SMARTMOM Brooklynites Sing for Their Supper at Monthly Karaoke Smackdown Mom Does DUMBO BROOKLYN’S REAL NEWSPAPERS
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P5 P2 Find out who won this ham! SMART SMARTMOM Brooklynites sing for their supper at monthly karaoke smackdown mom does DUMBO BROOKLYN’S REAL NEWSPAPERS Including The Brooklyn Heights Paper, Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill Paper, DUMBO Paper and the Downtown News Published every Saturday — online all the time — by Brooklyn Paper Publications Inc, 55 Washington St, Suite 624, Brooklyn NY 11201. Phone 718-834-9350 • www.BrooklynPapers.com • © 2006 Brooklyn Paper Publications • 14 pages •Vol.29, No. 4 BWN • Saturday, January 28, 2006 • FREE ARBORCIDE! Parks Dept kills Heights trees — then charges a patsy with murder trees were thriving. If they were not, York By Gersh Kuntzman promised to replace them. The Brooklyn Papers But the company got no response until Five Brooklyn Heights residents in the last week, when Parks Department workers prime of their lives were murdered in broad showed up with chainsaws and started re- daylight last week — and a man who fought moving the trees. to keep them alive has been charged in the “One of the workers stopped cutting after crime even though he didn’t pull the trigger. he removed the first branch and called his supervisor because the tree was alive,” said The actual killers of two London plane trees and the York engineer. “He said, ‘Are you sure I three gingkoes — which stood for decades in front have the right tree?’ But he was told to keep of a large apartment tower at 75 Henry St. — were cutting. That’s how crazy this whole thing workers for the New York City Parks Department. is.” The Case of the Terminated Trees reads like a But as with any good murder story, mystery novel — except this isn’t a whodunnit, but George Della Latta, president of the build- a whydunnit. ing’s co-op board, thinks nefarious forces The roots of this tall tale go back to November, are at work. when contractors renovating the cement plaza at “The way I figure it, the lifespan of a the apartment building may have damaged the 35- street tree is, what, 20 years?” Latta said. year-old trees. “So the Parks Department figures they’re Or maybe not. going to have to replace these trees anyway, “We got hit with summonses and received a let- so why not find a way to make someone ter from the Parks Department saying we damaged else not only pay for their removal, but pay the trees and they had to be removed at our ex- Mango / Greg to replace them, too?” pense,” explained an engineer from York Restora- Latta has been sharing his theory with tion, who requested anonymity because the murder elected officials and even reporter David charge is being appealed. Diaz, who does the “Shame on You!” seg- The company’s owner, George York, hired ar- ment on WCBS-Channel 2 news. VP Pro Beach Volleyball VP Pro borist Don Venezia, who inspected the allegedly A The Brooklyn Papers The Brooklyn The Parks Department did not return re- wounded trees. Four of the five tree stumps that remain in peated calls for comment. “At this time,” Venezia wrote, “the trees have set front of 75 Henry St. after the Parks Depart- The irony is that the trees were allegedly bud and in my opinion are alive and healthy.” ment chopped down their 35-year-old tops. damaged during ongoing construction that Venezia said that one of the gingkoes has “some will transform the barren cement plaza at 75 small root damage, less than one inch,” but sug- Sights of summer Henry St. into a lushly landscaped sitting gested that the problem could be remedied by trim- trees are removed due to root damage ASAP,” area. ming “the damaged roots.” Matthew Wells, a department forester, wrote back. Some of the lost trees actually appear in Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project remains controversial, but there’s nothing ire-provoking about The Parks Department did not accept Venezia’s York offered a compromise — namely that the the architectural renderings of the $4-mil- his latest initiative — a deal to bring Kerri Walsh (above) and other top pro volleyball stars to diagnosis. “Brooklyn forestry requests that these trial be put on hold until the spring to see if the lion project. Coney Island this summer. See story, back page. Sad day for Cocoa without pier single freaks City: Move it from Hook to Sunset Park Dick Zigun is off the market By Ariella Cohen the Ivory Coast — touching on such third ed whether to make port space available Heights), as a circle of dockworkers gath- ATE TO BREAK the news man curiosity at Coney Island’s fa- The Brooklyn Papers rails as city politics, the future of the