PACKED HOUSE Overflow Crowd Weighs in on Downtown Plan
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SATURDAY • FEBRUARY 21, 2004 Including Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill Paper, The Downtown News, DUMBO and Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Paper Published every Saturday by Brooklyn Paper Publications Inc, 55 Washington Street, Suite 624, Brooklyn NY 11201. Phone 718-834-9350 • www.BrooklynPapers.com • © 2004 Brooklyn Paper Publications • 18 pages including GO BROOKLYN • Vol. 27, No. 7 BWN • Saturday, Feb. 21, 2004 • FREE COURT TOLD: HYNES PACKED HOUSE Overflow crowd weighs in on Downtown Plan TARGETS By Deborah Kolben lease space in New Jersey or elsewhere. The Brooklyn Papers Darnell Canada, leader of Brooklyn United for Innovative Development (BUILD), a sup- Several hundred Brooklynites packed NOT JUST NETS porter of the plan, quipped, “How high this Borough Hall Wednesday night to tell building is isn’t important to people who don’t Borough President Marty Markowitz THE NEW BROOKLYN have a job and are out there dodging bullets.” FOES just what they think about a city plan to Noting that the unemployment rate among resi- convert Downtown Brooklyn into a dents of the nearby Walt Whitman and Farragut By Neil Sloane More coverage on pages 16-17 housing projects was well over 65 percent, he The Brooklyn Papers mega-blocked, high-rise metropolis. While most such public hearings draw said, “There are a lot of people who need jobs.” Developer Bruce Ratner’s plan for the adja- ball team, which Ratner is acquiring. The At- Residents opposed to construction of Rat- A lawyer who once challenged District Attorney just a handful of concerned citizens, on Charles Hynes in a Democratic primary filed court cent Atlantic Yards would have the state seize lantic Yards and downtown plans overlap at the ner’s $2.5 billion Nets arena, office and apart- Wednesday night more than 100 people more than three square blocks of privately intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. ment complex in neighboring Prospect Heights papers Tuesday charging him with a pattern of prose- were turned away from the main room cuting political rivals. owned land, a portion of which would be used to The city says the downtown plan is intended were prominent in their attendance, urging and forced to watch the hearing on a tel- build an arena for the New Jersey Nets basket- to attract businesses here that might otherwise See PACKED HOUSE on page 16 Sandra Roper, who in 2001 garnered 37 percent of the vote evision screen in a room down- against Hynes, filed motions in Brooklyn state Supreme Court seeking to dismiss criminal complaints against her. stairs. Nearly 100 people spoke. Because of the contentious history they share Hynes had a spe- “I got a hunch that I’m gonna hear cial prosecutor appointed to try Roper. Amanda Fritz, formerly a plenty,” Markowitz said before settling prosecutor in the frauds bureau of the Manhattan DA’s office and in for what turned out to be a five-hour now a solo practitioner in Manhattan, secured an indictment last hearing. June charging Roper with third-degree grand larceny and forgery Armed with placards, signs and plen- with respect to her former client, Mary Lee Ward, 73. ty to say, those who took the micro- In his motion to dismiss the indictment, Roper attorney Ray- phone expressed a decidedly split view. mond Baierlein charges Hynes with “discriminatory and selec- In one corner, critics raised concerns tive prosecution.” about traffic and transportation, preserv- The motion alleges a pattern of politically motivated prose- ing the character of the surrounding cutions initiated by Hynes, starting with a former Brooklyn neighborhoods, and the seizure of private judge, John Phillips, who had intended to run against the dis- property for private developments under trict attorney in the 2001 primary. the state’s power of eminent domain. “Judge Phillips was forced to withdraw based upon the fact Others rallied behind the plan, saying that DA Hynes’ office instituted a guardianship proceeding that it would create much-needed jobs against him, seizing all of his extensive real estate holdings,” for Brooklyn residents. the court papers charge. As part of the Downtown Brooklyn Long Island-based attorney Frank Livoti instituted the proceed- Plan, the government would condemn sev- ing against Phillips at Hynes’ request, Roper’s motion states, en acres of private land including 130 claiming that the former judge, then 73, was in danger of being residential units, 100 businesses and a See HYNES TARGETS FOES on page 5 college. WEEKEND Sister act Last chance to see Heights Players’ Callan / Tom THIS powerful ‘The Sisters Rosensweig’ The Brooklyn Papers The Brooklyn Where there’s smoke… Firefighters battle blaze in a four-story warehouse on Water Street at Bridge and Gold streets in Vinegar Hill early Wednesday morning. Authori- ties said five of the 168 firefighters were hurt during the 10 hours it took