*/4*%&1"(&40'$0610/4504"7&:06$"4) Yo u r Neighborhood — Yo u r News® BrooklynPaper.com s (718) 260–2500 s Brooklyn, NY s ©2009 DOWNTOWN & PARK SLOPE EDITIONS AWP/14 pages s Vol. 32, No. 41s Friday, October 16, 2009 s FREE )&"3:&)&"3:& "--3*4&'03'6--%0$,&50'-*5*("5*0/ NY’s highest court DUMBO group hears A’Yards case battles Dock St. By Gersh Kuntzman hadn’t even finished a sen- By Ben Muessig The Brooklyn Paper tence before Chief Judge Jon- The Brooklyn Paper If the seven judges of athan Lippman cut him off, Opponents of a planned high-rise near the foot New York State’s highest pointedly reminding Brinck- of the Brooklyn Bridge in DUMBO sued to stop court have any sympa- erhoff that state and federal the project this week on the grounds that the city thy towards a small courts have expanded colluded with the developer and allowed him to ex- group of landown- the use of eminent pand the perimeter of his project site to take advan- ers suing to block domain over the tage of zoning perks. the condemnation years to include The suit by the nascent DUMBO Neighborhood of their properties economic devel- Foundation names the Department of City Planning, so Bruce Ratner opment as a ra- the City Planning Commission, the City Council, (pictured) can tionale. the Department of Education, and the School Con- build a basketball But Brincker- struction Authority as guilty of improperly allow- arena, they had a hoff parried back ing the development company Two Trees Manage- funny way of show- that such a ruling ment to win a zoning change that paves the way ing it on Wednesday. has never reached the for a planned 17-story project that includes a pub- Almost half of the oral state’s highest court. lic middle school as a sweetener Callan Tom arguments before the Court “There are no opinions to seal the deal. of Appeals — whose ver- [by the Court of Appeals] “There was a concerted ef- dict will either pave the way that hold that economic de- fort to advance this project at for Atlantic Yards or send it velopment by itself is suffi- any cost,” said Gus Sheha, a back to the drawing board cient justification” to con- plaintiff in the case. “When — was consumed by a de- demn properties, he said. Lawyer Matt Brinckerhoff, seen here at an ear- you connect the dots, it’s appar- The Brooklyn Paper / bate over whether the prop- Brinckerhoff did appear lier hearing, made the case for Atlantic Yards ent that people didn’t do their Bernie Henry’s famous pink brownstone on Garfield Place erty owners missed a dead- See YARDS on page 11 opponents on Wednesday in Albany. due diligence for a reason: they is no longer on the market, as the 92-year-old owner bat- line for filing their appeal wanted to pass this.” tles his grandson — who allegedly forged title papers. in the first place. Coming just weeks after the And when they weren’t release of documents revealing that persistently questioning the development’s promised middle school may have plaintiffs’ lawyer Matt /FX:BSETTVJUªMFE failed to meet city standards when the project was PINK STINK Brinckerhoff on the issue By Gersh Kuntzman the NYPIRG/Straphangers Campaign approved earlier this year, the suit alleges that the of whether they should be The Brooklyn Paper and Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, city officials “failed to fulfill their respective obli- hearing the case at all, they gations to conduct a full, fair and objective exami- Row over rosé rowhouse One day before a climactic court seeks the annulment of that June deal peppered him with questions to sell the Vanderbilt rail yard near the nation of the appropriateness of including a middle about his central argument: hearing that could clear a major legal school as part of the Dock Street Project as well as By Gersh Kuntzman barrier for Bruce Ratner, opponents of intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic The Brooklyn Paper that the Empire State De- avenues with just a $20-million down to conduct a full, fair and objective comparison of velopment Corporation mis- the developer’s residential, retail, office alternative middle school sites.” Don’t believe everything you read: The famous “Pink House” of payment. used its condemnation power and arena mega-project filed another Garfield Place is not for sale. The original 2005 deal with the “All evidence points towards a pattern of coop- to transfer privately owned lawsuit this week, this time challeng- eration (if not collusion) between [the city] and Two Bloggers and even the Daily News were buzzing this week that ing the Metropolitan Transportation MTA gave Ratner control of the Van- properties to Ratner with a Trees,” continued the complaint, which also cited Bernie Henry, who famously painted his classic Park Slope