Elected Officials Speak Out Against Cement Mixer That Causes Dust, Noise For Residents

BQE Admin on September 21, 2024

Assembly Member Emily Gallagher, Councilmember Lincoln Restler, and State Senator Kristen Gonzalez speak against DKN ReadyMix. Credit: Jean Brannum

By Jean Brannum | jbrannum@queensledger.com

Outside the DKN ReadyMix facility, Councilmember Lincoln Restler, State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, Assembly Member Emily Gallagher, and other community members spoke out against the cement mixing company for polluting the area and causing intense noise.

The facility, which has several Department of Buildings complaints for spraying dust into the air, and banging concrete blocks against the ground causing noise and shaking, has received repeated requests from elected officials and residents to be better neighbors, the officials say. However, the facility has allegedly failed to meet with the community and has not fixed the issues.

The situation has escalated to the point where Restler called for the company to shut down the Greenpoint location.

“They’ve provided no substantive information, no real answers, most of all, no improvement,” Restler said. “We are gathered as elected officials, the united front, as community leaders, community-based organizations, all together demanding that this noxious business get the hell out of Greenpoint.”

Jens Rasmussen, who lives next to DKN, told Greenpoint Star in a previous interview that he saw workers slamming cement blocks onto the ground, which caused shaking and cracks in his building. The dust in the air has also caused respiratory issues for his two-year-old son.

The DKN ReadyMix facility at 270 Green St. Credit: Jean Brannum

Another resident, Laura Hofmann, said she could write her name in the layer of dust that coats her car. She lives a few blocks from the facility.

The DOB fined DKN $620 for performing work with a certificate of occupancy for the sale of used cars and car parts. The dispute was resolved, according to the DOB, and the certificate was corrected.

However, elected officials and residents say they have not seen improvement in the air quality or noise levels. Elected officials sent a letter to DKN demanding a meeting. The meeting was supposed to take place Aug 14 but was canceled the day before, according to Restler. He said that DKN hired a lobbying firm to assist them. There has not been a meeting, or discussion of one, since then.

The air quality index (AQI) readings have been startling at the exact location of DKN. Lael Goodman, director of environmental programs at North Brooklyn Neighbors, saw a spike with an AQI reading over 500, which she said was worse than readings during the wildfires in Canada that turned city skies orange in 2023.

Air quality monitors measure for particulate matter less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, which is small enough to be inhaled, Goodman explained in a previous interview. An acceptable air quality reading is an average of 35 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) over 24 hours, according to NYC Environment and Health. Air quality readings on Purple Air show the average 24-hour amount to be 59 µg/m3 as of Sept 20. The one-week average is 55 µg/m3.

The issues with DKN reflect repeated environmental justice issues in the neighborhood. Gallagher spoke about how she is tired of companies causing environmental issues for nearby residents. She also encouraged DKN to start working with the community to protect residents’ health and well-being.

“They can either work with us and keep their business, or they can work against us and see what happens,” Gallagher said.

Willis Elkins from the Newtown Creek Alliance agreed that Greenpoint already has many environmental issues from an industrial history.

“It’s not that this is anti-business. This is being a bad neighbor, and DKN ReadyMix has this proven history of polluting our air, polluting our waterways, and congesting our streets, making it dangerous for everybody in the community, Elkins said.

Elkins referred to DKN’s previous establishments at Maspeth Ave and in Long Island City. Riverkeeper, a nonprofit that advocates for the protection of the Hudson River and its tributaries, sued DKN in 2016 for allowing stormwater runoff from their facility to pollute nearby waterways in Long Island City. A judge ruled in favor of Riverkeeper and DKN had to pay $10,000 to the Newtown Creek Alliance.

While Restler ultimately called for DKN to relocate, he and his elected counterparts clarified that they are not against all businesses or industrial establishments in the area. He simply wants these businesses to be good neighbors. Gonzalez said that DKN can choose to comply with regulations and be a better neighbor.

“We want a new industrial business providing good jobs to our community, who will be a good neighbor for Greenpoint, Restler said.”

DKN ReadyMix did not respond to requests for comment.

Read, Play, Love; Brooklyn Children’s Book Author Randall de Sève on Process and Purpose and Her Latest Release

BQE Admin on September 11, 2024

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

By Alexander Bernhardt Bloom | alex@queensledger.com

Students in our city’s five boroughs returned to school last week, a moment which, — as anyone who has been a student, or the parent of a student, or the teacher of students, will know — summons fear, anxiety, courage, and exhilaration in them all at once.

The materials mailed during the summertime to the caregivers of many of those students offered suggestions for best preparing their youngsters for the return. One of those suggestions was reading.

Children see themselves in the stories they read and have read to them; they identify with stories’ characters and wade through the conflicts they might encounter only to rejoice with them at their resolution. Story books, especially those concerning schools and lessons and learning, can be a terrific way for a young person to simulate the experiences they will begin to face for real when the first day arrives in September, goes the suggestion, and so off went many parents of students-to-be in search of just those for use with their youngsters during the waning days of the summer recess.

They’d encounter an excellent one in Sometimes We Fall, the latest release from children’s book author Randall de Sève, which arrived on the shelves of book shops in her home borough of Brooklyn, in the rest of the city, and elsewhere last month – just in time.

That the story concerns a family of bears and that its setting is a plum tree is no matter. Most children’s books can be understood as parables in some way or another, their apparent simplicity a thin disguise for the powerful, universal themes they usually make their focus. Clever, clipped language and cute characters and eye-catching illustrations are simply devices that the children’s book author reaches for to help deliver a message about those themes, and if you think about it, most every children’s book has a message to deliver about something.

* * *

Sometimes We Fall opens with an image of a great, brown bear nestled high in the branches of a tree whose limbs are decorated with ripe fruit. Another bear, much smaller, sits stock still below, half-hidden in the tall grass, looking up at her in awe.

“It’s a problem when…,” the text begins. Told using the little bear’s voice both spoken and in narration, the story goes on to pose hypotheticals considering all of the things that might go wrong along the way, from the little bear’s spot in the grass to their consumption of the rich, ripe plums in the branches up high. “What if?,” asks the little bear.

The bigger bear, the cub’s mother, we learn, answers each of these queries from above: “Sometimes,” she replies repeatedly, “(said misfortune occurs).” Adding, “It’s okay.”

The bear cub continues with concerned questions.

The tree’s solemn branches play witness. The ripe summer fruit continues to beckon.

* * *

That Sometimes We Fall is thematically-suited for the apprehensive child approaching the new school year did make its arrival feel just in time this summer, but that wasn’t exactly a marketing scheme. In fact, the process by which a picture book is produced, unlike the narratives they usually contain, is frequently long and nonlinear. So it was, in the case of Sometimes We Fall, explained de Sève, on a late-summer afternoon at her home in Park Slope.

