-00,'03#3&",*/(/&84&7&3:8&&,%":"5#300,-:/1"1&3$0. $0--&$503¤4&%*5*0/ Yo u r Buurt — Yo u r Nieuws® BrooklynPaper.com s (718) 260–2500 s Brooklyn, NY s ©2009 DOWNTOWN, PARK SLOPE & BAY RIDGE EDITIONS AWP/16 pages s Vol. 32, No. 28s Friday, July 17, 2009 s FREE 4"7&#3&6,&-&/ Our ancestral home faces extinction By Gersh Kuntzman The Brooklyn Paper BREUKELEN, THE NETH- &%*503*"- ERLANDS — The town that &6,&-&/ SEE PAGE 12 gave our borough its name is Paper Brooklyn The #300,-:/ #3 #36( #3*%(& about to be formally wiped off smooth conclusion. the map. “It is the Dutch way of com- An independent Breukelen promise,” said Mik, who will — from which Brooklyn gets be the last mayor of Breuke- Holland days! much of its values, spirit and len. “We are under orders to its love of herring — will soon merge the towns and we talked The Brooklyn Paper goes Dutch be no longer, thanks to Dutch about it a lot and I think this federal rules that make small time we will get it done.” By our Amsterdam Bureau towns fiscally unsustainable. Mik’s sangfroid in the face The Brooklyn Paper In an eerie echo of the merger of civic annihilation may exas- AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS — Almost 400 years of Brooklyn and what was then perate an outsider (especially after Henry Hudson discovered the river that would eventually bear called New-York in 1898 (still one from Brooklyn, New York), his name, three intrepid reporters from The Brooklyn Paper went called “the Mistake of ’98” in but it is how small-town poli- to Holland in a reverse commemoration, if you will. some places), Breukelen Mayor tics gets played out here. Forty Hudson sailed from this Dutch port in 1609, and both Holland Ger Mik has been given the job years ago, there were 1,000 cit- and the state of New York are marking the quadricentennial with a of presiding over the demise ies and towns in Holland; now, slate of lectures, exhibits and events — but reporters Gersh Kuntz- Mik said, there are only 400. of his own village: Breukelen man, Mike McLaughlin and Ben Muessig (above) left the friendly “Small towns are ineffi- must merge with its neighbor- confines of Brooklyn to explore the roots of our borough’s great- cient,” the mayor said. “Say Tom Callan Tom ing towns — Maarssen and the ness in its ancestral home. someone in the office that han- Gersh Kuntzman loathsome Loenen. dles drivers licenses calls in But this is no mere all-expenses-paid junket for a trio of plea- Opponents defeated an sure-seeking scribes, no; The Brooklyn Paper team maintained a earlier version of the plan — sick one day. No one in town would be able to get a drivers blistering schedule of fact-finding, research and bike riding. which called for Breukelen This special collector’s edition is the culmination of that effort, and (pronounced “Broke-lin”) to license that day.” Even Han Lyre, a member includes full coverage of: The raging controversy in Breukelen, our merge with four other towns ancestral home (see story left); An analysis of why Amsterdam is a The Brooklyn Paper file / The Brooklyn Paper / across a wider geographic area of the town council who was against the first merger and still true bike-rider’s paradise (see story left); A tourist guide to that sin- The town of Breukelen’s sole bridge (right) is a 20-foot-long drawbridge over the River — but this year’s model ap- sational city (see GO Brooklyn, page 7); Our critic’s review of the Vecht. Our more famous structure moves for no one and handles a bit more traffic. pears to be moving towards a See BREUK on page 16 so-called “Dutch Masters” (see page 9). 5)&:-*,&#*,&4 %PJOHUIF Here, bicyclists rule the roads UPXOXJUI By Ben Muessig The Brooklyn Paper .BZPS.JL AMSTERDAM, THE HAPPY NETHERLANDS — In Streets BREUKELEN, THE NETHERLANDS this old town, bikes are in Holland’s carefree thoroughfares — The mayor of Breukelen doesn’t live in charge. Breukelen. On the city’s narrow alley- of bicycles certainly makes the And he’s seen plenty of other cities on the ways and scenic canal-side cyclists more visible on the side — having been the leader of three other streets, cyclists dominate the Muessig Ben streets, the city’s bike-friendly Dutch towns in his decades-long career as a roadways, halting drivers and planning has put two-wheel- servant of Queen Beatrix. scattering pedestrians with ers at the top of the transpor- But Mayor Ger Mik has a soft spot in his heart just the ring of a bell. tation pecking order. for Brooklyn. So when I f lew over as part of The And