14 JUNE 16 – JUNE 22, 2017 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP EDITORIAL A LOOK BACK THAT SINKING FEELING 14 BROOKLYN MEDIA GROUP • MARCH 6 - MARCH 12, 2014 editorial A LOOK BACK compiled by It’s only June, and already this summer’s first sinkhole has appeared. At approximately GO BACK three feet in TO diameter,THE the sinkhole that opened up on 77th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues on the evening of Monday, June 12, is certainly not one DRAWING of the largest the neighborhood BOARD has seen, given the craters that have appeared in Bay Ridge and Sunset Park over the last several years. Area residents are not likely to forget the Fifth Avenue and 64th Street sinkhole that opened up in 2015 and took 13 months to repair, or the 30 foot wide by 10 foot deep one that swallowed a portion of 79th Street (and a car) between Fourth and Fifth Avenues back in 2012, or the nearly-70-foot-deep one that opened up on 92nd Street earlier that same summer, and remained a gaping eyesore for months as the city’s Department of Environmental Protection struggled to tame it. But, the nabe’s newest sinkhole formed quickly, going from depression to open wound in under an hour, and we can only hope that it is not a harbinger of things to come, as the weather heats up and the asphalt melts. The reality, of course, is that local sewers and water mains are a century old, making them extremely vulnerable, and residents are keenly aware of that fact. “Not the first, and it won’t be the last,” commented one reader on brooklynreporter.com, which broke the news of the latest 79th Street sinkhole just an hour or so after it formed. “Very Dangerous,” another reader wrote, and indeed it is. We have to wonder what the city is waiting for. It’s not like there haven’t been warnings. Over the past several years, there’s been a laundry list of locations where sinkholes — some smaller, some larger — have opened up, and have required immediate triage that, in some cases, lasted for months and months. Enough is enough. It’s long past time for the city to pay attention to the neighborhood’s aging infrastructure before a major crisis occurs. 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. 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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 Forty years ago, “Saturday Night Fever” hit the big screen. The film, which stars both a very young and very slender John Travolta as the disco-dancing Tony Manero and the neighborhood of Bay Ridge as itself, was filmed in many locales in southwestern Brooklyn, including Fort Hamilton Parkway in the shadow of the Verrazano Bridge, which can be seen in the photo above, from the files of this newspaper. Other locales seen in the film include the long-defunct 2001 Odyssey disco club at Eighth Avenue and 62nd Street, and Lenny’s Pizza at 86th Street and 19th Avenue. Compiled by Helen Klein LETTERS MUSIC TO HER EARS I just read the Victoria’s Secrets column in the June 8 edition. I know exactly how you feel about Johnny Mathis since I feel the same way. I have been in love with him since I first heard him sing “It's Not For Me To Say” in a bowling alley from a jukebox. I made all my friends stop talking to listen to that magnificent voice that had me spellbound. And over the years I purchased every album and single that he ever made. Even now, I can hear the first three notes of a song and I will know which song it is of his. And I was in the audience at Westbury in row H when you were there. He hasn't aged a day! I was thrilled to see that he has so many fans that continue to love and support him. Diane DeMarco ELECTION CORRECTION The antics of Washington politicians are grabbing the headlines every day. Still, we can’t afford to ignore Albany! Right now there’s a bill languishing in the State Senate that would allow New Yorkers to vote for eight days in advance of every primary, general and special election. Many people today work two or three jobs with odd schedules and juggle school and family obligations. With voting limited to one Election Day a year, they often can’t make it to the polls. In the 2016 election, New York State had an abysmal voter turnout rate. We were 41st in the nation. The Early Voting bill, S2950, is co-sponsored by some of our Brooklyn senators – Kevin Parker, Jesse Hamilton, Martin Dilan and Velmanette Montgomery – but other senators in our area haven’t signed on. Why aren’t they willing to pass sensible legislation to help Brooklynites meet their responsibility to vote? Are they afraid that if more people can vote, they will be voted out office? That’s not likely if these senators are really working for their constituents, not for their perks and their cronies. Last month, the state Assembly passed similar legislation for early voting. The ball is in the Senate’s court. I strongly urge everyone who lives in the districts of State Senators Martin Golden, Diane Savino and Simcha Felder to tell them to support Early Voting S2950 and to demand that Majority Leader John Flanagan bring the bill to a vote in the Senate right away! Eleanor Moretta LIFE LESSONS Students' eyes sparkled as they read your thoughtful coverage of McKinley's Memorial Day tribute. Seventh graders took pride knowing that their poems were heard, and that their mention of 50 fallen soldiers—one from each state—was recognized. We remain grateful that we are able to count on your continued support to help us teach our students important life lessons. Your thorough press coverage enriches the experience for our students, while conveying our clear message to the entire community: appreciate freedom. We thank Jaime DeJesus for attending our event. Jessica Amato I.S. 259
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