Another Grimaldi's Pizza Fight Over Oven, Name, Reputation, What Have You

The famous Grimaldi line. MK Metz

Aaaaand -- another Grimaldi's food fight!

 Frank Ciolli -- who purchased the Grimaldi’s Pizza name for $500,000 in 1998 -- is charging that pizza legend Patsy Grimaldi, 81, has illegally installed a coal-burning brick oven at 19 Old Fulton St. in DUMBO, reports the NY Daily News.

Grimaldi, who started the business years ago, has been in retirement for a decade. But now he plans to open Juliana’s, a new pizza place in the same building where he had his old pizza business -- right next door to Ciolli’s pizzeria at 1 Front St.

Sources say he's just fixing up the old oven, not installing a new one.

Two years ago Ciolli was evicted from 19 Old Fulton St. after not paying $44,000 in rent on time. Ciolli illegally installed a coal brick oven into 1 Front St. when he moved in, and he's still mad someone ratted him out.

Ciolli sued the landlord at 19 Old Fulton St. for allegedly scheming to steal the  brick ovens.

Blood has been bad between the two pizza men for years. In October, Grimaldi said that Ciolli ran the restaurant's "good reputation into the ground," according to the NY Post.

Nona Brooklyn provides a great description of the the history of Grimaldi's pizza madness.

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Brooklyn Bridge: NYPD Search for 'Suspicious' Person Over (Wed., Dec. 5)

Brooklyn Bridge traffic headed to Manhattan ground to a near stand-still tonight as police searched for a reported emotionally disturbed person. UPDATE: At 7 p.m. the police dispatcher was calling this a search for a "suspicious person."

An NYPD helicopter and a marine unit buzzed the area as well as NYPD vehicles.

Around 6:40 p.m. police reported they did not see anyone on the Manhattan-side tower.
At 6:53 an officer reported: "We did a complete search of the cables over the Brooklyn Bridge. I'm going going to close down traffic [in an unheard direction]."

UPDATE: By 7:45 p.m. traffic was flowing again in both directions. The situation appears to have resolved.

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Maybe This year You Should Get to Dyker Heights for the Christmas Lights

Photo: idovermani

Every year thousands of gawkers from across the tri-state area trek to Dyker Heights for the over-the-top Christmas light display.

"We're talking life-size Dickensian carolers, lit-up bear-shaped topiaries and a 14-foot-tall, 800-pound animatronic Santa Claus,"says NYC & Co., New York City's official tourism marketing arm.

Maybe this is the year to take the trip: According to Bensonhurst Bean, Dyker Heights was recently named number one in the top five places in the nation to see Christmas lights.

If you're going this year, the area to visit to see "the best of the best," according to BB, is 11th Avenue to 13th Avenue and from 83rd to 86th Street.

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Film Moratorium in the Heights? Hospitals Crammed; and More Brooklyn Briefs

- Brooklyn Heights fights movie-making takeovers with a demand for a moratorium. Brooklyn Eagle

- The former principal of a private school in Brooklyn was found guilty of sexually abusing three boys -- one who was 7 years old. NY Times

- Three days wait in the ER for a bed: Brooklyn hospitals crammed after Sandy. NY Daily News

- “Nuevo Mexican" fare and the 900-seat Alamo Drafthouse Cinema will soon be joining the new Armani Exchange on Fulton Street. Brooklyn Eagle

- President Obama held his ground on the "fiscal cliff" on Tuesday, insisting on higher tax rates for the wealthiest Americans, while Republicans showed increasing disarray over how far they should go to compromise. Reuters

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To Speed Removal of PCBs from NYC Schools, Comptroller Liu Proposes Bonds

P.S. 8. Photo: MK Metz

City Comptroller John C. Liu recommends the city issue special bonds to speed up the removal of PCB-contaminated light fixtures from New York City public schools.

By issuing Green Apple Bonds, Liu hopes to rid city schools of the hazardous light fixtures by 2015, six years ahead of the city’s current schedule and at savings of $339 million. The Brooklyn Eagle reports the story.

Liu's plan has been applauded by the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, the Environmental Protection Agency, parents and representatives.

Photo: Seanmasn

More than 700 schools across the city have PCB-containing lighting fixtures and caulk. PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) have been linked to cancer, respiratory, endocrine, reproductive and immune disorders.

