Brooklyn’s Real Newspaper BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 834–9350 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2007 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS–DOWNTOWN EDITION AWP/14 pages • Vol. 30, No. 14 • Saturday, April. 7, 2007 • FREE INCLUDING DUMBO ORGANIC SLICE OF YOUR LIFE CRIME IN Glass shard falls, spares preservationist By Ariella Cohen The near-tragedy was the latest, and most The Brooklyn Paper serious, in a string of mishaps to strike at the vacant former pub at Seventh Avenue and The consummate Windsor Terrace Second Street since the Landmark closed in preservationist has finally met a landmark the late 1990s. BAY RIDGE she didn’t like. The long-vacant building went on the Pat Maliha, the former chairwoman of the market last fall for $5.75 million. But ac- Citizens for the Preservation of Windsor Ter- cording to Realtor Ken Freeman of Massy race, was nearly decapitated last Thursday Knakal, its owner, Dorothy Nash, refused to when a 36-inch piece of glass fell from a de- drop her price which he said was too high crepit Park Slope brownstone — formerly for the derelict pre-war pub. He called the home to the legendarily wacky Landmark building a “disaster.” Pub, at 521 Seventh Ave. — and sliced “I told her many times I thought the out- through the black vinyl top of her 1990 Maz- side of the building was in poor condition,” da Miata convertible parked below. said Freeman, who gave up on the 10,400- “The glass shard went from the edge of the square-foot wreck in October. passenger seat to the edge of the driver seat / Sam Ferri Neither Nash, nor the real estate group, like gullotine,” said Maliha, who, luckily, was A.D. Shaye, which is now leasing the build- not inside the car at the time of the glass-crash. Mango P. / Gregory ing, responded to repeated phone calls from “I have fought a lot of building projects The Brooklyn Paper. over the last two decades,” she said. “This is The Department of Building Web site the first time a building fought back.” shows that someone called the city around Maliha was inside Tarzian West, a house- the time of the convertible-cut with a com- ware shop across the street, when the plate- plaint about falling debris. glass window exploded out of its third floor Paper The Brooklyn The complaint was dismissed after an in- The Brooklyn Paper illustration The Brooklyn window. Glass fell from this building, at the cor- spector found sidewalk tunnels around the “She went outside first,” said shop owner ner of Seventh Avenue and Second building and boards over the windows, work Joanne Tarzian, “and then I ran out, and saw Street in Park Slope. that had been done several months earlier. her roof was slit and the glass was in the seat.” Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for the / Gregory P. Mango P. / Gregory Tarzian said that the accident was just a ly complained to her about mortar she saw department, said the city would “continue to prelude to the tragedy that could happen if falling off the corner building. re-inspect the building and the sidewalk shed the building, which sits across the street from Maliha estimates it will cost thousands of and issue violations when warranted.” PS 321, isn’t repaired. dollars to replace her slit roof, and the con- Inspections, however, may not be enough. “I don’t walk by it,” she said, “and the vertible’s console, which was shattered by Maliha plans to sue the city for failing to kids that go to school at PS 321 shouldn’t ei- the falling glass. secure all the loose, or broken windows. Paper The Brooklyn The underground ther. I’m completely afraid of it.” “I feel extremely lucky I wasn’t killed,” “The city knew about the danger,” she add- Pat Maliha shows the slashed roof of her convertible that Tarzian said that another customer recent- she said. ed. “But it didn’t do enough to protect people.” was parked below a decrepit building on Seventh Avenue. world of raw milk By Matthew Lysiak The Brooklyn Paper The first rule of Milk Club is you don’t talk about Milk Club. Another Yards The second rule of Milk Club is you do not talk about Milk Club. Best buds That’s what I learned this week while investigating what my wife described as Brooklyn’s Underground Raw Milk Movement. What you don’t know “I know something you might have some interest in that one of my friends is into, but I doubt you will be able to find anyone who will about Garden’s blossoms talk about it,” she told me. “She’s smuggling milk that isn’t pasteur- lawsuit is filed ized from a farm in Pennsylvania to her Bay Ridge apartment.” Milk smugglers? By Karen Butler By