Man breaks into Brooklyn Heights dry cleaner, steals cash

January 27, 2025 Mary Frost

A burglar knocked the glass out of the front door of Heights Cleaners & Tailors in Brooklyn Heights early Saturday morning. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

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BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — An unidentified man threw a large concrete block through the glass entrance door of Heights Cleaners & Tailors Inc. at 150 Joralemon St. in Brooklyn Heights during the early morning hours on Saturday, then made off with hundreds of dollars.

Video surveillance from a nearby business shows the suspect walking back and forth in front of the cleaner several times before picking up one of the blocks lining a tree pit in front of the building and hurling it through the glass. He can be seen ducking inside and emerging moments later with the cash drawer from the register.

A police spokesperson told the Brooklyn Eagle that the burglary was reported around 4:24 a.m. The cash drawer held about $400, police said.

Initial surveillance video showed the suspect walking back and forth in front of Heights Cleaners & Tailors on Joralemon St. before breaking the door glass. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

“The police came and a detective fingerprinted the store,” business owner Wei Sun told the Brooklyn Eagle. The thief made off with the cash receipts for the week, she said.

Sun said this was the first time the Joralemon Street location had been robbed, but added her other laundry at 78 Montague St. has also been robbed in the past. “This area is not safe anymore,” she complained.

A store employee showed the Eagle reporter bags of broken glass she had swept up, and the heavy block the thief had used. Police had fingerprinted the block, she said.

One of the bags of broken glass swept up after the Heights Cleaners & Tailors break-in. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

A glass repair company was set to come in on Saturday, she said. “We had to buy a new cash drawer,” she added.

The dry cleaner does not have surveillance cameras. The call to the police was made by an employee of a neighboring business, who had notified his boss after observing the broken glass. The business owner searched through his surveillance video footage and spotted the break-in taking place around the 4:20 a.m. mark. Two other businesses in the area were also searching their surveillance records for images, which police have not yet made available to the public. (This story will be updated online if police send more surveillance images.)

Police dusted this block for fingerprints. It was used by a burglar to break the glass door of Heights Cleaners & Tailors on Joralemon St. in Brooklyn Heights. Photo: Mary Frost, Brooklyn Eagle

‘A lot of questionable people’

Local residents have complained about an influx of shifty characters on this Joralemon block since a storefront drug clinic opened at 142 Joralemon St., the Medical Arts Building, next door to the dry cleaner. Residents say they have observed people shooting up, fighting and distributing zip lock bags of fluid on the sidewalk in front of the clinic. In December, a dog owned by one of the clinic’s clientele attacked a neighborhood dog, killing it. The federal Drug Enforcement Agency raided the clinic in August, the Downtown Brooklyn Star reported.

“There are a lot of questionable people around here these days,” a local business owner, who did not want to be named out of fear of retaliation, told the Eagle. “Maybe they were scoping the place out.”

The company signed a lease on the site in November, 2021, according to Traded.co. A spokesperson for the Montague Street BID said it was not aware of similar break-ins on Montague Street recently.