These schools include: P.S. 8 in Brooklyn Heights; P.S. 9 in Prospect Heights; P.S. 15 in Red Hook; Arts & Letters in Fort Greene; P.S. 29 in Cobble Hill; I.S. 98 Bay Academy in Bay Ridge; M.S. 51 in Park Slope; Brooklyn Secondary School for Collaborative Studies; Khalil Gibran International Academy and hundreds more.


- Liu proposes bonds to speed removal of toxic PCBs from NYC schools  Brooklyn Eagle

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1,000+ Lose Power in Southern Brooklyn Tuesday Night

The transformer at Avenue T and Hendrickson Street in Brooklyn. Google Maps

From Notify NYC: At 7:40 p.m. tonight Con Edison responded to a power outage in Brooklyn zip codes 11226, 11203, 11210, 11229, 11234, and 11236.

According to Sheepshead Bites, more than 1,230 households were without power in Marine Park, Mill Basin and other areas, after a transformer (pictured above) exploded on Avenue T and Hendrickson Street.

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Smith Street at Warren, Then and Now (Brooklyn)

Photo of photo by MK Metz

We saw this photo hanging in the new Potbelly Sandwich Shop at 345 Adams Street in Downtown Brooklyn. This shows Smith Street near Warren Street, looking north. Notice the trolley tracks.

We recognized the old J. Michaels furniture store at 182 Smith on the left. (We used to live on Warren near this corner, back when it was still J. Michaels.)

J. Michaels was founded in 1886, and ended in 1996.

Here's the same view today (courtesy Google Maps). The J. Michaels has been replaced by a Rite Aid. Sadly, the old street lamps have been removed (though they still exist on other blocks on Smith).

Still no trees.

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Brooklyn Principal Found Guilty of Sexual Abuse; Rabbi Describes Another Alleged Victim As a Whore

NYC.gov

The former principal of a a private Jewish school for Russian-Americans in Bensonhurst, Emanuel Yegutkin, was found guilty in State Supreme Court on Monday of sexually abusing three young boys over the course of a decade, the New York Times reports.

The Times says the case is among "a wave of sexual abuse cases involving Orthodox Jews" that the Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes is prosecuting "after decades in which such prosecutions were rare."

A similar trial involving Williamsburg's Nechemya Weberman, accused of molesting for years a girl he was "treating" (without a license) continues Tuesday in the same courthouse.

Sadly, Rabbi Aharon Titelbaum, one of the two Brooklyn Satmar rebbes, on Saturday night categorized the the girl who has accused Weberman of raping her as a whore, reports the Failed Messiah blog.

"When they go down [into impurity, darkness and sin], they go down all the way," he told his fellow Satmar men.

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Brooklyn's Interfaith Medical Center to Declare Bankruptcy?

Photo: MK Metz

Hospital officials said today that Interfaith Medical Center is planning to declare bankruptcy as soon as this week, according to the New York Times.

Interfaith, serving Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, serves over 250,000 patients a year, mostly Caribbean-Americans and African- Americans.

The Medicaid cutbacks of 2010 played a role, the hospital said.

About a year ago, according to the Brooklyn Eagle, DOH’s Medicaid Redesign Team/ Brooklyn Work Group found that Wyckoff, Interfaith and four other hospitals “do not have a business model and sufficient margins to remain viable and provide high quality care to their communities as currently structured.”

The hospital hopes for millions in financing from the state, but officials told the Times that no money would be forthcoming unless Interfaith agreed to merge with Brooklyn Hospital -- something Interfaith officials say would be the end of the hospital.

In April, several groups -- including Occupy Wall Street's Healthcare for the 99%, the Granny Peace Brigade and Act Up -- marched over the Brooklyn Bridge for a rally about the Brooklyn hospital crisis.

OWS asked: Why did Gov. Cuomo appointed Stephen Berger, a Wall Street millionaire financier, to be in charge of restructuring health care in Brooklyn?


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Successful Winter Festival 2012 at Brooklyn Friends School

Saturday's Winter Festival and Artisan Craft Fair at Brooklyn Friends School in Downtown Brooklyn was a great success again this year and we got in some serious holiday shopping.  There were plenty of activities for kids, too -- crafts, carnival games and bouncy rides at the carnival.

Photos by MK Metz

The 40 vendors really did sell unique hand-made goods -- let's just say our purchases were one of a kind and involved monkeys --  and there were delicious eats, a book sale, hair feathering and more.

Proceeds benefited the Horizons program (for lower income kids) at Brooklyn Friends.

- The Brooklyn Friends Winter Festival in 2011.
- The Festival in 2010.
- The Festival in 2009.
- The Festival in 2008.

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