Around Brooklyn: Doctors can now resume elective surgeries

June 10, 2020 Editorial Staff

This lovely street is College Place. Photo: Lore Croghan/Brooklyn Eagle

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Doctors can now resume elective surgeries

Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently announced that doctors and hospitals in New York City are now eligible to resume elective surgeries and ambulatory care. Previously, it was announced that the state will allow elective outpatient treatments to resume in counties and hospitals that don’t have any immediate risk of a COVID-19 surge. “Today, we are turning the page on the COVID-19 virus as we reopen New York City. We didn’t just flatten the curve, we bent it,” said Cuomo, according to amNewYork.

Museums, arts orgs open lobbies to aid protesters

Although cultural institutions in New York City remain closed to the public, some are opening their lobbies to provide Black Lives Matter protesters with a safe space, a restroom, snacks, water, WiFi and face masks. Among the institutions in Brooklyn that have signed on are BRIC Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Arts Exchange, the Brooklyn Museum, Cloud City, Irondale Center and the Brick Theater, according to 6sqft.

Police will no longer issue tickets to street vendors

In a victory for the city’s street vendors, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday that the NYPD would stop issuing tickets to vendors and would no longer oversee enforcement of street vendor restrictions. However, the NYPD is just one of several agencies that oversees these vendors, who will still fall under the purview of several other city agencies, such as Sanitation, Health and Parks. De Blasio said the city would create a new civilian agency to oversee street vendors. “This is the bare minimum of what our community needs. We have been fighting for this for years,” said Mohamed Attia, head of the Street Vendor Project, according to NY Eater.

Many small Greenpoint firms struggle for survival

Small businesses in Greenpoint, many of which haven’t made any money during the coronavirus pandemic, are struggling for survival. At 67 West St., part of the old Greenpoint Market Terminal, tenants have asked the landlord, Joshua Guttman, whether he would accept a temporary 50 percent reduction in rent, like some other landlords had granted from commercial tenants. Guttman, however, told the tenants they would be evicted if they didn’t pay 100 percent. The governor’s eviction moratorium does not apply to commercial leases, Guttman told tenants. Guttman was the owner of another building in the Greenpoint Terminal that burned in a suspicious fire after a deal to sell the building failed, according to City Limits magazine.

City revises plans for Bushwick Inlet park

The City has presented revised plans for its almost $10 million project to build a small waterfront park at Bushwick Inlet in Greenpoint. The Parks Department plans a “naturalistic” and “passive” lawn around the formerly industrial cove. The $9.8 million scheme would enhance a small beach with a wheelchair-accessible path, wet marshes, concrete paths, and plantings and trees to boost local wildlife. A 66-inch underground sewer line under the northern part of the site prevents any trees with deep roots from being planted there, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

Judge denies release of infirm, elderly from federal jail

U.S. District Judge Rachel Kovner of the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday denied a motion that would have released medically vulnerable inmates from the Metropolitan Detention Center. Lawyers for a group of MDC inmates said there were severe flaws in the jail’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. Judge Kovner noted that no inmates have died from the virus, and only one has been hospitalized. Still, she said the facility must implement all of the Centers for Disease Control’s guidance for COVID-19, according to the New York Law Journal.

Cuomo announces acceleration of MTA projects

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced that the MTA is speeding construction on some capital projects during this period of reduced ridership caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the projects are the rehabilitation of the F train’s Rutgers Tube between Manhattan and Brooklyn and the acceleration of repairs of problems and leaks within steel and concrete structures along the 2, 3, 4 and 5 trains’ Eastern Parkway tunnel. Others include making 11 stations disabled-friendly and rehabilitating the 4 train’s 138th Street-Grand Concourse station in the South Bronx.

Group helps restaurants and the needy at the same time

An organization known as Rethink Food is working to help restaurants stay open during the coronavirus pandemic while feeding the communities hardest hit. The Brooklyn nonprofit’s new Restaurant Response Program provides 30 New York City restaurants with grants of up to $40,000. The grants allow restaurants to reopen their doors and create thousands of meals for frontline workers and well as members of underserved communities. For example, one restaurant, Collective Fare, is providing 800 meals for the community every day, according to Foodtank, a website that looks at food from a social point of view.

SUNY Downstate specialist to weigh in on reopening schools

The New York State Board of Regents and the State Education Department have appointed SUNY Downstate professor and infectious disease specialist Jack DeHovitz to advise regional task forces on the health and safety risks associated with the planned reopening of schools. “I am honored to contribute in this public health emergency by providing the best data possible to inform the decisions of the Board of Regents in opening our schools,” said Dr. DeHovitz. He also praised Gov. Andrew Cuomo for making “data-driven decisions” regarding the pandemic.

Man in wheelchair was Brownsville shooting victim

A man in a wheelchair was one of those shot in a series of shootings in Brooklyn on Monday night, cops said Tuesday. Victor Windley was talking with three other people in front of a house on Bristol Street in Brownsville when shots rang out around 11:45. Windley at first didn’t realize he was shot, but first responders determined he was hit in the stomach. He’s now recovering at Kings County Hospital, according to the New York Post. Police weren’t aware of any motives.

Students rally in front of closed school

Students ranging in age from preschoolers to high school students recently marched from the main building of P.S. 10 on Seventh Avenue to the school’s preschool building. Most of them had not seen each other since early March. Like other protesters, they marched because of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. The principal, Laura Scott, said, “I haven’t seen many of them for three months or so. It’s more like a family school, even though we have so many children,” according to NY1 News.

Crown Heights Hasidim hold Black Lives Matter march

On Sunday afternoon, Hasidic Jews from the Lubavitcher movement gathered in Crown Heights for a march in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. The march originated with a WhatsApp group started by Orthodox Jews who sympathize with social justice movements. Protesters carried signs in Hebrew, Yiddish and English, one of which read, “Halacha (Jewish ritual law) demands a just legal system.” Lubavticher Hasidim and African-Americans both live in Crown Heights, but rarely patronize each other’s stores, in part because Biblical laws followed by Hasidim regulate not only food but also clothing, according to Insider.

Brooklyn activists hail 50-A repeal

Activists recently applauded the state legislature’s passage of a bill to repeal 50-A, a state law that keeps police officers’ disciplinary records a secret. One group that helped in the effort was Brooklyn’s New Kings Democrats, which made several thousand calls to elected officials and collected thousands of emails and petition signatures. Kensington Assemblymember Robert Carroll said his office had received more than 5,000 calls and emails over a one-week period. While the repeal bill passed the State Senate on Tuesday, every Republican voted against it, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

Cops release video of attempted rapist

Police have released video of a man accused of trying to rape two women in Brooklyn and on the Upper West Side on Saturday. The Brooklyn incident happened in a subway car traveling near Prospect Park, while the Manhattan incident happened on a subway platform. In each case, the woman was able to fend off the suspect. The man was described as being about 5-foot-4 tall, weighing about 140 pounds, and wearing a black Florida Marlins baseball cap and a green hooded windbreaker pulled over his face, according to Patch. He has light skin and straight hair.

Compiled by Raanan Geberer.