Ratner loses a battle for control of an Atlantic Yards building: P.13 Brooklyn’s Real Newspaper BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 834–9350 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2007 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS–DOWNTOWN EDITION AWP/14 pages • Vol. 30, No. 10 • Saturday, March 10, 2007 • FREE INCLUDING DUMBO Marty’s spending points to WRONG WAY City Hall SLOPERS: AVENUE PLAN STINKS By Dana Rubinstein The Brooklyn Paper Borough President Markowitz was pressed City vows to kill one-ways if locals object and pressed on last Tuesday night’s edition of HEARING IS SET FOR “Inside City Hall,” but he just wouldn’t say whether he was running for mayor. By Christie Rizk “I don’t want to say anything official tive reaction from the residents.” lights timed to a much more leisurely THURSDAY, MARCH 15 The Brooklyn Paper until I hear all the details, but [convert- Most people have been complaining pace, but hitting 30 miles per hour is But the Beep’s Community Board 6’s transportation com- campaign finance ing the avenues] sounds like a really about the prospect of more speeding virtually impossible because the lanes City officials backtracked a bit this mittee will be briefed on the city’s plan to disclosure forms in- dumb idea,” said Assemblywoman cars. If this proposal is implemented, are tighter and other drivers are fre- week from a bombshell proposal to Joan Millman (D-Cobble Hill). Sixth Avenue could become very much quently doing U-turns. turn Sixth and Seventh av- dicate that Mar- convert Seventh and Sixth avenues kowitz is already Park Slope had virtually unified like Eighth Avenue — where cars treat And that’s just how Denworth and enues in Park Slope into doing plenty of run- into one-way thoroughfares, saying around defeating this idea — a first step the one-way road like a highway, others like it. one-way streets. The public ning — $200,000 the much-reviled proposal would be towards tackling the game-night grid- swerving around double-parked cars, “In our view, two-way will also get to weigh in. worth of it, to be killed if residents reject it at a meeting lock expected after Bruce Ratner’s Nets not having to worry about oncoming streets are more con- The March 15 meeting precise. next week. arena. The company now says the arena traffic. ducive to a better will take place at 6:30 That’s how much “These plans need community board will open in 2010 (see story, page 13). Both streets currently carry the stan- quality of life for resi- pm at New York NY1 dents and merchants as money the still-un- approval and if the community doesn’t “People who aren’t normally activist dard city speed limit of 30 miles per ONE-WAY 7TH Methodist Hospital well,” she said. Marty Markowitz on declared Markowitz support [it], we will not move for- types are calling us to ask what they hour. But such a rate of speed — and (506 Sixth St., be- NY1 last week. campaign spent on DOT says that turning ward,” the agency said in a statement can do to prevent this,” said Lydia Den- higher — is easily obtainable on Eighth Seventh Avenue — cur- tween Seventh and campaign-related ex- this week. worth, president of the Park Slope Avenue, where drivers have the benefit Eighth avenues). For penses last year, putting him behind only Comp- rently a busy commercial That promise suited Park Slope — Civic Council, who directed residents of open road and a steady procession of strip — and Sixth Avenue — ONE-WAY 6TH information, call (718) 643- troller Bill Thompson and Bronx Borough Presi- both the man and woman on the street to Thursday night’s meeting (see box, timed green lights. 3027. See MARTY’S SPENDING on page 11 and the men and women they elected. right). “There’s been an intensely nega- On Sixth Avenue, not only are the See ONE-WAYS on page 6 For cats’ sake ‘Ladies’ saving Ratner’s kitties By Dana Rubinstein starve, or get hit by cars.” two to re-trap a feral cat. That night was The Brooklyn Paper The challenges are many. For one no exception. thing, Brahm inquired at the developer’s After about 20 minutes, a cow-print cat While opponents of Bruce Ratner’s much-heralded “community liaison of- with a black tail named John F. Kennedy Atlantic Yards project continue to work fice” last week to find out when started nosing around and was, around the clock — figuratively — to various buildings are set to be eventually, caught with a net. block the developer’s wrecking ball, cat torn down, but she hasn’t The 35th president will lovers are working around the clock — gotten an answer. join Zachary Taylor, Warren literally — to rescue a colony of feral In addition , these cats Harding