Ariella Cohen environmental review,” said lead attor- for The Brooklyn Paper She continued: The Brooklyn Paper ney Jeffrey Baker. “If the government finds out they could shut her down, shut the It’s time for the Brook- Baker said the suit seeks to invalidate farmer down, shut everyone down.” A coalition of 26 Brooklyn civic the review done under the Pataki admin- lyn Botanic Garden’s cher- groups that oppose Bruce Ratner’s At- For drinking raw milk? istration, “necessitating a fresh look ry blossom festival. In hon- lantic Yards mega-development have I immediately flashed back to a children’s book I once owned about from Governor Spitzer, his new ESDC or of this, the 26th year of filed a lawsuit to annul the state’s envi- how Louis Pasteur saved all of humanity by discovering that spoilage and MTA, and the PACB.” “Hanami” (Japanese for ronmental review of the Prospect Heights could be thwarted in wine by heating it below its boiling point. He DDDB has long said that it would do then applied the same process to milk to destroy unwanted enzymes “viewing”), GO Brooklyn STARTS ON PAGE 7 Xanadu, charging that officials broke re- spoke with Brian Funk, cu- view laws in their rush to approve the all that it could to put the project under that looked a lot like unshaven Mr. Yuck stickers. the control of Gov. Spitzer, who they be- “Your friend is a paranoid — and an idiot,” I told her. “Why would rator of their Japanese Hill project before Gov. Pataki left office. The lawsuit — primarily funded by lieve would take local concerns about she want all those enzymes in her milk? And I have serious doubts and Pond Garden. Here are some of the surprising facts the project’s scale and impacts more se- that anyone is going to jail for drinking milk.” about the dainty pink flowers you’ve been hearing so Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn — is the Ratner foes’ third attempt to use the riously than his predecessor — a long- “You’re the idiot,” she replied. “If you ever read a book you would much about that he shared with us: time ally of Ratner who has known him know that a lot of people believe it is much healthier, and that the gov- courts to stop the residential, retail, of- Cherry blossoms — the manly flower. Their pink and fice and arena complex. since they attended Columbia Law ernment will go after you if they find out you are distributing.” School together decades ago. white hues and delicate appearances may conjure up It is the first suit to focus exclusively I was intrigued, especially after I learned she was correct. 1. Pat Foye, the ESDC chairman ap- It turns out that while possession of raw milk is legal, selling it is a visions of femininity, but cherry blossoms are actually as- on the alleged shortcomings in the Em- / Barbara Alper pointed by Spitzer, has said since com- crime. It’s also a violation of federal law to transport raw milk across sociated with masculinity in Japanese culture. “The cherry pire State Development Corporation’s environmental review of the develop- ing to office that the new administration state lines with the intent to sell it for human consumption. blossom has a short and colorful life — just like that of a intended to improve the economic de- So, I asked my wife if she would e-mail her friend (we’ll call her ment, the biggest real estate project ever samurai,” Funk explained. proposed for Brooklyn. velopment agency’s transparency. Deep Milk) and get more details about this alleged milk underground. An ESDC spokesman said last week But this raw milkmaid wanted some assurances of her own. Cherry blossoms are native to East Asia. “Sakura,” “The ESDC’s rush to reach the pre- determined outcome of its ‘Atlantic that the agency’s new officials would not “I am going to need to read the article before I can give you per- 2.the Japanese word for cherry blossom, is indigenous comment on the Pataki administration’s mission to print anything,” she said in an e-mail. “The others will also Yards’ review before the end of the Pata- See CHERRY on page 10 Botanic Garden Brooklyn ki administration led to a fatally-flawed See SUIT on page 12 See MILK on page 12 FREAKING OUT OVER CONEY ISLAND Carnies descend Joe in the Show Last year’s Clone is this year’s Met on City Hall to protest condos By Ariella Cohen “If the developer can come to The Brooklyn Papers an understanding with the owner of Astroland’s amusements, and Carnies, not condos. construction has not yet begun, Brooklyn’s mermaids united we would love to keep it run- with assorted other freaks and hot- ning,” said Lee Silberstein, a dog lovers at a glittery protest of spokesman for Joe Sitt.