the bikers feel safe “It’s the quickest way to Brooklyn Pa- enough that they don’t even move around in the city, even per’s fact-find- THE BREUKELEN wear helmets. Seriously, no The Brooklyn Paper / more than a car or public tran- ing mission to one does. Bikes are everywhere in Amsterdam, including sit,” said Ria Hilhorst, top bike our tiny ances- -&+$ As Brooklyn drivers, cy- these near the main train station. planner for Amsterdam’s Di- tral home, Mik By GershBy Gersh Kuntzman clists and walkers battle for enst Infrastructuur Verkeer en showed me the control of the borough’s mean son city own bikes, 50 per- “The bicyclists create Vervoer, which (we have been sights of this 15,000-person village, took me streets, some transit experts cent use them daily, and more their own safety system in told) translates roughly to the to the finest restaurants (there are two stand- outs in Breukelen, believe it or not), and gra- are looking to Amsterdam’s than 38 percent of the burg’s a way,” said Jos Louwman, Department of Transportation. cycling-first policies as a way “It’s a very, very important part ciously allowed me to sleep at his home (which commuters use them to get to co-owner of MacBike — a Gersh Kuntzman to make Kings County roads work — narrowly edging out rental shop that leases out of our policy to keep people is in Utrecht, by the way). safe for all users. motorists as the most popu- more than 200,000 bicycles on bicycles and stimulate the First, the hospitality. Mik picked me up at The key to cycling in Am- lous commuting crowd. each year. “Because there is use of it.” the Utrecht train station and took me to Slan- sterdam might be strength in In the city’s central neigh- such a huge amount of bicy- To push Amsterdam resi- gevegt, a waterside restaurant that is Breuke- numbers. borhoods, nearly 60 percent cles here, the drivers have to dents towards pedaling, the len’s version of our River Cafe. Not only was More than 75 percent of of all trips are made on bi- be alert of them.” city started constructing its The Brooklyn Paper / the food great (I had the sea bass), but the residents of the 750,000-per- cycles. While the sheer number See BIKES on page 16 Mayor Ger Mik at the edge of his town. See ANGLE on page 16 Broadway brawl! 58*/508&34 Skyscrapers vie for tallest crown Battle lines drawn over Triangle rezone By Ben Muessig for AvalonBay Communities, the de- By Ben Muessig The Brooklyn Paper veloper of the so-called “Avalon Wil- The Brooklyn Paper Is this Downtown Brooklyn or loughby West.” It started with rival protests and Downtown Dubai?!? If it is ever built, it would top the ended with a shouting match, but With news that a proposed 57-story “Brooklyner” — whose epic size in- when the dust settled, the city’s plan skyscraper will rise even higher than spired at least one Kings County resi- to rezone a wide swath of South the recently topped off, current tall- dent to call it “Kilimanjaro” — by 82 Williamsburg for low-income hous- est building in Brooklyn, the Clar- feet. ing scored a major victory on Tues- ett Group’s 51-story “Brooklyner” on Despite the ailing real estate mar- day night. Lawrence Street in Downtown, locals ket, Harris told The Brooklyn Paper North Brooklyn’s Community can hardly tell anymore. that he is confident there will be de- Board 1 voted 23–12 to support a Builders of the new 596-foot high- mand for the skyscraping rental proj- Ben Muessig Ben rise, which will include 861 rental city proposal to allow two devel- ect designed by SLCE Architects, de- apartments, claim they were not in- tails of which were first reported this opers to erect 1,851 units of hous- tending to start a skyscraper race in ing units — 905 of which would week by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle . Downtown, where the 514-foot Clarett “Brooklyn had a condo wave, and charge below-market rents — in the tower is just 24 inches taller than the we know what’s happened to all the 31-acre area of mostly commercial Williamsburgh Savings Bank, which The Brooklyn Paper / and industrial properties known as had held the title as the borough’s tall- condos at the moment,” he said. “But Supporters of a city’s plan to rezone the Broadway Triangle, the Broadway Triangle. est since 1929 . Brooklyn hasn’t had a significant num- including Pilar Ruiz, protested in front of the Swingin’ 60s The vote comes three weeks Architects SLCE Gerner Kronick + Valcarcel Architects “At that site, the height was nec- ber of new rentals in a long time.