Her most recent release, the author’s eighth picture book for children, was written over the course of a year and produced and prepared for publication over the course of several. It started with a short and fleeting moment.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

On a visit in Connecticut, she watched through the window of a house in the country while a mother bear scaled a towering tree beside it, finally reaching a height as tall as the top stories of the brownstones that populate de Sève’s neighborhood in Brooklyn.

“And then there were these two cubs, and they were tiny at the bottom,” she recalls, “and they were watching and they kept trying, and they kept trying and falling and trying and falling.” She looked on in awe and sympathy and identification. There was something big in this little moment and de Sève would carry it with her for a time afterward.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” she remembers, and finally realized she had the seed for a new story. “I lived with those bears, the real bears, for a long time before I realized what I wanted to say with them. I didn’t start writing until I knew. ”

It was a similar generative process for de Sève as with previous projects, a period of rumination and selection and development most readers are surprised to learn about. “The golden rule is 500 words or less,” she confided, although some children’s books authors bend, break or ignore it. To begin with at least, there are many more than that. “In my first draft I do write a lot of art notes, particularly when there are pauses in the telling but the story goes on with showing.”

As the narrative shape of the story begins to take form, so too do the visuals that will support or even drive it: “I’ll sometimes have a line that will say, ‘no text, art:’ and then a description of what I imagine.”

Image Courtesy of Random House Studio

In the end de Sève takes most of these notes out, an act of confidence comparable to stripping the scaffolding off of a nearly constructed building, but also a way of expressing trust in the collaborators who will see the book through its next steps of development. Leave room for the artist to do their job too, an editor told de Sève early in her career.

In most cases she’ll never actually sit down with those collaborators. It is a curious question of chicken or the egg for most consumers of children’s picture books, who imagine that when a story’s illustrations form such an important part of its telling they must have been proposed first, or at least at the same time the story’s text as the thing was being written. Not so. Always first is the story, explained de Sève, and most times the choices about art and design and story-mapping happen afterward, far from the person who first wrote it.

For Sometimes We Fall de Sève communicated with illustrator Kate Gardiner by email, and indirectly, sending notes through the editor as a third party while the artist sketched through the story’s pages. De Sève was finally very pleased with her work. Gardiner’s clean and serene landscapes, her obvious, touchable objects as props, and the simple lines used to create deeply expressive characters, all seem uniquely-suited to de Sève’s story, but really the artist’s work represents a sort of intuitive connection with the story’s text and themes.

Image Courtesy of Random House Studio

Which brings us back to the story’s writing. “When a child has a favorite book,” de Sève pointed out, and as every parent knows, “you’re going to have to read it a hundred times, so it has to keep giving.” It’s a delicate balancing act, for the story must come through clearly for the child but also be related in a voice imaginative enough to hold their attention and that of the grown-up reading it to them. Not every children’s book does this effectively, and the young and old consumers of these stories recognize the difference pretty quickly.

They are the children and their caregivers both who reach for certain books over and over again while others languish on the shelf, and you need only listen in: “When a parent or caregiver appreciates the voice or the characters or the writing, that comes through in the reading too,” remarked de Sève, “They read that story with a greater degree of care.”

Equally important is the content of the narrative, and for de Sève, generally, less is more. “Children’s media can be very loud – and I don’t mean audible level.” She appreciates books with a linear narrative, clear settings, sparse use of things like text balloons and the absence of what she calls “visual screaming.”

Indeed, Sometimes We Fall could be described well the way de Sève describes her favorite children’s books: “Stories where not much happens, that are calm and beautiful and honor the bigness of a tiny moment. Because that is life for a child – a string of tiny moments.”

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

It is the author’s intention to capture those tiny moments in her stories, and create a chance for children and their caregivers to enter them together. It starts with the child’s sensibility. “When you’re walking around in the world with a child, they’ll bend down and pick up a stone, or find a little shell on the beach, or see a little flower, or hear a siren. These things that we take for granted as adults – it’s all new for children, and you realize how much magic is in our world.” Reading a story book gives these parties a chance to examine that magic together.

How true.

My three year-old furrows his eyebrows, reading Sometimes We Fall, with the little bear’s first attempts to climb. He cries “oh no!,” when the cub slips or a branch breaks. He caught the repetitive pattern and soon began to join in chorus for the mother’s responses, “it’s okay,” and he laughs with glee at the cub’s satisfaction with its first fruit. When the little bear is finally reunited with its mother – forgive the spoiler – my son turns away from the story book’s pages, nuzzling into my side as does the bear in the tree in the illustrations. “I want a plum,” he usually concludes.

Children don’t read stories, they live them.

* * *

Back in the garden of Randall de Sève’s home in Brooklyn, she paused for a moment from what she’d been saying as a helicopter flew overhead. In an adjacent backyard motorized garden-grooming tools made their terrific racket, and traffic and faint music and the sounds that come off of Brooklyn avenues met our ears from afar.

Our children live in a noisy world, and story books can be a way to quiet it and give them a supportive nudge as they muddle through the complicated parts of growing up and becoming themselves.

“What a privilege it is – to be able to talk to young children and their caregivers through this work that I do. The big emotions that they grapple with growing, and honestly, that we all grapple with throughout our lives, can be explored through these stories.”

For returning New York City school children – and their caregivers, and their teachers – de Sève had a clear message to offer in Sometimes We Fall. “A life well-lived requires risk. Sometimes we do fall, and hopefully we get back up and try again, because it’s usually worth it.” She laughed softly, reaching skyward, “Get that plum.”

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Brooklyn Heights Medical Facility Hit with Federal Drug Raid

BQE Admin on September 10, 2024

By Celia Bernhardt

The storefront unit at 142 Joralemon St where a DEA raid took place. Attorneys and locals say this storefront has been the center of quality of life issues plaguing the neighborhood for a year and a half. Credit: Celia Bernhardt

In the middle of a posh, tree-lined block in Brooklyn Heights, one unit in a large medical complex has been hit with a federal Drug Enforcement Agency raid.

The August 14 raid targeted the sole ground-level, storefront unit in the Medical Arts building, a 50-unit commercial co-op consisting mostly of medical offices located at 142 Joralemon Street — just steps away from the prestigious K-12 Packer Collegiate Institute. The raid is part of a larger investigation by the DEA and New York State’s Department of Health.

It was no surprise to local residents, business owners, and other medical practitioners in the building, who say that ever since the storefront facility began operating a year and a half ago, they’ve been distressed by a sharp influx of open drug transaction and use, shoplifting and sometimes violent altercations on their block involving patients of the storefront.

“We knew drugs were involved, but it became dangerous,” Glory Mendez, a receptionist at an ophthalmology practice in the building, said. “The aggression, the yelling, the fighting — it just got bad.”

The storefront is open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays every week. The venetian blinds that cover its broad windows are always shut. During its three days per week of operation, traffic in and out of the facility is high; patients often have to wait outside on a nearby bench to enter the premises. Locals and attorneys representing the Medical Arts Offices Corporation complain that patients frequently loiter in the area, leave behind trash and take and exchange drugs.

