Record-Breaking DUMBO Sale; Spaghetti Donuts; Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse and More Brooklyn Briefs

It appears a small pond is growing at Brooklyn Bridge Park, to the surprise of the owners of these vehicles. Construction materials have also been swamped. Photo  by MK Metz 

- Tick tock: DUMBO's Clock Tower penthouse sells for a record-breaking $15 million. [Brooklyn Eagle]

- Police are looking for a thief who broke into a Borough Park synagogue and made off with religious texts worth almost $250,000. [CBS]

- VIDEO: NYPD cop pulls out Taser while shooing Brooklyn students along, asks 'Do you wanna ride the lightning?' [Daily News]

- The geniuses at Brooklyn’s Pop Pasta have made a donut out of spaghetti. [The Daily Meal]

- Gowanus artist furious as muddy water floods her home and studio. [CBS]

- First look at Brooklyn Bridge Park Boathouse. [Brooklyn Eagle]

- Huge ice ball from Gowanus Expressway smashes through window, hitting young girl in the face. [NY Post]

- Businesses, buildings evacuated in Williamsburg after gas main break on Saturday. [News12]

And on April 1, we read:

- Following the success of Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams curing his type 2 diabetes after adopting a vegan diet, the New York City Council has unanimously passed a bill that will result in the entire borough eschewing all animal products by the end of 2017. [VegNews]


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Philadelphia Pissed at Brooklyn Boulders' April 1 Joke

Announcing #BKBQV. Brooklyn Boulders is coming is #Philadelphia @phillymag http://t.co/6rVcv3vlTB #climbing #bkblove pic.twitter.com/eGWx6iEMFb
— Brooklyn Boulders (@BKBoulders) April 1, 2015

Brooklyn Boulders confessed on April 2 that their announcement that the company planned to build a rock climbing location in Queens Village, Philadelphia was actually a “cruel April Fools’ joke, Philly.”

Well, the joke backfired, and now Philly is pissed.

Says Philly Magazine: 

"Brooklyn Boulders thinks Philly is a joke. They announced today, more than 24 hours after their “prank” post went live (and in a bald-faced breach of April Fools’ Day etiquette), that their 'announcement' of a Queen Village location was a 'cruel April Fools’ joke, Philly.' They’re, of course, pleading for Philadelphians to sign a petition to bring a Brooklyn Boulders location to Philly, which is the last you’ll hear about this company on PhillyMag.com. Ever."

Way to go, Boulders.

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Google Turns Any Map into PAC-MAN Game for April 1

Playing PAC-MAN on the streets of Brooklyn Heights. Google

Google has done a bang-up job this year for April 1, allowing Google Map users to turn any neighborhood into a maze for the classic arcade game PAC-MAN.

Avoid Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde and eat the dots as you swerve around the streets of Brooklyn Heights, Bay Ridge or even someplace in New Jersey. (Whatever.)

Just go to Google Maps, enter an address and look for the little PAC-MAN icon to start play.

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Wars Stop Worldwide As Nations Ponder Miracle of Brooklyn Bridge's White Flags

The White Flag. Photo: MK Metz, McBrooklyn

Israel and the Palestinians and combatants in the South Sudan offered to lay down their arms in temporary truces as the mystery of the Brooklyn Bridge's white flags struck a deep chord with humanity.

Pilgrims made their way along the Brooklyn Bridge's walkway at sunrise, pointing to to the stone towers, in what is now being referred to as "The Miracle of the White Flags."

A Hispanic woman surrounded by kneeling children, wearing white and praying on white rosary beads, called out repeatedly, "En la tierra como en el ciel!" as NYPD officers cordoned off an area to prevent crushing from the growing crowds. "Keep it moving!" they ordered the pilgrims.

A man sold T-shirts with a picture of the flags on the tower next to a picture of a lunar landing module and the word, "Believe!"

