E I D BROOKLYN S PLUS I N Nightlife Where to FITNESS SPECIAL CALENDAR OF EVENTS BROOKLYN’S REAL NEWSPAPERS Including The Bensonhurst Paper Published every Saturday — online all the time — by Brooklyn Paper Publications Inc, 55 Washington St, Suite 624, Brooklyn NY 11201. Phone 718-834-9350 • www.BrooklynPapers.com • © 2005 Brooklyn Paper Publications • 18 pages •Vol. 28, No. 12 BRZ • Saturday, March 19, 2005 • FREE X MARKS GENTILE TO SUNDAY METERS: THE SPOT SAY YOUR Cinderella Xaverian takes city title, state is next By Vince DiMiceli The Brooklyn Papers It was the year they weren’t supposed to do it, but some- how they did anyway. The Xaverian Clippers men’s basketball team won their first-ever PRAYERS Catholic High School Athletic Association (CHSAA) AA-Division city By Jotham Sederstrom into effect by Bloomberg in 2002 as a par- championship on March 10 with a dramatic 67-66 win over heavily fa- The Brooklyn Papers tial antidote to the city’s escalating budget deficit. Gentile said this week that he vored Rice at Fordham University. Locked in a politicized battle with Along the way to the most coveted trophy in Catholic high school hopes widespread support of the legisla- Mayor Michael Bloomberg, 36 City tion, now idling in the council’s transporta- basketball, the Clippers also eliminated Christ the King, taking down Council members have united to two nationally ranked top-10 teams in two weeks. tion committee, will prompt Bloomberg to form what Bay Ridge Councilman revoke or recast the Sunday meter opera- “It was an improbable run to knock off two giants,” Coach Jack Ale- Vincent Gentile described as a veto- si told The Brooklyn Papers. “But it just goes to show you, persistence tion, which draws $7 million annually. pays off. Our team really came together in the last month.” proof majority in support of legisla- “Now that that’s the case,” Gentile said Led by 6-foot-5 senior forward Saiquon Stone’s 22 points — 13 of tion that would eliminate Sunday of the veto-proof bill, “we’re going to give which came in the fourth quarter — and stellar defense, the Clippers turned parking meters. it a little more time.” Gentile gathered on a 53-50 deficit with 5:25 to go into a 57-53 lead in under two minutes. Flanked by Queens Councilman Hiram Sunday at the intersection of Fifth Avenue But Rice rallied back, and with the Clips hanging on to a 64-63 lead Monserrate, Gentile announced on Friday and 79th Street to raise the issue. “Hope- / Tom Callan / Tom with 57 seconds remaining, Brian McKenzie hit a three-pointer to seal at the steps of City Hall, and again on Sun- fully, the mayor and the [Department of the win. day in Bay Ridge, that he had corralled Transportation] will come to the table,” he The championship came a year after the Clippers lost in the finals to support from two-thirds of the council’s 52 said. St. Raymond’s with what was considered a better team than this sea- members, the magic number needed to Long a concern in Bay Ridge, where son’s squad. override an expected veto by Bloomberg. churchgoers charge that having to run out “Last year, you might have expected it,” Alesi said of the champi- If approved, the legislation sponsored to feed parking meters midway through Papers The Brooklyn onship. “But going into this season, after graduating some guys, dis- by Gentile would amend an administrative Mass has disrupted Sunday services, the Vincent Gentile says the CIty missing two starters before the start of the season, and having a very code to allow for the suspension of Sunday issue has escalated since last month to Council can override a may- tough schedule, who knew?” parking meter regulations, which were put See SUNDAY on page 6 oral veto. But with a starting five of Stone, honors student McKenzie, senior point guard Levance Fields, Timmy Hepworth and Jake Stevens, the Clippers defied the odds. “These guys were the foundation of the team,” Alesi said. “And they did it the typical Xaverian way, with teamwork, chemistry and solid defense.” While Xaverian had never won a city championship before, the boys’ team has had some success over the years. In 1981, led by future Na- Seek funds for crumbling tional Basketball Association all-star Chris Mullen, the Clippers won the state A-Division championship. And in 1985, the X-Men took home the same title in the B-Division. During the 10 years Alesi has coached the team, the Clippers have Shore Road Park seawall won three CHSAA Brooklyn-Queens championships and made it to the city’s final four six times. / Gary Thomas The Brooklyn Papers aging seawall along the route and Rep. Vito