YES: Bay Ridge state Sen. Andrew
Gounardes said congestion pricing
is a “necessary step” to funding
subway improvements.
File photo by Trey Pentecost
the amount of cars on the
road and provide about $15 billion
annually to the Metropolitan
Transit Authority to fund
improvements to the city’s
beleaguered subway system,
according to a rep for the independent
Regional Plan Association,
who on last week’s
episode of Brooklyn Paper Radio
said the pricing scheme
would impact only 1.3 percent
of Kings Countians.
Data compiled by procongestion
pricing organization
Tri-State Transportation
Campaign predicted a slightly
higher impact on the Borough
of Churches, estimating that 2.4
percent of its commuters would
regularly pay the charge, and
BY JULIANNE MCSHANE
Photo by Stefano Giovannini
State pols are prepared to approve
congestion pricing as
part of the governor’s executive
budget — a measure that
would only affect between
one and two percent of Kings
Countians who drive into the
distant isle of Manhattan,
according to analysts.
Assembly Speaker Carl
Heastie announced on Monday
that the lower chamber
was “ready to go forward”
with approving the measure,
weeks after the state Senate
passed a budget resolution
supporting it , according to the
New York Times .
Both chambers would have
to approve the measure before
the state’s April 1 budget
deadline, and the Assembly
planned to have a bill ready
to vote on by Thursday, according
to Streetsblog, after
this paper went to press . The
move would make the Big Apple
the fi rst city in the nation
to implement congestion pricing,
which would charge a yetto
be-determined fee to drivers
entering Manhattan below
60th Street at peak times.
Proponents of the decadesold
idea say it would both reduce
adding that more than 60 percent
of its residents take public
transit and would benefi t from
transit improvements.
But those who oppose the
measure — including Kings
County’s own Assemblywoman
Rodneyse Bichotte (DFlatbush)
— charge that the
pricing amounts to an unfair
burden on the poor.
Assemblywoman Mathylde
Frontus (D–Coney Island)
agreed with Bichotte’s concerns
about the plan, and characterized
herself as a “reluctant
supporter” of the pricing
in order to help fund improvements
to the subway system,
which she said her Coney Island
constituents — whom she
characterized as “the working
poor” — rely on.
“I know fi rsthand that just
because people are blessed
with a car and that they have
to go into the city, it doesn’t
mean that they’re well off,”
Frontus told this newspaper.
Data compiled by the Tri-
State Transportation Campaign
showed that only 3.1
percent of commuters in Frontus’s
transit-starved district —
which also includes Sea Gate
and parts of Bath Beach, Bay
O, holy site!
Diocese of Brooklyn leader
Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio,
seated at right, on March 24
said a mass to rededicate Williamsburg’s
ancient Annunciation
of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Catholic church, which workers
painstakingly restored over
the last year. Renovations to
the 150-year-old house of worship
included the installation
of a new marble altar, at left,
a reconstructed ceiling, and
the return of a 100-year-old
pipe organ that was originally
brought to the church in 1930.
For more, see page 14.
Ridge, Brighton Beach, Dyker
Heights, and Gravesend —
would pay a congestion charge,
and that more than 56 percent
of the district’s residents take
public transit.
state. Sen. Andrew Gounardes’s
(D–Bay Ridge) neighboring and
similarly transit-starved district
— which also includes Dyker
Heights, Bensonhurst, Bath
Beach, Gravesend, Gerritsen
Beach, Manhattan Beach —
would pay the congestion fee.
proposed plan, calling it a “necessary
upgrades and an “environmentally
freshman pol said that he would
push the MTA to use the extra
funds raised by the fee to implement
measures at Southern Brooklyn
MTA’s current plan to upgrade
signals along the R line do not
include the stations south of
DeKalb Avenue — and added
that the move would also push
the transit authority to invest
some of the money back into the
city’s beleaguered bus system.
INSIDE
Culture club
Fans flock to concert series in cheese cave
TBy Colin Mixson he Crown Heights underground
music scene is tight!
