BURIEDThe Blizzard of ’03 may have dumped more than 20 inches of white stuff on Brooklyn but it couldn’t have come at a better time. With school out and most adults off for Presidents’ Day, Monday was a time to go play in the snow. Here on 86th Street be- Mango / Greg tween Third and Fourth avenues, the sidewalk has been cleared with a snowblower, but some cars parked on the street disappeared. The snowfall lasted from about 6 pm on Sunday through late Monday night and picked up again on Tuesday morning. The Brooklyn Papers The Brooklyn INSIDE Including The Bensonhurst Paper Spa report Published weekly by Brooklyn Paper Publications Inc, 26 Court St., Brooklyn 11242 Phone 718-834-9350 AD fax 718-834-1713 • NEWS fax 718-834-9278 © 2003 Brooklyn Paper Publications • 16 pages including GO BROOKLYN • Vol. 26, No. 8 BRG • February, 24, 2003 • FREE TOP RIDGE SCHOOLS Gangemi admits By Deborah Kolben The Brooklyn Papers bilking clients of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Grippo off to Philly Joel Klein named the city’s 208 top performing schools this week, which will be exempt from the citywide cur- riculum being instituted next year. By Deborah Kolben ing to Philadelphia, where he Of the 208, 47 elementary and middle schools and 10 high millions of dollars The Brooklyn Papers will become the new Chancel- schools were from Brooklyn. lor for Instruction of the public District 20 School Super- As part of the broad sweep of educational reforms, a new By Deborah Kolben cle to quiet witnesses. schools there. math and reading intensive program will be introduced to city He faces up to 15 years in intendent Vincent Grippo, With schools closed for The Brooklyn Papers who announced his retire- schools starting in September. The schools on the list are exempt prison and was also ordered winter recess this week, the and may continue their current programming. The judge made him an to pay back his victims. Had ment after being shunned Department of Education said According to the Department of Education, schools were offer he couldn’t refuse. he lost at trial, Gangemi for a top spot in the they would need to track Grip- identified for exemption based on academic achievement, using Disbarred lawyer Frank could have been sentenced to realigned city educational po down before commenting. city and state test results. There was also a push to present a di- Gangemi, a member of a po- A spokesman for the School up to 40 years, according to a system, won’t be waiting verse set of schools and not just ones in predominantly white litically prominent Bay Ridge court official. District of Philadelphia de- family, switched his plea out the school year before and middle-class neighborhoods. “Today, justice has been clined to comment. from not guilty to guilty this ditching his post — he’s In District 20, which includes Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bath served. Mr. Gangemi found heading for the city of Grippo could not be Beach, Bensonhurst and Borough Park, 12 elementary and middle week, admitting that he swin- reached for comment. dled 30 mostly elderly clients out that that you cannot dupe Brotherly Love next month, schools made the list, as well as the High School of Telecommuni- people out of their money Many parents said they cations Art and Technology. of more than $2 million. In sources told The Bay Ridge BP / File photo were sad to see him go, espe- Vincent Grippo Carmine Santa Maria, president of School Board 21, which in- exchange, Judge Neil Firetog and get away with it,” Dis- Frank Gangemi BP / File Paper. cially since Grippo originally cludes Gravesend, Midwood, Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay, said promised that Gangemi would trict Attorney Charles Hynes Grippo told some parents announced that he would wait Gearity who has sent five chil- he was surprised that only 12 of the district’s 26 schools made the list. be sentenced concurrently on said in a prepared statement. and community school board until June before jumping dren to school through the dis- “This was a top district with one of the highest number of improved all 17 counts of grand larceny, in the second degree and Hynes said Gangemi used members this week that he ship. trict. schools,” said Santa Maria. “We think all the schools are great.” as well as any pending wit- eight counts of grand larceny check fraud, forgery and in- will be resigning shortly after “He has done a lot of won- Grippo announced his re- Calling the school board “despondent,” Santa Maria said they ness tampering charges. in the third degree. The for- vestment, mortgage and in- the winter recess, which ends derful things,” said former PS tirement last month just days were too busy lamenting the loss of their superintendent to focus on Gangemi pleaded guilty to mer attorney may also face surance scams, among other on Monday, Feb. 24, and mov- 