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Brooklyn Today February 22: Could a Pontoon Bridge Be the Solution to the L-Train Shutdown?

February 22, 2018 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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THE LEDE: Happy Thursday, Brooklyn! A pontoon bridge could be coming to the East River, we have an update on Williamsburg’s Domino Sugar Refinery, and the Brooklyns of America come together. Plus, President Trump hosts victims of school shootings, Elton John interviews Eminem, and students ramp up the pressure on Florida Republicans to act on gun control. Finally, Donald Trump Jr. says he likes India’s poor people because they “smile,” roughly 50 girls go missing in Nigeria, and one writer says Meghan Marklecould be the next Princess Diana.                 
 
IMPRINT: English singer Florence Welch cradles a pig on the latest cover ofW Magazine.

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The Rundown
 

~COULD A PONTOON BRIDGE BE THE SOLUTION TO THE L-TRAIN SHUTDOWN? It seems like any-and-all mitigation options are on the table for the L-train shutdown these days. First, there was the East River Skyway, a proposed aerial gondola connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan. Now, an East River pontoon bridge is being floated (no pun intended) as a possibility. The project, dubbed L-Ternative Bridge, would connect Brooklyn to Manhattan via North Eighth Street in Williamsburg and East 10th Street in the East Village. The overpass would feature four lanes: two inner roads for buses, and two outer paths for pedestrians and cyclists. The bridge, which would use 3,500-pound anchors moored to the bottom of the East River, is the brainchild of real estate investor Parker Shinn, 31. “I was always familiar with pontoon bridges on how they were used historically,” Shinn told us. “They had been used very heavily in wars to transport tanks and troops across bodies of water. And when I heard what the MTA was planning to do, I thought it was a really insufficient solution for the number of people who take the L train across the river each day.” (via Brooklyn Eagle)
 
~WILLIAMSBURG CONSTRUCTION UPDATE: THE DOMINO SUGAR REFINERY SITE: Oh oh Domino. Roll me over, Romeo. Throughout this winter’s wild weather swings, construction crews have been toiling diligently at the Domino Sugar Refinery site in Williamsburg. Work is moving forward on multiple fronts at the 11-acre waterfront mega-project, which belongs to Two Trees Management, the Walentas family’s company. We rode the NYC Ferry the other day so we could snap fresh photos of the mammoth mixed-use site. The East River affords good views of the landmarked 1880s refinery building at292-314 Kent Ave., whose full name is the Havemeyers & Elder Filter, Pan & Finishing House, and of the new construction surrounding it. In November, as we previously reported, the city Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a dramatic design by architecture firm PAU for the refinery’s makeover into a 21st-century office building. The East River’s also a good place to glimpse the zinc and copper facade of 325 Kent Ave., Two Trees Management’s first newly constructed rental-apartment building at the Domino site. (via Brooklyn Eagle)
 
~BROOKLYN, MISSISSIPPI, MEET BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: There are more than a dozen states with towns named Brooklyn, but there’s only one Brooklyn, New York, so a Big Apple production company is looking for foreign Brooklynites to come live in the borough. Brooklyn, Mississippi, will be one of the locations Tenafly Film Co. Chairman Eric Weber hopes to connect with New York by sending a family over state lines. “We want to explore how the families are doing, what they’re liking, what they’re not,” Weber said. “More importantly we want to explore what unites us.” The show, “Brooklyn USA!,” will be a swapping of Brooklyn families across the nation. Two documentarians will be in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the week of March 5 to survey local Brooklyn residents as potential transplants. (via Sun Herald)
 