"I was here when they took it down," he said, waving his arms in the direction of the west tower.  "That's where it was."

He added, "It was white."

A man who said his name was Elmo sold bottles of water to members of a Canadian tour group at three dollars a pop.

"We wanted to see where it happened," said Olivia Norris, of Calgary, on tour with her mother Emma.

A man distributing pamphlets, who refused to give his name, said, "White flag has nine letters. And there's two towers. One-one. That's all I'm gonna say. What don't they want us to know?"

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NYU Buys Entire Jehovah's Complex on Brooklyn Heights Waterfront to Build Huge 'Medical Superdrome'

 Who would have thought the Jehovah's Witnesses would sell their entire portfolio of factory and residential buildings on the Brooklyn Heights waterfront to just one buyer: NYU, which yesterday plunked down $2.9 billion for the 16 buildings, which they plan to remake into a major medical center, teaching hospital and campus to be called the "NYU Medical Superdrome."

"With days-long waits in all of Brooklyn's emergency rooms, Brooklyn has a well-documented need for a new hospital --  actually two or three. And with its explosive growth over the last three years, we can think of no better place to locate our new NYU Medical Superdrome," said NYU president Jon Sackson.

Helipad on building 23A.

The new Medical Superdrome site will incorporate most of the buildings along Columbia Heights and Furman St, and many others.

Highways in the surrounding area, including the BQE, already overburdened, would need to be rebuilt, DOT said. The plan incorporates a helipad for air ambulance use. NYU has planned a sleek "patient monorail " using the Jehovah's famous underground tunnel network, said to run under most of Brooklyn Heights.

When asked why NYU did not make a bid to build their medical center at Long Island College Hospital (LICH) during the recent bidding war there, a spokesperson said, "Brooklyn needs a much, much bigger hospital. Do you see all the people moving in here? Sure, Brooklyn needs LICH. But they also need a world-class Medical Superdrome."

BQE exit to underground parking.

Mayor Bill de Blasio was said to have encouraged the arrangement, which would include a strategic partnership between the NYU Medical Superdrome, Interfaith Medical Center in Bed-Stuy and LICH in Cobble Hill. The three institutions would form the new "Brooklyn Medical Triangle."

Sackson said that the Medical Superdrome is expected to generate close to 9,000 direct employs and roughly 45,000 indirect jobs.

Governor Cuomo was quick to jump onto the Medical Superdrome bandwagon.

"I've said all along that Brooklyn needs more hospital beds," he declared. "After all, it's the fastest-growing county in the state and the most dynamic. Brooklynites don't go to Manhattan anymore, Manhattan comes to Brooklyn."

He then launched into a moving speech about his medical vision for Brooklyn, and how he saw the need for a major medical complex there before anyone else did.

"The borough’s future was hanging in the balance, literally. And the cynics and the naysayers said that it was too far gone," he said, wiping a tear from his eye. "Children were dying."

"We stopped talking and we started doing. There you have it, my friends --  we have reversed decades of decline, saved lives, and made dramatic and undeniable progress. It was my idea. I did it. I did."

NYU plans to work with the community on designs starting next month at a meeting at the Brooklyn Heights branch library on Cadman Plaza West.

Sackson added, as an aside, that one of the things he liked about Brooklyn was its small scale, as exemplified by the two-story Heights library. 

[This is an April Fools post! This is an April Fools Post! This is an April Fools post!]

Photos courtesy of random medical centers

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Holding Up the Brooklyn Bridge

The Brooklyn Bridge anchorage was apparently falling down, but some fast-thinking women threw their combined weight against the massive stone edifice and saved us all.

Bravo!

Photo by MK Metz

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Eeek! Needle-Toothed Snorgal Spotted in Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn

It was last seen running towards the bust of William Jay Gaynor. No one was hurt.