186 PTA President Cathy See GRIPPO on page 7 See WINNERS on page 5 nine counts of grand larceny charges of using Mafia mus- See BILK on page 7 The Paper’s pick: Pacis parents not giving up By Deborah Kolben Dyker Heights, would be shut- raised $50,000. Of that, new batch of recruits. increasing operating costs and The Brooklyn Papers ting its doors in June. The dio- $10,000 came from the school’s With recent cuts to state-fund- changing demographics. When a Joanne for council cese also announced it would alumni association. ed pre-kindergarten programs, school’s enrollment falls below Parents at Regina Pacis be closing two other schools in “We’re not going to give up the parents at Regina Pacis are 220 students it is considered Tuesday’s special City Council election lican in this race, lacks the political acu- Catholic school in Dyker Brooklyn due to declining en- without a fight,” said Patricia out recruiting parents to send “high risk,” according to a presents residents of Marty Golden’s old dis- men to navigate in an overwhelmingly Heights say they are not giv- rollment. D’Apice, who has a daughter in their children to pre-K at Regina Catholic University study cited trict with gold-plated choices; each of the Democratic council. For Vincent Gentile, ing up. Pounding the pavement with the fourth grade at Regina Pacis. Pacis. Last year, the school had a by the diocese. five candidates has strong community ties victory would be little more than a conso- Just last week the Roman donation baskets outside the In addition to trying to raise total enrollment of 149 in pre-K The other schools being and a proven commitment to its betterment. lation prize for having lost his state Senate Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn parish on Sunday morning and $150,000, a figure parents say through eighth-grade. closed are Saints Simon and Outstanding in this good field is our seat to Golden. told parents that the school, on hitting up local businesses, the would keep the school afloat, The diocese blames the school Jude, at 295 Ave. T in Gravesend preference, Joanne Seminara. She would In a special election, every single vote 66th Street at 12th Avenue in parents say they have already they are busy drumming up a closings on declining enrollment, See REGINA on page 7 bring to the council’s Bay really does count, so be sure Ridge-Dyker Heights-Ben- to vote. (Voting booths are sonhurst seat a sensibility open between 6 am and 9 too long absent there — one pm on Tuesday, Feb. 25.) open to debate and new And remember that this is a ideas while still grounded in non-partisan election; the ‘Bill the Butcher’ the needs of her constit- party-like labels atop each uents. As a working mother candidate’s name are little who has raised a family in more than a whimsical re- Bay Ridge, she shares their flection of target marketing, rests in G-Wood reality. As a leading member and the order of placement of a community board that Joanne Seminara on the ballot does not reflect has often stifled debate, a candidate’s popularity. By John P. Cassidy Seminara has stood against prevailing Joanne Seminara twice won the Demo- for The Brooklyn Papers winds to fight on behalf of her neighbors. cratic nomination, only to be overwhelmed If filmmaker Martin Scorsese takes home a Best Director Both Steve Harrison and Carlo Scissura by Golden’s Republican-Conservative ma- are knowledgeable and articulate; but Har- chine; now, with Golden relocated to Al- Oscar next month for his “Gangs of New York,” he won’t rison’s autocratic approach to community bany, we have the opportunity to elect a have been the first to get his due, so to speak, because of the leadership is undesirable in a local official, smart, energetic fighter, a woman prized film’s success. and Scissura’s orientation owes too much for her independence and grassroots ac- In a small ceremony on Feb. 13, William “Bill the Butcher” to the discredited Board of Education sys- tivism who represents the very best of our Poole, the 19th-century New York gang leader who inspired the vil- tem. Rosemarie O’Keefe, the lone Repub- community. lain of the same nickname in Scorsese’s film, finally got a headstone See BUTCHER on page 6 “Abe Lincoln” takes a picture of the Poole headstone Thursday. The Brooklyn Papers / Brad Horrigan 2 BRG THE BROOKLYN PAPERS • WWW.BROOKLYNPAPERS.COM February 24, 2003 Before After Money for nothing Artist: MTA paid me $30G for art it can’t hang By Deborah Kolben sioned more than a decade work a depiction of Neptune “But people were telling us The Brooklyn Papers ago, are sitting in a storage that she had modeled after a that the structure wasn’t sound.” Brooklyn artist Deborah locker, when they should be Caravaggio because one of the hanging on the Ocean Park- disgruntled architects said the (Feuer, a Brooklyn-based Masters has exhibited her way viaduct in Coney Island.