PUSS PARTY: The shelter’s leaders
are hosting a bash in its new
home on Dec. 8. Brooklyn Cat Cafe
HERE KITTY: The Brooklyn Cat Cafe’s new Montague Street digs in
Brooklyn Heights. Photo by Julianne Cuba
Police arrest man for rape near Prospect Park
COURIER L DT IFE, DEC. 7–13, 2018 3
NO MORE WALL: Developer Fortis Property Group now wants to build a six-foot steel fence along Amity Street
outside its swanky tower after locals panned its fi rst proposal to erect a nine-foot brick wall.
BY JULIANNE CUBA
The developer that locals
bashed for proposing to build
a brick wall blocking off one
of the swanky towers in its
seven-structure complex going
up on Cobble Hill’s old Long Island
College Hospital campus
now wants to put a steel fence
around the property, according
to a rep.
Swapping brick for steel
will go a long way to soothe
those residents who told
builder Fortis Property
Group to go back to the drawing
board with its wall they
called exclusive, according to
a spokesman representing the
real-estate fi rm at a Nov. 29
meeting of Community Board
6’s Land Use and Landmarks
Committee.
“It’s sympathetic to the historic
district, and addresses
many of the community concerns
that were raised in the
last meeting,” said Thomas
McMahon.
Last month, pols and committee
members slammed the
developer after its architect
Douglas Romines unveiled
renderings for the nine-foothigh,
brick barrier along
roughly 50 feet of Amity Street
sidewalk between Henry and
Clinton streets, which would
have prevented onlookers
from peeking into the private
swimming-pool and garden
of the 15-story condo tower
on Henry Street between Pacifi
c and Amity Streets that is
part of Fortis’s so-called River
Park complex.
Following the backlash,
the builder withdrew its
plans, which the city’s Landmarks
Preservation Commission
must sign off on since the
tower sits within the protected
Cobble Hill Historic District.
And roughly one month
later, Romines returned to the
committee with a new scheme
that proposes erecting an evergreen
hedge between two
steel fences — a roughly threefoot
one in front, and a six foot
one in back — along a smaller
stretch of Amity Street outside
its property.
The committee unanimously
approved the amended
proposal, but that vote was
merely a recommendation because
the board did not have
enough members present to
make a motion, according to
CB6 District Manager Mike
Racioppo.
The panel will again cast a
vote, which is purely advisory,
at its Dec. 12 board meeting,
which the public is welcome to
attend and make comments.
The 15-story Henry Street
tower — dubbed 5 River Park
— is the fi rst new-construction
high-rise to go up as part
of River Park, which Fortis is
building under existing zoning
law after abandoning an
attempt to upzone the site to
make way for an even larger
development with below-market
rate units in 2016.
CB6 meeting at the Cobble
Hill Health Center (380 Henry
St. between Congress and Warren
streets in Cobble Hill) Dec.
12 at 6:30 pm.
BY JULIANNE CUBA
Spread the mews!
The owners of Brooklyn
Heights’s beloved Brooklyn
Cat Cafe are inviting locals
to celebrate the reopening of
the facility in its new Montague
Street home on Dec. 8,
after they temporarily shuttered
the rescue’s old Atlantic
Avenue space last month
to relocate it.
“We hope to reopen on Saturday
and can’t wait to see
you!” shelter leaders wrote
in a Nov. 30 Twitter post.
“Thank you for your patience
and support during this chaotic
and exciting time!”
Volunteers with the
Brooklyn Bridge Animal Welfare
Coalition, who opened
the Cat Cafe back in 2016,
are now putting the fi nishing
touches on the new digs
ahead of the cafe’s reopening
inside the former Friend of a
Farmer restaurant space between
Montague Terrace and
Hicks Street, which eatery
brass vacated when they shut
the farm-to-table kitchen
down earlier this year after
opening it in 2015.
The cafe’s new spot is a
less-than-10-minute walk
from its old home, and features
even more space for locals
to come in and cuddle its
rescued kittens, as well as for
the pet-education workshops
and other classes often organized
by shelter leaders, they
said.
Plus, the new location
also boasts a kitchen — a feature
that could allow the socalled
cafe to truly live up to
its name by adding freshly
brewed coffee to the menu
of pre-packaged drinks and
snacks it previously offered, a
co-owner told the Park Slope
Courier ahead of the move.
Celebrate the new home
of the Brooklyn Cat Cafe (76
Montague St. between Montague
Terrace and Hicks
Street in Brooklyn Heights)
on Dec. 8 at noon.
BY COLIN MIXSON
Cops on Nov. 28 cuffed the man
whom they suspect raped a
59-year-old woman at gunpoint
near the Prospect Park Parade
Ground last month.
Police slapped the 28-yearold
suspect, who lives in
Queens, with charges that
included two counts of rape,
strangulation, sexual abuse,
and unlawful imprisonment,
according to authorities.
The victim told police the
man on Nov. 18 grabbed her on
Parkside Avenue near Parade
Place at 4 am, claiming he was
armed with a knife and a gun.
The suspect then shoved
the woman against a parked
van before dragging her behind
a bench, where he raped
her, according to cops.
Following the rape, the
man allegedly smashed a window
of the van and then entered
it with the victim, whom
he unsuccessfully tried to sexually
assault again while inside,
according to authorities,
who said the guy then stole $10
from the woman and fl ed.
A better barrier
Bklyn Cat Cafe opens
its new fur-ever home
Cobble Hillers okay redesigned ‘wall’ outside old LICH campus
CAUGHT: The suspect. NYPD
Romines Architecture