to put out the fire in the vacant building. One firefighter was taken to Long Island College Hospital in Cobble Hill and another to the burn center at New York Hospital in Manhattan. Three were treated at the scene. LIU locks down campus’ student-run newspaper freedom of the press and student privacy among Goode time: Michael Janove as Mervyn Kant and Susan Faye Groberg as Sara Goode in this By Neil Sloane The Brooklyn Papers faculty, alumni and students of the school, which is weekend’s Heights Players production of “The Sisters Rosensweig.” home to the annual George Polk Awards, one of the The administration of Long Island Univer- nation’s most prestigious journalism honors. By Paulanne Simmons “The Sisters Rosensweig” for their February pro- sity’s Downtown Brooklyn campus came under At issue is whether the president of the student for The Brooklyn Papers duction, which closes this weekend. fire this week after school officials took control government is considered a public figure, the “The Sisters Rosensweig” — staged this Directed by Steve Velardi (“Jake’s Women,” of the student-run campus newspaper, Seawan- cause of whose actions the student body has a Saturday at 8 pm and Sunday at 2 pm by the “The Fantasticks”) the show features Christina haka, firing the weekly’s faculty adviser and “right to know.” Cass (most recently, Terry in “Side Man”) as suspending its editor in chief for printing the The logo of the LIU student newspaper that was Dr. Robert Spector, chairman of the Polk Heights Players — takes place on a weekend Pfeni Rosensweig, Ana Jacome as Gorgeous shut down by the school’s administration. in late August 1991 as the Soviet Union is grades of a student leader who had resigned. Awards, who heads LIU’s Communications and (Rosensweig) Teitelbaum and Susan Faye The decision by Dean of Students Bernadette Humanities divisions, which include the journal- toppling, AIDS is devastating the gay com- Groberg, who played Gorgeous in the Gallery and urging their publication. munity and, the breach between rich and poor Walker came two weeks after the paper’s editor, ism department, this week expressed outrage at Players’ production, now taking the role of Sara. Justin Grant, wrote a front-page article about the The dean fired Bush from his advisory posi- Dean Walker’s actions. in America is becoming greater every day. The performances of these talented actresses are sudden resignation of the Student Government tion, changed the newspaper office locks and ap- “Seawanhaka is treated by the administration as But as the Rosensweigs gather in the elegant so convincing that I found myself calling my own Association president. The SGA leader had cited pointed a non-journalism department administra- though it were a club. What has happened is that the London home of Sara (Rosensweig) Goode to sister when I returned home after the play. “personal problems I have to take care of” as his tor to oversee the 76-year-old campus newspaper, student body, the students on the paper, and the fac- celebrate her 54th birthday, their concerns are These three feisty daughters of Rita Rosen- reason for stepping down. which did not publish last week after remaining ulty adviser have approached it as though it were a much more personal: growing old, finding love sweig (who single-handedly defeated the But in the Jan. 21 article, Grant alleged that “aca- Seawanhaka staffers decided to shut down opera- legitimate newspaper. It should not be under the con- o and keeping one’s identity — in this case Cossacks with her beauty and wisdom) t demic struggles” the previous semester were the im- tions until Grant is allowed to return. trol of the dean of students, which is what it is under Jewish and Brooklyn. each have their own way of dealing petus for the resignation and reported the student’s The newspaper shutdown has also disrupted right now,” Spector told The Brooklyn Papers. It was playwright Wendy Wasserstein’s genius with life’s vicissitudes. more grades as “a B-, an incomplete, two Fs, a D and a P.” the school’s journalism program, which, faculty “Nobody spoke to me about it,” he said of the de- to blend worldwide and personal crises in a play Sara is a successful managing Walker, who suspended Grant from his news- explained, uses Seaeanhaka as a laboratory for cision to fire Bush and suspend Grant. “I think [the that is both touching and tremendously funny, director of the Shanghai Bank paper job until Feb. 28, accused the newspaper’s class assignments, on the campus at Flatbush Av- administration] has acted very hastily and without and happily, the Heights Players have chosen See SISTERS on page 11 faculty adviser, Dr. G. Michael Bush, a journal- enue Extension and DeKalb Avenue. consideration of all of the circumstances involved, There’s INSIDE ism professor, of providing the grades to Grant The moves set off a firestorm of debate regarding See LIU NEWSPAPER on page 5 ’S ARD Check out The Papers’ CASH REW TAX FREE SENIOR SEMINAR $ Eldercare attorney Susan A.