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HRR05182017

14 MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP EDITORIAL R BEEF 14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH 6 - MARCH 12, 2014 editorial A LOOK BACK compiled by Ask the riders — R is not just for rarely anymore. With the MTA’s decision to remove the overnight cleaners from six stations along the line between Prospect GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD Avenue and 95th Street, you can add repugnant to the list of adjectives that frustrated commuters will be using to describe the train they take to work every day. Dubbed a pilot program by the MTA, the impending removal of the overnight cleaners (at all open stations along the stretch except 36th Street) has raised hackles of residents and their elected officials alike who want to know why the agency keeps the hits coming. It’s not as if riders weren’t already inconvenienced by the several-month-long closures of two (soon to be three) stations along the route while long-overdue renovations are made, is it? And, R train riders aren’t the ones who complain about long waits, particularly at 59th Street during late night hours. Heck, those waits now seem interminable during daytime, too! “It’s always been bad,” said one disgruntled rider — an opinion borne out by surveys conducted annually by the Straphanger’s Campaign, whose most recent report says that R train commuters get only $1.75 worth of service for their $2.75 fare. According to Straphanger’s, Rs come less frequently, and with below-average regularity compared to the system as a whole. They also break down with more frequency than the average train line. But, Straphanger’s says they are cleaner than average — a statistic, we fear, that is about to change thanks to the MTA’s latest boneheaded move, which some Ridgeites also fear will make platforms less safe. After all, removing the nighttime cleaners will mean that, in those stations, the only MTA employee is the station clerk in his or her little booth, rendering late-night platforms even more desolate as riders wait for extended periods for the train that rarely seems to arrive. Now, that’s ridiculous. 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 2016 by Home Reporter and Sunset News A LOOK BACK With the Norwegian Constitution Day 17th of May Parade this weekend, it seemed an appropriate time to look back on the event, one of the signature occasions in southwest Brooklyn that salutes the Nordic heritage that was once so prevalent in the area. The parade -- which commemorates the 1814 signing of Norway’s Constitution, and is 65 years young, this year -- once marched along Eighth Avenue, aka Lapskaus Boulevard, before moving to Fifth Avenue and now Third Avenue. This photo, from the files of this newspaper, features the car carrying the Viking Princess. Compiled by Helen Klein LETTERS TRANSIT WOES On recent weekends, as well as on the weekend of 5/27-5/28 (and who knows how many more weekends?) the R train will be completely suspended in Bay Ridge. Shuttle buses will replace the R train between 36th Street and 59th Street. The problem is, the MTA is not running nearly enough shuttle buses. There are massive crowds at each stop and the bus must pass up the crowds since the inadequate buses are completely full. Saturday afternoon, April 29, we boarded at 86th Street (crowd of over 50 people) and after that, the bus was completely full and could handle no more people. We then had to bypass a crowd of about 30 people who were waving their arms at 77th Street. At Bay Ridge Avenue, a few people got off, so a few people could get on. But there were another 40 people who couldn't get on. On the way home, around 8:30 p.m., it was a complete disaster at 59th Street to go home to Bay Ridge. Tons and tons of people were waiting, all trying to cram onto one tiny bus. Unfortunately, 30 or 40 people were left behind. I am very concerned as this seems to be an ongoing issue–this will happen again the weekend of 5/27-5/28, plus probably many more weekends as the Bay Ridge Avenue station is rehabilitated. Furthermore, I believe weekday shuttle buses are needed for Bay Ridge Avenue. It is unreasonable to expect people, especially the elderly, to walk from Bay Ridge Ave all the way to the 59th Street station. It involves a rather desolate section of Fourth Avenue, plus several dangerous intersections, crossing the highway entrance/exit and crossing the notoriously dangerous 65th Street. The MTA suggests people take the local bus instead, but as we all know, the local bus cannot handle the thousands and thousands of people who use the R train at Bay Ridge Ave on a weekday. Ridership is at: http://web.mta.info/nyct/ facts/ridership/ridership_sub.htm. In addition, the local bus only runs every 30 minutes, or less frequently after 10 p.m. Surely they cannot think people can wait 30+ minutes for a local bus or take the dangerous walk from the 59th Street station to get to Bay Ridge Avenue after 10 p.m. I hope you can bring attention to these issues, as this is causing a huge amount of pain for Bay Ridge commuters. Please feel free to have your reporters stand at 86th Street in the late morning/ early afternoon and/or at 59th Street in the afternoon/evening to get a first-hand look at how chaotic the scene is with people desperately trying to get on a bus. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Name withheld


HRR05182017
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