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SATURDAY • JANUARY 22, 2005 Including The Bensonhurst Paper Brooklyn’s REAL newspapers 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 • © 2005 Brooklyn Paper Publications • 14 pages •Vol.28, No. 4 BRZ •Saturday, January 22, 2005 • FREE Hoop CONDOS TO REPLACE it up Xaverian High School forward Chris Lowery drives to the bas- ket ahead of Devin Epps of Car- OLD BOARDING HOUSE dozo during the Nike Super Six tournament at Madison Square By Jotham Sederstrom rooms on 42nd Street, the rat-infested Garden Sunday. The The Brooklyn Papers joints. But a lot of these guys don’t want to leave. They’ve put in 20 years at the Clippers dropped the A decision to raze a turn-of-the- house and thought they were going to match 77-73. century home used for decades as a live here and die here.” boarding house threatens to strand Despite the decision to raze what several of the formerly homeless would normally be a two-family home, men and war veterans who live there. however, tenants say that Tancredi has The owner plans to tear down the been generous. Besides helping them building next month and build a seven- find new housing, the landlord — who to nine-unit condominium in its place. lives in the home — has offered to pay a Last March, say tenants, the owner of percentage of each tenants’ rent for up to the three-story home at 219 68th St. noti- two years. Currently, each pays $400 a fied the 15 men who live there that they month with the help of Social Security would need to make arrangements for and pension funds. Rents for the relocat- new housing by January. While most of ed would cost roughly the same. the elderly tenants have signed agree- Tancredi said that an offer to house all ments for housing at another building in of the men at a single-room-occupancy Bay Ridge, others say that they are still facility on 95th Street between Third Av- looking for other housing. enue and Ridge Boulevard was accepted Under current Department of Housing by all but a few of the men. The offer Preservation and Development regula- was in addition to the commitment he tions, the owner, Henry Tancredi, can do made to pay a portion of their rent. as he pleases with the property, despite Callan / Tom “I’ve always told them that they didn’t its current designation as a boarding have to go on their own again,” said Tan- home. credi, who said his decision to raze the / Gary Thomas “It’s not as dire as it may seem in my house stemmed from its frame structure, case,” said George Mastermaker, 60, which, when dealing with multiple-unit who said he lived on the streets for a Papers The Brooklyn dwellings, raises difficulties with financ- decade before moving into a second- This turn-of-the-century boarding house at 219 68th St. is being torn down and ing and insurance. floor room at the home in 1996. “There’s replaced with a market-rate condominum. See CONDOS on page 5 Papers The Brooklyn Ridge rezone hearing draws few By Jotham Sederstrom Brooklyn to date, would ad- temper some of the more egre- and recommendations by designating three times the cur- hearing say that they’ve been ect manager with the Basile Chairman Craig Eaton, who The Brooklyn Papers versely affect property values gious impulses of some of us to Community Board 10 — rent number of blocks for de- inundated with phone calls Builders Group, and a resident countered that property values There were nearly as many in Bay Ridge. maximize on the return,” said which already voted to ap- tached housing, the neighbor- from homeowners scrambling of Bay Ridge, who added, are soaring in Bay Ridge. to sell property before the plan “We believe in Bay Ridge.” The differing forecasts, said opponents of a neighbor- Both Councilman Vincent Markowitz, a former tenant ad- prove the zoning measure with hood’s pride. Gentile, who made a last push to vocate, referring to developers a few recommendations — The 249-block proposal goes into effect. But the effort by Basile and See ZONING on page 5 hood-wide rezoning of Bay amend proposed zoning on Gel- who have bought up old homes Markowitz, the City Planning would also reduce by half the The worry, as they see it, is Sal Calabrese, a mem- Ridge as there were support- ston Avenue, and Borough Pres- in Bay Ridge over the last sev- Commission and the City number of blocks in Bay Ridge that the most lucrative oppor- ber of the Brooklyn ers testifying at a hearing at ident Marty Markowitz roundly eral years and replaced them Council. Markowitz was re- designated for so-called Fed- tunities to sell single-family Board of Realtors, to Borough Hall this week. endorsed