LIRR-related work in its
2020-2024 Capital Plan .
Another recent MTA study
revealed that a similar proposal
to restore passenger service
along an existing Rockaway
line would cost a jaw-dropping
$6.8 billion, NY1 reported .
The Bay Ridge Branch rail
line hasn’t carried passenger
trains since 1924 , but urban
planners say that the freight
line is well-suited for the project
because its tracks are currently
underutilized, and the
existing infrastructure would
help keep costs down relative
to building new tunnels.
And while no other passenger
trains in the city share
rails with freight lines, Mehta
claimed that the practice is
common in other big cities.
“London and Chicago have
commingled freight and passenger
service, and have had
success,” he said.
The Transit Authority’s
study will begin by the end of
the year, according to MTA
spokesman Aaron Donovan.
This newspaper is not responsible for typographical errors in ads beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2019 by Brooklyn Courier Life
LLC. The content of this newspaper is protected by Federal copyright law. This newspaper, its advertisements, articles and photographs may not be reproduced, either in whole
or part, without permission in writing from the publisher except brief portions for purposes of review or commentary consistent with the law. Postmaster, send address changes to
Brooklyn Courier Life LLC, One MetroTech North, 3rd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
Mail:
Courier Life,
1 Metrotech Center North
10th Floor, Brooklyn,
N.Y. 11201
General Phone:
(718) 260-2500
News Fax:
(718) 260-2592
News E-Mail:
editorial@schnepsmedia.com
Display Ad Phone:
(718) 260-8302
Display Ad E-Mail:
jstern@schnepsmedia.com
Display Ad Fax:
(718) 260-2579
Classified Phone:
(718) 260-2555
Classified Fax:
(718) 260-2549
Classified E-Mail:
classified@schnepsmedia.com
/WWW.BROOKLYNPDAPILEYR.C.COOMM
link
link
link
/www.brooklynkids
/www.brooklynkids
link
link
link