Sept. 28–Oct. 4, 2018 Including Brooklyn Courier, Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill Courier, Brooklyn Heights Courier, & Williamsburg Courier ALSO SERVING PROSPECT HEIGHTS, WINDSOR TERRACE, KENSINGTON, AND GOWANUS CLASS ACTIONS Expert: Radical changes coming to MS 51 in move to desegregate BY COLIN MIXSON who stood out in screenings, the one school that had a very A plan to desegregate middle and instead setting aside more distinct academic screen.” schools in Park Slope and its than half of the desks for low- For decades, all but one of surrounding neighborhoods income or vulnerable pupils. District 15’s 11 middle schools that city offi cials signed off And administrators at — which are not zoned for on last week will most dra- MS 51, where DeBlasio sent specifi c areas, giving fami- matically shake up the student both of his kids, placed the lies some choice in where to body that fi lls coveted seats at most emphasis on the screen- send their kids — screened Fifth Avenue’s MS 51, accord- ings axed in new policies that pupils based on criteria that ing to a local parent who blogs will take effect in the 2019-20 included attendance, grades, about education. school year, according to the test scores, and other factors, Mayor DeBlasio’s initia- mom, who said its hallways yielding segregated student tive to desegregate learning SCREEN SHOT: Under a new plan, MS 51 will no longer be allowed to will likely look the least famil- bodies with most youngsters houses in District 15 — where screen new students based on grades. Photo by Brianna Kudisch iar come next fall. coming from families with he once served as a school- “MS 51 will be very, very means to bolster their educa- board member, and also in- Gardens, Cobble Hill, Gow- eliminating admissions stan- different,” said Joyce Szufl ita, tion outside the classroom, cludes classrooms in Fort anus, Red Hook, Kensington, dards that reserved spaces a District 15 parent who blogs according to a report offi cials Greene, Boerum Hill, Carroll and Sunset Park — calls for for high-performing students for NYC School Help . “It was Continued on page 30 Catholic Church awards record settlement to abuse victims BY COLIN MIXSON Four men raped by a former catechism instructor at a Clinton Hill Catholic church each received the largest sum ever doled out by the religious insti- tution when its Brooklyn Diocese awarded them equal parts of a combined $27.5-million settlement on Sept. 18, according to their lawyers, who called the incidents “every parent’s nightmare.” “The type of abuse you’re talking about is the worst imaginable,” said attorney Ben Rubinow- itz, whose clients have asked to remain anony- mous. Tutor Angelo Serrano, 67, taught the vic- tims, who are now in their late teens and early Top tree! 20s, in an after-school program at St. Lucy-St. Patrick Church on Willoughby Avenue between Park Slope native Noah Stern gives this American elm a big thumbs up after it was revealed that it has the most posi- Taaffe Place and Kent Avenue back when they tive environmental impact on the neighborhood. Don’t know what that means? Turn to page 17 to fi nd out! were between 8- and 12-years-old, while living Photo by Brianna Kudisch in a Kent Avenue apartment building adjacent Continued on page 30 Vol. 37, No. 39 UPDATED EVERY DAY AT BROOKLYNDAILY.COM INSIDE NNN%9IFFBCPE;8@CP%:FD (D<KIFK<:?:<EK<IEFIK?('K?=CFFI9IFFBCPE#EP(()'( B-Q-EEEK! CARS TO Historic Heights walkway could close to make way for autos Boys and ’goyles: John Freeman Gill, author of “The Gargoyle Hunters,” will discuss the stone faces of Kings County at the Brooklyn Historical Society on Oct. 2. Photo by Trey Pentecost BY JULIANNE CUBA tation, which is overseeing the Rocky horrors It’s a triple-cantilever threat! repairs. Author talks about saving city’s stone gargoyles The Brooklyn Heights And Pandya did not mince By Julianne McShane said Gill. “They were just a bunch of Brooklyn Heights is rich with them because fitted with terra cotta busts of Christopher e’s taken a stone-faced look at Brooklyn boys who would run around and of all the sumptuous mansions there.” Columbus and Benjamin Franklin, among the past! rescue these pieces.” Brooklyn’s gargoyles are not just other historic figures. H The Prospect Heights author Gill researched the stone figures, which winged waterspouts and defenders of the Gill hopes his book will inspire of “The Gargoyle Hunters” will discuss began to proliferate throughout the city night. One of Gill’s favorite figures, on Brooklynites to take their eyes off their Promenade — the historic words when describing the ef- the city’s history with the striking stone in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. an old building on First Street near Eighth phones and instead take in the beauty and figures designed to frighten evil spirits at Waves of immigrants who were stone Avenue in Park Slope, has a real-world wonder of the city’s architectural master- the Brooklyn Historical Society on Oct. carvers in their home countries began doppelganger. pieces. 