3
DEC. 30, 2018, BROOKLYN WEEKLY
Bklyn’s biggest stories of 2018
The time has come to close the books on another news-packed 365 days in Brooklyn. And what a year it was! State offi cials with the Metropolitan
cameras switched off in July due to inaction from some state pols — and switched on a month later under a temporary scheme hatched
by Gov. Cuomo and Mayor DeBlasio. Federal offi cials detained a pizza delivery man at Fort Hamilton Army Base, bringing the national
conversation over immigration laws to the streets of Bay Ridge. And the new owners of the old Pavilion Theater reopened it as Nitehawk
Prospect Park days before Christmas, giving an early present to local cinephiles. But wait, there’s more! Relive what else happened in the
year of our Lord, two thousand and eighteen, in our year in review:
January
Transportation Authority dropped April 27, 2019 as the offi cial start date for the “L-pocalypse.” Brooklyn’s school-zone speed
Special delivery!
Brooklyn’s fi rst baby of
2018, Joshua Miguel Brito,
arrived at 12:25 am at Bedford
Stuyvesant’s Woodhull
Medical Center on
Jan. 1. The New Year’s Day
birth of the little miracle
weighing six pounds and
14 ounces was particularly
special for his family, because
he entered the world
six years after his greatgrandmother
left it when
she died on the very same
day.
You’re out: Coney Islanders
called for Assemblywoman
Pamela Harris
to resign after prosecutors
indicted her on Jan. 9 for
stealing thousands of dollars
from the city and federal
agencies, crimes a jury
later convicted her of. Prosecutors
charged the now
disgraced pol with fraud
and witness tampering as
part of a scheme to steal
$30,000 in city funds, and
thousands more in superstorm
Sandy recovery aid,
and her constituents demanded
she should give up
her seat for the sake of public
trust.
They’re electric! The
city rolled out a tiny test
fl eet of 10 electric buses on
Jan. 8, as part of an initiative
to modernize its bus
system The environmentally
friendly buses shuttled
riders of the B32, which
travels from Williamsburg
to Queens, as well as straphangers
on other routes in
Queens and Manhattan.
The pilot fl eet of gas-free
buses, which the state deployed
in a three-year test
program, could be beefed
up to include of 60 zeroemission
vehicles, according
to Gov. Cuomo.
Case closed: The district
attorney decided not
to press charges against the
garbage-truck driver who
hit and killed a 27-year-old
cyclist in Greenpoint in
July 2017. Eric Gonzalez
on Jan. 9 declared there
wasn’t enough evidence to
charge the worker for private
carter Action Carting
after investigators’ nearly
six-month probe into the
incident, even after that
probe found the driver was
behind the wheel without
the proper license when
he fatally struck Neftaly
Ramirez.
February
Gassed: Parents
slammed the city for not
doing enough to protect
pedestrians from motorists
using a Fourth Avenue
gas station near a Sunset
Park school that they
called a “death trap.” The
moms and dads said they
and their tykes enrolled at
PS 172 must dodge careless
drivers who speed into the
Speedway gas station, often
illegally driving on the sidewalk
to reach its pumps.
Months later, in April, the
city’s Department of Transportation
initiated safety
improvements, including
the installation of graniteblock
barricades outside
the station, and Speedway
employees painted arrows
clearly marking where
cars should enter and exit
the lot.
Big house: Longtime
Marine Parkers blasted
the city for letting the owners
of a small one-family
home in the residential
neighborhood supersize
it into what they called a
multi-family monstrosity .
Locals said the six-family
Kimball Street residence is
completely out of character
with the rest of the area’s
quaint homes, and that the
house sticks out like a sore
thumb thanks to a cluster
of gas meters in the front
and a mess of ductless airconditioning
units on the
side. And some worried
that the home could start
a trend of building bigger
in Marine Park, crowding
it with new developments
like those rising in nearby
Sheepshead Bay.
March
Modern makeover:
The Brooklyn Public Library
announced a series
of multi-million dollar
changes to the Central
Branch, beginning with
the construction of a new
lobby space. Library leaders
allocated $35 million
for the new welcome center
— named after the late
Brooklyn Congressman
Major Owens, a former local
librarian — construction
of which began in
April. Building the Major
Owens Welcome Center,
which is expected to open
in 2020, is the fi rst of four
phases in a larger renovation
of the reading room —
a decade-long project that
will in total cost some $135
million.
