12 AWP Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 March 1–7, 2019
Saving a Life EVERY 11 MINUTES
HELPI’ve fallen and I can’t get up!®
$1,500
SAVINGS
with
GPS!
® Get HELP fast, 24/7,
anywhere with
For a FREE brochure call:
1-800-404-9776
No grow
Garden bigwigs double
down on opposition
By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Paper
These green thumbs are
seeing red!
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
bigwigs are doubling down on
their opposition to a proposed
Franklin Avenue megadevelopment
near the horticultural
museum, and will send a rep to
pan the plan at the first meeting
of the public-review process
its builder must endure
to get a rezoning necessary to
construct the complex.
“Representatives for BBG
will be at the scoping hearing
... speaking out against the
proposed rezoning,” said garden
spokeswoman Elizabeth
Reina-Longoria. “We strongly
oppose any changes to the existing
zoning.”
Botanic Garden leaders last
year blasted plans for Continuum
Company’s development
— which then called for erecting
six buildings as high as 37
stories with some 1,450 market
rate and affordable units
between them on the site of
an old factory at 960 Franklin
Ave. — citing concerns
about shadows it could cast
over the green space.
“Its towers could have significant
shadow impact on the
garden’s conservatory, nursery,
and other collections,” Reina-
Longoria told this newspaper
last June, months after the local
Community Board 9 expressed
its own reservations
about the scheme.
Garden stewards’ concerns
about the complex only escalated
when a local anti-gentrification
group released a study
performed by two private architectural
firms , which found
the tallest structures of Continuum’s
six-building complex
would cast shadows that could
darken parts of the green space
— including its Children’s,
Water, and Herb gardens, and
greenhouses at the Steinhardt
Conservatory — for more than
Continuum Company bigwigs want city permission
to build two 39-story, mixed-use towers a stone’s
throw from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
four hours a day during certain
times of the year.
The developer has since
refashioned the complex,
however, reducing it to two
mixed-use buildings, but upping
their height to 39 stories
each — on a lot currently
zoned for structures
no taller than seven stories.
And the project’s two buildings
will now boast a total
Culinary caper
Chef indicted for allegedly
stealing cash from clients
of that operation out of thousands. File photo by Elizabeth Graham
THREE WAYS TO LOVE
IN PRINT
Pick up Brooklyn Paper every
Friday across Greenpoint,
Williamsburg, Bushwick, Downtown,
and Brownstone Brooklyn. Each
paper delivers news, arts, sports,
and parenting in one package.
ON YOUR COMPUTER,
PHONE, OR TABLET
No one else covers Brooklyn like
BrooklynPaper.com. The site is
updated throughout the day,
offering the latest local coverage
with more depth than any other
web publication.
IN YOUR INBOX,
NEWSFEED, OR TIMELINE
Brooklyn Paper will come to you, too.
Follow us on Twitter at @Brooklyn_
Paper, like us on Facebook at
Facebook.com/BrooklynPaper, and
sign up for our e-mail news letter at
BrooklynPaper.com/about/alerts.
BROOKLYN PAPER and BrooklynPaper.com
Your go-to source for a daily dose of Brooklyn!
number of 1,578 apartments,
half of which would still be
so-called affordable.
But the recent design
changes did little to quell
garden keepers’ fears about
the lasting damage its shadows
could cause, according
to Reina-Longoria.
“Buildings of the proposed
height will have a significant,
negative, and permanent impact
on BBG’s conservatories,
greenhouses, and nurseries —
where plants for the entire garden
are propagated and grown
— by causing the loss of as
much as three hours of sunlight
daily in spring, summer,
and fall,” she said.
Continuum reps will present
their latest proposal at a
scoping meeting, where locals
can weigh in on terms for the
project’s environmental-impact
study before the scheme
and its rezoning application
begin their journey through
the city’s Uniform Land Use
Review Procedure.
Botanic Garden bigwigs’
staunch opposition to the Continuum
project is a departure
from the neutral stance they
took against another controversial
development comprised
of two 16-story towers
near the growing patch,
which Council ultimately approved
a rezoning for last December
after Crown Heights
Councilman Laurie Cumbo
worked out a deal to pack even
more below-market-rate units
into the project.
Share your thoughts at
the Department of City
Planning (120 Broadway
between Cedar and Pine
streets, City Planning Commission
Hearing Room, in
Manhattan). March 12 at 1
pm.
By Julianne McShane
Brooklyn Paper
This chef is cooked.
A Bay Ridge cook once
lauded as one of the borough’s
top chefs faces up to seven
years in prison for allegedly
posing as a phony consultant
and stealing thousands from
the owners of a restaurant in
his neighborhood.
Prosecutors slapped
36-year-old Vincent Tropepe
— whom Edible Magazine
once dubbed the “American
born Gordon Ramsay”
— with charges including second
degree criminal possession
of a forged instrument,
first-degree falsifying business
records, and third-degree
grand larceny as part
of a 41–count indictment,
Brooklyn’s top prosecutor
announced on Feb. 22.
“The victims in this case
worked hard to make their
restaurant a success and
this defendant, claiming he
could help them, allegedly lied
and stole their hard-earned
money instead,” said Eric
Gonzalez.
Tropepe — who previously
worked as a personal chef for
celebrities including P. Diddy
and former President Clinton
— scammed the owners of
Fifth Avenue’s Yemen Café
out of more than $14,000 while
working as a so-called consultant,
by creating fake vi-
Chef Vincent Tropepe, seen here showing off pastries
at the opening of his consulting business, faces
seven years behind bars for allegedly scamming clients
olations and fabricating the
accompanying fines, according
to prosecutors.
Prosecutors alleged the
defendant attempted to win
his victims’ trust by claiming
he fought to lower the fines
with officials in the Office
of Administrative Trials and
Hearings, which determines
financial penalties for violations
doled out by the Department
of Health and other city
agencies.
The chef began his alleged
scheme last July, when he demanded
the restaurant owners
pay a $2,570 fine issued
by the office, according to the
district attorney. And a month
later, he asked the owners to
reimburse him for $11,650,
money he claimed he paid to
the office on the victims’ behalf
to cover another fine, alleged
Gonzalez, who said the
defendant used fraudulent paperwork
outlining the fines to
support his bogus claims.
The restaurateurs, who also
own a Downtown location of
their café, later contacted the
Office of Administrative Trials
and Hearings with suspicions
about the fines’ legitimacy.
And agency officials
deemed Tropepe’s financial
penalties and their supporting
documents fake, before
reporting the incident to the
city’s Department of Investigation,
said Gonzalez.
Tropepe is due back in
court on April 17, the district
attorney said.
/BrooklynPaper.com
/www.BrooklynPaper.com
/BrooklynPaper.com
/www.BrooklynPaper.com
/BrooklynPaper
/alerts