2 APRIL 21 – APRIL 27, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP #SAVEGOWANUS INSTAGRAM CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED In conjunction with the New York City Department of City Planning’s Gowanus Neighborhood Planning Study, the Historic Districts Council (HDC) has launched an Instagram campaign "honoring Gowanus' built environment." The council is urging Brooklynites to "snap" their beloved Gowanus buildings and upload the pix to Instagram accompanied by street address and the hashtag "#SAVEGOWANUS." Participants are encouraged to tag both HDC (@hdcnyc) and Councilmember Brad Lander (@brad.lander) in their posts. PARK SLOPE LANDMARK TO BE HONORED The Montauk Club, a private social club located at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Lincoln Place in Park Slope, will be recognized at the 2017 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards. The Montauk Club was founded in 1889, shortly after the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was designed by Francis Kimball in the Venetian Gothic style and built of brownstone and brick. The ceremony will take place on May 11 at the New York Public Library. The awards are the New York Landmarks Conservancy's highest honors for excellence in preservation. BROOKLYNITES INDICTED IN ELABORATE MONEY ORDER SCHEME Seven Brooklyn residents have been indicted for depositing the same United States Postal Service money orders into multiple bank accounts fraudulently, while also cashing the physical money orders, according to Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. According to the indictment, from about June, 2014 to March, 2016, the defendants purchased the money orders and allegedly recruited 47 bank account holders to relinquish control of their accounts at TD Bank, Santander and Bancorp for a cash reward. The defendants would allegedly deposit the money orders into the bank accounts through apps offered by the financial institutions, writing the respective account holder’s name as the payee in pencil and erasing it afterwards, to facilitate another fraudulent deposit. According to the indictment, the group would then withdraw the money, and cash the money orders at Brooklyn post offices, without disclosing that the money orders had previously been deposited. Based on the face value of the money orders, the defendants – who live in Ditmas Park, Flatbush, East Flatbush and Flatlands — allegedly stole approximately $74,951, $36,369 and $7,300 from TD Bank, Santander Bank and Bancorp, respectively. The defendants have been indicted on charges of second degree grand larceny and first-degree scheme to defraud, among others. —Meaghan McGoldrick BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/file photo Hauler chosen for Gravesend waste transfer station BY HELEN KLEIN [email protected] While local activists and elected officials continue to battle the marine waste transfer station currently being constructed on Gravesend Bay, the city has finalized a contract to transport trash from the station by barge. The city’s Department of Sanitation (DSNY) plans to award a 20-year, $3.3 billion contract to Waste Management to remove waste from the Gravesend station and the one at Hamilton Avenue in Gowanus. This is the final contract stemming from the 2006 Solid Waste Management Plan or SWMP, one of whose main tenets is that every borough should be responsible for its own garbage. “For far too long, a few communities in the five boroughs have been saturated by waste transfer stations and resulting truck traffic,” noted Mayor Bill de Blasio. “When these stations are fully up and running, overburdened communities will breathe easier knowing 200 fewer trucks per day will be carrying trash through Brooklyn.” According to DSNY, annual truck traffic around the city will be cut by more than 60 million miles once the SWMP is fully in effect. However, residents living near the Southwest Brooklyn Marine Transfer Station site — scheduled to open in 2018 — have consistently criticized the location, once home to the reviled Southwest Brooklyn Incinerator, which left behind it a variety of toxic substances. One major concern is the limited roadways leading to and from the waste transfer station (it’s accessible via the eastbound Belt Parkway service road, with a left turn from Bay Parkway, and trucks leaving it must continue along the service road till the first left turn, at 26th Avenue). "Despite all the problems, they just push forward blindly, at the same time as they say that, by 2030, there will be zero garbage," said Assemblymember Bill Colton.”This is a perfect example of government failing to represent the people." While, he went on, the city touts a reduction in the number of trucks citywide, in the area of the Gravesend Bay station, "They are going to be adding trucks and adding pollution," said Colton. “South Brooklyn has really gotten the shaft on this,” said local environmental activist Ida Sanoff, who emphasized that traffic in the area, already bad, is likely to become gridlocked with the addition of “a parade of garbage trucks going to and from the transfer station. “Trying to get into Ceasar’s Bay parking lot on a weekend afternoon takes a year and a day,” Sanoff went on. “When you add the trucks into the mix, what are we going to do?” Councilmember Mark Treyger noted that the facility was developed based on an “antiquated” plan developed during the Bloomberg administration, and said he was still waiting for a “21st century plan” that would truly move the city forward in the arena of waste management, rather than “pitting neighborhood against neighborhood.” To that end, said Treyger, he believes that the city most do more to reduce and reuse waste, citing New York’s “dismal 15 percent recycling rate.” And, he added, southwest Brooklyn is still dealing with blowback from the incinerator, which operated without a state permit from the 1950s through the 1980s, with the city requesting a waiver each year that also allowed it to avoid environmental testing. “But we saw the consequences,” Treyger stressed. “Residents were exposed to a high rate of cancer and asthma-causing substances. In other cities, they are dramatically reducing and reusing waste. Why do we have to build transfer stations in residential neighborhoods?" “The way to deal with injustice,” he emphasized, “is not to spread it but to eradicate it.” A prior protest at the transfer station site.
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