and Eleanor Roo- felines who are about to lose their home — who have all been giv- sevelt — three fellow ferals to make room for the 16-tower mega- en names of presidents or — in a pimped-out shed in a project. first ladies — have already volunteer’s backyard, where Agroup from Slope Street Cats, which been trapped for spaying or they will dine on fancy food traps, neuters, and cares for feral kitties, has neutering, and are extreme- to help endear them to the new been spending its nights setting up traps ly wary of being caught again location. / Dennis W. Ho / Dennis W. outside a trash-filled lot on Vanderbilt Av- (can you blame them?). Meanwhile, Brahm and her enue and Dean Street, whose 11 stray cats On Tuesday evening, Brahm colleagues will be hard at work in the don’t know that the largest development in pulled up in her friend’s battered red Toy- Atlantic Yards footprint, catnapping Bruce Brooklyn’s history is about to evict them. ota Corolla, pulled out four traps, un- Ratner’s kitties (a Ratner spokesman re- “Cats are very tied to place,” said Lau- peeled tins of sardines, and placed them fused to comment, by the way). ra Brahm, the group’s assistant executive inside the traps. “I’ll keep coming back every night un- Paper The Brooklyn director. “If [Ratner] starts doing demoli- Then she got back in her car and wait- til we get them all,” said Brahm. Laura Brahm of Slope Street Cats sets up a cat trap to round up and relocate feral cats living in an empty lot within Bruce Ratner’s tion, the cats will either run away and ed. On average, it takes Brahm an hour or Four down. Seven to go. Atlantic Yards footprint. Crime drops (Law) breaking news: Crass menagerie Columnist is collared Our man gets caught in the with mercury middle of a Williams’s classic By Lilo H. Stainton By Chris Varmus The Brooklyn Paper Sentenced to write this story for The Brooklyn Paper Here’s at least one reason to love the cold weath- In most cases, when a theater group de- er: criminals aren’t showing up for work. By Matthew Lysiak cides to stage an American classic, it sticks to Police data shows a dramatic decrease in violent crimes during this cold snap. Rapes, robberies and other The Brooklyn Paper the script and tries to perform the piece as it I admit it. I’m guilty as charged. And let me tell brutal acts were down nearly 28 percent in the 84th was intended. Precinct, which covers Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn all you kids out there: littering is bad. You can take This is not one of those cases. it from me. Heights and DUMBO, during that time, and the figures Grotesque and outrageous, “Bouffon Glass fell by just under 18 percent in Park Slope’s 78th Precinct. My cautionary tale begins with the careless Menajoree,” the latest incarnation of Tennessee In Bay Ridge’s 68th Precinct, crime fell by more than placement of one coffee cup on a garbage-littered Williams’s 1944 classic, obliterates any sem- 31 percent in the past month and was nearly cut in half shelf at the 77th Street Station. What followed were blance of whatever decency or moral restraint over the last seven days. handcuffs and a ride in the back of a police van to the play once had. “The rain, the sleet and the snow are a policeman’s Traffic Division 34 headquarters in Coney Island. “Why would anyone do this to an American best friend,” said Police Officer Ronnie Fagan, a two- “This is really something,” said the guy behind the masterpiece?” you might ask yourself. I decid- decade veteran with the 84th Precinct. “The connection Plexiglas, whose job it was to verify my identity. ed that in order to find out, I needed to go put is unequivocal.” “They never used to bring people in for these kinds of myself in the line of fire, as it were, and join Of course, the brass doesn’t like to credit the weather things. But this is what happens when crime goes the cast. for the fine work of its officers. down and the number of officers on the streets goes up. “They’ve taken ‘The Glass Menagerie,’ ar- “I see the cops are working harder and smarter than “The guy I just spoke with before you is in here guably the most delicate and lyrical play in the they ever have — and they’re deployed at the right place / Aaron Greenhood / Aaron because he missed the trash can,” Plexiglas-man and time,” said Capt. Michael Kemper, commanding of- added. American canon, and stuck a firecracker up its ass,” said Michael Gardner, artistic director of ficer of the 76th Precinct of Carroll Gardens and Red “Well, I didn’t exactly miss the trash can,” said La- Hook, where crime dropped more than 21 percent be- Elizabeth Weinberg the Brick Theater in Williamsburg.