“I’m probably not as uncomfortable as a lot of people, but we have patients that are,” Mendez said. “Most of the building is elderly patients — it’s a lot of specialists. There’s a lot of children, because there’s a lot of after-school and tutoring centers here.”

As part of a state-level litigation process separate from the federal DEA investigation, the Medical Arts building’s management company president, Douglas Rosenberg, described in a December 2023 affidavit his sense of what could be happening within the unit.

“Based on complaints that I have received,” the affidavit reads, “some ‘Doctor’ that is using the Premises under some form of sublet arrangement is dispensing pills to admitted addicts who have engaged in threatening, violent behavior at the Premises and in the Building [sic].”

Mendez recalled witnessing the tail end of the raid while taking a brief break from work.

“The cops were still there, they were moving things outside the little office…They all had bulletproof vests and all that stuff,” Mendez said. “I texted a ton of people upstairs in my office, like ‘Yo, I think they’re getting raided, we’ll finally be free.’”

The DEA declined to comment on the raid, citing an ongoing investigation. An attorney representing the individual who owns the unit told the Star that one employee, Gilbert Charles, was arrested during the raid for distribution of Schedule 2 substances containing fentanyl.

Four weeks later, the facility is still in business.

A picture taken during the August 14 raid. Courtesy of Glory Mendez.

The facility does not currently appear to go by one particular name. Business cards for the location obtained by the Star in August 2024 did not list any title or practitioner, only a list of services — psychiatry, pain management, “Foot Doctor,” and neurology — and two phone numbers. Neither number responded to attempts by the Star to reach them. In its early days of operation, court documents show, multiple signs on the premises advertised it as Fulton Medical Group — a facility which previously operated on 350 Fulton Street (where signs were posted in the window stating that it had indeed moved to the Medical Arts location, documents also show). That sign listed the facility’s services as pain management, psychiatry, “medical doctor/primary care,” podiatry, physical therapy, massage therapy, and gynecology.

The DEA raid marked a significant escalation of legal action and a milestone for concerned neighbors on the block. The storefront’s state-level legal battle, though, has been underway for a year and a half: the Medical Arts Offices corporation has been attempting to terminate the unit shareholder’s lease or force them to remedy alleged violations since early 2023, when the storefront first began operating.

Watching it Happen

Across the street from the Medical Arts building, a steady stream of regulars — students, parents, nurses, a postal worker, old and young neighbors — passed through the Sunny Gourmet Deli on Wednesday, September 4. Deli owner Joe Kim greeted many by name, particularly middle and high school students. He gave out high fives and asked them about the start of the school year as he rang them up.

“I’ve had this store for over 15 years. I know who comes to the neighborhood,” Kim said. “I know everybody, almost.”

Kim and his colleague Dante Espinoza have kept the small and lively deli running for 16 years and 14 years, respectively. They both said that a lot has changed in the past year and a half.

“Ever since that place opened up, it’s bringing a lot of drug addicts to the neighborhood. It brings a lot of drug dealers to the neighborhood. It’s making the street so messy. There’s been times where they did drug deals inside the store. You know when addicts… look they’re about to fall down, but they don’t?” Kim said, referring to the “nodding off” behavior caused by opiates. “They do that a lot in the store. And even outside, they shoot up outside.”

“I’m surrounded by schools,” Kim added. “When [storefront patients] come in here, you hear the most worst profanity ever. They curse at each other, they argue, they fight outside. So it’s not good for the neighborhood.”

Joralemon Street. On the left, the awning for the Medical Arts building, marked 142, is visible. Sunny Gourmet Deli is located in the building second from right. Packer Collegiate Institute is just around the corner. Credit: Celia Bernhardt

Videos from the deli’s security camera are cited multiple times as evidence in the corporation’s litigation against the storefront. The footage documents drug deals, drug use, shoplifting, and more. Some footage also shows the individuals crossing the street to enter the storefront unit after leaving the deli. Pictures of drugs allegedly left behind in the store are also cited.

Kim said the uptick in shoplifting was particularly difficult to manage.

“I get so stressed out because when I’m busy, I don’t have time to look. And then when I go over the video after they leave, they’ve taken something,” Kim said. “So I have to go over there and tell the workers that I don’t want these people in the store.”

In a January 2024 email to Naomi Gardner, president of the Medical Arts Offices corporation, Kim described the ongoing situation as “a traumatic experience” for him and Espinoza.

Mendez, too, said she frequently sees patients using drugs outside her place of work during the day.

“I come outside to smoke, so I see more than anyone else,” Mendez said as she motioned to spots on the sidewalk in front of the Medical Arts building. “Got out of work, there was someone shooting up over here. My manager parked her car right here on this block so we were walking around the corner, and someone was shooting up.”

Mendez said she worries about the impact the situation is having on patients of her own office, who she says are largely elderly.

“They would sometimes have to wait for Access-A-Ride,” Mendez said. “They stopped waiting outside. Now they’ll just ask, ‘Hey, can we wait inside?’ Because no one’s comfortable going out there.”

Joe Kim, left, and Dante Espinoza, right, stand behind the deli counter. Credit: Celia Bernhardt

Mendez said she herself has taken steps to avoid the vicinity while on her breaks. She believes the issue is exacerbated when patients wait outside the facility for long stretches of the day.

“Sometimes they’re great. Some of them — happy as kites. Some of them are upset. It takes a really long time, sometimes the people will be there from morning to mid-afternoon. I’ll get in and it’ll be some of the same people still around. And they’re already frustrated,” Mendez said. “They get kicked out and told to wait outside a lot. And when they’re told to get outside, now they’re upset. And every time they’re upset, God forbid I walk by and someone’s just like, ‘What? What?’”

In Court

The shareholder of the unit, by way of an LLC called SPD 2010, is a physical therapist named Svetlana Kibrik who operates a practice called Tender Touch Physical Therapy PLLC. Kibrik purchased the unit’s shares entirely upfront, without a mortgage, in 2022. Court documents show that she is not licensed to provide either psychiatry, pain management or neurology, three services advertised in the unit’s business cards and previous signage.

Much of the year-and-a-half long legal battle between the Medical Arts Offices Corporation and Kibrik centers on the obscured nature of who is actually operating the storefront unit. Kibrik’s own attorney in an April 2023 letter to the co-op’s attorney stated that another practitioner — LC Nurse Practitioner Psychiatry Services LP (LCNP) — was also operating in the unit. The co-op’s counsel argued in December 2023 that this was a sublease in practice, violating the terms of Kibrik’s lease. Attorneys later identified LCNP as belonging to a practitioner who goes by the names Leslie Curtis and Lesly Curtis.

In February, two months after the corporation’s attorney submitted that argument, Kibrik’s counsel requested to be relieved of representing her, citing “irreconcilable differences and disagreement on legal strategy” and a “fundamental breakdown of the client/attorney relationship.”

The Medical Arts Building. Credit: Celia Bernhardt

Medical Arts has been unable to simply evict Kibrik in large part because she filed for a Yellowstone Injunction — a protective legal mechanism commercial tenants can invoke after their landlord gives them a deadline to cure a lease default, which can restrain the landlord from moving forward with any eviction proceedings until the court itself can determine whether a default exists.

