Around Brooklyn: Masks, gloves seized from Brooklyn suspect will go to caregivers
Plants hang from the rafters in this Brooklyn Botanic Garden greenhouse. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle
Masks, gloves seized from Brooklyn suspect will go to caregivers
Nearly a million medical-grade masks and gloves that were seized last week from a Brooklyn man who has been charged with price-gouging will go to medical workers in New York and New Jersey, according to The New York Times. The stockpile of supplies that were seized from Baruch Feldheim included 192,000 respirators, 130,000 surgical masks and nearly 600,000 medical-grade gloves, according to the FBI. Feldheim charged a doctor $12,000 last month for a large order of masks, gowns and hazmat gear at a 700 percent markup, according to charges against him.
Brooklyn MD describes life fighting coronavirus
Dr. Patrick Borgen, chair of surgery at Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park, described life in the hospital during the coronavirus pandemic to the Business Insider. When handling patients with the virus, he said, the patients were “unbelievably sick,” not like his typical patients who began to revive after having routine surgery like appendix removal. On Tuesday, Borgen counted the number of announcements that patients were “coding,” a condition where breathing and heart rates drop. In “peacetime,” Business Insider said, there’s usually a code every few days. Now, Borgen said, “In a couple of hours, there were five codes.”
Map shows virus cases by ZIP code
A new map, released by the Department of Health, shows confirmed coronavirus cases by ZIP code, and it suggests that the poorest New Yorkers are being hardest hit by the pandemic, according to the New York Post. Wealthier parts of the city, including waterfront sections of Queens and brownstone Brooklyn, have the fewest number of coronavirus cases. Neighborhoods with fewer than 200 cases include Park Slope and Greenwich Village. On the other hand, neighborhoods like East New York in Brooklyn have as many as 947 cases. In addition, Williamsburg has 947 cases, likely because of a cluster among the area’s Hasidic population.
Coney Hospital workers given one mask per week
Health care workers at Coney Island Hospital are given only one face mask per week as the number of COVID-19 patients surges, according to the Brooklyn Paper. Emergency service providers at the city-run hospital must sign in once a week to get one N95 face mask, which they’re expected to use for five days. “After a 12-hour shift, this mask becomes ill-fitting,” one worker told the Brooklyn Paper. “This is really not the appropriate setting for us to work in.”
Show must go on for real estate brokers
Veteran real estate brokers have become amateur movie directors, with brokers going into the apartment, summoning a group Zoom call and starting shows for live audiences, according to Bloomberg News. One broker, Barak Dunayer, told people watching him, “I’m turning on the dishwasher, I’m turning on the stove. I plugged into all the outlets to make sure they work.” Even before the coronavirus epidemic, “because inventory was so tight, people were trying to make an offer before they could see it in person,” said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. Just recently, two condos went into contract at 130 William St. in Lower Manhattan to buyers who relied on virtual showings and never visited the sales office.
Williamsburg landlord waives tenants’ rent for April
Lifelong Williamsburg resident and landlord Mario Salerno announced on Monday that he will waive April’s rent for all his residential and commercial tenants, according to Greenpointers. Salerno, whose family operates an auto body shop in the neighborhood, has acquired a series of buildings that have approximately 200 tenants in 80 apartments. He became concerned that his tenants would not be able to afford both their necessities and their monthly rent. On Monday, a letter was posted in the entrance of Salerno’s buildings that said, “Due to the recent pandemic of coronavirus COVID-19 affecting all of us, please note I am waiving rent for the month of April 2020.”
Orthodox Jewish funeral homes overwhelmed
One Orthodox funeral home in Brooklyn, Shomrei Hadas Chapels, where a video shows nine shrouded bodies stacked on the floor, is so overwhelmed that on Tuesday it called for volunteers with minivans and SUVs to ferry the dead to cemeteries for burial, according to the Forward. As similar scenes unfold in Jewish neighborhoods that have been hit hard by Covid-19, a national network of Jewish burial societies has urged the 100 organizations it advises to stop performing the ritual of purifying a dead body until further notice for health reasons. “More and more people are dying, people of all kinds: Sephardim, religious, traditional, Litvishe,” said a member of a Chevrra Kadisha, or organization that normally prepares bodies for burial.