Tragedy all around:
A driver hit and killed
two children — and injured
their mothers, one of
whom was pregnant, along
with another man — when
she rolled through a red
light on Ninth Street and
slammed into the pedestrians
as they crossed Fifth
Avenue in Park Slope on
March 5. Prosecutors in
May charged Staten Island
motorist Dorothy Bruns
with reckless manslaughter
for the deaths of 1-yearold
Joshua Lew and 4-yearold
Abigail Blumenstein
— whose mother, Tony
Award–winning actress
Ruthie Ann Miles, lost her
unborn baby due to injuries
sustained in the crash
days after the charges were
announced. Bruns, whom
prosecutors alleged knew
not to get behind the wheel
at the advice of her doctors,
spent time on Rikers Island
following her indictment,
because she could not make
bail. And the case met a
sudden, tragic end in November,
when a friend discovered
Bruns dead from
an apparent suicide in her
Staten Island home.
Caught up with him:
A city watchdog agency
slapped Former District Attorney
Charles Hynes with
the highest fi ne it ever dealt
for illegal campaign-related
activities on March 27. The
$40,000 fi ne from the city’s
Confl ict of Interest Board
came after Hynes admitted
to abusing his government
e-mail during a contentious
2013 re-election bid he ultimately
lost. The Flatbush
native sent more than 5,000
emails to newspapers, campaign
managers, political
consultants, donors, and
more from his municipal
account to defeat opponent
Ken Thompson.
Raise the hoof: The
new owner of Kensington
Stables unveiled plans to
turn the barn into a “state
of the art” horse-riding facility
for Prospect Park-goers.
Red Hook industrialist
John Quadrozzi, Jr., who is
renaming the facility Prospect
Park Stables, asked
the city to sign off on an
application to upzone the
property, so he can build
seven new stories atop the
stables, creating 12 rental
units that will earn revenue
to maintain the beloved
barn.
April
Throw it back! The
Feds in charge of cleansing
the fetid Gowanus Canal
announced they and state
offi cials would install new
signs along the waterway
that warn anglers about
the dangers of catching and
eating marine life found in
it, after concerned locals
with the Gowanus Community
Advisory Group
pushed for the placards.
But the signs’ announcement
spurred a monthslong
back-and-forth over
the language used on them,
which the locals demanded
should ban fi shing and eating
fi sh outright — something
state health offi cials
said they could not do due
to lack of available data on
just how tainted the species
in the Gowanus are.
Bye booze cruises:
City and state pols on April
24 announced they would
fi nally give the infamous
booze cruises that set sail
from Sheepshead Bay the
heave-ho. The electeds set a
Sept. 1 deadline for all the
vessels to dock elsewhere,
which, while months after
the mayor’s previously
promised deadline of before
summer 2018, still came as
good news to residents after
years of complaints about
the rowdy party boats.
May
Borrow a tune: Brooklyn
Public Library leaders
kicked off the reading
room’s fi rst instrumentlending
program on May
23, through which members
could borrow one of fi ve
sound makers — acoustic
guitar, ukulele, violin, electronic
keyboard, and practice
drum pads — and play
it at home for two months at
a time. ding to make it permanent.
Unwanted changes:
Sheepshead Bay residents
lamented what they called
booming development
along the neighborhood’s
namesake thoroughfare,
claiming new commercial
buildings on Sheepshead
Bay Road destroyed the area’s
small-town feel. Locals
also accused the new developments
of pricing out the
mom-and-pop shops that
once characterized Sheepshead
Bay Road.
Watch out! New signs
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT: (Clockwise from above) Electric buses
started rolling along some routes in Williamsburg in January. Former
Assemblywoman Pamela Harris left federal court in Brooklyn
on Jan. 9 after being indicted on 11 counts. Mom Arsenia Reilly-
Collins called the Speedway gas station in Sunset Park a “death
trap.”
Associated Press / Mary Altaffer
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
File photo by Julianne McShane
Continued on page 5