This has left the corporation under a temporary restraining order since November as litigation moves forward. In the meantime, Kibrik has not been made available for a deposition; the corporation’s attorney argues that this is an intentional move to stall legal consequences.

“Despite the passage of seven (7) months, for various reasons that have not been corroborated or documented by Kibrik’s counsel, Kibrik continues to be, purportedly, unavailable to complete her deposition,” the corporation’s attorney wrote in a memorandum in late July. “Clearly, SPD and Kibrik are using this stay to actively prevent the Corporation from obtaining evidence that will fully expose SPD’s continued, material breaches of the Lease.”

Neither Kibrik’s nor the corporation’s attorneys for this case responded to requests for comment by press time.

An attorney named Igor Niman currently represents Kibrik with respect to the DEA’s August 14 raid exclusively. When asked what kind of business Kibrik operates at the storefront unit, Niman said “she operates a pain management clinic and basically there are other offices like psychiatrists and maybe some other doctors, but I’m not sure what other doctors besides psychiatrists and pain management.”

When asked whether he himself was aware of any misuse of prescriptions at the location, Niman said “definitely not.”

“Basically, my client operates a legitimate business, and that’s our position. She is not aware of anything,” Niman said. “In terms of that somebody’s selling something or somebody’s doing any type of illegal activity, she’s definitely not aware.”

A picture of a bench just outside the storefront unit, where patients often congregate, taken on Tuesday, July 18 2023. Increased litter is one of the many complaints local residents have about the facility’s presence. Courtesy of Jane McGroarty, who lives next door to the facility.

The Medical Arts Offices corporation’s legal documents, spanning the past year and a half, describe a litany of other allegedly drug-related harms surrounding the unit’s operation.

A timeline of incidents filed as an exhibit in late July cited multiple incidents of violent altercations. An arrest was made after one of the facility “regulars” brandished a gun in an argument on the sidewalk. A video posted to the Citizen app showed a security guard for the facility punching someone to the ground. Written concerns from neighbors, incidents of vandalism, and a “menacing” confrontation between an individual entering the store at night and Gardner were also listed.

In a July 2024 affidavit, Gardner wrote about the facility’s potential negative financial impacts on the building’s co-op.

“Before SPD became a shareholder, the Corporation’s shareholders never feared for their own personal safety because of another shareholder’s use and occupancy of the premises,” the document reads. “The ongoing incidents at the Store Premises [sic] have affected other business negatively, and I have been approached by certain shareholders who stated that they are considering selling their units and moving their practices from the Building [sic] due to the ongoing objectionable activities occurring in the Store Premises.”

In Business — For Now

On Thursday, September 5, the unit’s waiting room was busy. At least a dozen patients filled the room at all times; several entered and several left within five minutes.

When asked by the Star for a description of what the unit is used for, a front desk worker named Natasha, who declined to give her last name, replied, “You’ll have to ask the office manager. I can’t say anything.” Natasha identified the office manager as Galina, saying she did not know her last name, and provided the Star with an email to contact her.

Galina did not respond to emailed requests for comment from the Star by press time.

A security guard for the storefront who identified himself as Philip but declined to give a last name told the Star that he worked only occasionally for the property. When asked if he was aware of the recent DEA raid or any ongoing issues with drug use and exchange, he said he was not.

“My duty is just to look after this entrance and if I see someone smoking, or something happens, I have to report it to Galina,” Philip said.

A window in the storefront unit. Credit: Celia Bernhardt

Both Kim and Danielle Jenkins, an employee in the Medical Arts building, said they had been excited to witness the raid in mid-August. Jenkins said she rushed into the deli to talk to Kim when it happened.

“I was jumping up and down,” Kim laughed.

“When the cops came, I came over here, I’m like, ‘Do you see what’s going on out there?’” Jenkins said. “But now they’re back.”

As of press time on Tuesday, Kibrik and Curtis (or their attorney) are set to attend state court in person on September 25 to justify why the court should not void the restraining order that has so far protected them from eviction, deny their motion for a Yellowstone Injunction, and mandate a deposition from both Kibrik and Natasha, the facility’s front desk worker.

“We just want them gone,” Mendez said when asked what she hoped would unfold in the future.

“At this point, it’s not getting any better. It’s gotten better since the raid — but if they stay here, it’s just gonna keep getting worse.”

Joralemon Street. Credit: Celia Bernhardt

G Train is Back and Running Its Full Route

BQE Admin on September 4, 2024

Courtesy of Marc A. Hermann / MTA.

By Jean Brannum | jbrannum@queensledger.com

The G Train officially fully reopened the morning of Sept 3, after a series of partial shutdowns for repairs.

The MTA Interim President Demetrius Crichlow and MTA Construction Development President Jamie Torres-Springer greeted customers at the Metropolitan Ave station to celebrate the reopening. The nine-week project allowed the MTA to add Communications-Based Train Control to improve train service reliability.

“I was so happy this morning, I got into the train station, took the train here and had Pharrell’s “Happy” song in my head with an extra bounce in my step,” said Council Member Lincoln Restler.

Work will continue until 2027, but the critical work is complete. Many signals on the G train route date back to the 1930s. Assemblymember Emily Gallagher and State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, along with other elected officials, said that these changes have been necessary for a while.

“I think this will set a new standard for what the future of the MTA can look like, the future of transit can look like; something that is on time, reliable, fast, and of course, as you heard modern,” Gonzalez said.

In addition to adding Communications-Based Train Control, the MTA also replaced 9,495 tiles in G stations, painted 1,802 columns, and repainted 233,645 square feet of platform, track, and mezzanine ceiling.

Some weekend and overnight outages will occur as work continues from 9:45 pm to 5 am the week of Sept 16.

No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem; Professional Bull Riding Makes Itself Right at Home in Downtown Brooklyn

BQE Admin on August 28, 2024

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

By Alexander Bernhardt Bloom | alex@queensledger.com

As the 2024 Olympic games entered their final weekend of events this month they drew the eyes and attention of spectators from all around the world to Paris, where they looked on with glee for a chance to see their compatriots compete at the highest level in famed contests, but also the more niche, obscure, and unfamiliar ones. The same was true for those whose eyes and attention kept it right here in the home boroughs that Friday and Saturday evening, in attendance at the Barclays Center to see representatives of cities around the US square off in a sport never before played in New York City: Professional Team Bull Riding.

The reasons as to why never before are fairly obvious. Bulls and their pastures and the wranglers who chase them with lassos or mount them for recreation are figments of the Old West, not so wild nor so distant from the rest of the country now, but nevertheless, a tradition whose origins are far removed from the harbored metropolitan islands of New York City.

