SATURDAY • JUNE 12, 2004 Including The Bensonhurst Paper Brooklyn’s REAL newspapers Published every Saturday by Brooklyn Paper Publications Inc, 55 Washington Street, Suite 624, Brooklyn NY 11201. Phone 718-834-9350 • www.BrooklynPapers.com • © 2004 Brooklyn Paper Publications • 20 pages including GO BROOKLYN • Vol. 27, No. 23 BRZ • Saturday, June 12, 2004 • FREE ‘HORROR HIGH’ ON TV Lafayette brawlers go to ‘People’s Court’ By Jotham Sederstrom and a television audience to seek a final The Brooklyn Papers judgement in their violent feud, which was played out in the school’s halls. The students know it, the Justice But the girls were not the only ones to re- Department knows it, and now even ceive tongue lashings from the Queens-born, Marilyn Milian, presiding judge of redheaded judge, as the Lafayette adminis- “The People’s Court” knows that tration also got an earful in plain view of Lafayette High School in Gravesend is about 3.1 million viewers, according to in need of serious rehabilitation. Nielsen averages for that week. A May 24 episode of the daytime televi- “The high school’s gotten a lot of bad sion show may have inadvertently dished press, hasn’t it,” said Milian, who in 2001 out the most persuasive argument for reform replaced Judge Jerry Sheindlin, otherwise / Jori Klein at the troubled school since, well, last week known as Judge Judy’s husband. “They call / Jori Klein — when a consent decree was filed by the it Horror High?” she said. U.S. Department of Justice. A videotape of the show surfaced this Following a long-running feud dating to week amid a rapidly intensifying campaign last January that ended with a trip to Coney to break the Gravesend school into three The Brooklyn Papers The Brooklyn Island Hospital, Lafayette students Christina more manageable academies. Lorraine Co- Papers The Brooklyn Bottex and Jennifer Daly went before Milian See TV COURT on page 18 Lafayette High School students Christina Bottex (at left) and Jennifer Daly have their case heard on “The People’s Court” in May 24 episode of TV show. With spring come Dyker raccoons By Jotham Sederstrom many as four critters at a time. and four raccoons in the Bronx The Brooklyn Papers While the stripe-eyed fur balls can were diagnosed with rabies, ac- grow to 40 inches long and weigh cording to a city Department of Residents, primarily near as much as 25 pounds, most are Health spokesman. Last year, the Dyker Beach Golf harmless if let be. three skunks and three raccoons, Course, have reported nearly Still, in the wake of a raccoon all in the Bronx, were found to a dozen raccoon sightings in attack in Peekskill this week that have the disease, which can be fa- backyards and chimneys infected a 52-year-old woman tal. across Bay Ridge and Dyker with rabies, it’s no surprise that The problem, say concerned Heights. And nobody knows some residents might want an- residents, is that the city has dis- what to do about it. swers — and quick. This year played a historical resistance to alone, one bat on Staten Island helping alleviate the problem. So goes another spring in “They aren’t really doing any- / Tom Callan / Tom southwest Brooklyn. PAGE 7 thing,” Vella-Marrone said of city “We have to come up with authorities. “I just don’t think some kind of solution here be- Brooklyn is a natural habitat for cause most people don’t know raccoons. Maybe 300 years ago, how these animals are supposed but not now.” to be treated,” said Fran Vella- The Brooklyn Papers The Brooklyn That said, residents want to Marrone, chairwoman of the envi- know what to do when the in- ronmental committee of Commu- creasingly brave critters come nity Board 10. closer to their homes and, in some In a festive mood The surge in sightings comes cases, climb into their chimneys. Halley Vidal, 6, poses for portrait during Bay Ridge’s Fifth Avenue Festival on Sunday. The street each spring, when pregnant rac- ‘Celebrate’ with Doubly so near the golf course, fair returned to its full-length glory for the first time in three years, with concert stages, rides, coons begin to make themselves Los Lobos which is framed by Seventh and Associated Press games and food vendors stretched over 23 blocks. visible before giving birth to as See PESTS on page 18 One of the pesky critters. Red Hook Ikea OK’d by CB 6 By Deborah Kolben said board member Edith Stone suburban areas, in industrial parks of Civil War-era buildings Ikea restaurant and retail space and 1,400 The Brooklyn Papers who voted against the Ikea applica- or off highway exits; this Ikea would be razing to make way for parking spaces. The store would be tion. “It’s time to say, ‘No more big would be the first in an urban area. the sweeping store. elevated 18 feet to allow for 600 Like it or not, “Flarke” and box stores.’” Stone, a Red Hook resident, said