12 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MAY 13 - MAY 19, 2016 14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH GO BACK TO THE editorial A LOOK BACK compiled Gary Nilsen and Photo by Gardiner Anderson (USPS 248.800) 14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH 6 - MARCH 12, 2014 And the award goes to… Bay Ridge, which has provided the backdrop for many movies and television shows over the years, from “Blue Bloods” and “Saturday Night Fever” to “Mad Men” and, in 2006, to “Then She Found Me,” starring Helen Hunt and Bette Midler, seen above in a September, 2006, Home Reporter photo taken on location on Shore Road at 77th Street. Midler performed at the most recent Oscars, singing “Wind Beneath My Wings” during the awards show’s In Memoriam segment. “Then She Found Me,” which also starred Matthew Broderick, was also shot inside a historic home on 88th Street. editorial A LOOK BACK compiled by GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD HOMEREPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS (Estab. 1953) HOMEREPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS Change to 2015 ▲ ▲ Gary Nilsen and Helen Klein (Estab. 1953) (USPS 248.800) 9733 FOURTH AVE. • BROOKLYN, NY 11209 Co-Publisher ... Victoria Schneps-Yunis Co-Publisher ... Joshua A. Schneps Editor in Chief ... Helen Klein Telephone 718-238-6600 Fax 718-238-6630 E-mail [email protected] Periodical postage paid at Brooklyn, N.Y. Published weekly by Brooklyn Media Group, Inc. Single copies, 50 cents. $35 per year by mail, $40 outside Brooklyn. On June 8, 1962, the Bay Ridge Home Reporter (founded 1953) and the Brooklyn Sunset News, a continuation of the Bay Ridge News (founded 1943) were merged into the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS. Postmaster: Send Address Changes To: Home Reporter and Sunset News 9733 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11209 Entire contents copyright 2014 by Home Reporter and Sunset News All letters sent to the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and office telephone numbers, where available, as well as affiliation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Name withheld on request. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S POSITION. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS within five days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. Brooklyn Media Group, Inc. assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to such advertisement. Photo by Gardiner Anderson And the award goes to… Bay Ridge, which has provided the backdrop for many movies and television shows over the years, from “Blue Bloods” and “Saturday Night Fever” to “Mad Men” and, in 2006, to “Then She Found Me,” starring Helen Hunt and Bette Midler, seen above in a September, 2006, Home Reporter photo taken on location on Shore Road at 77th Street. Midler performed at the most recent Oscars, singing “Wind Beneath My Wings” during the awards show’s In Memoriam segment. “Then She Found Me,” which also starred Matthew Broderick, was also shot inside a historic home on 88th Street. Each day, thousands of people depend on SUNY Downstate Medical Center for emergency medical care and vital health care services. But this state-operated public hospital has been in danger of being closed or privatized for more than two years. Hundreds of jobs have been lost, and numerous health care services have been cut or curtailed due to the hospital’s ill-prepared “Sustainability Plan.” Now, there is language in the 2014-15 proposed state budget that would open the door to as many as five corporations to operate SUNY’s public hospitals. United University Professions, the union that represents nearly 3,000 employees at SUNY Downstate, has been fighting to keep SUNY Downstate a fully operational staterun facility. However, UUP isn’t fighting the battle alone. The SUNY Downstate Coalition of Faith, Labor and Community Leaders has become an important ally. The coalition has staged a number of rallies and protests over the past 18 months to save health care services and jobs at SUNY Downstate and keep it a public facility. The latest such effort is a 48-hour interfaith fast. It will begin Sunday, March 9, at 3 p.m., in front of Downstate’s 470 Clarkson Avenue entrance. Interfaith leaders and members of the community will participate to show their strong support for this beacon in Brooklyn and call attention to the threats it faces. You can take part in the fast or find out more about it by calling 718-270-1519, or sending an email to [email protected]. We strongly urge you to join our campaign. Take part in the fast, or come out and show your support. Together, we can deliver a strong message that SUNY Downstate must remain a full-service, state-operated public hospital. The threats facing SUNY Downstate are real. The SUNY Board of Trustees has openly discussed the possibility of closing SUNY Downstate. There is also language in the Executive Budget, which would allow corporations to control SUNY’s public hospitals; one corporation must affiliate with an academic medical institution or teaching hospital. SUNY Downstate has Brooklyn’s only teaching hospital. Privatizing or closing SUNY Downstate as a way for the state to save dollars is shortsighted and unnecessary. We believe the answer to Brooklyn’s health care shortcomings lies in the “Brooklyn Hospitals Safety Net Plan,” a UUP-backed initiative to stabilize and deliver health care throughout Brooklyn. This plan would preserve SUNY Downstate and