But the country’s biggest spectator sports market beckons, and so were founded the New York Mavericks, in their inaugural season the most recent franchise addition to the PBR Team Series league, now in just its third year. Bull Riding as a pastime, of course, has existed for a far longer time, rodeos and bucking beasts a vivid part of our collective imagination in this country. The organization Professional Bull Riders was founded in 1992 in an effort by riders and promoters in the rodeo world to bring bull riding more into the mainstream. The group has since grown enormous, the scale of events and the number of attracted spectators ballooning over three decades. Today, PBR hosts competitive events all over the world featuring its more than 800 registered pro-riders, regularly introducing new competitions, crowns and bull-riding formats to crowds on various continents.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

THE TEAM SERIES was one of these inventions. The competitive play goes like this: two teams of riders and their bulls, five apiece, trade turns taking a mount, achieving a score only if the rider manages to last a full eight seconds or more atop the bull and without using any of the forbidden methods to help them while they’re at it. Just one hand is to be used to grip the rein wrapped around the bull’s neck while the other is held in the air with a boastful insistence. It becomes less boastful quickly if the rider uses it to touch the bull’s back or the ground, or if he reaches with it for the rein in desperation or is cast altogether from the bull to the surface below, all of which will result in a score of zero points gained for the rider and his team both. Those who manage the full eight seconds by permissible means are awarded points in collaboration with the bull they are riding. The animals are categorized as “players” as well, and carry their names, records and titles with them to each new arena match.

The metrics for scoring the performance of the rider players consider the time they last but also the resistance they display and the confidence they hold themselves with during the fleeting moments of duress they experience on the mount. The bulls are scored on pedigree and the impression their look leaves, but more than anything on the ferocity with which they buck.

The teams take the turns they’re allotted and a team of judges looks on, handing down expert evaluations for those rides deemed admissible, and the team which finishes with the highest score wins the game.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

IT ALL AMOUNTS to a very particular rhythm for a spectator sport and demands a particular sort of attention on behalf of the crowds there to see it. Many rides end prematurely and many matches end with low scores. There are lengthy breaks for the positioning of the bulls and the crews of support staff who help the riders to their backs, as well as those who redirect the bull after the rider falls and help to corral it once again safely. The action lasts ten seconds at a time at best, and the periods of time in between rides are long and, especially for a crowd in Downtown Brooklyn, filled with commentary offering explanation about what has just happened so quickly.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

With four games and eight teams there are forty rides to see and therefore thirty-nine natural gaps in the action for filling. Imagine the open air time. To occupy it on Friday, the first night of the weekend-long stint at the Barclays, members of the broadcast team took to the stands to interview attendees and offer gently-chiding comic entreaties on subjects like men in tight jeans and the proper use of agricultural equipment. They heaped scorn playfully on the poor performance of New York natives with country music trivia, gave an introduction to a performer of a different sort who twirled flaming lassos, and adjudicated the giveaway of truck tires and leather boots.

This evening, the spectators in attendance for this very particular event were having all of it. They took the laugh lines good-naturedly and listened intently to the instructions on how to watch the moments of action, sipping ultra-light beer and alcoholic seltzer under the brims of blemishless Stetson hats in stands choked with illicit cigar smoke.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

THE MAIN EVENT ARRIVED with the last of the four “games” that evening, which pitted the New York Mavericks, making their first ever homestand, against the visiting Kansas City Outlaws.

The Outlaws’ Kevin Hevalow was the first out of the chute, clinging to the back of a ferocious creature called Martin’s Maniac. He kept clinging for what looked like the full eight seconds required before the bull flung him off, Hevalow spinning like a baton to the combed dirt below. But he was shy a tenth of a second, determined the judges, after a challenge posed by the Mavericks’ coaching team. Hevalow and his Maniac recorded no score.

The Mavericks’ Leandro Machado, whose hometown in Brazil is named, in Portuguese, New Hope, offered little of that to fans of the New York squad, him lasting just 1.61 seconds atop a boisterous, jet-black bovine called Oreo, who proceeded to buck him once up into the air, catching him and bucking him again off his back side before Machado made his full descent to the earthen pitch.

The next rider for the Outlaws realized a similar outcome, and it seemed that the Mavericks’ first defense of their homecourt was set to be a snooze and not a barn-burner, but then Hudson Bolton mounted his bull in New York’s metal cage. The gate swung open and out they went and the crowd looked on incredulously while Bolton held on and held on, just making the required time before tuck and rolling to the floor, the team of handlers guiding the belligerent hoofs to a safe distance as the crowd took to its feet with the Beastie Boys’ anthem rocking the stadium: No Sleep Till Brooklyn. His score was 86 and he put the Mavericks on the board.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

The Outlaws continued to draw blanks and the Mavericks appeared to be finding their stride. The crowd in the densely occupied Barclays stands were finding it along with them. When Davi Henrique de Lima overcame a challenge that alleged he’d illegally touched his bull’s back with his free hand he earned another 86 points for his crew and the occupants of those stands howled in appreciation.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Finally the Mavericks won it mathematically, Kansas City retired from the possibility of a win with three riders remaining between the two squads.

Cassio Dias, recently-decorated bull riding world champion, would close the lame duck session for the Outlaws with yet another buck off, the demand of the required eight seconds seemingly impossible to achieve for the members of his team this evening.

Dias’s deflating exit brought up Mauricio Gulla Moreira, who closed for the Mavericks handily. He held on to a freight-train of a bull called Bandito Bug – whose buck off percentage is a greedily-achieved 79% – for eight seconds and then some, the crowd roaring deafeningly as he swaggered off the packed soil pitch having added one more ride and another 88.25 points to the victorious roster’s winning tally, a shut out to celebrate their first homecoming. They’d win again on Saturday night in similar form.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

THE VALUES USUALLY ASCRIBED to cowboys and rodeo-showmen – pioneering spirit, rugged individualism, go-it-alone mentality and triumphalism – might seem incongruous with team sport dynamics where humility and selflessness are a requisite.

But for all the “I”s among the bulls and their riders in Brooklyn those nights they did indeed spell out teams – what’s more, teams pursued by an enthusiastic following. A safe wager might have been made that the spectators in the Barclays that weekend didn’t know their names and couldn’t recognize one rider from the next while they watched. Nevertheless, those spectators were there cheering on the home roster, and as fiercely and jubilantly as do crowds in that same space for the Nets and Liberty.

Perhaps, like the rugged individual’s pastime adapted here effectively to team sport, bull riding and Brooklyn aren’t so incompatible after all.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

DOT Approves Compromised McGuinness Redesign That Fails To Address The Problem, Community Members Say

BQE Admin on August 28, 2024

A car travels down McGuinness Blvd. Communities have fought for years to make the street safer after the death of a PS110 teacher. Credit: Jean Brannum

By Jean Brannum | jbrannum@queensledger.com

After a long battle between two opposing organizations, politicians, the mayor, and the Department of Transportation, McGuinness Blvd will finally receive some modifications intended to improve safety.

But the modifications failed to address key issues according to advocates from Make McGuinness Safe.

The DOT informed elected officials on Aug. 20 that it would move forward with a compromised plan to end the cycle of deadly accidents, injuries and near-misses on the street.

