Brooklyn’s Real Newspaper BrooklynPaper.com • ( 718)834 –9350 • Brooklyn, NY D’OH! • ©2007 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS – Day-old INCLUDINGDOWNTOWN DUMBO EDITION AWP/16 pages donuts • Vol. 30, No. 28 • Saturday, July 21, 2007 • FREE dunked Marty money Ridge pastry lovers are safe — for now misses mark / Tom Callan War chest lags behind foes By Dana Rubinstein The Brooklyn Paper The Brooklyn Paper Borough President Markowitz, who for months has been openly toying with a run for the mayoralty in 2009, is trailing his would-be opponents badly in / Matthew Lysiak Pool with a view the only race that matters right now: money. The Floating Pool Lady barge at the foot of Joralemon Street in Brooklyn Heights is wel- Markowitz has raised only $750,000 for his un- coming Brooklynites like Amanda, Rob and Matthew Rowan, to its cool water and skyline declared 2009 campaign. City Comptroller Bill view. But the 174-person-capacity pool’s sojourn off the Brooklyn coast is fleeting. After Thompson has raised more than $3 million, while Labor Day, the pool will close; next summer, it may open in the South Bronx, which sought Rep. Anthony Weiner (D–Sheepshead Bay) has The Brooklyn Paper the pool this summer, but lost out to operators of the Brooklyn Bridge Park waterfront de- raised more than $2 million. Chock Full of Nuts franchise owner Frank Monte- velopment. The state-run project is under pressure to demonstrate that it will be a park Michael Weiss, Markowitz’s campaign treasurer, FOR ners says his donuts will be fresh as a spring day. first and a luxury condo neighborhood second. insisted the situation was not as dire as it seemed on MAYOR? first blush. Markowitz in his Upper East Side townhouse. By Matthew Lysiak “We think his numbers are pretty impressive,” said By contrast, only 23 percent of donors to Bronx The Brooklyn Paper Weiss, citing the $500,000 that Markowitz has left over from his last campaign for borough president. Borough President Adolfo Carrion’s potential run for mayor have given him more than $2,000 each. A Bay Ridge Chock Full of Nuts was recently shut Even so, what is striking about Markowitz’s down after it was discovered that the popular coffee fundraising so far is its lack of grass-roots financial A mere five percent of Markowitz’s donors gave franchise was selling stale donuts acquired from a Stop naming names— Dana Rubinstein him $250 or less, the donation size normally associ- support, especially given competitor. Markowitz’s highly pub- ated with grassroots support. Thirty-one percent of Carrion’s donors gave the Bronx beep $250 or less. The shutdown occurred on July 9, three months after lic persona. the rogue coffee shop’s nefarious ways earned it a men- CB2 moves to curb street co-names Indeed, 77 percent of Political strategists say that Markowitz must tap tion in The Brooklyn Paper’s “Yellow Hooker” column. Markowitz’s 201 donors With the word out, the big wigs at Chock Full of Nuts’ By Claire Levenson gave him checks of main offices investigated whether the store on Third Av- $2,000 or more, turning Marty goes bigSee MARTYtime $ enue near 79th Street was indeed selling stale Dunkin for The Brooklyn Paper his donor list into a roster on page Donuts products to unknowing customers. Brooklyn Heights’ com- of bold-face names like Borough President Markowitz, term-limited and publicly pondering 14 So franchise executives sent in a spy to verify the al- munity board, citing a rash of Joe Sitt, president of Thor a run for mayoral, may be trailing other would-be candidates in legation, according to a donut source, who wished to re- requests, is poised to make it Equities, the firm that has fundraising, but he’s got Brooklyn’s upper crust on his side. The main nameless. tougher to co-name streets multi-billion-dollar plans Beep’s coffers are flush with money from a big-time donors (those What the spy discovered was stranger than fiction, after everyday people. to revamp Coney Island; who contributed $2,000 or more), while only five percent of his con- according to the source: The Chock Full owner had be- At a meeting last month, Shaya Boymelgreen, one tributors wrote checks of $250 or less. Some say that’s an indication friended a Dunkin Donuts owner and arranged for left- Community Board 2’s trans- of the borough’s most that Markowitz lacks grass-roots support. over Dunkin cruellers, twists and other treats to escape portation committee voted prolific developers of lux- the trash and go instead to the display case at Chock unanimously in favor of new ury condominiums; and Full. Candidate application criteria: Co-nam- Joshua Muss, another ma- Percentage of “They were selling humus, strange cookies, and piz- ing requests will only be ac- jor developer. Marty Markowitz big-time donors za. It was a disaster,” the source said. “The higher-ups — Dana Rubinstein cepted three years after the Many big donations Percentage of got word of the situation, shut the guy down, and hand- Adolfo Carrion 77 percent person’s death and the board came in on June 20, the small-time donors ed it to someone they knew was reliable.” Betsy Gotbaum will review name changes day Mayor Bloomberg 23 percent 5 percent Total Funds Raised That someone is new owner Frank Monteners, who every five years. hosted a fundraiser for took over the café with partner Joe Fama. William Thompson 20 percent 31 percent $748,548 Committee Chairman John “Let me just say the former owner was not in compli- Anthony Weiner ance with the Chock Full of Nuts,” said Montenes, who Dew said that in recent years, 30 percent 33 percent more than $1.5 million the board has received too runs three successful Chock Full of Nuts in Staten Island. 46 percent many demands to co-name 12 percent $163,915 “It is no secret that they were selling Dunkin Donuts, Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue in Park Slope is co- but I can’t comment” further. streets for people whose im- named for former City Planning Commisioner Ed Rogowsky. 20 percent $3,169,394 pact on the community seem- “The response since we reopened [last Saturday] has ed limited. Carroll Park thugs$2,008,360 been great,” Montenes added. “But it was clear when I took over that part of my job would be damage control.” “There is a sense that it has Street. “We get so many names Claire Levenson gotten out of hand,” said Dew, Source: New York City Campaign Finance Board Indeed, no one was fooled by the confectionary bait- (of people) that people don’t and-switch — certainly not the donut savvy residents during the June 19 meeting at know.” of Bay Ridge. St. Francis College on Remsen The board gets around 10 co-named in the five boroughs (and, for now, only Remsen) applications a year, up from and 29 of them were in Brook- won’t bring ‘Angels’ “I knew that it was Dunkin Donuts from the minute I bit into a croissant,” said local resident and pastry fan just one or two a year, accord- lyn, according to the City Lisa Tizzishillo. “It was so obvious; Chock Full of Nuts ing to Dew. Council. even left the Dunkin Donuts labels on their display Last year, 127 streets were District Manager Rob Perris case.” called the proposed three-year waiting time a “cooling period Brooklyn’s Real Newspaper T – BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 834–9350 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2007 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS DOWNTOWN EDITION AWP/18 pages • Vol. 30, No. 20 • Saturday, May 19, 2007 • FREE izzishillo also didn’t like the fact that the donuts INCLUDING DUMBO were stale — but is willing to give the new owner a See BATTLE OVER ARENA … BAGELS CO-NAME By Michael McLaughlin Business changes name fresh start. HE OPPONENTS OF ATLANTIC YARDS down in the war over Atlantic Yards. are so frustrated by Bruce Ratner and his high- It started innocently enough: Aggarwal told The Tpriced pals that they’re taking out their aggres- Brooklyn Paper that he wanted to link his new shop sion on a lowly bagel store owner. to the basketball arena that is slated to rise just a Just a few hours after bagel block and a half up Fifth Av- on page man Ravi Aggarwal hanged an enue. for The Brooklyn Paper “Arena Bagels and Bialys” sign THE BROOKLYN “For me, naming it ‘Arena’ on his soon-to-open Fifth Av- By Gersh was all about location,” he said. enue shop, opponents of the bas- ANGLE Kuntzman “I just knew I wanted to come to ketball stadium that inspired the Brooklyn with my bagels, which name made their feelings clear: EXCLUSIVE are the best, by the way. I don’t “The place looks like it has been cleaned up now,” they planned to protest outside know anything about the At- Aggarwal’s store if it remained “Arena Bagels.” lantic Yards project.” A 14 ggarwal initially told this bagel-loving scribe that He quickly got an education about the mega-proj- g r e he would never relent to such bullying — but as more ect — and the negative passions it provokes in some. b n e and more potential customers dropped by to express From the moment the sign went up this week, peo- s o R t heir concerns about buying their morning coffee and ple started complaining — and some were openly e i l u bialy J at a place named “Arena,” he ultimately caved.