Opposition to Brooklyn Jail Proposal Organizes a Little

The Brooklyn House of Detention expansion proposal now has an organization called the Brooklyn House of Detention Stakeholders Group working to “keep the community informed of the ongoing struggle against expansion of the Brooklyn House of Detention.” Their website is brooklynjail.org. Quite a few groups near the facility, which the city wants to reopen and double in size, bitterly oppose the plan. The group says the city ignored a “visionary plan” to redevelop the facility. The proposal from Time Equities and Hamlin Ventures would have added condos and rental housing, but replaced the jail with alternative incarceration and treatment programs. Groups involved in the “stakeholders” effort include the Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association, the Atlantic Avenue Local Development Corporation, 53 Boerum Place Condominium, the Boerum Hill Association, Brooklyn Vision Foundation, Cobble Hill Association and State Street Houses Association.

Battle of the Brooklyn Beans Ends with No Survivors

It was what we called The Battle of the Beans–a cafe called Brooklyn Bean on Atlantic Avenue and a new one coming to Fourth Avenue at Carroll Street that was also going to call itself Brooklyn Bean. We wondered how it was going to end. Now we know: There won’t be two Brooklyn Beans. There will, instead, be ZERO Brooklyn Beans. This is because the Nouveau Brooklyn Bean blinked and changed its name to 3B (and, per Brownstoner, will be opening next week with an expensive coffee machine) and the original Brooklyn Bean & Tea Company closed its doors last month, with the owners sadly citing the difficulty of operating a small business and balancing it with family and personal matters. From two to none. Go figure.

Upcoming: Atlantic Avenue Betterment Assoc. Meeting

The Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association is have a meeting on Thursday (3/20). Here’s a bit from an email:

Find out the latest news from Atlantic Avenue Betterment Assoc. regarding Brooklyn Bridge Park – report on court hearing of appeal today Monday Brooklyn House of Detention ‘s future – a new vision for the site is a real possibility and the UNITY Plan for Atlantic Yards. Now that there will be a new president of the Empire State Development Corp. We might get an ear for this community plan. Presentation by Dr. Tom Angotti.

The meeting takes place Thursday at 7Pm at the Belarussion Orthodox Church Atlantic at Bond St.

Behold the Urban Outfitters Brooklyn Tote

This is the tote bag that Urban Outfitters was giving out with purchases at its new Atlantic Avenue store yesterday as posted by our friends at Racked. (Images of the store, which is apparently not very stroller friendly, here.) It continues the odd advertising approach of the posters that have popped up, in fact, taking many of the images from there. We understand that all of this stuff is intended to generate coverage and buzz, and it appears to have been successful in doing so, but since when are the Yankees a Brooklyn icon?

Brookbit: Traffic Light

The city will be installing a new traffic light at Bond and State Streets in Boerum Hill to try to cut down on accidents. Some residents think it will make matters worse with cars speeding up to try to make lights (one person writes, “We should take a stand against all these lights…“), but others think it will make things safer. A light was installed at Hoyt and State Streets and cut accidents. The busy intersections only have stop signs.–GL Inbox

Times Plaza Post Office Follies: Bad Week for Mail

If you live on Boerum Hill and you were waiting for your mail last week, there is a chance that it didn’t show up on several days. We saw a significant number of emails complaining about skipped deliveries, including one who was counting the number of days that her New Yorker was overdue. Here’s the latest:

I have seen several posts over this past week about undelivered mail on several blocks. I have experienced the same on my block of Bergen between Hoyt/Bond,
our (odd number side) only. I just received priority mail yesterday dated 2/27 mailed from downtown Brooklyn. The mail was sporadic for two days this past week. Many neighbors on my block experienced the same. I have filled out the survey on line and have seen the posts for so-called improvement. I was at the Times Plaza PO on Tuesday and I waited for for over 20 minutes for the certified mail to be located and this was with the pink slips. The postal worker couldn’t find one of them. What is our next plan of action as a community?. We have tolerated this for much too long! Things seem to improve for a week and then they worsen to a level that was lower than before action was taken. Patiently awaiting my New Yorker…

And this possible explanation:

When my regular carrier brought 2 days worth of mail yesterday, he told me that there is a new supervisor who is just learning how things work. That may be one of the factors. Nonetheless, non-delivery of mail is unacceptable. So, can the people who have been working with Times Plaza continue the process they have already started? In addition to everyone posting problems here to created a record, what can we all do to help? How quaint the “nor rain, nor snow. . .” postal commitment sounds in this context where our carriers are “stay[ed] . . . from their appointed rounds.”

And, it’s only Monday morning.