The project would also include parking spots underneath. “Hensvik” may soon become Ikea builds most of its stores in she was also concerned about a set 71,400 square feet of adjacent Ikea went into contract to pur- part of the Brooklyn lexicon. chase the 22-acre former New York Swedish home furnishings giant Shipyard — roughly between Ikea received its first stamp of ap- Dwight and Columbia streets along proval this week when Community the Erie Basin — almost two years Board 6 voted to approve the appli- ago. cation for a 346,000-square-foot Ever since then the proposal has store along the Erie Basin in Red split the community into two camps Hook. — those concerned about traffic and The board voted 34-4 with two preserving the waterfront and those abstentions in favor of the plan fol- who want jobs for the community. lowing a two-hour discussion at its Early on, Ikea officials reached monthly general meeting at the Park out to the Red Hook Houses city Slope YMCA on June 9. housing projects, which are home to Three of the four board members 75 percent of the neighborhood’s who voted against the plan live in residents, promising hundreds of Red Hook, the fourth lives in neigh- jobs. boring Carroll Gardens. Some of those residents attended / Tom Callan / Tom Several board members who ini- / Greg Mango / Greg Wednesday’s meeting, but many tially opposed the plan said they had to leave because the communi- changed their minds following sev- ty board had not secured a room eral Ikea presentations and a public large enough to accommodate hearing. everyone. But others held their ground, While the board voted in favor of The Brooklyn Papers The Brooklyn claiming the massive box store Papers The Brooklyn the application it also added several would snarl traffic and turn Red conditions and just this week Ikea Hook and surrounding neighbor- committed to funding a job training At the ready hoods into a “suburban strip mall.” BRCC’s new face program to prepare Red Hook resi- A soldier in full cammouflage poses with rifle during annual “I’m tired of Manhattan turning Retired Police Lieutenant Dean Rasinya was sworn in as president of the Bay Ridge Community dents for the 600 jobs the company Brooklyn into the new Paramus,” Twilight Tattoo at Fort Hamilton Army Base Saturday. Council during ceremonies at the group’s annual dinner at El Caribe in Mill Basin on June 3. See IKEA on page 18 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Antique ESTATE PLANNING AND Car Show FREE ELDERLAW SEMINAR ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––FOR SENIORS Sun., June 13, 11am-2pm Presented By The Law Firm of Linda Faith Marshak Sunrise Senior Living at Mill Basin Wednesday, June 23 and Saturday, June 26 5905 Strickland Avenue • (718) 444-2600 Call today to reserve: (800) 395-5762 ©The Brooklyn Papers. Established 1978. Phone 718-834-9350. Celia Weintrob, Publisher (ext 104) • Neil Sloane, Editor (ext 119) • Lisa J. Curtis, GO Brooklyn Editor (ext 131) • Vince DiMiceli, Senior Editor (ext 125) • Ed Weintrob, President (ext 105) 2 BRZ THE BROOKLYN PAPERS • WWW.BROOKLYNPAPERS.COM June 12, 2004 X AVERIAN H IGH S CHOOL AN INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE WORLD SCHOOL Congratulates the Class of 2004 Among the most prestigious colleges and Class of 2004 Athletes in Baseball, Football, RESPICE universities in the nation to welcome Basketball, Ice Hockey, and Track have won Xaverian graduates as freshmen this fall are: more than a dozen titles over the past four STELLAM Harvard • Yale • M.I.T. • Georgetown years against the most competitive teams in the Princeton • Brown • Cornell • Columbia City, as well as numerous individual awards and VOCA Drew • New York University • Polytechnic recognitions. Rensselaer • Colgate • Fordham • Tufts U Penn • St. John’s • Manhattan • Brandeis Class of 2004 Speech & Debate and MARIAM Northeastern • Wesleyan • McGill • Amherst Robotics teams have taken Xaverian to the and four U.S. Service Academies: State and National level. The Xaverian Chorus The Naval Academy has played at the White House and the National Dr. Salvatore C. Ferrera “Look to the Star, The Air Force Academy Gallery of Art. The Piper Band leads the N.Y.C. The Coast Guard Academy Council down 5th Avenue in the oldest President, Xaverian H.S. Call Upon Mary.” The Merchant Marine Academy St. Patrick’s Day Parade in the nation. During the past 11 years, as President of More than 200 Letters of Appreciation have Model United Nations members have repre- Xaverian, I have grown to appreciate and love been received from the 125 schools, hospitals, sented Xaverian at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and the talented faculty, staff, students, alumni and and homes for the elderly sites where these sen- Berlin, Germany.