A monthly concert series located
inside a century-old subterranean tunnel
has become so popular among Kings
County music fans that its operators
have chosen to ditch their first-come,
first-served ticket policy in favor of a
lottery system. They hope the new policy
will even the playing field between
quick-clicking cyber-jockeys and more
casual attendees.
“The last three concerts sold out less
than a minute after tickets went on sale,”
said property owner Benton Brown.
“People were furious.”
The tunnel was originally built by
19th century beer-maker Nassau Brewery
to hold barrels of lager as they aged.
Brown and his wife Susan Boyle use one
of the three sprawling, 1850s-era vaults
beneath their Bergen Street property as a
cheese-aging facility, under the moniker
Crown Finish Caves. The grotto holds
upwards of 30,000 pounds of curdled
dairy, which can spend up to a year
fermenting in the cool darkness 30 feet
below ground.
But once a month or so, the couple
hosts some of the city’s most intimate
musical performances in one of
the vacant vaults. The 70 tickets they
sell online evaporate almost instantly,
consigning hundreds of would-be showgoers
to hopelessly massive wait lists,
according to Brown. A recent show
featuring jazz vocalist Queen Esther and
songwriter Taylor Ashton left 860 people
on the stand-by list feeling bleu.
The music is great, said the Crown
Heights cheese maker, but the show’s
unique and exclusive venue provides an
undeniable draw.
“It’s an experience,” said Brown.
“You’re going to a kind of space you’ve
never really been to before.”
The cheese cave’s next show, featuring
fiddlers Sammy Lind and Nadine
Landry on May 2, will feature the first
audience chosen by lottery. Would-be
Cave music: Taylor Ashton performs in
the vaults of the Crown Finish Caves in
Crown Heights. Photo by Caroline Ourso
attendees can start signing up at Crown
Finish Cave’s website on April 15.
The cheese makers will also raffle
off chances to buy five pairs of tickets
to the next show to customers who buy
cheese at their monthly pop-up sales
event, held at their Bergen Street dairy
business. Brown described the raffle as
“the easy way” of getting into the shows.
Interested cheese-eaters can keep an eye
on the business’s Instagram page to hear
about the next pop-up sale.
Catch a show at Crown Finish Caves
925 Bergen St. between Classon and
Franklin avenues in Crown Heights,
(718) 857–2717, www.crownfinishcaves.
com. May 2 at 8 pm. $32.
Your entertainment
guide Page 41
Police Blotter ..........................8
The Right View ....................30
Standing O ............................ 32
HOW TO REACH US
COURIER LIFE, M 2 ARCH 29–APRIL 4, 2019 M BR B G
And the organization predicts
3.6 percent of commuters in
But Gounardes cheered the
step” to funding subway
friendly thing to do.” The
more and faster signal upgrades,
trains, and accessibility
subway stations — since the
This newspaper is not responsible for typographical errors in ads beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2019 by Brooklyn Courier Life
LLC. The content of this newspaper is protected by Federal copyright law. This newspaper, its advertisements, articles and photographs may not be reproduced, either in whole
or part, without permission in writing from the publisher except brief portions for purposes of review or commentary consistent with the law. Postmaster, send address changes to
Brooklyn Courier Life LLC, One MetroTech North, 10th Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
Mail:
Courier Life,
1 Metrotech Center North
10th Floor, Brooklyn,
N.Y. 11201
General Phone:
(718) 260-2500
News Fax:
(718) 260-2592
News E-Mail:
editorial@schnepsmedia.com
Display Ad Phone:
(718) 260-8302
Display Ad E-Mail:
jstern@schnepsmedia.com
Display Ad Fax:
(718) 260-2579
Classified Phone:
(718) 260-2555
Classified Fax:
(718) 260-2549
Classified E-Mail:
classified@schnepsmedia.com
Congestion tolls gain support
State poised to pass scheme, which would barely affect Brooklynites, analysts say
/www.crownfinishcaves
link
link
link
/www.crownfinishcaves
link
link
link