save several financially unstable hospitals in Brooklyn, including Interfaith Medical Center, Brookdale, Long Island College Hospital and Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. You can see the proposal online at http://www.brooklynhospitalplan.org. It calls for the creation of a network of satellite ambulatory care centers, and would be controlled by and affiliated with 14 other Brooklyn hospitals. Downstate would be the network’s hub, educating and supplying physicians and medical staff to the care centers and working with doctors at the other hospitals. It’s a simple, effective plan and, if given a chance, it will work. New York has a responsibility to provide for the health care needs of its citizens. The Brooklyn Hospitals Safety Net Plan—our plan and the community’s plan—is a viable, workable option for long-term health care in Brooklyn. That’s something that Brooklyn residents desperately need. Frederick E. Kowal is president of United University Professions, the union representing 35,000 faculty and professional staff at SUNY’s 29 state-operated campuses, including SUNY’s public teaching hospitals and health science centers in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Long Island and Syracuse. With the city deciding to move forward on most of the school co-locations approved late last year, as Mayor Bloomberg prepared to vacate City Hall, parents in southwest Brooklyn are not only disappointed but angry. While the Department of Education under Mayor de Blasio wisely opted to back out of a planned co-location of a new high school inside Gravesend’s John Dewey High School, the DOE decided to move ahead with two others: the co-location of a charter school inside Seth Low Intermediate School in Bensonhurst and another inside Joseph B. Cavallaro Intermediate School in Bath Beach. These – like others in the borough and the city – are both fiercely opposed by parents, educators, students and the local Community Education Councils, all of whom contend that the co-locations would steal necessary space from students already attending the schools, and those who will be going to them in the near future. While the city has said it only considers under-utilized schools for co-locations, area education advocates say that both Cavallaro and Seth Low are well utilized, and likely to become more crowded as students now in elementary school in both District 20 and District 21 move up to middle school. Indeed, District 20 is one of the most crowded school districts in the city, so much so that the city built a host of new schools for it in the past decade, with more being planned, meaning that public school students in both District 20 and District 21 are likely to feel the squeeze should they have to share space with students from a charter school. That strikes us as patently unfair. While some of the charter schools poised to open in September, 2014 may be worthy additions to the city’s educational offerings, their needs should not trump the needs of existing schools with existing students. And, indeed, when a charter school is put inside a public school, the process must involve the school communities at both educational institutions, and parents must also be involved. The city must go back to the drawing board and come up with alternative arrangements for the charter schools planned for Seth Low and Cavallaro as well as other schools where they are opposed.. The students who attend those schools deserve no less. guest op-ed Keep SUNY Downstate open and public BY FREDERICK E. KOWAL Entire contents copyright 2015 by Home Reporter and Sunset News letters THE HEP C FIGHT I contracted Hepatitis C though reuse of a needle during a medical treatment in Russia, where I was born. However, I didn’t discover that I had this blood-borne, chronic liver disease until my doctor convinced me to take a blood test many years later. The results were bad – the virus swimming through my blood was 10 times more active than a normal patient. I had to seek treatment immediately. Thankfully, I was able to access the medicines I needed to fight back against this infection. But I have learned that many people aren’t so lucky. Many people from Eastern European and Middle Eastern backgrounds are at increased risk for Hep C, because those regions of the world often still don’t prioritize sterile needle policies. I wondered how many others in my community are living through the same ordeal as I am? There are many Hep C support groups in the city, but I hadn’t found one that brings together Russian speakers. That’s why I founded the Coney Island Russian Hep C Education and Patient Support Group four years ago. I also worked with Mount Sinai Medical Center’s HONE Project to bring a successful Hepatitis B & C screening program to my community and am working on developing a grass roots awareness campaign in both English and Russian through BRIC Arts Media Brooklyn. I thought I had been a perfectly healthy person before my diagnosis. I ate healthy foods, exercised and practiced meditation. Unfortunately, the Hepatitis C virus may not present symptoms until it has done significant damage to the liver. But now, some insurance companies are rationing the medicines that cure the disease in a matter of weeks in order to save themselves money. They argue that Hep C is a “chronic disease,” so all patients don’t need to be treated immediately. Now they are limiting insurance coverage to only the sickest patients, while the rest of the Hep C community waits around until they are sick enough to be treated. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has taken notice of this unfair discrimination and is taking action. Recently, his office launched an investigation into whether insurance companies are unfairly limiting coverage for Hep C medications to the sickest patients because of cost. He has subpoenaed information from 16 health insurers about patients who have been denied the drugs. As a patient myself and a representative of the Hep C community in New York, I commend the AG’s actions to protect Hep C patients in our community from discriminatory practices by the insurance companies. While these medications are considered expensive, Hep C if left untreated can lead to cirrhosis and liver cancer, which are much more difficult and expensive to treat than the virus itself. A liver transplant can cost over $500,000 and requires years of costly follow-up care. These medicines give patients like me and the members of my support group hope for a healthy life and the chance to avoid much more expensive, painful and difficult procedures in the future. We shouldn’t let the politics of health insurance companies get between life-saving cures and the people who need them. Greg Romenski Founder, Coney Island Russian Hep C Support Group DRAWING BOARD ▲ ▲ 9733 FOURTH AVE. • BROOKLYN, NY 11209 Co-Publisher ... Victoria Schneps-Yunis Co-Publisher ... Joshua A. Schneps Editor in Chief ... Helen Klein Telephone 718-238-6600 Fax 718-238-6630 E-mail [email protected] Periodical postage paid at Brooklyn, N.Y. Published weekly by Brooklyn Media Group, Inc. Single copies, 50 cents. $35 per year by mail, $40 outside Brooklyn. On June 8, 1962, the Bay Ridge Home Reporter (founded 1953) and the Brooklyn Sunset News, a continuation of the Bay Ridge News (founded 1943) were merged into the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS. Postmaster: Send Address Changes To: Home Reporter and Sunset News 9733 Fourth Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y. 11209 Entire contents copyright 2014 by Home Reporter and Sunset News All letters sent to the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and office telephone numbers, where available, as well as affiliation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Name withheld on request. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S POSITION. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS within five days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. Brooklyn Media Group, Inc. assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold the HOME REPORTER AND SUNSET NEWS and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to such advertisement. Each day, thousands of people depend on SUNY Downstate Medical Center for emergency medical care and vital health care services. But this state-operated public hospital has been in danger of being closed or privatized for more than two years. Hundreds of jobs have been lost, and numerous health care services have been cut or curtailed due to the hospital’s ill-prepared “Sustainability Plan.” Now, there is language in the 2014-15 proposed state budget that would open the door to as many as five corporations to operate SUNY’s public hospitals. United University Professions, the union that represents nearly 3,000 employees at SUNY Downstate, has been fighting to keep SUNY Downstate a fully operational staterun facility. However, UUP isn’t fighting the battle alone. The SUNY Downstate Coalition of Faith, Labor and Community Leaders has become an important ally. The coalition has staged a number of rallies and protests over the past 18 months to save health care services and jobs at SUNY Downstate and keep it a public facility. The latest such effort is a 48-hour interfaith fast. It will begin Sunday, March 9, at 3 p.m., in front of Downstate’s 470 Clarkson Avenue entrance. Interfaith leaders and members of the community will participate to show their strong support for this beacon in Brooklyn and call attention to the threats it faces. You can take part in the fast or find out more about it by calling 718-270-1519, or sending an email to [email protected]. We strongly urge you to join our campaign. Take part in the fast, or come out and show your support. Together, we can deliver a strong message that SUNY Downstate must remain a full-service, state-operated public hospital. The threats facing SUNY Downstate are real. The SUNY Board of Trustees has openly discussed the possibility of closing SUNY Downstate. There is also language in the Executive Budget, which would allow to control SUNY’s public hospitals; one affiliate with an academic medical institution hospital. SUNY Downstate has teaching hospital. Privatizing or closing SUNY Downstate the state to save dollars is shortsighted We believe the answer to Brooklyn’s health lies in the “Brooklyn Hospitals a UUP-backed initiative to stabilize and care throughout Brooklyn. This plan would preserve SUNY Downstate several financially unstable hospitals including Interfaith Medical Center, Island College Hospital and Kingsbrook Center. You can see the proposal http://www.brooklynhospitalplan.org. It calls for the creation of a network care centers, and would be controlled with 14 other Brooklyn hospitals. be the network’s hub, educating and and medical staff to the care centers with doctors at the other hospitals. It’s a simple, effective plan and, if will work. New York has a responsibility to provide care needs of its citizens. The Brooklyn Net Plan—our plan and the community’s