Port of elsewhere. ered around the ship last week. to you, Rubber Girl, Insecta- mous Circus Sideshow, is engaged New York and even the development of the Walk’s bittersweet cargo had been strand- “The city is not willing to let these piers Acocoa-filled freighter — unable to Brooklyn Bridge Park. ed on the East River since January 15, when keep going,” Yassky added. vora, Helen Melon and to be married. H unload its cargo because of a dispute Caught in the middle is Kip Walk, whose the Port Authority refused to allow Ameri- Pier operators had hoped to unload the ship Kerosene Queen, but the cliche is fi- To a human being, no less! between the Port Authority and the Blommer Chocolate is the largest cocoa can Stevedoring, which operates Pier 9, to at Pier 6 — but that site is now earmarked for nally true: the good ones are all gone. But she’s a freak at heart. Zigun’s operators of Brooklyn’s last working processor in the world and depends on the unload the 600-foot cargo ship at the nearby a high-rise developement that is part of the fiancee, Pat Mukuro, is not only a Dick Zigun, the king of all the port — has been ordered to drop Red Hook pier. Pier 6, saying that the company was mis- “park” plan, so the city ruled it off-limits. geeks, freaks and wonders of hu- Nigerian pop singer, but, if you be- anchor and unload downriver at a “I’m just trying to move some cocoa here, managing its port traffic. While the city, Port Authority and American lieve the entirely untrustworthy Zi- vacant Sunset Park pier. but New York City politics keep not letting “When you have cargo that wants to un- Stevedoring negotiated, Blommer decided not gun, she’s also an Urhobo princess. The decision ended a two-week stalemate me,” Walk said. load, why is the [city] telling them they to risk another shipment to governmental THE BROOKLYN “All that Josephine Baker was to whose implications go beyond the fate of Walk said that his company lost $3,000 a don’t know where they can go?” asked paralysis in New York and rerouted a second By Gersh Paris, Princess Pat will be to New 250,000 burlap sacks of cocoa beans from day as the city and the Port Authority debat- Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn ANGLE Kuntzman York,” Zigun said. “The world of the ship hauling $8 million in cocoa to Baltimore. weird better watch out for the John and Yoko of the 21st century.” Zigun claims the pair met in 1997 at the Mermaid Parade. Years later, she became renowned for her butchery of the national anthem. After a year, city admits “She didn’t really know the tune, and halfway through, she for- got the words and it became a crazy a capella moment,” said Fred Kahl, a.k.a. The Great Fredini, a guilt in Hook child’s death longtime sideshow performer. Mukuro returned to her native Africa to pursue her recording ca- By Gersh Kuntzman bureaucracy finally changed tactics. the Department of Sanitation found reer, but visa problems kept her The Brooklyn Papers A spokeswoman for the city Law “nothing conclusive that would con- from Zigun’s side (among other Department said the agency had ad- nect the department to the accident.” The Bloomberg administra- mitted guilt. In fact, investigators were in pos- parts of his body — ooof!). tion this week marked the one- The marriage is now scheduled The spokeswoman, Kate O’Brien session of hair and blood samples year anniversary of the death of Ahlers, said, “The city has expressed taken from one of the snow plows — for next week in Cyprus, chosen 10-year-old girl under a city for obvious reasons. in writing to Maria Jimenez, Markita and that tissue matched Weaver. / Greg Mango / Greg “When Zeus was killed, his gen- snowplow in an odd manner — Weaver’s mother, our profound re- “I have no idea why this admis- by finally admitting that a city itals were thrown into the ocean / Steve Sunshine gret and sorrow on her daughter’s sion took a year, but the NYPD and they landed near Cyprus,” Zi- worker did indeed kill her. death.” claims it was using a new kind of gun said. “And Aphrodite was The Department of Sanitation had Friends and family marked the ac- forensic test,” said Beth Schlossman, born out of the sea foam.” long denied that one of its drivers tual one-year anniversary by building the Weaver family lawyer. The Brooklyn Papers The Brooklyn Zigun said Mukuro will eventu- crushed Red Hook resident Markita a makeshift memorial at the corner of The family is suing the city for $85 Recently engaged Dick Zigun ally assume her rightful place as a Nicole Weaver as she played with her Richards and Walcott streets, where million At the same time Jimenez photographed in a fun house sideshow star: “I’m thinking Papers The Brooklyn friends in the snow on Jan.