Fossella, who said he would MARCH MADNESS: On Saturday, March 12, the Clippers defeated Community Board 10 announced resubmit a request for $16 million in St. Mary’s 71-69 at Fordham University, thus winning the Catholic A decade-long struggle to High School State Championship and advancing to the overall state rebuild nearly a third of the dete- its intention to create a multi- federal funding to rebuild the crum- championship game Saturday. The loss was the first of the year for St. riorating Shore Parkway bike path agency task force to coordinate bling seawall and restore a four-mile Mary’s, which was ranked No. 2 in the nation, going 24-0 on the sea- Papers The Brooklyn was revived this week as the future reconstruction. stretch of bike path between 79th and son. The X-Men will play for the state title on Saturday, March 19 in Xaverian forward Chris Lowery goes up for a slam dunk during Army Corps of Engineers agreed The combined efforts were an- 95th streets that has long been plagued Glenns Falls, NY. Clippers improbable 67-66 win over Rice last Wednesday. to conduct an inspection of the nounced on Monday by Bay Ridge See SEAWALL on page 4 FIGHTING IRISH Sun’Park Early Easter seeks new forces boro’s zoning law 2 parades By Ariella Cohen into 1 Sunday for The Brooklyn Papers If plans for new residential development in By Jotham Sederstrom northern Sunset Park proceed under the neigh- The Brooklyn Papers borhood’s current zoning code, the Goddess of Minerva at Green-Wood Cemetery risks losing a As the luck of the Irish would have it, flirtation nearly 90 years old. two separate St. Patrick’s Day parades will wend their way through streets in Separated by New York Harbor and about six av- enue blocks of low-rise Brooklyn real-estate sloping Bay Ridge and Park Slope on Sunday / Tom Callan / Tom down toward the harbor, the Minerva statue and the afternoon, a scheduling gaffe that has Statue of Liberty have spent the better part of the last injected new life into the term “fighting century locked in a stone-eyed stare. Irish.” But a new residential development planned for the Thanks to an unusually early Easter, corner of Seventh Avenue and 23rd Street, where the which this year falls on March 27, the annu- Papers The Brooklyn National Produce Warehouse stood until last year, al Bay Ridge St. Patrick’s Day Parade is on The statue of Minerva atop Green-Wood cemetery’s Battle Hill will lose her intended view of gigantic threatens the sight line between the two historic monu- March 20, a week ahead of schedule and on gal-pal the Statue of Liberty (inset), if a high-rise condo development in Sunset Park goes forward. the same day as the Brooklyn Irish-Ameri- See SUNSET on page 16 can Parade in Park Slope, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Kathleen McDonagh, who has organized the Park Slope parade since its inception in 1975, initially declined to comment on the dueling events, but later conceded that she believed the Bay Ridge parade, itself only 11 Callan / Tom Coney rides given once-over years old, should have been rescheduled. “Yes I do,” said McDonagh. “Ours has al- ways been on the third Sunday of March. Al- Some 82 rides at Astroland Park ways.” City: Parks and Deno’s Wonder Wheel were Jerry Callahan, president of the Bay Ridge deemed safe for the hundreds, or per- parade committee, said that his organization Papers File The Brooklyn haps thousands of revelers expected — which normally hosts the parade on the A bagpiper marches in the Brooklyn ready to roll to spill into the neighborhood on fourth Sunday of March — began planning Irish-American Parade in 2003. March 20, when the attractions open for this year’s event as early as 2003, know- By Jotham Sederstrom for business for the first time since ing far in advance that Easter Sunday would The Brooklyn Papers September. 15th Street at Prospect Park West, following be off limits and the week after that would As much a sign of the coming Save for a loose nut there, and a wig- push it into April, nearly three weeks after St. an assembly at noon and a rededication cere- gly bolt there — all of which were cor- Patrick’s Day, March 17. mony for 9-11 victims at 12:30 pm, said Mc- of spring as pitchers and catchers rected before being given the green light Callan / Tom He noted that Irish heritage parades were Donagh. The route then traces 15th Street reporting to Florida, city officials by Department of Buildings inspectors held in the Rockaways and on Staten Island west to Seventh Avenue, where green-clad this week descended upon Coney — each of the rides passed inspection.