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Brooklyn Today April 24: Massive Rats Feast on Chipotle’s Trash in Brooklyn Heights

April 24, 2018 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
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THE LEDE: Happy Tuesday, Brooklyn! Rats take over Montague Street, Bed-Stuy is a hotbed for restaurants, and Donald Trump Jr. is coming to Dyker Beach. Plus, the Waffle House shooter is taken into custody, East New Yorkexperiences its first murder of 2018, and only a few of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s cherry trees are in bloom. Finally, Kim Jong-un says North Korea will stop nuclear tests, a U.S. veteran receives the first full male genitalia transplant, and we have all the details about President Trump’s first state visit with French President Emmanuel Macron.                     
 
IMPRINT: Actor Chris Pratt has a drink with a Tyrannosaurus rex on the April/May cover of Entertainment Weekly.  

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The Rundown
 

~RATS THE SIZE OF BURRITOS FEAST ON CHIPOTLE’S TRASH IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS: Supersized rats have been feasting on the all-you-can-eat trash buffet in front of Chipotle in Brooklyn Heights, but locals are the ones who’ve had their fill. “On average, I see four or five rats going back and forth from the garbage to the building next door under construction,” said Brooklyn Heights resident William Taylor, who has documented the ripped-open garbage bags and the vermin. Chipotle blamed the rats on the construction of a new apartment tower where office building 189 Montague St. and residential building 146 Pierrepont St. once stood. The Brooklyn Heights Association, however, said Chipotle can’t just point its finger at the construction site. “Rats are attracted to food, and Chipotle is contributing to the problem by putting its garbage in bags that rats can easily open,” saidPeter Bray, the group’s executive director. A worker on the site admitted that there is at least one rat — and he said it was enormous. How big? When asked to describe the animal, he held out his hands to the width of a very large house cat…or a particularly well-stuffed burrito. (via Brooklyn Eagle)
 
~DONALD TRUMP JR., SEBASTIAN GORKA TO HEADLINE BROOKLYN GOP GALA: The chickens are coming home to roost. Two luminaries of the far right wing — the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and controversial former presidential adviser Sebastian Gorka — will headline the Brooklyn Republican Party’s Spring Gala next month in the borough’s GOP stronghold. Gorka will be a speaker at the $200-a-plate dinner at the Dyker Beach Golf Course on May 16, while Trump will attend an extra-price VIP reception prior to the dinner. Brooklyn, of course, is one of the most reliably Democratic counties in the nation — where 79 percent of voters chose Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. But portions of southern Brooklyn were strongly part of so-called Trump Country. Dyker Heights, for example, supported Trump 49-47 percent. And nearby Homecrest gave 66 percent of its votes to Trump. The area is currently represented by Republicans in Congress (Dan Donovan), the State Senate (Marty Golden) and the Assembly (Nicole Malliotakis). (via Brooklyn Eagle)
 
~COLD SPRING MAY PUT A CRIMP ON BOTANIC GARDEN’S CHERRY BLOSSOMS: Mother Nature is playing havoc with this weekend’s Sakura Matsuri, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s annual festival of 60 performances, demonstrations, music and exhibits celebrating traditional and modern Japanese culture that is typically timed to the “astonishing spring botanical display” of dozens of cherry trees in full flower. The Brooklyn Eagle stopped by the garden the other day and was shocked to find so few trees in bloom so close to the festival. The three-dozen or so prunus “Kazans” that are described as the showiest trees in the collection were still wearing the floral equivalent of mittens and scarves. “The cold weather has acted like a refrigerator, so they’re a bit slower this year,” garden spokeswoman Elizabeth Reina-Longoria said. Reina-Longoria did, however, put a positive spin on the weather-related delay: It may help the season stretch out a bit longer this year. (via Brooklyn Eagle)
 
~BED-STUY BOASTS RESTAURANT ROW: As a ground zero for gentrification, Bedford-Stuyvesant is attracting a slew of businesses that now include a list of eateries on something of a restaurant row down Malcolm X Boulevard. The stretch of street has Italian restaurants, coffee shops, soul food spots, bakeries and Nana Ramen. The ramen joint is decorated with a large Japanese Rising Sun on a white brick wall complemented by hanging filament lights and spidery chandeliers. Diners are given a brief menu that lists ramen on one side and small dishes on the reverse. It’s a cash-only business, but orders of Japanese beer and noodles could have customers running for the ATM. (via Forbes)
 