Photo by MK Metz

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Mayor Bloomberg: Major Shipping to Return to Brooklyn Heights Waterfront

Partially-Completed Park May Give Way to Massive Shipping Terminal

The familiar blue maritime sheds may return to the Brooklyn Heights waterfront -- along with billions of dollars worth of shipping business.

Vowing to restore the Brooklyn waterfront -- from the Brooklyn Bridge to IKEA in Red Hook -- to its former glory as a center of commercial shipping  and maritime trade, Mayor Michael Bloomberg today announced that the city's Economic Development Corporation (EDC) had issued an RFP (Request for Proposals) from major players in the deep-water shipping industry.

The proposal would extend the CPIP Brooklyn Waterfront Marine Industrial Zone north of its present configuration to DUMBO.

While the plan was sure to evoke the fury of neighborhood groups that have long supported the partially-constructed "Brooklyn Bridge Park" along the waterfront there, the Mayor pointed out that "economic realities" have changed in the years since the park was planned.

"We don't have the money to finish a park there, much less maintain it," the Mayor candidly told a business crowd gathered for an early power breakfast at Gracie Mansion. "And face it, it's the perfect place for a container terminal."

The Mayor said that national economic development funds were available for deep water dredging, a requirement for modern container ships. Those same funds, however, would not be available for recreational uses like parks.

An addendum to the CPIP Brooklyn Waterfront project extends the proposed Marine Industrial Zone north to DUMBO.

A Long Maritime History

The waterfront along Brooklyn Heights has a long history as a commercial port, dating back to the 16th century. Starting in the 1950s, however, the city began to lose much of its maritime trade to the container ship facility at nearby Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal in Newark Bay, now the largest such port on the Eastern Seaboard.

"In the long run more New Yorkers will benefit from a container port than a park," the Mayor said. "Number one, the port will generate literally thousands of jobs. And the city will make millions in fees from the international maritime trade. Having a major port right in the city will also cut down on the massive number of trucks driving over the George Washington Bridge every day delivering goods from the port in New Jersey. The traffic and pollution in Manhattan from that alone is tremendous."

Shipping Lines Positive

While APM-Maersk and the Evergreen Line, two major shipping groups, said the surprise announcement would be "eagerly" examined, civic organizations appeared to be caught by surprise.

"WTF?" said a confused Regina Myer, President of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation. "We just built a multi-million dollar park down there!"

Judy Stanton, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, said she hadn't yet finished reading the proposal. "But if this thing is what I think it is, it's going to blow Brooklyn Heights back to the 50s."

Railroad fan Bob Diamond said he could see great potential for reconstructing the rail line that one ran along the waterfront.

Anthony Masullo, a retired longshoreman who frequently eats lunch at the senior center on Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights, was all for the idea. "Those were the days," he said. "Me and Tony, we used to work all day on the docks and then we'd drink all night at Joe's. We'd wake up on the street without a penny in our pockets.Then we'd just go straight back to work."

But Borough President Marty Markowitz had only one word for the proposal. "“Forgeddaboutit!” he said.

Top photo courtesy Brooklyn Public Library

This was an APRIL FOOLS story!

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Guy Who Caused Wall Street Plunge Recently Fired From Apple for Leaving Next Generation iPhone in Bar

Ever wonder what happened to that unfortunate Apple employee who accidentally left the next-generation iPhone prototype on a bar stool in San Francisco?

Sources say he recently got a job trading stocks and futures for JC McMillan & Co. in Chicago. Thursday afternoon he apparently set off a world-wide stock panic by hitting the "billion" key on the trading console instead of the "million" key while issuing a large $300 million order.

In a market already worried about the debt crisis in Greece, the ensuing lightning-fast chain-reaction brought down markets instantaneously, causing a trillion dollar black hole in the world's financial system.

On Friday, President Obama tried to reassure the public that regulators were working to find another job for the trader, possibly in Afghanistan.

