A WORD OF PRIDE, AND THANKS
TOWN HALL
Continued from page 3
“Additional members are a possibility
but we have none to announce at this
time,” he said.
The panel will meet this month
and examine several current and future
proposals for an alternative to
the Department of Transportation’s
two original plans to either repair the
triple-cantilever bit-by-bit or build a
six-lane highway on top of the beloved
Brooklyn Heights Promenade.
Some time in the summer, they will
put forward a short report with their
recommendations, according to the
mayor’s offi ce.
Civic associations, residents, politicians,
and most recently, the international
architecture fi rm Bjarke Ingels
Group , have all fl oated their ideas for
the beleaguered roadway.
The Dumbo-based architects, along
with Heights local Mark Baker and architect
Marc Wouters laid out their
ideas to locals at the town hall who applauded
the proposals.
In addition to de Blasio’s brain trust,
the City Council will hire an independent
outside fi rm to look at the alternatives,
Speaker Corey Johnson announced
at the event.
“The Council will be hiring an independent
fi rm to evaluate each of the options
that are presented so we can understand
the pros and cons of every option
that’s put on the table,” Johnson said.
Six elected local offi cials attended
the meeting and roused the crowd in
opposition to the city agency’s original
plans, including Johnson, New York
City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Borough
President Adams, Councilman
Stephen Levin (D–Brooklyn Heights),
Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon (DBrooklyn
Heights), and state Sen. Brian
Kavanagh (D–Brooklyn Heights).
Levin said he didn’t support either
of the department’s plans but urged the
audience to form a consensus around a
plan so that it can have a chance of passing
through the city’s Uniform Land
Use Review Procedure without hitting
any roadblocks, such as litigation or
political obstruction along the way.
“We have to get this right and we
have to get this right now. I think we’re
on track,” he said.
Johnson, along with two other potential
future candidates for mayor,
Stringer and Adams, railed against the
top-down planning of the Robert Moses
era, that saw the original construction
of the triple-cantilever and envisioned
how its reconstruction could change the
city’s approach to transport, development,
and affordable housing.
“We can’t keep building luxury towers
and pushing rezonings in the name
of affordable housing,” Stringer said.
“Because those houses are not affordable
to all the neighborhoods in Brooklyn
and you know that.”
The fi ght for a better BQE should be
seen as a lesson for other communities
in the borough to improve their environment,
said Adams, who mentioned a disused
elevated subway track that extends
from the Myrtle Avenue-Broadway subway
stop into Bedford-Stuyvesant as an
opportunity for redevelopment, similar
to Manhattan’s High Line.
COURIER L 34 IFE, APRIL 12–18, 2019 M BR B G
MULTI-USE: One of the group’s proposals is to turn the triple-cantilever into a tiered
park and run a six-lane capped roadway underneath the new park. The space could also
be a path for Mayor de Blasio’s beloved Brooklyn-Queens Connector.
Bjarke Ingels Group
The New York Press Association, a statewide
group whose members include
weekly media, hosted a conference in
Albany and our company won 27 awards
for excellence.
This was a banner year at the awards
for Schneps Media, which expanded last
year to become a powerhouse with more
than 70 publications. Our editors, reporters,
photographers and designers
took home 27 awards. Schneps Media
papers also scored the most points of
any New York City-based chain.
These achievements are a great refl
ection of the hard work by those involved
in this team. It’s a source of pride
for all of us to work with such dedicated,
excellent journalists.
Our Courier Life staff took home
two awards from the Better Newspaper
Contest.
Reporter Julianne McShane earned
a fi rst place prize for Best News or Feature
Series for her series on refugees
who resettled in Southern Brooklyn
with the help of the Arab-American
Family Support Center.
“This series did a great job taking a
national issue and localizing it. It was
well-written and laid out the struggles
of refugees, who all came from different
backgrounds,” the judge wrote
about McShane’s work. “The way the
families are presented in the photos,
along with the sections at the end of a
few of the pieces on how to donate and
help people in need, emphasizes the
humanity of those seeking asylum,
which is obviously an important part
of telling these stories.”
Reporter Colin Mixson secured a
second place prize for Coverage of the
Environment. Mixson was recognized
for two stories: one about sick raccoons
taking to local streets following distemper
outbreak in Prospect Park in
December; the other about bird lovers
calling for an end to fi shing in Prospect
Park after a great horned owl ensnared
by line in the meadow died hours following
its arrival at a wildlife rescue
last April.
“You have found truly local stories
affecting people in your community
that relate to the environment,” the
judge wrote about Mixson’s stories. “I
ranked this entry high not in small part
because of its entertaining sytle of community
focus. Environmental issues
don’t always have to be the big-picture
topics. Sometimes they are a bird stuck
in the ice or sick raccoons plaguing the
community. Nicely presented.”
None of this, of course, would be possible
without your continued support.
By reading our stories online and picking
up our newspaper every week, you
help advance the mission of keeping
local journalism strong, viable and
independent.
All of us at Schneps Media want
to thank our team for their amazing
efforts — and all of you for your
continued loyalty and dedication.
PARK PROPOSAL
with Bjarke Ingels Group on the BQE
plan — and also has a rep on the mayor’s
new expert panel for the project
— released a report on April 2 that
fi ve policy changes could reduce traffi
c on the roadway.
The association’s report argues
that the state’s recently-approved
congestion pricing, along with its
proposed high occupancy vehicle policies,
splitting bridge tolls equally for
both directions, and reducing lanes
will decrease traffi c by as much as
25 percent during the expressway’s
reconstruction.
Siegel said his team took the report’s
numbers into consideration but
said that their plan would work even if
the current vehicle volumes persist.
“We wanted to prove the feasibility
of a six-lane confi guration in the
case that that would be what was
deemed necessary. However, if we
are able to reduce to fi ve or four lanes
as RPA has been proposing, it would
make this scheme just that more feasible
and less expensive,” he said.
Continued from page 3
Editorial