PAVILION
BRAVEST
SQUIBB
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COURIER L 40 IFE, DEC. 14–20, 2018 DT
casion is simply an opportunity
for our team to hone service
techniques and perfect
how we provide our enhanced
experience,” said Ashton Pina.
“As we fi nalize our newest outpost,
the entire Nitehawk team
would like to thank the community
for their patience.”
Still, news of the private
screening will likely come as
a relief to many local cinephiles,
especially those who lost
their chance to glimpse the
restored Pavilion when Nitehawk
quietly canceled what
would have been the spot’s debut
screening there last month
due to construction issues.
Nitehawk owner Matthew
Viragh began making over
the dilapidated movie house
— which opened as the Sanders
Theater in 1928, and reportedly
suffered a blockbuster
bed-bug infestation a
few years before it closed for
renovations — after leasing
the spot from investors who
in 2016 bought it for $28 million
from developer Hidrock
Properties, after the builder
abandoned plans to build condos
and a new cinema on the
Pavilion’s Prospect Park West
lot.
Viragh originally planned
to unveil the newly renovated
theater, now called Nitehawk
Prospect Park, in early 2018,
But the movie man later
postponed the cinema’s debut
to this winter when workers
discovered long-lost architectural
elements from its early
days amid their transformation
of the space .
lision, which damaged the
driver’s side of the suspect’s
four-wheeler, cops said.
Offi cers from the 62nd
Precinct responding to a 911
call following the incident
arrived at the scene around
4:50 am, and found 33-yearold
Ditmas Parker Faizal
Coto — a member of New
York’s Bravest with Coney
Island’s Engine 245 — unconscious
and unresponsive
on the pavement next to his
car, cops said.
Paramedics rushed Coto
to Coney Island Hospital
where doctors pronounced
him dead, police said.
The medical examiner
determined Coto died from
blunt force trauma to the
head, a rep said, and the suspect
reportedly smashed Coto’s
skull with an unknown
object during the attack, according
to CBS News .
But the medical examiner’s
spokeswoman could not
confi rm whether the suspect
hit Coto with an object, and
a Police Department spokeswoman
could not confi rm
that the pair got into an argument
that resulted in the
deadly blow.
MARQUEE MADE OVER: The theater’s marquee no longer features the Pavilion logo, instead nodding to the
movie house’s new name, Nitehawk Prospect Park. Photo by Colin Mixson
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“I’m not going to give
you a year,” he said. “What
we have said is that we hope
to have the pool as soon as
we can. Once we have an
architect on board, and the
fund-raising continues, we
will have a better sense of a
schedule for the pool.”
Landau also is confi -
dent that the looming reconstruction
of the Brooklyn–
Queens Expressway’s
triple cantilever — which
stretches 1.5 miles between
Atlantic Avenue and Sands
Street, and cuts beneath the
stretch of Columbia Heights
where locals currently enter
Middagh Street’s Squibb
Park — won’t affect work on
the new bridge or pool.
But the park leader conceded
that using either during
the expressway repair
may not be a pleasant experience.
“It is possible that while
the BQE is under construction
there will be impact of
the enjoyment of the space
as it relates to noise and
dust, but there are things
we can do operationally to
mitigate that as well once
the pool is open,” he said.