8 AWP Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 February 15–21, 2019
Block
party
Mom builds
a Lego biz
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
She’s building a business
brick by brick!
A Kensington mom created
an after-school program and
events operation on the back of
her super-massive Lego collection
— which is so large it defies
calculation, she said.
“One of my kids once asked
how many Legos I have, so
we did some multiplying, and
gave up after we hit 10,000,”
said Eleanor Rodgers. “I’ve
gotten a lot more Legos since
then.”
Rodgers took her entrepreneurial
turn after failing
to find an after-school program
for her Lego-obsessed
son in 2015, when, much to her
Eleanor Rodgers, center, played with kids during one of her Lego events.
Push to fi nish Bush Terminal
Locals demand city fund park’s long-promised amenities
the city finish work on Bush Terminal Piers Park. Photo by Cate Dingley
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Photo by Colin Mixson
surprise, she discovered the
fabled mom-clave of nearby
Park Slope did not boast any
kids clubs centered around the
world’s most popular toy.
“I figured they’ve got everything
under the sun in Park
Slope, they must have a Lego
club,” said Rodgers. “But I
couldn’t find one.”
So, like any super mom,
Rodgers built one herself,
creating an after-school program
that same year at PS 130,
which gives kids in kindergarten
through fifth grade a
chance to play with Legos four
days a week — and take their
creations home, she said.
Rodgers’s program —
which costs $24 a session —
includes film classes, during
which youngsters build Lego
sets and use iPads to record
and edit stop-motion footage
they then stitch together
to make short films, such
as “Pirate Treasure,” which
clocks in at an epic four minutes
and 16 seconds.
The mom used her afterschool
program as a building
block to grow her Legothemed
event business, which
now also includes birthday
parties, and camps during
many school holidays.
Lego camp at Holy Apostles
Episcopal Church (612
Greenwood Ave. between
Prospect Avenue and E.
Seventh Street in Kensington,
www.kensingtonlegoclass.
wordpress.com). Feb.
19–22, $60 for half-day session,
$125 for full-day session.
E-mail eleanorlego@
outlook.com to enroll.
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
The city must fork over the
$20 million needed to finish a
Sunset Park meadow officials
opened years ago without all
of its promised amenities, locals
demanded.
“We have such a lack of
green space in this community,
it makes sense for us to
really put the pressure on,” said
Cesar Zuniga, chairman of the
local Community Board 7.
The city opened Bush Terminal
Piers Park in an obscure,
waterfront location behind a
Second Avenue pool factory
in 2014, after a more than decade
long push from community
members.
But the park debuted without
promised features, including a
Civic leaders on Community Board 7 are demanding
playground and basic lighting,
according to residents.
At the time, reps for the city’s
Economic Development Corporation
— the agency that owns
the parkland between 43rd and
51st streets, which is maintained
by the Department of Parks and
Recreation — told CB7 members
that roughly $2–3 million
earmarked for construction of
those facilities instead went towards
cleaning up the former
toxic industrial site, according
to the panel’s district manager
Jeremy Laufer.
An economic agency rep
confirmed that issues with toxic
soil forced the agency to drain
its budget to fund the remediation
work, so that the park’s
grounds would not contaminate
locals when it opened.
Last year, however, the
agency sought some $26 million
needed to complete green
space — but city bean counters
only coughed up $6 million for
more lighting around the park,
according to Laufer.
And now the civic leaders
are going on the offense
to get the job done, devoting
the March meeting of CB7’s
Parks Committee to planning
their blitz.
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