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EPA Orders Atlantic Yards Project Halted as Rare Species Discovered

Adding yet another delay to the Atlantic Yards process, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered all work stopped at the future Barclays Center Arena site after research scientists identified seven rare, endangered, or threatened plant and animal species there, or about 5.5% of the plant population and 1.9% of the fauna.

Forest City Ratner's planned $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project includes a basketball arena plus a number of high-rise buildings.

A two-year study of the site, required by environmental laws but overlooked as developer Bruce Ratner successfully fought off a series of lawsuits centered around eminent domain and other legal issues, came to the surprising conclusion that the immediate area provides critical habitat for several unique wildlife species such as the Chittenango ovate amber snail, in addition to other documented rare and threatened plant species.

The Chittenango snail is New York's most endangered native animal, and was once believed to exist only at Chittenango Falls State Park in Central New York.

"Frankly, we were pretty shocked," said Dr. Fran Milsner of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

“We knew this was a special property,” she said. “But we had no idea how many critical species would still occur here after all these years. This research is important because it identifies critical natural resources and makes recommendations for managing the property to protect them.”

"A Botanist's Dream"

Dr. Kim Barrington, Ph.D., Curator of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Herbarium, conducted research for more than a year along the overgrown areas surrounding tracks and right-of-way. She discovered two plant species known only from historical records, and said BBG’s botanists will spend at least the next two years diligently researching these species. "It's a botanist's dream," she said. "Within a stone's throw of each other we found Asclepias rubra – red milkweed -- and Lobelia canbyi – Canby’s lobelia."

Dating back to 1870, botanists had reported that the general area contained numerous rare plant populations, but for almost half a century research was not possible because the area was operated as a train terminus.

"This is totally ridiculous," said Robert Pragnetti, one of developer Bruce Ratner's lawyers. "It's a blighted area. We blighted it ourselves. There's no way in the world anything's going to be living there."

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who backs the planned mega-project but who also recently came out against Governor Paterson’s proposed cuts to zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums, had no comment at press time.

But Russian mogul Mikhail Prokhorov, majority owner of the Nets basketball team slated to move to the new arena upon its completion, told the Downtown Brooklyn News that he hoped to apply "Russian business methods" to "solve the problem."

Please carefully note the date this article appeared.

- Nature Raw on Pacific Street

Top photo by MK Metz
Snail photo courtesy of the Seneca Park Zoo

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Subway Turnstiles In Brooklyn to Go 'Green,' Power Trains

Brooklyn will be the first borough to experiment with new "green" subway turnstiles that may actually produce enough "man power" to move the trains running through Brooklyn.

Starting today, turnstiles in Downtown Brooklyn stations from Borough Hall to Atlantic Avenue along the 2 and 3 line will be retrofitted with a nearly friction-free crankshaft arrangement that will allow them to "collect" energy as they are rotated by subway passengers.

"The loss from friction has been reduced so much that an amazing percentage of the energy from rotation is conserved," said Dr. Gregory Harris, physics professor at Polytechnic University of NYU in Downtown Brooklyn, a consultant on the project.

Phyllis Mulligan, of the MTA's Conservation Board, estimated that an average subway train, not quite fully loaded, would achieve a 10 mph forward thrust with every thousand passenger turns.

"The more passengers going through the turnstiles, the faster the trains will go," she said, adding that number 2 and 3 trains would "zoom" during rush hour.

There is a downside, she said. "There will be significant slowdown on holidays and off hours. But most people don't have to get anywhere quickly at those times."

"We're hoping that passengers will be so enthusiastic about this new technology that they'll each give the turnstiles a couple of extra spins," she told McBrooklyn.

But Mike Stephens, spokesperson for the Straphangers Campaign, pointed out that passengers would have to swipe their Metrocards for each spin of the turnstile. "No matter how 'green' passengers feel, we suspect that the MTA is looking to unfairly profit from consumer enthusiasm," he said.


Happy April 1.
Photo courtesy of Avon Engineering

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