factory campus on its opening
day. The six-acre Domino
Park, built and owned by private
developer Two Trees, but
open to the public, includes
a volleyball and two bocce
courts, a dog run, Japanesestyle
garden, dedicated kids’
and picnic spaces, and a taco
stand run by the restaurateur
behind Shake Shack. The
green space was the second of
the larger development site’s
many components to open, following
the debut of its donutshaped
tower at 325 Kent Ave.,
which residents moved into in
2017.
Molto bene!: The city’s
fi rst Italian-American community
center , “Il Centro,” fi -
nally opened its doors in Bensonhurst
on June 21, nearly a
decade after the project was
fi rst announced. The center’s
fi rst fl oor, which includes
classrooms, is open to the public,
and its upper fl oors, available
to due-paying members,
include a gym, basketball
court, pool, and soon-to-come
rooftop garden.
Passionate protestors:
Hundreds of teens dressed in
orange, the color of solidarity
adopted by leading gun-law reform
groups including Moms
Demand Action, marched
across the Brooklyn Bridge
to advocate gun-law reform
and demand lawmakers pass
legislation to prevent more
shootings. The advocates
walked hand-in-hand across
the steel bridge to Manhattan,
with some carrying a symbolic
white casket and others
brandishing posters that read
“The Scariest Thing in School
Should be My Grades.”
July
Camera shy: All 140 of the
city’s school-zone speed cameras
stopped doling out tickets
to drivers on July 25, after
the state Senate failed to
pass legislation extending the
Still Jewish Family owned
and Independently operated
2018 REVIEW
Calderon in July, demanding
he be immediately released
from detention because even
though he was in the country
illegally, he had always abided
by the law. And the Feds ultimately
dropped their deportation
case against Villavicencio
Calderon in October.
Girl gone: A driver fatally
hit a 4-year-old girl while pulling
out of a Bushwick laundromat’s
parking lot on June 24,
then fl ed the scene. But cops,
who caught up with the motorist
about a block away from the
deadly hit-and-run, did not immediately
arrest her. Days after
the motorist hit and killed
Luz Gonzalez, her family and
friends marched through
Bushwick demanding justice
for the girl, with Borough
President Adams demanding
the driver be held accountable
for fl eeing the deadly scene.
The district attorney’s investigation
into the incident is
still ongoing, according to a
spokesman.
Sugar rush: Fans of the
great outdoors fl ocked to the
Williamsburg waterfront on
June 10 to be among the fi rst to
step inside the newly fi nished
park at the old Domino Sugar
STILL SERVING THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF BROOKLYN AT OUR NEW LOCATION
1700 Coney Island Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Our helpful and experienced staff remains the same
Our telephone number remains the same
718-338-1500
COURIER LIFE, D 4 EC. 28, 2018–JAN. 3, 2019 M B G
cameras’ use before the upper
chamber ended its session in
June. Activists blasted the Republican
pols who led the state
Senate — including Bay Ridge
state Sen. Marty Golden — for
not heeding Gov. Como’s call
for them to convene a special
session to extend the speedcamera
law before it expired,
with some supporters hosting
protests outside legislators’ offi
ces decrying the loss of the
technology that they claimed
saves kids’ lives. Roughly
a month later, Cuomo and
Mayor DeBlasio in August together
worked out a temporary
plan to turn the cameras
back on before school resumed
in September, but that scheme
— which relies on a gubernatorial
executive order — did
not absolve the state Senate
from the responsibility of voting
on legislation that would
preserve the program, something
it has not yet done.
Chopped: Fans of the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
blasted the green space’s
leaders after they cut down a
stately old London plane tree
in favor of a younger plant,
calling the decision arboreal
ageism. Garden workers
claimed the mature tree was
hazardous and susceptible to
collapse, since it contained a
cavernous hole in its trunk —
a feature that made the tree
beloved by youngsters, who
could hide from their parents
in it.
All aboard! The city
launched the fi rst super-sized
boat in its fl eet of ferries that
shuttle commuters across the
East River. The 350-seat vessel
started sailing the Rockaway
route on July 21, going back
and forth between Queens and
Manhattan with a stop at the
Brooklyn Army Terminal in
Sunset Park. One-way passage
on the ferry, named the
“Ocean Queen Rockstar” by
Continued from page 3
DARK DAY: Reyna Candia, right, the mother of Luz Gonzalez, and her
godmother Fabiola Mendieta, left, held a June vigil for the girl after a
motorist hit and killed her in Bushwick. File photo by Stefano Giovannini
Continued on page 10