Brooklyn Today October 24: Can the Watchtower Sign Be Replaced?
good-morning.png
Weather, Brooklyn (NWS): Day 55°, Night 40°, Mostly Sunny
Send tips to [email protected]. Click here to signup.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
THE LEDE: Happy Wednesday! The Watchtower sign saga continues, Brooklyn residents are urged to fill out census forms, and the Fort Hamilton pizza manPablo Villavicencio is arrested. Plus, we look back at Brooklyn Dodgers history, a southern-style restaurant opens in Fort Greene, and a Crown Heights bar receives 86 complaints — from the same woman. Finally, a Sichuan restaurant arrives in Bushwick, the former BookCourt building undergoes a makeover, and we recommend the best places to get wings in the city.
IMPRINT: Actor Armie Hammer graces the latest cover of Esquire Italia.
____________________________
The Rundown
~CAN THE WATCHTOWER SIGN BE REPLACED? DECISION COMING SOON: Will the city allow the new owner of the old Brooklyn HeightsWatchtower headquarters to replace the letters on the property’s internationally famous sign? We’ll find out on Nov. 8. The city Board of Standards and Appeals is scheduled to render a decision that day in Columbia Heights Associates’ legal battle with the city Buildings Department over the replacement of the red electric “Watchtower” sign. After gracing the rooftop of 30 Columbia Heights for nearly half a century, the iconic sign was removed last year, leaving a void in Brooklyn’s waterfront skyline. (via Brooklyn Eagle)
~BROOKLYN RESIDENTS NEED TO FILL OUT CENSUS FORMS OR BOROUGH COULD LOSE FUNDING: More than 80 percent of Brooklyn’s 2.6 million residents live in areas identified as “hard to count,” according to CUNY Mapping Service. This could come back to haunt the borough in the 2020 Census. Census figures factor in obtaining federal funding for health care, schools, housing, security, infrastructure and transportation. An undercounted population means Brooklyn loses out on funding it’s entitled to. Census figures also determine the number of representatives each state has in the House of Representatives and affects the redrawing of state and federal election districts. (via Brooklyn Eagle)
~FORT HAMILTON PIZZA MAN PABLO VILLAVICENCIO ARRESTED IN DOMESTIC DISPUTE: The undocumented immigrant who became a cause celebre this summer after being detained by ICE agents while delivering pizza to the Fort Hamilton Army Base in Bay Ridge was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor stemming from an incident on Friday. Pablo Villavicencio, 35, was charged with criminal mischief in the fourth degree. Villavicencio allegedly pushed his wife against a wall during a dispute in their home on Friday afternoon. Villavicencio also grabbed his wife’s cell phone in an apparent attempt to prevent her from calling 911. (AP via Brooklyn Eagle)
~RED SOX-DODGERS IN ’46 WORLD SERIES? NOT PART OF THE PROGRAM: It took more than a century for these clubs to finally meet again in the Fall Classic. They had plenty of stars, but a World Series between the Red Sox and Dodgers just wasn’t part of the program. Or was it? Because a lucky few still have a souvenir of their greatest near-miss: a copy of the “official program” for the 1946 World Series between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox. Of course, they didn’t play that year, it was a phantom series. The St. Louis Cardinals swept Brooklyn in a best-of-three playoff for the NL pennant, and went on to beat Boston in Game 7 for the championship. (AP via Brooklyn Eagle)
~SOUTHERN-STYLE RESTAURANT OPENS FORT GREENE LOCATION:Peaches HotHouse, a well-known restaurant in Bed-Stuy, has opened a new branch at 87 South Elliott Place in Fort Greene. The owners, Ben Grossmanand Craig Samuel, have opened several restaurants in Brooklyn, including Peaches Shrimp and Crab in Clinton Hill, Peaches in Bed-Stuy and Peaches HotHouse. The new Fort Greene outlet will have some of the items as the Bed-Stuy original, including Nashville-style hot chicken, the HotHouse Burger and appetizers such as fried green tomatoes and barbecued shrimp. (Brownstoner via Brooklyn Eagle)
~CROWN HEIGHTS BAR RECEIVED 86 COMPLAINTS IN 2016, ALL FROM THE SAME WOMAN: A Crown Heights senior is notorious for constantly making 911 calls and 311 calls about what she considers bad behavior by local residents. Kathleen Reilly, 64, spends hours recording people with her cell phone and accusing people of making too much noise, parking illegally, smoking, drinking or loitering. Her main target seems to be Berg’n, a bar-restaurant located across from her apartment. A representative of the 77th Precinct said it received 86 complaints about Berg’n in 2016, all from the same person and all unfounded. (New York Post via Brooklyn Eagle)
~CELEBRITY CHEF’S SICHUAN RESTAURANT MISSION CHINESE OPENS IN BUSHWICK: Mission Chinese, the popular Sichuan restaurant that started on the West Coast and later opened on the Lower East Side, opened a branchrecently in Bushwick. The restaurant is owned by celebrity chef Danny Bowien. The new outpost features Mission Chinese favorites like super-spicy Chongqing chicken wings, kung pao pastrami and thrice-cooked bacon. It also has some unique dishes, such as sourdough naan with burnt buckwheat honey butter and sheep’s milk cheese. (Eater via Brooklyn Eagle)
~BUILDINGS THAT HOUSED BOOKCOURT ARE UNDERGOING A MAKEOVER: The historic 19th century storefront at 161 Court St. in Cobble Hill that housed neighborhood bookstore BookCourt until 2016 has been replaced by a modern metal-and-glass one. While the low-rise 19th century building’s upper stories are basically untouched, “it doesn’t look like the same building,” according to Brownstoner. Next door at 163 Court St., another 19th century low-rise building, renovations are ongoing behind a construction fence. This building, which also housed part of BookCourt, is slated to get a vertical addition as well as a rear one. (Brownstoner via Brooklyn Eagle)
____________________________
___________________Bulletin Board__________________
Senator Marty Golden has brought billions of dollars back to NYC schools in the largest increase in education funding in the history of New York. He has supported specialized science and math programs, equipped lab classrooms and led the effort to create new schools throughout Southern Brooklyn. Marty also assists neighborhood Catholic Schools and Yeshivas. Learn more about Marty & his re-election campaign at www.martygolden.org.