A letter from the DOT to Community Board 1 shared details of the modifications. One of the two travel lanes will become parking overnight from 7 PM to 7 AM. There will be protected bike lanes and loading zones, but Make McGuinness Safe supporters believe that the bike lanes will continue to be blocked by trucks unloading due to a lack of parking during the day.

Longtime Greenpoint resident Kevin LaCherra explained that with two travel lanes and no parking until the evening, trucks may have no choice but to park and unload in the bike lane or block the travel lane.

The DOT proposed three possible solutions to decrease collisions on McGuinness Blvd. Make McGuinness Safe and elected officials supported Plan B. The DOT approved Plan A.

Currently, the road has two travel lanes and one parking lane. The DOT proposed three different solutions and Make McGuinness Safe supported Plan B, which is to replace a travel lane with a parking lane and make the current parking lane a bike lane. The DOT studied the idea in 2021 and found that the plan may cause more congestion, but would divert more cars to the BQE and the Long Island Expressway. The study also found that cut-through traffic comprised 30% of total traffic.

However, the DOT approved Plan A, which was implemented in the northern part of McGuinness in the Summer of 2023. Make McGuinness Safe continued to advocate for one travel lane and one parking lane with loading zones and said that Plan A does not work to reduce collisions.

“We’re getting a plan that we already know doesn’t work because it’s been installed along the northern portion of McGuinness Blvd,” A statement from Make McGuinness Safe said on Instagram.

LaCherra said that the DOT’s solution essentially just added a bike lane that would be blocked by trucks unloading during the day.

“We are not adequately addressing the problem on McGuinness Blvd, which is not a lack of bike lanes, it’s speeding traffic and congestion. It is traffic being moved off of the highways onto local streets and speeding”

Councilmember Lincoln Restler, Gallagher, and State Senators Julia Salazar and Kristen Gonzalez are longtime advocates of the proposed changes. They released a statement with other elected officials.

“After repeatedly changing his mind and undermining DOT’s evidence-based redesign, Mayor Adams is going forward with a plan that fails Greenpoint by preserving the most dangerous elements of this roadway that runs through the middle of our community,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, a deleted tweet shows Keep McGuinness Moving retweeting the news about the redesign with a “peace” sign emoji and kissing face emoji.

An Ongoing Battle

The road has been plagued with injuries and deaths since its construction, according to Make McGuinness Safe and previous reporting. New articles log deaths and injuries on the street as far back as 1995. Since 2011, over 2,000 accidents have been reported including three deaths, according to CrashMapper.

In 2021, then-Mayor Bill DeBlasio pledged $40 million to redesign McGuinness after the death of PS110 teacher Matthew Jensen. His death sparked members of the community to form Make McGuinness Safe, which has garnered 10,000 signatures from residents to make the street safer.

In response to calls to remove a travel lane, a coalition of local businesses banded together to oppose the redesign called Keep McGuinness Moving. Participating businesses are not listed on the website citing harassment claims from those supporting Plan B.

In its statement against the redesign, Keep McGuinness Moving says that McGuinness is a coastal evacuation route and that removing a travel lane could cause congestion. The group has also said that cutting a travel lane would hurt local businesses.

LaCherra said that Make McGuinness Safe surveyed 103 local businesses, most were within 1000 feet of McGuinness, who supported the redesign. One of the reasons the group advocated for Plan B was due to the added loading zones incorporated into the parking lane.

The statement from Keep McGuinness Moving also urged the DOT to listen to all members of the community and recently published its own survey on X claiming that many local businesses were opposed to the redesign. The groups also released a statement on Aug. 27 opposing the elimination of permanent parking for bike lanes.

“We urge the DOT to broaden their approach and move the bike lanes to the safer residential streets. reinstitute parking, and focus on redesigning intersections.”

In 2022, the DOT implemented some changes while discussing street design solutions. Changes included extending medians so people would have a place to wait to cross midway and banning lightly-used left turns.

Make McGuinness Safe pushed for several changes to improve pedestrian safety. Mayor Eric Adams initially agreed to the changes verbally but walked back his agreement in 2023. He instead encouraged the Department of Transportation to work with both opponents and supporters of the plan, according to The CITY. The CITY reported that the campaign against the changes was backed by Broadway Stages owners Gina and Tony Argento. The Argentos have donated over $15,000 to Adam’s campaign.

The DOT eventually replaced a parking lane with bike lanes north of Freeman Ave in the Spring of 2024, according to Make McGuinness Safe. This modification matched Plan A. Still, the organization wants the bike lanes to extend to Meeker Ave and, more importantly, wants the second travel lane gone.

Despite a major setback for Make McGuinness Safe, LaCherra said that this is not the end of the fight for the redesign.

“As far as we’re concerned, nothing has changed. We’re going to continue fighting. We’re going to continue pushing. We’re going to continue to make our presence known and say that this is unacceptable.”

National Grid Gets “OK” from PSC on Rate Hike, Sparking Protests From Activists, Politicians

BQE Admin on August 21, 2024

Protesters against the rate hike gathered in front of National Grid’s office at the Atlantic Terminal.

By Jean Brannum | jbrannum@queensledger.com

The Public Service Commission unanimously approved a rate increase for gas usage in the state on Aug 15, which will affect people in Brooklyn and parts of Queens. The PSC determined that the rate increases were necessary and consistent with Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goals.

The three-year plan increases the average monthly gas bill by about $30 in the first year, nine dollars in the second year, and $22 in the third year, according to department staff who negotiated the terms of the rate plan. The new rate should increase National Grid’s annual capital to $833 million, $924 million, and $960 million. The new rate starts Sept 1.

Energy company National Grid, which provides electricity and gas in certain parts of New York State, but only provides gas in Kings County, proposed a rate hike in 2023 and with minor modifications was approved on Thursday. In a press release, National Grid said that the rate hike will fund infrastructure improvements, reduce emissions, and improve customer service. The company reasoned that the funding was necessary to ensure safe and reliable gas delivery in its service areas.

The approval process and proposal were met with opposition, primarily from environmental activism groups like Sane Energy Project, which has protested numerous times against National Grid. The nonprofit based in Williamsburg sports the slogan “We Won’t Pay to be Poisoned.” Leaders of the organization are pushing for New York to support more renewable energy projects and shut down National Grid’s Greenpoint Energy Center.

The majority of the 2100 public comments opposed the rate hike citing concerns about affordability, and investment in fossil fuels despite the passing of the CLCPA. The joint proposal includes steps to mitigate the impact of energy affordability, according to PSC Chair Rory Christian. National Grid already has an established program to help customers burdened by energy costs.

However, multiple labor unions and other businesses supported the increase citing that the extra cash would help National Grid meet its environmental goals and improve community safety.

In Albany at the PSC meeting, Sane Energy Project Director Kim Fraczek and other protesters stepped in front of the commission. Fraczek’s speech was mostly inaudible. The meeting was paused after Christian warned the group that they were disrupting the meeting.