brown- Authority’s mid-summer “sweetheart” derbilt Yards for $100 million, even stone salmon pink in the 1960s, was selling the empty nest and mov- flawed belief that the Atlan- the city’s flip flop over the need for a new middle tic Yards project will spur renegotiation with Ratner. though it had been appraised at more ing to a smaller place nearby. school in the neighborhood. economic development and, The suit, filed on Tuesday in state than $271 million. In the ensuing con- But the house is not on the market, a real-estate source told The therefore, has enough of a Supreme Court in Manhattan by a pan- troversy over that deal, the state passed The DUMBO group also accused the city of over- Brooklyn Paper, because Henry’s grandson is under investigation public benefit to justify the oply of state legislators, plus Council- the Public Authorities Accountability looking zoning regulations that could have halted de- for forging key documents that have put a cloud over who has legal use of eminent domain. woman Letitia James (D–Fort Greene), See SUIT on page 11 veloper Jed Walentas (pictured), whose project, op- ownership of the building. Indeed, Brinckerhoff See DOCK on page 11 The so-called “bubble gum brownstone” has been the talk of Park Slope for decades — but no more so than a month ago, when Henry put it up for sale with an asking price of $2.295 million, said Ger- aldine Griffin of Heights Berkeley Realty, which has removed the listing from its Web site. “It’s a good price for a four-story, three family brownstone,” she Finally! O’Hara beats Hynes! said. “People only know the outside, but there are wonderful Vic- torian details inside. It’ll need new kitchens and bathrooms, but the By Will Yakowicz pears, claims that the [Hynes’s — twice for City Council, three See PINK on page 11 The Brooklyn Paper political] machine went gun- times for Assembly — in the early It took 12 years, but John ning for him and pounced on 1990s. And he had also backed O’Hara finally beat District his change of residency calling candidates who took on Hynes Attorney Charles Hynes. it election fraud.” directly. In a scathing criticism of the O’Hara, who lives in Sun- The conviction was le- longtime DA, a state judicial set Park, was delighted gitimate — O’Hara freely 8IBU committee said last week that to be reinstated to a admits that in 1992 and O’Hara, the only man ever con- profession that he 1993 he did indeed vote has not be able to in his girlfriend’s dis- victed in New York for voting in practice since 1997, trict — making him the wrong election district, was when Hynes began the only person be- the victim of an unjustified, polit- UIF' his assault. sides suffragette Su- ically motivated prosecution be- “Starting over at san B. Anthony to be cause of his support for Hynes 48 feels great,” a bois- convicted of the obscure Train troubles opponents a decade ago. terous O’Hara said as fraud charge. He was dis- “The committee has grave he picked up the official barred, paid a $20,000 are trumpeted doubts that Mr. O’Hara did any- paperwork on Tuesday. fine and did 1,500 hours By Gersh Kuntzman Tom Callan Tom thing that justified his criminal Callan Tom “Great, great, it feels great.” of community service. prosecution,” said the final re- The reinstatement ends one Despite the Appellate Divi- The Brooklyn Paper port by the 25-member Com- of the most bizarre legal sagas sion’s ruling, that conviction The F train is slower, dirtier mittee on Character and Fitness, in state history. stands — and Hynes’s spokes- and less reliable than other lines whose finding was unanimously In 1997, Hynes prosecuted man Jerry Schmetterer was quick in the subway system, the Metro- approved by the state Supreme O’Hara for voting in a then- to point that out on Tuesday. politan Transportation Authority Court’s Appellate Division, The Brooklyn Paper / girlfriend’s election district. “The court upheld his con- finally admitted in a bombshell which reinstated O’Hara as a John O’Hara, the only man in New York State to ever be O’Hara believes he was targeted viction,” Schmetterer said. “We report released last Friday. The Brooklyn Paper file / lawyer on Oct. 6. found guilty of voting in the wrong election district, was by Hynes because he had run believe it, the court believes it, Bolstering what thousands of Finally, the MTA admits it “Mr. O’Hara, accurately it ap- finally reinstated as a lawyer five times against Hynes allies See O’HARA on page 11 See F-TRAIN on page 6 has an F-in problem 7JOUBHF8JMMJBNTCVSHXIJOF Some ’Burgers object to a fancy vino bar on Driggs Ave By Will Yakowicz Avenue tapas bar that has become Danny Hoch — persisted, saying that a mixed message in the form of a tie The Brooklyn Paper the focus of neighborhood ire.