~BOOTH IN PROSPECT PARK IS RELIC OF 19TH CENTURY ROAD: The unusual octagonal booth near the Children’s Corner of Prospect Park, which many people mistake for an information booth, is actually a relic of an early toll road that connected the town of Flatbush to the city of Brooklyn, according to Brownstoner. During the 19th century, the booth moved among various locations along a 4-mile plank road on what is now Flatbush Avenue. Plank roads were popular among farmers who wished to avoid being mired in the mud of dirt roads, Brownstoner said. After the toll road became public, the booth was kept by a former Flatbush road commissioner as a curiosity, then given by his daughter to Prospect Park. A dedication ceremony was held for it in 1925. (Brownstoner via Brooklyn Eagle)
 
~FIRST MURDER OF 2018 HITS EAST NEW YORK: East New York, whose 75th Precinct has traditionally been a high-crime precinct, had been enjoying a murder-free year – but that came to an end on Sunday, according to the New York Post. Jahimel Gayle, 37, was found shot in the neck and shoulder in his apartment on Hendrix Street near Sutter Avenue around noon, the Post reported. One neighborhood resident, who would only give her name as Betty, was quoted as saying, “I was thanking God” for the lack of homicides, “but I spoke too soon.” While last year the precinct had 11 murders, police credited this year’s lack of killings to a series of crackdowns on gangs. Jahmorley O. Gayle, 32, the victim’s brother, was arrested and charged with the murder and criminal possession of a weapon. (New York Post via Brooklyn Eagle)

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Staff Picks:   
 

LONG READ: In Japan, those without family members can rent wives, fathers and grandchildren. (via The New Yorker)
 
ANOTHER LONG READ: Following the death of Swedish DJ Avicii, we take a look back at this 2013 profile of the “King of Oontz Oontz Oontz.” (via GQ)
 
CARTOON: A phalanx of President Trump’s lawyers assembles on the White House lawn. (via The New Yorker)
 
EAT: Here are the 11 best bagels spots in New York City, including two in Brooklyn. (via Eater)

 
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NATIONAL BULLETIN: Google collects more of your personal data than Facebook…The Waffle House shooter is taken into custody…And a U.S. veteran receives the first full male genitalia transplant. (via WSJ, NYT and NBC Washington)        
 
FOREIGN FLASH: You can buy a private Canadian island used by Al Capone during prohibition…Kim Jong-un says North Korea will stop nuclear tests…And here are all the details about President Trump’s first state visitwith French President Emmanuel Macron. (via Observer, USA Today and CNN)                                     
 
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 ROYAL WATCH: Kate Middleton and Prince William welcome thenewest member of the Royal Family. (via USA Today)

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BROOKLYN TONIGHT     
 

9:00AM — Brain Train Technology Class at Bay Ridge Center for Older Adults.Details.
 
1:00PM — Master Class: Royal Shakespeare Company at Mark Morris Dance Center. Details.  
 
6:00PM — “God Save Texas:” Lawrence Wright at McNally Jackson. Details.
 
6:00PM – 8:00PM — Speaking Our Truth: Voices of Brooklyn Generation School at Brooklyn Generation School. Details.
 
6:00PM – 9:00PM — Digital Democracy: What the World’s First Big Data Project Tells Us About the Future of Identity at Columbia University. Details.
 
6:30PM – 8:30PM — The Path to Enlightenment: Dai Ajari Ryojun Shionuma at Japan Society. Details.
 
7:00PM — Alisa Roth on Insane: America’s Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness at Book Culture LIC. Details.
 
7:00PM – 9:30PM — Wife, Inc.: The Business of Marriage in the Twenty-First Century at Bluestockings. Details.
 
7:30PM — King Lear at BAM Harvey Theater. Details.    
 
8:00PM — Managing Change in NYC Landmarks: Restoration, Rehabilitation and New Design at The National Arts Club. Details.

       

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EAGLE SPORTS: “YES ratings still lowest … but up 11 percent over 2016-17” (via NetsDaily)

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MILESTONES
 
Happy birthday to Eric Balfour, Eric Bogosian, Cedric the Entertainer, Kelly Clarkson, Richard M. Daley, Djimon Hounsou, Chipper Jones, Shirley MacLaine, Michael O’Keefe and Barbra Streisand!
 
Brooklyn Today’s editor is Scott Enman. Contact him at[email protected]. 


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