“This is a testament that those who hold the power to protect us from predatory corporations defying environmental justice turn on the very people they are entrusted to protect,” Fraczek said in a statement. “The financial, health, and safety costs of the climate crisis are not considered in the equation, disregarding the demands of the people.”

Julia Salazar at the protest at the Atlantic Ave Terminal

Downstate at a National Grid office across the street from the Barclays Center on the same day, Sane Energy Project Director of Communications Priscilla Grim led a rally with State Senator Julia Salazar and members of 350 Brooklyn against the rate hike. Salazar accused National Grid of trying to generate more profits.

“They care about profits for their shareholders and do not care about our futures or our abilities as New Yorkers to make ends meet and pay our bills every month. It’s completely unsustainable,” Salazar said.

Assemblymember Emily Gallagher, who has spoken against National Grid multiple times, echoed Salazar’s comment in an X post.

“Once again we’re being forced to subsidize new fossil gas infrastructure and pad the profits of multinational utilities instead of rapidly transitioning to cleaner, cheaper, healthier renewables,” Gallagher said.

Agreement To Go Green?

Salazar touched on the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which was signed into law in June 2019 and mandates the state reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and 85% by 2050.

Several environmental organizations including Sane and the Newtown Creek Alliance have spoken out about closing National Grid’s Greenpoint Energy Center, saying that the center causes pollution.

National Grid and the commission concluded that the energy center was necessary on peak usage days, but the commission recommended that the company close the center if alternative solutions are found.

Greenpoint resident Katherine Thompson said that funding fossil fuel infrastructure will delay the city’s progress towards CLCPA goals and that there should be more investment in green energy.

Greenpoint resident Katherine Thompson.

In the proposal, the PSC disagreed that investment in gas infrastructure would take away from CLCPA-related infrastructure, and even said that infrastructure funded by the rate increase was necessary to reach CLPCPA goals.

The Commission approved the new proposal with the agreement that the company would try to use alternative energy sources in the future.

One of the ways National Grid agreed to reduce its environmental impact is by adding additional renewable natural gas interconnections. Renewable natural gas (RNG) is fuel derived from natural waste that emits methane. The Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant produces RNG for National Grid but commenters said the project was incomplete, according to the joint proposal. The City reported in May that the system was offline 46% of the time from April 2023 to May 2024.

The RNG connects with existing gas lines called interconnection points. The joint proposal includes an agreement with National Grid that excess profits from RNG production will be refunded to customers. If the company does not profit from RNG, then the cost will be mostly recovered by shareholders. Another provision was that National Grid pursues non-pipeline alternatives.

In addition, National Grid agreed to cease gas marketing to encourage customers to use alternative energy sources and will provide information to new customers.

The environmental changes should reduce carbon dioxide emissions by an estimated 880,000 tons, according to an information presentation at the commission meeting.

Commissioners approved the proposal with the environmental provisions saying that the rate increase was necessary to provide safe and reliable energy to National Grid customers. However, Fraczek said the PSC is continuing to listen to corporations rather than find alternative energy solutions.

“Stop clinging to a law that favors industry, and instead follow a law that offers numerous options for releasing that grip,” Fraczek said. “The solutions are abundant. We just need leaders who are willing to lead.”

Officials from National Grid did not comment on the rate increase but did send press releases.

Bulls on Parade; Professional Bull Riding Stamps into the Home Borough

BQE Admin on August 18, 2024

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

By Alexander Bernhardt Bloom | alex@queensledger.com

The Professional Bull Riders’ Camping World Team Series arrived to Downtown Brooklyn this past weekend to great fanfare. If that sounds, to you, like an unexpected turn of events, you’re not alone.

PBR has organized bull-riding competitions worldwide for decades, and this is the third season of its Team Series, which pits franchised groups of riders representing cities around the United States against one another in arranged match-ups. The New York Mavericks were not among them until this, their inaugural season, and none of those match-ups occurred on soil in the five boroughs – until this past Friday night.

The soil, 750 tons of it, was trucked in and laid down on the floor of Brooklyn’s own Barclays Center, which was transformed into a rodeo and cowboy spectacle over the weekend for the Mavericks’ first, two-night homestand.

After all of that literal and figurative build-up, the Mavericks and their fans appeared remarkably at home. The team of five riders appeared before large and enthusiastic crowds, and defeated their slated opponents by shutout on Friday and Saturday nights both, a reversal of their fortunes thus far this season. They had begun the weekend dead last in the Team Series standings. They came out of it 8th of ten. They’ll head to Nashville next in pursuit of some more unexpected turns of event.

What can be expected with certainty, in any case, is the bull riders’ return to Downtown Brooklyn. On their exit from the arena this weekend Barclays staff handed attendees a refrigerator magnet advertising the rodeo’s return, dates assigned, in 2025.

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Photo Credit: Alexander Bernhardt Bloom

Dust, Noise Plague Neighbors of Cement Plant

BQE Admin on August 14, 2024

Courtesy of Jens Rasmussen

By Jean Brannum | jbrannum@queensledger.com

Sixty-six-year-old Laura Hofmann is used to the industrial pollution many Greenpointers are familiar with, but nothing like this. She can draw pictures on her car with the dust that coats it. She struggled with esophagitis until taking preventative measures to keep herself from breathing in the dust. Her problems have since subsided, but the air quality has changed the way she interacts with her environment.

After wondering where the dust was coming from, she finally stumbled upon a cement plant a few blocks from her home: DKN Ready Mix, a neighbor to many Greenpointers since last fall.

“You can write your own name in the car windows,” Hofmann said referring to the dust that reportedly coats the cars.

The DKN Ready Mix plant moved to 270 Green St from Maspeth Ave and according to nearby residents, the company has not been a good neighbor. Residents have spoken out about the pollution, noise, and cracks in the buildings the plant has allegedly caused.

Jens Rasmussen, a longtime resident next to the plant, has spoken about the impact of DKN on his and his family’s ability to live in their apartment. His two-year-old son dealt with coughing and sneezing allegedly because of the plant.

Another resident, who did not want to give out their name but lives near the plant, said that the dust had caused puffy eyes and a burning sensation in their chest. They used to love being on her deck, but cannot enjoy it due to the dust and the noise.

North Brooklyn Neighbors, an environmental advocacy nonprofit has provided air quality monitors to several Greenpointers, including Rasmussen. The monitors measure for particulate matter under 2.5 micrometers in diameter. These particles are small enough to inhale. An acceptable air quality reading is an average of 35 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) over 24 hours, according to NYC Environment and Health. Air quality readings on Purple Air show the average 24-hour amount to be 45 µg/m3as of Aug 13. The one-week average is 60 µg/m3.

Rasmussen used to open his apartment windows frequently since one of his rooms do not have air conditioning. He stopped opening his windows due to the dust before installing a fan at the window.

The DKN Cement plant has caused noise levels in the area to increase past what is allowed according to residents. One resident said that the noise levels are high through the night.