the Bay Ridge zoning with condominiums. quired to make his recommen- ders-style housing. homes will diminish after safe- push back hearings on Only five people testified. change and efforts to similarly The Jan. 18 Borough Hall dation by Friday, Jan. 21. While comments made at as guards are put in place to limit the proposal for six The opponents, two real es- rezone Dyker Heights and Ben- hearing was the second step in Put forth by the Department many as 11 community board- the growth of larger multi- months in order to give tate businessmen, told Bor- sonhurst, calling all three, “the the city’s Uniform Land Use of City Planning at the behest sponsored public hearings family condos. homeowners a chance BRONX ough President Marty Marko- greatest good for the greatest Review Procedure (ULURP), of CB10 and Gentile, the plan would suggest widespread ap- “You’re not getting the to sell, was balked at by witz on Tuesday that the plan, number of people.” a roughly seven-month process would preserve the built char- proval, a real estate developer opinions of all homeowners,” Markowitz, Gentile and the largest rezoning effort in “Government has a right to that requires hearings before acter of Bay Ridge, in part by and a Realtor who spoke at the charged Rocco Basile, a proj- Community Board 10 JEERS Councilman: Put 29M shark Jets in Brooklyn Cheers for The Brooklyn Papers ABronx councilman this week trashed Brooklyn as house set for part of an attempt to fight the life savers mayor’s plan to build a new Jets football stadium on Aquarium The Brooklyn Papers Manhattan’s West Side. It wasn’t until a tenant in the same building as Former state Attorney General The Brooklyn Papers A $29 million fix-up of the Laila Labdaoui marched into the 68th Police G. Oliver Koppell, now a council- Precinct and demanded a word that authorities real- man from Riverdale, wrote to The New York Aquarium, shark habitat will add as many as two dozen nurse sharks, car- ized they had a couple more heroes on their hands. Mayor Michael Bloomberg this long home to the oldest pet sharks, pajama sharks and That’s because police officers Abdo Almasmary, 36, and week that while he was pleased to known sand tiger shark in leopard sharks to the dozen or / Jori Klein William Hayes, 26, humbly continued their midnight patrol hear about the plans for a new captivity, will triple the num- so that already live in the on Jan. 10 without so much as a peep after performing life- cruise ship port, “the Brooklyn lo- ber of sea predators it cares aquarium. It is expected to be saving CPR on Labdaoui’s 18-month-old son, Adam Ab- cation is not a good one.” for as part of a multimillion- completed by 2007. delmonem. “The big attraction of New York as a cruise ship destination is that dollar makeover of the near- To accommodate the new- It was only after a neighbor in the same building as Lab- comers, officials plan to install Papers The Brooklyn daoui spoke to Lt. Litman Kwai, at around 7 am — about passengers can land right in the ly 50-year-old complex in a state-of-the-art, 500,000-gal- Police Officers Abdo Almasmary (left) and William Hayes share a laugh with Adam the same time the cops were finishing their shift — that middle of Manhattan where tourists Coney Island, starting with lon tank surrounding a walk- Abdelmonem, 18 months, who they saved, and his mother, Laila Labdaoui, during anyone outside of the apartment learned that the officers want to be,” wrote Koppell. the shark house. See AQUARIUM on page 4 68th Precinct Community Council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 18. had saved the child’s life. See COPS on page 2 See BX JEERS on page 10 More housing, fewer offices in new Nets plan By Jess Wisloski round the arena — at the intersection of Atlantic and lantic Yards, the executive said, but would help the That, and subsidies from the city and state, are The Brooklyn Papers EXCLUSIVE Flatbush avenues — from office buildings into apart- company speed up the process of building and occu- how Ratner’s Metrotech office buildings were filled. ment high-rises, the official said the company could pying the properties. One of the four towers around Acommercial site being switched to residential The affordable and market-rate housing realize its goal of increasing the housing stock in the arena, all of which are being designed by archi- in the planning stages shouldn’t be looked on as a component in plans for the Atlantic Yards NOT JUST NETS Brooklyn while providing residential buildings in the tect Frank Gehry, would remain for office space.

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