More Fun With Post Offices: New Complaints

These newest complaints from Boerum Hill are of a specific nature, but interesting in terms of some potentially new obstacles that residents face. Here’s one:

I just came back from the post office to retrieve a package I had tracked; the information online was that a notice had been left (it wasn’t – or it may have been left at another house). This happens frequently, not just to me, but to others…I mentioned this to the nice woman who usually mans the last window and she told me it had just been announced that the carriers or sorters will write on the package that a notice was left “to cover themselves” – this was the PO’s solution to the problem of complaints about notices not being left. She said it “proves” that a notice was left. All it proves to me is that someone wrote on a box that a notice was left; not that a notice was actually left.

She also told me that from now on, if a carrier or sorter does not think an address is written “perfectly” (no apartment number, an incompletely written name, perhaps a first initial only, etc), then he or she has the discretion to write “no such address” if they like, and return it to the sender, undelivered. She said these announcements were just made. So it sounds to me that this is not a solution to the mail problem, but a way of allowing the post office to continue to operate badly and “cover themselves” in the process.

Just a little something to brighten on a gloomy Wednesday morning.

Return to the Times Plaza Post Office: Not Fixed

We do love our Boerum Hill/Atlantic Avenue Times Plaza Post Office stories, particularly given the coverage we’ve done recently, for instance, here and here. So, here’s a angry email from the Yahool Boerum Hill Group that would indicate that claimed service improvements may not be taking place:

had a horrendous, Third World experience at the Times Plaza on Friday afternoon Feb. 29th. Two boisterous customers yelling loudly to each other and to the clerk for fifteen minutes, while those of us trapped on the long line cringed. Two (or three at most) clerks working. No special line for package pickup. Very disgruntled customers, loudly commenting on the bad service.

When I left, I mentioned to the clerk at the door that I was amazed that no one had been murdered in there–the aggravation and the tension level was so high.

Then, on Saturday, we received incorrect mail meant for three other households. What happened to the promises made at the Boerum Hill meeting??

We will add to that this description from an email on the Park Slope Parents list about the famous Times Plaza Station, which fell into our inbox via a devoted reader:

I have never had a package or letter that needed to be signed for delivered by them! I can be at home, or the nanny can be at home, but they will not ring the bell so that you can sign for and accept your package. They just put a “redeliver” slip on the mail box and leave. Then when you sign the redeliver slip, they never pick it back up and never deliver your item! I was in an hour and a half line once again over the holidays, taking off work to sign for something that my nanny could have signed for at the time that they first came. I complained to a female manager, and four or five people around me in line were there for the very same reason, and they were all home at the time the postal person first came! The manager took our information, but nothing has changed….

Did the manager promise to keep tabs on things for signs of backsliding?

Brookbit: Boerum Hill Cable Outage?

Apparently some people in Boerum Hill have been suffering from an internet outage courtesy Time Warner. Per a GL reader: “I don’t know of anyone else has mentioned this but I live in the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn and we’ve been without cable since sometime Friday afternoon. Time Warner doesn’t seem to have any idea when it will be back nor could the customer service rep tell me what happened. I thought I would pass along thus info if you think it may be of interest to the other readers.”–GL Inbox

Newark Police Chase Ends with Crash on Smith Street

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NYPD Was On The Scene Too., originally uploaded by woodendesigner.

Anyone that was out last night on Smith Street near Atlantic Avenue (and certainly anyone that was there when it happened) probably noticed a huge commotion. It was the aftermath of a police chase that started in Newark, crossed New Jersey into Manhattan, and ended with a crash at Smith Street and Pacific. The chase started in Newark around 6PM when the police stopped a man driving a “dark sedan,” according to the Daily News. The driver closed a window on a cop’s hand, leading him to drop his gun into the car (which may or may not have fired, depending on the report. The driver put the car in reverse, hit another cop and took off. The police opened fire, shooting him in the hand. A chase ensued, through the Holland Tunnel, over the Manhattan Bridge before finally ending at Smith and Pacific when the vehicle went the wrong way down Smith, hit a van head on and was rear ended by Newark Police car. An email on the Boerum Hill Group had this to say about the aftermath:

Walking home this evening, I witnessed MAJOR police activity on Smith & Pacific. The whole area was cordoned off to pedestrians and vehicles. There were numerous Newark NJ police cars and NJ Highway patrol cars, in addition to NYPD.

Fortunately there were no major injuries.

Related Articles:

• NJ-Bklyn Rush Hour Cop Chase [NYP]
• A Police Chase from Newark to Brooklyn [NYT]
• Newark police chase ends in Brooklyn [NYDN]