~HISTORIC LOCATION MARKER SPOTTED IN MARINE PARK: Marine Park has a little bit of geographical history embedded in its concrete and it’s been helping mapmakers draw global lines for decades. A lifelong neighborhood resident recently spotted a location marker placed by the National Geodetics Survey in 1932 at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and East 46th Street. The often-unnoticed marker was used to designate latitude and longitude positions for map makers. “I grew up on East 46th Street and never saw this thing,” Marine Park resident Ken Rogers said. “Here’s this thing’s been sitting here all these years. Who ever sees that?” The National Geodetic Survey put the marker as a geographical reference to a marker at St. Thomas Aquinas church 0.33 miles away. It’s one of about 500,000 similar points throughout the country, including several other spots in the area. (via Brooklyn Daily)  

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Staff Picks:   
 

LONG READ: “Why Is the Manhattan DA Looking at Newsweek’s Ties to a Christian University?” (via Newsweek)
 
ANOTHER LONG READ: Elton John interviews Eminem(via Interview Magazine) 
 
PODCAST: Listen to Jenna Wortham, staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, talk about what writing means to her. (via Longform)
 
CARTOON: President Trump chops down a cherry tree. (via The New Yorker)

 
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NATIONAL BULLETIN: President Trump hosts victims of school shootings…Students ramp up the pressure on Florida Republicans to act on gun control…And a driver evading police in a high-speed chase drinks poison to kill himself. (via CBS New York, NYT and Ventura County Star)   
 
FOREIGN FLASH: Donald Trump Jr. says he likes India’s poor people because they “smile“…Roughly 50 girls go missing after Boko Haram pillages a town in Nigeria…And Ivanka Trump will travel to the Olympics for theclosing ceremony(via WaPo, The Guardian and Politico)       
 
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 ROYAL WATCH: 
“Why Meghan Markle Could Become the NextPrincess Diana” (via E! Online)
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BROOKLYN TONIGHT   
 

10:15AM — Positive Aging: My Yoga Community at Dyker Library. Details.
 
10:30AM — Yoga for Toddlers at Leonard Library. Details.
 
11:00AM — Adult Tai Chi at Clarendon Library. Details.
 
1:00PM — Chinese Brush Painting at Paerdegat Library. Details.
 
1:00PM – 6:00PM — The Art Life at FiveMyles. Details.
 
6:00PM — Assault Prevention Class at Bay Ridge Jewish Center. Details.
 
7:00PM — Marvel Universe Live! Age of Heroes at Barclays Center. Details.
 
7:00PM – 10:00PM — Stretch and Sweat at Body by Brooklyn. Details.
 
8:00PM — Assassins the musical at St. Francis College, Founders Hall.Details.
 
8:00PM — Mokoomba/Mandingo Ambassadors at BRIC House. Details.
 
 
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 EAGLE SPORTS: Spencer Dinwiddie spent the past week gaining national notoriety by winning the Skills Challenge during the NBA’s All-Star weekend in his native Los Angeles. Nik Stauskas worked as a color analyst for Canada’s The Sports Network in his home country. DeMarre Carroll got in some quality family time, Allen Crabbe dipped his toes in the sand during what he termed “a nice little vacation,” and D’Angelo Russell and Joe Harrissimply decided to stay here at the team’s practice facility in Sunset Park and work on their respective games. Now that their annual hiatus is over, however, the Nets must get back to the hardwood, and much more importantly, the business of winning basketball games, something they haven’t done at all in February. “It’s time to get away from basketball,” Russell admitted following Brooklyn’s season-high seventh straight defeat and 10th loss in 11 games overall. “You need that sometimes to come back and reflect and realize what you’re coming to do, especially with a team like us,” added Russell. “We’re losing, and we’ve got to figure out a few things.” (via Brooklyn Eagle)

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MILESTONES
 
Happy birthday to Amy Strum Alcott, Drew Barrymore, James Blunt, Michael Te Pei Chang, Jonathan Demme, Paul Dooley, Dr. J, Kyle MacLachlan,Miou-Miou, Rajon Rondo, Jeri Ryan, Ben Sasse, Vijay Singh and Julie Walters!
 

Brooklyn Today’s editor is Scott Enman. Contact him at[email protected].

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