Good Morning, Brooklyn: Tuesday, July 20, 2021

July 20, 2021 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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JOBS FOR YOUTH IN SOUTHERN BROOKLYN: As part of a sweeping campaign to fight gun violence in New York State and Brooklyn specifically, projects and employment Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced at a Monday, July 19 meeting in southern Brooklyn funding is available for 201 jobs that will benefit at-risk youth in five Brooklyn ZIP codes. The zones are: 11210 (Flatbush, East Flatbush, Flatlands and parts of Midwood); 11223 (Homecrest and Gravensend); 11224 (including Coney Island, Brighton Beach); 11230 (parts of Midwood and Flatbush); and 11234 (Sheepshead Bay, Bergen Beach to Canarsie).

Last week, the governor laid out specific steps, including the creation of 101 summer jobs and a hundred more long-term jobs, establishing summer programs, hiring violence interveners and expanding community services, particularly in mental health.

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VOTERS ARE ASKED TO SHARE EXPERIENCES ABOUT 2020 ELECTION: NY State Senator Zellnor Y. Myrie (D-20^th District) announces an upcoming NYS Senate Elections Committee Hearing for NYC, taking place next Wednesday, July 28. The hearing is the first in a series across the state, to give voters the opportunity to share their experience with elections during both the 2020 Presidential General election and the 2021 NYC Primary elections. Voters can use this link to register for testifying. https://www.nysenate.gov/questionnaires/zellnor-myrie/elections-committee-witness-request-form.

The Public Hearing itself takes place at Medgar Evers College’s Founders Auditorium, starting at 10 a.m., during which information on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act will be shared.

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SCHUMER: FIX PASSPORT BACKLOG: Standing with New Yorkers who are at their wits end amid continued passport processing delays, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer demanded that the State Department immediately ramp up staff and enact a plan to fix the backlog mess, and update the public about it ASAP. Standing with a Brooklyn couple about to miss their honeymoon, and others who risk missing long-scheduled weddings, vacations and business trips, Schumer said countless travelers are stuck in limbo with booked flights but getting radio silence on the status of their passport applications, even renewals.

Schumer said the combination of an extremely large travel increase and the fact that thousands of Americans have had their passports expire has led to extremely long wait times for passport processing and renewals. Before the pandemic, non-expedited mail in passport renewals would take between 6-8 weeks; now it can take up to 18 weeks to receive a passport.

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NEW BROOKLYN TECH ALUMNI BOARD MEMBERS: As Brooklyn Technical High School prepares to celebrate its centennial in 2022, Denice Clarke Ware, class of 1983, has been elected as Board President of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, making her the first Black and first woman in that position. Ware, a Brooklyn native and the daughter of immigrants from Panama and Jamaica, is a retired Verizon executive who has served on the Foundation’s board since 2014.

In other board changes, Jim DiBenedetto ’71, a retired Brooklyn Tech teacher/coach, has been elected treasurer. And Liz Sciabarra, executive director of the Foundation since 2012, stepped down from that position last month but will continue to serve the Foundation as special advisor.

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NEW ART FOR BUS STOPS: Public Art Fund will soon present ANTI-ICON, a 300-site exhibition of 10 new photographs by Brooklyn-based photographer and performance artist Martine Gutierrez. The exhibition will be on view on 100 JCDecaux bus shelters across all five NYC boroughs, and in Boston and Chicago. ANTI-ICON represents Gutierrez’s continued exploration of identity across the landscapes of race, gender, class, and culture.

Through her photography, Gutierrez embodies the spirit of historical and mythological women who have achieved iconic status across cultures, over many centuries, in both art history and popular culture. Aphrodite, Atargatis, Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I, Lady Godiva, Helen of Troy, Judith, Mulan, and the Queen of Sheba.

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BROOKLYN NATIVE EXHIBITS AT BOCA RATON MUSEUM: Brooklyn native Vickie Pierre’s premiere solo museum show, titled “Be My Herald of What’s to Come” is on exhibit at the Boca Raton Museum of Art through September 5 (Sunday of Labor Day weekend). Inspiring herself and the viewer to “Assemble Deeper Truths about Race, Colonialism,” Ms. Pierre uses vintage Avon perfume bottles shaped like idealized women in period skirts, flaxen hair from dolls; galleon ships to represent the slave trade; bracelets, cuffs and jewelry ― all interconnected by long strands of glittering Goddess beads.

A multimedia artist, born and bred in Brooklyn and a graduate of NYC’s School of Visual Arts, Ms. Pierre has participated in exhibitions worldwide. Another installation that she created in 2020, titled “Black Flowers Blossom (Hanging Tree),” the artist honors the souls of people lost to racial injustice, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the many others.

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GILLIBRAND: MAKE GUN TRAFFICKING A FEDERAL CRIME: U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams stood in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall on Monday to announce the reintroduction of the Hadiya Pendleton and Nyasia Pryear-Yard Gun Trafficking & Crime Prevention Act. Named for two teenage girls in Brooklyn and Chicago, IL, the bill seeks to address the illegal transfer of guns across state lines by establishing gun trafficking as a federal crime. The bill would provide law enforcement and prosecutors with the tools to go after those directly involved in the illegal movement of guns across state lines, gun dealers acting illegally, individuals who organize the gun trafficking rings and those who conspire to traffic guns. Senator Gillibrand will be reintroducing the bill this week.

The re-introduction of the legislation comes as shooting incidents have spiked by 73 percent in New York City since May 2020, driven in part by the proliferation of illegal handguns.