2. John Freeman Gill said was inspired to to adorn their simple tenement buildings “The rarest ones are the ones that are “Once you start paying attention to write his novel after reading a 1962 New with elaborate mythological and histori- not a historical or mythological figure, these, you won’t stop seeing them,” he York Herald Tribune story about real-life cal figures and faces. Brooklyn is the best they just look like a regular person,” he said. “They’re not so hidden — they’re walkway that some say makes fects the new route will have statue scroungers who mined piles of rub- borough to find gargoyles, Gill said. said. “There’s this carved head with wild actually hiding in plain sight.” ble to find remnants of the architectural “Brooklyn has some of the greatest col- hair and a crazy moustache that looks “New York’s Gargoyles: The Immigrants ornaments. lections of these because of the historic dis- like President Trump’s former lawyer, Who Made Them and the Hunters Who “It described a sort of fad of scaven- tricts,” he said. “One of my favorite neigh- Ty Cobb.” Saved Them” at the Brooklyn Historical gers who would descend on demolition borhoods to seek them out is Park Slope. The Brooklyn Historical Society — Society (128 Pierrepont St. at Clinton Street sites and landfills as these late 19th There are blocks teeming with faces peer- where Gill will deliver his talk — is in Brooklyn Heights, www.brooklynhistory. century buildings were being destroyed,” ing out at you from the architecture. And another of his favorite sites, since it is out- org). Oct. 2 at 6:30 pm. $10. the Heights the Heights — will on the quiet neighborhood. become a speedway for Brook- “That is a dramatic im- Your entertainment lyn-Queens Expressway traf- pact,” she said. guide Page 41 fi c, sending cars, trucks, and To make way for the cars, buses zipping by at eye-level workers would have to erect during the reconstruction of columns along Furman Street, Police Blotter ..........................8 the crumbling roadway be- tear out the existing Prom- Standing O .............................18 neath, transit leaders an- enade and its trees, and lay Letters ....................................22 nounced on Sept. 20. down enough blacktop to make The Right View .................... 24 In order to get the job done a six-lane roadway — some- by 2026, the city must shift all thing that could take a year traffi c on the decrepit road- and a half to pull off, thus way to a temporary elevated closing the park to the public one at the promenade level for well before cars make it their FALLING APART: The triple-cantilever section of the BQE. at least three years — half the home. Photo by Jason Speakman time it will take to fi nish the Traffi c would then shift job — while contractors build from the current roadway rehabbed BQE, according to ing to Pandya, who said the a new triple-cantilever struc- to the temporary one while Pandya. city would try to incentivize ture, according to Tanvi Pan- workers build the new tiered, On the bright side, the new the yet-be-selected contractor dya, project manager with the cantilever structure, before P romenade wi l l be 3 5 feet wider to fi nish as quickly as possible. city’s Department of Transpor- bringing it back down to the after work is fi nished, accord- The roadway below would fea- HOW TO REACH US Mail: Courier Life 1 Metrotech Center North First person: Our editor goes inside 10th Floor, Brooklyn, BY VINCE DIMICELI N.Y. 11201 marvel is, according to just The silence shocked me the about everyone, on its last leg General Phone: most. and in desperate need of a re- (718) 260-2500 Last Friday I got a chance to placement — something the News Fax: go deep inside the belly of the city says will cost close to $4 (718) 260-2592 beast when the city’s Depart- billion, take more than six News E-Mail: ment of Transportation took a years to pull off, and require bunch of journalists through the closure of the Promenade [email protected] some old doors at the foot of to make way for cars while Display Ad Phone: Joralemon Street to tour the construction is underway. (718) 260-8302 Brooklyn-Queens Express- Stepping through the doors Display Ad E-Mail: way’s infamous triple-cantile- at very noisy Furman Street, I [email protected] ver — the connector between was expecting the worst.