New Pacific Park building gets underway
The reinforced concrete superstructure of 18 Sixth Ave., a 49-story residential skyscraper, has begun ascending in Prospect Heights, according to New York YIMBY. Developed as a joint venture between the Brodsky Organization and Greenland City Partners, the 500-plus-foot-tall building will contain 858 rental units, 258 of which will be dedicated to affordable housing, New York YIMBY said. The project would be the tallest building in the 22-acre Pacific Park (originally Atlantic Yards) master plan.
Brooklyn Jewish school says Miami hotel wouldn’t refund $2.3M deposit
A Brooklyn Jewish school says a Miami Beach hotel refuses to refund a $2.3 million deposit for a Passover trip that was canceled over coronavirus concerns, according to the New York Post. A group of 1,200 teachers, students and parents from the Magen David Yeshiva day school in Bensonhurst booked a 10-day trip for the Jewish holiday in April at the Eden Roc Hotel, but the trip was canceled amid the coronavirus pandemic. The school’s three-year contract for the annual trip included a cancellation clause for extenuating circumstances, including for a “disease outbreak,” in which case the hotel would have to issue a 100 percent refund, the court papers claim.
Four-story buildings planned for Stuyvesant Heights
Permits have been filed for two four-story buildings at 645-647 Madison St. in Stuyvesant Heights, according to New York YIMBY. The site, currently occupied by a Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Kingdom Hall, is three blocks west of the J and Z trains’ Gates Avenue station. The buildings would have eight units each, most probably rentals. Infinity Properties is listed as the owner, and Robert Bianchini of ARC Architecture Design School is listed as the architect.
Elementary school teacher dies of coronavirus
Sandra Santos-Vizcaino, a third-grade teacher at P.S. 9 in Prospect Heights, died Tuesday night from coronavirus, her family revealed recently. “This is a tragedy for the PS9 students, staff and the entire school community,” wrote principal Fatimah Ali in a letter on the school’s website, according to the Daily News. Santos-Vizcaino’s death at age 54 is possibly the first of a city public school teacher from the virus, although the Department of Education is not officially tracking that number. Santos-Vizcaino dreamed of returning to her native Dominican Republic to start a school for disabled students, the Daily News reported.
Hasidic Jewish funeral violates distancing rules
Thousands of Hasidic Jews gathered on Avenue N in Midwood for a local rabbi’s funeral, violating social distancing orders, according to the New York Post. Video obtained by the post shows dozens of members of the community, some wearing facial masks, marching in an online procession as a group of men carried a casket above their heads. Members of the civilian nonprofit patrol group Shmira guided the crowded procession, the footage shows. “There’s no excuse for marching and violating social distancing, not even for a funeral, given the current state of affairs,” Orthodox Jewish political consultant Menashe Shapiro told the Post.
Compiled by Raanan Geberer.
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Re item quoting YIMBY about 18 Sixth Avenue, aka B4, the tower at the northeast flank of the Barclays Center: construction started in spring 2019, and YIMBY was providing a photo update.
More importantly, the developers have decided to suspend construction due to coronavirus concerns, as I reported before YIMBY published (but ignored).
https://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2020/04/on-new-york-yimby-photos-of-b4b15.html
Norman Oder
Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report
Re item quoting YIMBY about 18 Sixth Avenue, aka B4, the tower at the northeast flank of the Barclays Center: construction started in spring 2019, and YIMBY was providing a photo update.
More importantly, the developers have decided to suspend construction due to coronavirus concerns, as I reported before YIMBY published (but ignored).
https://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2020/04/on-new-york-yimby-photos-of-b4b15.html
Norman Oder
Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report
This is sure to be fuel for Neonazis, Too bad, so unnecessary.
Rape cover-ups by Jehovah’s Witnesses from NBC Dateline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbKXj8R4_X8
This plague was unleashed by a Jew
Charles Leiber of Harvard University gave deadly protein information to Wuhan bio lab