“I do understand that since we have chosen to live in an industrial zone, we have to make peace with a certain amount of noise,” the resident said, “But DKN goes way above the regulation limits, both in terms of decibels and permitted hours.”

A video from Rasmussen showing a noise monitor app shows noise levels near the plant to be above 85 decibels on Jan 3 at 2 PM with a blaring buzzing sound in the background. Eighty-five decibels is equivalent to a lawnmower or a motorcycle.

Crack in Rasmussen’s building. Courtesy of Jens Rasmussen.

He also reports seeing DKN breaking up concrete by throwing large chunks onto the ground to load up pieces in trucks. He mentioned experiencing shaking that he felt was even more intense than the earthquake in April. His landlord has already had to repair cracks allegedly caused by DKN.

While the lot that DKN is on is zoned for heavy industrial use, it is not for cement mixing. A Department of Buildings violation states that the lot is for the sale of used cars, metals, irons, and parts. The DOB fined DKN $620.

Probe by Elected Officials

Elected officials in the Greenpoint area eventually caught wind of what was happening and have written a letter to DKN owner Diane Macchio and Department of Environmental Conservation Regional Director Rodney Rivera requesting a meeting on the matter and an inspection from the DEC.

The meeting between the community, DKN, and elected officials was scheduled for Aug 14, but was canceled by DKN the day before, Rasmussen said. He received the news through email and was told that DKN hired a consultant to address the issue and needed more time.

Councilmember Lincoln Restler said he wants the DEC and the Department of Environmental Protection to hold DKN accountable for the damage it has allegedly caused to nearby residents.

“If they were to find another spot, I’d be a happy councilman,” Restler said.

The letter noted that Greenpoint has historically been an industrial zone, which has led to significant environmental issues such as the Meeker Avenue Plume.

Rasmussen said that while other cement plants exist near him, none have caused this much damage. At the very least, he wants DKN to comply with local laws that would make living near the plant easier.

DKN Ready Mix did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated Aug 14 at 2 pm with additional information.

New York soccer non-profit Two Bridges prepares young men from all backgrounds for success both on the field and in the classroom

BQE Admin on August 5, 2024

By Nicholas Gordon

Two Bridges Football Club team photo. Credit: Michael Mansfield

When the founders of New York’s Two Bridges Football Club first began organizing soccer games for local teenagers in October of 2020, they had one guiding principle in mind: open access for players from any socioeconomic background. Unlike most top tier soccer clubs in the U.S., Two Bridges would not cost anything to join. Players would be selected by the merit of their soccer playing ability and their commitment to hard work, ensuring opportunities for New York’s student-athletes from all demographics.

In its first four years, Two Bridges has grown to include 80 players, ages 15-19 years old, from over 30 different countries. And with the club’s recent partnership with the Brooklyn Football Club—the local professional team which will launch its inaugural season in the USL Championship League in March of 2025—it’s clear that the founders’ vision is having a profound impact on the lives of the club’s players, the local communities, and U.S. soccer at large.

“The ‘no pay to play’ model gives equal opportunities to players from different backgrounds and contributes to raising the quality of American soccer,” said Michael Mansfield, the club’s co-founder and marketing strategist. “We would never have the chance to compete at the top level and fully develop American soccer talent with the pay to play model,” Mansfield said, estimating that most quality soccer clubs cost players between $4-9 thousand per year for membership.

The idea for Two Bridges was sparked by co-founder Brian Kuritsky, a former club soccer teammate of Maximilian “Mack “Mansfield, son of Michael Mansfield, who suggested that with the combination of Mack’s European coaching style and Michael’s photographic stories of local teams, there was potential for a great soccer program. The Mansfields then collaborated with co-founder Arik Rosenstein, Head of Strategy, to form Two Bridges as a club dedicated to providing the under-resourced and historically marginalized youth of New York with a high-caliber soccer environment, rigorous academic preparation, and leadership development.

Two Bridges father-son co-founders, Michael Mansfield (left) and Maximilian “Mack” Mansfield (center), with Stefan Mansfield (right), Mack’s brother and one of the team’s three coaches. Credit: Michael Mansfield

For star midfielder Thomas Silva, the decision to transfer from his high school team to Two Bridges has been a literal game-changer that has opened up a path to professional soccer.

“Playing with Two Bridges has been amazing,” Silva said. “I’ve learned a lot about new ways of playing soccer, trying different strategies, and getting to play a variety of positions. It feels like every country is represented on our team, with different religions, geography, and style of play.”

A first generation Brazilian-American born and raised in New York City, Silva was recently invited, along with four other players from Two Bridges, to play in the elite Tiro soccer tournament, where Silva was awarded player of the tournament.

“Two Bridges feels more like a family than anything, being with all of the players and getting the support from the coaches,” Silva said, noting his strong connection to Mack Mansfield.

Two Bridges Co-founder Maximilain “Mack” Mansfield (left) with his players during a match. Credit: Michael Mansfield

As a former player for Cornell University, Columbia University, and Germany’s Under 19 Bundesliga team, Mack Mansfield was on route to a professional soccer career of his own before being sidelined by a groin injury. Rather than languish in discouragement at this painful setback, Mack took his abiding love for the game of soccer and his commitment to serving the community to form Two Bridges.

“Mack is a fantastic coach, mentor, and big brother figure for the boys,” said Frank Di Blasi, Two Bridges coaching manager and administrator, whose son Francesco Di Blasi has played as a defender for Two Bridges for the past three years and is now headed to Germany where he will train with various clubs in the country’s elite Under-19 soccer program that Mack played in.

“My son has improved immensely playing for Two Bridges,” Frank Di Blasi said. “It’s helped him emotionally and mentally too, and expanded his group of friends with different nationalities and religions.”

Through donor funding, Two Bridges has gained considerable resources, including increased access to spaces for training and means of academic support. Most recently, Two Bridges has partnered with Cornell Tech, which will provide tutors for the players.

With four intensive two-hour training sessions per week including individualized performance feedback from coaches, Two Bridges aims to accelerate their players’ development and maximize their potential, creating pathways to play college and professional soccer.

Each student-athlete in the club is also matched with a mentor who helps guide them through their teenage years and the college admissions process, and offers career counseling to help prepare them for workplace success. The club also provides its student-athletes with a prominent guest speaker series.

The club’s name Two Bridges is derived from its humble pandemic-era origins, when the only unlocked park available to play soccer in free of charge was the Tanahey Playground, located in the heart of the Two Bridges neighborhood in lower Manhattan.

What started out as an idea for providing equal opportunity for New York’s young soccer players has blossomed into a community powerhouse of promise for talented young men willing to work hard as part of the Two Bridges team.

“Two Bridges is about using football to get leverage to other life opportunities,” Michael Mansfield said. “Our opportunities as a club are growing too and it keeps getting better.”

Two Bridges star midfielder Thomas Silva. Credit: Michael Mansfield

An Ongoing Battle

Agreement To Go Green?

Probe by Elected Officials

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