viable, workable option for long-term Brooklyn. That’s something that Brooklyn residents need. Frederick E. Kowal is president of United Professions, the union representing 35,000 staff at SUNY’s 29 state-operated campuses, SUNY’s public teaching hospitals and health in Brooklyn, Buffalo, Long Island and Syracuse. With the city deciding to move forward on most of the school co-locations approved late last year, as Mayor Bloomberg prepared to vacate City Hall, parents in southwest Brooklyn are not only disappointed but angry. While the Department of Education under Mayor de Blasio wisely opted to back out of a planned co-location of a new high school inside Gravesend’s John Dewey High School, the DOE decided to move ahead with two others: the co-location of a charter school inside Seth Low Intermediate School in Bensonhurst and another inside Joseph B. Cavallaro Intermediate School in Bath Beach. These – like others in the borough and the city – are both fiercely opposed by parents, educators, students and the local Community Education Councils, all of whom contend that the co-locations would steal necessary space from students already attending the schools, and those who will be going to them in the near future. While the city has said it only considers under-utilized schools for co-locations, area education advocates say that both Cavallaro and Seth Low are well utilized, and likely to become more crowded as students now in elementary school in both District 20 and District 21 move up to middle school. Indeed, District 20 is one of the most crowded school districts in the city, so much so that the city built a host of new schools for it in the past decade, with more being planned, meaning that public school students in both District 20 and District 21 are likely to feel the squeeze should they have to share space with students from a charter school. That strikes us as patently unfair. While some of the charter schools poised to open in September, 2014 may be worthy additions to the city’s educational offerings, their needs should not trump the needs of existing schools with existing students. And, indeed, when a charter school is put inside a public school, the process must involve the school communities at both educational institutions, and parents must also be involved. The city must go back to the drawing board and come up with alternative arrangements for the charter schools planned for Seth Low and Cavallaro as well as other schools where they are opposed.. The students who attend those schools deserve no less. guest op-ed Keep SUNY Downstate open and BY FREDERICK E. KOWAL ONE FOR THE BOOKS Compiled by Gary Nilsen and Helen Klein A LOOK BACK We are delighted that the Brooklyn Public Library has been able to find space to accommodate a temporary library facility while the new, larger Sunset Park Library project is underway. While we recognize that some members of the community have concerns over the plan – which involves BPL partnering with a not-for-profit organization to create a hybrid that fuses together a considerably more spacious library (nearly 21,000 square feet in size, at this point) with 50 units of affordable housing, half of which will be dedicated to residents of the community board – we applaud the effort to bring this very necessary enlargement, as well as needed affordable residential units to the neighborhood. We are particularly delighted that the space that BPL has snagged for the temporary library is inside the historic landmarked court building on Fourth Avenue at 42nd Street. That gorgeous building – which houses Community Board 7 as well as some NYPD offices – deserves to be better known by residents, and we are delighted that the NYPD has accommodated the library’s need by ceding some of its space on a temporary basis. Overall, the library project is an ambitious one, that is allowing BPL to fulfill its public mission in a neighborhood where the need for an expanded facility is ever-increasing. That said, the road to completion will be a long one. The project must go through a lengthy public review, the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, before construction can commence. During that scrutiny, residents and businesspeople as well as elected officials will be able to make their views known on several occasions – as the project must be presented to the community board and borough president (both of whom will render advisory opinions on it) before it goes before the City Planning Commission and the City Council. The end result, however, will be a facility nearly twice the size of the current library that will welcome in the neighborhood’s students and seniors, and everyone else who seeks the recreation and information that the library offers, while at the same time providing housing for people who need it in a neighborhood where affordable apartments are at a premium. BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP/file photo A vibrant tradition in southwest Brooklyn since 1952, the 17th of May Norwegian Constitution Day Parade celebrates the Scandinavian heritage of the area, from Sunset Park through Bay Ridge. In this photo from the files of this newspaper, marchers dressed in traditional garb, old and young alike, strutted their stuff along Eighth Avenue, the parade’s first home. While many Norwegians have moved on, the parade continues to thrive in its newest home, Third Avenue, where marchers will take to the street on Sunday, May 15, this year.
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