_____________________________SPONSORED CONTENT_________
____________________________
Staff Picks:
LONG READ: Suleman Masood, 20, had his genitals burned and his face pressed to a stove by his sister’s boyfriend, a con artist named Ahmed Moustafa. Little did the siblings know, Moustafa was abusing others as well.(via San Francisco Magazine)
ANOTHER LONG READ: “How I Accidentally Wound Up Running an Outlaw Biker Gang in Ohio” (via Medium)
ENVIRONMENT: The plight of the polar bear is misunderstood. The erroneous notion that the species is on the brink of extinction is hurting efforts of environmental groups to talk about climate change. (via Arctic Today)
EAT: Here are the 11 best places to get wings in New York City, including one in Brooklyn. (via Eater)
____________________________
NATIONAL BULLETIN: The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., says five of its Dead Sea Scrolls are fake…John Kelly and Corey Lewandowskiget into a physical altercation…And Texas sees a massive turnout on the first day of early voting. (via Reuters, NYT and Texas Tribune)
FOREIGN FLASH: A “headless chicken monster” is discovered in the ocean’s depths…Drones are saving animals from poachers in Africa…And the world’s oldest intact shipwreck is found off the Bulgarian coast. (via The Guardian and Lonely Planet)
____________________________
ROYAL WATCH: Kiss Cam: Here are 34 photos of the royal family smooching in public. (via Harper’s Bazaar)
____________________________
BROOKLYN TONIGHT
10:30AM — Tour: Early New York at 92nd Street Y. Details.
12:00PM – 6:00PM — A Tavola: Early Bird Cafe: Another Installation Elke Solomon at A.I.R. Gallery. Details.
3:30PM – 5:30PM — Brooklyn Bridge Rotary Makes Halloween Bags for Needy Kids at The Great Room. Details.
6:00PM — Book Launch: “American Islamophobia: Understanding the Roots and Rise of Fear” at Open Society Foundations–New York. Details.
6:00PM — Sickness and the City at The New York Academy of Medicine.Details.
6:00PM — Brooklyn Business Community Welcomes Brooklyn Chamber President at Annual Meeting at Gargiulo’s Restaurant. Details.
6:30PM — Crafting Beer: Traditional Techniques, Modern Brews at Japan Society. Details.
6:30PM — A History of Couple-Hood at Albertine. Details.
6:30PM – 8:30PM — The Path to a Post-Rikers NYC at Brooklyn Historical Society. Details.
7:00PM — Spicy Talk: The Dish on 7 Decades of Food in New York City at New-York Historical Society. Details.
7:30PM — Watermill at BAM Fisher. Details.
____________________________
EAGLE SPORTS: The LIU-Brooklyn men’s soccer squad, playing out its final year here in our fair borough, saw its season-high nine-game winning streak come to an end in dramatic fashion on a prematurely wintry Sunday in Loretto, Pennsylvania. Knotted in a scoreless deadlock with snow falling and only seconds remaining in regulation, the Blackbirds surrendered the game’s lone goal just before time expired in a 1-0 defeat to Northeast Conference rival St. Francis University. (via Brooklyn Eagle)
____________________________
MILESTONES
Happy birthday to F. Murray Abraham, Drake, Kevin Kline, Jeff Merkley, Kweisi Mfume, Monica, Wayne Rooney, Kyla Ross, Mike Rounds, Malcolm Turnbull, Charlie White and Bill Wyman!
Brooklyn Today’s editor is Scott Enman. Contact him at [email protected].
Leave a Comment
Related Articles
Leave a Comment